The next day is better.
Murphy stays awake for longer, and Connor smiles genuinely for longer.
He leans back in his chair, stretching out his back muscles, and lets out a soft groan as his muscles protest against the plastic hospital chairs. His brother smirks at him from the bed, and uses the remote control to lift the head of the bed up higher, working his way up into a full sitting position, rather than a reclined one.
Connor glares half-heartedly at him, and yawns as he says, "Don't be fuckin' around, Murph. Yer gonna break th' stupid thing."
His twin sticks his tongue out at him, and messes around with the controls for a few more minutes, but Connor's mind is almost fixated on the bad quality of the chair. He decides that he simply can't take another moment of sitting in that torture chair, and stands abruptly, only swaying slightly.
Murphy flinches violently, and his eyes dart fearfully to Connor's, unsure if his brother was going to leave him without any warning, "What?"
"Nothin', nothin'. I'm jus' getting' outta tha' chair, calm down. Nil me ag deanamh aon rud. I'm not doing anything." Connor smiles at Murphy, and reaches down to ruffle his hair, because he knows that Murphy hates that, "Tha' thing is unbearable after a while, absolutely unbearable."
"There's no other chairs in tha' hospital?" Murphy asks, slapping Connor's hand away with a scowl, and absentmindedly flattening his hair back down.
He scratches at his cast carefully, brow furrowed in concentration, "Aye… There might be, yeah. At the nurse's station, down th' hall, they have these big comfy looking chairs, with the wheels that swirl around and shit… aye. B'fheidir ro-cluthar, ach nil fhios agam. Maybe too comfy, but I don't know. Tis a shame."
"Ye really want one of those chairs, don't ye?" Murphy lets out a laugh, while Connor simply nods miserably. "Well then we're jus' gonna havta get ye one, aren't we? Can't be havin' two MacManus lads wastin' away in the same hospital, sure now."
Connor looks carefully at Murphy, recognising the playful glint in his eyes, "Ah here now, what're thinkin' of?"
.
Ten minutes later, Connor slips out of the room, biting his lip carefully as he steps into the empty stairwell a few metres down from Murphy's room, and closer to the nurse's station.
The plan was a stupid one, but it was pure Murphy… and who was Connor to deny his brother a bit of help. And besides, he really fucking wanted that chair. They really couldn't be having any more of that other plastic chair malarkey anymore.
He blesses himself with a smile on his face, as he hears Murphy calling out for help, a tone of desperation in his voice. Murphy sounds like he's about to burst into tears, and Connor's heart aches at the meagre sound of his tone, despite the fact that he knows perfectly well what's going on.
Almost a dozen bodies rush past the stairwell, on their way to Murphy's room, and Connor dashes in the opposite direction the second they're clear.
Connor only has seconds to grab a lonely looking blue swivel chair, and wheel it as fast as he can back to the stairwell. His brother has stopped yelling, and the window of opportunity is closing as the window of exposure gapes open around him.
He literally only manages to wrestle the chair through the narrow doors of the stairwell, and shut them behind him, when Connor hears the nurses on their way back to the desks. They don't sound angry, in fact two of them are giggling, so he guesses that his brother hadn't been too badly received.
.
Murphy is still laughing when Connor sticks his head into the room.
He waves his brother back into the room, and can't help himself from bursting out into another fit of laughter when he sees Connor dragging the wheelie chair behind him quickly. His brother simply beams at him, though Murphy can still see the traces of sadness and helplessness that haven't left Connor's eyes in days.
"Ah, I was brilliant! T'was a real success!" He chokes out once he can find some words, and Connor nods back enthusiastically, already settling into his new chair with a sigh.
Murphy had started yelling out twenty seconds after his brother had left the room, letting some of his actual pain and fear melt into the performance, "Help! Help, I—oh God, I can't—Help!" Almost immediately, a dozen people had flooded into his room, their hand flying out to do goodness knows what to him, before Murphy had thrown up his hands, "The remote's broken!" He had wailed, and gestured with an IV bound hand towards the television, "It's broken, and I can't—Fair City is on, and it won't turn on!"
After a few more moments of hesitation and touching and prodding, the staff had been assured that Murphy was not in fact, about to die. He had apologized with a smile in his voice as they shook their heads at him, and thanked a nurse meekly as she manually switched on the television for him. The nurses had known that something was up, the laughter in his voice and the lack of Connor a clear clue, but eventually they had left him alone, with only his sniggers to keep him company.
"Ye did a fine job," Connor praises, winking at him.
And even though the situation is so messed up, with Murphy anchored to a bed by what feels like dozens of tubes and wires, and Connor having just become a chair thief, it feels familiar and right, and there's nothing more that Murphy wants in that moment when Connor smiles at him.
But then the moment ends, and Murphy realises that he actually wants a lot more things.
He wants to be better, and for his legs not to be crippled, and he wants to be home. He wants Connor to not look so tired and worried, and to not have to be thinking about stealing chairs, and for Connor to be at home with him. He wants this just to be over already.
.
That night, they play card games after Connor had found a discarded pack in the cafeteria. There's twelve cards missing from the deck, but they make it work.
"Ye enjoyin' yer chair?"
Connor nods enthusiastically, and slaps a card down on top of the pile, "Snap! I win!"
His brother gasps indignantly, and snatches the cards up, "Ye do not, ye cheat!"
For a few minutes, the room dissolves into petty bickering, but then they calm again, and it's a different game of Go Fish. Murphy is yawning and rubbing at his eyes, but Connor doesn't have the heart to tell him to go to sleep just yet.
They'd had another huge laugh earlier when one of the nurses walked in and just froze, staring at the blue swivel chair. Connor had simply smiled weakly at her, while Murphy had suddenly devoted all his attention to the book in his hands. She'd just stared for a few more seconds, and the burst out into a fit of giggles, having to step into the corridor and drag another nurse in to have a look.
The brothers had this floor twisted around their little fingers.
"So… Ma's coming up tomorrow."
.
I know guys, short chapter and long wait. Apologies, life is really having a go at me these days. But here's a light-hearted chapter to make up for it :)
Thank you guys so much for all your comments for the last chapter, and for all the alerts and favourites. It means so much to me. I'll try and have the next chapter up by the end of the week, fingers crossed. I'd love to hear what you thought of this!
Review…?
Thanks for reading,
ArmedWithMyComputer xx