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There's a knock on the door and it opens.
The first thing Izuna sees is... a bright green dinosaur plushie? He blinks and then starts to roll his eyes when he sees the familiar expensive watch on the hand holding it. “Are you for real?!” he demands to know, and can't help the petulant tone in his voice.
He's in the fucking hospital and can't get up on his own, he's allowed to be petulant.
Tobirama is already sighing as he steps through the door. He looks uncharacteristically disheveled. Almost like he ran here, in fact; which isn't ideal when you're also wearing an expensive suit.
Izuna likes the tousled hair and slightly-out-of-breath look a lot more. Part of him preens at the thought of being the reason for that, although usually he achieves that by far more enjoyable means.
Tobirama drops the small gym bag that's actually Izuna's and hopefully contains a few fucking changes of clothes and then turns to stare at him. There's worry and something else warring in his eyes. “... Skydiving, Izuna? How could this even happen—”
Izuna laughs harshly, because of course. “What, are you gonna try and sue them? Leave it. Accidents happen.” He had this exact conversation with himself, with the paramedics, and the skydiving instructor he did the jump with, and he’s already tired of it. He wants everyone to start asking better questions, like when he can leave the damn hospital.
Tobirama is also still holding out the vibrant green plush dinosaur in front of him, towards Izuna. Izuna narrows his eyes at him until the other man tentatively puts the thing on top of the blankets somewhere near Izuna's knee.
“... I can't visit you very often,” Tobirama begins to explain with a sigh, “you know this week and the next is going to be hell at work, so I thought—well, some company for you?” He trails off, for once almost unsure.
“... It’s scientifically inaccurate,” Izuna sniffs eventually.
“I can take it back with me.”
“No,” Izuna growls and grabs the plushie to stuff it under his pillow.
Tobirama’s mouth twitches. Then he sighs again after glancing at his watch. “I’m really sorry, but I have to get back to work. We’re closing that deal I told you about this week, and—”
Izuna stares at the wall so he doesn’t have to look at his partner. “Whatever.” He knows how vital the work Tobirama does is for their merged family businesses, he just doesn’t want to hear about it right now.
Another sigh, and then Izuna listens to Tobirama’s footsteps receding and the door opening and closing. Tobirama always knows when any further discussion would only lead to Izuna exploding at the nearest target.
... Izuna should've still asked for a hug despite them both being awkward as fuck in hospitals.
“Whatever,” he repeats quietly to himself.
He hates hospitals. He hates them. He feels like throwing the stupid plushie at the nearest wall, but then he can’t just go up and get it back, and the nurses or Tobirama might come back and see the dinosaur on the floor and know.
Instead he viciously lets the back of his head connect with the pillow and plushie underneath a few times. “Stupid Tobirama with his stupid plushie,” he says out loud.
It echoes weirdly because this is a fucking hospital room and the second bed in here is currently empty. The only thing on the walls is a small flatscreen TV near the ceiling and a replica of an abstract painting that someone like Niisan’s stupid husband would probably call ‘cheerful’.
Izuna thinks it’s a sad reminder of how lonely being in a hospital feels.
He’s whining, he knows he is—there are hundreds of people who have it a lot worse just in this hospital, he can breathe and eat on his own, he’s allowed to sit up—but this fucking sucks.
Niisan will also never forgive himself for gifting Izuna that stupid fucking skydiving jump. And for being on a business trip on the other side of the entire fucking planet when this happened. Izuna had to wait telling him about this whole disaster until he knew it was 10 minutes before a really important meeting so Madara couldn’t just drop everything to find the nearest plane bacl here.
He glances at his phone for the time. The nurses won’t check on him for a while—and he has no desire to make them any extra work—and dinner is way off, so he has a few hours to himself.
With a huff he reaches under his pillow to tuck the plush dinosaur into his arms instead because the pillow has begun to feel uncomfortably lumpy. He stops to run a fingertip over the toy’s head. Well. The plushie is really soft.
Izuna closes his eyes and thinks about his and Tobirama’s last vacation and whether or not he’ll be able to convince the other man to go climbing again anytime soon.
After all the PT and rehab. The thought has him scowling again. He’s fitter than most people, so it won’t be the end of the world, but he knows he’ll have to listen to the experts and not overdo it in his haste to get back to working out. God. That’s gonna be so annoying…
Izuna squeezes the dinosaur plushie because at least it makes for convenient stress relief.
The nurses don't believe him when he says the plushie doesn’t have a name and doesn’t need one, so now it’s called Dino as determined by an overly cheerful nursing student.
And Izuna is still not supposed to get up on his own so he’s cuddling it while okay, yes, thinking about Tobirama. Which is how Madara finds him when he has time for a video call.
“… are you reviving your dinosaur phase?” Madara asks, squinting at his screen. “It’s—it’s cute.”
Izuna rolls his eyes with a huff. “It’s Tobirama’s. I’m just… just watching it.”
Madara is silent for a long moment before he smiles. “Sure.”
“I really am, Niisan!”
“You are, yes.” Madara shakes his head, still smiling. He looks pale on Izuna’s small phone screen. “Now, how are you? Really?”
Tobirama finally comes around for another visit, late at night and technically past visiting hours. Maybe he bribed the night guards and the nurse station. Currently however he’s shaking his head and frowning.
“No.”
Izuna widens his eyes into the pleading expression Niisan can never resist. “Please! Really quick!”
Tobirama seems to waver, so Izuna goes for the knockout blow. “The nurse on shift said it would be okay, just this once!”
“Oh?” Tobirama raises an eyebrow, sighing. “I’ll go check with her, then.” And then he does.
His face is exasperated when he comes back, but he also shrugs out of his jacket to start rolling up his sleeves. “… She asked me three times if I’m strong enough to hold you up,” he says drily. “I hope you’re happy now. She also seemed under the impression that we’re newly wed? Fresh off our honeymoon, in fact?” He raises an eyebrow.
Izuna bites his lip. “Well. I might have implied things,” he says and then snorts. “But it’s your fault! Apparently being so worried—or busy—that you bring in stuffed animals is a husband thing to do.”
He lets that statement hang in the air while he receives a very questioning look in answer. Part of Izuna very much regrets that the engagement ring he got is still safely hidden at Niisan’s place—an impromptu hospital proposal would’ve been fun.
At least for him.
“Look! I can stand up on my own!” Izuna then says as he carefully demonstrates what he and today’s physical therapist worked on. He gestures at Tobirama, who’s hovering while trying not to. “Give me your arm—yeah, like that, slowly now please—and take the stupid corset, too, just in case.” He doesn’t need to wear the supporting corset when he’s lying down, and for the long yearned for shower he’d have to take it off anyway, but Tobirama might feel better if it’s close at hand.
“Are you supposed to walk without wearing it?” Tobirama asks quietly as he does what Izuna said.
“Eh, it’s just a few steps, it’s fine.” Izuna deliberately forgoes his instinctive shrug. “Just remember, if I faint the best thing you can do is gently put me on the floor and then call for a nurse.” He frowns. “And don’t touch my upper back, I guess?”
“… that’s very reassuring right now.”
Izuna elbows Tobirama very lightly. “Hey. I haven’t fainted since the first night—”
Tobirama stares straight ahead. “I don’t want to know.”
The bathroom is rather roomy—of course they’d expect patients and at least one nurse in here, Izuna supposes—if dreary, brightened up only by the colorful bottles of Izuna’s skin and hair care products on every available surface.
Tobirama stares at them and then gives him an incredulous glance. “Are you using all of these? While at the hospital?!“
Izuna sticks his tongue out at him. “You packed and brought me my bag!”
Tobirama mutters something that sounds suspiciously like ‘I only wanted you to have some selection.’ as he helps Izuna sit down on the little folding seat in the shower stall. “Now what?”
Izuna leans back against the shower wall with a sigh before smirking at the other man. “Are you so busy at work you’ve forgotten how showers work? First I get naked, then I get wet, then—”
Tobirama interrupts him by cupping his cheek and pressing a gentle kiss on his forehead. “You really want your shower, I get it,” he says as he draws back again, smiling. Then he kneels down to take Izuna’s socks off one at a time.
Izuna gasps dramatically and clutches at his chest. “Tobirama!”
His lover stops, frowns, and gives him a look . There’s a blush creeping up on his cheekbones though. “… If you think I’m proposing to you in the hospital bathroom—” He notices Izuna’s wide smirk and huffs, flicking one of Izuna’s toes. “Very funny.”
It’s fundamentally weird to be so dependent on someone else as Izuna is during his ‘shower’—which in all honesty consists on Tobirama doing all the work of aiming the water spray at him, gently working shampoo into his hair, and rinsing while Izuna does his best to stay upright and breathe normally and also not tease Tobirama too much. “… what about conditioner?” he asks at some point.
Tobirama stops and sighs deeply, but he’s already reaching for the bottle. “You’re at the hospital, do you really…”
Izuna makes his hopeful pleading eyes again.
“Fine,” Tobirama grumbles, sounding disgusted with himself, but his fingers stay gentle and patient. The ensuing scalp massage is very relaxing and almost makes Izuna drowsy.
Showering the rest of his body is at good as it can be considering all Izuna can do is sit there and Tobirama tries to not completely drench himself while he showers him. Tobirama does remain strict when Izuna begins to make hopeful noises about one of his body lotions. “Absolutely not . What if you—if you slip?! No. You know we're already lucky the nurse isn't coming down hard on us for this... this unsupervised showering."
“I feel pretty well supervised,” Izuna mumbles into the crook of Tobirama's neck when the other man leans over him to towel off his back. Then he licks a stripe of skin just because he can, and also he's been in the hospital for days and things aren't fair and maybe he misses Tobirama, just a tiny bit.
“Izuna.”
“Heh.” Izuna remains smug all the way through the unfortunately rather unsexy re-dressing, but on the way back to the bed he snags one of the lotions. “Tobirama, what if I get wrinkles," he whispers urgently as he waves the bottle in Tobirama's face once he’s properly lying in the bed again. “What then?!”
“Then you're following the normal process of human aging?” Tobirama suggests, but the twitch of his lips shows his amusement. “Alright, the puppy eyes are getting a bit disturbing—I'm not your brother, for fuck's sake—so here, give it. I'll do your feet and legs.” He reaches out to tickle a foot while he rolls his eyes. “Where you're so afraid of all those wrinkles.”
“... It's also really hard to reach my elbows at the moment,” Izuna offers after a few moments.
Tobirama's grip around his ankle grows tight for a moment while the man narrows his eyes at him. “Behave.”
The only possible response is sticking out his tongue again, which Izuna does.
Tobirama still rubs lotion onto Izuna's arms and elbows, and then he sits down on the edge of the bed. He looks tired—it's late, and he must be working extra long hours even without coming here.
Izuna grabs one of his hands and squeezes. “Thank you.” He follows his impulse to raise the hand to his lips and press a kiss to the back of it. “Really, thank you.”
Tobirama twists his hand so he cups Izuna’s face. “Of course, love.”