forthedog | (no subject)

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It hasn't made things any better. It's keeping him in bed and that's the best he thinks he can hope for right now.

At first he hadn't known what was going on; there had only been a sense of confusion and fear, people running through the halls, once or twice a faint scream. He hadn't know what was going on, and then all at once he'd come face to face with it, one of the doctors stopping and giving him a clipped explanation and then a flurry of panic and trying to get up and then some unknown time later... Chris and Lennox. And what they were carrying.

They'd put her in bed next to him. He had moved as much as he could. His leg is still painful, but moveable at least, if he's careful.

So it's happened before. So last time everyone was fine. So fucking what. This is Eostre and she's pregnant and he's fucking sick of the island doing this to him, making him feel this kind of fear.

He lies next to her and rests his head against her shoulder.

His hand hasn't left her belly in hours. He hasn't slept in he doesn't know how long. He counts his breaths and hers, and measures out the remaining time until he knows. One way or the other.

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He felt the slow coil of guilt unravel then, anger flaring hot even as he tried to control it, his jaw tensing as he met Mike's eyes, his hand still resting lightly on Eoster's arm.

"I just came in here to check on her," Chris explained, his voice tight and clipped. "Her and you. That's all I wanted."

"Yeah, because what you want takes top priority right now," he says, and it's sarcastic, but under the sarcasm it's almost fond, in an exasperated way. "Look, I don't expect you to be best friends forever or anything. I'd settle for you being in the same room without dropping the temperature fifty fucking degrees."

The anger receded some, coiling back into that ball of guilt and he ducked his head a little, focusing on his own hand where it touched Esotre's arm.

"Yeah," he said, voice still quiet as he nodded and then swallowed a bit. He glanced up just a little, watching Mike with one eye. "I'm trying," he tried to explain, though he knew it probably sounded half-assed. "I know it probably doesn't look that way, but I am. I know what he means to you, it's just... I'm used to things how they were. I liked them that way. We all fit."

And, of course, the implication there was that Hobbes didn't fit. Which wasn't fair and probably wasn't even true, but that didn't make Chris feel any better.

"Well, they aren't that way anymore. So deal." He sighs, shakes his head again and reaches out, lays his hand over Chris's on Eostre's arm. "I know you're trying," he says. "Really. I know this is hard on you. But you have to know that it's hard on me too. I fucking care about you both, man, so sooner or later you're gonna have to able to be around each other."

Also they're all on the building crew. And while that won't be an issue for at least another few weeks, at some point he'd like Hobbes to be on the same team as him.

Not that he wants to deal with that right now, though. He has a feeling that might just be gas on the fire.

"I know," Chris replied quickly, his tone somewhat clipped as he looked Mike straight in the eyes. Hell, he wasn't a fucking child, he knew how things were now, how they'd changed and he knew he'd have to get used to it. It was just going to take time.

"Just..." he trailed off, shaking his head as he let out a slow breath, his gaze dropping to Eostre again, settling there. "I'll get there, okay?" he said, speaking to Mike, but still watching Eostre, his hand moving away from Mike's to touch her shoulder. "I'll get there."

"Hey," Hobbes said, walking up slowly this time, watching the two of them before really edging into their space. He settled the plate of sliced mango on the bedside table, wildly entertaining the idea of feeding Mike to make Cutter twitch before deciding that Pinocchio breaking his nose wasn't going to make the weekend any easier.

He'd brought back a cup of black coffee for himself and he settled on the edge of the bed, looking back and forth between Cutter and Mike. Right. So this is normal now. Wonderful.

"This entire place feels like a waiting room," he said eventually, to break the silence. "There's guys in the kitchen chuging coffee like it's water."

"I prefered the tsunami and the dinosaurs," he says dryly, picking up a piece of mango and polishing it off in one bite, his eyes falling closed and a small sound escaping him at the taste. What they've been giving him in the clinic isn't any different from the food the rest of the island eats, but some universal law of hospital food is in effect and it hasn't seemed nearly as good.

"At least then I could fucking do something." He glances down at Eostre and smiles crookedly, trying to ignore the wrench in his chest. "Even if it did get me punched in the mouth."

"I have a feeling you liked that nearly as much as the dinosaur part," Chris said, his voice still quiet and smiling only very slightly, as though afraid to say anything at all now that Hobbes was back.

The whole memory of the tsunami wasn't a good one. Not for Chris anyway. To say that he knew pretty much exactly how Mike felt right then wasn't much of an exagerration. Though, at least he'd been able to walk around even if Lennox hadn't. And at least Lennox had been concious.

The conversation mostly going over his head, Hobbes remained silent, sipping bitter coffee and settling in at the end of the bed.

"How did the dinosaurs get you punched in the mouth?" Hobbes asked, raising his eyebrows at Pinocchio. "You'd think they'd go for the mauling and eating rather than hand to hand."

"Eostre." He tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and smiles, in spite of himself, in spite of everything. "Remember, she made me promise not to go near them?" He's not sure how Hobbes would forget, what with the almost getting eaten and the yelling-at he'd gotten after.

"Well, when the fence went down and they came to us and I went out with a team to heard them back, she wasn't too interested in semantics."

"Gave him one hell of a cut lip," Chris added with a smirk, his gaze darting from Eostre to Hobbes for a very brief moment before looking back to Mike again. "And yet, even after that lesson, you manage to go out and get yourself broken, man."

He was smiling as he said it, though, a wry twist of his mouth before he looked back down to Eostre again.

"He's not so much at self-preservation," Hobbes said, looking at Pinocchio hard for a moment before sliding his gaze away. He sighed.

"And all this from a fall down a hill," Hobbes went on, with apparent disbelief. He raised his eyebrows at him. "S'weird, Pinocchio. You're loosing your touch."

"It just happened." He feels himself going suddenly cold and he looks away. "I know, it was fucking embarrassing. Don't have a snappy excuse."

He wishes once again that he could just fucking open up a little, tell them, stop Hobbes looking at him like that. Like maybe he knows that something's off. But telling involves bringing it into the light, making it real. If he tells he admits that it really happened. And sad though it is... no. Not that. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

For a minute there, Chris thought maybe they were heading into a more relaxed area. He was loosening up, at least, and he knew that was what Mike wanted, for Chris to get the fuck over himself. And, he was trying.

But then, Mike was the one going cold.

Chris rolled his eyes to himself and lifted his hand to smooth a finger over Eostre's forehead, like an apology.

"Glad I found you, at least," he said, his voice a murmur and it almost looked like he was talking to Eostre instead of Mike. And maybe he was. Glad he found Eostre, glad he said he'd go look for Mike, glad he'd found the bastard. Glad they were both there and safe in the clinic, that the babies were safe, that everything was safe for now.

Hobbes held Pinocchio's eyes for a moment too long after he finished speaking before shrugging and rolling his eyes. Fine. Whatever. This was him letting it be.

Hobbes looked up at Chris, eyes flicking over his face and he nodded, lips compressing.

"Yeah, I'm glad too." So for once it hadn't been him dragging Pinocchio to safety. Big deal. It shouldn't have bothered him. But somehow, the fact that it had been Cutter... "He's a heavy sonuvabitch."

And now it's his turn to feel guilty. So far he's been feeling like he's close to just grabbing them and bashing their heads together, or at least giving Chris's head a run for its money. But now he's the one taking two steps back, so what the hell.

"Guess it coulda been a lot worse," he mutters, and then he looks down at Eostre again and he swears he almost hears her. Yes it could have, you idiot, and I won't have you moping about it.

Surprising himself, he laughs, hard. "Jesus, we're all fucking hopeless," he manages. "Don't know why she puts up with any of us."

Chris gave a quick, half-laugh at Hobbes's comment and glanced at him very briefly, his eyes a bizarre mix. Agreement, definitely, but also a challenge somehow. He'd been the one to carry Mike's sorry ass back to the Compound, just like he'd been the one to do it months before when Hobbes hadn't ever been around. And maybe Hobbes had done it before back in whatever home he and Mike had come from, but Chris had done it here. He'd done it for months. And a sick part of him didn't want to let that go.

"It's because we're all so damn good looking," Chris remarked with a slight smile, his finger still smoothing over her cheek.

There's a part of Hobbes - and by this point, it's a big part - that wants to turn calmly to Chris and explain to him that before the Island, he had been a curler. That was what he did. And that before the Island, Pinocchio and him had been soldiers. Pulling each other out of gun fire and running and stitching each other up and fucking dying for each other was what they did. And if Chris needs to act like Rambo now, that was fine. If you saved someone it was because they needed you. Not because it proved a point.

But instead, he keeps his mouth shut, stewing silently. He shifted on the bed, knowing on some level that saying it would be hypocritical and entirely out of place. He watched his fingers move over her forehead and looked away.

"I doubt she's impressed by all that," he muttered wryly, smirking to himself.

"She's not really impressed by anything," he says, glancing up at Hobbes. He swears he can feel the churning under the surface and he's not sure what to do about that. Maybe it would be good if it actually did explode, in the long run. Maybe Hobbes and Chris should just be locked in a tiny room somewhere and told to work it out between them.

Not that he can do anything about it right now, with the busted leg.

"She definitely isn't impressed by me."

"Well, nobody really is, man," Chris said with a very wry smile as he looked at him. And it was evident by his tone that he was only joking, his hand smoothing down over Eostre's shoulder. "Lucky that has nothing to do with loving you, eh?"

And that was probably the closest he'd get to actually admitting how he felt and why this was as hard as it was. Because he loved Mike. Loved Eostre, too. And no, not in the same way he loved Lennox because Chris seriously doubted there was a single person alive he could ever love like he did Lennox, but it was still love. He still cared. And it was entirely selfish of him to want things to stay as they had been and he knew that, but fuck if he could do anything about that.

But, he was fucking trying.

It was something that while Cutter was trying, Hobbes was now stubbornly done. He got here and Chris had hated him, and, well. That hadn't changed and that was fine. He didn't have to understand it to deal with it. Plenty of people in the Realm had hated him without good reason. If he felt at all bad about it, it was because of the looks that Pinocchio was tossing his way.

So he pulled in on himself at the end of the bed, still quietly sipping his coffee and pretending that he hadn't heard Chris speak.

"Luckily," he says, smiling slightly. "Not sure why people do, to be honest. Not that I'm complaining." Not about this, anyway. He's smiling, but inwardly he's feeling suddenly exhausted, and frustrated, and he would do just about anything in the world to be out of this bed right fucking now.

He just doesn't know what else to do.

"You don't have to stay here," he says quietly, settling back against Eostre again and not looking at either of them, and not trying to clarify who he's talking to. "'M okay."

Well, that seemed like a pretty clear indication of what Mike wanted and Chris had pretty much been headed that way anyway, so he nodded.

"Yeah, I know," he said, his smile slipping as he turned to look at Eostre again.

Taking a slow breath, he dropped his hand to hers, squeezing it gently, his thumb brushing over the curves of her knuckles before he let go again. "Jim's probably waiting for me anyway," he said as he took a few steps back.

Hobbes lifted his head and watched him moving away. Something in his posture became visibly more relaxed and he breathed out.

"He was wondering where you had gone off to," Hobbes said, with the slightest point to his voice. Which was pretty much a lie, if he was being honest. Lennox had only asked in passing earlier in the kitchen. He leaned more comfortably into the footboard, fingers curled less tightly around the coffee mug.

He doesn't quite wince. He's starting to wonder what he though he'd accomplish here. Just give it time, love. Yeah. Right.

"Keep checking in," he calls halfheartedly after Chris's retreating form. "I'll go outta my fucking mind here." And of course if there's any change in Eostre he'll be one of the first to know. But he doubts there will be. Not until Monday. But Monday. Yes. For sure.

"You'll stay for a little?" His eyes slip closed and he wishes suddenly that the bed was a little bigger, that he could feel Hobbes fitted snugly along his other side, that he could fall asleep between them and pretend that everything's fine.