Mind the Sun [Eirik]

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Same thing every year.

It seemed that no matter how many years they spent at Asher Academy, the heat and sun of Hawaii always managed to catch them by surprise after Norway's gentle summers. No matter how well Lukas thought he'd prepared; suitcase packed full of sunscreens, aloe vera ointments, thin but well-covering clothing, hats and sunglasses, there just wasn't avoiding the annual sunburn that would leave both him and his brother looking more or less like a pair of irritated, Nordic lobsters.

This year things had gone even worse than usual, and Lukas was currently sitting in the infirmary beating himself up over the fact he hadn't reacted quickly enough to Eirik's obvious discomfort on their first trip to the city and failed to see the symptoms of dehydration and upcoming heatstroke until it was too late.

Lukas never, ever, wanted to see Eirik pass out in the middle of the street like that again.

It'd happened so fast he'd barely registered what was going on before Eirik was already lying on the concrete, silent and unresponsive, and it had all left him feeling so scared and helpless he'd been eternally grateful when a fellow student had offered to carry Eirik all the way back to campus. It hadn't even hurt his pride to count on someone who was practically a stranger in that moment. Though now that things had settled down he felt both grateful towards the older boy and irritated that he now was in the other's debt. He'd probably have to buy him dinner or something and the mere thought made him cringe.

Lukas sighed and scratched idly at the tip of his nose, his own sunburn only reminding him of its existence now. But he figured resembling a giant shellfish wasn't much of a reason to complain when his brother had spent the last twenty or so minutes unconscious in bed. And it wasn't like the tip of Eirik's nose was any less red than his own.

”You look like Rudolph the Reindeer.” He said, allowing himself to finally be somewhat amused at his little brother's miserable state. ”Too bad it's still a few months until Christmas.” He took a sip of the juice the nurse had brought him along with a bottle of lotion and quite a few chosen words about sunscreen and covering up. As if Lukas hadn't already known what he had done wrong. ”Maybe we should take a picture, it'd make a cute Christmas card for mom and dad.”

[EIRIK IVERSEN]

There were quite a few looks that Eirik could give Lukas that no one else but him could possibly understand, and the one that graced his features was surely one of them. There were about three versions of annoyed, one being Lukas was too affectionate in public and he was embarrassed and annoyed, Lukas was saving him from something whilst being embarrassing in public which left him annoyed and thankful, and lastly [the one in this situation], Lukas was being annoying whilst he had a headache. The dehydration left him with a dry throb in his temple which was none too comfortable and he had far less tolerance for his little jokes. "Mor would take away your pocket money for the month if you did, I would think you would prefer her not knowing that you let it happen another year."

Eirik slipped into Norwegian rather smoothly, not seeing any reason to continue straining himself slightly to speak English tiredly. It also made himself feel odd when he spoke English when it was just the two of them, it was easier like this, and he didn't feel a little anxious that anyone was listening in. It hardly mattered, they spoke of nothing exciting, but the thought of the little bit of privacy they had in few moments relaxed him. "Send her the picture of us in the sweaters instead, it's so damned hot that we won't wear them for any other occasion. Why couldn't the school be somewhere tolerable. Alaska sounds nice, or Quebec, I would have liked to practice my Fransk more than Engelsk. The food is better there too and you don't burn to a crisp in the sun."

He flexed his fingers, disliking the faint bruising around where the IV was slipped into his arm and the way it ached as he tensed. It was better to have woken when it was already in, he hated the way everything seemed to haze in the first few moments after it slipped in. "How bad is the burn this time? Will I be peeling off sheets of face in a week or a day?" Tiredly he pulled the blankets down off of himself and kicked them away, feeling far too hot to be all tucked in like that. "Do they have a fan? Can you bring it over Lukas?"

Eirik swung his feet over the side of the bed and glanced at the Nurse who had stepped over hearing the voices blankly, his fingers gripping at the needle in his arm. The two were locked in a staring contest of sorts, the woman shaking her head as she walked over to try to make him lie back again and the boy having none of it. He tugged it out of his arm and nudged the little stand away from his bedside with a foot, addressing Lukas with an explanation. "She put it in wrong, it hurt and I couldn't bend my arm because she put it where she put it in too far up. They always put it too far up in Amerika and look, it's bruising."

The Nurse looked lost among all the Norwegian, the woman glancing to Lukas as the elder brother for some explanation and help in wrangling in the younger to behaving. "Tell him he has to keep it in" she commanded, gaining a bit more confidence in dealing with the situation.

"I can hear you" Eirik answered rather rudely, "and I won't. Just give me some of that and I can be on my way." He motioned to the juice his brother had and glanced around for his shoes before addressing Lukas to get them for him. With the headache he had he didn't want to be bending over forward.

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Lukas was quite unfazed by that look, having been subjected to these silent scowls communicating how annoying he was for the better part of his life. Maybe he was wrong to tease his little brother at a time like this, but he felt like he was entitled to get a little bit of amusement from Eirik's misfortune after all the worry and gray hairs he'd caused him. Because even when he laughed at Eirik and teased him and got him all embarrassed and annoyed, deep down he still always kept worrying about his sweet little brother's well-being.

"Mor would take away your pocket money for the month if you did, I would think you would prefer her not knowing that you let it happen another year."

Sighing, Lukas gave Eirik a pointed look though he knew it'd just be ignored. Eirik was probably right in this. Despite him being a teenager now and often insisting that he could make it on his own, Eirik still relied on him a lot. And their mother agreed, reminding him over and over again that while at school his brother was his responsibility. Which he understood well enough; if he kept worrying about Eirik when the boy was right there with him, what must their mother who was thousands of miles away feel like? Still, that didn't mean he couldn't get tired, especially when Eirik got into one of his bratty moods.

"Send her the picture of us in the sweaters instead, it's so damned hot that we won't wear them for any other occasion. Why couldn't the school be somewhere tolerable. Alaska sounds nice, or Quebec, I would have liked to practice my Fransk more than Engelsk. The food is better there too and you don't burn to a crisp in the sun."

”You say that every year.” Lukas shook his head, already knowing he was fighting a losing battle in this argument. ”You can practice your French here too, you have plenty of classes to choose from. We should be happy mor and far are willing to pay for us to be here in the first place.” Maybe he was just speaking for himself, but his life had gotten a lot better after starting at Asher, and if he had to endure a little bit of heat and sun in exchange of everything he'd learned, he was happy to do that.

"How bad is the burn this time? Will I be peeling off sheets of face in a week or a day?"

Lukas smiled a little at the question, helping Eirik tug the sheets off him and folding them neatly at the foot of the bed. ”Worse than last year, I'd say. But not as bad as the year before.” He said, studying the redness of his brother's face. It could've been worse, it was the heatstroke he'd been more worried about himself.

Standing up at his brother's request for a fan, he told him to wait a moment as he walked to the other end of the room to look for one. There was one sitting on a bedside table in front of an open window, and Lukas leaned down to unplug it and take it to his brother. When he returned to Eirik's side, though, it was to find the boy sitting up, holding the IV needle in his hand.

"She put it in wrong, it hurt and I couldn't bend my arm because she put it where she put it in too far up. They always put it too far up in Amerika and look, it's bruising."

”You're not going anywhere.” He scowled, voice stern and not leaving room for argument. ”You always bruise, and I will not have you fainting again.” Placing the fan on Eirik's table, he took his brother's hand and pried the needle from his fingers. After getting a nod from approval from the nurse, he stuck it back in, firmly but careful not to hurt him, then fixed Eirik with a frown of disapproval. ”You shouldn't be so rude, she's just trying to help. I know you don't like it here, but you need to rest for now.”

Lukas rubbed his temple, he still had a bit of a headache from the heat as well and Eirik's attitude wasn't exactly helping. Ignoring his brother's request for his shoes, he just turned to apologize to the nurse and assure her that he would make sure the younger boy behaved. ”You can have mine, if you're thirsty.” He said as he turned back to Eirik, offering him the carton of juice he'd been sipping on. ”But we're not leaving until the nurse gives you her permission.”

[EIRIK IVERSEN]

Eirik sulked, his head falling back against the rough pillows that were always offered in the infirmary. Heavens no that they were actually comfortable enough for him to sleep on, it was as if there was some school charter that singled him out to receive such torture. Yet to please Lukas he tried his best to relax, making himself as comfortable as he could without his IV getting in the way. "I don't like staying here, she wants me to stay here, her interests clash with mine so it's to be expected that I am not pleased with her." He stated his answer rather simply, shifting the blame off of himself now that Lukas made it quite so clear that he was in the wrong.

He flexed his fingers, feeling the muscles in his arm tense as he checked if Lukas placed the IV in the correct place. The lack of pain, and the new found ability to bend his arm without feeling like he was being stabbed more than hinted that he had. Honestly, sticking a needle into the antecubital space while of a common practice was less than practical in his eyes. It limited his range of movement and the bruising stayed for days. It was even worse when they missed a few times trying to get it in, but luckily he was hardly awake for this nurse's attempt.

He let out a deep sigh, enjoying the gentle breeze the fan was creating as he accepted the carton of juice from his brother and sipped at it idly. A shrug was his only answer to having to listen to the nurse, the teen fixing his hair to look a little more presentable for anyone who might spy them. "I want...picked herring, you can't get that here can you?" He handed back the little carton, propping himself up against the pillows so he was sitting more than lying back.

"Can you bring me my textbook Lukas?" he decided after a few minutes of anxious relaxation, not feeling quite right sitting still with nothing to do. He had a test soon enough in Chemistry, and it felt right to be reviewing formulas rather than wasting time like this. How was he supposed to beat those kids who had smarts as their powers, or could simply read minds if he didn't spend all of his time studying? His powers were different, there was no edge he could get in his studies with a useless power like dream walking. He could only remember bits and pieces of what he saw, and even then it was far less than enough to make sense of what happened in them. Eirik would just wake, with fragments of memory and a strange feeling something was different.

Sometimes he felt like Lukas knew more about what happened in the dreamworld than he did, those little glances he received from time to time after he woke on the plane or a fitful night confused him. Yet he never seemed to able to ask, in fear that it was something he did not want to hear.

The nurse returned after a few minutes and gave the fluid bag a little prod to see how the teen was holding up, giving Lukas a thankful glance as she gave them both a few more cartons of sugary juice. "He can leave in a few more hours, we just want to keep him here to make sure he doesn't faint again." The woman seemed content to just address Lukas, seeing him as the more rational of the duo. "You should drink some more, we aren't letting you leave until you finish another carton." The soft smile was back, her lips curled up into that kindly smile that was pasted to the faces of all medical workers it seemed.

Eirik just folded the edge of the blanket in boredom, scooting over a bit so he could rest his head on Lukas's shoulder comfortably. It was far better than the pillows, though in a less cynical mood he wouldn't have found the pillows quite so horrible. "Will you bring me dinner?"

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Of course Eirik would be displeased with the situation, the infirmary wasn’t exactly cozy or a very entertaining place and Lukas knew from experience that the beds weren’t the most comfortable. But since Eirik had no choice he wished his brother would just understand that he needed to stay for the sake of his own health. He would feel even more miserable if he left early and ended up fainting again. There was no way Lukas was going to let that happen, so even though he still felt guilt nagging at the back of his skull and there was a part of him that did want to make it up to his little brother by pampering him, he held on to his responsibilities as the older one and refused to let Eirik have his way.

"I want...picked herring, you can't get that here can you?"

Fortunately it seemed that Eirik was finally starting to accept his fate, and he watched with relief as his brother accepted and sipped at his drink. “Don’t think so.” He allowed some sympathy into his voice again as Eirik settled more comfortably against the pillows and set the juice carton on the bedside table when Eirik was finished with it. “I think it’d be best if you’d just rest.” He responded to the request for text books. Sometimes he thought his little bror was taking his studies a bit too seriously. Though since he could be spending his time doing things a lot worse, he tried not to complain about it too much beside the occasional suggestion he spend time with his classmates. “But if you feel well enough, I can ask the nurse if it’s okay.” He added, adjusting the thin blankets covering his brother’s small form.

When the nurse returned Lukas turned to speak to her, glad that she agreed with him about Eirik needing a couple more hours of rest. He gave her a nod and obediently took one of the juice cartons she’d brought to show Eirik a good example.

"Will you bring me dinner?"

“What would you like?” He asked, bringing up a hand to rake his fingers through Eirik’s hair when his brother leaned against him. It was unfair how the boy could go from being a such a brat to the sweetest, cutest, thing in the world. He sipped his drink, happy to just take in the proximity as long as it would last.

Once he was finished with his own carton he reached for another one, opening it and sticking in the straw before setting it on the table as well for when Eirik would want it. “I’ll go find something for you to eat, okay?” He said, nudging his brother gently before standing up. “And your book if the nurse agrees to it.”