Leaving the Hospital
A peaceful morning in the Hospital. Nurses rotated. Doctors doctored. Patients suffered. And Christopher stubbornly held onto a box of his stuff while Inigo tried to take it from him.
“I can handle it!” Christopher asserted.
“You just got out of a wheelchair!” Inigo countered. Gigan loomed over Inigo’s shoulder, arms crossed over his chest. The little dragon nodded his head at his wielder’s words.
Chris’s hospital room was flooded with a dozen boxes of varying sizes and weights. One was as small as a book, another as large as a chair. The boxes contained the bounty of gifts he’d received while he’d stayed in the hospital. His bed, the one he’d occupied until this morning, was stripped of its sheets. The game console was already back at Inigo’s apartment. The hated wheelchair, the direct cause of this fight, was nowhere in sight.
“I didn’t NEED to be in the fucking wheelchair.” Christopher grossed. “It was for liability!”
“Just give me the box Chris.”
“I can carry it!”
“You shouldn’t carry it!” Inigo and Gigan took a step closer.
Christopher took a step backwards. His position was untenable. In just a few more steps he’d collide with his bed and there was nothing to prevent Inigo and Gigan from approaching. Christopher ground his teeth in frustration. He’d asked Inigo TO HELP HIM MOVE OUT OF THE HOSPITAL! HE DID NOT ASK INIGO TO DO IT FOR HIM!
Inigo took another step forward. Christopher took another step back. One more step and he’d collide with his bed! Inigo took another step forward. Christopher couldn’t stop himself. He took a fateful step back. The back of his knee his the foot of the bed! His knee went dead! He fell backwards towards his bed!
“Chris!” Inigo shouted! He lunged forward! He reached out his hand! Christopher grabbed it. He dropped the box they’d so recently quarreled over. Its contents spilled all over the floor. Inigo ignore the box and pulled Chris back with all his might. He tried to arrest Christopher’s fall. He failed.
Gigan turned the other way. He saw where this was going. With a yelp Inigo was pulled down with Christopher. Both fell on top of Chris’s bed, Inigo on top.
“Ow.”
“Shit, you okay Chris?”
“Yeah, you?”
“I’m good, lemme just get--”
Before either could disentangle themselves, the door opened. In sync, Christopher and Inigo looked at the opened door. There, standing in the doorway, was the girl Christopher had recently reacquainted himself with, Nyoro Hoge.
The three stared at each other for a long moment. Christopher and Inigo were in a compromised position. Hoge, Inigo’s lover, saw a scandalous scene.
Hoge opened her mouth as her outline blurred.
“○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○”
Christopher blinked. “What?”
“She’s angry I’m cheating on her but mostly surprised I’m the seme.” Inigo disentangled himself from Christopher and stood up. He held out a hand and helped Chris sit up. “... it’s honestly a little hurtful she’s so surprised.”
The end of the scandalous, if objectively innocent, scene did nothing to arrest Hoge’s tirade. Inigo patiently listened to Hoge’s spiraling narrative of betrayal. He waited for Hoge to take a breath so that he could get a word in. Gigan covered his ears. Then grew another set of arms to cover his mouth. The little dragon was dying from embarrassment.
Christopher… was left out of this conversation entirely. He couldn’t hear Hoge at all. Instead, he focused on the use of the word ‘seme’ in a context he’d never heard it used before. He turned the word over in his head multiple times and he just couldn’t figure out what it’d mean here. Well, when you can’t figure out an answer, the only thing left to do is ask.
“The fuck does ‘offense’ have to do with anything?”
Inigo snapped his head towards Christopher, his eyes alight with an inner fire. Hoge reappeared, her embarrassment overwhelmed by her desire to educate. Gigan’s eyes darted to Christopher, his little maw seemed to form the word ‘No!’ Christopher looked between the two. He was afraid.
They began to speak at the same time.
“So, a seme--”
“You see Cain-kun a seme--”
Gigan shot around Inigo’s shoulder with a frantic screech! Heroically the little dragon transformed himself into headphones and nestled over Christopher’s ears. He formed a giant sign over Christopher’s head that simply read, “STOP!”
Soothing elevator music played over those headphones and Inigo and Hoge continued their long tirade which Christopher was mercifully spared. “Thank you.” Christopher whispered as Inigo and Hoge began to argue about something mercifully hidden from his ears.
Eventually, Gigan left Christopher’s ears. The poor little dragon looked exhausted as he curled up on Christopher’s lap. Who knows what horrors that little dragon had had to listen to while it spared Christopher the same?
“So… you aren’t having an illicit affair with Cain-kun?”
“You know I only have eyes for you~.”
“Oh.”
Christopher chose to believe that was a relieved ‘oh.’ Hoge, reminded that her relationship was shockingly stable, glanced around the room. She glared at the boxes full of crap.
“… I know you were here for a while Cain-kun, but did you have to move in?”
“I brought 4 changes of clothes and three books. Everything else is a gift. Not my fault.”
“Only 4?”
“Don’t look at me like that, there’s a laundry service!”
“Be that as it may, I don’t think the three of us are enough to move this in a timely manner. Is your father coming?”
“No.”
“That’s why I thought--” Inigo cut in, hoping to put himself between Hoge’s social stupidity and Christopher’s dad’s issue. “Chris could just copy Gigan! Then we could--”
“No!” Chris and Hoge said simultaneously.
Screech! Gigan enjoined, arms crossed in an ‘X.’
Inigo pouted. “Come on, it’s been forever since I got to hang out with Black Dragon-bro!”
“He can’t—” Hoge caught herself before she finished that sentence. She adjusted her glasses as she immediately concocted a valid reason. “We do not have a quirk usage license! Putting our status at the school at risk for such a frivolous purpose is unconscionable!”
“That’s BS, Chris h--”
Christopher interrupted quickly. “I am not copying your quirk! No-one wants to see a man cry.”
Hoge looked away at that comment.
Christopher narrowed his eyes at the class rep. Did this girl grow up in a desert? Hoge noticed his glare.
“I didn’t say anything! Besides YOU crying wouldn’t do anything for me… unless it was to acknowledge my academic superiority… now if Ini○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○” Hoge’s figure blurred as her words faded into nonsense.
Christopher could only assume she was saying the sort of shit that would make him wonder if humanity was a mistake. Inigo, for once, was ignoring Hoge’s tirade. He glared at Gigan.
“What do you have against Black Dragon bro?”
Gigan gesticulated wildly with his claws. ‘He’s a weird SOB!’
“But he’s like your brother! Wait… no, he’s like Chris and your son!”
Chris’s head whipped towards Inigo. “You leave me out of this!”
Gigan, uncharacteristically, narrowed his eyes at Inigo. He held out a pack of cigarettes. Pantomimed the pack being empty. Then giving himself a hat and overcoat he walked through a freshly conjured door. The sound of tires screeching into the distance filled the Hospital room.
Hoge tilted her head at the display. “… I don’t get it.”
Christopher started laughing. Inigo grew incensed. “Gigan! Don’t leave Chris a single mother!”
“Why am I the mom?!”
“Because you’re the uke!”
“… what the fuck do you mean I’m the ‘receiver?’”
Hoge and Inigo looked at Christopher. Their eyes filled with excitement. Christopher had just enough time to wonder why he ever asks anyone anything. Gigan screeched already transforming into headphones. He made for Christopher’s ears! Inigo’s hand moved in his path.
‘NO!’ The heroic dragon screeched in his native tongue. Inigo caught the dragon. He would not interfere with Christopher’s education now! Christopher’s last hope for innocence was captured. The dragon sobbed at his failure as Inigo and Hoge began to speak.
Christopher, Inigo and Hoge rode an elevator together, each bearing an arm load of boxes. Well, Inigo’s and Hoge’s arms were full. Christopher was allowed to carry a single small box that fit under one arm. Hoge wore a pensive expression. Inigo was humming. Gigan hung over Inigo’s shoulder like a wet rag, defeated. Christopher wore the thousand yard stare of a torture victim.
“I needed to know precisely NONE of that.” Christopher complained.
“Oh come on dude! You were going to find out eventually!”
“I agree with Ini, if you’re unaware of common popular culture phrases you risk embarrassment in certain social situations.”
“What situation could I possibly find myself in that I need to know that?”
“The one we were just in?”
“…” Christopher didn’t have an answer for that.
“Putting that to the side.” Hoge began.
“Please.”
“Is there a reason your father isn’t here?”
“Listen Hoge we shou--”
“He has nosocomephobia.”
Inigo looked at Christopher in surprise. Christopher shrugged. “It’s not a big deal dude, just a condition.”
Hoge frowned. “How severe?”
“Debilitating. Last time I got injured, he tried to visit. He couldn’t make it through the front door.”
“Right… last time.” Hoge whispered. Christopher stiffened. He didn’t like that tone. Her attention had been shifted from his dad’s absence to the circumstances of his last injury. Why didn’t he just stop talking?
“I know you said you can’t tell me the details, but, the last time you were injured, is it connected to the reason you were injured this time?”
That Desolator was the villain who’d attacked Christopher the first time he’d been hospitalized was well known. After Desolator’s display in the WcDonald’s, Maxine had identified him. From there, rumors spread like wild fire. Hoge certainly knew the rumors. She was asking, in not so many words, if Christopher had been injured by Desolator again. Christopher’s instinct was to lie, but why should he? What purpose would lying serve right now? Conceal how much of an idiot he was? Save his pride?
He decided to maintain some plausible deniability, while answering the question honestly, “there’s a connection.”
“… I see. Did you—”
Inigo blew in Hoge’s ear. She let loose a yelp that even Chris had to admit was cute. She crouched away from Inigo. The boxes fell to the floor with a clatter as she covered her ears. Her face turned beet red.
“BAKA!” Hoge shouted. Christopher glanced at Inigo in confusion, what exactly was that for?
“What was that for?!” Hoge shrieked. She was still recovering from the surprise attack.
“You were paying attention to Chris.” Inigo pouted. “I got jealous.”
Hoge breathed manually. Her ears turned a bright tomato red. “B-baka.”
Inigo looked at Christopher and smiled apologetically. “Look I trust you dude, but if Hoge talks to you too much you might realize what a stupendous, amazing, wonderful, incredible--” Hoge faded from existence as Inigo’s unanticipated barrage of compliments got to her.
“amazing--”
“you already said amazing.” Christopher corrected.
“I was gonna say it three times. That’s just how amazing she is.” Gigan, newly invigorated by this discussion of Hoge's virtues, held up a foam finger that read ‘Hoge #1!’
Hoge said something that came out as white noise, but Christopher was pretty sure she was just repeating ‘baka’ at this point. He looked at Inigo. Inigo smiled at him. That was the same smile he’d had when he’d dragged Chris off to reintroduce him to all the girls as a potential romantic partner. A smile that said ‘don’t thank me, we’re friends, it’s what we do.’
Christopher only had to ponder for a moment what he’d be thanking Inigo for this time. Hoge was about to dig for more specifics. Christopher would’ve had to lie at a certain point. He wouldn’t outright admit to going vigilante of course. Inigo had spared him that, but why?
Inigo bent over and began to help Hoge regather the boxes she’d dropped. She was giving him an earful about propriety and respecting who they were doing ‘those things’ in front of. Christopher barely listened.
Christopher glanced at Gigan, the innocent green dragon. The dragon was trying his damndest to carry one of the boxes in his base dragon form. He could barely lift one corner. It was an adorable little antic, the sort Chris had come to expect from Gigan. As he watched the dragon, the why behind Inigo’s actions popped into his head.
Inigo didn’t want Chris to feel like he had to lie. That realization was bitter sweet to Christopher. Inigo didn’t know he lied every day. Didn’t know Chris had lied to him just this morning. Whenever Inigo brought up the rooftop, when there friendship began, Chris didn’t tell him that he only half remembered the encounter. His mind had long ago filled Inigo into the blank spots that had appeared when Chris dropped his friend’s quirk, but they weren’t real memories. They were fuzzy things that Christopher couldn’t be certain weren’t just subconscious reconstructions to fit his recorded version of events. The truth was, their friendship’s beginning, the time that should’ve been the most precious between Inigo and Chris, were forever lost. The elevator doors opened.
Christopher held the door while Hoge and Inigo finished collecting themselves. When they finally finished gathering the scattered boxes, Hoge hurried out the doors. Inigo followed close behind her. Inigo teased her with his genuine feelings. She colored a deeper shade of crimson. It was a shade Christopher had never seen before. Christopher followed the pair languidly, too absorbed in his own guilt to feel like a third wheel.
Christopher felt guilty, but he often did. He’d shared his secret with Yui when he felt he didn’t have another way to keep her friendship. He’d shared his secret with Hoge in a leap of faith. There’d be no risk with Inigo. He’d trust the man with his soul. Yet… he still didn’t tell him. Why?
Christopher knew the reason. He’d told Hoge the reason. It was a shit reason that made him feel embarrassed. He didn’t want Inigo to pity him. Christopher looked at the tiny box in his hand. The box that held the E-reader Faith had given him. His desire to not be pitied had been such that even being allowed to carry this little thing had seemed a fantastic victory. It was proof that Inigo still thought Christopher could carry on by himself.
Christopher watched Inigo skirt past a stupidly attractive nurse, eyes still transfixed on Hoge. Chris shook his head. It really was a stupid reason.