Work Text:
Ethan was exhausted.
He had just about managed to hold himself together until the end of his shift and then somehow managed not to crash his car on the way home. By the time he reached his flat, his vision was swimming.
He had been taking a lot of extra shifts and the stress was getting to him. The ED was understaffed so it was always welcomed, but there was no doubt that he was pushing himself too hard, especially as everything he did nowadays took more energy. Things he never used to even think about—walking, talking, eating—were all taking more and more conscious effort by the day, and he knew this was nothing compared to what it would be like in the future when he really couldn't do those things. All the time he wasn't working he spent wrangling his energetic toddler, but Bodhi was spending a few days with his grandparents, which was lucky because Ethan was about to pass out.
He dropped his briefcase and keys on the floor by the door and stumbled to the sofa in a daze. The sofa wasn't really big enough to sleep on but it was that or the floor so he collapsed onto it and immediately fell asleep.
He woke up overheating. He peeled his jacket off and threw it from the sofa, but that didn't help much. He stretched. His whole body ached but he put it down to having slept crammed on the small sofa. He sat up slowly, still disoriented from waking up, and his head began to pound as he bent over to take off his shoes. His eyes stung. He groaned as he realised he had slept with his contacts in. He pushed himself off the sofa and headed to the bathroom to take them out.
It was only when he started walking that he realised how drained he still felt. He was forced to take tiny steps as every muscle in his body protested each movement.
Removing his contacts didn't help his headache and he was still sweating. He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. He had no idea what time it was, whether he was already late for work for not. Not that he could go to work like this.
There was a muffled ringing coming from somewhere. It took him a moment to process that it was his phone that was ringing and that it probably answered the question of whether he was late for work already.
He slowly made his way to where he had discarded his briefcase the day before. He opened it and rummaged blindly to retrieve his phone. Without his glasses, he could just about make out that it was Dylan calling.
"Where the hell are you?" Dylan demanded when he answered. Ethan flinched at the volume and moved the phone away from his ear. When he didn't receive a reply, Dylan spoke again, "Hello? Your shift started an hour ago."
"Sorry..." Ethan managed. Even speaking proved exhausting. "I... I don't think I can... come in today. I don't feel—"
"Are you okay?" Dylan interrupted him. "You sound terrible. It's okay, I'll see if Stevie can come in instead. Or Rash."
"Thank you."
"Get some rest, Ethan, you have been overworking lately. You need to take care of yourself more than anyone."
"Yeah..." Ethan said, his brain too fuzzy to figure out a proper response.
"Okay, I'll speak to you later," Dylan said. He ended the call.
Ethan shoved his phone into his pocket and rubbed his eyes, now feeling too cold. He just needed some paracetamol and then he could go and curl up in bed.
He began to feel dizzy but slowly managed to shuffle to the kitchen. The paracetamol was on the counter, where he had left it after taking some before his shift the previous day. He struggled with the packet for a while, his hands shaking too much to open it, until the dizziness fully took hold and he had to hold himself up with the counter.
His arms quickly protested and he sank to the floor, turning to sit with his back to the drawers under the counter. He was shivering now. He hugged his knees into his body in an attempt to warm up.
He didn't know how long he stayed like that before there was a knock on the door. Ethan barely registered it. Another knock. Then a key in the lock.
"It's just me," Rash called as he closed the flat door behind him. Ethan had given him a key ages ago, just in case. "Dylan said I should check up on you."
Rash couldn't see him where he was but Ethan couldn't muster up the energy to speak so he kicked the island in front of him, making just enough noise to get Rash's attention.
"Ethan?" He said as he rushed around to the kitchen. "Are you okay? What happened?"
Ethan looked at him with unfocused eyes. He was shivering. Rash crouched down beside him and put the back of his hand to his forehead. Ethan already knew it would be way too hot.
"I'll help you to bed." Rash took hold of Ethan's hand and stood up, pulling him up with him.
Ethan swayed dangerously as soon as he was upright and he grabbed hold of the counter to steady himself.
"Did you have some paracetamol?" Rash indicated to the packet still sat on the counter.
Ethan shook his head. He look down at the hand Rash was still holding. Rash responded by giving it a reassuring squeeze. Ethan was glad Rash was there.
"I'll get you some in a minute, okay?"
Rash supported Ethan to his bedroom and sat him down on the bed. He extracted Ethan's neatly folded pyjamas from under the pillow and handed them to him.
Ethan stared at the pyjamas in his hands. The thought of undressing in the cold to put them on made him shiver harder but he couldn't be comfortable in the previous day's clothes. He decided he had to do it as fast as possible. His shaking hands worked against him as he struggled with his shirt buttons for a few seconds before Rash crouched down to help him.
"Thank you," Ethan mumbled. He screwed his face up, head still throbbing.
Rash touched Ethan's knee gently and stood up. "I'll get you that paracetamol while you get changed." He left the room, shutting the door behind him.
Ethan braced himself for the cold and shrugged his shirt off. He pulled his pyjama top on as quickly as he could. He then did the same with his trousers.
Despite being exposed to only fractionally more air than before, his skin tingled unpleasantly. He crawled into bed and lay back against the headboard, pulling the duvet up to cover him. His eyes felt heavy but he was too uncomfortable to sleep.
Rash returned with a tall glass of water and the paracetamol box Ethan had abandoned earlier. He stood the glass on the bedside table and extracted two pills from the packet. He handed them to Ethan and passed him the water. Ethan swallowed the pills and placed the glass back on the bedside table.
Rash perched on the edge of the bed by Ethan's legs, wringing his hands. "Ethan, you really need to start looking after yourself. I told you you would make yourself sick if you kept pushing so hard."
Ethan groaned and kicked Rash from under the duvet. It was a weak kick but still enough to nearly push Rash off the bed.
"Hey!" Rash protested, laughing and planting his feet more firmly. "Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to lecture. I just want you to be okay."
Ethan managed a tiny smile but he couldn't hold it for long. His gaze slid away from Rash as focusing became too much for his foggy brain. Exhaustion and poor eyesight were not a good combination. He pulled the duvet tighter around himself.
"Ethan?" Rash nudged his shoulder. He blinked and looked back at him. "Why don't you lie down? Then you can get some sleep."
Ethan shook his head and summoned the energy to speak. "I'm too... too exhausted to sleep." He extracted an arm from under the duvet and patted the bed next to him, indicating that Rash should come and sit there, where he would be closer. "I can't even see you over there," he said. Lacking the energy to move his arm again, he rested it there.
Rash stood and walked around the far end of the bed to the other side. "How close do I have to be for you to be able to see me?" Rash asked as he took his shoes off and climbed onto the bed next to Ethan.
Ethan grimaced. "Really quite close. My eyesight is terrible."
"Here," Rash said. He put an arm around Ethan and pulled him closer, trying to keep him warm. "Is this close enough?"
Ethan couldn't turn his head enough to see Rash but he nodded anyway and rested his head on Rash's shoulder. He could feel fatigue taking over him now. Maybe he would sleep after all.
"You'd better not make me ill too," Rash quipped.
"Don't worry," Ethan said, half asleep already, "proximity actually makes stress less contagious."