Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh.
Title: Endearment and Enmity
Rating: T-M depending on chapter, M overall
Summary: When you're literally married to the person you despise.
Warnings: Homosexual relationships, vulgar words and adult situations.
Author's Note: I don't know why I wrote this.
NOTE: I SAW I'VE BEEN SPELLING 'JONOUCHI' AS 'JOUNOUCHI' FOR THE PAST FEW CHAPTERS, I'LL CORRECT IT FROM HERE ON.
Chapter 16: United States v. Windsor
-Back in the Past-
"You've deployed to Iraq twice, why are you being such a pussy?"
"Do not antagonize my patient, sergeant." Katsuya Jonouchi, RN, warned the female non-commissioned officer sitting nearby. He turned back to the nervous female soldier sitting at the patient's bed, their uniform blouse was off leaving them in their coyote undershirt.
The female soldier was staring at the anthrax vaccine syringe in his hand and was backing up each time he came near her.
"You have complete sleeve tattoos on both arms! Why are you scared of this needle?" The NCO complained to the soldier, her arms crossed, irate.
"Now sergeant, a fear of needles is completely natural and common, it's nothing to be surprised about, and again, shaming is not helping my patient." Jonouchi put a bit more emphasis in his tone as he looked back at the sergeant, who looked away slightly.
"Now, Ward," he addressed his patient in his 'patient care' tone "I'm just going to swab your arm with an alcohol wipe first okay?" Nevermind that he already did that, but Ward had already defensively grabbed her own deltoid, so the injection site wasn't sterile anymore.
Ward nodded and presented her arm again; he swabbed it with the alcohol wipe and fanned it dry with his hand before wide-pinching the deltoid to make the muscles protrude. Then quickly stuck her with the needle, making the soldier hiss audibly, and emptied the contents of the syringe into the muscle as quickly as possible. Usually he counted down from three when giving patients shots, but he didn't do that with patients who had a phobia of needles, as not to increase their anxiety. With a gloved thumb, he massaged the shot site to work the vaccine into the underlying muscle.
"There, now you know it's going to start burning after about ten seconds," he said, removing his thumb and seeing that she wasn't even bleeding there; a grimace appeared on Ward's face to indicate exactly what he said was happening "I know you've gotten this injection before, but I'm still going to tell you that for the next 24 hours your arm is going to be sore, so try to not do a lot of weight lifting. You're not even bleeding - but do you want a bandaid anyways?"
"No thanks, but thank you nurse." Ward politely answered and grabbed her camouflage blouse, quickly zipping and velcroing it up. Jonouchi disposed of the syringe into the needle into the sharps container and degloved his hands. Grabbing his pen from his scrub pocket, his filled out her immunization form, signing the slip and ripping it from the form to give to her "Here is your immunization slip, you can show it to your chain of command if your medpros isn't updated right away."
"Thanks again nurse," Ward said with an awkward smile, putting the slip into her pocket "I'm uh… really sorry I'm such a wimp with needles."
"It's perfectly fine," Jonouchi waved her concerns off "it's normal. In fact, most of the medics in your unit are probably also scared of needles."
"That's… a pretty funny thought." Ward said with a small laugh before her NCO promptly dragged her out.
Sighing, Jonouchi went into the 'team room' designated for nurses, providers, and whatever medics were assigned to them. Being the only RNA for this particular team, he was the one who had to sign off on a lot of things. Most of his job was actually administrative in nature, scheduling appointments, taking phone calls for soldiers who needed to know their test results, the status of their referrals, and other medical related issues. Usually the LVN's under him were the ones to give shots, but he really needed a break from the desk.
"You know Mr. Jonouchi," The PA said as she turned in her desk chair in front of her monitor - a female army captain whose name tape on her camouflage scrub top read 'Watson' "PFC Blackburn is being promoted at the end of the day, you should really go to his promotion ceremony."
"Is it going to be here?" Jonouchi asked, uncoiling his stethoscope from behind his neck and placing it on his desk. Blackburn was one of the medics who worked under CPT Watsons license, a medic Jonouchi was really fond of because of his upbeat and kind attitude, which reminded him a lot of Yugi.
CPT Watson shook her head, "It's going to be at his unit headquarters… most of us will be there to support him, he's been in rotation at the clinic for so long that most of his assigned unit doesn't even know him."
"What time will it be?" Jonouchi asked as he checked hit watch - it was currently 1:30 in the afternoon and the hospital wasn't going to close until 4:30.
"1700."
Jonouchi hummed; he would be a little out of place being a foreign civilian… but he was fond of Blackburn… and it's not like he had anything planned besides studying for his upcoming microbiology exam, which was a subject he hated anyways "Sure." He told her, right before his phone started ringing. He let it ring twice before answering "Hello, this is the Brooke Army Medical Center, Nurse Jonouchi speaking, this line is unsecure, how may I help you sir, ma'am or sergeant..."
Military formations used to be such an odd sight for Jonouchi; all of these people in the same uniform, standing in any of the same three positions; attention, parade rest and at ease. The highest ranked person in any given row would be the first person in line for that row, and each row had a certain amount of people with everyone spaced equally. He was used to it by now, and just stood in the background with a few other random civilians, and people who weren't part of the unit and therefore not part of the formation.
Blackburn's face was solemn as he stood at attention in front of everyone else as his commander gave a speech about him and his promotion, but Jonouchi could see the smile in his eyes as everyone was put at the position of attention. The commander and Blackburn's first line supervisor took the Private First Class rank off of his patrol cap and blouse and replaced it with a Specialist rank.
Everyone was put at ease, and immediately the formation began to chant "Speech, speech!"
Blackburn looked like he wanted to make a speech - but quickly shook his head, and Jonouchi guessed it was because he was shy in front of crowds, another thing that reminded him of Yugi.
One of the guys in the formation raised his hand.
"You have something to say about Specialist Blackburn, Sergeant Stonewall?"
"Yes." A thick accent replied - Jonouchi had a hard time with some of the accents in the USA, but he was pretty sure this one was from one of the Carolina's.
Sergeant Stonewall, the sergeant who spoke up fell out of the formation and walked up the Blackburn "Not a lot of you know Specialist Blackburn because he's been working up in BAM-C for almost six months," the man began, then turned to face the formation, showing off the staff sergeant rank adorning his blouse; Jonouchi's heart skipped a beat; his wisteria-violet eyes were stunning, light in shade and leaning towards blue in colour, it really complimented his thick crop of coppery-brown hair he sported "as his platoon sergeant, I see a lot of things about this soldier from behind-the-scenes. It's a medics job to care about the health and safety of his battle buddies to his left and right, but he's gone above and beyond. He's helped organize fundraisers with the Family Readiness Group, and been a part of several charities, including blood drives and crowdfunding marathons. And even on an individual level he's shown his selfless-ness, I've never met someone who knows Blackburn that hasn't said he's one of the kindest soldiers in our formation."
While Jonouchi was immensely proud of Blackburn, his eyes and his attention were caught by the Staff Sergeant giving him a commendation speech. SSG Stonewall was really tall, and his uniform fit him perfectly, not being too tight or too baggy as was a common problem for a lot of soldiers since their duty uniforms weren't allowed to be tailored. Even as he was addressing the formation, he would still occasionally glance at Blackburn as if to reassure him that all of the good things he was saying about him were heartfelt.
Jonouchi sure hoped he would stick around after the ceremony was over…
"Good job, kid." Jonouchi said to Blackburn as he messed up his dark blue hair in a good-natured noogie.
"Nurseee." Blackburn complained, but laughed anyways and let him.
"I see you have a lot more friends than I thought you did." Jonouchi said, looking at all of the people in and out of uniform who were still milling around the general area even after they were released for the day, presumably so they could talk to newly promoted.
"I don't think I've met your friend, Blackburn." SSG Stonewall said as he walked up to them - now that he was closer Jonouchi could really appreciate the broad and defined features of his handsome face. He had a little bit of a coppery 'shadow' appearing around his chin, and some razor bumps at his pale neck, but it made him appear more rugged but sophisticated at the same time.
"Oh, yeah," Blackburn stuttered a little as he scrambled to parade rest - Jonouchi knew that Blackburn had a hard time around NCO's, he stayed in 'at ease' position even when Stonewall told him to relax "Sergeant, this is Mr. Jonouchi, he's a nurse at the hospital."
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Jonouchi," Stonewall said with a small smile as he presented his hand to shake, which Jonouchi readily took "my name's Anthony Stonewall."
"You can just call me Jonouchi."
"You can just call me 'Stoney'."
Jonouchi stifled a laugh at the pun "Alright, Stoney." He said as he dropped his hand, he saw that Blackburn had shuffled away to a group of other junior enlisted soldiers. "That was a really nice speech you gave, you must be really fond of Blackburn."
Stoney nodded "He's a good kid, it's hard to find a genuinely positive soldier around here… There's nothing wrong with most of these soldiers, it's just most of them can't decide if they hate the unit, or if they hate the army." He chuckled.
"I've noticed, I've never heard so many suicide jokes since I started working for the department of defense." Jonouchi agreed, crossing his arms as he smiled up at the other man.
"You've got an interesting accent."
"So do you - lemme guess, South Carolina?"
"North Carolina, pretty close though. I can't place yours, something Asian?"
"I'm Japanese."
"Interesting since you're so… Well..."
"White? Yeah, it is pretty weird huh… My mother and her family are from the United States. I just came here for school and work."
"You're a nurse right? CNA or RN?"
"I'm an RN right now - I'm trying to be a CRNA."
"I'm not familiar with that one."
"Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist - I'm only one semester short of finishing all of the classes I need for it."
"That's pretty cool."
"What about you, Stoney? What's your MOS? You're not a medic like Blackburn otherwise I would have had you complain to me at some point."
They didn't even notice how the crowd had thinned almost entirely, all that was left was the team of unfortunate privates who were "hey you"d into clean up after the ceremony.
"I'm Bravo Companies Supply NCO." Stoney explained, hooking his thumbs in his belt loop; for some reason, American soldiers weren't allowed to put their hands in their pockets.
"Your pretty young for a staff sergeant." Jonouchi commented - most staff sergeants were at least 26-27, but this one had to be at most 23.
"I wanted to make staff sergeant really badly - I hated living in the barracks." He explained, and chuckled a bit.
"Oh - you're not married?" Jonouchi asked bluntly - military people tended to marry early because they had to live in barracks unless if they were married, had a child, or were at least a staff sergeant.
"They only recently repealed don't ask don't tell..." The soldier explained, trailing off with an edge of sadness in his voice. Jonouchi was confused for a second before he remembered - it was only a year or two ago that the US made gay marriage legal, and even less time since the US military gave same-sex marriages the same benefits as traditional.
"You're…?"
"Yeah." Stoney confirmed, rubbing the back of his neck.
And suddenly Stoney became at least twice as appealing.
-Back in the Present-
"Look, Stoney, I know you've got no reason to trust my word right now; but I wasn't cheating on anyone." Jonouchi defended himself as he plopped a tapioca pearl from his tea into his mouth. Stoney was still frowning, and folded his hands in front of himself.
"The timeline doesn't add up, Joey."
"You don't have to call me that anymore."
The American wasn't taking the bait "You don't have to change the subject."
Jonouchi nervously took a big, long swig of his boba tea, drinking almost all of it at once, he looked over the barista and asked her politely in Japanese for a second one.
"Look," Jonouchi said as he wiped the corner of his mouth with a napkin to remove the excess tea "whatever we were… It ended a long time ago. I'm a married man now."
"Does your husband know you cheated on him overseas?" Stoney's tone was now accusing and angry, and Jonouchi knew why; soldiers were notorious disgusted by cheating even if they themselves did it, all too many soldiers' marriages were ruined because their spouses were cheating while they were deployed.
"Anthony, please," Jonouchi pleaded, putting his hands in front of him defensively "you know I'd never cheat on anyone."
Stoney wasn't taking any of it though, it was clear on his face "I don't know what I know about you anymore."
"Look, me and Seto have been together for a long time yes, but what I had with you wasn't me getting foreign tail behind his back."
"What was it then? An open relationship?" He practically spat the word 'open' out.
Jonouchi thought quickly; he wanted to be honest with his ex, he really did, he respected Stoney enough to not want to make him feel like a side piece, but the last thing he wanted was jeopardize the meticulous lie around his marriage to Kaiba "We were… on a break at the time."
"A break?"
"Yes."
"A break isn't the same as a break-up. What was I to you, Katsuya?" He pronounced his given name horribly, but the emphasis was not lost on the CRNA.
"I really did like you a lot, Stoney..." Jonouchi answered him, and he was sincere about at least that.
"You told me you loved me." Stoney had to practically squeeze that one out.
Jonouchi couldn't say anything to that.
"That wasn't true was it… you loved someone else, I was just a vacation to you."
"Stoney..."
The tall brunet grimaced, and there was a painful glint in his eyes as he slapped a ¥1 000 bill onto the table, not realizing that tipping was an American exclusive practice. "When I gave you the name Joey, I didn't realize I should have called you Jody instead." He said, and he stood up, and Jonouchi was incapable of saying anything when he turned and left the Cafe, practically stomping out.
Jonouchi was still silent until the barista brought him the second boba tea, once she placed it down he cleared his throat as he looked up at her "Can I get like… three more of these? To-go?"
To be continued…
Authors note: This was a toughie, but I've been looking forward to it for almost a year. Here we look back into Jonouchi's life when he was still an RN and part-time student. Here we go into a little bit about medicine, the army, and army medicine.
Along side E&E I'm working on a side project called "Plus 2" which I about 5 chapters in; so I've actually written several chapters of E&E in advanced, so I can continue to post on Sundays and Thursdays.
Quick notes:
-In the US, Anthrax is a vaccine given almost exclusively to soldiers only
-The US army three main types of uniform; the physical readiness uniform, which is basically a black tracksuit, the duty uniform which is the classic 'camouflage' uniform, and the dress blue uniform.
-The rank structure for enlisted army has specialists and below as the junior enlisted, with corporals and above as non-commissioned officers.
-For my non-American readers, the 'southern accent' isn't really a thing, at least not in the umbrella phrase of it. Like with any given country, different areas have a local accent, some states or areas having a more prominent accent than others, of the more southern states, North Carolina and South Carolina both have very prominent and distinct accents.
-Speaking of accents, it isn't stated but Stoney calls Jonouchi 'Joey' plain and simply because he horribly butchers the pronunciation of his Japanese name.
- A "Jody" is a term that refers to someone who sleeps with someone else's spouse, usually the wife/girlfriend of a military man while he is deployed.
Urban dictionary definition of "Jody"
Jody:The hypothetical man (often a sinister character who decided not to go to boot camp) that is doing your girlfriend/wife while you are on deployment overseas.