when everyone has veneers and the house is pristine and tastefully decorated: (in the back of my mind) these people were hand-selected for visual appeal. this is a set. this is a story
when the actor has a little acne and there are dirty dishes in the sink: aaaaahhhhh this is just like Me and My House ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!
Taking the night shift at a 24-7 emergency vet hospital isn't for the faint of heart, and you've seen a lot of crazy things. But on one particular shift, it's Tenko Shimura and his service dog who make the biggest impression on you. a silly little fic I wrote while I was at the emergency vet with my dog. No quirks AU, volunteer!reader, pet owner!Shigaraki, Mon-chan lives (and so do any other animals mentioned in this fic). 3.9k words.
The waiting room sounds like hell in a handbasket, but give that this is the only 24/7 emergency vet in the prefecture, that’s not a surprise. You’ve been volunteering here since you got out of school, and there’s never been an overnight shift where things haven’t been completely unhinged. Cats yowling. Dogs barking. Rodents squeaking and birds trilling back and one enormous monitor lizard that’s going berserk inside its crate, scaring every other animal in the same bank of seats. But as bad as the pets are, they’re nowhere near as bad as the owners.
In the five years you’ve been volunteering here, you’ve seen probably thousands of people come in with their sick and injured pets, and none of them come in at their best. Nobody’s at their best when they’re scared or sad, and having to wait and watch as other pets are triaged and brought back from exams. You still have your vet tech certification left over from before you went to school, so you know how to take vitals and do basic assessments, but your real job on every shift is to manage the owners. Some nights it’s easier than others.
Tonight isn’t one of those nights. In addition to half a dozen pets already in the exam rooms, there’s a couple and their two kids with their elderly cat, all four of whom look like they’re hanging by a thread. In the back corner, there are a couple of kids who rescued a tanuki that got hit by a car. They’re also hanging by a thread, and probably in need of a few preemptive vaccinations to boot. The guy with the monitor lizard is making everybody nervous. People keep filtering in and out, getting stat-triaged or sent to the waiting room, and with every person who gets called back, the guy your age with the corgi who’s been here for four hours loses his temper a little bit more.
You feel like you should check in with him, but one thing and another keeps you busy, and nobody points you his way until one of the dads from the cat family catches your attention. “Hey, not to bother you, I know you’re busy –”
“How long have you been waiting?” you ask at once. “Has Snow White’s condition changed at all?”
“No, she’s about the same, but –” The blond man nods towards the bank of chairs across from his family. “Can you get a handle on that guy? He’s scaring my kids, and my husband’s this close to breaking his nose.”
You take a second look at Corner Guy – or Corgi Guy, if you go by the dog. Corner Guy is your age, skinny, with messy blue hair under an oversized hoodie. His clothes are old, but the blanket he’s wrapped the corgi in is new, and clean. With the dog bundled up that way, you can’t see what’s wrong, but it’s resting quietly in its owner’s arms. Every so often, it twists around to lick his face.
The dog is cute, but Corner Guy’s middle-distance death stare isn’t, and the blond man’s husband and kids are right in his eyeline. The least you can do is give him someone else to glare at. You make your way over and park yourself in the seat right across from him. “Hi. Have you been triaged yet?”
Corner Guy’s mouth, scarred at one corner, twists into a sneer. “What do you think?”
“How long has it been since somebody checked in with you?” you ask. You get a death stare all your own in response. “I’m sorry about the wait. If you tell me how long it’s been I might be able to hurry things along.”
“Checked in with me? I checked in. They took my money and told me to wait.” Corner Guy’s voice takes on a note of bitterness. “These people are idiots. I heard them, over there – their dog got hit by a car this morning and they’re just now coming in? Their dog gets to see the vet first because they were stupid and I wasn’t?”
You get this kind of thing a lot. You also get the sense that Corner Guy won’t appreciate being told how triage works. You deliberately turn your attention to the corgi in its blanket. “Who’s this?”
“Her name’s Mon.”
“Can I say hi?” you ask. Corner Guy nods, and you reach out to scratch Mon’s ears. She gives your hand a good sniff with a cold, wet nose before she lets you pet her, and as soon as you touch her, you can tell by the softness of her fur that she’s well cared-for. “What a sweetheart. How old is she?”
“Three.”
“Still a baby, huh?” You can’t help slipping into puppy voice. You got over being embarrassed about that a long time ago. “What brings you two in tonight?”
“At the stupid pet store. Some asshole ran her foot over with his cart, and she’s been crying –” Corner Guy’s eat-shit expression shifts into misery. “The cashier said to come here, so I did. And I’ve just been sitting here, and I know she’s in pain – and everybody and their cat gets to see the vet before Mon does.”
Now you get why the blond guy’s husband wants to break Corner Guy’s nose. “Can I see her paw? Which one is it?”
“Front one. On the right.” Corner Guy unwraps the blanket, careful not to jostle Mon, but she whimpers anyway. “Sorry. Sorry –”
“Okay, sweetie. Can I see your paw?” You forgot how short corgi legs are. There’s a risk that the cart got more than just her paw. “Oof, okay. That looks like it really hurts. How long ago did that happen?”
“Four hours.”
So he really did come straight here. “What happens if she tries to put weight on it?”
“She hasn’t,” Corner Guy says. “I picked her up when it happened, and, uh – I didn’t put her down again.”
“And you wrapped her up. That’s good,” you say. “If she hasn’t moved it around a lot, it’s a lot less likely to get displaced. How long ago did it stop bleeding?”
Corner Guy shrugs. The blanket has a decent-sized stain, but the stain looks like it’s drying. “Okay,” you say. “I’m going to go talk to the doctors and see if I can get one to come out and take a look at her. They might tell you it’s better to be treated by your regular vet, if you can get an appointment –”
“I made one for tomorrow,” Corner Guy says. “I wanted to see if she could get, like – dog Advil or something. I know she’s hurt even if she’s not crying.”
“Oh.” That’s a lot quicker than a cast and x-rays, and the vets on duty will be really happy to hear that Corner Guy has a vet appointment lined up already. “Hang on. I’ll be right back.”
You confirm it with the front desk, then come back with the good news. “I can take her back right now and the vet will do a quick exam. Then they’ll do a splint and some painkillers, and that should get you through to tomorrow. Sound okay?”
Corner Guy hesitates. “You’re going to take her away?”
“It’s kind of busy back in the exam rooms, so we have the owners wait out here.”
“No,” Corner Guy says. “She’s my service dog. I have to come too.”
“Service dog?” You’ve never seen a service corgi before, but when Corner Guy folds back the blanket, you see that Mon’s wearing a vest, with a seal on it that you recognize. That organization trains service dogs specifically for PTSD. “Okay. Right. So maybe it’s best if you carry her.”
Corner Guy follows you through the packed waiting room and past the authorized personnel only doors. It occurs to you that you’ve forgotten something. “I got Mon’s name. What’s yours?”
“Shimura,” Corner Guy says. “Shimura Tenko.”
Shimura Tenko settles down a lot once you get him and Mon into an exam room. People usually calm down when their pet finally gets some medical attention, but Shimura looks like he’s doing more than just calming down – his face is pale and his hands are shaking, and Mon starts squirming in his arms, letting out little whines as she tries to reposition. She’s still at work, even though she’s hurt. You hesitate a second, then step in. “I can help turn her. Where’s she trying to go?”
He doesn’t answer, but you’ve seen service dogs from this organization before, and you know what they usually do to help their handlers. You help Mon rotate from sprawled in Shimura’s lap to a more upright position, and she lays her head on his chest, over his heart. It takes a few moments, but you see Tenko begin to relax.
“Are you two going to be okay in here for a second?” You don’t get a nod, but you also don’t get a no, and you duck out onto the treatment floor in search of one of the vets on call.
The first vet you encounter is Dr. Fukukado, which is what you were hoping for. She’s got the best bedside manner. You wait for her to sign the discharge paperwork on the parakeets she was treating, the make your case. “I have a patient in Exam 10. Her paw got run over by a shopping cart and it looks pretty bad.”
“Poor thing.” Dr. Fukukado’s mouth turns down at the corners. “That would be a stat if we weren’t so busy –”
“She’s a service dog,” you interrupt as politely as possible. “From New Horizons.”
“PTSD. How’s her handler doing?”
“Not great,” you say. You feel confident in that one. “They were waiting for a while. I thought he was just being a jerk, but once I brought them back here he sort of –”
Collapsed is probably too strong, but you’re too tired to come up with the clinical terminology. Sometimes after a night at the emergency vet, you forget that you even have a day job, let alone that it’s as a social worker. “Okay. Here’s what we’ll do,” Dr. Fukukado says. “I’ll add my name to his case and get in there as quickly as possible. In the meantime, you stick with them. Try to keep them both calm. Triage should be thinning out soon.”
Hopefully. It’s two am. You stick around long enough for Dr. Fukukado to add her name to the chart, then head back to Exam 10. Mon and Shimura haven’t moved. “Hi,” you say. “I’ve got some good news. The doctor’s put her name on Mon’s chart, so she’s next in line. Is there anything I can do to help in the meantime?”
Shimura Tenko doesn’t answer. You notice that his lips are really dry. “I can get water if you want it, or something else to drink. We have a coffee machine, so there’s tea, coffee, mochas, cappuccinos, hot chocolate –”
“That.”
Okay. He’s talking. “Gotcha. One hot chocolate, coming right up.”
You pick your way through the waiting room, checking on a few new patients in the mean time. You stop by the family with the cat to make sure they’re all right, cast a wary eye at the guy with the lizard, quickly triage a pair of kittens someone brought it, and grab Tenko’s hot chocolate. You’ve hit first-name terms with him in your head. That’s – not normal.
When you get back to the exam room, Tenko looks like he’s doing a little better. More color in his face, at least. “I thought you weren’t coming back.”
“No, I just got a bit held up.” You hand over the hot chocolate and watch him take a sip. His hands aren’t shaking as badly as before. “How are you two doing?”
“Her foot’s still messed up.” Tenko takes another sip. “It’s my fault.”
“It can feel like that sometimes, but I bet it wasn’t,” you say. “Somebody ran her foot over. That wasn’t you.”
“I shouldn’t have put her down.” Tenko’s voice flattens. “I know I carry her too much. She wants to walk. I thought she might want to walk around in there. If I hadn’t put her down she wouldn’t have gotten hurt, so it’s my fault.”
“Letting your dog walk around is a reasonable thing to do,” you counter. “Not looking where you’re going and hitting somebody else’s dog with your cart isn’t. That person’s the problem, not you.”
“I’ve only had her for two months,” Tenko says. His voice pulls tight. “They’re going to take her away.”
“We see service dogs in here a lot,” you say. “Nobody comes to take them away. Everybody knows accidents happen. This was definitely an accident.”
Tenko doesn’t answer. He takes a few sips of hot chocolate, and Mon picks her head up to snuffle the cup. “Hey. No. That’s bad for you.” Mon gives the bottom of the cup an exploratory lick. “We have treats at home. If I let you have this she’ll think I’m a moron.”
“I’d have a hard time saying no to her,” you say. You sit down one chair away from him. “If you hadn’t told me you got her two months ago, I never would have guessed. You guys seem really bonded already.”
“Yeah.” Tenko adjusts his grip on her. He’s quieter when he speaks again. “I feel like shit right now. She knows to work when I get upset, but I don’t want her to get upset and worry about me when she’s hurt. So then I get upset because I’m making her work, and – yeah.”
“She’ll feel better if you let her help you,” you say. You’re confident in that one. “My dog does, anyway.”
“You have a service dog? Where is it?”
“She’s a therapy dog,” you say. Tenko gives you a suspicious look. “Not an ESA. She and I did a bunch of extra training and I take her on visits to places – hospitals, schools, libraries, that kind of thing. When we’re not on visits, she’s a pet. An incredibly spoiled pet.”
“Do you have a picture?”
People with sick pets don’t usually ask about your pet. Then again, you don’t usually tell people with sick pets that you’ve got one, too. “Yeah. Um, here. That’s her.”
Tenko glances at your phone, and to your shock, he cracks a smile. “People must go crazy for her on visits. There was a golden in team training when I went through. Everybody wanted him but me.”
You should keep Tenko talking anyway – it’s best practice – but you also really want to know. “How does it work, getting matched with a dog? Do they let you pick?”
Tenko shakes his head. “You work with a bunch of different dogs in the first week. They’re all trained like Mon is. The trainers want to see which one you click with. Mon was the third one I worked with.”
“And you got along right away?”
“She kept getting in trouble.” There’s a note of pride in Tenko’s voice, and it only takes you a moment to understand why. “Even when she was working with other people, she kept pulling to get back to me.”
“She picked you out,” you say, and Tenko nods. He’s smiling slightly again. “I can tell you guys have something really special. And that you take really good care of her.”
Mon finally quits trying to get into the hot chocolate and settles back with her head against Tenko’s chest. Tenko glances at you. “What do you do here, anyway? I’ve been watching you run around all night and I still can’t figure it out.”
“I’m a patient support specialist,” you explain. “I can do triage, but mainly I try to help people get through pet emergencies in one piece. It gets kind of hard in here.”
“Whatever they pay you, it’s not enough.”
“I don’t get paid,” you say. “I volunteer.”
Tenko looks surprised. “You do this for free?”
Before you can answer, someone bangs on the door. You jump, but it startles Tenko enough that he spills some hot chocolate on his hand, which Mon promptly slurps up. You open the door, ready to give hell to whoever spooked them both. “Hey, can you keep it down?”
“Sorry. Fukukado said you were in here, and –” Tamaki leans against the doorframe, breathing hard. “You know the monitor lizard? It’s, uh – not.”
“What is it, then?”
“We don’t really know,” Tamaki says. “But it got out.”
Oh. “Anybody who’s not with a patient has to go help,” Tamaki says. “Like now.”
You are with a patient. You glance at Tenko, who looks ever so slightly entertained. “Me and Mon aren’t going anywhere,” he says. “Go get your lizard.”
You get to your feet. “Sit tight. I’ll be back soon.”
You aren’t back soon. You’re back an hour later, bruised and tired, your hand wrapped in an ice pack and an ace bandage. You make the mistake of knocking on the door to Exam 10 with it, and you get a shock when Tenko opens the door rather than just hollering for you to come in. He’s not carrying Mon, and you ask where he is at the same moment as he asks you a question of his own. “What happened to you?”
“Is Mon okay?”
“They brought her a bed and some pain stuff.” Tenko opens the door to show you, and you spot Mon on the exam table in a dog bed, swaddled in a blanket and so doped up on painkillers that she can barely keep her eyes open. “They’re gonna do x-rays later. Did you get the lizard?”
“It got me,” you say. Tenko’s eyes widen as he studies your bandaged hand. “And it wasn’t a lizard.”
“What was it, then – a dragon?”
“A Komodo dragon,” you say. “But close.”
“Aren’t those things supposed to be giant?” Tenko says. “How did that guy fit it in that box?”
“This one was a juvenile. Is a juvenile. We didn’t hurt it or anything.” You don’t think any of you were capable of hurting it. It was running circles around you. “It’s still really big. And fast.’
“And it took you guys an hour to catch it,” Tenko muses. “I was wondering what all the yelling was about.”
You and the others were really trying to keep the yelling to a minimum. You wince. “We had to find it first, and once we did, we had to catch it – but it was really aggressive, so it started biting, and then it got away again. Rinse and repeat about ten times.”
Tenko snickers. “I wish I could have seen it. More of it than I did, anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“I cracked the door open. Some guy was chasing it down the hall,” Tenko says. “It was pretty funny when it started chasing him back the other way.”
Dr. Sorahiko is the oldest vet in the ER, and he’s gotten kind of mean in his old age. You don’t feel bad for laughing. “You’re probably going to see the rest of it on TikTok or something. Or on the news. They showed up when Animal Control did.”
“Does that kind of thing happen a lot around here?”
“No,” you say. “Usually when we have a wild night, it’s a different kind of wild.”
“So no bites from a giant lizard,” Tenko says. You shake your head. “You and Mon match now. Maybe we can get two x-rays for the price of one.”
You smile at the thought, then remember something the front desk told you to pass along. “They’re discounting services for everybody tonight, because of the – disruption. Even if Mon gets x-rays and a splint and everything, you’ll probably only get charged the exam fee.”
“Good.” Tenko looks relieved. “Mon gets whatever she needs, when she needs it, but I was gonna be eating instant ramen for a month so I could make rent.”
“A lot of people who bring their pets in here say stuff like that.” You prop your bitten hand against your shoulder to elevate it. The bite didn’t break the skin, but it still hurts a lot. “That’s part of why I like being here. People are awful in outpatient.”
“They’re awful here, too. I sucked.”
“You weren’t even close to the worst person I’ve talked to,” you say. You remember a guy whose dog needed a leg amputation telling you he’d break your neck if she died on the operating table. He got kicked out, but the vets still operated on his dog, and as far as you know, she made a full recovery. “But people here — they aren’t being assholes just because they can. They’re really worried about their animals, because they care about them so much, and I’ve never seen somebody handle that well without help. If I ever have to bring my dog in here, I’ll be a wreck just like everyone else.”
“Worse than everybody else,” Tenko says. You glance at him, puzzled. “You’re not going to have a you around to help out.”
“Yeah,” you say. The thought is weirdly dispiriting. Not only will you be in here with no patient outreach specialist, you’re going to be in here all alone. Your family lives in a different prefecture, most of your friends have their own lives to deal with, and it’s not like you have a partner who could come with you. You haven’t gone on a date in a long time. “It’s going to suck.”
“If it ever happens, me and Mon will hang out with you,” Tenko says, and you nearly fall out of your chair. “She helps me. She won’t mind helping you, too.”
Before you can even think about addressing that, there’s a quick knock on the door, and Dr. Fukukado steps in. “Hey, sorry about the wait,” she says earnestly. “Mini-Godzilla was zipping around out here and he was tough to catch. We’ve got it under control, obviously, but — hey, you need to go home. Everybody who got hurt has to clock out.”
“I’m a volunteer. I don’t have to do anything,” you say. “I can stick around as long as I need to.”
You’ve put the ball back in Tenko’s court, which you feel is the patient-centered thing to do, especially when you’re technically still on shift. But patient-centered or not, you don’t want to leave just yet. You’ve gotten a little protective over these two, and by the time you go home and hug your own dog, you want to know that Tenko and his dog are going to be okay.
“Stick around,” Tenko says after a moment, and your heart lifts in a way it really shouldn’t. “Somebody needs to replace Mon when she goes for her x-rays.”
He wants you to be his service dog? “Sure, but I’m not going to lick your face.”
Tenko laughs at that – actually laughs – and the lightness in your chest grows a little harder to ignore. You like making people feel better, and you like it more than you should that he wants you around a little while longer. It’s not often that you have a night like this one at work. The Komodo dragon bite is going to be the better story, the kind you’ll tell your friends about, or your parents the next time you call home. But hanging out with Tenko Shimura and Mon for the rest of your shift is what you’re going to remember.
👁tries to copy real sixteen-years-old tom riddle’s appearance but fails when it comes to details like the hogwarts emblem or head boy/prefect badge. they end up becoming obscure and completely meaningless, like early AI-generated pictures.
👁mostly consists of skin, blood, and ink, so basically, can take any preferred form.
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