The house was dim as Rupert slipped his key out of the lock and stepped inside. It was sleeping-quiet, the tick of the clock on the mantel and the soft whisper of the air-conditioning the only sounds. The dark and the silence were soothing to his aching head, and he moved through it all like a shark through water, creating hardly a ripple in the stillness.
The light over the sink was the only illumination, casting a pale moonlight glow over the counter. He stopped there and smiled--a note tucked under a water glass, with two small red pills.
“If it’s a concussion, get someone else to wake you up every two hours. Dinner’s in the fridge. -Ethan”
Still smiling, he shook his head. Gently, of course, but still, the world went a little unsteady around the edges. Lord, he was going to end up with massive brain damage at this rate.
He threw the pills back and sipped the water, and his arms ached and reminded him that it wasn’t just his head that had been abused today, or in general, recently. Training with Buffy was reminding him of muscles he’d happily forgotten he had. Perhaps with enough cajoling, he could talk Ethan into a massage tomorrow.
He found that dinner was take-out Chinese. Not exciting, but easy to reheat in the microwave, at least, which he did and then he ate quickly, standing by the counter, watching the blue digits silently mark the minutes between 1:43 and 1:49. He was tired, and the awareness of the clock upstairs, set to go off at six a.m., was dragging at him.
He set the plate and glass in the sink and went to go through an abbreviated version of his nightly routine. Then, finally, he made his way up the stairs.
Ethan was sprawled across the bed, half-covered by a sheet, mostly not. He was smooth skin and relaxed limbs and a tangle of hair across his pillow. Rupert watched him sleep as he undressed.
Then he slipped in under the sheets, gently liberated his pillow from under Ethan’s arm, and settled down on his back. Ethan shifted--maybe in his sleep or maybe half-awake--and laid against Rupert’s side, curling his arm over Rupert’s chest.
In the dark and the quiet, the horror of the day seemed miles away, nothing but a hazy, strange blur in the distance, a plume of faraway smoke. Rupert shut his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
The End
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