Chapter 7
"Here." Ethan's eyes fluttered open - he wasn't too sure when he'd closed them - as a cup of steaming tea was pushed into his hands. "Nice and sugary, just for you."
"Haha," he deadpanned, but took a sip anyway. "Thank you, Cal."
"For slowly giving you diabetes?"
Ethan huffed a laugh. "No. Not that. But um... you know."
Cal shrugged. "It's not a problem. Need you at your best to drive us home."
"What?" Ethan's head shot up."M-me?"
"Just drink your tea. One step at a time, remember?"
Ethan stared helplessly and for a moment Cal considered giving in and driving them back himself. His RTC patient - the one who had died... tweak a few details and it could have been Ethan. It practically was him, just a couple of months ago.
"Cal-"
"Drink up," Cal insisted. This would be better for Ethan in the long run; sometimes you had to be cruel to be kind. "Go on."
The return journey was nerve-wracking and slow - the roads were still dark and icy - but eventually they made it home.
"Good job." Cal clapped his brother on the shoulder when they had finally managed to park. "Still unbearable slow of course... How are you feeling?"
Ethan practically flew out of the car and Cal groaned. That had gone about as well as expected.
Ethan flung Cal's car keys onto the table and hurried to his room to get changed into his pyjamas. The very worst of his worst shifts had never gotten him so wound up as the time he'd spent driving back from the hospital, even with Cal muttering nonsense in his ear the whole time. Exhausted as he felt, he knew there was no way he was getting to sleep any time soon.
There was a knock at his bedroom door. Cal's muffled voice drifted through. "Are you ok?"
Ethan opened his mouth to answer "yes" - but he couldn't bring himself to do it.
"I ran you a bath." Cal said after a few moments in which Ethan didn't speak.
Ethan's forehead creased in confusion. "You what?"
"I ran you a-"
"No, no I- I heard you," Ethan mumbled, more to himself than Cal. "I was just surprised."
Another silence.
"So... can I come in?"
"Yes, yes of course." Ethan physically shook himself, then went to open the door. "Sorry I was... um..."
"Here you go," Cal thrust him a towel and a bottle of bubble bath. "Water's getting cold."
Cal didn't mean to fall asleep, but the stressful search for his brother had left him bone weary. Before he knew it he had woken up on the sofa, with little idea of how much time had passed. He stumbled to Ethan's bedroom and opened the door.
"You okay?" He grunted sleepily, then saw the bed was empty. A horrendous thought came to him and his eyes widened. "Oh no."
This time he went to the bathroom door and knocked. "Ethan?" There was no answer so he pounded harder. "Come on Ethan wake up! If you've gotten a brain hemorrhage and drowned in there then Mrs Beauchamp's going to see what a horrible doctor I am... Ethan?"
The door opened. Ethan stood there looking sheepish, his hand cinching a towel around his waist, the skin on it wrinkled and prune-like. "I think I fell asleep."
"Yeah you and me both," Cal yawned. "Feel better?"
"Much, thank you."
Cal nodded slowly, casting a critical gaze over his brother. "Go get changed and I'll re-apply the gauze on your head, yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Mm... g'way." There was an unbearable pressure on Ethan's his forehead, exacerbated by the irritating pair of hands pushing down on it . "Cal..."
"Not much longer Nibbles. Trust you to fall asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow." The pressure relented. "At least you'd gotten your pyjamas on, that's all I can say."
"'M cold," Ethan complained.
"Should have gotten under your quilt then, shouldn't you?"
An inaudible, sleepy mutter was Ethan's only response and Cal grinned. He was more than tempted to take a picture of his brother in that moment. His hair was still wet and sticking in different directions, his pyjama top buttons had all been matched up to the wrong holes and his face was half buried into his mattress in a way that left his mouth gaping gormlessly.
Another sleepy mumble from Ethan.
"Sorry, what was that?"
"It was so cold..."
Cal's good mood dissipated. It didn't take years of university and medical placements to discern what his brother was talking about and he found his eyes drawn instantly to the faint scar visible beneath one of the buttonholes Ethan had missed when readying himself for bed. Without thinking too deeply about it, Cal reached out a hand and grasped his brother's shoulder, the reassuring presence beneath his fingers serving to banish the memory of the thoracoscopy he'd been forced to perform just a few months ago.
He was immensely surprised when Ethan leant into his touch with a drowsy smile and a sleepy, "'t's much better. V'ry warm..."
This was the moment he wanted a picture of, if only leaving to get his phone wouldn't have alerted Ethan to what he was doing. Maybe if he were less tired, and he didn't have an armful of not-so-baby brother pinning him to the bed, he would have tried to find a way back to his own bedroom. As it was...
"I'm definitely going to tease you about this tomorrow." With a tricky bit of maneuvering, Cal shifted around to place himself more wholly on the mattress. "You're such a bed hog..."
He would never admit it - especially not to his sleeping brother, given the last time he'd tried that - but lying next to Ethan and listening to his deep and even breaths, he was happier than he had been in a long time.
"Goodnight Ethan," he murmured. Then he closed his eyes and let the rhythm of his brother's chest expanding and contracting against his side lull him into slumber.
A/N - The end! Feedback greatly appreciated, thank you.