Chapter Text
“How long?”
He’d gotten the green light to leave, after weeks of begging. He’d finally gotten the green light to visit them, after months of begging. His leg still hurt, and his lungs and ribs were sore from lack of use.
Not important.
Pain aside, moving so quickly had been harder than he’d anticipated it would be; the minimal practice he’d had shuffling from his bed to the bathroom once he could hold a crutch, had failed to prepare him for this.
Corridors and stairways, corridors and stairways, corridors and stairways.
Not long after, he’d found himself competing with a set of double doors and a handful of doctors.
With five beds, all of the curtains pulled back.
.
.
.
Wrong. The whole scene before him had been wrong, no— was wrong. All of it, smudged and vague, blurry around the edges under the cold glow of the artificial lights above.
A familiar face had greeted him, swimming in and out of focus with the rest of the room as he’d stood there, speechless. Familiar, yes, but no longer recognisable in the face of everything else.
He’d interrupted this person, whoever they were, with that question.
How long?
Although, without connection, and with the threads of recent memory refusing to tie themselves together, the words he’d missed might as well have been Latin. A dead and forgotten language, Chuuya couldn't recall it if he tried.
What had he even meant to ask?
How long… what?
He tried his best to regain some sense of his surroundings, something he could hold on to with both hands, now that he found himself awash in a sea of circumstances outside of his control. But his attempts to glean any clues, sensical or not, had come up woefully short.
The only word he could think of was… clinical. In the absence of anything else, that was all his brain could helpfully offer up.
Fuck, what was he saying?
It took a moment, but yes… clinical… it had been enough to lift a bit of the fog, and his vision had readjusted. The low, unintelligible murmur combined with the impressive thump thump thump in his ears — a dull pounding that had made everything sound like he was being dragged underwater — began to sharpen.
How long had he been standing here?
Is that what he'd been asking?
He blinked, finally seeing with fresh eyes, and realised that the clue had made sense, given where he was. Corridors and stairways, he'd finally made it.
And the Port Mafia’s ICU was always just that: clinical. Clinical and cold.
It was hardly surprising. His memories of the place had never been fond.
Chuuya swallowed, taking a second to re-count five occupied beds and one white coat. Nobody else was there anymore, it seemed, though he was sure there’d been more white coats when he’d first arrived.
How long had it just been the two of them? Well— seven of them.
That didn't sound right, either.
His eyes were sore. Probably the headache. Probably the lights and the smell.
How long…
He blinked again, suddenly recognising Mori. He’d swapped black for white today, but still…
There was no mistaking him.
Despite his certainty, the usually sleek black hair was uncharacteristically unkempt, a sweaty tangle held back with elastic whilst stray locks worked their way beneath the doctor's mask. The man was currently busying himself between beds, ignoring Chuuya.
He didn’t blame him in the slightest.
”How long?” He found himself asking a second time, sure now.
Or more helpfully, not that Mori had needed clarification: how long would they be like this?
And yet it was that inane question that had prompted the doctor to turn around and make eye contact again, one brow raised in questioning. The act was grounding in a way.
It made sense; purple — well, amethyst specifically — had always been renowned as one of the most calming colours. It was Chuuya’s job to know such things, after all.
Under the harsh spotlights, they acquiesced to a soft lavender, a stark contrast to the occasional flash of red, hawk-like and cruel. A beacon of the boss’ displeasure.
But today he was a doctor, not a boss. The soft leather gloves that kept his hands safe from the dirtier work of the organisation had been shed in favour of medical grade latex. His usual wine-coloured scarf, as much a part of his uniform as his discerning smile, was now a simple stethoscope.
Of course, Chuuya should have known better than to ask, let alone twice. Not when the man he usually revered, usually respected enough to act with all of the reservation required of a subordinate, had done more than enough already.
The question itself implied expectation. Like the timing of it all lay within the exhausted doctor’s control, and not the tenacity of the five bodies on the beds.
Of course, he knew better. He really did. But that hadn’t stopped it flying out like word vomit. His instinct had moved quicker than his comprehension, the question out into the world before he’d even had a chance to take it in.
How long?
The redhead regretted it instantly. Asked again anyways, and regretted it a second time.
He didn’t know much about medicine, for obvious reasons, but he did know that a jigsaw puzzle took longer to solve the more pieces there were in the box. Especially if some of those pieces were missing.
And especially when there were five of them, five puzzles, as close to death as they were.
“How long is a piece of string?”
Was Mori’s response.
A response fitting the stupidity of the question, Chuuya guessed, but he’d be lying if he said such a response from the doctor hadn’t taken him a little by surprise. He supposed even doctors lost their patience from time to time.
Untouchable as he seemed, even Mori was just a man — not that Chuuya was in any position to judge. The line between doctor and mafia boss was usually, noticeably, more distinct, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that such a line would be far more blurred after working without rest for almost two months.
Easier still, when acknowledging the far deeper lines on the man’s forehead, or the softer bruises of purple below his eyes. Lavender meeting lavender.
The man must have checked himself, because his demeanor changed in an instant. He pulled off his gloves with practised control, and tugged at the fastening of his mask to reveal a soft smile; his brow glistened with a sheen of sweat that he hadn’t yet tried to wipe away.
He watched the doctor’s eyes stray to the crutch in Chuuya’s hand and the thick boot that came up to his knee.
“I’ve been monitoring them personally,” he said without acknowledging either, “But there’s not much else that can be done for them right now, certainly not now that they’re stable— yes, stable,” he added, his lips stretching further and his brow relaxing in what Chuuya assumed was a genuine response to his obvious relief. “I suggest you get some more rest, Chuuya-kun. Your bed in the orthopaedic ward remains unoccupied tonight, should you need it.”
Chuuya managed to suppress a childish “no way”. He’d been confined to that room long enough already, and he was more than happy to ignore the fact that the mere existence of the five beds had been enough to almost knock him to the floor the first time he'd tried to stand.
More so than anything he could have pictured in the weeks that he’d been away from them, letting his imagination paint with colours far more vivid than reality. A bed, or even just a seat to collapse into, probably would have been helpful, come to think of it.
It wasn’t necessarily how they looked that had left him stunned senseless.
Albatross’ head half smothered in bandages.
Doc, pinned with so many needles that he looked like a voodoo doll, limp and lifeless.
Lippmann, his perfect face cut up and bruised, swollen beyond recognition.
Piano Man and Iceman hiding injuries just as severe.
Chuuya could handle that. It wasn’t miles away from the many, many wounds that they’d worn before.
No. It was the silence that he hadn’t expected, hadn’t mentally prepared himself for. He had never known them to be silent.
That was to say, the shock had been seeing the silence. Seeing them silent at all. The machines, speaking on their behalf through a series of beeps and artificial breaths, didn’t count. No wonder he’d dipped out for a moment there.
And yet, the suggestion from Mori had obviously been his cue to give the guys some space, the doctor now moving past Chuuya to reach the sink and cleanse himself of the last few days’ relentless work. It probably wasn’t even a suggestion at all, but a clear directive disguised as such.
Not that he could move, as much as he wanted to obey. Instead, he could only just… stand there, like a single glance away would shatter any illusion of stability. Newfound or not.
Lippmann… Piano Man… Doc… Iceman… Albatross.
His eyes flicked to each of them.
Lippmann… Piano Man… Doc… Iceman… Albatross.
Mentally tallying their names. All accounted for. All real.
Lippmann, Piano Man, Doc, Iceman, Albatross.
Mori dried his hands, moving away from the sink and into Chuuya’s blind spot.
If all it took for his friends to stay was constant surveillance, then he’d just have to find a way to never blink again.
Lippmann, Piano Man, Doc, Iceman, Albatross.
If that was all it took, Chuuya would do it.
LippmannPianoManDocIcemanAlbatrossLippmannPianoManDocIcemanAlbatrossLippmannPianoManDocIcemanAlbatrossLippmannPianoMan
It was a long shot, admittedly, and infinitely longer for the simple fact that ‘all that it took’ was all that he could do anyway.
Fucking useless.
He only noticed the doctor reappearing behind him upon feeling a bony hand clasp his shoulder, whilst another far softer, far smaller pair clung to his forearm.
“Chuuya-kun.” The new voice whispered, sweeter than birdsong. “Would you like us to find a futon?”
He’d summoned Elise for this. Her long lashes framed eyes that were narrowed in challenge, assuring him that she wouldn’t hesitate to unleash a tantrum if the redhead dared to argue.
Of course, Chuuya needed sleep. They both did. Arguably, some rest would be way more helpful than… whatever this was — just a sixteen-year-old boy with no clue about medicine, broken in mind as well as body, staring.
He’d be doing them more harm than good. In the way.
Still, he wasn’t ready to leave them again. Not just yet.
“I won’t be much longer.”
Chuuya guessed ‘longer’ was the length of a piece of string.