Harry wakes up when the car crashes outside their window. It's loud. David's probably scared, he's making a kind of whimpering noise Harry hasn't heard in years. Time for hugs?
Wow, hugs don't usually feel this good. Harry gets kind of distracted for a second, before noticing that David isn't moving. He lets go and gives him some space.
"I hurt," David croaks. It's not a complete sentence, which is the first sign that something is horribly wrong.
Tylenol is good for pain. Harry gets up and goes over to the medicine cabinet and rattles out some pills and gets a cup of water and brings it back.
"Thanks." He's... moving strangely. But David is distracted. Everything hurts. Especially where Harry touched him.
He reaches out to take the pills, his hand shaking, and as his fingers touch his brother's hand, they spasm into a claw and tears come to his eyes, because that hurts just as bad. And there's a weird sweetness to the feeling, like water in the desert, like his body craves the pain even though he can't stand it.
"Fuck," he bites out, trying not to puke.
David knocked the pills out of Harry's hand. One of them is Five Second Rule-able. One of them lodged in a floorboard crack. Harry gets another one. He holds the pills out again.
"...Harry, are you alright?" Sort of ironic to be asking, when he's in this weird sourceless agony, but.
"Yeah."
Harry has an idea! He turns his hand to drop the pills into David's non-clawed hand. Does that work?
Yeah, he can catch those. Can Harry also put down the cup so he can get it without incidental contact.
Okay. Pills, water.
"This is... surreal," he complains. "It would be weirder to freak out about it while you're not, but it's weird that you're not."
"Would freaking out help? I can freak out if it would make you feel better."
That... felt off... but it's sort of reassuring anyway. "Fuck you, Dresden."
"I'm really not tired anymore. That was excruciating."
"I'm not tired." (That sentence just feels incomplete without a mom tacked on the end, even though neither of them knew her.)
"Okay."
His brother has gone temporarily insane and he's having some kind of agonizing allergy to skin contact and two Tylenol really isn't a dose rated for this kind of pain. He pretends to sleep.
This is satisfactory. Harry goes to sleep on the couch, since he obviously can't sleep with David if it causes him agony. There's a car alarm going off, still, which doesn't matter. Everything that matters is taken care of.
Annoyingly, once he has the bed to himself he does get some sleep. Even more annoyingly, he wakes up feeling somewhat better. Not well, by a long shot; he kind of feels like he got hit by a truck. But it's not searing inescapable agony, and that counts for something. He gets out of bed and starts some coffee.
"Good morning." Harry's making honey pepper toast, still in his sleep shirt and boxers.
"Any of that for me?" David asks. They'll have to talk about last night, but it'll be nice if they can talk about it over honey toast.
Coffee coffee coffee. He winces reaching up to grab the beans.
Harry gets him another two Tylenol and a cup of water. Leaves them on the countertop in advance, this time, instead of negotiating the no-touching song and dance.
"I don't think I need it," David says. "I can take a little pain."
"I respond poorly to threats." As you should damn well know.
"Just take the fucking Tylenol, David. Why is this so hard? You're in pain. They're painkillers."
"I am making this hard because you are being weird, and I want to know how far down it goes. If I don't take them, are you going to force me? Threaten me? Or just be an annoying child about it for the rest of the day?"
"Forcing pills down your throat sounds like it would probably hurt you. I am trying to get you to take Tylenol for the literal opposite of that."
"I'm sorry that I care about you and want you not to be in pain."
"Are you seriously trying to emotionally manipulate me?"
Because if so, that's hilarious.
Sigh. "What if we talk about what the fuck is happening. With your apparent mental breakdown, and my agony-on-contact."
"No."
He snags a piece of the honey toast and a cup of the coffee and walks out to the living room and its twelve-inch TV screen. Turns on the news.
"-thirty-five thousand confirmed cases in the United States alone have vanished or been taken by mysterious entities. The strange portals have caused panic and rioting across the globe. The White House has released a statement requesting that we remain calm and cooperate with authorities during this time of crisis. Bringing you twenty-four-hour live updates, this is Chicago's favorite news-"
Harry comes into the living room with the rest of the toast, and two pills, and a cup of water. "Please take the Tylenol? I forgot the magic word, maybe?"
"It sounds bad. Not taking your Tylenol isn't going to make it better."
"That is so far from being the fucking point. The world is ending."
"What would you do if I flushed the entire bottle down the toilet."
"Get a new one? Schumacher's is, like, half a block away."
"Would you continue to incessantly harass me about it."
