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Ryousuke shifts the bags in his arms into one arm, fiddling with them a bit to make sure nothing falls out. He digs out his keys with his now free hand, flipping through them with a flick of his wrist until he gets to the key to Nobuhiko's apartment.
It's not the first time Ryousuke's used the key Nobuhiko gave him to get in, but it still feels a little wrong, like he's invading Nobuhiko's privacy.
But they agreed to meet this evening and Nobuhiko gave him express permission to let himself in on the off chance he doesn't hear the knock or see the doorbell.
Ryousuke sticks the key into the lock and unlocks the door, twisting the knob a couple of times when it sticks.
Ryousuke cannot wait for the day he can get Nobuhiko out of this apartment and into a place they share.
Ryousuke pauses with the door half open, every thought in his brain slamming to a stop.
Where did that come from?
He shakes the thought away, pushing the door open further and nudging it shut behind him. He sets the bags down on Nobuhiko's kitchen island. "Nobuhiko?"
He doesn't hear anything other than the faint scrabble of Hikari's claws on the glass of her tank.
Ryousuke steps further into Nobuhiko's apartament, slipping into the living room. Nobuhiko lays curled up on the couch, a blanket bunched up by his shoulders. Hikari follows Ryousuke in her tank as he walks around the couch. He leans over and fixes Nobuhiko's blankets, a soft smile pulling at his lips.
Seeing Nobuhiko asleep like this, even if it's likely an impromptu nap, makes Ryousuke want to just lay down next to him.
Ryousuke brushes some of Nobuhiko's hair behind his ear, lingering with a hand cupping his cheek.
Ryousuke's smile drops from his face.
Nobuhiko's skin is fever-hot and clammy.
Ryousuke drops his hand to Nobuhiko's shoulder and shakes it gently. It takes a couple of seconds for Nobuhiko to wake, curling tighter around himself before opening his eyes. He glances up at Ryousuke, his frown deepening. "Ryo?"
Ryousuke releases Nobuhiko's shoulder to quickly sign, "Do you want your hearing aids?"
Nobuhiko looks away from Ryousuke's hands, brows knitting before he nods.
Ryousuke grabs his hearing aids from the nearby table. He brushes back Nobuhiko's hair, slipping the hearing aid behind his ear and taking care to align the transmitter. Nobuhiko lifts his head a little so Ryousuke can repeat the same thing with his other hearing aid, burying his face back in the couch cushion the moment Ryousuke pulls his hands away.
"It hurts," Nobuhiko mutters into fabric.
Ryousuke runs his fingers through Nobuhiko's hair. "What hurts?"
"My stomach."
Ryousuke hums. "How long?"
"I dunno." Nobuhiko shifts beneath the blanket, hunching his shoulders. "It hurts more when I eat."
"You probably caught some gastroenteritis or food poisoning." Ryousuke runs his thumb along Nobuhiko's hairline, brushing back the stray wisps of hair sticking to his skin. "Have you been able to keep anything down?"
"Not since yesterday." Something soft and childish cuts through Nobuhiko's voice. "It sucks."
"I know." Ryousuke would pull Nobuhiko into a hug if he didn't think it would make his nausea worse. "But it'll pass."
"Not fast enough." Nobuhiko lifts his head to look at Ryousuke again, eyes narrow. "I was hoping it would be gone by now."
"I don't mind." Ryousuke leans forward and presses a light kiss against Nobuhiko's temple. "Plans can be postponed."
Nobuhiko just sighs and concedes with a nod.
"Do you think you can handle some ibuprofen?" Ryousuke asks, distinctly aware of Nobuhiko's fever after pressing his lips against his skin.
Nobuhiko sinks into the couch cushion. "Not really, but I'll try."
Ryousuke runs his fingers through Nobuhiko's hair one last time, wishing that he had given him a more confident answer but appreciating his willingness to try.
Even if it's likely just because Ryousuke asked.
Ryousuke stands and finds Nobuhiko's first aid kit tucked away in his bathroom. He grabs the thermometer and the Advil before filling a cup with water. He sets the cup and Advil on the table when he returns, turning on the thermometer. "Love, can you open your mouth so I can take your temperature?"
Nobuhiko opens his eyes and complies, letting Ryousuke take his temperature.
Ryousuke glances at the screen when it beeps and winces. It's 39 degrees sharp.
He's seen higher but that's usually on patients coming into the ER.
But Nobuhiko hasn't taken any antipyretics yet and some infections like to spike high fevers, so there's no point in thinking like that.
Ryousuke switches the thermometer for the Advil and shakes out two pills. He presses them into Nobuhiko's palm and grabs the water while Nobuhiko throws them back. He helps Nobuhiko take a drink, making sure not to tip too much at one time.
Nobuhiko leans back after taking a sip, wincing as he swallows. "You're better than Wataru—he always manages to get water everywhere."
"I would hope so. Bedside manner is part of the job description." Ryousuke sets the cup down on the table.
Nobuhiko squeezes his eyes shut, his expression twisting. "I thought you had the nurses for that."
"I can't exactly get a nurse when a patient is asking me directly." Ryousuke adjusts the blankets so they cover Nobuhiko's shoulders before running a comforting hand down his arm.
Nobuhiko nods, the movement jerky and uncoordinated.
"I need to put the groceries away, will you be okay here?" Ryousuke asks, his hand resting on Nobuhiko's bicep.
"Can you turn on the TV?" Exhaustion creeps into Nobuhiko's voice and he doesn't bother opening his eyes.
"I can do that." Ryousuke squeezes Nobuhiko's arm before standing. He finds the remote on the coffee table next to a textbook and a heavily annotated notebook and turns on the TV. He flips to a nature documentary, one that they've already seen.
He leaves Nobuhiko in the living room, the quiet sound of the narrator filtering through the apartment. He packs away the food he bought, sticking the perishables in the fridge and the non perishables in the pantry. He leaves a box of broth on the counter to be heated later, if Nobuhiko responds well to drinking water.
By the time Ryousuke returns to the living room, Nobuhiko has already fallen back asleep, his breathing steady. He still lays curled in on himself, his arms wrapped around his stomach.
Ryousuke brushes Nobuhiko's bangs back, tucking the stray strands behind his ear. "You truly got the short end of the stick this time, love."
Nobuhiko just exhales softly, falling deeper into sleep.
Ryousuke grabs his bag from the other room and takes the chair right by the couch, close enough to Nobuhiko that he can listen to the quiet sound of his breathing. The TV still drones on in the background, providing enough noise to help Ryousuke focus on the papers in front of him.
It's not how he expected this night to go, but he can appreciate how relaxing this could be under better circumstances.
What it almost was, if Nobuhiko didn't have a fever burning beneath his skin.
It's a couple hours before Nobuhiko wakes and Ryousuke gets through annotating one of the papers and starts on the other. Nobuhiko wakes slowly, wincing and turning away from the setting sun. Ryousuke reaches over for the remote and turns off the TV, giving Nobuhiko some silence.
Nobuhiko pushes himself up to his elbow, fiddling with his hearing aid with his other hand. Ryousuke sets his stuff to the side and moves to stand in Nobuhiko's field of vision to sign. "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah." Nobuhiko adjusts something before dropping his hand. "It's just….weird sleeping with my hearing aids."
Even after dating Nobuhiko for these past few months, Ryousuke still cannot completely understand how it feels to be deaf. He can figure it out logically but he can never truly feel what Nobuhiko does.
But he tries, even if he'll likely never get to that point of understanding himself.
"How are you feeling?" Ryousuke joins Nobuhiko at the couch, helping him sit up right.
Nobuhiko tucks himself into Ryousuke's side, keeping one arm wrapped around his stomach and the other around Ryousuke's waist. "My stomach still hurts."
Ryousuke rests a hand on top of Nobuhiko's arm, running his thumb down the length of his forearm. "How badly?"
"About the same as before."
Ryousuke holds back a sigh at the lack of information. It's not the first time but he can't help but wish that Nobuhiko's stubbornness wouldn't rear its head now. "Where does it hurt?"
Nobuhiko takes Ryousuke's hand and moves it towards the upper left portion of his abdomen.
Ryousuke leans over and presses a kiss into Nobuhiko's hair. "Do you want to try something to settle your stomach? It might help."
Nobuhiko sighs. "What do you have?"
"Just dimenhydrinate in my bag but I can see if I can get some bismuth subsalicylate." Ryousuke only keeps a few medications on him, and more aligned for treating migraines than stomach pain.
Nobuhiko shakes his head. "I tried them already."
Ryousuke frowns. "And they didn't help?"
"I dunno, I just went to sleep." There is something childishly frustrated in Nobuhiko's voice.
"Dimenhydrinate makes you drowsy." Ryousuke brings a hand up to the back of Nobuhiko's neck and starts curling his hair around his fingers. "And sleep is good when you're ill."
"I know," Nobuhiko says, sharp and petulant. "I just didn't want to spend the entire break sleeping."
"It won't be the entire break. You should start feeling better in a couple of days, at the latest." Even most stomach flus don't last longer than a couple of days, unless you're one of the unlucky ones that gets the full week. And if it's food poisoning, it should pass even faster.
A small part of Ryousuke lingers on the fact that medication didn't help Nobuhiko's pain, but it's possible he fell asleep before he felt the effects. Or the combination of stress and work over the past couple of days just worsened everything.
"I'll take your word for it." Nobuhiko presses his face into Ryousuke's neck, his skin still fever-hot.
"I am a doctor." A flicker of a grin pulls at Ryousuke's lips.
"A surgeon," Nobuhiko corrects, exhaustion starting to seep into his voice.
"I still had to go through the same schooling that all the other doctors did."
Nobuhiko hums, his eyes sliding closed.
"Do you want me to take your hearing aids off, love?" Ryousuke asks, his hand drifting closer to Nobuhiko's hearing aid.
Nobuhiko shakes his head.
Ryousuke just returns his hand to the back of Nobuhiko's neck and continues playing with his hair.
This time when Nobuhiko falls asleep, he's only asleep for an hour or so. It's getting far enough into the evening that Ryousuke's getting hungry and he would hope that Nobuhiko is at least willing to try something more than water.
It's also getting close to time for Ryousuke to check Nobuhiko's temperature and see if he needs some acetaminophen too.
Nobuhiko shifts, pulling away from where he was pressed against Ryousuke's side. "Ryo, how long did I sleep this time?"
"Barely an hour." Ryousuke wraps an arm around his waist, helping stay upright. "Feeling better?"
Nobuhiko shrugs, reaching out and pulling the blanket further into his lap.
Ryousuke reaches down and grabs the other side that slid off and drapes it over Nobuhiko's legs. "If I heated some broth for you, do you think you could handle that?"
Nobuhiko frowns, the space between his brows wrinkling. He messes with the edge of the blanket, running a fingernail along the seam. "I could try."
Ryousuke takes his hand and holds it gently. "I'm not going to be disappointed if you're not ready right now."
"I know." Nobuhiko tightens his grip on Ryousuke's hand. "I want to try."
Ryousuke squeezes Nobuhiko's hand once before letting go to stand. It's easier to see how ill Nobuhiko looks now that he's sitting on the couch alone, half wrapped in a thick blanket.
Ryousuke won't know if he's gotten worse until after he takes his temperature again, but he hopes not.
Ryousuke looks through Nobuhiko's cabinets and finds a large enough pot to pour the broth in before setting it on the stove to heat up. He grabs a small serving of the rice he bought for himself and eats it with a cold hard boiled egg while the broth warms.
By the time he finishes, the broth has come to a gentle boil. He takes it off the heat and turns off the stove before grabbing a clean bowl. He ladles some broth into the bowl and grabs a spoon before returning to the living room.
Nobuhiko is still sitting up, the blankets pulled up to his chest now. He's watching Hikari swim in her tank, messing around with the plants and rocks.
Ryousuke rests a gentle hand on Nobuhiko's shoulder. "Do you want to watch anything while you eat?"
Something twists in Nobuhiko's expression but it quickly falls away to that thready exhaustion that's been lingering there this entire afternoon. "Can you restart the documentary you put on earlier?"
"Of course." Ryousuke gives Nobuhiko the bowl of broth, making sure it's secure in his lap before letting go of it, and grabs the remote. He takes his seat beside Nobuhiko on the couch and starts rewinding the tape.
Nobuhiko messes with the broth with his spoon before taking a small sip. He frowns after he swallows but just takes another sip.
Once the tape rewinds, Ryousuke starts it up again, checking the subtitles out of habit more than anything else.
Nobuhiko tucks himself into Ryousuke's side the moment he leans back, keeping a hand on the bowl to steady it. Ryousuke wraps an arm around Nobuhiko's waist, holding him close.
He grabs the thermometer easily and passes it over to Nobuhiko, who takes his own temperature after a couple of seconds of staring at it. Nobuhiko passes it back after glancing over it once it beeps. "38.5 degrees."
Ryousuke sets the thermometer back on the table. "You can take some acetaminophen after your broth, it should help lower it more."
Nobuhiko nods and scoops out another spoonful of broth to sip at.
Ryousuke turns his attention to the documentary, actually focusing on it rather than letting the narrator's voice filter over him in indescribable noise. He checks up on Nobuhiko every so often, who slowly but steadily works through his broth. He finishes about halfway through the documentary and Ryousuke takes the empty bowl to the kitchen before getting him some acetaminophen to take.
Nobuhiko gives the meds that same long suffering stare that he did the broth but he takes them all the same.
They get through the rest of this documentary and the better part of the next one before Nobuhiko starts fading again. The broth gave him a little more energy but not enough to keep his focus once it started to truly get dark out.
Ryousuke leans forward to grab the remote and turn off the TV. Nobuhiko opens his eyes, looking beadily up at Ryousuke. "What are you doing?"
"You're falling asleep again." Ryousuke sets the remote down before nudging Nobuhiko with his shoulder.
Nobuhiko sighs, a long and drawn out thing. "I didn't even realize."
"It's getting late enough to get to bed anyways." Normally neither of them would be asleep this early on a weekend, but there's no way Nobuhiko's getting out on the pass tonight and Ryousuke isn't going to leave him here alone.
Nobuhiko just nods and lets Ryousuke help him to his bedroom, the blanket bunched up in his arms. Nobuhiko settles into bed without any complaints but turns around over his shoulder when Ryousuke pulls off his coat and joins him.
"You planned to stay the night from the start," Nobuhiko says as a statement rather than a question.
Ryousuke wraps an arm around Nobuhiko's waist, pulling him closer. "I was hoping it would've been under different circumstances."
Nobuhiko sinks into Ryousuke's embrace with a groan. "We're not having sex right now—I'll pass out halfway through."
Ryousuke brushes some of Nobuhiko's hair back, fingers lingering on his hearing aid. "Not now, of course, but I was holding out for later once you're feeling well."
A flicker of a grin tugs at Nobuhiko's lips. "That's good, I'm pretty sure that'll be a sure fire way of getting yourself sick."
Ryousuke can't help but grin too. The idea of sleeping with his ill patients has never crossed his mind but Nobuhiko raises a good point. "We wouldn't want that."
Nobuhiko presses his face into Ryousuke's chest and shakes his head.
Ryousuke carefully removes his hearing aids and glasses, and sets them on the bedside table before drawing the blanket over both of their shoulders.
Nobuhiko is asleep in minutes and it doesn't take long for the steady sound of his breathing to pull Ryousuke under too.
— —
Ryousuke snaps awake to the sharp sound of retching. It's the painful kind that always leaves you a trembling mess.
The only other person here is Nobuhiko.
Ryousuke stumbles out of bed, bringing half of the blankets to the floor in his haste. By the time he gets to the bathroom, Nobuhiko is just sitting with his forehead pressed against the toilet, chest heaving with each ragged breath. Ryousuke rests a hand on his back.
It takes a couple of seconds for Nobuhiko to pull away from the toilet, his face ashen. "It hurts," Nobuhiko says, his voice strained and hoarse.
Ryousuke drops his hand to sign, "Where?"
"Everywhere." Nobuhiko groans but he peels his hands away from his stomach. "It didn't hurt this bad before."
"I know." Ryousuke moves closer and presses the back of his hand against Nobuhiko's forehead. His skin is clammy and warm, far warmer than it was when they went to sleep. "Can you show me?"
Nobuhiko gestures to his entire abdomen, half-hunched over. "It was getting better. Why did it stop getting better?" There is something frantic and desperate in the way Nobuhiko signs, his hands starting to tremble at the end.
"How long has it been hurting?" Ryousuke asks, trying not to let his stomach sink at Nobuhiko's distress.
Nobuhiko hesitates, his hands moving to sign but stopping. It takes him a couple long seconds to form the first word. "A couple of weeks. But I—" Nobuhiko fumbles with the sign and it takes a moment for his hands to steady again. "You said it was just stomach flu."
"I didn't know it was going on for weeks." Ryousuke signs quickly, his movements sharp and curt. "Why didn't you tell me that?"
"I didn't know it was related!" Nobuhiko mirrors Ryousuke's movements, fear and uncertainty cutting through his expression.
"You should've told me anyways!" Ryousuke stops when Nobuhiko flinches, a full body thing that turns into a deep wince as pain cuts across his expression. Ryousuke exhales slowly, forcing his breathing to steady. "It's okay. I know now."
Nobuhiko nods, unable to wipe away all the pain pinched in his brows. "It's—It's not the stomach flu, is it?"
Ryousuke shakes his head.
Nobuhiko shoulders drop, revealing raw fear in his eyes before he swears. He leans over the toilet and starts retching again. Ryousuke supports him, rubbing gentle circles in the space between his shoulder blades.
Nobuhiko squeezes his eyes shut when he's done. "Ryo," His voice cracks with the start of a sob. "It really, really hurts."
Ryousuke just keeps rubbing circles into Nobuhiko's back, all the reassurances he wants to say or sign pointless if Nobuhiko won't look at him.
But the longer they sit here, the less and less good things start to look.
There are so many different things that this could be and he flips through all the symptoms he knows.
Some of them, things that he impassively took notes on all those classes ago, leave him breathless and numb.
But he can't jump to conclusions like that. Nobuhiko may be something more to him than just the patients that sit in front of him, but he can't let himself spiral.
Categorize the information he knows now and continue from there.
Ryousuke gently nudges Nobuhiko's shoulder, drawing his attention. "If your pain is that bad, we should go to the ER."
Any remaining fight leaves Nobuhiko's body and he slumps into Ryousuke's side. But he nods.
Ryousuke helps him off the cold bathroom floor and they both get ready to go.