Heart of the Storm (Part 4)
Title: Heart of the Storm
Authors: lizynob and lorafantastory
Pairings: Oscar/Block as the Anna/Hans dynamic
Characters: Oscar Schlumper, Wayne Schlumper, Dr. Block, Dr. Tease, minor mentions of Party Mania characters
Word Count: 47,002
Warnings: Descriptions of anxiety, some bullying, angst, references to death
Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Epilogue, Bonus Content
It Gets A Little Lonely
To say that things were tense between Wayne and his brother for a while was an understatement. Oscar quietly fumed for days and spoke to Wayne in a harsh, bitter tone when he spoke to him at all.
But Oscar’s anger, like the bruise on his face, began to fade over time, and Wayne’s frustrations began to compound. It was much, much easier to give Oscar the cold shoulder when Oscar was doing the same to him in turn. Forcing himself to keep brushing Oscar off when his younger brother was trying to mend things was agonizingly difficult.
The easiest way to deal with it, he found, was to just leave the room before Oscar could attempt to make conversation. That didn’t always stop Oscar from following him, but there was nothing he could do if Wayne locked his door- something he found himself doing with depressing frequency. Even the allure of science which had always been something Oscar could rely on to coax him out more often than not, had to be ignored. And after enough instances of Wayne leaving the lab whenever Oscar entered, his brother slowly stopped even trying to come in if he knew Wayne was working.
Schoolwork was always a good enough excuse if he had to give one, especially to his parents, and it wasn’t even really a lie. Schoolwork was taking up more of Wayne’s time. That is, time spent painstakingly rewriting work he’d already done after more and more incidents of burning up his own papers. As the end of his senior year approached, the stress of finals was getting to him more and more until he refused to take the gloves off even to sleep. During exam week the lightning got so bad that he stocked up on prepackaged food and flatly refused to leave his room for any reason other than to take the exams themselves, installing surge protectors on almost everything electrical he owned because no way was he going to fry his computer in the middle of a research paper that was 25% of his grade.
By the end of the week his gloves were coming apart at the seams from the strain put on them combined with the years of wear they’d already had, and the first thing he did after the last exam was buy himself two new pairs. His hands were practically raw from having electricity constantly trapped against the skin for days on end, but it was worth it to be able to hang the diploma on the wall above his desk.
The idea of moving away to attend a big university - or God forbid, having to share a dorm room with somebody - was not at all appealing to Wayne. Instead, he enrolled himself in online classes after graduation and opted to do the work from home. It was infinitely easier on his nerves, he discovered, not to have to sit in a classroom surrounded by dozens of other judgmental students. He didn’t have to constantly worry about whether the lightning would rear up at a bad time or how to explain any burn marks on his papers. He found it much easier to relax, and to his delight, the lightning itself began to back off along with the stress.
That didn’t mean he let Oscar get close to him again, though. Just because he was having an easier time didn’t mean things couldn’t take a sudden nosedive at any moment. He kept interactions with his brother as short as possible: sitting on the far side of the room when the two of them had to be in the same space together and leaving the room entirely if Oscar tried to initiate any conversation more than what was purely necessary.
It took Oscar longer than Wayne liked to stop trying. It wasn’t that he didn’t get the hint. Oscar was plenty smart, and Wayne’s actions were painfully straightforward. The message to stay away was an obvious one, and Oscar could read it loud and clear. He just had a bit of a stubborn streak. Normally that was one of the things Wayne liked about his brother, but when it was directed at him, it could be aggravating. It was that same stubborn streak that kept Oscar going when an experiment was giving him difficulty or when he was stuck on a problem, and Wayne had to admire that. He helped his little brother out when he could - in indirect, subtle ways of course, such as leaving a textbook open to a page that Oscar needed - but overall the younger boy seemed determined to hold his own.
Though it was still unexpected the day Oscar came home from school, marched straight up to Wayne, and triumphantly shoved a paper in his face.
“Ha! 96!” Oscar proclaimed with a self-satisfied smirk.
The paper had been thrust so close to his eyes that it took Wayne a couple of seconds to even figure out what he was looking at. “This is…?”
“From the science fair,” Oscar said. “Which you only ever scored a 94 on, and I got a 96 this year. So that’s at least one of your accomplishments that I don’t have to have held over my head anymore because I beat it!” He jerked his hand back and looked to Wayne for some sort of reaction.
Wayne, for the moment, was speechless. He wasn’t sure which had stunned him more: the fact that Oscar had scored higher than him or the fierce glee Oscar was taking in his accomplishment. “Wow, that’s...really?” He tried to take the paper to get a better look, but only managed to see the red “96” at the top before Oscar yanked it away.
“Really,” he confirmed. “Every year I’m ‘Wayne’s little brother’ to all the teachers, but not anymore. Take that!” He turned on his heel, looking beyond pleased with himself, and dropped the rest of his books on the table as he marched off to presumably find their parents. If he had bothered to turn around, he would have seen the broad smile spreading across his brother’s face.
“Congratulations,” Wayne whispered after him. He glanced down to the pile that Oscar had left on the table and skimmed over the open page of a spiral notebook. It looked like the outline of a research paper on the periodic table. Wayne flipped to the next page and read a bit more. It was still a work-in-progress for sure, but it was good. It was really good, actually. His smile widened just a tiny bit. He scanned over the outline a little bit more but didn’t want Oscar to come back and catch him pawing through his stuff, so he carefully flipped to the original page and went back over to his room.
Despite the rift between him and Oscar, Wayne was happy to know his younger brother was doing well in school and was working on his own accomplishments, not that Wayne had realized that he had apparently left some sort of high bar that teachers expected Oscar to reach. But all things considered, he was proud of his brother. And Oscar was clearly proud of himself. And Wayne knew for certain that their parents were proud of Oscar too.
What he didn’t know was how soon that would change.
*****
Oscar tentatively knocked on the locked door. “Wayne?” he asked in a tiny voice. He stood there for several long moments, waiting for any kind of reply, for even a small sound to let him know he wasn’t as alone in the house as he felt. He and Wayne were nowhere as close as they had once been, but surely Wayne wouldn’t just ignore him now.
One car crash had upended their lives in more ways than he’d ever thought possible. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since the phone call and already his world was in pieces at his feet.
“I know you don’t like me,” he said quietly. “But I want you to know I’m here for you. I...I know you’re hurting. I am too. I just thought...together maybe, we...”
He stared at the shut door with a sinking heart as more and more seconds slipped by without a word from the other side. With an inaudible sigh, Oscar sank to the floor, sliding down against the door miserably and facing away from his brother’s room as he leaned his head back, looking into the empty air.
“Please, Wayne,” he softly begged as his eyes filled with more tears for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. “You’re all I have left. I don’t… What are we going to do?” he asked, knowing even as he said the words that there was no answer for them. He closed his eyes as fresh tears spilled over. “Do you wanna do some science?” he asked in a voice so fragile he knew Wayne couldn’t possibly hear him. Not that he expected anything out of his brother by that point. Not that the question was anything more than a sorrowful echo of something that used to bring them comfort. Oscar gave up on trying to talk and simply continued to huddle against the door. Not knowing that Wayne was closer than he thought, sitting in the same position on the opposite side of the wood.
Wayne drew his knees up to his chest as he heard Oscar’s sobs, heart aching unbearably at the sounds coming from his younger brother. But he did nothing but curl up tighter, hiding his face and muffling his own crying, existing as a small, solitary figure against the black scorch marks that radiated outward from around him. He hadn’t been able to hold it back. Not this time. What if he burned Oscar too? Hurt him even worse than he had that long ago day? He shuddered at the thought of those horrid black marks on the wall replicated on Oscar’s skin. A terrible wave of nausea overcame Wayne. He couldn’t destroy the one person he had left.
The shadows across the floor grew slowly longer as he sat there.
What were they going to do? Oscar’s question kept coming back around over and over again, and each time Wayne was just as lost.
Sparks danced across the scorch marks like embers after a fire had all but died, and Wayne could do nothing to stop them. He had never felt so alone in his life.
The light from the window began to take on a rusty gold tinge, which eventually faded down into red before dipping softly into night and letting the darkness creep in from the corners of the room.
There was a hole inside of him, wide and gaping. And as the shadows around him darkened, the hole grew deeper and deeper until he absolutely couldn’t stand it anymore. He couldn’t risk hurting the only one he had left. He couldn’t.
But he needed his brother.
It was useless to hope, he knew. He’d lost track of time long ago. Surely Oscar had been gone for hours, driven away by his stubborn seclusion.
But he had to at least try.
Wayne tugged at his gloves a few more times, needing to convince himself they were on as secure as possible. And then, with a quivering touch, he undid the lock and turned the door handle. He gently cracked it open, and his chest tightened when he saw Oscar slowly look around to face him. Oscar hadn’t left. Despite the silence, he hadn’t left. His brother’s eyes were reddened and his face was stained with tears. He didn’t look surprised by Wayne’s sudden presence. He didn’t look like he could feel anything at all save for grief. More emotion threatened to choke Wayne, but he managed to force out a soft whisper. “Oscar...come in?”
Wayne opened the door wider and Oscar rose to his feet and slipped into the room. Wayne barely had time to close the door behind him before Oscar grabbed ahold of him fiercely. Wayne cringed, having to fight the instinct to throw him off, but gently guided them to his bed and once they had made it onto the mattress, there was no holding back anything. Oscar sobbed against Wayne’s shoulder, his whole body trembling as though he would shatter, and Wayne clung to him tightly, sniffling and hiccupping as he wept as well. Static tickled along his shoulder blades and the backs of his arms, but for once in his life, it stayed just plain static.
They didn’t talk, couldn’t talk even if they had tried, just held each other. Desperate for comfort. For warmth and stability. For everything that had been so abruptly taken from them.
It was impossible to say how long it took, but in time they simply ran out of tears and energy to keep crying. Oscar half-heartedly wiped at his face before leaning into Wayne’s chest, crumpling against him and making muffled, incomprehensible noises into his shirt. Wayne drew him closer, leaning down to rest his chin on Oscar’s head. Despite all the pain in his heart, he still soaked in the feeling of holding Oscar in his arms as he hadn’t done in years. Everything in the world was wrong, but holding his little brother felt right.
It couldn’t last. For Oscar’s own safety, this could never happen again. But for tonight….just for this one night….
Wayne hugged Oscar to him as tightly as he could, and Oscar didn’t seem to mind a bit. In a way, Wayne knew that this was his last chance. A chance to make up for every time he had pulled away from Oscar in the past and for every time he would have to pull away in the future. For tonight, he could be the big brother Oscar needed him to be. He could hold him and protect him the way big brothers were supposed to. The way he had wanted to so many times.
The way he wouldn’t ever be able to again.
*****
The next few days were hell. Trying to deal with funeral arrangements and legal papers and just make it through without dissolving into a defeated, sparking mess took more energy than Wayne thought he had in him. And by the time all the big things were said and done, he wanted nothing more than to escape life for a while. He opened the door to the lab, desperate to concentrate on anything besides what he had been going through…
And found Oscar already there.
Wayne froze in the doorway and Oscar looked up at him. Habit said to leave Oscar alone and come back later. But the lure of losing himself in an experiment - any experiment - was too strong. He wanted to do some kind of science so badly, just to get away from everything else.
Without saying a word and making as little noise as possible, Wayne opened a cabinet drawer and pulled out one of his notebooks before beginning to situate his own supplies at the other table beside Oscar. Oscar opened his mouth as though he wanted to say something, but after a few moments, meekly closed it again and ducked his head back down to his own papers.
The two of them worked in silence for a while, each keeping to himself and, though they got up to get equipment at times, never straying over into the other’s side of the lab.
Having a project to immerse himself in helped tremendously. Even the smell of the disinfectant was welcome to Wayne. There was something soothing about the clinking of glass beakers, even if he wasn’t the one making the sound.
But after a while, he began to notice that something was off. He might not have worked with Oscar for some time now, but he’d worked with Oscar for enough years to know his habits, and the scratching of the pen on his brother’s notebook was far too forceful. His shoulders were stiff too, Wayne noted with a cautious glance over at the other table. Oscar was upset.
As Wayne stood to grab a fresh beaker, Oscar smacked the pen down to the paper, leaning back in his chair with a huff. Something about his experiment was going wrong, then. As he crossed behind Oscar to get to the cabinet, he snuck a glance at the notebook. The bottom half of the page was filled with scribbled out equations where it was clear his brother had gotten stuck. The equations were familiar, though.
“Bromide,” he said quietly, grabbing his beaker and returning to his seat.
Oscar looked up. “What?”
Wayne kept his eyes firmly on his own notebook. “Try it with bromide.”
He could feel Oscar’s gaze on him even though he didn’t dare lift his head up, and there were several moments of complete silence. Then, there was the sound of Oscar’s chair scraping against the floor slightly as he stood up. The sound of more tiny clinks of glass followed, and after a couple of minutes Oscar replied back with a soft but grateful, “That worked. Thank you.”
Wayne couldn’t stop his mouth from forming into a little smile. “No problem,” he said just loud enough for Oscar to hear.
The room went back to being mostly quiet, but it wasn’t a heavy or awkward sort of quiet. It was actually more or less comfortable. After several more minutes, Wayne finally peeked over at Oscar again and saw his pen wasn’t scribbling nearly as harshly and his posture was much more at ease. Wayne breathed easier and found it wasn’t so difficult to relax, and he absorbed himself in working the same way he would if he’d been alone. If anything, the sound of Oscar working next to him was like a pleasant white noise.
Maybe...maybe they could still have this, Wayne thought to himself. Even if he couldn’t be the brother Oscar deserved, maybe they could still have science. It had always been the one thing they could share and now more than ever, they needed something familiar.
I can do this. Wayne jotted an equation in his own notebook as he continued to listen to the faint scratching of Oscar’s pen. I’ll never be a good enough brother, but maybe I can at least be a good enough lab partner.
Authors: lizynob and lorafantastory
Pairings: Oscar/Block as the Anna/Hans dynamic
Characters: Oscar Schlumper, Wayne Schlumper, Dr. Block, Dr. Tease, minor mentions of Party Mania characters
Word Count: 47,002
Warnings: Descriptions of anxiety, some bullying, angst, references to death
Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Epilogue, Bonus Content
It Gets A Little Lonely
To say that things were tense between Wayne and his brother for a while was an understatement. Oscar quietly fumed for days and spoke to Wayne in a harsh, bitter tone when he spoke to him at all.
But Oscar’s anger, like the bruise on his face, began to fade over time, and Wayne’s frustrations began to compound. It was much, much easier to give Oscar the cold shoulder when Oscar was doing the same to him in turn. Forcing himself to keep brushing Oscar off when his younger brother was trying to mend things was agonizingly difficult.
The easiest way to deal with it, he found, was to just leave the room before Oscar could attempt to make conversation. That didn’t always stop Oscar from following him, but there was nothing he could do if Wayne locked his door- something he found himself doing with depressing frequency. Even the allure of science which had always been something Oscar could rely on to coax him out more often than not, had to be ignored. And after enough instances of Wayne leaving the lab whenever Oscar entered, his brother slowly stopped even trying to come in if he knew Wayne was working.
Schoolwork was always a good enough excuse if he had to give one, especially to his parents, and it wasn’t even really a lie. Schoolwork was taking up more of Wayne’s time. That is, time spent painstakingly rewriting work he’d already done after more and more incidents of burning up his own papers. As the end of his senior year approached, the stress of finals was getting to him more and more until he refused to take the gloves off even to sleep. During exam week the lightning got so bad that he stocked up on prepackaged food and flatly refused to leave his room for any reason other than to take the exams themselves, installing surge protectors on almost everything electrical he owned because no way was he going to fry his computer in the middle of a research paper that was 25% of his grade.
By the end of the week his gloves were coming apart at the seams from the strain put on them combined with the years of wear they’d already had, and the first thing he did after the last exam was buy himself two new pairs. His hands were practically raw from having electricity constantly trapped against the skin for days on end, but it was worth it to be able to hang the diploma on the wall above his desk.
The idea of moving away to attend a big university - or God forbid, having to share a dorm room with somebody - was not at all appealing to Wayne. Instead, he enrolled himself in online classes after graduation and opted to do the work from home. It was infinitely easier on his nerves, he discovered, not to have to sit in a classroom surrounded by dozens of other judgmental students. He didn’t have to constantly worry about whether the lightning would rear up at a bad time or how to explain any burn marks on his papers. He found it much easier to relax, and to his delight, the lightning itself began to back off along with the stress.
That didn’t mean he let Oscar get close to him again, though. Just because he was having an easier time didn’t mean things couldn’t take a sudden nosedive at any moment. He kept interactions with his brother as short as possible: sitting on the far side of the room when the two of them had to be in the same space together and leaving the room entirely if Oscar tried to initiate any conversation more than what was purely necessary.
It took Oscar longer than Wayne liked to stop trying. It wasn’t that he didn’t get the hint. Oscar was plenty smart, and Wayne’s actions were painfully straightforward. The message to stay away was an obvious one, and Oscar could read it loud and clear. He just had a bit of a stubborn streak. Normally that was one of the things Wayne liked about his brother, but when it was directed at him, it could be aggravating. It was that same stubborn streak that kept Oscar going when an experiment was giving him difficulty or when he was stuck on a problem, and Wayne had to admire that. He helped his little brother out when he could - in indirect, subtle ways of course, such as leaving a textbook open to a page that Oscar needed - but overall the younger boy seemed determined to hold his own.
Though it was still unexpected the day Oscar came home from school, marched straight up to Wayne, and triumphantly shoved a paper in his face.
“Ha! 96!” Oscar proclaimed with a self-satisfied smirk.
The paper had been thrust so close to his eyes that it took Wayne a couple of seconds to even figure out what he was looking at. “This is…?”
“From the science fair,” Oscar said. “Which you only ever scored a 94 on, and I got a 96 this year. So that’s at least one of your accomplishments that I don’t have to have held over my head anymore because I beat it!” He jerked his hand back and looked to Wayne for some sort of reaction.
Wayne, for the moment, was speechless. He wasn’t sure which had stunned him more: the fact that Oscar had scored higher than him or the fierce glee Oscar was taking in his accomplishment. “Wow, that’s...really?” He tried to take the paper to get a better look, but only managed to see the red “96” at the top before Oscar yanked it away.
“Really,” he confirmed. “Every year I’m ‘Wayne’s little brother’ to all the teachers, but not anymore. Take that!” He turned on his heel, looking beyond pleased with himself, and dropped the rest of his books on the table as he marched off to presumably find their parents. If he had bothered to turn around, he would have seen the broad smile spreading across his brother’s face.
“Congratulations,” Wayne whispered after him. He glanced down to the pile that Oscar had left on the table and skimmed over the open page of a spiral notebook. It looked like the outline of a research paper on the periodic table. Wayne flipped to the next page and read a bit more. It was still a work-in-progress for sure, but it was good. It was really good, actually. His smile widened just a tiny bit. He scanned over the outline a little bit more but didn’t want Oscar to come back and catch him pawing through his stuff, so he carefully flipped to the original page and went back over to his room.
Despite the rift between him and Oscar, Wayne was happy to know his younger brother was doing well in school and was working on his own accomplishments, not that Wayne had realized that he had apparently left some sort of high bar that teachers expected Oscar to reach. But all things considered, he was proud of his brother. And Oscar was clearly proud of himself. And Wayne knew for certain that their parents were proud of Oscar too.
What he didn’t know was how soon that would change.
*****
Oscar tentatively knocked on the locked door. “Wayne?” he asked in a tiny voice. He stood there for several long moments, waiting for any kind of reply, for even a small sound to let him know he wasn’t as alone in the house as he felt. He and Wayne were nowhere as close as they had once been, but surely Wayne wouldn’t just ignore him now.
One car crash had upended their lives in more ways than he’d ever thought possible. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since the phone call and already his world was in pieces at his feet.
“I know you don’t like me,” he said quietly. “But I want you to know I’m here for you. I...I know you’re hurting. I am too. I just thought...together maybe, we...”
He stared at the shut door with a sinking heart as more and more seconds slipped by without a word from the other side. With an inaudible sigh, Oscar sank to the floor, sliding down against the door miserably and facing away from his brother’s room as he leaned his head back, looking into the empty air.
“Please, Wayne,” he softly begged as his eyes filled with more tears for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. “You’re all I have left. I don’t… What are we going to do?” he asked, knowing even as he said the words that there was no answer for them. He closed his eyes as fresh tears spilled over. “Do you wanna do some science?” he asked in a voice so fragile he knew Wayne couldn’t possibly hear him. Not that he expected anything out of his brother by that point. Not that the question was anything more than a sorrowful echo of something that used to bring them comfort. Oscar gave up on trying to talk and simply continued to huddle against the door. Not knowing that Wayne was closer than he thought, sitting in the same position on the opposite side of the wood.
Wayne drew his knees up to his chest as he heard Oscar’s sobs, heart aching unbearably at the sounds coming from his younger brother. But he did nothing but curl up tighter, hiding his face and muffling his own crying, existing as a small, solitary figure against the black scorch marks that radiated outward from around him. He hadn’t been able to hold it back. Not this time. What if he burned Oscar too? Hurt him even worse than he had that long ago day? He shuddered at the thought of those horrid black marks on the wall replicated on Oscar’s skin. A terrible wave of nausea overcame Wayne. He couldn’t destroy the one person he had left.
The shadows across the floor grew slowly longer as he sat there.
What were they going to do? Oscar’s question kept coming back around over and over again, and each time Wayne was just as lost.
Sparks danced across the scorch marks like embers after a fire had all but died, and Wayne could do nothing to stop them. He had never felt so alone in his life.
The light from the window began to take on a rusty gold tinge, which eventually faded down into red before dipping softly into night and letting the darkness creep in from the corners of the room.
There was a hole inside of him, wide and gaping. And as the shadows around him darkened, the hole grew deeper and deeper until he absolutely couldn’t stand it anymore. He couldn’t risk hurting the only one he had left. He couldn’t.
But he needed his brother.
It was useless to hope, he knew. He’d lost track of time long ago. Surely Oscar had been gone for hours, driven away by his stubborn seclusion.
But he had to at least try.
Wayne tugged at his gloves a few more times, needing to convince himself they were on as secure as possible. And then, with a quivering touch, he undid the lock and turned the door handle. He gently cracked it open, and his chest tightened when he saw Oscar slowly look around to face him. Oscar hadn’t left. Despite the silence, he hadn’t left. His brother’s eyes were reddened and his face was stained with tears. He didn’t look surprised by Wayne’s sudden presence. He didn’t look like he could feel anything at all save for grief. More emotion threatened to choke Wayne, but he managed to force out a soft whisper. “Oscar...come in?”
Wayne opened the door wider and Oscar rose to his feet and slipped into the room. Wayne barely had time to close the door behind him before Oscar grabbed ahold of him fiercely. Wayne cringed, having to fight the instinct to throw him off, but gently guided them to his bed and once they had made it onto the mattress, there was no holding back anything. Oscar sobbed against Wayne’s shoulder, his whole body trembling as though he would shatter, and Wayne clung to him tightly, sniffling and hiccupping as he wept as well. Static tickled along his shoulder blades and the backs of his arms, but for once in his life, it stayed just plain static.
They didn’t talk, couldn’t talk even if they had tried, just held each other. Desperate for comfort. For warmth and stability. For everything that had been so abruptly taken from them.
It was impossible to say how long it took, but in time they simply ran out of tears and energy to keep crying. Oscar half-heartedly wiped at his face before leaning into Wayne’s chest, crumpling against him and making muffled, incomprehensible noises into his shirt. Wayne drew him closer, leaning down to rest his chin on Oscar’s head. Despite all the pain in his heart, he still soaked in the feeling of holding Oscar in his arms as he hadn’t done in years. Everything in the world was wrong, but holding his little brother felt right.
It couldn’t last. For Oscar’s own safety, this could never happen again. But for tonight….just for this one night….
Wayne hugged Oscar to him as tightly as he could, and Oscar didn’t seem to mind a bit. In a way, Wayne knew that this was his last chance. A chance to make up for every time he had pulled away from Oscar in the past and for every time he would have to pull away in the future. For tonight, he could be the big brother Oscar needed him to be. He could hold him and protect him the way big brothers were supposed to. The way he had wanted to so many times.
The way he wouldn’t ever be able to again.
*****
The next few days were hell. Trying to deal with funeral arrangements and legal papers and just make it through without dissolving into a defeated, sparking mess took more energy than Wayne thought he had in him. And by the time all the big things were said and done, he wanted nothing more than to escape life for a while. He opened the door to the lab, desperate to concentrate on anything besides what he had been going through…
And found Oscar already there.
Wayne froze in the doorway and Oscar looked up at him. Habit said to leave Oscar alone and come back later. But the lure of losing himself in an experiment - any experiment - was too strong. He wanted to do some kind of science so badly, just to get away from everything else.
Without saying a word and making as little noise as possible, Wayne opened a cabinet drawer and pulled out one of his notebooks before beginning to situate his own supplies at the other table beside Oscar. Oscar opened his mouth as though he wanted to say something, but after a few moments, meekly closed it again and ducked his head back down to his own papers.
The two of them worked in silence for a while, each keeping to himself and, though they got up to get equipment at times, never straying over into the other’s side of the lab.
Having a project to immerse himself in helped tremendously. Even the smell of the disinfectant was welcome to Wayne. There was something soothing about the clinking of glass beakers, even if he wasn’t the one making the sound.
But after a while, he began to notice that something was off. He might not have worked with Oscar for some time now, but he’d worked with Oscar for enough years to know his habits, and the scratching of the pen on his brother’s notebook was far too forceful. His shoulders were stiff too, Wayne noted with a cautious glance over at the other table. Oscar was upset.
As Wayne stood to grab a fresh beaker, Oscar smacked the pen down to the paper, leaning back in his chair with a huff. Something about his experiment was going wrong, then. As he crossed behind Oscar to get to the cabinet, he snuck a glance at the notebook. The bottom half of the page was filled with scribbled out equations where it was clear his brother had gotten stuck. The equations were familiar, though.
“Bromide,” he said quietly, grabbing his beaker and returning to his seat.
Oscar looked up. “What?”
Wayne kept his eyes firmly on his own notebook. “Try it with bromide.”
He could feel Oscar’s gaze on him even though he didn’t dare lift his head up, and there were several moments of complete silence. Then, there was the sound of Oscar’s chair scraping against the floor slightly as he stood up. The sound of more tiny clinks of glass followed, and after a couple of minutes Oscar replied back with a soft but grateful, “That worked. Thank you.”
Wayne couldn’t stop his mouth from forming into a little smile. “No problem,” he said just loud enough for Oscar to hear.
The room went back to being mostly quiet, but it wasn’t a heavy or awkward sort of quiet. It was actually more or less comfortable. After several more minutes, Wayne finally peeked over at Oscar again and saw his pen wasn’t scribbling nearly as harshly and his posture was much more at ease. Wayne breathed easier and found it wasn’t so difficult to relax, and he absorbed himself in working the same way he would if he’d been alone. If anything, the sound of Oscar working next to him was like a pleasant white noise.
Maybe...maybe they could still have this, Wayne thought to himself. Even if he couldn’t be the brother Oscar deserved, maybe they could still have science. It had always been the one thing they could share and now more than ever, they needed something familiar.
I can do this. Wayne jotted an equation in his own notebook as he continued to listen to the faint scratching of Oscar’s pen. I’ll never be a good enough brother, but maybe I can at least be a good enough lab partner.