hospital au

i was thinking earlier while i was driving about hospital au archer and shinji and how they're both actually really humbled people in spite of how archer looks and shinji acts. even when they've been dating for a while, their circumstances give way to these moments of hesitation or even shyness that might surprise the other. in their daily lives they're both quiet, intuitive people and they learn a lot about one another just from watching. shinji learns how to pick up when archer is feeling overstimulated either in a restless, physical way or a sensory way. he sort of has to figure out through trial and error what works best to settle him, and sometimes the only option is to leave him be until he's ready to be touched and spoken to. archer often apologizes, not really understanding why someone would want to spend time waiting for him to come down from an episode like that. shinji never shows any emotion in regards to it other than patience and concern. he feels like he's always still learning about archer, but that there isn't any part of him that he couldn't love. archer also shows some discomfort in his old scars from previous wounds, as he has more than a few prominent on his shoulders, back, chest and arms especially. exit wounds from bullets; shrapnel that was never removed; burns and grafts and cuts that never healed quite right. they all have stories and some are worse than others. sometimes archer feels comfort in having his shirt off and exposing them, but others he doesn't want to acknowledge their existence. shinji thinks this is understandable enough, but wants to award his confidence when it decides to show up. they can lie tangled in bed while shinji kisses each scar down its entire length, asking for its story in hopes of helping with catharsis. he just. really wants archer to be proud of himself. to shinji, archer is so amazing.

on the other side of things, shinji mostly focuses his insecurities on how he appears to people. knowing he typically looks pale and tired, generally adjectives that he associates with being unattractive, he can get really fussy about it. when stressed he can often hyper-fixate on an aspect of himself that he feels like he has more control over, like his nails or hair, if he's having a rough time in another department because of illness. when he's really sick and it all has to take a back seat, he's been known to throw sad, tired fits about wanting to bathe or wash his hair or face because he feels too unattractive to look at. he doesn't really care how vain it seems, because it's truly important to him. he doesn't know how archer can look at him when he feels like such a mess and will often tell him not to, but he couldn't be more grateful that archer has enough sense to know shinji wants him at his side anyway. it's actually really humbling. they don't realize that they're beautiful to each other no matter what, so instead they're just really in awe and humbled. stupid boys. :')