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Iwaizumi and Yachi drive to the hospital with a dead body in the compartment. Or, well, they couldn’t actually declare the patient dead until a medical examiner saw him, but the man had a piece of car door through his neck and was cold at the scene. He was dead.
It was kind of stupid that they had to do this, to be completely honest, and they usually wouldn’t. They stayed at the scene to try and help the ALS patient, but there was really nothing they could do—there were five other paramedics from the other precinct doing the heavy lifting with the patient they were originally working with, though that one probably wouldn’t be alive for much longer anyway if what Chief Ukai said was true. Police at the scene wanted the body moved to try and resume traffic in the area, so they had turned into a hearse instead, shuttling this dead body. Honestly, Iwaizumi wished he could have stayed at the scene to help with whatever Daichi and the rest of them were doing. They were doing extrication, which is challenging, and Iwaizumi likes a challenge. Oh well, next time.
At least this meant Iwaizumi could sit in the front seat with Yachi. She always drives with music on if they’re not carrying a patient and she didn’t mind if Iwaizumi just stared at his phone the whole time, so overall it was alright.
The radio is turned down slightly. “Do you...do you think everything was okay with that fourth patient?” Yachi glances over at Iwaizumi with knit brows. “I could hear Daichi-san yelling from where we were. And, like, not in his normal way.”
Ah, yeah, the one downside of riding with Yachi was that she tended to need a lot of reassurance. That was really okay, though, because that’s a healthier coping mechanism than Kageyama and Ukai’s nic problem.
Iwaizumi shrugs. “It was a rough wreck. Whoever it was got hit from the passenger side, though, so they’ll probably be fine. If Ukai thought we’d be useful, he would have asked us to help.”
“I guess you’re right,” Yachi murmurs. “I just get worried, y’know, ‘cos the Captain’s usually pretty calm in front of a patient. I hope everything works out alright.”
Iwaizumi tries to look sympathetic but realistic. “I’m sure everything’s fine. They’re probably at the station already.”
Yachi smiles tightly in response and continues to drive, though the engine rumbles and the tachometer spikes in response to her foot pressing harder on the gas.
Iwaizumi has been told he doesn’t have one of those natural calming faces that are so helpful in the medical field—Daichi’s got it. Hinata’s got it. Hell, even Bokuto’s got it. He likes to blame it on being a military medic at heart, but really, it's just his face. Being jealous of that would be stupid because there’s nothing Iwaizumi could do about it, but still, he wishes he could do it sometimes, even just to cheer up his own teammates. He’s always got the right intentions, and he’s heaps better at empathy than Kageyama, for example, but having a more genuine expression for showing that would be nice.
By the time Iwaizumi sulks enough about this, they arrive at the hospital, but the minute Iwaizumi hops out the passenger side, he can feel something...wrong. Usually, there’s at least a couple of attendants waiting for them at the loading bay since they buzzed in, but he and Yachi have to wait several minutes before anyone comes out.
“Sorry about the wait, guys, I can...take that off your hands,” Yaku, a no-nonsense ER nurse (whom Iwaizumi didn’t really know but definitely respected) storms out into the bay. He yells over his shoulder, “Lev, get your ass over here and take this!”
A lanky, younger nurse comes rushing up with an expression of pure fear (aimed at Yaku?) and shuttles the covered stretcher away. Yachi visibly relaxes once the body is out of her possession. Even Iwaizumi feels better once he knows it’s out of his hands—he’s not in the business of dead people, generally, and EMS wasn’t usually supposed to deal with bodies. It disturbs crime scenes.
“Busy night for you guys, huh?” Iwaizumi makes conversation with the shorter nurse. He’s peeled off his gloves and leans against the loading bay wall, rubbing his eyes with his wrist.
“Yeah, no shit,” he chuckles. “Tonight’s been hard on all of us.”
Yachi glances at Iwaizumi, eyebrow cocked. What was Yaku talking about? They only had two calls since noon, including the car crash.
Yaku eyes them, then he gapes. “Wait. You guys—you don’t know?”
Iwaizumi leans back on his heels, bracing himself for whatever Yaku is about to say. He glances at his radio—glowing nicely, so it’s not like he’s missing any dispatch calls. Yachi checks her radio in accordance and looks to Iwaizumi for guidance.
“I...Oh my God, okay, you don’t know, I guess you wouldn’t know,” Yaku says. He pinches the bridge of his nose.
“What’s wrong?” Iwaizumi asks, arms crossing.
“The guy that Truck #1 brought in—it was Suga, y’know, Daichi’s boyfriend.”
Iwaizumi genuinely feels his jaw unhinge. “Tell me you’re fucking joking right now.”
“Believe me, I wish I were,” Yaku says with resignation.
Oh, God, Daichi had to pull his own boyfriend out . No wonder Yachi could hear him yelling.
Iwaizumi had gotten very close to Daichi over the past few years that he’s been in the service—he’s one of those guys who’s truly good, and he loves Suga so much.
He had gotten close to Suga, too; Iwaizumi didn’t know him as well as Tooru did, but they would all go on double dates, and Suga had been asking Iwaizumi for advice about a potential engagement just a few weeks ago.
They didn’t deserve this. No way.
Shit. Shit . There was no way he lived through that wreck—everybody else died.
“Is he—” Yachi starts then can’t finish. Her eyes are already watering. She had questioned if something more were wrong just ten minutes ago.
Yaku glances down with a grimace. “I don’t know. I’ve been dealing with bodies all night and I haven’t been able to get on the ER floor for more than a couple of minutes at a time. I know he came in intubated, though, and I heard his ICP was through the roof.”
“Is he still on the floor? Could I see him?” Iwaizumi rushes out. He needed to know, more than anything.
Yaku frowns and grinds his teeth. “I dunno, Iwaizumi, you know you shouldn’t. For your own good. Takeda-sensei will toss you out as soon as he sees you.”
“Fuck Takeda,” Iwaizumi finds himself raising his voice at Yaku. “I need to see him.”
And Iwaizumi couldn’t explain more than that. Something was driving him to know . Was it just that he was Daichi’s friend? Suga’s friend?
Or was it because somehow this shook Iwaizumi to the core? Was it that Iwaizumi always saw some of Tooru in Suga?
Iwaizumi keeps his gaze held on Yaku, waiting for him to break underneath it. He finally lets up. “Fine. I think he’s still here. If Takeda decides to lay you out…”
“Not your problem, got it,” Iwaizumi growls. “Yachi, you coming?”
Iwaizumi looks behind to see her response, but she’s already bolted. He looks a little further and sees a shock of orange hair—Yachi is wrapped in Hinata’s arms, shoulders shaking, and it looks like they’re both crying.
Iwaizumi will make a point to check on them later, but for now, he’s going to follow Yaku into hell.
Ugh, who the fuck is calling on his day off? Oikawa had been soundly asleep. Emphasis on had .
He sits up just slightly so he can unplug his phone and raise it to his ear, scrubbing at his contactless eyes. He doesn’t hide the sleepiness or the annoyance in his voice when he asks, “Ay, ay, aló? Quien habla?”
The line is quiet for several seconds.
“De parte...?” he murmurs, fully expecting it to be a robocall or something. He squints at the screen for several moments as the timer ticks—00:09, 00:10, 00:11—under Iwa-chan . “Oh! Sorry, Iwa-chan, I don’t have my glasses on, I didn’t know it was you.”
The line is still quiet.
“...Iwa-chan? You there?”
“Tooru,” he finally says. It almost sounds like he’s crying.
Wait, crying?
“Hajime, what’s wrong? Are you alright?” Oikawa sits up in bed now and grabs his glasses from the bedside table.
“Tooru...Tooru, just keep talking. Just talk.”
Huh. Weird request, but Oikawa could do that. “Um, okay. It’s, uh...7:23 AM here in beautiful San Juan, Argentina. It should be sunny today, but I’m not sure, my blinds are closed,” he rambles. “Uh...I love you very, very much. I miss you all the time. I’m so excited for next week. I was going to call you once your shift was over.”
Iwaizumi chokes on the other end—a horrible, painful sound.
“Oh, Hajime, my love. What’s wrong?”
“I—Christ. Tooru, just tell me you’re okay.”
“Me?” Oikawa sits back on his headboard as he tries to figure out what Iwaizumi means. “I’m just fine. Everything’s great. Today’s my day off and my knee is feeling completely normal.”
“Good.” A shaky breath from the other line. “Don’t—don’t ever leave me, okay? Don’t do that to me.”
“When did I ever say I was leaving? Silly Iwa-chan. You know I couldn’t ever do anything without you,” Oikawa murmurs low and soft. “Now, tell me what’s wrong.”
“S-S-S—” Iwaizumi stutters. “Shit!”
Iwaizumi hasn’t stuttered since elementary school. What could get him so upset that he could barely speak?
Oikawa holds his worry at bay and soothes him, saying, “Take your time, Hajime.”
He tries again. “I’m sorry. S-Sugawara was in a really bad car accident.”
“Oh my God.” Oikawa peels the covers off himself. “Is he…”
“I—yeah, he’s alive. I dunno if he...he’s in surgery now. He might be okay. Apparently, there’s a good chance he’ll be okay, but there’s also a chance he’ll be blind for life, or worse. He hit his head, fractured his skull.”
Oikawa has to just sit there, legs exposed to the air conditioning, while he lets this sink in. “My God.”
“Yeah.”
“...This just happened?”
“About an hour ago, yeah. There were three other people, so I was—We were all on the call, actually. Daichi saved him.”
“Oh, no, Dai-chan,” Oikawa sucks in a breath. “How is he?”
“A mess, expectedly.” Iwaizumi sighs. “He literally passed out after they took Suga away.”
“Hajime, I can’t even begin to imagine…”
“I can,” Iwaizumi clips. “I—Tooru, I saw him before he went in for surgery. I saw Suga.”
Oikawa doesn’t exactly know how to follow that up, so he only says, “Yeah?”
“A-All I could see was you,” he sobs quietly, presumably muffled by his hand. “They were shaving off the back of his head to try—to try and make room for his incision, and then they—this sounds crazy, but it pissed me off so bad—they kept stepping on the hair that was falling to the floor, and I was so, so angry. I kept feeling like that could have been you, easily, and I...I kept feeling like it was you. I got so scared all of a sudden. I dunno how I would even...I just keep seeing it.”
Oikawa sits there and reaches out with his hand, almost thinking for a moment that Hajime was actually with him, that he could just reach out with his hand and stroke his cheek and make everything fine.
So, he will.
“I’m coming. I’m getting on the next flight.” Oikawa finally gets up to grab the laptop on his desk, typing as fast as he can with one hand. “Damn, these are some fucking long layovers. I can be in Sendai in, like...forty-six hours, depending on how the trains are running and how good my Spanish negotiating skills are.”
Iwaizumi huffs now; Oikawa can picture him, all red in the face and puffy from crying but still managing to give Oikawa a scolding glare. “Oikawa—”
“No, I’m serious. I was coming in five days anyway, I’ll just see if I can get it moved up.” A few more taps to put in his credit card number. “There. It’s done. My flight’s in four hours. Let me put you on speaker while I pack my bag.”
“Tooru.”
“Hajime.” He throws a handful of boxers and t-shirts into the back he had already packed—the bag he’s had packed for weeks in advance in anticipation of seeing his husband. He wished he would be coming home to him in better circumstances.
“I love you.”
He stands up straighter, dropping the pair of gym shorts he was holding. “And I love you.”
About nine hours after their phone call, Oikawa was on a plane from Buenos Aires to Panama City—the second leg of his long, long journey home. Damn Buenos Aires for not having any direct flights to San Francisco. Oikawa’s Spanish was good, but it wasn’t good enough to easily switch and understand a Carribean dialect; he’d have to speak English until he finally made it to Tokyo. It couldn’t be helped, though.
He had paid for the overpriced in-flight wifi, which was spotty as hell, but he was insanely grateful for it when it was suddenly 4 AM Tokyo time and a flood of Iwaizumi’s texts poured in.
Iwa-chan: Suga woke up
Iwa-chan: He can see
Tension releases from Oikawa’s body; he had even been clenching his toes out of pure stress. That certainly was a change in tone from Iwaizumi’s initial fears.
Tooru: thank god
Tooru: is he okay otherwise?
Iwa-chan: For the most part yes nothing life threatening
Iwa-chan: Broken ribs and some severe whiplash and that kinda car wreck stuff
Iwa-chan: Oh he also burst his eardrum I forgot to tell you that. Sometimes the brain bleeds so much that the pressure builds and the eardrum bursts
Thanks for all that extra information, Iwa-chan, Oikawa thinks, suddenly considering throwing up his in-flight pretzels. His husband had a habit of talking about gruesome medical facts around the house to help himself compartmentalize what he sees at work, and this was fine, but Oikawa didn’t really understand it well enough to not find it nauseating.
Plus, that didn’t sound good.
Tooru: ...does that mean he’s deaf?
Iwa-chan: Not permanently, temporary problem for the most part. Might need hearing aids when he gets old
Iwa-chan: Oh and apparently he needs glasses to compensate for his vision. The ones that the neuro department prescribed him are fucking ugly pls pick him out some better ones
Iwa-chan: [Attached Image]
Damn, those were ugly. Round frames would not complement Suga’s face in the least. He’d start shopping on the flight to San Francisco.
Tooru: don’t worry i’m on the case
Tooru: did you get a chance to talk with him or anything??
Iwa-chan: Nah he fell back asleep before anyone really got to visit which is fine he’s high af and also head trauma. Daichi said he was lucid for the 10 min he was awake and not in too much visible pain which is good
Some of those words strung together didn’t really make sense to Oikawa, but, again, perks of a medic husband.
Tooru: how is dai-chan
Iwa-chan: Much better than nine hrs ago. Or like 30 min ago tbh
Iwa-chan: Hasn’t left Suga’s side, p sure he fell asleep over the bed. Might have to go get him a cot he’ll totally get a crick in his neck
Oikawa smiled quietly at that mental image—Daichi leaned all the way over Suga’s poor hospital bed, hand clutched in Suga’s as they dozed. It was sweet, in a melancholy way, and it was a good sign for their inevitable, incoming wedding.
Tooru: such a good husband
Iwa-chan: Don’t let Daichi or Suga hear that they’re both in denial I think
Oikawa snorts. The lady beside him shoots him a look, so he mutters, “Perdónenme,” and continues texting.
Tooru: not for long i bet
Oikawa really should get to wedding planning. He’d do that on the flight to Tokyo.
The flights weren’t so bad. Well, they were terrible, actually, but he planned for the wedding the whole time—he had seven Pinterest boards going—and he also bought Suga eight pairs of glasses. It was all about options; Oikawa was glad Suga was a decisive guy.
Despite the excitement of potential nuptials, Oikawa really was spent by the time he made it to Tokyo, and he had a massive headache by the time the Shinkansen arrived in Sendai. He crashed into Iwaizumi as soon as he saw him.
“I love you,” Oikawa mutters into Iwaizumi’s shoulder. “I love you. I love you. God, I love you.”
“You gonna get tired of that line?” Iwaizumi chuckles and pecks his forehead—a display of PDA he usually would never engage in. They're not strangers to reuniting moments, to long-distance, but every time their arms interlace is something precious.
The train station is louder than Oikawa remembered it being, certainly louder than his twenty-nine hours on the planes, but Iwaizumi is all Oikawa could ever be occupied with at this moment. Iwaizumi’s arms are stronger than he remembered. The nape of his neck is softer than he remembered. The apple of his smiling cheek under his fingertips is rounder than he remembered.
Oikawa laughs. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. Now, c’mon, we’re not leaving Suga and Daichi waiting any longer.”