Masterpiece Theatre

Summary: Gene got sick the day that he planned to go to Japan, and more than just his trip was postponed for a decade. *Partial AU. Told in three chapters.

WC: 3,324

Notes: Title credit to Marianas Trench's song 'Masterpiece Theatre I'.

Note2: Thank you so much to Ferb. O. Oche for drawing me a personalized cover! It is absolutely magical and I will cherish it forever!

...

There were few things in life that people prayed for. Love, health, safety, financial security.

Noll didn't normally pray, but sometimes he wished that his brother could never get sick.

Because you never, ever, ever want to be in the same house as Eugene Davis when he is sick.

At the current moment, he was lying stretched out on the couch, snuggled under blankets as he listened to the credit music playing from the sixteenth movie he had watched.

"Please," he said, his voice barely audible. "Make it stop."

"Are you feeling worse?" Luella said, somehow hearing him all the way from the kitchen and over the credit music. Mothers were mysterious creatures, indeed.

"No," Gene said, "but if I watch another movie, it might kill me…" When no one conceded that his plight might be real, his started flailing his arms and legs back and forth in an attempt of some form of stimulation.

"Why are you so over-dramatic…" Noll stated as he walked past his brother 'dying' on the couch as he headed to the kitchen.

"Noll! Where have you been? Play with me."

"I've been studying, thank you. And no."

"I would be studying, too," Gene said, trying to sit up and then deciding that wasn't a good idea after an ocean started to swim behind his eyes. "But this stupid cold halted my life. My whole trip to Japan forfeit. Whhhyyyy…"

With his head buried into his pillow, he mumbled, "I've been waiting three months for this. All over because of a stupid cold."

Noll came back into the living room and sat on the armchair with his water glass. He listened to Gene fake-or-real-sob (he wasn't too sure) into his pillow. Gene had been planning this for a long time, and Noll was surprised that Gene's over-zealousness didn't keep him from getting ill.

"Gene, do you believe in the concept of something happening to stop something else from occurring?"

"Mmmh. You mean coincidence?" Gene twisted around to better see his brother. "Or fate? What? Are you insinuating that I was going to die or something?"

"I'm just putting it out there to make you feel better."

"Well, gee, dear brother, that doesn't actually make me feel better."

Gene put his arms behind his head as he thought. "Interesting. So I got sick to avoid dying. I guess that's not a terrible toss-up. But it still sucks." He closed his eyes. "I'd rather just go to Japan and not die, is that an option?"

"Why are you asking me?"

"Because you're the one that started this conversation."

"Then I would say that the things that are beyond the thinking process shouldn't be thought about."

"Are you saying that it's too much for my little brain to think about?"

"I actually meant in the form that it goes beyond the human mind's ability to think."

"Beyond the measure of the human thinking process…" Gene mused. Are there possible things that can be thought about, and yet at the same time not thought about because they cannot be thought up?

"Ah, now my brain hurts. Why are you messing with the fevered person?"

"Because I'm the other side of this conversation."

Gene kept almost running his hand through his hair, as a habit, but since it was greasy from not being able to wash properly these last two days, the habit was grossing him out. "So let's just say that you're right," Gene said, wondering if he could wring the oil out of his hair. "I was not supposed to go to Japan because of some… let's say, 'dire consequences', is that your soul entity deciding to change your destiny, or is it fate intervening?"

"Maybe it's just 'coincidence' and 'luck' that affects the decisions. I don't believe in destiny." Noll got out of his chair, heading out.

"Wait, where are you going? Don't leave me here with the TV!"

"You have no problem watching the TV when you're not sick."

"Yeah, but now it is against my freewill…"

Luella passed Noll as he abandoned his brother. She refilled Gene's water glass, because keeping hydrated was the most important thing to a sick person. Gene didn't appreciate that he had to keep chugging down water, but he had nothing better to do.

"Why are you two talking about such morbid things?" she said with a smile on her face.

"Noll started it," Gene said, complete with a point to his brother's retreating back.

"So, what do you want on now?"

"Luella, that is the meanest thing that you have ever said to me…"