"I thought you were assigned to the ER this month?"

Streamlined muscles reflected the crappy lighting from the neonatal heat lamps and Riley pretended not to notice the charge nurses clicking pictures of him as they passed by the window. He was really glad that the heat in the room was warmer than most other wards. It would be awkward as hell if they could get a picture of his nipples when he was holding a premee so small.

He got enough jokes as it was on motherhood in this job.

"No, no, I made another complaint on The Jackass, so now I just cover the ER," he replied, grinning at Cindy when she shut the blinds to block his view in the open window, but very aware that he couldn't get too close to her to give fist-bump with an at-risk newborn and her having just gotten off-tour with most of her gear smelling like a BBQ pit.

But let's take a step back.

It started with finding a half-dead newborn in a dumpster.

That's never really been the beginning of something, anything, that Riley would have imagined to begin a day in his life, thirteen and still trying to be gangster.

He'd been rooting through back alley dumpsters and bins after he'd started a new style of art that involved a torch his granddad said he could use with adults or Huey around to put his ass out if he set himself on fire. Sculptures and shit that he could actually sell off on Ebay if he could blackmail get Huey to write some fancy poetic crap on the summary page.

Cindy had been absent that morning since the school basketball coach had been on her for weeks to show the upperclassmen how to stick half-court shots and properly maneuver reach-arounds without getting penalized on court during a game; Caesar, who moved to Woodcrest a year before and usually hung out with Huey talking politics and whatever hadn't been inclined, the same as Huey, to help toss Riley into the taller bins.

So of course, of fucking course, he'd been alone and about to skip a bin labeled for mulch pickup by the community garden club when he'd heard something not too different from a crying cat, but without any real force behind it.

He'd almost ignored it, too, but then he'd smelled... not exactly something strange, since they'd done a class on eco-friendly resources for gardening and fuel and he knew that the stuff in those bins wasn't that different from standing next to a pit full of roadkill on a warm summer day; but something like disinfectant and pennies.

Pennies meant metal, usually, and even though Huey and Granddad and everyone under the goddamn sun thought he was irresponsible, he knew all those over-the-top commercials about global warming probably had some merit, so he'd turned heel and tipped the bin a little to the side so he could fish out the metal and do his good deed for the day.

Which lead to him nearly dropping the thing entirely when he was met with the sight of a set of towels covered in what he would later learn (from night schools and on-site nursing routines) was amniotic fluid, piss and blood, wrapped loosely around a barely breathing baby.

To be honest, he didn't really, accurately, remember what happened after that, he was panicking so much. There was the thing bundled in his arms and there was an ambulance (he didn't know where he got the phone) and there was a nurse taking the baby ("Premature female to the operating room! Get some O-neg' and warming blankets,") and then another nurse-guy nurse in sky blue scrubs that looked suspiciously like the monotone lotion dispenser dude that worked for the actor that tried to bone Granddad, what the fuck-sat him in a side room to wait for someone to come get him.

He doesn't remember getting picked up by Granddad and Tom showing up to assure the staff that, "No, there is no way Riley was the father; can you not see how short his is," or the ride home to where Huey and Jazmine were on the front steps with Sarah in the wings with a steaming cup of hot chocolate.

He does, however, remember everything after he drank the cup and looked down to see all the stains on his shirt from the disgusting towels the baby had probably been in all night before he found her.

The cup had shattered on the floor when he'd bolted for the nearest trash can and puked hard and heavy for a full three minutes, eyes wide and whole body shaking, everyone saying something when he'd started pulling the shirt over his head and tossed it in the sink. Jazmine had actually tried to hug him, but he'd flinched so hard that Huey had pulled her back and said something-it must have been important, but Riley couldn't hear it over the roaring in his ears on the way up the staircase-to make them all shut up before he'd slammed the bathroom door shut and started on a shower that he'd turned to boiling.

Riley never did manage to forget what that felt like, holding a half-dead, blue from cold baby in his arms; even after the hot water and scrubbing the blood from the umbilical chord and shit from the mother off of his arms and from under his fingernails.

The visiting the baby while it was still in the hospital was something Cindy encouraged him to do, even when everyone else said not to get attached because she would be moving on, probably get adopted rather quickly due to the publicity, wouldn't even remember him, and so on.

"Who gives a shit what everyone else thinks," she'd hissed under her breath on the bus they had to take after school let out because her parents had finally gotten that divorce and her mom was too busy (banging rich dudes) to drive her or any friends anywhere, "You're the one who found the kid and saved her life. If you wanna check on her, then whatever. You do you."

"You don't think it's weird, though?" He'd hissed back, not really sure why they bothered being secretive on a city bus maintained by a place like Woodcrest, with the radio blaring shitty country music and the two of them squished together in the back because they couldn't stand being near the front where chatty old ladies liked to settle in talking about their new knitting project for their mouthy Corgis; once and a while Cindy would let her basketball roll between her ankles on the floor so she'd resist the urge to pick the thing up and toss it at the bitches.

She side-eyed him and snorted, "Of course it's weird, but it's not like there's a protocol to follow: What You Should Do After You Find An Abandoned Baby. You're just following your gut, and it ain't like it's such a bad thing, checking up on it and all. Might help you score chicks eventually, even."

The elbow he threw at her ribs missed, like it would be doing more and more often as they steadily got older and older (though he wouldn't notice for a while yet, years even).

Once they arrived, walking through the doors to find the right floor, nobody paying them any attention because it was winter and they were dressed basically like everybody else just out of the cold weather, they ended up almost too exhausted after getting lost twice, taking ten flights of stairs with over thirteen steps on each flight, and actually almost passing the natal ward, only to be stopped by one of the staff to be asked if, "Are you some of the volunteer cuddlers? The room is five down and to the left; Malik's been wondering where you've been."

It was almost too fantastic to bullshit their way into something without even saying a word, but when they got to the room they realized they had no idea how they were going to pull it off and just kind of stood in front of a stunningly tall black dude in pink scrubs that looked down on them completely unimpressed.

"Um...volunteer cuddlers?" Riley suggested, raising his hand to chest level and giving an awkward wave as Cindy put her ball under a chair by the door and stacked their coats on the back of the cheep plastic and metal that wouldn't look too out of place in a school cafeteria.

Forward.

Honestly, he could have made so much more money if he'd gone into the body art business full-time instead of kicking it with Gin and Ed every other weekend when they were in overflow and needed faster hands, but...

Well, after a while, after he grew a little and got his head out of his ass being kind of a narrow minded dick, he realized he wanted his life to have value.

Not like Huey, nope. He'd never dip into politics unless it involved busting heads or his getting married to some foreign diplomat for the sake of world peace or, once in a blue moon, a march that allowed him to wander without a shirt to piss off some old rich white bastards-or support/wingman Gangstalicious when he went to Pride Parade (that first time was shit and if he never had to see the man cry again it would be too soon; but the following wasn't so bad after he'd knocked Otis and Leonard around for leaving them high and dry because they bitched out of course).

No, he assigned his life value by getting an actual goddamn degree and a job that, while exhausting and usually thankless by the standards of the "higher ups" in the field; by looking over the events of any given day over the years and making something of a game called "At Least I Was Never..." that sometimes Cindy played along with when she visited the hospital to feed him after she got off her tour as her firehouse's paramedic. Or he popped into her rig when she had it parked to hose out some blood or whatever.

Some of the games went on longer than others when both of them had been up for over two days and hadn't even dropped into their shared apartment to change out of uniform or scrubs, just taking a break to laze on the steps of the ER's side-entrance, eating fries and continuing one after another with something not unlike content exhaustion.

"At least I was never a secretly-rich homeless junkie that went on a LSD rage trip when a nurse touched one of my buttons..."

"At least I was never so sad after the death of a parent that I would sleep with my sibling and down thirty pills four months later when I found out I was pregnant..."

Riley chewed on the fries he drizzled honey mustard on (not his favorite) and considered his next move, leaning back into Cindy's flat chest (so flat, she easily passed for a dude over the last year when she had to get a pixie cut due to her braids catching on fire and her boss chewing her out) while using her legs like armrests in a movie theater.

He would continue to ignore that she could rest her chin on his head and his dreads in their bun (couldn't let them swing loose during work hours) didn't ever breach the space between them; he was just five foot two that was agonizing to get to when he finally got his growth spurt in high school, compared to her whopping six foot seven (with so many muscles from hauling around all that fuckin' gear) that she lorded it over him whenever she got the chance.

Still comfortable, though.

"At least I was never dumb enough to strike it rich and get married to a smokin' hot, but super crazy chick that would give the greatest sex ever, but would probably stab me in the neck..."

"Dumb enough to strike it rich?"

"Shut up, you've got twenty seconds."

She snatched one of the fries without sauce out of the container and squeezed his sides, he nearly choked, "That's not a rule!"

"Uh-huh, yep, it's definitely a rule. Ten seconds."

"Ugh, fine: at least I was never a gay rights activist shot in broad daylight on the street in front of witnesses for defending my basic human rights in front of my city congressional office right in front of my wife."

Riley counted to three before sighing and handing her the whole damn set of fries.

"I take it you're not having the best shift?"

"Eh, it's really not too different from any shift you have with that asshole resident who should just bang his former intern instead of bitching about breaking up with that English chick with the red hair," she responded with a shrug, gladly taking the rest of the fries and dumping beet ketchup on them as Riley groaned at the reminder of the arrogant bastard that was actually worse than Huey in most ways. At least Huey wasn't a hypocrite and had lightened up after Jazmine asked him to marry her, had them sign the papers the same day and then jumped on a plane to spend their honeymoon in Honduras where Huey's ability as a professional urban planner would do the most good.

It was creepy to see Huey smile, but as long as he didn't end up like the doctor that all the nurses heard say, "I fly the plane, you serve the coffee," then Riley could live with it.

Jump back.

So, it turned out, after having a long, embarrassing talk with Gangstalicious, Riley had come to the conclusion that he was either Gay or bisexual (which was a real thing, apparently). How'd this realization come to pass?

Living with a girl in the house when there'd only ever been Granddad, Huey and Riley for years, with the occasional sleepover with Jazmine in the living room with Huey when they were too exhausted to leave the house after hours working on scholarships and admissions essays, was...different and in some ways difficult.

But the alternative was Riley letting Cindy go back to living with her mom after they'd walked in after a big game to find the woman banging Ruckus. In the kitchen. Full-frontal.

What else was there to say?

It was a little more crowded, but not at all bad; Granddad liked having a third opinion on his weird ass hobbies and booty calls from somebody that wasn't Tom, Huey was less likely to be in the house when they were there out of "worry for the decay of his mental acuity that would result from their presence" and the increase in basketball and honest critique for his art was a dream come true.

And then one day Cindy had walked out of the bathroom in nothing but her jersey shorts, hair soaking wet, no shirt, grumbling as she rummaged through her duffel bag looking for a top. All while he was in his desk chair sipping his crappy raspberry tea, paused with his legs propped up so he could work on a new tattoo design.

His speakers had been blaring Bheegi Yaadein and she hadn't turned her head so she hadn't known he was there and wandered back into the bathroom to finish her routine and tying her braids.

...Even five minutes later, he had felt nothing. Seventeen years old, a perfectly good looking chick in his room with her tits out and nothing.

Well, that probably explained why in his head he always thought Caesar was prettier than anyone else he knew.

(He never told him that growing up sober, but once; when he got his RN and, when Cindy and Caesar ended up as partners for the same paramedic team, when there was a rally involving Huey's frenemy Cairo getting shot and brought in when Riley was assigned to the ER. All those Malcolm X motherfuckers and Cairo earning a slap upside the head from Caesar after calling Riley 'Corny Nigga' much like he had Huey.

"Thanks, gorgeous."

"No problem, bro."

At least Caesar didn't get in trouble for inappropriate behavior, given the way the radio speakers just outside Cairo's room spent the week he was there blaring 'I Believe' and 'Tomorrow is a Latter Day' from The Book of Mormon soundtrack and nobody would admit it was they who did it.

Riley could never say Tom never did anything for him after that incident, though.)

...Whatever. He'd already gone through the gay-confessional-breakdown with Granddad; realizing he wasn't interested in C-Murph and probably had a crush on his brother's friend wasn't that devastating.

He'd stopped saying "that's gay" since Gangstalicious for real came out of his closet and Riley volunteered as his bodyguard for the blowback that followed, anyway. There was other stuff to do.

Forward and Onward.

"Okay, speed round, two minutes...and...GO!"

The bronze colored coin Caesar always carried around, a medallion that spoke of his fulfillment of a year of sobriety since he was eighteen and he realized drinking as much as he did just because he was in college and there was a party on every corner in every dorm really wasn't normal, hit the table.

Riley grinned, wide and sharp, at the oak tree image facing up, signalling his opening.

Cindy tried not to roll her eyes.

"Three cheerleaders high out of their minds brought in by the dumbass that laced Valentine chocolates with LSD without telling them."

"A Charlie Manson wannabe who tried to cut off his heels because he wasn't short enough."

"Some poor bastard standing at seven feet, strapped to his own gurney, strung out on PCP; somehow managed to get to his feet, break down the door and walk out of the ER while still tied up-all the while screaming 'RITA! YOU CHEATING BITCH, I'LL KILL YOU!'"

Caesar snorted and lifted his hand, signalling a pause.

"That's a draw since Cindy and I picked that guy up at the train station trying to board it. That's fifteen for each of you. Call it."

The medallion flipped.

"Tree."

"Petrichor."

Spinning once, twice, the coin fell and Cindy took a swig of her cherry cola, regretting switching her choice as a stone cup with liquid flowing from it like veins faced them and Riley took a swig of his acai-pomegranate mineral water before starting up again.

Whoever had the most points for telling about patients the other hadn't been there to see; In the Hunt as they liked to call this game, didn't have to pay for dinner when they finally were allowed to leave the ER's employee lounge.

They had to kill time somehow when there was only one patient Riley wanted to hear about before he left, even after he'd already clocked out and both of his bros didn't want to leave him to pass out in the room that was always cold in the hospital-even by doctor standards.

"One of the patrol guys that's dating one of our shift nurses? Brought in a dog he accidentally hit and our Chief Resident gave the thing nose-to-mouth when its lungs collapsed."

"A woman on horseback got kicked off where they have those carriages at the park, hit a guardrail, and we had to use a handsaw to get her loose and bring her in with the piece that impaled her."

"A pro wrestler came in carrying his wife, the both of them dressed like The Crow if the guy had been inclined towards cropped spandex. She had twins and the wrestler passed out."

"A magician's assistant-"

"Time."

Cindy dropped her head to the table and Riley took the moment to raise his hands in the air and crow like he'd won the World Series.

It wasn't like Riley couldn't get Cindy to finish that sentence once they got home and ordered some Thai food, so double victory.