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“I know you love me and all, but stop threatening the doctor.” Gojyo grimaced from his prone position, digging his scalp into the thin pillow, as Hakkai, craning his whole form on the edge of his seat, held and twisted his arm. “Hold it still, shit, quit that!”
“I’m trying, I’m still trying,” Hakkai muttered frantically, changing his grip again and again on Gojyo’s wrist and arm, but it was no good. He could feel himself teetering on the verge of fainting as he tried to summon up even a spark more chi with which to heal Gojyo. It had been a miracle that he’d been able to get them all from the wreckage that had been their inn to a doctor’s office, to close the gaping wound in Sanzo’s chest and heal Goku’s cracked ribs without passing out, but Gojyo’s broken arm still lingered. Gojyo just cursed again as Hakkai tried and failed to heal him.
“Come on, it’s fine! I had busted parts before I met you, they got set by a doctor, I healed fine. Come on.” He touched his good hand to Hakkai’s face. “You need to rest, too.”
“I’m fine.” Hakkai willed his strength to return. “I'm your healer, I have to–”
“You don’t, I told you. You’re exhausted, man–”
“I’m fine, Gojyo, I can–”
Suddenly, a nurse poked her head around the curtain and peered at the pair of them. “The doctor will just be another mo–”
Hakkai whipped around, demonic ferocity tearing its way through his mask. “I beg your pardon, but this gentleman was very nearly dismembered halting the youkai attack. You will give him attention swiftly, or I will–”
“Hakkai!” Gojyo groaned and forced him to turn around again with a tug on his sash, and shot the nurse an apologetic grin before she, white-faced, bolted. Gojyo, however, held Hakkai’s shoulder and gaze, straining a smile. “It’s not like it’s some mystical curse or whatever, it’s a broken arm, the doc’ll set it, then when you’re healed up, you can finish the job, alright?”
“But…” Hakkai searched for words, but like any man blinded by panic, he couldn’t find any, and Gojyo hushed him.
“Why are you so worked up? Jeez, it’s not like I’m dying.”
That spurred a response, one Hakkai was too distraught to hold back: “But what if you were?” Silence struck between them like a bolt, but before Gojyo responded, Hakkai’s frenzy broke into a melancholic whisper: “If you were dying, if I couldn’t save you, Gojyo… if I were about to lose you, and there was nothing I could do but hope someone else could succeed where I’d failed, what then?”
Gojyo pursed his lips, eyebrow raised, but he held Hakkai’s hand a little tighter. “Well, then I wouldn’t be in much shape to keep you from threatening the doctor, would I?” He flashed him a winning smile. “Think you can at least distract me while we wait?”
That got a wobbly smile, a semblance of the usual Hakkai that could face anything with a confident smile, and Gojyo, despite being laid low in as literal a fashion as one could imagine, tried to shore Hakkai up until they could both pull themselves back together.