Shizuo didn't know how long he'd been asleep until the clock on the opposite wall told him it was ten in the morning. The bright early light startled him, blinds creating a concentrated beam focused almost directly on his eye. The blond sat up and pushed them aside, letting more of the sun's dazzle shine through. He squinted and fell back against the bed. The heart monitor resonated steadily near his head.

At the sound of a buzz, Shizuo scrambled groggily for his cellphone and found it lying on the bedside table. There were several missed calls. He snapped the phone shut and took a deep breath, only for his lungs to protest as he lapsed into a coughing fit. Beyond the loud hacks, he could hear the beep of the heart monitor speeding up.

He didn't have enough concentration to notice Shinra rush to his aid, upping some of the IV fluids he'd placed overnight. Celty ran in to hand him a glass of water, which he downed quickly, and a bucket.

"What's this for?" Shizuo managed to get out weakly.

"Blood!" Shinra chirped almost cheerfully. Shizuo had the terrible urge to punch that smirk right off that boyish face, but another cough wracked his system and he hung his head over the bucket. Celty was there to rub his back soothingly as she showed her PDA to Shinra.

"No blood? That's good. Shizuo, are you hungry?"

"A little," the blond croaked.

Celty floated out of the room to find some breakfast. Shinra sat down on the edge of the bed and started to jot some notes down on his clipboard while balancing coffee in the other hand; Shizuo's focus fixed on the chibi-Shinra logo with his name and a star next to it.

"So." He slapped the clipboard down onto his lap and took a sip of coffee. "How are we feeling today?"

"I don't know about 'we' but I'mstill shit-for-lungs."

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about, actually." Shinra glanced at the clipboard again and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "After the tests, I've concluded that it's not your lungs. Well, not entirelyyour lungs, I mean."

Swallowing down another cough, Shizuo handed the bucket to Shinra, who put it on the floor. "Go on."

"The attacking cells we've found in the samples are not those of respiratory viruses or pathogens. There are a few, but they're more attributed to, say, a cold, or a light pneumonia if anything. No, these cells are going for your cardiovascular system, and winning."

"In English, Shinra."

"It's your heart, Shizuo."

The blond fought hard not to roll his eyes. How ironic — or rather, how fitting.

Celty stepped in with a tray of tamagoyaki. His mouth watered just smelling it, and he dug in after an earnest 'thank you' in the Dullahan's direction. He ate as Shinra rambled on in doctor-ese; Celty leaned against the doorframe, their audience.

"Now, there are a few options here for echocardiograms to get a closer look at your heart. There's transesophageal echocardiograms, but that requires invasion through the esophagus, and we probably don't want to test your throat's limits right now. Stress echocardiograms would be easier since it wouldn't be difficult to get the equipment for it— a simple treadmill— but since you're having trouble just walking, let alone running, it's not an option unless we bring in some way of aggravating your system. Another echo we can do is the dobutamine stress echo, which is more of a drug that's designed to make your body think it's exercising, but I don't want to give you any more drugs until we know more clearly the thing that's running through your bloodstream–"

"Okay okay, sure," Shizuo groaned, waving his hand. "Whatever. What canyou do?"

"The standard echo. We run a transducer over your chest, and in the meantime we can also check your other organ systems to make sure they aren't affected as well. It's basically an ultrasound."

Shizuo took a minute or so to process this while he chewed. Swallowing the egg rolls down was a little difficult.

"…But I'm not pregnant."

Celty burst forward with her PDA. [IS SHIZUO PREGNANT?]

Shinra laughed out loud. "Shizuo isn't pregnant, and I'm not going into the biological details of the impossibility of male pregnancy, otherwise Shizuo will lose his breakfast." He patted Shizuo's leg underneath the covers as he stood to leave. "I've scheduled the echo for tomorrow afternoon, so you should rest for now, and we'll be watching your readings. Celty's still seeing about getting a small TV while you wait."

Celty appeared before him. [Tom's been waiting for you to wake up. I'll call him.]

Shizuo nodded. "Thanks."


Wanna take a minute to thank you guys for reading! It means a lot :3