Ethan wakes up to their alarm vibrating under their pillow. They groan and turn off their alarm, turning the other way to sleep some more. A few moments later their lights flash on and off a few times. Ethan covers their eyes before slowly looking up once the lights stop flashing and sees Peter signing 'time to get ready for school.'
Ethan groans again and signs 'I'm up. Get out.'
Peter laughs 'I'm leaving. I'm leaving.'
As soon as Peter leaves Ethan slowly gets up and starts getting ready for school. They finish getting ready by grabbing their leather jacket, leaving their hearing aids on the table next to their bed.
Ethan walks downstairs to see their mom and Peter eating breakfast. Their dad had already left for work. 'Morning,' Ethan signs tiredly.
"'Morning sweetie,'" Beck responds, signing as she speaks. "'You ready for school? Got your hearing aids?'"
Ethan shakes their head as they sit down at the table 'why do I even need to wear them? They don't help. And they hurt.'
"'If you don't want to wear them you don't have to,'" Peter tells Ethan, starting to speak while signing.
Beck nods in agreement before asking "'breakfast? I made eggs.'"
Ethan shakes their head again, slurring "'not hungry.'" Beck nods again and goes back to eating her breakfast as Peter puts his plate in the sink.
"'Want a ride?'" Peter asks. Ethan looks like they're about to refuse before Peter adds "'we can get Lex and Hannah.'"
Ethan nods, mumbling and signing an okay.
Peter smiles and leads the way to his car, shouting "bye mom!"
Ethan waves to Beck and follows Peter, getting in the car after their brother.
Peter scratches at a spot on his back before starting the car as Ethan pulls out their phone and texts Lex we're on our way.
We? Lex asks.
Peter's giving me a ride Ethan responds. They put their phone away after getting a thumbs up from Lex.
"'Which house is she at?'" Peter asks.
'Dads,' Ethan responds, unknowingly saying the s out loud as though they were hissing. Ethan lays their head on the window, looking outside as Peter starts driving.
Peter taps Ethan's arm at a red light to get their attention. Ethan looks up as Peter signs "'you okay?'"
Ethan nods and signs 'just tired. Didn't sleep well.' Peter nods before driving again once the light turns green. Ethan goes back to looking out the window until they get to Lex's house. Ethan pulls out their phone and texts Lex we're here.
Lex comes out a few moments later, her sister Hannah following. The girls get in the car before Lex leans over the seat to give Ethan a kiss on their cheek, frowning slightly when she notices something. Ethan smiles at her, humming happily, and waves to Hannah. Hannah waves back as Lex says and signs "'hey.'"
"'Hey,'" Peter responds, also signing. He pulls out of the driveway once he sees the girls are in their seats.
Once Peter starts driving to Hannah's school, Ethan lays their head on the window again. Lex looks at her partner worriedly and asks Peter "is Ethan okay?"
"They said they didn't sleep well last night but I think there might be something more," Peter responds, looking at Lex through the mirror quickly.
Lex looks at Peter saying "they felt a little warm when I kissed their cheek."
Peter frowns, "how warm?"
"Warm enough that I don't want them going to school," Lex replies.
Peter sighs and looks at Lex through the mirror at a red light, "E won't let us take them home. They're stubborn and you know that."
"Yeah..." Lex agrees. "Still doesn't mean I'm not happy with them going to school like this."
Peter nods as the light turns green. He starts driving as he changes the subject "Hey Banana." Hannah looks at Ethan worriedly before looking at Peter and waving. "Is today a good day or a bad day?"
"Bad day," Hannah mumbles, playing with her hands. Peter nods and doesn't say anything else, not wanting to push Hannah to talk–which Hannah appreciates.
Once they arrive at Hannah's school, Ethan turns around and signs 'have fun at school banana.' They unknowingly make a few noises as they mouth what they sign. Hannah smiles softly at them and waves at her sister and Peter before getting out of the car.
As soon as Hannah starts walking into the school, Peter turns to Ethan and asks them "'okay E, you okay?'"
'I'm fine,' Ethan signs. 'I already said I didn't sleep well. Why do you think something is wrong?'
"'Cause you're unusually quiet, babe'" Lex says to her partner, opting not to say that they felt warm, before telling Peter "we're gonna be late if we don't leave now."
Ethan rolls their eyes 'I can be quiet if I want to be.'
"'Screw being late,'" Peter says. "'I wanna make sure E's okay first.'" He stops signing and turns to Lex, making sure Ethan can't read his lips "I want them to know that they're more important than school. Maybe then they'll admit to being sick."
Peter turns back to Ethan as they slur harshly "''M fine!'" Ethan's voice starts trailing off as they say to leave it alone, the only noise they make is the v, dragging it out like they did with the s earlier that morning.
Lex and Peter look at each other and sigh, leaving it alone. Peter pulls out of the parking lot of the middle school and heads toward the high school, worrying over his little sibling. He knows that eventually Ethan will tell him–he just doesn't know if that will be before or after Ethan gets worse.
Lex sits quietly in the back of the car worrying over her partner. Like Peter, she knows that once Ethan is ready to talk, they would. But they're her partner and she just worries about them. Ethan has done this before, once or twice, where they get sick and don't tell anyone. The last time they didn't tell anyone that they were sick, they claimed that their ears started ringing before fainting. They woke up an hour later, ears still ringing and a high fever. It turned out they had a normal cold mixed with a lack of sleep that time. Luckily, that was a day that there was no school so they didn't faint during a class.
Ethan keeps their head on the window as Peter drives them all to school. This morning when Peter woke them up, they didn't feel the greatest but they don't want to admit to being sick so they're just going to ignore it and try to get through the day so the weekend can come faster.
Once the trio gets to school, Ethan waves to Peter before all of them get out of the car. They hold out their hand out for Lex, who takes it with a smile. Peter smiles at the couple before heading over to his best friend Alice and her girlfriend Deb.
Lex leads Ethan inside the school, smiling. Ethan follows her before coughing harshly. Lex looks at her partner worriedly and rubs their arm. Ethan stops coughing after a bit and signs 'sorry.'
"'Don't apologize babe,'" Lex responds. "'Are you sure you're okay?'"
Ethan nods and signs 'I'm fine, Lex.'
Lex doesn't look like she believes them but sighs, "'let's get to homeroom.'" Ethan nods and leads her to their homeroom.
The first half of the day was spent with Lex translating for Ethan and being worried about them as they get worse, who was still being stubborn and ignoring how they feel. At lunch, Ethan and Lex were outside of the school near the smoke club kids, Danny and Sophie–and in extension Alice and Peter–as Lex smoked a cigarette. Ethan starts coughing harshly, even worse than they were coughing this morning. Lex looks up worriedly and puts out her cigarette, moving more toward them and rubbing their arm.
Peter hears the coughing from farther down the field where all of them were at and looks at his younger sibling worriedly. Alice looks at Peter, knowing he's worried about Ethan. "Go check on them," Alice says softly. Peter sighs and looks at Alice before looking at Danny and Sophie and looks back to Alice. Alice looks behind her at the two smoking with her girlfriend "Just because they don't know doesn't mean you can't check up on your sibling."
Peter sighs again and stands up as Danny asks "Hey where you goin' Pete?"
"The smoke's getting to me," Peter answers, telling a half truth.
"Ahhh, okay," Danny says, going back to talking to Sophie and smoking.
No one in the school–aside from Lex, Alice, Deb, and the teachers–knows that Peter and Ethan are siblings. Because their parents broke up around the time Maddie was pregnant with Ethan, Ethan took her last name while Peter took their dad, Mason's, last name–Davidson.
Peter walks over to Ethan and Lex, Ethan finally calming down from their coughing fit. "'Hey,'" Peter says, sitting next to the two on the ground. Ethan waves and groans, putting their head on Lex's shoulder. "'You okay E?'" Peter asks.
Ethan stays quiet for a few moments before finally shaking their head. 'Feel sick. Have been all morning,' they admit.
Peter sighs and stands up "'let's get you to the nurse bubba.'" Ethan nods and slowly gets up, swaying a bit. Lex quickly grabs them and helps to steady themself. She looks at Peter worriedly as Ethan lays their head on her shoulder again. "At least they didn't faint like last time," Peter tells Lex as he starts leading the duo to the nurse.
"Yeah..." Lex says softly, following her partner's brother. When the trio gets to the nurse, Peter quickly explains that Ethan hasn't been feeling well with Lex adding in that Ethan has had multiple coughing fits today and they almost fainted on the way there. The nurse takes Ethan's temperature to see that they have a 101ºF fever. Lex looks at Peter and mumbles "you should call your mom."
Ethan gets led to a bed by the nurse as Peter nods "yeah, I will. I think she's at work though."
The bell rings and the nurse turns to the two, saying "you two get to class, I'll take care of Ethan until someone can pick them up."
Lex looks like she's about to argue before Peter says "go to class, Lex. I'll make sure E is okay." Lex sighs and nods, running a hand through Ethans hair–who hummed softly with their eyes closed–before leaving the room and heading to class.
"You too Mr. Davidson," the nurse says.
"I still gotta call one of my parents," Peter tells her. The nurse sighs and nods before Peter tries calling his parents. When calling his mom, Beck said that as much as she wanted to pick Ethan up, she was swamped with work, having to cover a coworkers shift along with doing her own shift. When trying to call his dad...well he couldn't even reach his dad so he guesses CCRP must be really busy. Peter sighs and tells that to the nurse before getting a text from his mom If your dad doesn't pick up you can bring Ethan home. "My mom said that I can bring E home...if that's okay with you."
The nurse nods and says "as long as your parents are okay with that and tell the school you're leaving as well then I see no problem with you taking Ethan home."
Peter nods and texts his mom saying that she needs to call the school so he can bring Ethan home. She replies with an okay and a few minutes later he's allowed to leave with Ethan. He walks over to Ethan, rubbing their back gently. Ethan groans and slowly opens their eyes before Peter signs 'let's go home, yeah?' Ethan nods before clutching their head in pain. Peter stands up and slowly helps Ethan up. Ethan almost immediately leans on their brother as Peter walks to his car. Ethan whimpers softly as they get in the car and leans their head on the window, just like they did this morning. Peter rubs Ethan's arm and starts driving home.
Once they get home, Peter gets Ethan out of the car and onto the couch before he texts Lex saying he brought Ethan home and he's gonna stay with them. He adds that if Lex needs a ride, he can quickly pick her and Hannah up but he doesn't want to leave Ethan alone for long. Lex responds with an okay.
Ethan starts coughing harshly again as Peter puts his phone away. Peter quickly heads to the kitchen and gets a glass of water before sitting next to Ethan and rubbing their arm. When Ethan's coughing subsides, they take a small sip of their water before squeaking out "Pe'er...."
"'I'm here,'" Peter tells them. Ethan curls up next to their brother and whimpers again. Peter rubs their back as Ethan starts falling asleep. A few minutes later, Peter also falls asleep after laying down.
A few hours later, Peter wakes up to the doorbell ringing. He carefully gets up, making sure to not wake up Ethan, and heads to the door, opening it to see Lex and Hannah. "Hey," He says, yawning and letting them in. "E's asleep right now."
"We just wanted to see how they're doing," Lex tells him.
"They had a coughing fit right when we got home but they've been asleep since," Peter informs.
Hannah goes over to the sleeping Ethan quietly as Lex and Peter keep talking. Ethan groans as they start waking up. "Ethan!" Hannah says, causing Lex and Peter to go over to them quickly.
"What's wrong banana?" Lex asks.
Ethan groans again and slowly opens their eyes to see three bodies next to them. They whimper softly and Peter looks at the girls "I think we're crowding them." He turns to Hannah and says "Let's go grab some food, banana." Hannah quietly grabs Peters hand and after shooting a quick glance at Ethan, lets Peter bring her to the kitchen, leaving the couple alone.
"'Hey babe,'" Lex says softly, sitting next to Ethan. Ethan curls up into her side, mumbling unintelligibly. Lex plays with their hair, staying quiet. She presses the 'I love you' sign–which is only her thumb, pointer finger, and pinky–into their arm, to which they slowly sign it back the longer way–pointing to themself, then crossing their wrists over their chest, then pointing to Lex. Lex keeps playing with Ethan's hair while their breathing evens out as they start falling asleep again just as Peter and Hannah come back in with a few poptarts.
"They asleep again?" Peter asks, seeing the couple cuddling.
"Yeah," Lex nods before looking at her phone. "Okay banana, dads are here." Hannah frowns but walks over to her sister as Lex carefully gets up and grabs Hannah's hand. "We'll come by again sometime this weekend to check on them again." It was a Friday so they only had to wait one night before coming back to check on Lex's partner.
"Okay," Peter says, walking the girls to the door. "See you tomorrow."
"Bye Peter," Lex says as Hannah waves.
Over the next week, Ethan stayed home with what their family realized was the flu. Peter had to go to school after the weekend but Beck and Mason took turns staying home taking care of Ethan, who was mainly sleeping. By Thursday, Ethan was back to walking around but still wasn't in the shape to go back to school. Lex came over everyday to check on her partner, sometimes bringing Hannah with her when Hannah was having a good day.
The Monday after the week Ethan was sick soon arrives and Ethan walks into the school, stuffing their keys to their old jalopy into their pocket, when they see Lex. They smile as they walk over to her. "'Ethan!'" Lex says happily, a big smile on her face.
'Hey,' Ethan replies, kissing her cheek.
"'I'm glad you're feeling better,'" Lex tells them.
Ethan closes their hand, leaving their pinky and thumb out, and moving their hand back and forth between the two of them to say 'me too.'
The bell rings and Lex sighs "'time for homeroom" Ethan smiles and takes Lex's hand, leading her to their homeroom to start the day.