Who: The Calendar Siblings What: Dragging Toby home. Where: The hospital Toby works at. When: Backdated to.. a while ago? Warnings/Rating: Cuteness.
The intricacies of dishonesty were very often lost on Jan. He lacked the judicious sort of mind messy business such as that required. He never could keep any of the details straight and it all made him feel horribly guilty - especially when the person he was lying to was Toby. If there was anyone he was transparent to, it was his older brother - and pretending otherwise never ended well for the boy. (Like the time he told Toby he was going to see a movie with Maggie back in high school, when really they were going to smoke together, among other things, and Toby caught him in his lie as soon as he came in the door. That encounter, in particular, ended with Jan being grounded from seeing his former girlfriend for a good two weeks. And this time was no different, Jan could feel it in his stomach, even as he and March made their way down the long, bright hallway that led to Toby’s office.
He hadn't been to the hospital in a long time. In fact, he hadn't been in a hospital since the night his mother drove him and his brothers off of a bridge with the intent to kill them all more than a decade before. But, besides the obvious changes in technology (everything got smaller and smaller), time tended to pass slowly in hospitals, each grain of sand slipping through the hourglass by the year, rather than the second. They all had the same white walls and anonymous tiles, and those fluorescent lights that made your eyes hurt. This one was no different. Jan glanced at the generic artwork, some weird pastel shapes twisting over a gross peach background, before looking over at his brother, March.
"I hope he doesn't get mad at as," he said in a quiet voice, because no one was allowed to talk loudly in the hospital. Even with the Chinese takeout boxes in hand and dressed in his baby blue cat pajamas, Jan was more somber than usual. His stomach was a tight knot of worry. He didn't want Toby to be angry, no, but neither did he want his older brother to spend the night in the hospital alone with only cafeteria food to comfort him. That sounded like the beginning to a sad Hallmark Channel movie about loss of love or something. The boy sighed and shook his head, only straightening his shoulders as they arrived at the office.
Jan opened the door (he never was a knocker) and hoped for the best.
March didn't worry about making folks mad. Making folks mad just came with being, sometimes, and being scared of it meant turning yourself inside out and into something that wasn't you, all on account of wanting to please another person that you might not please at all, once it was all said and done. Which meant he wasn't worrying even a little as Jan opened Toby' office door.
Not about Toby, anyways.
March's legs were clad in pink pajama pants, brown horses galloping all over, and he wore the snug top that went with, all browns and a pink horse in the center. He wore flip flops on his feet, and his hair was in its perpetual state of mussedness. He didn't look anything like a medical man. Heck, he didn't even look like an intern, and he liked that just fine. He didn't feel like much of anything these days, and the hospital just drove that fact home. It made him think of failure, of being sick, and he wanted to run his damn ass off as soon as that last thought took. But Toby was a shrink, and not a medical doctor, and his office was probably free of any germs.
March just kept telling himself that as he nudged Jan aside, and went into the germ-free space, grabbing one of the boxes of fried rice as he went. Quicker they got to eating, the quicker March could go sanitize himself.
That time of evening, things were rather quiet at the hospital, and barring an emergency, October had no scheduled patients. Several to check on one more time before his shift was over, but otherwise, his evening was filled with patient files and the myriad of other paperwork that came with the job. So when the door to his office opened, October was surprised, pen pressed to paper as he looked up. There were a myriad of people that he could have imagined walking through that door, but Jan and March were not in that number. Brows arched, watching as March darted in, Jan just steps behind him, and without saying a word, Toby closed the file he was working on and sat his pen down. “Not that I’m displeased to see you both, but I thought the agreement was you were coming to stay at my apartment, not my office. Did you get lost on your way?”
Toby’s office was small, but comfortable. The desk orderly, everything having a home where he kept it. One wall had a small sofa pushed up against it, the folded blanket and pillow resting at one end belying its usual use. The smell of the chinese food wafted into the room, Toby’s stomach giving an audible growl, reminding him that lunch had been nearly ten hours prior and it was time to eat something.
Though he wasn't feeling particularly peppy, Jan couldn't help but beam at the sight of his older brother. He spent only a fraction of a second taking in the sight of Toby's office, his eyes scanning the small room with efficiency (not failing to notice the pillow and blanket on the couch either). His smile faltered a little, but he put on a good show as he came toward his brother's big, important, doctorly desk and set down the styrofoam container of General Tso's with a flourish. The lighting in the room wasn't especially bright, but it was obvious to Jan, just from the darkness under Toby's eyes, that his brother was working himself too hard - as he was wont to do.
Putting his own takeout box of chicken fried rice aside on the little table next to the sofa, he came back toward the desk, but this time, he locked his knees and held his arms out in front of him in a classic zombie pose. (And, boy, did he make the most dapper, kitten-pajama'd zombie the world had ever seen.) He shuffled forward toward Toby.
"Keeeeeyyyys," the boy groaned theatrically, only coming to a halt when he bumped into the desk bodily. He looked down as if confused, reached forward just a little bit more, then broke character and laughed, taking a half-step backward, so as not to be... on top of Toby's desk. It was most definitely true that the sillier side of Jan was brought out by his brothers. He had a tendency to lose most, if not all, of his inhibitions around them, as he generally felt comfortable and certain in the knowledge that they weren't about to judge him or evict him as their brother, no matter what he did. (It certainly didn't seem like he was worried Toby was angry with them.) With his palm outstretched toward his older brother, he smiled brightly. "We need the keeeeeys." He wiggled his fingers expectantly. "- And, we wanted to make sure you didn't pass out from lack of proper nutrition."
March laughed at Jan's antics. He hadn't lived with the Fischer boys real long when he was small, but he'd learned plenty early - when his daddy brought him to visit his siblings, before going and killing himself - that Jan was an uninhibited little ham; March loved that about him. He dropped down on the couch, settled his box of fried rice on the arm precariously, and then he appropriated the blanket and pillows for his ownself. The pillow went behind his head, propped against the wall, and the blanket went over his shoulders. The takeout box teetered, and March grabbed it just before it went spilling all over Toby's floor, and he did it all without worrying a lick over any of it. "Jan's going to eat your brains real soon, if you don't sit down and let him get at that chicken," he told his older brother, that perpetual laugh on his lips, all entertained and loving everything. There wasn't a hint of his hospital hating on his features, and he was determined to keep it just so for the duration of this visit. "Toby, you got to start going home for sleep, or we're going to run naked through the ER and yell your name at the top of our lungs," he threatened, reaching a hand out so that Jan would hand on over a fork for his fried rice.
There was something about seeing Jan and his unfailing sense of humor that rarely failed to bring a smile to October’s lips, and tonight was no different. “Do you have the ability to ask like a normal person?” Toby inquired as he pulled open a desk drawer and withdrew the set of keys for the apartment, dropping them moments later into Jan’s outstretched hand. Only then did he pop the lid of the styrofoam take-out box, picking up a chunk of chicken between two fingers to pop in his mouth. “And I was hardly in danger of passing out, though I appreciate the delivery service the two of you are offering. I would have gone down to the cafeteria at some point, you realise.” Another chunk of chicken and Toby licked his fingers off, watching as March settled onto the couch with the blanket and pillow. It was good that he couldn’t see March’s displeasure at the hospital written over his face, or there would have undoubtedly been questions. As it was, the elder Fischer was simply too tired, physically and mentally, to do anything but exist.
“If you run naked through the ER, it’s quite likely they’ll have you both under observation. Please don’t attempt that,” he requested, grabbing up another bite, his stomach growling again now that it had had a taste for food, proclaiming its hunger and desire to be filled.
Victorious in his quest, Jan closed his hand around the keys and gave Toby a look after being asked if he could make his requests ‘like a normal person.’ He chose not to answer and moved across the room to drop himself on the sofa/bed next to March - he passed his brother the desired fork. His own box of fried rice was opened and chopsticks fetched up. While he began to eat (because, as March had said, Jan had been on the verge of brains over keys only seconds before), the boy glanced between his brothers as they talked, only pausing to give Toby another pointed look after his comment about not needing food.
“We won’t attempt it,” Jan replied after laughing at the idea. He chewed thoughtfully a moment before saying: “If you come back with us to sleep at your place.”
"What he said," March added, pointing his acquired utensil at his eldest half-brother. "You start acting like a normal person, sleeping at home and having friends, and we won't get ourselves arrested or committed. It's real generous of us," he explained, nodding toward Jan. He knew Jan would agree to near anything to get Toby coming home some more, so March didn't worry none about making promises for the both of them. "Go on and agree, Toby, then shut this office and let's go watch us some musicals," he added, because Jan might die of happiness, and March liked it real well when Jan acted like a puppy about ready to pee himself.
Faced with this sort of situation from most people, and Toby would have politely asked them to leave so he might get back to work, but there was something about his brothers that he simply couldn’t say no to. “Fine, fine,” he finally agreed, giving them both a look that held no venom in it. Everything could wait until tomorrow, and was mostly busy-work to help pass the time, the mundane things like paperwork that Toby actually enjoyed doing. “But only because I want to save you both the embarrassment of being committed or arrested.” He cracked a smile, just for a moment, before putting the things he was working on away, closing the container of food, and getting to his feet. “Come on. Before I change my mind.”