Work Text:
Giyuu cursed at himself as he was nearly sprinting through the street, trying and failing to hide his head from the onslaught of the heavy rain with his pathetic excuse for a hood. The thin layer of clothing didn’t do much. His hair was drenched as if he had just taken shower, strands escaping his low set ponytail and clinging to his face.
It was overall an unpleasant situation. Giyuu tried to keep his head bowed but that did nothing to protect his face. And all this for a stupid file he had forgotten in his office the previous day. He wouldn’t bother coming to get it, but since he was very much single, Giyuu had planned on spending his Valentine’s Day catching up on some work. Work he had left at his office.
The weather was fairly decent, at least for February, bringing an umbrella hadn’t even crossed his mind when he was leaving his house. He had told himself that he would be in and out within fifteen minutes, quick and simple. Well, he had been wrong.
Luckily, the office was closed for the day. If anyone saw him looking like he did now… Giyuu located the file quickly on the mess that was his desk. At least something went well. He even managed to find a spare umbrella in the break room. He had no idea whose it was, but he was taking it anyways.
He didn’t really care about his hair or clothes getting wet, but the file, well that one couldn’t get as drenched as he was. He found a special plastic case for it and then he was out again, on his way home. The rain didn’t cease one bit, if anything, it was a whole-ass downpour. Thank God the temperature wasn’t below zero, now that would be downright dangerous. He debated calling a cab for himself, but why bother when he was all wet already and the trip was so short. It would be a waste of money.
Giyuu got home at last, but he had to strip down to his underwear right there in his entrance hall. Even when he was nearly naked, droplets of water were still somehow getting on the floor. He blamed his stupidly long hair for it. He left his coat, trousers, everything, lying in a heap by the door, and put the file on the small table there along with his keys.
He wasn’t dumb. Giyuu knew getting stuck in the rain as he did, especially when it was so windy and it wasn’t a warm breeze by far, could get him ill. The umbrella didn’t do much. At some point it had nearly broken because of the strong wind so he had given up and folded it, just carrying it home and getting wet all over again. Now, Giyuu headed for a shower. A long and hot shower. He might even make himself some tea just to be sure.
His trip to the office to retrieve the file was pretty early in the day and so he had plenty of time to work on it, and he did. It was already dark outside when he closed the last document on his laptop and put the file away. He had worked for hours, but he managed to get a lot of his work done so it was worth it to him. He felt exhausted, though.
Giyuu stood up and swayed a little. He had to catch himself on the edge of his working desk. He shut his eyes and waited for the dizziness to disappear but it didn’t. Not as much as he wanted it to. Giyuu had a bad feeling about this.
He opened his eyes with some degree of reluctance and made his way to the kitchen, supporting himself with the walls and some tall furniture in the way. He thought he might have overworked himself, but then again, he often worked for long hours and he had never felt quite like this, no matter how tired he was.
Then he remembered how utterly drenched in the rain he had gotten that morning and something clicked. He was getting sick. Giyuu decided that some more tea and sleep were the best course of action. He turned on the kettle and opened the top cupboard to get himself a cup.
Giyuu, by some unfortunate movement, managed to knock into the pile of cups stashed onto each other, making two of them fall down. He panicked immediately, trying to catch the cups before they could reach the counter. What he really did, however, was reach forward with his entire arms, but one of the cups broke into several pieces and so as he was trying to scoop them up somehow, the shard pierced his skin.
A chain of swears followed as Giyuu saw the blood, long before he could even register the pain. Everything was a chaos. The kettle was boiling loudly, there were shards everywhere, as well as blood. Giyuu swiftly reached for a towel and pressed it to his wound. He felt even dizzier than before, starting to get a headache now.
This time, Giyuu had called himself a cab. He was not walking to the ER by himself, even if the rain had ceased by now.
By the time the cabbie stopped in front of the entrance to the hospital, Giyuu was nearly fainting. He wasn’t bleeding too much, that wasn’t the problem. The fever that he was pretty sure he was running right now, was. And the headache… he felt like his head was going to split open.
He found the ER right away but he immediately got the feeling that he was in the wrong place. There was literally no one there. Not a single patient, nurse of a doctor. Surely there had to be someone, right? Surely not everyone was too busy spending their Valentine’s Day with their significant others, right? Surely he wasn’t the only single person around, right?
“Excuse me?” he said in a weak voice, as he walked to the registration desk, leaning on it heavily.
“…whatever Obanai, just stay away from my bed, if anything like last time happens- shit, I gotta go, there’s some loser…”
Giyuu shut his eyes again as a fresh wave of pain coursed through his head. He heard a bit of the person’s call, or at least he assumed the man was on the phone with somebody, but he still couldn’t see anyone.
“What’s your problem?”
Giyuu opened his eyes and there in front of him, behind the registration desk was a fair-haired doctor. His expression spoke of annoyance, but it wasn’t really Giyuu’s fault that he needed a help. That was the guy’s job. Maybe he didn’t like getting stuck at work on Valentine’s Day.
“Dude!”
He hadn’t realized that he forgot to answer. Giyuu wasn’t really thinking properly, nor registering what was going on around him. He was feeling terrible. He had to go and fish in his memory for what the doctor had asked him.
Giyuu frowned. “What?” He didn’t understand why the man would ask that. Giyuu had no problem with him. He didn’t even know the guy.
Doctor Sanemi Shinazugawa, as Giyuu finally read on his white coat, gave him a blank look. “Why are you in my ER?”
“Oh… um… I don’t feel that good.”
“Are you-” Sanemi took a deep breath to calm himself. He could see the guy wasn’t feeling that good and he was a patient. Sanemi couldn’t lose his cool here and now. He pushed back the coming eye-roll. “I’ll need more details.”
“I got caught in the rain this morning, then I kept working all day and-”
“Not your life story, just tell me what the fuck is wrong with you right now,” Sanemi jumped in before Giyuu could tell him everything about his day.
“I think I’m getting ill and my head is killing me.”
“You can get some basic over the counter medicine for that. You didn’t have to drag your ass to the ER for that.”
“I also cut my hand a bit,” Giyuu said almost sheepishly.
“You what?” Sanemi couldn’t quite hear him.
“I cut my hand,” Giyuu repeated and lifted his arm. Sanemi couldn’t see it yet because it was pretty much hidden behind the counter while Giyuu was keeping pressure over the wound. Now that his arm was over the desk, Sanemi could see the bloody towel.
“Why the fuck didn’t you start with that?” Sanemi shrieked as he immediately vacated his seat and rushed around the registration desk. He got to Giyuu within a second and grabbed his elbow, pulling him to the nearest hospital bed and making him sit down.
Sanemi pulled a table with some tools close to them. “You can let go now.”
Giyuu did as he was told, letting go off the towel that Sanemi discarded right away. Giyuu was most likely not getting that back, but he didn’t really care, not right now.
“What caused this?” Sanemi may have been getting rather irritated, but he could be professional when it came to his job. He started by cleaning the cut, but he needed to know if there was any possibility of shards being in there.
“I broke a cup.”
“What kind?”
“Blu-”
“Not the color, dumbass. Was it a glass one or not?”
“I think it was ceramic.”
“Okay, that’s good.”
Giyuu couldn’t tell why exactly that mattered but he answered anyway, watching Sanemi work. It was kind of gross but also kind of fascinating. He was done in no time, or it could have appeared to Giyuu like that because he was spacing out pretty often now. Enough to make Sanemi suspicious.
He put a hand to Giyuu’s forehead after he finished bandaging his hand.
“Dude, you’re burning up like crazy. Shit, did you start feeling bad before or after you cut your hand?” Sanemi’s expression was laced with worry.
Giyuu took a second to think. “Before, yeah, definitely before. I think it was the rain.”
Sanemi nodded. “Stay here, I’m gonna get some things real quick.”
“Okay,” Giyuu barely managed to say before Sanemi was rushing to the other side of the emergency room, a tray in his hand as he rummaged through the stock of medical supplies there.
Giyuu turned his eyes back in front of himself and spontaneously decided to lie down on the bed he was currently sitting on. His eyes fell shut almost immediately and he was on the verge of falling asleep when a hand shook his shoulder.
“Hey, dude, don’t fall asleep just yet. There’s still some stuff I need to do.” It was Sanemi.
He pushed a thermometer into Giyuu’s hand and told him what to do. Then they had to wait five minutes for it to measure his temperature just right. Giyuu was dozing off the entire time. Sanemi had to support his back to keep him from moving around and accidentally ruining the process of taking the temperature.
Sanemi read the number displayed on the thermometer, his forehead creasing in concern. “Are you allergic to any medicine, are you taking any medicine right now?”
“No.”
“To which?”
“Both.”
He gave Giyuu a pill to swallow right away. “This should bring your temperature down, also help with your headache. You said you worked all day? It was probably brought on by that, everything coming together and all that.”
“Mhm,” Giyuu hummed. He was so low on energy. He just wanted to sleep. It had been one hell of a day. Why couldn’t the doctor just let him sleep?
Sanemi pulled out some kind of form from somewhere behind him. Giyuu had no idea where he had gotten that from and when. It didn’t matter much to him though, what he feared was what the form was for.
“I kinda forgot, but there is some stuff I should’ve asked you when you got here. It would be easier if you could fill this out on your own.”
He handed him the small board with the form clipped to it, but Giyuu wasn’t taking it, keeping his eyes firmly shut as another wave of pain hit.
“Okay, I’ll take that as a no, then.” Sanemi retrieved the form and took a pen, clicking. “What’s your name? Also, I’ll need to see an ID.”
Giyuu looked to the jacket placed by his feet. “My wallet is there, in the left pocket. It’s all there.”
Sanemi’s eyebrows shot up. “Dude, that’s your wallet.”
“Yeah, the ID is there.”
He didn’t quite get why Sanemi found it so weird. It wasn’t like Sanemi was going to rob him or anything, he trusted him to find the ID in there, check it and then put it back where he found it. Sanemi did just that.
“Okay, Giyuu Tomioka,” he said his name slowly as he was writing it down. He also filled in the address and birth date. He then started asking him about some history of illnesses or surgeries, but Giyuu wasn’t paying it much attention, his answers getting shorter and shorter. “You really just want to sleep and be left alone, huh?”
“I don’t want to be alone.” Giyuu frowned and opened his eyes.
The half lidded look made Sanemi feel things, but he wasn’t going to act on it. Giyuu was just spouting bullshit because of his fever. But well, Sanemi could relate. After all, he was the guy who willingly took a night shift on Valentine’s Day. Sanemi shook his head slightly, ridding himself of all these thoughts and went with his usual self. “The hell? That makes no sense. You can’t want company and sleep at the same time.”
“I really want to sleep right now,” Giyuu mumbled, focusing his attention on the last words of Sanemi’s reply. He didn’t even mind the mocking tone. But there was something… “I want somebody to be there when I sleep, too.”
And when he woke up… Sanemi knew exactly what he meant, but he wasn’t going to admit anything. “You must’ve watched too much Twilight, that’s what creeps do.” How he knew that was a thing from Twilight, Sanemi would never say. If Giyuu ever told somebody, Sanemi would deny it and blame it on Giyuu being too feverish to remember correctly.
“Nah, not like that.”
There was a moment of silence and Sanemi thought that Giyuu had finally fell asleep and so he stood up. But then, Giyuu stirred. “You not asleep yet?”
“No.”
“Can’t sleep?”
“Yeah.”
Sanemi thought that was kind of odd, he shouldn’t have been out like a baby by now. He supposed it wouldn’t take long for the medicine to kick in. Meanwhile, Sanemi could stay by him. Giyuu wouldn’t mind and neither would Sanemi. Even if his ideal Valentine’s Day wasn’t exactly supposed to be spent with a feverish patient.
He pulled away the curtain that separated the beds and pushed the wheeled hospital bed next to the one on which Giyuu was lying. Besides Giyuu, there was no other patient and Sanemi was entitled to his break, he just so decided now was the time to take it.
“What’s that sound?” Giyuu mumbled as Sanemi wheeled the bed next to his.
“Nothing to worry your pretty little head about.” With a huff, Sanemi was done, and so he lied down onto it, lifting his hands above his head and folding them, using them as a makeshift pillow. “Now you can tell me about your stupid day, I bet that is gonna make you fall asleep.”
“The office was closed today,” Giyuu began. “I didn’t have anything better to do so I wanted to catch up on some work.”
“I felt that,” Sanemi sighed. He, too, took this shift because he had nothing better to do today.
“But I need this important file for that, so I had to go get it, but I didn’t have an umbrella.”
“Of course you didn’t, you dumbass.”
“Yeah, well, I got totally drenched but I thought a hot shower and tea would be enough.”
“Maybe if you were taking some vitamin C, it might’ve been. Too late now, I guess.”
“I guess,” Giyuu repeated and went silent for a few seconds.
Sanemi had to turn around to face him to see what was up. Giyuu’s chest was rising and falling steadily. He was asleep. Sanemi caught himself staring at Giyuu’s face, before mentally slapping himself and looking away, his eyes back to the ceiling. Sanemi sighed. “I wanted to hear about that cup,” he whispered, casting another quick glance at Giyuu.
He spent several more minutes just lounging around, but then he had to return to work. Sanemi put everything where it should be, pulled the blanket over Giyuu’s shoulders and then returned to the registration desk. He needed to put all of this into a computer and so.
When Giyuu woke up, pretty early in the morning, Sanemi may or may not have had a warm meal ready for him. According to the hospital rules, he didn’t need to keep Giyuu there overnight. He should have given him some medicine, bandage his wound and send him home, but well, the emergency room was rather vacant the entire night and Giyuu wouldn’t be in anyone’s way.
He was feeling and looking much better in the morning. He insisted on leaving, but Sanemi forced the food down his throat, not literally, but he was very vocal about eating it. Giyuu couldn’t do anything but eat his food.
Sanemi’s shift was almost over. There would be another doctor taking his place soon, along with more people. There were always more employees running around during the day. Before he would leave, however, there was something Sanemi needed to do.
As a proper doctor, Sanemi had to give Giyuu information on how to continue his treatment before discharging him. Which Sanemi did, although it wasn’t much, but he added something extra.
He made sure that Giyuu had his name and phone number written down. In case he needed further medical attention, or his fever returned. They chatted a bit before Giyuu was ready to leave, and it just so turned out that they lived basically in the same neighborhood. Sanemi offered to take him home.
Giyuu started protesting right way, claiming he had burdened him enough already, which made no sense since Sanemi was pretty much just at work. But luck would have it, Sanemi’s colleague had just gotten there and so Sanemi insisted. They were going in the same direction, it would be a waste to spend money on a cab. Sanemi even went as far as to assure him that despite his scars, he had no ill intentions. That made Giyuu panic a bit and feeling rather guilty, he agreed.
Sanemi didn’t care how he managed that, the important thing was that he did. He wasn’t ready to part ways with this particular patient just yet. There was something about him that pulled Sanemi to him like a magnet.
They chatted some more during the drive home and the conversation flew easily enough, much to Giyuu’s surprise. He wasn’t the talkative type, but Sanemi got him talking like no one.
Before Giyuu could exit the car, Sanemi stopped him by taking his hand. “Remember to call me in a day or two, update me on your health and so.”
“Okay, I’ll make sure I do,” Giyuu said and left.
Giyuu being Giyuu, did call him, but he was busy with work and really only updated him on his condition. Sanemi was glad to hear that Giyuu no longer had a fever and that his cut was healing nicely, but that wasn’t really what he wanted. It took four more calls like that one and three more weeks for Giyuu to realize Sanemi didn’t keep calling him to check up on his health.
The next Valentine’s Day, Sanemi didn’t take the night shift in the ER, he already had better plans with his boyfriend.