I'm a Sucer for You

The trip to Connecticut wasn't a difficult one to make, though it did take a few hours to traverse. The worst part of the trip was getting out of New York, though. The George Washington Bridge was easily Ethan's least favorite, because you ended up on it for so long. Not because it was that long but because traffic was always that bad there. It wasn't as bad when Ethan wasn't the driver though, and Carter was good company for a bridge that would take so long.

It was after they had gotten past the bridge and well out of New York City that the scenery gave way to beautiful greenery that seemed alive with all of the blossoms of the spring. Ethan looked out the window of the car, absent-mindedly playing with the wooden cane he had brought with him to make Jeremy and Dr. Irving feel better. He hated to admit he probably needed it, because he had always prided himself on being strong and capable in the face of just about any illness.

I really am a terrible patient, he thought to himself with a shake of his head. His auburn hair was getting longer and he'd have to get it cut eventually. It was falling into his eyes again as his head moved.

Carter glanced over, Ethan's movement catching his attention. "Penny for your thoughts."

Ethan looked down at the cane with a frown. "I guess I'm just having a hard time with all of this. I'm used to being the healthy one, the one who kind of powers through difficult times. Jeremy's been hurt before, and Chloe is a dancer so she hurts herself all the time. I'm not used to being weak and needing help like this, and I don't like it. And I especially hate that you have to see it."

Carter nodded, "Vulnerability can feel like weakness when you're raised like we were. The thing is, I'm not going to judge you, or even feel negatively about you, over this. You're a capable, intelligent, wonderful human, more than worthy of my love and regard. None of that has anything to do with who you are physically."

Ethan turned to look at Carter, an array of emotions playing on his features for a moment as he took that in. "Love, eh?" he finally said, a smirk on his face.

"That is all you heard, huh?" Carter asked, arching an eyebrow.

"No," Ethan replied with a shake of his head and a laugh. "It's just easier to make jokes than it is to comment on what you said. I have this idea of who I am and how I handle things, and I did basically none of that since that dinner. I feel like I've been trying to get my feet back under me and I'm not succeeding, and now I could literally trip up at any second, and it's awkward and unsettling. I know I'll get over this, and it won't affect the way you see me, but it affects the way I see myself."

"Well, talk to your therapist about changing the prescription on your glasses for your inner eye!" Carter said, proud of himself for making such a great metaphor.

Ethan chuckled at that. It made him pull the sun visor down to look in the mirror for a second. He'd had to search through his room for a while before he found the pair of glasses he had on now, and he was still a little self-conscious about them. He'd bought them as kind of a joke, to wear to Pride with Jeremy to show he supported him. They were rectangular framed and rainbow with glitter. Jeremy and Jimmy had both loved it, but he didn't wear them often.

When he put it back up he looked at Carter again. "I'll ask him about that, but alas, I believe he said it will take a lot of writing and talking to change my 'ingrained belief systems brought about by childhood' or something like that."

"Sounds like a therapist, all right!" Carter said, cheerily.

Ethan let out a sigh. "It occurs to me, though, that the first holiday without my family will be coming up faster than I thought, as well as my birthday. I didn't actually think I cared about that, and yet...How did your family handle you coming out?"

Carter laughed, "Not well at all. I'm a black man, it's expected in my culture that we be on the DL for life rather than be out and proud. Things are changing a little, and slowly, but..."

"Yeah, I think it's what's expected in my society too," Ethan said with another sigh as he looked out at the scenery again. "You get married to a woman, have kids, and then fuck men on the side and keep quiet about it. It's why Jeremy caused such waves when he just said fuck it and was out. Well, someone outed him, but still, once he got over the initial shock, he decided to say fuck it. Do you still see your family?"

"When I can," Carter said, "Mama Evans has come a long way, which is saying something for a Catholic black woman who ended up with a gay basketball player for a son. When Mama had had enough of my sperm donor's abuse, she walked away from the relationship and took me with her. I was like seven at the time. Haven't seen him since, though she says he paid his child support on time until he didn't have to pay any more."

"If you get an NBA contract, expect him to try and crop up," Ethan told Carter, and it was clear that Ethan didn't think highly of the people who did it.

"I've been pretty clear to the media that he is no one to me. They interviewed me a few times over the years," Carter said, "but I get what you're saying. Fame tends to draw the worst sorts of folks."

"Fame and money, yes," Ethan replied with a nod. "My father views it as power, though, which is why he wasn't thrilled I wanted to be a doctor. I could have more power if I followed him in politics, but I didn't want to. I wanted to actually help people."

Carter nodded, "You're very good at it too."

Ethan smiled. "You've only seen me during non-emergent times. Not that your injury couldn't have been serious, but my mentors say I'm in my element when it's tense and the stakes are high. Unless we lose the patient, and I have before..."

Carter looked sympathetic, "That had to have been hard."

"It's hard not to blame yourself," Ethan admitted. He'd never spoken about this part of the job with anyone before, other than his fellow nurses and doctors because they understood exactly how he felt. "You go over and over the ways that you could have done something different. I think the absolute worst was talking to the parents of a five year old girl who we couldn't save. Her body just couldn't handle the injuries, and we did everything we could, but I kept second guessing whether we could have done more. It leaves you with nightmares. I never told my friends, but I use sleep aids just to be able to sleep some nights."

Carter took his right hand off the steering wheel and placed it on Ethan's knee comfortingly. Ethan put his hand over Carter's, giving him a grateful smile. They rode in silence for a while, just enjoying each other's company as they crossed the southern part of Connecticut. The trees were beautiful this time of year.

Once they were in Connecticut, it didn't take long before they made it to their destination, which at the moment was the hotel the team was at.

Ethan looked over the outside of the hotel once Carter had parked, giving his boyfriend one of his smirks. "Not bad, for the G League," Ethan teased.

Carter rolled his eyes, getting out of the car and hurrying around to open Ethan's door and help him out. Ethan huffed a little about it, still ever the independent, but he accepted Carter's help and put the end of the cane down on the black top of the parking lot so he could start moving around. He already knew Carter wasn't going to let him carry any of the bags, so he was trying to pretend that it didn't bother him as much as it did.

Still, he couldn't help but goad Carter a little bit. "I can carry one of those, you know."

Carter held out a bag to Ethan as they walked, but made sure to keep it out of reach.

"Smart ass," Ethan grumbled as he followed Carter. He could mostly keep up, but Ethan wasn't in the position to try and go faster than Carter right then, and Carter knew that.

The rest of the team had gotten in that day too, so they could already see some of Carter's teammates in the lobby. Ethan let Carter speak to the front desk for check in, because the room wasn't technically his. Some of the teammates watched him curiously since the two of them walked in together, but Ethan was trying to act like it didn't bother him in any way, though he was nervous about being around Carter's team and coach.

He also got a few stares because of the cane. Ethan was going to be thirty-three next month, but he'd always looked younger than he was, so he could guess what they were thinking about someone so young using a cane. Ethan managed to catch a glimpse of himself in one of the mirrors in the lobby. He had lost some weight when he had been unconscious for an entire week with no movement. So now he looked thinner and more boyish, and used a cane. He turned away from his reflection, pushing his glasses up to his forehead so he could rub at his eyes in annoyance.

Carter touched his shoulder and gestured with the room key card envelope toward the elevator. As they made their way through the lobby, the team made way for them respectfully, some making note of the healing cuts and bruises on Ethan's face, as well as the picc line he had wrapped up, and quietly speculating among themselves. Others had been reading the papers and recognized Ethan from them. When the elevator doors closed, Carter said, "Let them talk. They'll all share their information around and if they have questions later..." Here Carter shrugged as if to say people are going to be people. Ethan gave a nod because he understood how it went.

Their room was near the elevator and had a King size bed and a jacuzzi tub, at Carter's request. He had paid the difference between the jacuzzi tub room rate and the usual rate his team paid. The phone rang as Carter set the luggage down on the bed. He answered and spoke briefly with his coach before hanging up. "Practice starts tomorrow morning at 8 am sharp, but Coach would like to meet us for dinner if that's okay with you?"

"Yeah, that's fine," Ethan said as he sat down on the edge of the bed. "Is it just us or some of the team too?"

"I didn't think to ask, but it may involve some of the team, is that ok?" Carter answered.

Ethan smiled at him. "Of course. It's not like this is the first time people have ever talked about me or wanted to know who I am and why I'm with someone. It's just the first time it's ever felt like it mattered."

It was true too. There had been many times where the press or people in society gave him curious looks, or talked about him behind his back. He generally didn't care. The only time he gave it much thought was in college when it all revolved around what Jeremy was going through, but even then he'd been his normal smart-ass self, much to Ryder's great annoyment.

This was different though, because Carter actually meant something to him. He was in love with Carter, and it was a feeling he'd never felt before, for anyone. And these weren't just press or society people he didn't give a damn about; these were Carter's teammates and coach, and if Jeremy, Jimmy, and Wayne had ever taught Ethan anything about sports, and they had tried to for years, it was that teams felt like a type of family. Ethan knew a little bit about that from playing baseball in high school, but Wayne had made it clear that it was even more true of college and pro-sports.

But he also knew that families had cracks sometimes, and even in sports families, those cracks don't hold up when faced with homophobia, as he'd watched with Jeremy. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he could still hear the sickening crack of Jeremy's wrist when one of his own teammates tried to keep him from getting the ball, because obviously the team "fag" shouldn't have been given a real chance to play. He could also vaguely hear the sound of his own fist hitting the guy's face, before he ended up suspended for the rest of the week for getting involved. At the time, when Jeremy had told him he shouldn't have done that, he told Jeremy the guy was lucky he didn't have a bat on him. He wouldn't react that way now, but high school was a much angrier time for Ethan.

There wasn't any use worrying, though. They'd deal with things as they happened, together. So Ethan focused on getting ready. Now that his stitches had been taken out, and the cuts were closed up, he could actually use the tub. He laid out clothes from his bag before carefully getting undressed and letting Carter help him get into the tub. It took him way longer than it normally would have to get bathed and dressed, which was another stark reminder of what had happened.

When he was finally dressed in black slacks and a dark blue-green sweater that set off his eyes, he put his glasses back on and looked in the mirror. It would take a while for the red color of the cuts on his face and arm to heal, so they still stood out, and the cut on his eyebrow would mean he'd always have a scar in between the hair there. The yellowing of the bruises was looking better and the swelling was finally gone, though.

Chloe had offered to get him some makeup to cover up the bruises, but Ethan was never one to hide the truth just to make other people more comfortable, or to keep them from asking questions.

He finished styling his hair, and then came out of the bathroom to watch as Carter put a nice polo shirt on. Ethan stood next to the bathroom door leaning on the cane, watching him for a moment, as he covered up the hard muscles of his chest and stomach. He just took in everything about Carter: his dark skin, his tall and muscled frame, his curly hair that he had longer on top though it wasn't as wild as after a game when he had been sweating, and his dark brown eyes that were always warm and sparkling.

Ethan had some family members, like aunts, uncles, and cousins, asking him in text if this basketball player was really worth losing his family and having his father arrested. As he looked at this absolutely beautiful, inside and out, man who was doing everything he could to try and make him comfortable and feel taken care of, he knew that the only answer he could ever give them was: yes, he was.

Carter finally noticed him looking and smiled his 1000 watt smile. He finished slipping on his shoes and turned slowly with his arms out so Ethan could get a good look. Ethan moved across the room and put the arm that wasn't on the cane around Carter's waist, pulling him in for a kiss. The area where Ethan's lip had been cut open was rougher than the rest of his lips, but Ethan wasn't reacting like it hurt anymore. Carter kissed him back gently but firmly.

"We should go before one of us decides we're not leaving this room," Ethan said quietly once they broke the kiss.

"That one being you?" Carter asked, a little surprised that Ethan would want to get physical, but not unhappily so.

"Mmhmm," Ethan replied. "It's been a while, and my body is starting to heal enough, but we can revisit this conversation when we get back."

Carter patted Ethan's ass and then took his free arm. When they got to the door, Carter opened it and bowed Ethan through as if he were royalty, with a smirk on his face that said he wouldn't mind seeing the Prince in a more compromising position. Ethan chuckled at him while giving him a heated look that spoke to that happening later.

They made their way down to the restaurant in the lobby of the hotel and spotted the team table right away. Coach sat at the head of the table and the two seats to his immediate right were open. Carter walked at Ethan's stately pace beside him all the way to the table and pulled out the chair next to his coach for Ethan. Ethan sat down and gave Carter a grateful look before propping the cane up on the table next to him. As Carter sat down, someone farther down the table said "Candyman! Is that the ER doc we all had to hear about for weeks?"

Carter rolled his eyes at the man and they all laughed. Coach shushed them and spoke loudly enough to be heard, but not too loud so as not to disturb too many other diners. "Decorum, folks! I want us to have a good time tonight but don't forget what we're here to do. It's good to have Carter back with us, but we're also here tonight to talk about the fact that there have been Big League scouts in the bleachers the past several games and we all know what that means. My intel tells me that Cleveland is going to be going down a Point Guard, a Shooting Guard, and a Power Forward this season, but they're trading as well. So you all know who needs to be on their game the most this week."

Ethan put his hand on Carter's knee under the table and gave a gentle squeeze at that. He wanted Carter to be able to realize his dream, without their relationship negatively affecting it. He also wanted to know where Carter might land, because while he hadn't told Carter, he had been considering what it would mean long term for them, and whether he might want to or need to eventually switch hospitals to be with Carter.

Carter, meanwhile, had been hinting around to folks he knew that made decisions in the NBA that he would be open to a trade to just about anywhere in New York, though he had his eye on the Knickerbockers. Dinner devolved from that point to side conversations and the players closest to Carter's end of the table kept (respectfully) asking questions about "Doctor House". Ethan took the House jokes in stride, joking that they really only gave the good drugs in the hospital.

By the time dinner had been wrapped up and the last bit of dessert had been eaten, Ethan felt like the team knew him better than his family ever did, though they obviously didn't know him as well as his besties did. Though he was realizing, now, because of the way Carter's teammates were asking him questions and talking to him, that none of his family had ever actually tried to know him. They just expected him to fall into place where they put him, like a living doll. It was a sobering realization.

After the party broke up, some of the team who were closer with Carter invited them to have a couple of drinks at the bar in the restaurant. Carter looked critically at Ethan, trying to gauge both his interest and his energy levels. He had played hurt plenty of times and had developed quite an eye for when someone was running on reserves and probably needed a rest.

Ethan gave him a nod and it was clear to Carter that he still had some energy left. Ethan had eaten light and since they had been sitting most of the time, he was doing okay. When they got to the bar, Ethan ordered a simple Shirley Temple and then explained to the other players that he was still on some pretty heavy antibiotics, so alcohol was off his diet for a bit.

They indicated that was fine, they were mostly after the social aspect of having drinks anyway. Apparently they had read the papers and they all had questions for Ethan and Carter beyond getting to know Ethan. They let Ethan know up front that they would totally understand if anything was too personal or if he didn't want to answer, but they admitted to being curious because Carter never brought anyone around the team, even when he'd casually dated when he'd first been signed out of college.

Ethan motioned for them to go ahead and ask, because he was mostly an open book, unless it was to the press, and then it was questionable whether he would indulge them or tell them where to stuff it. They asked general questions about what had happened, which Ethan gladly answered in broad terms, without even attempting to paint his family in a favorable light. When they found out he'd been straight before there was some ribbing about the "Candyman's Fudgesicle" giving even the staunchest person who doesn't eat chocolate a sweet tooth.

Ethan laughed at that and agreed that it might be a bit magical. It got some whoops and shouts from the other players when Ethan mentioned that he was actually kind of a player before he met Carter, but only with women. Meeting Carter had made that particular game seem boring though, so even when he thought he might never see Carter again, he had no plans to go looking for any pussy despite figuring that their brief meeting would be the only one.