“Fight Me?” [Original Prompt]
Title: “Fight Me?”
Rating: PG
Length: 2k
Summary: In between Yifan’s coughing fits and crazy antics, the cute nurse somehow takes a liking to him.
Warning/s: unbeta’d, numerous failed attempts at fluff
Notes: Something I saw on tumblr and have been wanting to write ever since. :) This is a mess and I gave the phrase a different context. >_<
It’s embarrassing, to say the least, a man six-foot-two, well-built and in his early twenties, is stuck in bed coughing his lungs out. What’s worse is it seems that his coughing fits always start when the cute male nurse comes in to check up on him.
Yifan doesn’t even know where the hell on earth he got his pneumonia from. But he’s pretty sure coming in to work after catching the flu and visiting his sick friend at the hospital might be some of the reasons or what collectively caused him to be bound in a hospital bed, in a semi-private room he shares with two other guys who not only share the same room but the same fate as well. Unlike Yifan though, these two have regular visitors that they tend not to get bored with the usual flow of people coming in and out to see them. The tall Chinese male, rarely had anyone coming to see him and check up on him. He has only been admitted for a day but it already feels like eternity without someone to talk to. It doesn’t help that his neighbors’ curtains are always drawn for their own privacy.
The boredom is broken though when the week changed and ensured him a new nurse, in exchange for the grumpy middle-aged woman who comes in only to take his vitals and give him his medications, asking how his sleep was or the color of his sputum. Never has he seen himself having such a conversation with anyone before, explaining how the product of his coughs is blood-tinged all the time. Thankfully though, the new nurse breaks the monotony, introducing himself as Yixing, a fellow Chinese. They hit it right off the bat, being comrades, they would usually have their exchanges in their native tongue which made Yifan comfortable around the nurse, who he later finds out is only a year younger than him.
Yifan is not a morning person, so when the time came for Yixing to come in to take his blood pressure, respiratory rate, pulse rate, temperature and regulate the fluids he’s hooked to, he covers himself in the many pillows that he asked Lu Han to retrieve from his place, in hopes to shoo the nurse away and get more sleep.
The patient hears the curtain rings rattle against the metal rod they are looped on but he doesn’t move from beneath the pile of pillows he has buried himself in and waits.
“Yifan?” He hears Yixing’s confused voice, a hint of amusement at the edge of it as he walks closer to the patient’s bed. The day before, Yifan asked him to stop calling him Mr. Wu or Sir because he felt uncomfortable and instructed the nurse to just call him by his first name.
“Fight me.” Yifan suddenly says, pulling the pillow closer to his head to hide himself better. He hears Yixing giggle, the sound ringing in his ears and tickling his imagination. The patient almost pulls the pillow down to get a glimpse of what the nurse looks like but before he gets to do it, Yixing removes the one covering his face and smiles down at him, the dimple that Yifan noticed the day before appearing again on the nurse’s right cheek. He almost reached a hand out to poke it.
“Maybe later.” Yixing places the pillows on the chair before retrieving his sphygmomanometer and the thermometer on Yifan’s bedside table. It was quiet for a while as Yixing pumps air into the cuff before deflating it to check the elder’s blood pressure. He then moves to check Yifan’s pulse rate, dimpling at the elder as his other hand reaches for the thermometer that has started beeping to alert Yixing that it’s done with its job. The nurse then informs Yifan that he still has a fever before he jots down his findings onto the paper on his clipboard before checking the IV hooked to the patient.
“Do you want me to recline your back so you can sit?” Yixing places the clipboard on the bedside table and retrieves the pillows to return them beside Yifan, “You’ll be able to breathe better when you’re upright.” The elder nods and watches Yixing press the button so the part of the bed where his back is will rise slowly. “Breakfast will be brought in soon so I’ll return after about an hour so you can take your meds.” Yixing informs him, pulling the curtains on Yifan’s side of the room so the sunlight can flood in.
“Okay.”
Yixing seems to hesitate as he draws the curtain back, then at the last second he pops his head back in and says, “Don’t ask the orderly to fight you. He might engage you in a brawl.” Yifan colors and nods then the nurse prances away after closing the curtain to check on the other patients under his care.
Yifan thought he was good after four days straight of taking the necessary medications and not having any strenuous activities that may aggravate both his heart condition and his pneumonia. So when Yixing comes in to give him his daily dose he tries to ask him again.
“Fight m-” However, the patient cuts himself off with a start of a coughing fit. It becomes too much to the point that he starts having difficulty breathing which worries Yixing. The nurse, pulls him upright, placing his pillows behind him to prop himself up. Yixing then claps his back and thrusts the tissue box to him while his foot reaches for the trash bin. The younger doesn’t leave until he regains stable breathing and has expelled everything that’s clogging up his airways.
After he has taken his medications, Yixing asks him again if he feels better now that he has expectorated everything. He just nods, more embarrassed of himself now than he has ever been in the twenty-five years of his existence.
“I won’t fight you, you know.” Yixing tells him, when he returns to Yifan’s bed to check up on him again after giving the other patient’s their medicines. He smiles at Yifan, soft and playful before he adds: “Because I know you’ll win.”
Saturday came with Lu Han, Minseok, Zitao and Sehun visiting Yifan along with the oldest couple’s adopted children Jongin and Jongdae. With Yifan being the only patient left in the room, the two others discharged in the middle of the week, the children had lots of room to play with.
Yixing comes in, surprised at the amount of people in the room but still smiles at the patient’s visitors warmly. When the nurse looks at the children, Yifan starts to worry that the younger will ask them to leave but Yixing starts talking to them and playing with them.
“I would suggest not to have the children stay too long,” Yixing says, while ruffling Jongin's hair, “especially Mr. Wu’s condition is contagious and he still hasn’t fully recovered.” The Kim couple nod their heads then Jongdae pipes up.
“I just came to bring Uncle Yifan’s favorite toy,” the kid produces a stuffed alpaca from his backpack which he shows Yixing. Jongin doesn’t seem to be agreeing with his brother as he pulls a toy out of his own backpack.
“That’s not true! Kevin is Uncle’s favorite toy!” This time the younger Kim shows Yixing a red dragon plushie before looking at the patient who is shock frozen on his bed, “Right, uncle?” Yixing giggles at the recent discovery, the tall, muscular patient is actually a softie who likes playing with plushies with his nephews.
“I-I like them both.” Yifan stutters with a blush on his cheeks as the kids place the toys beside him, he can’t even look Yixing in the eyes.
“Visiting hours will end in an hour so make sure to play with Uncle a lot, okay? He gets bored here.” Yixing asks the children, his heart melting as they smile up at him.
“But Uncle Yifan said he doesn’t get bored cause the nurse always comes in to see him.” Jongdae supplies, still smiling up at Yixing.
“Oh, really?” Yixing shoots Yifan a look before returning his gaze to the kids. “What else did Uncle Yifan say?” Lu Han snorts and Sehun seems to be suppressing his own laughter as Zitao clutches at his arm, his face red and almost bursting at the thought of what the children might say.
“He said the nurse’s smile alone can heal him.” Jongin is the one who gives him an answer this time and Zitao doesn’t stop himself from laughing, the sound erupting from his lips once Jongin finishes. This time it is Yixing who blushes at the child’s words.
“Wait, he said the name of the nurse is Yixing,” Jongdae remembers and if Yifan was capable he would have jumped and covered the child’s mouth with one of his large hands. “Oh, oh,” the eyes of the eldest Kim sibling widen when he reads the nurse’s nameplate, “You’re Yixing! Yixing hyung!” The children then jump up to hug the nurse and thank him for taking care of their uncle.
“It is my job.” Yixing smiles at them, ruffling the children’s already unruly hair as they excitedly look from Yixing then to Yifan. “I’m wondering though,” the two kids expectantly wait for him to continue, “why does Uncle Yifan always ask me to fight him?” The patient’s eyes bulge out because he also uses the phrase to his nephews whenever he plays with them and his explanation to them might give Yixing the wrong idea.
“Oh, that,” Jongdae, the older of the two, takes the stead and explains it to Yixing, “Uncle says that when he means to say he likes you.” Yifan just shuts his eyes tight, wishing the ground will open up and swallow him whole. But Yixing’s answer to the kid’s explanation has the patient carefully opening one of his eyes.
“So if I like him I should fight him back?”
The children giggle and give Yixing a pair of thumbs up. The nurse then looks at Yifan with a dimpled smile, its meaning hidden behind his soft brown eyes. Yixing, once again, reminds the patient’s friends about the end of visiting hours before leaving.
Three days after, Yifan gets the news from his attending physician that he is good for discharge, reminding him to finish his course of medication and come back for a follow-up checkup. He can look at it as a good news, as this means he can go back to his job and be social again. However, this also means that if he doesn’t make the effort to visit the hospital then he will not be able to see Yixing in the future.
His favourite nurse comes in the next morning with a coffee cup in hand. He sways on his heels as he informs Yifan that his discharge papers are already being processed. The elder moves about, placing his clothes in his duffel bag in preparation for his leave. When the nurse notices that the elder is not meeting his gaze, busying himself with something else, he places the coffee cup on the bedside table and clears his throat.
“I brought you coffee,” he sounds hopeful but Yifan argues that it can also be just his imagination, “if you need anything I’ll just be at the nurse’s station.” He just hums in reply, still not turning around to face the nurse, checking the pockets of his duffel bag just to keep himself occupied.
When he hears the door close behind Yixing, he heaves a sigh and looks at the bedside table where he knows the nurse placed the drink. His eyes bulge out when he sees a pink sticky note stuck to the corrugated cup sleeve.
Written with a beautiful penmanship is a set of digits that Yifan takes as a cellphone number with Yixing’s name written at the bottom. But what makes his face wear a shit-eating grin even as he leaves the hospital with the note stuck inside his cellphone case are the words written just above the nurse’s contact number, “Fight me?”
Rating: PG
Length: 2k
Summary: In between Yifan’s coughing fits and crazy antics, the cute nurse somehow takes a liking to him.
Warning/s: unbeta’d, numerous failed attempts at fluff
Notes: Something I saw on tumblr and have been wanting to write ever since. :) This is a mess and I gave the phrase a different context. >_<
It’s embarrassing, to say the least, a man six-foot-two, well-built and in his early twenties, is stuck in bed coughing his lungs out. What’s worse is it seems that his coughing fits always start when the cute male nurse comes in to check up on him.
Yifan doesn’t even know where the hell on earth he got his pneumonia from. But he’s pretty sure coming in to work after catching the flu and visiting his sick friend at the hospital might be some of the reasons or what collectively caused him to be bound in a hospital bed, in a semi-private room he shares with two other guys who not only share the same room but the same fate as well. Unlike Yifan though, these two have regular visitors that they tend not to get bored with the usual flow of people coming in and out to see them. The tall Chinese male, rarely had anyone coming to see him and check up on him. He has only been admitted for a day but it already feels like eternity without someone to talk to. It doesn’t help that his neighbors’ curtains are always drawn for their own privacy.
The boredom is broken though when the week changed and ensured him a new nurse, in exchange for the grumpy middle-aged woman who comes in only to take his vitals and give him his medications, asking how his sleep was or the color of his sputum. Never has he seen himself having such a conversation with anyone before, explaining how the product of his coughs is blood-tinged all the time. Thankfully though, the new nurse breaks the monotony, introducing himself as Yixing, a fellow Chinese. They hit it right off the bat, being comrades, they would usually have their exchanges in their native tongue which made Yifan comfortable around the nurse, who he later finds out is only a year younger than him.
Yifan is not a morning person, so when the time came for Yixing to come in to take his blood pressure, respiratory rate, pulse rate, temperature and regulate the fluids he’s hooked to, he covers himself in the many pillows that he asked Lu Han to retrieve from his place, in hopes to shoo the nurse away and get more sleep.
The patient hears the curtain rings rattle against the metal rod they are looped on but he doesn’t move from beneath the pile of pillows he has buried himself in and waits.
“Yifan?” He hears Yixing’s confused voice, a hint of amusement at the edge of it as he walks closer to the patient’s bed. The day before, Yifan asked him to stop calling him Mr. Wu or Sir because he felt uncomfortable and instructed the nurse to just call him by his first name.
“Fight me.” Yifan suddenly says, pulling the pillow closer to his head to hide himself better. He hears Yixing giggle, the sound ringing in his ears and tickling his imagination. The patient almost pulls the pillow down to get a glimpse of what the nurse looks like but before he gets to do it, Yixing removes the one covering his face and smiles down at him, the dimple that Yifan noticed the day before appearing again on the nurse’s right cheek. He almost reached a hand out to poke it.
“Maybe later.” Yixing places the pillows on the chair before retrieving his sphygmomanometer and the thermometer on Yifan’s bedside table. It was quiet for a while as Yixing pumps air into the cuff before deflating it to check the elder’s blood pressure. He then moves to check Yifan’s pulse rate, dimpling at the elder as his other hand reaches for the thermometer that has started beeping to alert Yixing that it’s done with its job. The nurse then informs Yifan that he still has a fever before he jots down his findings onto the paper on his clipboard before checking the IV hooked to the patient.
“Do you want me to recline your back so you can sit?” Yixing places the clipboard on the bedside table and retrieves the pillows to return them beside Yifan, “You’ll be able to breathe better when you’re upright.” The elder nods and watches Yixing press the button so the part of the bed where his back is will rise slowly. “Breakfast will be brought in soon so I’ll return after about an hour so you can take your meds.” Yixing informs him, pulling the curtains on Yifan’s side of the room so the sunlight can flood in.
“Okay.”
Yixing seems to hesitate as he draws the curtain back, then at the last second he pops his head back in and says, “Don’t ask the orderly to fight you. He might engage you in a brawl.” Yifan colors and nods then the nurse prances away after closing the curtain to check on the other patients under his care.
Yifan thought he was good after four days straight of taking the necessary medications and not having any strenuous activities that may aggravate both his heart condition and his pneumonia. So when Yixing comes in to give him his daily dose he tries to ask him again.
“Fight m-” However, the patient cuts himself off with a start of a coughing fit. It becomes too much to the point that he starts having difficulty breathing which worries Yixing. The nurse, pulls him upright, placing his pillows behind him to prop himself up. Yixing then claps his back and thrusts the tissue box to him while his foot reaches for the trash bin. The younger doesn’t leave until he regains stable breathing and has expelled everything that’s clogging up his airways.
After he has taken his medications, Yixing asks him again if he feels better now that he has expectorated everything. He just nods, more embarrassed of himself now than he has ever been in the twenty-five years of his existence.
“I won’t fight you, you know.” Yixing tells him, when he returns to Yifan’s bed to check up on him again after giving the other patient’s their medicines. He smiles at Yifan, soft and playful before he adds: “Because I know you’ll win.”
Saturday came with Lu Han, Minseok, Zitao and Sehun visiting Yifan along with the oldest couple’s adopted children Jongin and Jongdae. With Yifan being the only patient left in the room, the two others discharged in the middle of the week, the children had lots of room to play with.
Yixing comes in, surprised at the amount of people in the room but still smiles at the patient’s visitors warmly. When the nurse looks at the children, Yifan starts to worry that the younger will ask them to leave but Yixing starts talking to them and playing with them.
“I would suggest not to have the children stay too long,” Yixing says, while ruffling Jongin's hair, “especially Mr. Wu’s condition is contagious and he still hasn’t fully recovered.” The Kim couple nod their heads then Jongdae pipes up.
“I just came to bring Uncle Yifan’s favorite toy,” the kid produces a stuffed alpaca from his backpack which he shows Yixing. Jongin doesn’t seem to be agreeing with his brother as he pulls a toy out of his own backpack.
“That’s not true! Kevin is Uncle’s favorite toy!” This time the younger Kim shows Yixing a red dragon plushie before looking at the patient who is shock frozen on his bed, “Right, uncle?” Yixing giggles at the recent discovery, the tall, muscular patient is actually a softie who likes playing with plushies with his nephews.
“I-I like them both.” Yifan stutters with a blush on his cheeks as the kids place the toys beside him, he can’t even look Yixing in the eyes.
“Visiting hours will end in an hour so make sure to play with Uncle a lot, okay? He gets bored here.” Yixing asks the children, his heart melting as they smile up at him.
“But Uncle Yifan said he doesn’t get bored cause the nurse always comes in to see him.” Jongdae supplies, still smiling up at Yixing.
“Oh, really?” Yixing shoots Yifan a look before returning his gaze to the kids. “What else did Uncle Yifan say?” Lu Han snorts and Sehun seems to be suppressing his own laughter as Zitao clutches at his arm, his face red and almost bursting at the thought of what the children might say.
“He said the nurse’s smile alone can heal him.” Jongin is the one who gives him an answer this time and Zitao doesn’t stop himself from laughing, the sound erupting from his lips once Jongin finishes. This time it is Yixing who blushes at the child’s words.
“Wait, he said the name of the nurse is Yixing,” Jongdae remembers and if Yifan was capable he would have jumped and covered the child’s mouth with one of his large hands. “Oh, oh,” the eyes of the eldest Kim sibling widen when he reads the nurse’s nameplate, “You’re Yixing! Yixing hyung!” The children then jump up to hug the nurse and thank him for taking care of their uncle.
“It is my job.” Yixing smiles at them, ruffling the children’s already unruly hair as they excitedly look from Yixing then to Yifan. “I’m wondering though,” the two kids expectantly wait for him to continue, “why does Uncle Yifan always ask me to fight him?” The patient’s eyes bulge out because he also uses the phrase to his nephews whenever he plays with them and his explanation to them might give Yixing the wrong idea.
“Oh, that,” Jongdae, the older of the two, takes the stead and explains it to Yixing, “Uncle says that when he means to say he likes you.” Yifan just shuts his eyes tight, wishing the ground will open up and swallow him whole. But Yixing’s answer to the kid’s explanation has the patient carefully opening one of his eyes.
“So if I like him I should fight him back?”
The children giggle and give Yixing a pair of thumbs up. The nurse then looks at Yifan with a dimpled smile, its meaning hidden behind his soft brown eyes. Yixing, once again, reminds the patient’s friends about the end of visiting hours before leaving.
Three days after, Yifan gets the news from his attending physician that he is good for discharge, reminding him to finish his course of medication and come back for a follow-up checkup. He can look at it as a good news, as this means he can go back to his job and be social again. However, this also means that if he doesn’t make the effort to visit the hospital then he will not be able to see Yixing in the future.
His favourite nurse comes in the next morning with a coffee cup in hand. He sways on his heels as he informs Yifan that his discharge papers are already being processed. The elder moves about, placing his clothes in his duffel bag in preparation for his leave. When the nurse notices that the elder is not meeting his gaze, busying himself with something else, he places the coffee cup on the bedside table and clears his throat.
“I brought you coffee,” he sounds hopeful but Yifan argues that it can also be just his imagination, “if you need anything I’ll just be at the nurse’s station.” He just hums in reply, still not turning around to face the nurse, checking the pockets of his duffel bag just to keep himself occupied.
When he hears the door close behind Yixing, he heaves a sigh and looks at the bedside table where he knows the nurse placed the drink. His eyes bulge out when he sees a pink sticky note stuck to the corrugated cup sleeve.
Written with a beautiful penmanship is a set of digits that Yifan takes as a cellphone number with Yixing’s name written at the bottom. But what makes his face wear a shit-eating grin even as he leaves the hospital with the note stuck inside his cellphone case are the words written just above the nurse’s contact number, “Fight me?”