Chapter Text
Duo was able to start working again the day immediately after they came back, as Dr Khushrenada had apparently explained his departure to the director and to HR as related to the frivolous lawsuit against Dr Yuy. He hadn’t even gotten a reprimand for disappearing so suddenly. Though, everyone at the nurse’s station at the Cardiology ward were supremely serious when he got back after his meeting with HR. He worried that Dr Yuy had been pulling his leg and that no one really cared whether or not he was gone, but the other nurses were apparently the ones pulling his leg, when he apologized almost tearfully during their morning huddle when they just started the meeting without a word edgewise towards him. They had all, in fact, been terrified that something may have happened to him when they couldn’t contact him immediately after he’d resigned.
“Don’t just up and disappear like that!” Une-san admonished kindly.
Duo flushed as the other nurses threw themselves at him and hugged him a warm welcome back to the ward, and he presented them with all of the treats Akira had given (and Dr Yuy hadn’t yet eaten).
“You look like you’ve had a pretty nice vacation,” Hilde commented.
“He’s got that glow, doesn’t he,” Numazu-san said speculatively.
“Of course,” Ishihara-san said. “They went to see his family even. That means it has to be serious now, right?”
“Eh? You’re right!” said Numazu-san. “So something must have happened already, right?”
“Don’t ask inappropriate questions!” cried Ishihara-san.
“But don’t you want to find out if they—“
“No!”
Duo shook his head, smiling. He supposed some things in the ward just wouldn’t change no matter what he did. As he went about his work day though, he thought about what Ishihara-san said about his relationship with Dr Yuy, how it had to be serious now since they’d gone to meet the people that amounted to Duo’s approximation fo a family.
Was that how it was? Maybe he should have asked Solo. But then, Junie had no family either. Junie’s family was the same children from the orphanage that Solo knew, and the nuns, and their other friends like Akira and Tomoyo and their respective families. Probably, Solo wouldn’t really know either, though Duo was certain Solo had given Dr Yuy a good talking-to about him, because Dr Yuy was far more attentive and less of an irritable, unsociable prick like he usually was, since he came to get Duo back from Setsumasendai, all the way to when they returned to Tokyo. He even helped Duo put his apartment back to rights after Duo’s hasty departure.
Then, there was what Numazu-san said about “something” happening. Duo puzzled through the comment all morning, and came to the conclusion, especially after Ishihara-san said it was inappropriate to ask, that it must meant… sexual activity. And that…
It puzzled Duo a lot since he’d been very adamantly certain he wasn’t ready for it, but he found himself considering it now, only he really had no idea what sorts of things gay men got up to when they were intimate. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to found out. He supposed some part of him did, or he wouldn’t even be agonizing over it. But then, Duo had never really been the sort of boy who’d ever obsessed about sex, even when he’d been a teenager and was starting to discover his sexuality. It was half the reason why his friends constantly teased him about being gay before he even realized he actually was gay. He’d never been half as into getting into girls’ skirts as Tomoyo and Akira had been,
The thing was, he couldn’t even imagine being naked and in the same room as Dr Yuy, much less being intimate with him. When he considered it, he was fairly certain his face was going to burst with how stupidly hard he blushed. He supposed he should probably ask someone, preferably someone discreet or he would end up with all of his friends finding out what he was up to all over again, and this was the sort of thing he really didn’t want people finding out about, at least not the… er, gory details of it. He was also certain that while Dr Yuy had been almost charmed by the way everyone that Duo knew seemed to know about him too, the man wouldn’t appreciate Duo talking about what the got up (or would get up to, since they hadn’t really done anything) in private.
First though, there was the work day to get through. When he was gone, and before Dr Yuy had taken a holiday to find him and bring him back to Tokyo, Yutaka-san had taken over the duties he’d left behind, and she confided that it had been so odd working with Dr Yuy that entire time. He had gone about his days in a robotic haze, aimless and without direction, seeming like he just wanted to work until he dropped from exhaustion, until Trowa had come to see him and gave him an inkling of where and how to find Duo.
Duo accompanied him in his outpatient consultations now. Dr Yuy had told him that his experiencing working with Dr Howard, no matter how short, helped with that.
One of the patients who had come to consult was a Matsumoto-san, who had stage three pancreatic cancer, though the concern he had for Dr Yuy was paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia. He’d been told, in other hospitals he’d consulted with, that there was no way they would treat his condition with ablation therapy, not with his other more life-threatening cancer in the way, and especially considering that the man did not wish to continue life-prolonging treatment for his cancer.
“But may I ask why you want to undergo ablation therapy anyway?” Duo couldn’t help asking.
“My wife and I have been talking about taking a trip around the whole country,” Matsumoto-san confided. “I’ve only just retired, and I’ve worked my whole life. I thought this was something, one last thing the two of us can share before I go.”
Duo nodded sympathetically. He was reminded strangely of what Dr Howard had said about helping the terminally ill patients live out the remainder of their lives on their own terms. He wasn’t certain Dr Yuy was going to agree, not when other hospitals and doctors had already turned the man away, so he was surprised when Dr Yuy nodded and smiled at the man.
“I understand. Then, we’ll schedule the ablation therapy at your convenience. Nurse Maxwell will help you with the hospital admittance.”
Perhaps he’d been similar affected by Dr Howard’s lecture on the acceptance of death and loss too.
He caught up with Trowa for lunch that day, or rather, Trowa had actually come to see him at the cardiology ward nurse’s station, and Duo invited him to eat with him in the break room, since he’d bought sandwiches from the cafeteria, and he’d never been able to finish those if his life depended on it.
“So the Devil did manage to find you,” Trowa commented as he finished his half of the sandwiches in about three massive bites. “Frankly, I didn’t think he’d be able to find you.”
“Well, it’s all thanks to you telling him what you knew about me that I’m even back here.”
Trowa smirked. “Oh good, you’re not mad. I didn’t know if you’d appreciate that I told him about… you know.”
Duo nodded. “Yeah, he was surprisingly fine with it. I didn’t think he would be. People with parents sometimes have a hard time empathizing with cases like mine. Maybe it also had to do with what Solo told him about how I was found and raised at the church. I wouldn’t know. He wouldn’t tell me what he talked about with any of my friends or the nuns when I asked him.”
“Probably, they told him they’d flay his balls if he made you uncomfortable about not having any family,” Trowa said with a dark laugh. “I know that’s what I would have said.”
“You’re deranged,” Duo said, laughing at the crude joke. “How’s things with Relena-san? Has she changed her mind about breaking up with you after their parents decided to put her up in an arranged marriage match?”
Trowa shrugged. “No. Or, well. It’s not nothing going, but I don’t know that she’s going to fight it. There seems to be something else motivating her not to protest all that much.”
Duo looked down at his half-eaten sandwich. “I think it might be because of me and Dr Yuy.”
Trowa looked at him, confused. “Huh? Why?”
“I dunno. I just remember Dr Noin told us they have these rich and ultra-traditional and conservative parents, right. And well, with Dr Yuy and I being gay and all—that’s not really the sort of traditional marriage match that parents would want for their children, is it?”
Trowa snorted. “If their parents can’t see that their son is as gay as a bag of popcorn, then they clearly don’t know their child very much at all, and should probably have their parent cards revoked.”
Duo laughed. “You’re so weird about these things.”
“I’m absolutely not,” Trowa told him. “Same thing with Relena, really. I’m giving her space to decide what she really wants, if she wants her life dictated to her by her parents or if she wants to continue living on her own terms like she always has. I don’t think it’s occurred to her yet that it’s entirely possible not to sacrifice her own happiness for her brother’s. Your doctor is an ass and a half, but he’s not going to let his parents butt into his relationship with you, is he?”
Duo considered it. He supposed not, considering the type of person Dr Yuy was.
“Trust me, I’m right about this,” Trowa said. “Besides, both of them are grown-ass adults in their thirties. It’d be one thing if they were like you and me, who’ve only flown the nest a year out. If Relena can’t see that for herself, then I can’t help her. I’m not going to handhold her for things she should have figured out and settled with her family long ago, when she was still younger.”
“That’s kind of a tough stance to take on a girl you’re supposed to be serious about,” Duo pointed out.
“It is what it is,” Trowa said with an air of finality.
Duo nodded. He supposed there was no changing Trowa’s mind about these things when he decided he was right.
“Speaking of serious, you and the Devil quite are now, aren’t you?” Trowa asked.
Duo scowled at him. “If this is a fishing expedition, everyone in the ward’s already tried it. I’m not saying anything.”
Trowa snorted. “I’m not asking. God, I don’t want to know what the Devil does to you behind closed doors, thanks.” He made a face.
Duo frowned, remembering that he’d intended to ask someone about the whole intimacy thing. He looked speculatively at Trowa, who lounged back on the bench, swilling his cold tea. He could ask Trowa, he supposed. He was a discreet sort of guy. He hadn’t told anyone about Duo being an orphan at all, except when circumstances were dire. And even then, he’d made sure that no one would overhear anything, as evidenced by the fact that everyone thought Dr Yuy had met Duo’s family, when Solo and Duo weren’t even related. And Trowa trusted him with his secrets too, like that one about his obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Surely, he could be trusted not to tell anyone.
“Er, actually… about that…”
Trowa looked stricken. “Oh no, you’re not that sort of person who’s going to unload all the gross details of how things go when you fuck, are you?”
Duo snorted. “I’ll thank you not to be vulgar about it.” He shifted and cast Trowa a sidelong glance. “Actually, we haven’t… I mean…”
“What haven’t you done? Fucking? Blow jobs? Hand jobs?”
Duo rolled his eyes. “Jesus Christ, can you not be so crude about everything?”
“I’m not being crude,” Trowa said. “What do you want me to call any of those things? Love-making? What are you, some fifteenth century romance novel heroine?”
“Ugh, you’re impossible to talk to,” Duo muttered, rubbing his face. His cheeks felt ridiculously hot over the incredibly personal nature of the conversation. “How do you even know these things? You’re not gay.”
“They’re pretty much the same things straight people do,” Trowa said. “Minus the vaginal sex, I supposed, but he, that’s just…” He made a gesture as if to say vaginal sex was only middling in the scale of pleasure that sexual activities entailed. “Don’t look at me like that; I like anal. Girls don’t like it half as much though, since it’s a lot of work.”
“It…” Duo trailed off, far too embarrassed to continue.
“What? If you haven’t done it yet, you’re missing out, dude,” Trowa told him. And then he looked at Duo, who had covered his face entirely with his hands, sandwich abandoned on the table. “God, don’t tell me you haven’t even done anything.”
Duo shook his head, too mortified to continue.
“You really are the Virgin Mary of this ward,” Trowa said, amazed. “If I swung your way, you would’ve been the first target for my conquest with how hard-to-get you must be playing with the Devil. Teaching virgins about the birds and the bees is fun.”
“I’m not playing hard-to-get!” Duo exclaimed from behind his hands. He rubbed his face once more and tried to flatten his messy bangs in an effort to hide behind his hair. “I—look, you can’t tell anyone about this, okay? If someone finds out I could—I don’t know, I might literally end myself, and no, I’m not being dramatic.”
Trowa frowned at him and nodded, gesturing for him to continue.
So Duo told him. Mostly the abridged version of the assault back in senior high school, and his subsequent attempt at his life because of it.
Trowa stared at him with horrified eyes. “Are you—do you have, uh, problems with intimacy because of it?”
Duo shrugged. “I have no idea. I’ve never had a boyfriend before Dr Yuy, so I really wouldn’t know, would I? But… I don’t think, I think he has some idea about it.”
“And you think he’s what? Put off by it?” Trowa asked delicately.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. All I know is that there was this one time we were making out and I kind of freaked out ,and he stopped, and then… nothing since then. Like, I don’t know. We haven’t even really kissed or anything since.”
Trowa stared at him like he was viewing Duo in an entirely different light once more. “I changed my mind about that man. He shouldn’t be called the Devil. The man has the patience of a fucking saint if he’s managed to resist you for all this time, what with you looking like… well, you.”
Duo opened his mouth to reply, to ask what exactly Trowa meant by that, but just then, he heard voice outside the break room, and he shook his head to Trowa who nodded nonchalantly. The two of them got up to clean up the remnants of their demolished lunch.
Just before Trowa stepped out, he put a hand to Duo’s shoulder. “Listen, if you really want him to make a move, you probably ought to talk to him about… you know. I know if I were dating you, I’d ask about it, but then I’m not a maladaptive troglodyte who has no concept of human communication.”
Duo snorted. “He’s really not as bad as you think.”
“I’ll believe it when he manages to do something about you being the madonna of this ward,” Trowa sniggered.
“Oh shut up. You’re an asshole and I shouldn’t have asked you.”
Trowa grinned. “No, sadly, I might actually be the only person you can ask in this entire building.”
That was probably the truth, Duo thought as he waved goodbye to Trowa, and stepped out of the break room to go back to cleaning up the lunch rounds. They didn’t see Numazu-san and Ishihara-san standing near the cold storage box for the prescription medication, just past the entrance to the break room. The two of them exchanged poleaxed glances.
“Ohime-chan is still a virgin?!”
“The Devil hasn’t even scored?!”
Now that he’d started thinking about sex, Duo found he couldn’t stop obsessing about it. He also couldn’t help thinking that maybe his original thought had been right and that Dr Yuy had been put off when he’d asked him to stop that time they were making out in his living room and Relena-san walked in on them. Maybe that was why he hadn’t tried kissing Duo like that again or… well, anything. Because Duo certainly wasn’t going to initiate anything since he knew next to nothing about… all that.
He thought maybe Solo had been remiss in his educate-Duo-about-how-to-be-an-adult before he sent him out into the world, considering he forgot to teach Duo about sex, how to initiate it, and when to expect it from a partner. That may not be fair to Solo though, since Solo wouldn’t really know how these things went between men. (Besides, the entire time after Duo had finally discovered his own sexuality, Solo had been busy trying to hold all the jagged pieces of Duo together when he tried to kill himself. Things like that would certainly put a damper on a lecture about sexual conduct.)
Still, Trowa was probably right, and he should talk to Dr Yuy. If not about his root of issues, because Duo really didn’t want to talk about that with him in case he found the whole thing repulsive, then at least to explain about why he had problems about being touched. Duo hoped Dr Yuy maybe wouldn’t have such a problem with it, considering he’d told Duo that the scars of his wrists weren’t important unless Duo deemed them important.
How to find an opportunity though? Dr Yuy was so busy since they both returned, and Duo really didn’t want to have whatever talk they would have in the hospital. After all, what if it ended up like that time Dr Yuy tried to kiss him in Father Maxwell’s study? Duo absolutely did not want to be a cockblock a third time.
He probably should have asked Trowa about this too, how he approached girls he’d been with when he wanted to get laid. Duo thought his long friendship with Akira and Tomoyo should have taught him a thing or two on how to go about romancing someone, only of course Dr Yuy was nothing like any of the girls Duo’s friends tried to date. He wasn’t even like Junie when Solo was first trying to ask her out.
But of course Dr Yuy would be nothing like any of them. In the first place, he was a man. Of course he wouldn’t act like any of the girls that Duo’s friends tried to entice into their beds. Besides, Duo mostly knew Akira’s and Tomoyo’s types back in high school, and neither boy had ever gone after those prissy cram school girls who were obsessed with getting into the right university. Regardless of how busy those girls had been with regular school work, cram school and extracurriculars, none of them would be half as busy as Dr Yuy was.
Still, there had to be something that would get the man to take some time out of his busy schedule and… and what? That Duo didn’t really know the answer to yet.
Maybe thinking about how to broach the topic should be what he should be doing first, rather than the skipping ahead to jumping into bed together part. In the past, the only real thing that got Dr Yuy to give him the time of day was food, so maybe it was time to call Junie for cooking advice again, because Duo certainly wasn’t going to discuss those things in a restaurant or pub, where he could absolutely embarrass himself by squeaking out what an utter unexperienced virgin with a shit-ton of issues he actually was.
Even though Heero had turned over much of his workload to Zechs and Sylvia during the period he’d been away, he couldn’t help obsessively going over the details of his patients’ care once he returned to work after bringing Maxwell back to Tokyo. He was gone almost an entire week, and he had kept up to date with the status of all of them while he’d been away, but still he badgered Zechs on all of the changes that each patient may have had in their condition, until Zechs threw his hands up in frustration.
“You’re even more insufferable now that he’s back,” Zechs complained once Heero finally deemed himself satisfied with all of the updates. They’d gone over the nurses’ notes and then Zechs’ notes for the patients who needed emergency attention with a fine-toothed comb.
Heero scowled at him. The two of them had worked together for years and Zechs acted like he didn’t know that this was how Heero had always been. Granted, he’d never actually been away from work long enough to have missed so much. In all the years Zechs had known him, Heero had taken maybe three days of leave at a time at the most. He’d never really had to take longer than that since he’d never really had anything to occupy his personal time quite like Maxwell had since they’d gotten together.
Zechs sighed as he sank into his own chair and shut down his laptop. “You know, since it’s fairly obvious who Duo-kun has chosen, I feel I should probably tell you.”
Heero cast him an uninterested glance. Zechs was going off shift so he had a lot of time to spend prattling in his usual verbose, overdramatic manner, but Heero still had an afternoon of consultations and rounds to go through in the evening, reports to review at night. He didn’t have time for Zechs’ drivel—
“I told Duo-kun that I like him,” Zechs said.
Heero sat up at that. “What?”
The other man smiled, a fleeting thing, tinged with a mixture of disappointment and regret. “He rejected me immediately, of course. I don’t think he knows how not to be in love with you anymore, for how long he’s been nursing that crush. You’re not… angry, are you?”
Heero stared at him for a long moment and shook his head slowly in wonder. “You’re unbelievably straightforward all the time.”
The smile Zechs gave him was a little more genuine at that. “I would have regretted it had I not said anything; you know that. Anyway, I’m glad he’s bck and you’re finally together. You deserve a little happiness too, Heero.”
He stood and swept out of the office. Heero stared after him, wondering what that was about.
Later, when he’d stepped out of the office after his handover review with Zechs, Winner accosted him on the way to the consultation rooms. Heero didn’t have an immediate appointment coming up, but he liked to read ahead for any consultations that had prior literature to them. He didn’t think he would lose a lot of time talking to Winner though. The man was always wonderfully direct, not unlike Zechs. He didn’t think they had any business left over from before he left to look for Maxwell, but he stopped and smiled politely anyway.
“Yes?”
“I heard that Nurse Maxwell came back,” Winner said breathlessly as he skidded to a halt when he caught up with Heero.
Heero nodded and inclined his head politely. “Yes. I’m sorry to have troubled you with this.”
He turned to go, but Winner called his name out once more and drew him away from the foot traffic in the corridor to the end of the hall where they would not be overheard. Winner looked at him with swimming ocean eyes that reminded him so much of how Iria used to look.
“I—“ Winner swallowed when Heero stared at him, and wet his lips nervously. “I think I still like you.”
Heero blinked slowly and shook his head. Even if he had not met or fallen in love with Maxwell, there still would have been no way that he would have been able to reciprocate Winner’s feelings. It was just too odd, too strange, and he truly had closed the door to whatever lingering emotions he may have held for Iria. All that was really left there now was regret that she hadn’t lived, and that wouldn’t have been fair to Winner. Besides, it was not as if Heero thought Winner was truly holding a torch for him.
“I think what you’re seeing isn’t really me, but the ghost of your sister who was with me,” Heero told him. He kept his voice low and mild. Winner did not need attitude from him when he was still clearly grappling with the loss of his sister. “I pray that you’ll be released from your grief soon.”
He bowed his head politely and left. He felt bad for Winner—the man clearly had not gotten over Iria’s death all these years, and he reminded Heero of himself in the first few years after Iria was gone. He carried that loss with him for eight years, and it truly was only now that he found he was actually moving on from it. He didn’t want to be dragged back into that grief. It wouldn’t have been fair to Winner, since Heero’s own wounds from Iria’s death had already healed. Perhaps Zechs was right in his assessment of Heero’s relationship with Maxwell. He did deserve a little happiness of his own too.
He came across Maxwell on his way back to the nurse’s station. It looked like he’d just come back from break. He still had little crumbs of bread littering the front of his scrubs, and Heero couldn’t help but pull him aside and pat the crumbs away. Maxwell stared up at him as he repeated the motion around his mouth, rubbing his thumb across Maxwell’s lips absently.
“Er.”
Heero tilted his chin to the side to check if there was a spot he missed. “What?”
“I’m uh… going to make us dinner tonight. I—I need to talk to you about s-something.” Maxwell grinned up at him hopefully. “I know how to cook those cream stuff you like so much now. Junie taught me. So… so don’t be late.”
Heero folded his arms across his chest. “Is that what’s happening?”
“Yes! And—er—maybe we can have dessert together after!”
Heero started to frown but then Maxwell let out a nervous giggle and hurried away, leaving him staring after him, wondering what on earth he was on about.
He didn’t have to wonder for very long because he could hear laughter coming from the nurse’s station. He would have come over to tell the nurses there to pipe it down, but then he heard his name. Or his nickname, as the case always was with hospital gossip.
“The Devil definitely has an ED!” That was Numazu’s no indoor voice, and he could pick out Ishihara, Nakano and Yutaka erupting into peals of laughter.
“We overheard Ohime-chan telling Nurse Barton that he’s still a virgin after all this time,” Ishihara laughed. “Can you believe that nothing’s happened yet?”
“Maybe he just has no sexual desire at all!” Numazu posited coarsely.
“Maybe he’s the one who lies back and takes it and he’s waiting for Maxwell to have the gumption to do it. Can you imagine? And he looks like that?”
“The Devil is an uke? That’s hilarious!” Nakano squealed.
“How can someone like that be uke? What’s the point in him acting all cool and suave all the time?”
Heero had to suppress the urge to tear down the corridor to hunt Maxwell down. One day, he was really going to strangle that idiot with his own braid.