Chapter 3 - The Exam

Carter sits upright, wincing when the quick movement jars his thigh wound. “Whatever you think is best, doctor,” he says humbly. “I'm at your mercy.”

“Indeed,” Price says dryly. Clipboard tucked under his arm, Carter watches the doctor stride over and pick up the medical bag he’d been packing up earlier and sets it on the desk. “You may go sit at the table,” he instructs. “I’ll be over in a moment.”

Oh, so that’s how they’re gonna play it, huh? Carter can certainly play. He has to wonder if a person like the doctor has a bit of a fetish for his work, and maybe that’s why his interest in other relationships isn’t piqued that often. An easy smile spreads across the detective's face as he slides off the desk, and, finding a renewed confidence in the scenario, reaches down and begins undoing the button of his pants.

“Detective,” Price interrupts, curt, but not quite as vitriolic as earlier. Professional. “I did not tell you to disrobe.”

Carter pauses, the grin on his face beginning to twist into a smirk. “Just thought I’d make your job easier, doc.” If Price wants to put on a show about it, though, then who is he to deny him?

“I assure you,” Price says, “I know quite well how to do my job. Please, sit.”

“Alright then.” Carter makes his way over to the examination table in the center of the room, only hobbling a little with the stiffness of his leg. The whole table is cold, clinical metal, long enough to lay down on if it wasn’t currently positioned similarly to a chair. Carter’s feet don’t quite touch the ground when he hops up to sit, keeping his worn-out boots from soiling the doctor’s pristine floors.

Having finished whatever preparations he was making, Price steps away from his desk and proceeds to rattle his little cart of tools over to the examination table. Carter leans over to get a better look at them. A stethoscope — even he knows that one — a small hammer, one of those devices to look in people’s ears, a flat, black stick, and a head mirror. He watches as Price takes his clipboard, all business, and uncaps the pen Carter had been fiddling with earlier. 

“Before we begin, I’d like to get a better handle on your medical history,” Price says. Carter snorts. Can’t help it. The professionalism is a little funny. “Do you have any allergies?”

“You sure know how to play it, doc,” Carter says, amused yet somewhat impressed with the pomp and circumstance the man’s insisting on putting on. That’s fine, it’s not like Carter’s dislikes a bit of roleplay. “Hm. Liars? Folks that won’t talk?”

“I’ll put that down as a no, then,” Price says. He scribbles a bit onto his notepad, his handwriting sharp and likely illegible to anyone who isn’t him. “Do you— yes, you smoke. I’m assuming you drink, too.”

“Well, not on the record, at least,” Carter says, amused. “You a gin and tonic type of guy? I’d be more than happy to introduce you to a few of my regular haunts. I think you’d find yourself surprisingly at home.” Carter prefers the places where people don’t ask too many questions — keeps him from having to make awkward reports.

The doctor glances up from his notes, but anything he might be feeling is kept hidden beneath that pristine white coat. He finishes what he’s writing and sets the clipboard aside, then carefully removes his glasses and places them in his breast pocket. Carter notes an old scar on his cheek, previously hidden beneath the golden frames, before Price pulls on the head mirror and affixes it over his right eye. He steps up, nose mere inches from Carter’s own, and places his soft fingers on the lids of the detective’s good eye to hold it open. 

“How’d you lose the eye, detective?” 

Carter raises his eyebrows. The doctor's fingers shift minutely on his lids. “You want the good story or the true one?”

“The truth, preferably,” Price responds, before instructing, “look up, please.”

“Yeah, I was afraid you’d say that. You sure you don't want to hear about my college rowing incident?”

“If you’d follow my pen, please. Don't turn your head,” Price requests. His voice is all polite inquiry when he asks, “Were you in college rowing, Detective?”

“Nah,” Carter says. 

Carter tracks the pen in the doctor’s hand with his good eye. He has excellent eyesight, despite the injury. There's an odd need to prove that to the doctor, to have it confirmed — but the detective likes having things confirmed by outside sources, so maybe it's not that strange a phenomenon. 

The good doctor murmurs, “good,” under his breath and uses the pen to scribble something down on his pad. It's too easy to feel smug about the affirmative. 

Price reaches for the patch over Carter's left eye, not quite touching the detective’s face.

“May I?” he asks softly. 

Carter shrugs. “Be my guest, doc. You want me to take the fake out, too?”

“I don't think that's necessary this time,” Price says, his tone an almost-convincing blasé. “You didn't tell me how you really lost it.”

“Bit of sawdust,” Carter says. Price props his lids open with the same gentle touch, but it doesn't matter — there's about as much feeling there as an old housewife towards her deadbeat husband. There's a flicker of old pain that's long since been pulled into something even less than discomfort; almost comforting in its familiarity. 

“Wasn’t even working a case – it was before I joined the force, see. Rounding the bases, slid into home, kicked up a handful of splinters and rubbed one right into my eye. Tore the cornea, or some such thing. Could’ve kept it, but I couldn't leave well enough alone and it got infected. No choice, then.”

“I see,” Price murmurs, peering over the prosthetic. “How old were you?”

“Ninth birthday,” Carter says. “Makes you remember the date pretty well, a thing like that.”

“Full enucleation,” the doctor murmurs to himself. “This is a fine prosthetic. Parisian?”

“German,” Carter says. 

“Ah,” Price nods approvingly. “It is a bit small for you, as well as a…rather dissimilar color to your own. I could get you in touch with some reputable ocularists, if you—”

“I appreciate it, but this one’s sentimental,” Carter says. 

“Of course.” Price pulls back to scribble down more notes. 

“Got it off a soldier in the war.” 

Price's scribbling pauses. “You…?”

“He wasn't using it anymore,” Carter says. He stretches his hands out in front of himself, knuckles cracking like gunfire. Price winces. Carter gives him a sly look that the doctor notices after a minute. Price scowls. 

“Well, some of your story was true,” he mutters. 

Carter chuckles. “That wasn't totally a lie, either. It is German glass. Bought it from an art curator at the World’s Fair — very Bohemian fella. Coulda been a soldier’s — plenty of kids didn't come home over there too, y’know.”

Price sighs as he goes to wash his hands. 

“I suppose you think your devil-may-care attitude about tragedy is some sort of strength,” he says. 

Carter tilts his head, free to watch Price’s back with the raptor sharpness that belies his usual, lackadaisical attitude. 

“Something like that,” Carter confirms quietly. 

The sink shuts off. “... Were you in the war, detective?”

“Me? Nah.” Carter tries to make himself a bit more comfortable on the examination table, but the cold metal isn’t making it easy. “Turns out the top brass don’t really like the idea of a guy with one eye waving around a gun.”

“An excellent testament to the competency of the American police force,” Price mutters. By the time he looks back at the detective, Carter's expression is back to vaguely amused stoicism to match the doctor’s slightly aggravated mask. 

Price returns to the examination table and selects his next tool from the tray — one of those odd little contraptions for looking in a person’s ear. He steps around to the detective’s left side and leans in just as Carter feels the tickle of the tip against his ear canal. “Any hearing loss, detective?”

“No sir,” he answers, “hearing’s great.” If he can hear the music from the mezzanine, then that’s good enough for him.

Price pulls back as if to catch a thought between his teeth, but whatever that thought is, he doesn’t vocalize it. He quietly steps around the detective and peers into the other ear. “Do you experience any…ringing in your ears? Occasional or persistent.”

Carter shrugs. “Sure, on occasion,” he answers honestly. Happens to anyone who fires a gun enough, and Carter’s been with the force to have his fair share of bullets fired.

The doctor hums at this. “I see,” he says, then mutters softer, to himself, “mild, then.” He puts the tool on the tray and returns to his notes to scribble down whatever findings have been nesting in the detective’s ears. 

“What about you, doc?” 

The doctor looks up from his notes. He reaches over and picks up the flat, black stick next before he moves in front of Carter. “What about me?”

“That scar,” he says, reaching up to trace the mirror on his own face: over the bridge of the nose, under his patch. “Up for telling the story? Since we’re in a sharing mood.”

The doctor raises an eyebrow. “Do you want the truth?” he asks. “Or shall I spin you some gaudy performance to simply keep you entertained?”

Carter grins at the doctor. He’s finally beginning to feel like he’s getting somewhere with the man, even if it does feel just about as excruciating as peeling an unripe onion. “The truth, doc. Unless you think you can do worse than my sawdust sob story. I scratch your back, you scratch mine.”

“I believe you offered to do a lot more than simply scratching my back, detective,” Price says, nothing in the tone of his voice betraying his stoicism.

“Well, I dunno,” Carter says, “you want a back scratch too?”

“No thank you. Open up, please.”

Carter opens up his mouth and feels the stick press against his tongue. The doctor leans down to peer inside. 

“Funnily enough,” Price begins, “mine is also baseball related.”

“Really?” Carter says, though it comes out more of a vague jumble of sounds around the stick in his mouth. He’s getting a nice view of the doctor’s worry lines from this angle, the handful of gray hairs that frame his face. Perhaps the oddest detail is that he smells clean this close, though Carter shouldn’t find it odd. The doctor runs a tight ship around here, on both the clinic and himself. There’s a faint whiff of an aftershave brand he’s never smelled before tied up at the end of it all, even though Carter knows the doctor has nothing to shave.

“Really,” Price says, somehow managing to interpret the detective’s word jumble. “I was…hm. I’d— the team needed a catcher, you see, and I volunteered.” He leans in a bit closer, squinting. “The problem was, I didn’t exactly know what catchers do besides stand behind home plate, so that’s what I did. Apparently I stood too close and caught the backswing for it.” He pulls back momentarily, looking up in thought. “I suppose that means we could have very well shared the same fate.”

Carter chuckles lightly. It is an amusing thought, though he can’t imagine Price as anything other than a prim and proper child who didn’t pick at his wounds. Probably the teacher’s pet type; a magnet for trouble, but always smart enough to know when not to get caught. 

Then the doctor pushes the stick deeper into Carter's mouth, bumping into his uvula, and all the thoughts are struck out of the stadium with a gag and an explosive cough. Price retracts the stick and sets it aside, leaving Carter to choke on the memory of it. 

“Still have a gag reflex,” Price notes. “Interesting. I suppose you weren’t lying about your style of relations with men.”

Carter manages to reign in his coughing, though his eyes are still watery as he watches the doctor remove his head mirror and reposition his glasses. He has no idea what the doc is getting at here, but that stubborn little urge to prove himself to the man has him speaking before he can think the words through. “I’m an honest man, doc.”

To his surprise, the doctor snorts at this — a jarring, exhilarating moment of Dr. Price’s carefully curated persona slipping away once more. Carter allows himself to feel a bit smug at the idea that he had a hand in that. Truss him up in that feeling and point him in the direction of the nearest stage, because he’s got a show to give. He watches the doctor select the stethoscope next.

Then Carter allows himself to feel even more smug as Price leans over and begins undoing the buttons of the detective’s shirt. There we go. Finally they’re getting somewhere. Of course, Price hasn’t removed any of his clothes yet, but he’s more than willing to help the good doctor with that issue, if he—

Price pulls his hands away after the fourth button, tucks the earpieces into his own ears, then presses the cold mouth of the diaphragm up against Carter’s fuzzy chest. Well. Nevermind then. “Breathe deeply for me, please,” Price instructs.

Carter does his best to follow the doc’s instructions. This part of the exam is always the most difficult to him, having to keep his yap shut for more than a moment. That, and, well. He’s getting a bit antsy, honestly. The doctor sure knows how to make a man wait, and at this point, he only hopes the delayed gratification will be worth it. 

It will be, though. It’s not like Carter had anything else exciting lined up for his evening, save for maybe a glass of whiskey and the crossword puzzle from yesterday’s paper.

The doctor’s eyebrows slowly knit themselves together the longer he listens. After what feels like an eternity, he finally pulls away, abandoning the detective’s chest for his wrist as he presses index and middle finger to his pulsepoint. He stays quiet for a long, agonizing moment, then lets go, removing his stethoscope from around his neck and heading back to his clipboard to make his notes. The scribble of his pen is deafening in the silence. Those little bells of warning are beginning to tingle in Carter’s ears again.

“Give it to me straight, doc,” he says once it’s clear that Price is not going to be the one to speak first.

“Heart rate of 102, respiration rate of 15,” Price answers. 

Those are good, right? If heart rate is out of a hundred, then he’s certainly doing well in that.

“Did I pass, then?” Carter asks cheekily.

“Your breathing rate is perfectly acceptable. Your heart rate could be better, though I suspect that might be circumstantial,” the doctor says, placing down his pen. “Though you really should quit smoking.”

Carter grins at him, making sure the doctor gets a good look at all his teeth. “Maybe. If they come up with something better for a detective to chew on.”

Price gives him an unconvinced look. He strides back over to the sink and begins washing his hands again — it’s no wonder that his hands are so neat — but instead of returning back to the table as he’d done before, he moves the pink towel aside and picks something else up. It’s only as he’s pulling it over his hand that Carter registers that it’s a surgical glove.

“You can remove your trousers now, detective,” Price says coolly. “Shoes can remain on or off, whichever you please.”

It's such an innocuous, non-threatening gesture, but Carter feels the hairs raise up the back of his neck. He's suddenly not so sure that the doc has his best interests in mind. Carter trusts his gut; it has a finely tuned sense of danger. Unfortunately, danger feels a lot like the first jump of a cigarette, or the first burn of liquor. It feels like excitement.

And that's why, Carter thinks as he gets to his feet, he takes care to have at least one ace up his sleeve in every situation. Just in case things go wrong, see. Sometimes that ace is a gun. Sometimes, it's just information. And he's found more than enough information in this visit to keep him safe – even Price’s meticulous facades are subject to a few slips. Most of the papers on that desk might be clutter, but not all of them, and Carter had been left there for more than long enough to memorize a few names. 

Price doesn't need to know that. It's best not to let people know the collateral you have on them. Makes them nervous. Carter is enjoying Price being less nervous, even if it comes at a bit of discomfort to himself. Hell, maybe that's why he likes it. A fight is always better with a well-matched opponent, and taking a few good hits is the best way to take the measure of them. 

Carter finds the doctor’s gaze and holds it as he undoes his belt, his fly. He cocks his head in unspoken challenge as he slips his underwear down to fall around his ankles as well. His shirt falls over his slight paunch, just long enough to hide his family jewels like a silk curtain hiding a blushing maid in her nuptial chamber. 

“Is that all?” Price asks. 

Carter raises an eyebrow. “Gosh, doc. Give a man a chance.” 

“I meant,” Price says, enunciating clearly over the snap of his glove, “I expected you to make more of a show, Detective.”

“Is that what you want, doc?” Carter asks, leaning his hip against the exam table. “A show?”

“There's no need,” Price assures him. He circles a gloved finger through the air. “Turn around, please.”

“Hold on a second, now, doc,” Carter frowns. That sense of danger is starting to shoot up past the initial levels that could be hand-waved away. “You’ve got me here with my pants around my ankles. Either you tell me exactly what the play is, or I’ll need to see you strip down to something comparable. Fair is fair.”

“Fair is fair,” Price repeats with a scoff. “ Please . Haven't you already made it perfectly clear how much of an unfair advantage you have over me?” 

“That's a cynical way of putting it,” Carter says. He tenses, just a bit — not enough to alert the doctor, not yet. “I take it this isn't the situation I thought it was. Mind explaining what's actually going on?”

“What you wanted, detective,” Price says, a smug smile just twitching around the corners of his lips. “An examination. Really, you don't think I would have sexual relations in my clinic , do you?”

Carter shrugs, nonchalant. “First time for everything.”

“I can't tell if you are an absolute idiot or if you really do think you're charming,” the doctor hisses at him, mask of civility dropped. “Did you think you could just waltz in here, threaten me, threaten my patients, and demand – favors from me, and I would wilt in your hands like some kind of two-cent pansy?”

“I prefer the foxtrot over the waltz,” Carter says. 

A small but deep furrow appears between the doctor’s brows. He pinches the bridge of his nose with his ungloved hand and takes a deep breath. Carter watches this happen with a growing desire to laugh in Price’s face, if only to see if the man will actually take a swing at him. 

“Go on, doc,” he begins in a conciliatory tone, and Price makes a strangled noise and a sharp zipping gesture at him. “Go on, Doctor Price,” Carter amends, which gets a brief, sharp exhale of irritated satisfaction. “I interrupted your little monologue, there. Do continue.”

“You are—” Price bites out, raising his head with a malevolent glare, “—the most intolerable — uncouth — ” He marches up to Carter, looming again, his hands trembling finely, “—absolute ass of a man I've ever had the displeasure of meeting!”

Carter peers straight up at him, the rim of his hat nearly knocking Price's glasses. 

“...So does that mean we're not continuing the examination, or…?” 

Price takes a slow breath in, then exhales through his nose. They’re close enough now that Carter can feel it on his forehead, rolling down the slope of his nose like a drop of water. He watches, fascinated, as the doctor slowly stitches his composure back together piece by piece, worry line by worry line, until only the tight line of his mouth gives any indication of the animosity from a moment ago. Cold, controlled professionalism. It’s admirable, if a bit unsettling, just how easily Price can turn it on.

“A full physical exam,” Price says, with the tight lilt of someone trying hard to keep it together, “typically includes a doctor’s inspection of their patient’s genitalia for any potential abnormalities indicative of health. Diseases from… loose lifestyles—” that one is pointed, obviously, “—lumps indicative of cancer, et cetera. Now, I don’t particularly care whether or not something is rotting away your testicles as it apparently is your brain, but you…selected me as your doctor, and as your doctor, I am obligated to follow procedure. Should you not wish to proceed, you may leave through the door you came in.”

There’s that feeling again — that burn of a shot chasing straight down his spine, leaving gooseflesh everywhere the sensation touches. He shivers involuntarily, powerless to stop it. Danger , it cries. It’s only elevated by the fact that Price seems to catch this reaction as the tight line of his mouth curls upward into a subtle, threatening smirk.

Carter could leave, easy. He could pull up his pants, sweep whatever dignity he has left into his pockets, and walk out the front door just the same as he’d come in here. In fact, Price would probably be very pleased with that progression of events. Despite the complicated persona the doctor wears underneath his white coat, Price’s motives are surprisingly simple, straightforward, and easy to predict. He’s been looking for an excuse to get the detective to leave since he arrived, and humiliation is just the latest of his tactics. 

Carter wishes he had a cigarette. He thinks. He opens his mouth.

“How do you want me then, doc?”

Something in Price’s expression slips momentarily — an opening, a divot wide enough to pry open with Carter’s old swiss army knife. It’s gone a moment later, however, as the tiny microexpressions of the doctor’s face are rearranging themselves into reserved, contained smugness. He smiles thinly at Carter, the opposite of reassuring. “Just turn around, detective. Spread your legs a bit, hands on the table.”

God, turning his back on Price now feels like turning his back on a loaded gun. Carter fights every good instinct he’s picked up on the force as he turns around and places his hand on the examination table, spreading his feet apart. He flinches as the doctor’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder: gentle, but weighted.

“Relax,” Price says. Christ, his voice sounds like it’s right in Carter's ear. Without the view of his scowling face to accompany it, it’s easier for Carter to note just how much control the doctor has over his voice — the pitch, the tone of each word carefully measured out to make him sound more masculine. It’s a performance that someone like Carter can admire, even if it does little to settle his nerves, at the moment. “You’re very tense.”

Carter doesn’t need the doctor telling him to know he’s tense. He feels as jumpy as a jackrabbit strung out on heroin. Acknowledging the fact does shockingly little for actually mitigating the feelings. “You sure know how to make a man feel exposed, doc.”

He hears Price huff through his nose. It’s impossible to see what he’s doing until he feels the brush of the doctor’s arm between his legs, and then a gloved hand is cupping his balls. The detached, clinical way that he touches them is indescribable, made even more so by the odd texture of the glove. 

“I’m sure you do plenty of exposing yourself without my help.”

“I mean, sure,” Carter says. Price fondles him in the same no-nonsense way that one might fondle a fruit while testing for bruises. It absolutely should not feel the way it does. “But usually my partners give me a bit more to work with. You sure you’re comfortable in that getup? I’m sure you’re a fine man under all those clothes.” 

Price’s hand on his shoulder flexes. It’s such a small, almost imperceptible motion that Carter almost misses it, but he doesn’t have room to linger on it as the hand between his legs retracts. He listens as the doctor moves away and scribbles something down. 

“Well, doctor?” Carter asks. “Do I get to keep ‘em?”

He hears the pen being set down, then Price’s polished shoes clack away from the table, retrieving something from the cabinets behind them. “While it would bring me great amusement to divest you of your…what did you call them? Family jewels?” The cabinet closes, and Price returns to the space behind him. Out of the corner of his eye, the detective watches him place a small jar on the tray of tools, open it, and swab a bit of whatever’s inside with his fingers. “I believe you can keep them for now.”

The doctor’s ungloved hand comes to rest on the center of Carter’s back. The gloved one comes down and rests upon his ass, fingers sliding down between his cheeks. That chilly uncertainty drags its fingers up his spine again. “Um, doc—”

“You like to run your mouth, don’t you, detective?” Dr. Price cuts him off, each word careful, concentrated, controlled. “That’s your skill. I keep wondering if you’re just like that because they let every bumbling ignoramus become police these days, or if it’s some sort of tactical approach. Talk enough and no one can talk over you, perhaps?” 

His fingers dip lower, and Carter feels the unmistakable texture of the glove, now slick with some sort of oily substance, probe against his hole. “You should know I’m feeling generous today. That’s the only reason I’ve put up with you for as long as I have. Which is why instead of letting you leave here the same ignorant fool as you came in, I’m going to give you…mm…a bit of a lesson, so to speak.”

That’s the only warning the detective gets before the doctor’s finger pushes inside of him.

Carter grunts, jerking forward at the unexpected push. It feels…well. It feels like something in his ass. His brows knit together as he works to qualify it. Not bad. Not particularly good, either. 

Then the doctor’s fingers moves unerringly and unsympathetically to press into something tender. Carter barely constrains his yelp into a slightly more manly wheeze, automatically throwing an arm out to grab the edge of the table for support. That's the money shot, alright. He feels like his bell just got rung by a heavyweight champ. His knees are instantly weak with the soul-deep knowledge that that is not a place that's supposed to be touched, let alone – palpated like the doctor is doing. 

“Right where it's supposed to be, at least,” Price murmurs. “Quite a reaction, detective.”

“Wh–wha–?” Carter manages to get out. He gets his arms under him again, trying to push up and look around as if he could possibly see what the doctor is doing. Price’s hand between his shoulder blades firms, shoving him back to the table, as the finger inside Carter pushes hard into the same spot again. 

“This, detective, is your prostate,” Price informs him impassively as Carter flattens with a squeak. “As you can tell, it's a rather sensitive gland in the male’s anatomy. It generates the fluid in your semen, as well as being a source of pleasure for some men.”

Another cruel prod, and Carter’s leg kicks out automatically, all his limbs seizing and jerking at once. 

“ Fuck!” he half-shouts with the breath left in his lungs. He'd apologize for the kick, but there's electricity short-circuiting his brain and he can't form coherent thoughts, let alone words. It…it doesn't quite hurt, but it feels sore and awful, and it shoves pressure forward into his groin like a strong urge to piss. He grits his teeth and holds it back. That's one humiliation he'd rather avoid. 

“Fuck, Christ,” he growls, grabbing the edge of the table again and shoving his face into his arm. His hat falls off. He's still wearing his goddamn coat, and he's sweating like a pig beneath it. 

“A physician, of course, simply needs to confirm that the prostate is free of potential tumors and other signs of illness,” the doctor continues to instruct, clearly relishing his role. 

Carter gasps, going on tip-toe to try and relieve some of the pressure in that sharp, throbbing, bruise-like feeling. The doctor's finger crooks inside of him, then strokes – less prodding, more pressure, and that surging electricity melts through the whole of the detective’s body like a metal chassis suddenly grounded on rubber wheels. He lets out a sound he's never made before, one he would have previously considered himself unable to make: high, whining, something indelibly connected to the feminine sex. He scrabbles for the edge of the table again, for more breath in his lungs. 

“As you can tell, stimulation of the prostate can result in —”

For once, Carter isn't listening. He can't concentrate on a single goddamn thing except the electric shocks make his limbs jerk and his mind float and helpless whimpers pour from his slack mouth.

His eyes flutter half-closed. His cock, which had been half-hard to start, shrivels back up. His balls feel thicker than they ever had in his life, harder than the two months he'd spent without putting a hand or anything else to his dick when he was courting Lacey Anne Gallagher, and the pressure keeps going. 

The doctor's finger slips out, and it's all Carter can do to keep from sliding bonelessly to the floor. Carter catches his breath in wet gasps against the exam table. His ears are ringing for sure now. Maybe the doctor should check them again. 

Price's gloved hand braces against his ass for a moment, new wetness slicking over the detective’s hole, and Carter shudders. 

“W-wait,” he rasps out. To his shock, the hand pauses. 

“What?” Price asks sharply. “Had enough?” 

“I…just gotta…” Carter mumbles, trying to shrug out of his jacket with numb limbs. 

After a moment, Price’s clean hand helps pull it off his arms. Carter shivers again as the sweat cools instantly on his back. He flops back over the table, then grunts and pulls one arm back to pull his shirt up a bit. He slides a cautious hand up his cock, now as rock solid as his balls, and nearly loses his load at once. 

“ Fuck–! Shit!” he swears, shoulders bunching. 

“If you're done making yourself comfortable,” Price says, sounding bored, and pushes him back down. 

As the assault on the detective’s nerves starts up again, the doctor pattering away — and he'd complained about Carter talking too much — Carter slips easily back into that strange, electric fugue state, but this time his hand is around his dick. He can manage an occasional stroke, and eventually it's happening autonomously, some kind of direct connection from the button Price is poking straight to his cock. 

Carter's sinuses go loose for the first time in at least ten years, an odd hollowness like two decades of smoking have cleared out of him at once. He hears himself make a particularly pathetic sound. Price pauses again. 

“Are you…are you enjoying this , detective?” Price asks with such disgusted skepticism that Carter almost comes at once.

Carter tries to answer — or at least, he thinks he does. He can’t hear anything that might come out of his mouth given that the smoke that cleared from his nostrils seems to have crammed its way back into his skull. Everything between his ears feels like it’s been packed full of cotton and the herbal shit that the witch downstairs keeps in her cupboard. He can’t think. He can’t move .

“Unbelievable,” he distantly hears the doctor mutter, acid dripping from his tone. “Is that really all it takes to reduce you to a snivelling heap, detective? Another man putting a finger in your ass? What would your superiors think, if they knew this was what you were doing on the clock?”

Price draws his hand back, a momentary respite from the attack on his nerves. Then Carter feels the pressure against his hole once more, and realizes only as the stretch hits him that the doctor’s added another finger. His own body takes the second intrusion without a fight. Fuck , that's good.

“You truly are miserable,” Price says, fingers starting back up on their stroking of his inner walls in an agonizingly slow rhythm. Each pulse is like someone pressing their fingers directly up into his cock from the inside, like sticking fingers into one finger of a glove. Shit. “Pathetic enough that I almost feel sorry for you. I’m beginning to wonder if you came here looking for sex because that’s all your tiny little brain is capable of thinking of.”

Carter can’t even move to stroke his cock now; every minor sensation is red-hot as a cattle brand against his skin. He’s aware he’s drooling, but his facial muscles have all but abandoned his face entirely. Distantly, he thinks he hears someone whimper. Who is that? It can’t be the doctor. 

Price leans closer, the fabric of his trousers rubbing friction against the hair of the detective’s ass. “I’d call you a whore, but you’re not even that, considering you don’t do this for money. You’re just some libertine content to stick his cock into any hole that will let you.”

Oh , Carter realizes as he hears another whimper, then a tumbling, high pitched whine, that’s him making those noises. God, he needs Price to — to — he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know, every thought having completely vacated his head, a mere slave to the agonizing bliss being pumped into him stroke by meticulous stroke. Maybe he is a whore like the doctor says. Maybe he is just powerless to the every whim of his sexual urges — he doesn’t know, he doesn’t care, he just needs the doctor to do more of whatever he’s doing and then keep doing it . 

Everything below Carter’s waist goes tense as a piano wire. He can’t feel his legs. He’s not even sure he’s feeling his cock anymore. He hears himself make a downright pathetic groan that quickly locks, twists, keens upwards into a high pitched wail—

The doctor’s free hand comes up and fists in the back of his curls, and before Carter can realize what’s happening he’s being dragged up from the table, smearing saliva with his stubble as he does. The doctor holds his head just high enough that he can lean into his ear. 

“Listen detective ,” Price spits the title out like it’s a mouthful of sour wine, “I’m just about sick and tired of your whining. You march into my office, make demands of me , and then have the gall to make a mess of my examination table right after I cleaned it. So I’ll give you two options.” The hand tightens in his hair. “Either you march out of here with your pants around your ankles like the little bitch you are, and that will be the end of this arrangement, or you suck it up and learn to take it like a man.”

And that’s it. That’s the winning ticket. The hellfire that swoops through his cock and then his entire body only makes sense; it must be some kind of righteous punishment the way it seizes his muscles and strangles the scream right in his lungs. Carter isn’t sure his body has ever tried to make him climax harder than in this moment. His ears ring like someone’s fired a gun. His vision cuts, and for a single, panicking moment he thinks of course, this is how I lose the other damn eye. His body jerks, he cries out, he reaches out for something—

Carter comes back to himself, already back face down on the table. His legs are useless beneath him, his heart is beating fast as a racehorse. If his vitals had been in the acceptable zone before, they definitely aren’t now. He’s panting like a dog. The metal table is slick.

He’s pretty sure half of his bones have liquified at this point — is that something that can happen to bones? Price would probably know. He feels…fuck. He feels like a million bucks. He feels better than that night out after solving his first case, though it probably helps that he's sober enough to remember the whole thing this time around.

And then the ringing in his ears begins to die down, and he picks up another’s breathing behind him, equally rapid and shaky. The doctor’s ungloved hand twitches where it rests on the center of Carter’s back, an almost imperceptible shiver rippling through the fingers.