Title Just Another Sob Story
Fandom: Code Black
Rating: PG
Length: 433
Content Notes: N/A
Author Notes: This feels like it wants to be a much bigger thing but it's complete enough as is.
Summary: Just being back in his home city makes Mario regret coming back.


Mario slouches in the backseat of the familiar yellow cab with its cracked leather and just this side of too warm air and stares out the windows at the wall to wall traffic. It’s good to be home, heavy on the sarcasm. He rubs his thumb along the prickly velvet edge of his department store gray peacoat, one of his splurges a few winters before he’d moved to L.A, worn over tight jeans and a long sleeved black shirt. Something he regretted the minute he stepped outside into the New York air.

Here in New York with its constant ebb and flow of people, he’s just another sob story, another long shot that managed to make it. He’s nothing new. It’s not that much different in L.A. except they don’t know how he got there. They just know the him he shows them.

The chugchugchug of the cab engine makes him wish for the rattling of the subway stations. He’s not sure why he made the decision to take a cab instead. Wasting money he doesn’t have for the small convenience of avoiding the tight press of bodies and the fight for space with his suitcase. It’s not like he brought much with him. A duffel bag stuffed with clothes and the few presents he needed to buy for his family back here. The subway would’ve been fine. Maybe he just wanted to avoid the memories.

The gritty tang of copper in the black of his throat chased by the heroin high of ecstasy that would wash out reality, replacing it with the happy dope flush of oblivion. He put that life behind him a long time ago, but coming home, seeing his grandma, that reputation still chases him through the streets and winds its fingers through the faux softness of his life. Much like the dread curling through him, the lump in his throat, at the prospect of seeing the rest of his family. They’ll think he’s flush with money, living the life in L.A. as a doctor, and expect handouts he’s stopped giving out years ago, emotional or otherwise.

He would’ve preferred to stay in L.A. and work over the holiday if it wasn’t one of the few times in their grueling rotation where they were allowed more than a couple days off. It wasn’t a suggestion he and everyone else leave to see their families. Burnout or being thrown out was already high enough of a risk that Mario didn’t think twice before accepting and hightailing it out of there. Maybe he should’ve thought about it a little more clearly.