With sexyinscrubs | It's a twin thing

[cameronpreston]

It had been awhile since Cameron had taken it upon himself to get pissed. With the painkillers he was taking, it was advised he shouldn't, so he hadn't. Not even when all the shit with Isabel went down, and that was probably part of the reason he had struggled with it; he had no outlet to purge the stress from his system. It was only when Lachlan

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[sexyinscrubs]

Pat had been at appointments all morning at the hospital, first with his doctor and then with physiotherapist. It had been a hard morning, and he hadn't been able to make it through the physio session. Half way through, he had to stop when a wave of nausea engulfed him. It was a good indicator he had pushed himself just that bit too far, though when he actually vomited after being unable to shake the sick feeling despite stopping the activity, he felt a lot better. Aiden was with him the whole time, crouching down beside him and rubbing his back while he was sick, then staying there to make sure he was okay to get back on his feet when the shaky woozy feeling started to pass. Pat was just used to having his husband present for all this now, and it was comforting. He loved being married and most days still couldn't believe he had a husband as wonderful as Aiden was.

But, as always, it was three steps forward, two steps back. When they arrived home from the hospital, Pat was lethargic and weak, and he was looking forward to getting back into his pyjamas and spending the rest of the afternoon lying in bed with his husband. It was just a matter of the physio falling on one of his bad days. It wasn't a good mix. He just didn't anticipate to come home and find his carbon copy drunk and seemingly very happy with the fact. Aiden and Pat heard the singing as they entered their home and shared a glance. Pat had pressed his lips together in a silent, wry apology before sharing a lingering kiss with Aiden, who then discreetly went upstairs, leaving the twin brothers alone downstairs. Pat had managed to avoid the use of a wheelchair following this recent attack, but he was reliant on a walking stick for the moment. Of course it was a bright pink mirrored one, never one to do anything without style. He made his way into the livingroom where Cameron was sprawled on the sofa, his crutches on the floor and empty beer bottles littering the carpet. The mess could very well have caused Aiden a heart attack, so it was lucky he went upstairs. Pat eased himself down onto the sofa beside Cameron, taking his cigarettes from his pocket. He lit one up and then offered the pack to his brother. "I'm not sure I even want to ask, darling," he said tiredly, blowing out a slow stream of smoke as he analysed his twin's appearance.

[cameronpreston]

Cameron had always been one to hold his booze well. If it was beer, he usually just generally felt happy, but still could maintain his functioning. His words were a little slurred and his head a little fuzzy, but not enough not to tap directly into his twin. The singing had stopped and after a fumble with the remote to turn the volume of the game down, he took the lighter from Pat's hands, which still had that slight tremble to them from the illness, and lit his own smoke up. "You're sick, buddy. What happened?" he asked. "You're not going to tell me you're going back into hospital, are you?"

[sexyinscrubs]

Pat rested his head back against the sofa and put his feet up on the footrest in front of him. "Overdid it at physio," he admitted. "Threw up and then felt better. Sometimes you just have to push to get back on your feet, other times it sends you back to square one. I'll be okay once I get some more sleep. Aiden's not back at work again until Monday, so staying in bed this weekend is sounding extremely tempting right now."

His eyes were back on his brother. "No," he murmured and then inhaled briefly from the cigarette again. "Did you want me to say yes to give you a reason to stay longer? You don't have to go, Cam. You can stay here as long as you need to... want to. It's been nice to be in the same country for awhile, let alone under the same roof. I've gotten used to having my Part Two back," he told him quietly. For the last few weeks since he got discharged from hospital, he had been dreading every day that Cameron would finally come to him and tell him it was time for him to go home.

[cameronpreston]

Cameron hiccuped and set his beer down so Pat would have his full attention. "You alright now?" he asked with a slight slurr in his words. It ironically made him sound like Pat did when he was ill. He knew Pat actually encountered people in the past who asked him if he was drunk when he was really just sick with an attack. Initially, it had really been had for Pat to swallow that people were judging him, until he just learnt not to give a fuck. "You wanna lie down, buddy? I can move. Might take me a coupla minutes, but I can move. Where's Aiden? Want me to get him?"

"I know. I just... I dunno." The statement was pointless and he lost the rush he had a few moments before of drinking without thinking. Now he had to think again and he didn't want to. He picked up his beer and took a long drink from it. "You got Aiden, and I feel like I'm getting in the way and I'm homesick, Patto. I wanna go home, but I want to take you with me," he admitted, starting to feel depressed.

[sexyinscrubs]

Pat shrugged a little. "Don't know. Still feel a bit off. Maybe I'm coming down with something. I need to sleep, but not yet. I want to talk to you first. Aiden's upstairs, it's fine. You know, you're going to have a doubly worse hangover boozing on the painkillers. Just thought I should warn you." He gestured to his brother with his cigarette. "I'm not letting you get up without help. If you fall over in a drunken mess, for one, I can't pick you up because I don't have the strength, and two, you could fuck your knee up even more. You stay where you are so you don't give me a coronary."

He slipped his arm around Cameron's shoulders in a loose hug, leaving it resting there. "Come on, Cammo. I've told you over and over that just because I got married and have a husband doesn't mean you get nudged out of my life. I'd give my left nut to have you stay in Princeton. Not that my nuts are working the best right now, but you get the sentiment. But I know you have to go home and-" He cut himself off as he welled up and tears spilt over before he had a chance to stop them. He just sighed and put his hand up to brush them away with his fingers. "Fucked if I know how I'm going to say goodbye to you this time. I feel like if I do, you won't come back after everything that's happened. Why would you even want to? You're sitting right here and I miss you already."

[cameronpreston]

Cameron sighed roughly and kissed the top of Pat's head affectionately. He welcomed the hug, even if it was probably going to end up making him just as emotional as Pat was. "Aiden just takes care of you so well. I wonder sometimes if you even need me sticking around to stay on your feet. Between Aiden and Lachie and Riley, you're set straight, buddy. Well, not quite straight. That would be some mean feat of them to get you straight," he added with a smirk.

He closed his eyes as the emotions broke through the boozey haze. "But we never really say goodbye, right?" he asked, choking up tearfully. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I miss home. I miss the game. I miss my team and my friends. The football here is up the shit creek, Patto. American soccer is balls in comparison to what I'm used to and I'll be fucked if I have any interest in Yank football. I can't even stand to watch it on TV. Football is in my blood. I feel so fucking useless without it. At least over there, I can sit in on training sessions, maybe mentor, keep up on game tatics, so I'll be right when I can go back to the game. It's just... I see you here, sick all over again and I get terrified if I go back, you'll get worse again and I can't be away from you when you're sick. I know when you're sick. I don't even need to look at you."

[sexyinscrubs]

Pat managed to expertly flip his brother off, even around the cigarette set between his fingers before he put it to his lips again. "Would be some mean feat of them to stop me needing my twin, too," he added pointedly. "Since when did everything become about me needing to be taken care of? Are you intentionally trying to make me feel like a weak fuck, darling? Because you're doing a good job. Cammo, I don't need you to take care of me, I just need you. I'm always going to need you. Even if we're just sitting here staring at a wall or having a verbally abusive argument. I still need you."

"Something's gotta give, Cam," he had to finally say quietly, wetting his dry lips. "How long are you going to let yourself continue on this endless road of angsting that has no end? You've got to wake up one day and see an end somewhere, or maybe a new beginning. I keep getting sick. I just do. I wish to fuck I didn't. I wish to fuck I could just pound my husband into the mattress or be able to lie in the sun without passing out. But this is just me. You need to know what you want, and stop cheating yourself out of letting yourself feel anything. You know what else I wish to fuck? That my twin was here with me every day and that he would stop cheating himself out of probably one of the best things that could happen to him. The chance to be a father. We can go back to how we were. You over there playing and living it up, and me here with my husband and my family and taking each day, because that's all I can do. Or you can stop and think that maybe some things just change and maybe it's okay to want that."

[cameronpreston]

Cameron waved his hand. "No. No more fucking arguments. One every ten years is plenty. It's how all this shit started. If I didn't get my dick in a knot about you eloping, I wouldn't have skipped out on Riley and Luke's bachelor party, and I wouldn't have gone to that bar, and then I wouldn't have met Izzy. Then if none of that happened, I probably wouldn't have ended up on the wrong end of a tackle in the game and I wouldn't have fucked my knee. But I did. I did all of that. Now I have to live with it." He rubbed his fingers across his forehead. "Have you got a headache? Because my head is fucking killing me."

He turned his head, resting it against the back of the sofa. "You're cheating yourself out all that too, you know. Aiden wants kids with you, you have the offer of a surrogate on the table and you're being a stubborn arse too. We're the same in more way than we're different, Patto. And don't go fucking telling me it's nothing alike, because it is. You don't want it because you're scared. Well ditt-fucking-o."