Mercy Street AU- Master List (3/4)
Title: Work to Do
Characters: AkonxMayuri
Timeline: N/A
Rating: PG-15
Summary: Life as a doctor isn’t easy.
A/N: Um. No comment. *dies*
He’d had a bad day.
A traffic accident on the way to work had caused him to delay forty extra minutes than he should have, sitting in the car with Akon jabbering away about how some poor bastard had probably smashed his skull in and how cruel it was for so many of these impatient people behind the wheels of their own cars to never stop and think about what that might mean, the fact that on any other given day it could be them and really they should try to be more understanding instead of blowing their horns at every possible moment and generally acting surly and thoroughly unlikable.
Mayuri suspects that the mouthy little bastard was just thrilled at the prospect of being later for work than normal and having a legitimate excuse for it for once.
They’d gotten to work and he’d promptly slipped on the just-been-mopped floor two steps into the lobby, probably would have landed aching and winded on his back if Akon hadn’t been right behind him, breaking his fall just a little bit by being the one to impact with the floor.
Nonplussed, the spiky-haired idiot had smirked up at him, two arms around Kurotsuchi’s waist. “If I’d known, sir, that you were this anxious, I could have topped you off during the car ride over.”
Two passing nurses snickered to each other, but stopped to help both surgeons up, though Mayuri would have preferred it if they’d kept walking if only for the fact that he wouldn’t have had to see the knowing look in their eyes as they’d helped them.
After that he’d been called down to his turn working the Free Clinic, which everyone knows only attracts hypochondriacs and other such freak shows.
“No, Mr. Smith, I can without a shadow of a doubt, diagnose that mole as non-cancerous without the help of any full body scan. Please put your pants back on.”
“Your child only seems to be suffering from a case of an insufferable personality, Mrs. Allen. I’d suggest a good physical beating to help solve the problem.”
“Yes, yes. Your skirt is very pretty, Mr. Thompson. However as this isn’t an issue of medical concern if you could please… right. I’ll come back once you put that back on.”
“It’s acne.”
“No, I’m sorry, we don’t look at animals here.”
“It’s not a genetic muscle soreness, like you suspect, Shindo-san. I’m sure once you become less… disgustingly obese… your legs will protest less when you try walking on them.”
And so on, and so on.
Right before lunch, he was vomited on.
Which, he supposes, was far better than the time he’d been defecated on during work in the Free Clinic, but that was happily in the past and thus a slightly faded memory in comparison.
The vomit had been decidedly unpleasant-he’d borrowed a fresh lab coat from the supplies closet and missed his lunch break trying to get his badge and stethoscope sterile again.
By the time he returned, Akon was waiting outside his office for him.
“I was concerned,” the younger surgeon started, and Mayuri almost gave pause at that, until the moment was ruined when the imbecile added, “but then I heard you got puked on. Then I was amused,” with a lopsided grin.
“I have work to do,” Mayuri had announced dryly, shouldering past him towards his own office.
“Mmmm,” Akon had responded, grabbing the other doctor’s arm and pressing his lunch-heated for him already-into his hands. “If you can still stomach it after your little, encounter,” he’d said slyly, simply.
Mayuri had managed not to throw it at his impertinent face, glaring at the younger man’s spiky head as he’d shoved his hands into his pockets and strolled off, smirking.
Mayuri had gotten exactly twenty minutes of work done while eating his lunch, due to the fact that his pager had chosen to go off halfway through the meal. A code.
He’d gotten up and rushed towards the room but when he’d arrived Akon already had the situation under control-hero of the day.
The younger doctor gets the poor bastard’s heart started again and before even a second’s passed he grins, looks up at Mayuri, and says, “Go finish your food.”
Damned upstart.
The next time Mayuri’s paged-an hour or two later-the patient seizes up and he’s smacked rather severely in the face by a flailing hand before the nurses are able to get the young lady under control.
He also gets spit on in the process.
When he leaves the room, it’s an hour after he’s supposed to have clocked out for his shift and he can feel the disruption of his plans throughout his whole body, come in the form of weariness.
Pity because he’s got an extra night shift tonight at three, but he supposes if he goes home now he can get some sleep and drive back in time for that. Hopefully it will be quiet.
Akon’s been waiting for him outside his office for the hour he’s been late, but he looks unperturbed as always, even perhaps a big smug even though he’s been sitting around doing nothing for the past sixty minutes or more.
Probably because he doesn’t have to be back here until eight tomorrow morning.
“About time!” is all he says when Mayuri meets him, but he’s no more insolent than that during the drive back to the apartment.
They eat dinner in silence-the brat doesn’t go out of his way to chatter loudly to Nemu like usual-- and Mayuri doesn’t know whether Akon is plotting something or is genuinely being considerate for the first time in his life. He doesn’t give it much thought, finishes his pasta and retires to bed right after, setting the alarm for two am so he can be back to the hospital on time.
Akon pads unapologetically into the room after him and predictably, won’t stop touching him in bed.
“I have another shift later tonight,” Mayuri protests, wearily.
“Mmmmhmmmm,” Akon responds, and licks his throat.
Mayuri sighs and doesn’t waste energy fighting, closes his eyes and lets Akon exhaust him even more than the work day had already because at this point he’s resigned to the whole twenty-four hours being a lost cause.
He falls asleep-dead tired-- to the feeling of a warm, wet cloth on his stomach and vows to put rat poison in the imbecile’s food the first chance he gets.
When he wakes up the clock on his nightstand reads 7:30 am.
He panics.
Checks the alarm.
Turned off.
He hasn’t felt so irresponsible about anything in his life since…well, finding out about Nemu, he supposes.
Feeling something akin to dread, he quickly gets out of bed and dons his pants and shirt, crossing the room to pick the phone up out of its cradle so he can call and demand why no one phoned him in for his shift.
A knock on his door stills him momentarily however, and a clipped, “Yes?” comes out of his mouth before he can stop himself.
Nemu peeks into the door a moment later. “Breakfast is ready if you’d like, father. I just need to reheat it.”
“Stupid girl,” he growls, moodily. “I was supposed to be up for an overnight shift at three and…”
“Akon-san went.”
Pause.
“What?”
She looks down, but there might just be the ghost of an amused smile on her face. No doubt that pointy-haired dolt’s influence.
“Akon-san went,” she repeats, obediently. “He um,” she looks up, towards his nightstand by the alarm clock. “He left you a note, he said?”
Mayuri scowls. “Hn,” he murmurs, and is across the room again, grabbing the piece of paper he hadn't initially seen in his near-panic and regarding it in an accusatory manner.
Age before beauty.
-Akon.
Mayuri sighs when he reads it-a long suffering sound from very deep in his chest.
He crumples the note up and promptly tosses it into the trash.
Turns to Nemu then, who has returned her gaze down towards the floor, teeth fiddling with her bottom lip in what he assumes is an attempt to hold back laughter.
And he can’t help but think that she really is learning to be rather insolent from that criminally undisciplined young idiot.
He sighs to himself.
Right.
First thing’s first.
“Nemu, breakfast.”
“Yes, father.”
She slips out the door and he stares after her for a moment, before moving to get properly dressed for work.
Breakfast first, followed by a brief lecture on impertinence to the girl, and then he’s got to be off to relieve that idiot from his shift because Akon’s less than competent on a good day, let alone during a double shift that includes an all nighter.
After that….
… the rat poison.
The thought almost makes Mayuri look forward to the day.
END
Title: Evolutionarily Superior
Characters: MayurixAkon
Timeline: N/A
Rating: PG-15
Summary: Mayuri is a far superior intellect.
A/N: ARRRGH. I’M SO SORRY.
He’s tired of insolence, tired of the wicked smirks and over-confident hands, of the snorted laughter at his expense and the looks of smug satisfaction that never fail to grace the arrogant bastard’s lips when he’s got the upper hand, when he’s looking down at Mayuri and thinking the world belongs to him.
Mayuri won’t tolerate that sort of disrespect anymore.
Not in his home, not in front of his daughter, his colleagues, his patients.
Enough is enough.
He’s not as large as the younger man, not as strong perhaps, but then again, neither is man in comparison to any variety of filthy wild animal.
There’s always the advantage of being more intelligent, and that’s what counts in the end, makes for jaguar and leopard skins strung on hunters’ walls rather than (for the most part) the flesh and bone of humans lining the stomachs of dumber beasts.
Luckily for Mayuri, the particular beast he’s in pursuit of is painfully stupid compared to most.
Dumb enough to be made to come to him, practically self-trussed and ready to be slaughtered.
Right on cue, the door to his office bursts open and a not-happy looking Akon storms in, holding a handful of papers aloft accusatorily.
“What’s the meaning of this?” he demands, waving the papers at Mayuri like they mean something.
“It means you still have a job,” Mayuri responds dryly, pausing only a second in his work to say that before looking back down to his reports.
“I understand how you might have a problem with this concept, so I’ll say it slowly-this schedule? Not humanly possible, sir. The rest of us aren’t robots like you are, you know.”
“You’ve energy enough for other things,” Mayuri snorts. “Put it to an actual purpose and do something useful. The budget cuts have required that I cut staff and that means longer shifts for everyone.”
Akon scowls. “I formally protest.”
“I formally acknowledge that every time you speak, it sounds like a strange, incessant buzzing in my ear.”
Akon glowers. “They say hearing is the first to go.”
“In that case I’ll welcome my old age with open arms when it saves me of having to listen to you whine like an insolent child.”
“I hate you.”
“Buzzing. I just hear buzzing.”
Akon mutters something under his breath before turning around and stomping out of the office.
Mayuri watches him go and leans back in his chair, feeling immensely satisfied.
It’ll take some time, but he’s always been a patient man.
The traps have been laid.
~~~~~
Seven days later and there are dark circles under the younger man’s eyes, a mug of coffee a constant companion in his hand. Mayuri is tired too, but amusement at Akon’s seething indignant rage over the whole predicament bolsters him, and on the morning Akon thinks he’s scheduled to arrive for a six am shift Mayuri ties both of his arms and legs to the bedpost with his belt and some neckties before he wakes the bastard up by covering his nose and his mouth until he realizes, somewhere in the depths of slumber, that he’s not breathing anymore.
Eyes spring open and arms tug reflexively forward in an attempt to clear whatever is obstructing the breathing passages at that, but are found to be restrained by good leather, Italian silk, and a carefully calculated series of knots.
“Morning,” Mayuri greets flatly, before pulling his hands back and letting Akon breathe again.
Akon, eyes wide and body weakened enough from the twelve hours he’d pulled six hours ago, yanks at his bonds futilely. “What the hell…”
“I won’t abide by any more disrespect,” Mayuri starts slowly, clinically. “The rudeness, the arrogance, the insults. The fact that you grew up without anyone to teach you the finer points of civil behavior excuses you from things I wouldn’t abide by in my daughter, but even with that leniency your ill-breeding has come to try my patience more than even I’m willing to endure, Akon.”
Too shocked to speak properly perhaps, Akon sputters. “What do…why…”
Something about the lost look in the younger man’s eyes is infinitely appealing right now, the complete wiping away of smugness, of insolence, of over-confidence exactly what Mayuri had been hoping for.
A proud, painfully stupid beast caught in a simple trap.
The thought, indeed the advantage, are both intriguing to Mayuri, makes him wonder at the strange thrill he seems to be experiencing while the spiky-headed idiot gapes and gawks and generally makes a fool of himself trying to piece things together in his sleep-deprived rage.
Before he can stop himself, Mayuri finds himself leaning forward and kissing Akon-hard and sharp-- for once at the advantage in such an encounter such that he can relish the turning of tables, thinking that it’s about time the younger man experienced something like the helplessness Mayuri is constantly subject to under his ministrations.
“Unpleasant. It’s unpleasant,” he hisses when they pull apart.
Akon licks his lips at that, still looking rather shell shocked by the whole ordeal. “Huh…” he says, and trails off with eyes locked on Mayuri’s.
Still shocked yes, but a lot less hesitant than he should have been.
Mayuri pauses, eyes him.
“Well?” Akon asks, voice just a bit raspy, but solid enough. His lips are still moist and his breathing is a bit faster now than it had even been when Mayuri cut off his air supply moments ago. “What are you going to do, sensei?”
The older doctor frowns- not the reaction he’d been aiming for. Far too curious and not horrified enough, despite the sudden reversal of fortune.
Mayuri had thought that stripping Akon of control, of that upper hand the younger man was constantly throwing back into his face, would show him, would settle things.
He hadn’t expected curiosity, daresay, anticipation.
He makes a dissatisfied noise in the back of his throat when he realizes exactly how willing the younger man seems all of a sudden, perhaps something only possible after the hellish schedule Mayuri had put him through in the last week due to the vibrancy of youth.
Disappointing.
Mayuri sighs. “Not right at all,” he says to himself, and stands up off the bed to think for a moment.
He almost misses it as he moves, but when he stands there is something like panic suddenly on Akon’s face again.
“The hell are you going?” the younger man demands, misinterpreting Mayuri’s movement away as abandonment in a time of… need.
Kurotsuchi pauses at that, reworks his theories around in his head.
Oh.
Oh.
Leave it to dumb beasts to tip their hands suddenly, to present a large, obvious target of a weakness through which they may be exploited.
Driven by base needs, these nonintellectual forms of life.
Need to feed. Need to sleep. Need to mate.
Mayuri almost smiles again.
Turns to leave.
“Get some more sleep. You don’t actually have a shift today,” he says, and closes the door behind him.
“Hey!! What the hell? Don’t…argh, at least untie me, you sadistic bastard! Inhumane! This is completely inhumane! I’m not above breaking this bed!!”
He sounds almost pained.
“Buzzing,” Mayuri reminds himself in an attempt to dispel the strange feeling of amusement in his chest as he gathers the morning paper from its place on the counter where Nemu has prepared it, throwing his daughter a look that tells her to remain silent as she fixes breakfast for them both.
By the time Akon manages to free himself, his eggs are cold and Mayuri’s gone.
At work, the nursing staff, in awe, can’t help but speculate as to what Akon-sensei might have done to leave Kurotsuchi-sensei in such an uncharacteristically good mood this morning.
END
Title: Source Material
Characters: AkonxMayu
Timeline: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Akon reads up on some interesting stuff.
A/N: Written in ten minutes with no specific idea in mind to commemorate, in a manner of speaking, the birth of a brand new AkonxMayu. GO SID! GO SHINI!
“My,” Akon snorts, and eyes Mayuri for a moment before turning back to whatever lascivious reading material he’s decided to latch onto for this week.
Mayuri ignores him.
“Oh…he certainly had that coming to him,” Akon chortles a few minutes later, positively aglow with youthful, unholy glee.
Glee that annoys the other inhabitant of the room to no end.
Mayuri twitches and pauses in his endless report-writing. “I’m working here. If you must read that garbage do it out of my vicinity.”
Akon smirks. “I’m merely sampling,” he declares, brightly. “This latest account is of how an anal, egotistical, vaguely maniacal misanthrope of a college chemistry professor was thoroughly ravished and thus redeemed by a resourceful, rather dashing young first year student. You should have a look.”
Mayuri makes a face. “Utter trash,” he reiterates. “And reading material fit only for gossipy, giggling females.”
Akon chuckles. “Perhaps, but it’s my bounden duty to review this piece of literary… well, smut, and stamp it either with approval or warning.”
Mayuri snorts. “Your duty to who?”
“Your daughter of course,” Akon declares, happily. “I can’t very well give her a book as a gift and not have it properly studied for high points and low points beforehand. What if some of this smut is physiologically impossible? What if they practice poor habits during intercourse? What if,” he adds, practically alight with possibility now, “they commit the heinous crime of letting the anal older bastard top?”
Mayuri blinks. “You are forbidden to give that to Nemu.”
Akon mock-pouts “But I’m so close to rounding out her collection of the series for her.” Pause. “Though,” he begins, slyly, “I suppose I could keep this one for us if you’re so inclined. I really think you ought to read this last story. You might identify.”
Mayuri glares. Stands, and with his paperwork, heads to his room. “Foolishness,” he mutters, nudging the door closed behind him with an elbow because his hands are both full.
It doesn’t close all the way unfortunately, and for a moment, Akon eyes the door in all it’s slightly-ajar glory.
Well. According to his research-he flips the pages of the book he’d been reading anticipatorily-that’s just as good as a verbal invitation right there.
Setting his (soon to be Nemu’s) source of reference aside for the time being, Akon stands and pads towards the bedroom after Mayuri.
With luck, he’ll eventually have gathered enough material to submit to the next publication of short stories in that series himself.
He’s rather certain that he’ll be accepted, given what he’s got in mind.
Seducing anal retentive, egotistical, vaguely maniacal misanthropes never seems to get old with readers, after all. Truly a classic.
Besides, as a resourceful, rather dashing and good humored young man himself, it’s practically his responsibility to behave as such and do his best to redeem his anal bastard as often and consistently as possible.
That decided, he slips into the bedroom after Mayuri, intent on doing his duty to the best of his ability (and energy).
Knowing Mayuri, he’ll require quite a bit of redeeming.
END
Title: A Cold Place
Characters: Ishida, Mayuri
Timeline: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It’s funny, the things we choose to remember.
A/N: This was me trying to write my Ganjyu app. No, REALLY. I honestly don’t know what happened. -_-;; Totally not edited cuz I have class tomorrow morning. SHIT.
Ishida Uryuu hates hospitals.
He remembers the smell of them, the cold, stark, empty feel that comes with whitewashed walls and sterilized rooms. He remembers the constant murmur of quiet chatter, the sideways looks of nurses as they’d passed him by, not saying a word as an eleven-year-old boy sat in a chair in the waiting room alone, dangling his legs idly and staring at the ground.
That night had been the opening night of his fifth grade play, and his grandfather had been so proud.
Uryuu had been Robin Hood.
They’d spent hours and hours sewing the costume together, and Grandfather had made him a smart little bow and a neat quiver of arrows to complete his outfit when they were done. He’d remembered every single one of his lines and the feather in his cap hadn’t fallen out once, despite its refusals to cooperate during rehearsals.
It had been after the last curtain and they’d been driving home, taking a small detour before that to go and get ice cream.
His grandfather had promised to let him get a double scoop sundae of whatever flavor he wanted with extra whipped cream, had smiled at his grandson and said they wouldn’t tell his father about the treat afterwards. A secret for just the two of them.
A car full of Hollows escaping a convenience store robbery had slammed into the front of their station wagon just as Uryuu had been about to say, “Chocolate-chip cookie-dough!” in response. He’d been hopelessly overwhelmed with the sound of screeching tires and blaring horns, and he doesn’t think that Grandfather had ever heard him answer.
A scratch on his arm and a burn mark in the shape of a cross on his chest had been the only injuries he’d sustained, but they hadn’t even hurt. Or he can’t remember if they did, rather. What he does remember is, ironically enough, the worst part of the whole thing, when he’d been forced to hold the strange police-officer’s hand while he’d watched them cart his Grandfather away from the accident scene in a stretcher, bleeding and shaking and screaming, “Uryuu! Uryuu!” over and over again.
He’d sat in the hospital after they’d patched him up and told him what a brave boy he was between those shifty, sideways glances the hospital workers liked to throw him every now and again, and he’d strained to listen past the dull murmur that constantly bounded off the walls like a phantom conversation in that place, hoping he’d hear Grandfather’s voice again under it all, calm and laughing like he always was.
He remembers the grumpy-faced doctor who had strode by after a while, the one who had been perhaps young at the time but whose severe frown made it difficult to tell either eway.
“Kurotsuchi-sensei, please,” a nurse had begged. “We’ve just gotten a bad car crash and there are four victims being prepped for major surgery now. You’re the best doctor we have here tonight!”
Uryuu remembers looking up then, blinking at the stern-faced doctor who had given a shuddering sigh at the information like he was experiencing something as inconsequential as the discovery of something foul smelling in his kitchen that needed tossing. The slim man had tucked a plain cardboard box more securely under his arm before looking at the nurse in a long-suffering manner. “I’m no good to you now,” he’d said dully, almost bored as he’d donned his coat. “They’ll take care of it.”
“Kurotsuchi-sensei, I know you’ve just come off of a twelve hour shift but…”
“The matter is closed,” he’d said then, as Uryuu had listened, still kicking his feet back and forth in his chair and trying to find his Grandfather’s voice amongst the quiet, constant noise.
And then the cold-looking man had chanced to look at him for a moment, the slight, sideways shift of eyes to the little boy in the chair.
“Hn,” he’d said, like he’d seen sad-faced children many, many times in his life already and found it more irritating than heartbreaking. “I’m leaving.”
And then he’d walked past Uryuu without another look, without another thought, the heels of his shoes making neat clicking noises on the bleached tile floor as he left with a briefcase in one hand and a cardboard box tucked under his arm.
Uryuu remembers every small detail about that man today, even if he can’t remember Grandfather’s laughter over the pained screams of “Uryuu! Uryuu!” that had been the very last things Ishida Souken had said to him on this earth.
Sometime later another doctor had come out, covered in blood, and looked at him with another sideways glance, before sighing and turning around to leave.
A nurse whose face had been full of pity gave him a lollipop and told him his father was on his way.
It had been blue and stained his lips when he ate it.
He remembers how, as it had gotten thinner and thinner in his mouth, it cut his tongue.
When Ryuuken arrived he’d looked tired and irritated, the vein on his forehead throbbing just a bit, like it did sometimes, when Uryuu got a ninety-eight percent instead of one hundred on his last math test.
“I’m his father,” Ryuuken had said, and didn’t even spare a look at blue-lipped Uryuu.
The nurse had looked at Ryuuken then, full of regret.
“I’m sorry, we did everything we could but…”
“I see,” Ryuuken said, and then turned, finally, to face his son. “Let’s go, Uryuu. Throw that filthy thing away.”
Uryuu remembers obeying on instinct, as well as the taste of sugar and blood on his tongue. “Father…”
“You have school tomorrow morning,” Ryuuken had said, and put his hand on Uryuu’s shoulder to guide him out. “Thank you,” he’d added out of courtesy to the nurse, glancing at her over his shoulder as he’d steered his son towards the hospital exit. “I’ll contact you in the morning to lay the matter to rest.”
Uryuu remembers straining to listen as he’d gotten farther and farther away, trying to find something past the constant reverberation of meaningless sound at the hospital that night, and find Grandfather’s laughter because he’d been certain it was there somewhere, that it was just being smothered under all that disinfectant.
In the end he hadn’t heard it though, and his clearest memory of that night is still, to this day, how surprised he’d felt when he realized that Kurotsuchi-sensei and his father sounded almost exactly the same.
Consequently, Ishida Uryuu hates hospitals- cold and stark and inevitably lonely, the place that stole Grandfather’s voice from him.
He also hates the cold and stark he’d found inside the hospital walls that night as well, the voices he had been able to hear. The ones undeniably quieter than Grandfather’s but overwhelming all the same.
Ishida Uryuu hates doctors.
END
Title: A Cold Face
Characters: Maryuri, Ishida
Timeline: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The flipside of “A Cold Place.”
A/N: Once again, Ganjyu App is a no go. I FAIL. Also, no edits because I hate myself and still have 25 pages of some stupid article to read before class tomorrow. SHIT.
His footsteps are weary and he feels less than clean after twelve hours non-stop in this place, working, working, working constantly amidst a rolling, disgusting wave of nauseous humanity. Loud and endless and grating on his nerves every second he’s forced to listen to them. But he’s done for now, moves as quickly and efficiently as he can despite the tired ache in his bones, knows that if he lingers here that light on the wall will invariably go off and the ambulances will call in, will report some ridiculous four-car pile up and send in a dozen screaming, unsalvageable bodies broken beyond repair and twice as many angry relatives with angry lawyers who he’s in no mood to talk to, to listen to.
Part of the job, perhaps, and he doesn’t mind it too often because he’s becoming good at ignoring the things that irritate him. Just a buzzing, buzzing, buzzing in his ear at most, when he has the patience and fortitude to tune it out from the mainstream flow of his thoughts.
It’s not so bad when he does that, he supposes.
He’d been called not long ago however, his fortitude disrupted the moment he’d been forced to endure listening to a pathetic, weak-sounding voice on the phone that said, “I’m sorry, father. I’ve had an accident and….it broke.”
He makes a sound of discontent at the memory, but doesn’t let himself get riled about it because there’s no basis to.
He makes for certain allowances for Nemu because she is young and because he doesn’t find her particularly bright as far as children her age go. So he isn’t angry right now so much as annoyed, as she’s never broken her pump before today. Though it creates a bit of a problem as he thinks about what other stupid things the girl might do that she’s never done before given that she no longer has insulin pumping into her body in the constant, steady flow she has become accustomed to throughout her short life.
He won’t tolerate her breaking the equipment she needs to survive ever again, but as this is the first time and she is only thirteen, he won’t punish her severely for it, will sit her down and lecture her about the importance of taking care of the things she needs because he won’t be home all the time to watch her, to coddle her.
Because he doesn’t want her to call him, bother him at work when she knows he has other things to do, that he already has to put up with so much distasteful noise and people and stupidity that the least she can do is try not to provide him with even more when he returns home.
She should understand by now, what he has to put up with to put food on the table and a roof of her head. At her age she should at least be marginally self-sufficient. But then again, he makes certain allowances because she’s still relatively young, because he doesn’t find her all that bright as far as children her age go.
So he simply sighs in a long-suffering manner and tucks the box with the replacement pump under his arm, a purchase made from one of the storage rooms here earlier, though he hates to have to go about it like this. It all stinks of something like failing to follow proper procedure, using his connections as a doctor here to an unfair advantage maybe.
But it can’t be helped, and Nemu will be talked to if nothing else, for her carelessness.
As long as she understands that he won’t tolerate this same mistake twice, the same idiotic words telling him of the same idiotic incident, then this might even be a worthwhile inconvenience if only for the lesson it will provide her for the future.
He packs up his briefcase then, puts the box with her new insulin pump under his arm. It’s time to go home, she’d called two hours ago and had sounded fine if hesitant, and while he doubts anything horribly dangerous might have occurred in that short amount of time, there’s still the vague possibility that she’d been lying to him on the phone out of fear when he’d inquired as to how she’d been feeling, in which case he would seriously consider her more trouble than she was worth. Lying is unacceptable.
He supposes he’ll be home soon enough to see for himself, though.
But before he can even remove his identification card from the inside pocket of his lab coat, the alarms go off.
He groans to himself then, and feels something like a headache beginning to form around the area of his temples when he hears the loud, rude noises of people suddenly bursting into action, of voices previously subdued coming forth without restraint in the heat of panic.
It never fails. One thing to deal with after another and as far as he knows his daughter could be splayed out on the floor of his home right now, in one of the advanced stages of diabetic shock because she’s never once been without her insulin pump before and might have done something stupid in the interim.
He clenches his teeth at the infernal noise that suddenly spills over this quiet haven, the sound interrupting the ritual of his leaving. Hospitals should be ever quiet in his opinion, silent at the best of times. Yet here it is suddenly, the chaos he loathes caused by human carelessness and/or stupidity, all of it forcibly dragged from the outside world into this place, his neat, clean atmosphere. It is a chaos that will undoubtedly make his leaving here more difficult than he wants to deal with right now.
There won’t just be the sound of his shoes clicking neatly against the linoleum as he leaves anymore, but rather, the sound of the nurses’ shouts, other doctors’ orders, someone grabbing his arm just as he’s about to leave and beg him to stay just a little bit longer, there’s been a shooting, a car wreck, a fire, a gang fight and they need his help.
He doesn’t have time to humor them right now, to be the heroic young doctor and stay behind to desperately work towards saving the lives of people that right at this very moment, mean little to nothing to him.
He’s weary, and there are pressing matters at home to attend to now that he’s fulfilled his duty here for the time being.
He makes it as far as the main stretch of hallway leading to the exit before predictably; he is stopped by a harried-looking nurse.
“Kurotsuchi-sensei, please,” she starts, without even greeting him properly first. “We’ve just gotten a bad car crash and there are four victims being prepped for major surgery now. You’re the best doctor we have here tonight!”
He sighs to himself again, the second or third time since he’d gotten that quiet-voiced phone call, and tucks the cardboard box more securely under his arm before looking at the nurse in a long-suffering manner. “I’m no good to you now,” he says plainly, clearly tired as he takes his coat from where it had been draped across his arm and moves to put it on in a physical declaration of his full intent to leave right now. “They’ll take care of it.”
“Kurotsuchi-sensei, I know you’ve just come off of a twelve hour shift but…”
“The matter is closed,” he says then, wanting nothing more than to leave this noisy atmosphere before his headache gets worse, before another, less quiet and more panicky call comes from the girl at home who doesn’t know what to do because she’s young and inexperienced and perhaps, slower than other children her age.
Her eyes shift sideways then, in vague resignation, towards a place in his periphery. By instinct his gaze follows hers, alights on an aimless looking little boy with glasses who’s sitting in the waiting room, dangling his legs. He manages to catch the boy’s eye for a moment and wonders why there’s something about the delicate features he’s looking at that seems familiar.
But that’s neither here nor there-foolishness, really, and it’s time for him to go home before the incessant noise here makes his headache even worse, putting him in danger when he gets behind the wheel of his car.
“Hn,” he grunts to himself dismissively, before turning to go, to really, really go now. “I’m leaving.”
He turns and does exactly that.
And as he walks out towards the hospital doors, he ignores the echoes of panic behind him, clenching a plain cardboard box under his arm like its presence reassures him of something, he doesn’t know what.
He reaches his car and puts the box to rest beside him in the passenger seat, right on top of his black briefcase. He eyes it for a second before he starts his car, reaching into his pocket to pull out his cell phone to check the display.
No missed calls.
At that he puts the phone back and moves to put his seatbelt on and rubs his temples for a moment before sighing one last time to himself.
He starts the engine.
And as he drives home he outlines in his head, all the things he is going to say to Nemu about responsibility and carelessness when he gets back.
She really is a stupid child sometimes.
END
Characters: AkonxMayuri
Timeline: N/A
Rating: PG-15
Summary: Life as a doctor isn’t easy.
A/N: Um. No comment. *dies*
He’d had a bad day.
A traffic accident on the way to work had caused him to delay forty extra minutes than he should have, sitting in the car with Akon jabbering away about how some poor bastard had probably smashed his skull in and how cruel it was for so many of these impatient people behind the wheels of their own cars to never stop and think about what that might mean, the fact that on any other given day it could be them and really they should try to be more understanding instead of blowing their horns at every possible moment and generally acting surly and thoroughly unlikable.
Mayuri suspects that the mouthy little bastard was just thrilled at the prospect of being later for work than normal and having a legitimate excuse for it for once.
They’d gotten to work and he’d promptly slipped on the just-been-mopped floor two steps into the lobby, probably would have landed aching and winded on his back if Akon hadn’t been right behind him, breaking his fall just a little bit by being the one to impact with the floor.
Nonplussed, the spiky-haired idiot had smirked up at him, two arms around Kurotsuchi’s waist. “If I’d known, sir, that you were this anxious, I could have topped you off during the car ride over.”
Two passing nurses snickered to each other, but stopped to help both surgeons up, though Mayuri would have preferred it if they’d kept walking if only for the fact that he wouldn’t have had to see the knowing look in their eyes as they’d helped them.
After that he’d been called down to his turn working the Free Clinic, which everyone knows only attracts hypochondriacs and other such freak shows.
“No, Mr. Smith, I can without a shadow of a doubt, diagnose that mole as non-cancerous without the help of any full body scan. Please put your pants back on.”
“Your child only seems to be suffering from a case of an insufferable personality, Mrs. Allen. I’d suggest a good physical beating to help solve the problem.”
“Yes, yes. Your skirt is very pretty, Mr. Thompson. However as this isn’t an issue of medical concern if you could please… right. I’ll come back once you put that back on.”
“It’s acne.”
“No, I’m sorry, we don’t look at animals here.”
“It’s not a genetic muscle soreness, like you suspect, Shindo-san. I’m sure once you become less… disgustingly obese… your legs will protest less when you try walking on them.”
And so on, and so on.
Right before lunch, he was vomited on.
Which, he supposes, was far better than the time he’d been defecated on during work in the Free Clinic, but that was happily in the past and thus a slightly faded memory in comparison.
The vomit had been decidedly unpleasant-he’d borrowed a fresh lab coat from the supplies closet and missed his lunch break trying to get his badge and stethoscope sterile again.
By the time he returned, Akon was waiting outside his office for him.
“I was concerned,” the younger surgeon started, and Mayuri almost gave pause at that, until the moment was ruined when the imbecile added, “but then I heard you got puked on. Then I was amused,” with a lopsided grin.
“I have work to do,” Mayuri had announced dryly, shouldering past him towards his own office.
“Mmmm,” Akon had responded, grabbing the other doctor’s arm and pressing his lunch-heated for him already-into his hands. “If you can still stomach it after your little, encounter,” he’d said slyly, simply.
Mayuri had managed not to throw it at his impertinent face, glaring at the younger man’s spiky head as he’d shoved his hands into his pockets and strolled off, smirking.
Mayuri had gotten exactly twenty minutes of work done while eating his lunch, due to the fact that his pager had chosen to go off halfway through the meal. A code.
He’d gotten up and rushed towards the room but when he’d arrived Akon already had the situation under control-hero of the day.
The younger doctor gets the poor bastard’s heart started again and before even a second’s passed he grins, looks up at Mayuri, and says, “Go finish your food.”
Damned upstart.
The next time Mayuri’s paged-an hour or two later-the patient seizes up and he’s smacked rather severely in the face by a flailing hand before the nurses are able to get the young lady under control.
He also gets spit on in the process.
When he leaves the room, it’s an hour after he’s supposed to have clocked out for his shift and he can feel the disruption of his plans throughout his whole body, come in the form of weariness.
Pity because he’s got an extra night shift tonight at three, but he supposes if he goes home now he can get some sleep and drive back in time for that. Hopefully it will be quiet.
Akon’s been waiting for him outside his office for the hour he’s been late, but he looks unperturbed as always, even perhaps a big smug even though he’s been sitting around doing nothing for the past sixty minutes or more.
Probably because he doesn’t have to be back here until eight tomorrow morning.
“About time!” is all he says when Mayuri meets him, but he’s no more insolent than that during the drive back to the apartment.
They eat dinner in silence-the brat doesn’t go out of his way to chatter loudly to Nemu like usual-- and Mayuri doesn’t know whether Akon is plotting something or is genuinely being considerate for the first time in his life. He doesn’t give it much thought, finishes his pasta and retires to bed right after, setting the alarm for two am so he can be back to the hospital on time.
Akon pads unapologetically into the room after him and predictably, won’t stop touching him in bed.
“I have another shift later tonight,” Mayuri protests, wearily.
“Mmmmhmmmm,” Akon responds, and licks his throat.
Mayuri sighs and doesn’t waste energy fighting, closes his eyes and lets Akon exhaust him even more than the work day had already because at this point he’s resigned to the whole twenty-four hours being a lost cause.
He falls asleep-dead tired-- to the feeling of a warm, wet cloth on his stomach and vows to put rat poison in the imbecile’s food the first chance he gets.
When he wakes up the clock on his nightstand reads 7:30 am.
He panics.
Checks the alarm.
Turned off.
He hasn’t felt so irresponsible about anything in his life since…well, finding out about Nemu, he supposes.
Feeling something akin to dread, he quickly gets out of bed and dons his pants and shirt, crossing the room to pick the phone up out of its cradle so he can call and demand why no one phoned him in for his shift.
A knock on his door stills him momentarily however, and a clipped, “Yes?” comes out of his mouth before he can stop himself.
Nemu peeks into the door a moment later. “Breakfast is ready if you’d like, father. I just need to reheat it.”
“Stupid girl,” he growls, moodily. “I was supposed to be up for an overnight shift at three and…”
“Akon-san went.”
Pause.
“What?”
She looks down, but there might just be the ghost of an amused smile on her face. No doubt that pointy-haired dolt’s influence.
“Akon-san went,” she repeats, obediently. “He um,” she looks up, towards his nightstand by the alarm clock. “He left you a note, he said?”
Mayuri scowls. “Hn,” he murmurs, and is across the room again, grabbing the piece of paper he hadn't initially seen in his near-panic and regarding it in an accusatory manner.
Age before beauty.
-Akon.
Mayuri sighs when he reads it-a long suffering sound from very deep in his chest.
He crumples the note up and promptly tosses it into the trash.
Turns to Nemu then, who has returned her gaze down towards the floor, teeth fiddling with her bottom lip in what he assumes is an attempt to hold back laughter.
And he can’t help but think that she really is learning to be rather insolent from that criminally undisciplined young idiot.
He sighs to himself.
Right.
First thing’s first.
“Nemu, breakfast.”
“Yes, father.”
She slips out the door and he stares after her for a moment, before moving to get properly dressed for work.
Breakfast first, followed by a brief lecture on impertinence to the girl, and then he’s got to be off to relieve that idiot from his shift because Akon’s less than competent on a good day, let alone during a double shift that includes an all nighter.
After that….
… the rat poison.
The thought almost makes Mayuri look forward to the day.
END
Title: Evolutionarily Superior
Characters: MayurixAkon
Timeline: N/A
Rating: PG-15
Summary: Mayuri is a far superior intellect.
A/N: ARRRGH. I’M SO SORRY.
He’s tired of insolence, tired of the wicked smirks and over-confident hands, of the snorted laughter at his expense and the looks of smug satisfaction that never fail to grace the arrogant bastard’s lips when he’s got the upper hand, when he’s looking down at Mayuri and thinking the world belongs to him.
Mayuri won’t tolerate that sort of disrespect anymore.
Not in his home, not in front of his daughter, his colleagues, his patients.
Enough is enough.
He’s not as large as the younger man, not as strong perhaps, but then again, neither is man in comparison to any variety of filthy wild animal.
There’s always the advantage of being more intelligent, and that’s what counts in the end, makes for jaguar and leopard skins strung on hunters’ walls rather than (for the most part) the flesh and bone of humans lining the stomachs of dumber beasts.
Luckily for Mayuri, the particular beast he’s in pursuit of is painfully stupid compared to most.
Dumb enough to be made to come to him, practically self-trussed and ready to be slaughtered.
Right on cue, the door to his office bursts open and a not-happy looking Akon storms in, holding a handful of papers aloft accusatorily.
“What’s the meaning of this?” he demands, waving the papers at Mayuri like they mean something.
“It means you still have a job,” Mayuri responds dryly, pausing only a second in his work to say that before looking back down to his reports.
“I understand how you might have a problem with this concept, so I’ll say it slowly-this schedule? Not humanly possible, sir. The rest of us aren’t robots like you are, you know.”
“You’ve energy enough for other things,” Mayuri snorts. “Put it to an actual purpose and do something useful. The budget cuts have required that I cut staff and that means longer shifts for everyone.”
Akon scowls. “I formally protest.”
“I formally acknowledge that every time you speak, it sounds like a strange, incessant buzzing in my ear.”
Akon glowers. “They say hearing is the first to go.”
“In that case I’ll welcome my old age with open arms when it saves me of having to listen to you whine like an insolent child.”
“I hate you.”
“Buzzing. I just hear buzzing.”
Akon mutters something under his breath before turning around and stomping out of the office.
Mayuri watches him go and leans back in his chair, feeling immensely satisfied.
It’ll take some time, but he’s always been a patient man.
The traps have been laid.
~~~~~
Seven days later and there are dark circles under the younger man’s eyes, a mug of coffee a constant companion in his hand. Mayuri is tired too, but amusement at Akon’s seething indignant rage over the whole predicament bolsters him, and on the morning Akon thinks he’s scheduled to arrive for a six am shift Mayuri ties both of his arms and legs to the bedpost with his belt and some neckties before he wakes the bastard up by covering his nose and his mouth until he realizes, somewhere in the depths of slumber, that he’s not breathing anymore.
Eyes spring open and arms tug reflexively forward in an attempt to clear whatever is obstructing the breathing passages at that, but are found to be restrained by good leather, Italian silk, and a carefully calculated series of knots.
“Morning,” Mayuri greets flatly, before pulling his hands back and letting Akon breathe again.
Akon, eyes wide and body weakened enough from the twelve hours he’d pulled six hours ago, yanks at his bonds futilely. “What the hell…”
“I won’t abide by any more disrespect,” Mayuri starts slowly, clinically. “The rudeness, the arrogance, the insults. The fact that you grew up without anyone to teach you the finer points of civil behavior excuses you from things I wouldn’t abide by in my daughter, but even with that leniency your ill-breeding has come to try my patience more than even I’m willing to endure, Akon.”
Too shocked to speak properly perhaps, Akon sputters. “What do…why…”
Something about the lost look in the younger man’s eyes is infinitely appealing right now, the complete wiping away of smugness, of insolence, of over-confidence exactly what Mayuri had been hoping for.
A proud, painfully stupid beast caught in a simple trap.
The thought, indeed the advantage, are both intriguing to Mayuri, makes him wonder at the strange thrill he seems to be experiencing while the spiky-headed idiot gapes and gawks and generally makes a fool of himself trying to piece things together in his sleep-deprived rage.
Before he can stop himself, Mayuri finds himself leaning forward and kissing Akon-hard and sharp-- for once at the advantage in such an encounter such that he can relish the turning of tables, thinking that it’s about time the younger man experienced something like the helplessness Mayuri is constantly subject to under his ministrations.
“Unpleasant. It’s unpleasant,” he hisses when they pull apart.
Akon licks his lips at that, still looking rather shell shocked by the whole ordeal. “Huh…” he says, and trails off with eyes locked on Mayuri’s.
Still shocked yes, but a lot less hesitant than he should have been.
Mayuri pauses, eyes him.
“Well?” Akon asks, voice just a bit raspy, but solid enough. His lips are still moist and his breathing is a bit faster now than it had even been when Mayuri cut off his air supply moments ago. “What are you going to do, sensei?”
The older doctor frowns- not the reaction he’d been aiming for. Far too curious and not horrified enough, despite the sudden reversal of fortune.
Mayuri had thought that stripping Akon of control, of that upper hand the younger man was constantly throwing back into his face, would show him, would settle things.
He hadn’t expected curiosity, daresay, anticipation.
He makes a dissatisfied noise in the back of his throat when he realizes exactly how willing the younger man seems all of a sudden, perhaps something only possible after the hellish schedule Mayuri had put him through in the last week due to the vibrancy of youth.
Disappointing.
Mayuri sighs. “Not right at all,” he says to himself, and stands up off the bed to think for a moment.
He almost misses it as he moves, but when he stands there is something like panic suddenly on Akon’s face again.
“The hell are you going?” the younger man demands, misinterpreting Mayuri’s movement away as abandonment in a time of… need.
Kurotsuchi pauses at that, reworks his theories around in his head.
Oh.
Oh.
Leave it to dumb beasts to tip their hands suddenly, to present a large, obvious target of a weakness through which they may be exploited.
Driven by base needs, these nonintellectual forms of life.
Need to feed. Need to sleep. Need to mate.
Mayuri almost smiles again.
Turns to leave.
“Get some more sleep. You don’t actually have a shift today,” he says, and closes the door behind him.
“Hey!! What the hell? Don’t…argh, at least untie me, you sadistic bastard! Inhumane! This is completely inhumane! I’m not above breaking this bed!!”
He sounds almost pained.
“Buzzing,” Mayuri reminds himself in an attempt to dispel the strange feeling of amusement in his chest as he gathers the morning paper from its place on the counter where Nemu has prepared it, throwing his daughter a look that tells her to remain silent as she fixes breakfast for them both.
By the time Akon manages to free himself, his eggs are cold and Mayuri’s gone.
At work, the nursing staff, in awe, can’t help but speculate as to what Akon-sensei might have done to leave Kurotsuchi-sensei in such an uncharacteristically good mood this morning.
END
Title: Source Material
Characters: AkonxMayu
Timeline: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Akon reads up on some interesting stuff.
A/N: Written in ten minutes with no specific idea in mind to commemorate, in a manner of speaking, the birth of a brand new AkonxMayu. GO SID! GO SHINI!
“My,” Akon snorts, and eyes Mayuri for a moment before turning back to whatever lascivious reading material he’s decided to latch onto for this week.
Mayuri ignores him.
“Oh…he certainly had that coming to him,” Akon chortles a few minutes later, positively aglow with youthful, unholy glee.
Glee that annoys the other inhabitant of the room to no end.
Mayuri twitches and pauses in his endless report-writing. “I’m working here. If you must read that garbage do it out of my vicinity.”
Akon smirks. “I’m merely sampling,” he declares, brightly. “This latest account is of how an anal, egotistical, vaguely maniacal misanthrope of a college chemistry professor was thoroughly ravished and thus redeemed by a resourceful, rather dashing young first year student. You should have a look.”
Mayuri makes a face. “Utter trash,” he reiterates. “And reading material fit only for gossipy, giggling females.”
Akon chuckles. “Perhaps, but it’s my bounden duty to review this piece of literary… well, smut, and stamp it either with approval or warning.”
Mayuri snorts. “Your duty to who?”
“Your daughter of course,” Akon declares, happily. “I can’t very well give her a book as a gift and not have it properly studied for high points and low points beforehand. What if some of this smut is physiologically impossible? What if they practice poor habits during intercourse? What if,” he adds, practically alight with possibility now, “they commit the heinous crime of letting the anal older bastard top?”
Mayuri blinks. “You are forbidden to give that to Nemu.”
Akon mock-pouts “But I’m so close to rounding out her collection of the series for her.” Pause. “Though,” he begins, slyly, “I suppose I could keep this one for us if you’re so inclined. I really think you ought to read this last story. You might identify.”
Mayuri glares. Stands, and with his paperwork, heads to his room. “Foolishness,” he mutters, nudging the door closed behind him with an elbow because his hands are both full.
It doesn’t close all the way unfortunately, and for a moment, Akon eyes the door in all it’s slightly-ajar glory.
Well. According to his research-he flips the pages of the book he’d been reading anticipatorily-that’s just as good as a verbal invitation right there.
Setting his (soon to be Nemu’s) source of reference aside for the time being, Akon stands and pads towards the bedroom after Mayuri.
With luck, he’ll eventually have gathered enough material to submit to the next publication of short stories in that series himself.
He’s rather certain that he’ll be accepted, given what he’s got in mind.
Seducing anal retentive, egotistical, vaguely maniacal misanthropes never seems to get old with readers, after all. Truly a classic.
Besides, as a resourceful, rather dashing and good humored young man himself, it’s practically his responsibility to behave as such and do his best to redeem his anal bastard as often and consistently as possible.
That decided, he slips into the bedroom after Mayuri, intent on doing his duty to the best of his ability (and energy).
Knowing Mayuri, he’ll require quite a bit of redeeming.
END
Title: A Cold Place
Characters: Ishida, Mayuri
Timeline: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It’s funny, the things we choose to remember.
A/N: This was me trying to write my Ganjyu app. No, REALLY. I honestly don’t know what happened. -_-;; Totally not edited cuz I have class tomorrow morning. SHIT.
Ishida Uryuu hates hospitals.
He remembers the smell of them, the cold, stark, empty feel that comes with whitewashed walls and sterilized rooms. He remembers the constant murmur of quiet chatter, the sideways looks of nurses as they’d passed him by, not saying a word as an eleven-year-old boy sat in a chair in the waiting room alone, dangling his legs idly and staring at the ground.
That night had been the opening night of his fifth grade play, and his grandfather had been so proud.
Uryuu had been Robin Hood.
They’d spent hours and hours sewing the costume together, and Grandfather had made him a smart little bow and a neat quiver of arrows to complete his outfit when they were done. He’d remembered every single one of his lines and the feather in his cap hadn’t fallen out once, despite its refusals to cooperate during rehearsals.
It had been after the last curtain and they’d been driving home, taking a small detour before that to go and get ice cream.
His grandfather had promised to let him get a double scoop sundae of whatever flavor he wanted with extra whipped cream, had smiled at his grandson and said they wouldn’t tell his father about the treat afterwards. A secret for just the two of them.
A car full of Hollows escaping a convenience store robbery had slammed into the front of their station wagon just as Uryuu had been about to say, “Chocolate-chip cookie-dough!” in response. He’d been hopelessly overwhelmed with the sound of screeching tires and blaring horns, and he doesn’t think that Grandfather had ever heard him answer.
A scratch on his arm and a burn mark in the shape of a cross on his chest had been the only injuries he’d sustained, but they hadn’t even hurt. Or he can’t remember if they did, rather. What he does remember is, ironically enough, the worst part of the whole thing, when he’d been forced to hold the strange police-officer’s hand while he’d watched them cart his Grandfather away from the accident scene in a stretcher, bleeding and shaking and screaming, “Uryuu! Uryuu!” over and over again.
He’d sat in the hospital after they’d patched him up and told him what a brave boy he was between those shifty, sideways glances the hospital workers liked to throw him every now and again, and he’d strained to listen past the dull murmur that constantly bounded off the walls like a phantom conversation in that place, hoping he’d hear Grandfather’s voice again under it all, calm and laughing like he always was.
He remembers the grumpy-faced doctor who had strode by after a while, the one who had been perhaps young at the time but whose severe frown made it difficult to tell either eway.
“Kurotsuchi-sensei, please,” a nurse had begged. “We’ve just gotten a bad car crash and there are four victims being prepped for major surgery now. You’re the best doctor we have here tonight!”
Uryuu remembers looking up then, blinking at the stern-faced doctor who had given a shuddering sigh at the information like he was experiencing something as inconsequential as the discovery of something foul smelling in his kitchen that needed tossing. The slim man had tucked a plain cardboard box more securely under his arm before looking at the nurse in a long-suffering manner. “I’m no good to you now,” he’d said dully, almost bored as he’d donned his coat. “They’ll take care of it.”
“Kurotsuchi-sensei, I know you’ve just come off of a twelve hour shift but…”
“The matter is closed,” he’d said then, as Uryuu had listened, still kicking his feet back and forth in his chair and trying to find his Grandfather’s voice amongst the quiet, constant noise.
And then the cold-looking man had chanced to look at him for a moment, the slight, sideways shift of eyes to the little boy in the chair.
“Hn,” he’d said, like he’d seen sad-faced children many, many times in his life already and found it more irritating than heartbreaking. “I’m leaving.”
And then he’d walked past Uryuu without another look, without another thought, the heels of his shoes making neat clicking noises on the bleached tile floor as he left with a briefcase in one hand and a cardboard box tucked under his arm.
Uryuu remembers every small detail about that man today, even if he can’t remember Grandfather’s laughter over the pained screams of “Uryuu! Uryuu!” that had been the very last things Ishida Souken had said to him on this earth.
Sometime later another doctor had come out, covered in blood, and looked at him with another sideways glance, before sighing and turning around to leave.
A nurse whose face had been full of pity gave him a lollipop and told him his father was on his way.
It had been blue and stained his lips when he ate it.
He remembers how, as it had gotten thinner and thinner in his mouth, it cut his tongue.
When Ryuuken arrived he’d looked tired and irritated, the vein on his forehead throbbing just a bit, like it did sometimes, when Uryuu got a ninety-eight percent instead of one hundred on his last math test.
“I’m his father,” Ryuuken had said, and didn’t even spare a look at blue-lipped Uryuu.
The nurse had looked at Ryuuken then, full of regret.
“I’m sorry, we did everything we could but…”
“I see,” Ryuuken said, and then turned, finally, to face his son. “Let’s go, Uryuu. Throw that filthy thing away.”
Uryuu remembers obeying on instinct, as well as the taste of sugar and blood on his tongue. “Father…”
“You have school tomorrow morning,” Ryuuken had said, and put his hand on Uryuu’s shoulder to guide him out. “Thank you,” he’d added out of courtesy to the nurse, glancing at her over his shoulder as he’d steered his son towards the hospital exit. “I’ll contact you in the morning to lay the matter to rest.”
Uryuu remembers straining to listen as he’d gotten farther and farther away, trying to find something past the constant reverberation of meaningless sound at the hospital that night, and find Grandfather’s laughter because he’d been certain it was there somewhere, that it was just being smothered under all that disinfectant.
In the end he hadn’t heard it though, and his clearest memory of that night is still, to this day, how surprised he’d felt when he realized that Kurotsuchi-sensei and his father sounded almost exactly the same.
Consequently, Ishida Uryuu hates hospitals- cold and stark and inevitably lonely, the place that stole Grandfather’s voice from him.
He also hates the cold and stark he’d found inside the hospital walls that night as well, the voices he had been able to hear. The ones undeniably quieter than Grandfather’s but overwhelming all the same.
Ishida Uryuu hates doctors.
END
Title: A Cold Face
Characters: Maryuri, Ishida
Timeline: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The flipside of “A Cold Place.”
A/N: Once again, Ganjyu App is a no go. I FAIL. Also, no edits because I hate myself and still have 25 pages of some stupid article to read before class tomorrow. SHIT.
His footsteps are weary and he feels less than clean after twelve hours non-stop in this place, working, working, working constantly amidst a rolling, disgusting wave of nauseous humanity. Loud and endless and grating on his nerves every second he’s forced to listen to them. But he’s done for now, moves as quickly and efficiently as he can despite the tired ache in his bones, knows that if he lingers here that light on the wall will invariably go off and the ambulances will call in, will report some ridiculous four-car pile up and send in a dozen screaming, unsalvageable bodies broken beyond repair and twice as many angry relatives with angry lawyers who he’s in no mood to talk to, to listen to.
Part of the job, perhaps, and he doesn’t mind it too often because he’s becoming good at ignoring the things that irritate him. Just a buzzing, buzzing, buzzing in his ear at most, when he has the patience and fortitude to tune it out from the mainstream flow of his thoughts.
It’s not so bad when he does that, he supposes.
He’d been called not long ago however, his fortitude disrupted the moment he’d been forced to endure listening to a pathetic, weak-sounding voice on the phone that said, “I’m sorry, father. I’ve had an accident and….it broke.”
He makes a sound of discontent at the memory, but doesn’t let himself get riled about it because there’s no basis to.
He makes for certain allowances for Nemu because she is young and because he doesn’t find her particularly bright as far as children her age go. So he isn’t angry right now so much as annoyed, as she’s never broken her pump before today. Though it creates a bit of a problem as he thinks about what other stupid things the girl might do that she’s never done before given that she no longer has insulin pumping into her body in the constant, steady flow she has become accustomed to throughout her short life.
He won’t tolerate her breaking the equipment she needs to survive ever again, but as this is the first time and she is only thirteen, he won’t punish her severely for it, will sit her down and lecture her about the importance of taking care of the things she needs because he won’t be home all the time to watch her, to coddle her.
Because he doesn’t want her to call him, bother him at work when she knows he has other things to do, that he already has to put up with so much distasteful noise and people and stupidity that the least she can do is try not to provide him with even more when he returns home.
She should understand by now, what he has to put up with to put food on the table and a roof of her head. At her age she should at least be marginally self-sufficient. But then again, he makes certain allowances because she’s still relatively young, because he doesn’t find her all that bright as far as children her age go.
So he simply sighs in a long-suffering manner and tucks the box with the replacement pump under his arm, a purchase made from one of the storage rooms here earlier, though he hates to have to go about it like this. It all stinks of something like failing to follow proper procedure, using his connections as a doctor here to an unfair advantage maybe.
But it can’t be helped, and Nemu will be talked to if nothing else, for her carelessness.
As long as she understands that he won’t tolerate this same mistake twice, the same idiotic words telling him of the same idiotic incident, then this might even be a worthwhile inconvenience if only for the lesson it will provide her for the future.
He packs up his briefcase then, puts the box with her new insulin pump under his arm. It’s time to go home, she’d called two hours ago and had sounded fine if hesitant, and while he doubts anything horribly dangerous might have occurred in that short amount of time, there’s still the vague possibility that she’d been lying to him on the phone out of fear when he’d inquired as to how she’d been feeling, in which case he would seriously consider her more trouble than she was worth. Lying is unacceptable.
He supposes he’ll be home soon enough to see for himself, though.
But before he can even remove his identification card from the inside pocket of his lab coat, the alarms go off.
He groans to himself then, and feels something like a headache beginning to form around the area of his temples when he hears the loud, rude noises of people suddenly bursting into action, of voices previously subdued coming forth without restraint in the heat of panic.
It never fails. One thing to deal with after another and as far as he knows his daughter could be splayed out on the floor of his home right now, in one of the advanced stages of diabetic shock because she’s never once been without her insulin pump before and might have done something stupid in the interim.
He clenches his teeth at the infernal noise that suddenly spills over this quiet haven, the sound interrupting the ritual of his leaving. Hospitals should be ever quiet in his opinion, silent at the best of times. Yet here it is suddenly, the chaos he loathes caused by human carelessness and/or stupidity, all of it forcibly dragged from the outside world into this place, his neat, clean atmosphere. It is a chaos that will undoubtedly make his leaving here more difficult than he wants to deal with right now.
There won’t just be the sound of his shoes clicking neatly against the linoleum as he leaves anymore, but rather, the sound of the nurses’ shouts, other doctors’ orders, someone grabbing his arm just as he’s about to leave and beg him to stay just a little bit longer, there’s been a shooting, a car wreck, a fire, a gang fight and they need his help.
He doesn’t have time to humor them right now, to be the heroic young doctor and stay behind to desperately work towards saving the lives of people that right at this very moment, mean little to nothing to him.
He’s weary, and there are pressing matters at home to attend to now that he’s fulfilled his duty here for the time being.
He makes it as far as the main stretch of hallway leading to the exit before predictably; he is stopped by a harried-looking nurse.
“Kurotsuchi-sensei, please,” she starts, without even greeting him properly first. “We’ve just gotten a bad car crash and there are four victims being prepped for major surgery now. You’re the best doctor we have here tonight!”
He sighs to himself again, the second or third time since he’d gotten that quiet-voiced phone call, and tucks the cardboard box more securely under his arm before looking at the nurse in a long-suffering manner. “I’m no good to you now,” he says plainly, clearly tired as he takes his coat from where it had been draped across his arm and moves to put it on in a physical declaration of his full intent to leave right now. “They’ll take care of it.”
“Kurotsuchi-sensei, I know you’ve just come off of a twelve hour shift but…”
“The matter is closed,” he says then, wanting nothing more than to leave this noisy atmosphere before his headache gets worse, before another, less quiet and more panicky call comes from the girl at home who doesn’t know what to do because she’s young and inexperienced and perhaps, slower than other children her age.
Her eyes shift sideways then, in vague resignation, towards a place in his periphery. By instinct his gaze follows hers, alights on an aimless looking little boy with glasses who’s sitting in the waiting room, dangling his legs. He manages to catch the boy’s eye for a moment and wonders why there’s something about the delicate features he’s looking at that seems familiar.
But that’s neither here nor there-foolishness, really, and it’s time for him to go home before the incessant noise here makes his headache even worse, putting him in danger when he gets behind the wheel of his car.
“Hn,” he grunts to himself dismissively, before turning to go, to really, really go now. “I’m leaving.”
He turns and does exactly that.
And as he walks out towards the hospital doors, he ignores the echoes of panic behind him, clenching a plain cardboard box under his arm like its presence reassures him of something, he doesn’t know what.
He reaches his car and puts the box to rest beside him in the passenger seat, right on top of his black briefcase. He eyes it for a second before he starts his car, reaching into his pocket to pull out his cell phone to check the display.
No missed calls.
At that he puts the phone back and moves to put his seatbelt on and rubs his temples for a moment before sighing one last time to himself.
He starts the engine.
And as he drives home he outlines in his head, all the things he is going to say to Nemu about responsibility and carelessness when he gets back.
She really is a stupid child sometimes.
END