Work Text:
Hiro is really, really tired.
Schoolwork is as easy to him as breathing, but the fact that Mr. Tsukehara, Madame Belaire, Ms. Ayuzawa, and Mrs. Johns all assigned homework on the same day (all due on Monday, too) is honestly taking a toll on his poor twelve-year-old sleep schedule. Even though he thinks he’s pretty well-adjusted to the sleeping patterns of a typical San Fransokyo high school student, his body still refuses to adhere to the forced bedtimes.
Three hours later, he stretches his arms and yawns loudly, immediately pulling a face when he smells his breath. At least he’s not napping. It’s not the first time he’s almost droned off to sleep in the middle of work (he never really found a less embarrassing way to explain the spit stain on his Physics paper). Staring at the computer screen, he saves Ms. Ayuzawa’s paper and with a few clicks, has the email sent off exactly three minutes past one in the morning. Hiro cricks his neck and sighs. Time for the French expository essay.
He’s barely gotten past three lines of his introduction when he hears the beep-beepof a car outside his window. Hiro slides open the glass and peers curiously out, only to see a green van waiting at the curb. Then he sees Tadashi’s face pressed against the backseat window.
Hiro jumps out of his seat and doesn’t even bother to put on his slippers as he leaps down the stairs two at a time. He nearly steps on a sleeping Mochi, who thankfully doesn’t notice a thing. He doesn’t even bother to hide the fact that his steps are echoing throughout the house. Aunt Cass sleeps like a log; she wouldn’t get up even if the entire neighbourhood decided to hold its annual New Year’s celebration outside her bedroom door.
He throws open the door to see a short, dark-haired woman standing outside, with Tadashi’s arm over her shoulders and an unamused expression on her round face. Without a word, she grabs Tadashi’s arm, slings it off her shoulders, and lightly shoves Tadashi in Hiro’s direction. Hiro barely manages to catch his brother and mumble a quiet “thanks”.
“He’s drunk. He also owes Honey sixty bucks. Good luck.” She climbs back into the car, where the driver, a huge man in a green sweater, smiles tiredly at him before driving away.
Tadashi, who’s giggling into Hiro’s shoulder, shifts so that he’s slumped over a confused Hiro. “Hey, little brother,” he slurs. “Have you seen that huge cat statue that waves its arm like this?” He tries to imitate the maneki-neko’s arm movements, but ends up waving his arm from side to side. “It’s so cute. It looks like Mochi.”
“Um. Yeah, it kinda does?” Hiro honestly doesn’t know what to do with a drunk Tadashi. This is probably his first time getting hammered, judging from what the woman told him earlier before leaving. He tries to shift his brother to his other side while making his way up the stairs. His brother is acting more like dead weight, and he’s heavier than he looks. “Tadashi, how much did you drink?”
“I like sake bombs.”
Hiro groans. He knows what a sake bomb is in theory, he just wasn’t expecting his brother to completely lose control over his motor functions (and judging from what’s coming out of his mouth, his judgment). “How many did you drink?”
Tadashi blinks, then shrugs. “I forgot.” As an afterthought, he adds, “This? Is entirely Fred’s fault.” His head suddenly lolls to his chest, alarming Hiro.
“Hey, no! Don’t sleep on me yet, I have to get you up!” Hiro grabs his brother’s face and shakes it. Tadashi groans. “I can’t let Aunt Cass see you like this.”
“Mmm, right,” Tadashi mutters, trying to right himself. He eventually does manage to stand up, but he still needs to lean on Hiro. “Let’s go.”
They manage to make their way up the first flight of stairs without trouble, but halfway up the stairs to their bedroom, Tadashi trips on the cat. Hiro yelps at the same time Mochi yowls. Fortunately, Mochi gets over it pretty quickly and proceeds to affectionally greet the inebriated Tadashi by rubbing himself on Tadashi’s legs.
“Hey, Mochi.” Tadashi whispers while Hiro leads him up the stairs. “Sorry for tripping on you, pal.”
Mochi meows, and trots up the rest of the steps to disappear into Hiro and Tadashi’s room. With a grunt, Hiro finally gets Tadashi up and into the room, where he pushes Tadashi into his neatly-made bed.
“You should probably drink some water before you go to sleep,” Hiro says unsurely, scratching his unruly hair. “I think that’s how Aunt Cass doesn’t get headaches in the morning.”
Tadashi yawns and sits on the bed, rubbing his eyes like a kid who’s just been woken up. “Yeah, sure, I’ll do that.” He looks so much like a drowsy eight-year-old that Hiro ends up smiling fondly at his older brother.
“I’ll just get you water, okay?” Hiro hasn’t made it halfway to the stairs when he hears a soft thump, and turns around to see Tadashi lying down sideways on the bed, his baseball cap dislodged from his head and Mochi plopping himself contentedly beside him to sleep. Hiro chuckles to himself before he goes down.
—
When Tadashi wakes up the next morning, it’s to a splitting headache and the piercing light of the midmorning sun. He groans in pain and slings his arm over his face. He tries to remember what he did last night, and makes a horrified noise when he pieces together fragments of what happened: he owes Honey sixty dollars and a new pair of glasses. He might or might not also owe Go Go a really embarrassing favour. All he wants to do is go to sleep, but then steps approaching him distract him from doing exactly that.
“Nnngh,” he grunts, turning over to his side. He really can’t deal with this right now. Maybe in an hour or two…
“Wake up, honey,” someone says sweetly, and pulls open the blinds. The sunlight smacks him right in the face, and he makes a pained noise. “It’s eleven in the morning, sweetie, you don’t want to miss my hot wings, do you?”
“Not now, Aunt Cass,” Tadashi grunts, and covers his eyes with a pillow.
Silence, then Aunt Cass speaks again. “Would it help if I brought something to help with the hangover?”
Now he’s interested. He wills himself awake and gets up with another pained noise, running a sticky hand through his hair. He blankly accepts what’s shoved into his hand, and he blearily peers through his lashes to see a weirdly-coloured liquid in a glass and a small purple pill. “What’s this?”
“It’s my special hangover juice and a pill to help with the headaches!” Aunt Cass says cheerfully, her voice too loud and chipper for his ears. If he didn’t know any better, Tadashi would say she sounded smug. “Congratulations on your first hangover, honey!”
Tadashi downs the pill and follows it up with the juice, making a face at the weird blend of flavours. “Thanks, I guess? Did Hiro tell you?” He asks, looking up at his aunt, who’s running a hand through her flour-streaked hair.
Cass smirks. “I woke up at one because I was dying for a doughnut, and on my way back to my room, I saw Hiro carry you up the stairs. Don’t think I haven’t been there before, Tadashi. Anyway, brunch is on the dinner table!” His aunt whistles her way back to the cafe, and Hiro arrives in her stead, a wary look on his face.
“You okay now?” His little brother asks, and he smiles at him reassuringly, although he’s pretty sure he just looks awful. “Okay, never mind. You look terrible. And you stink.”
“Sorry for making you carry me up last night,” Tadashi apologises sheepishly, drinking a little bit more of the juice, which is actually helping a little bit with the hangover. “Did I say anything stupid?”
Hiro laughs, his gap-toothed smile making Tadashi crack his own smile. “You just tried to wave your arm like the maneki-neko near the grocery store. You also owe someone named Honey sixty dollars, apparently.”
Tadashi sighs. “I know.” He collapses back into his pillows. “I don’t wanna do anything today.”
Hiro shrugs. “Okay. Want me to bring you your food?”
Hiro is granted an exhausted and grateful smile. “That would really make my day, little bro.”
Tadashi’s almost lulled to sleep by the pounding of sneakers on wooden steps when Mochi mewls happily from his side, and makes his way to perch on his lap. The calico cat is purring happily, its chubby face content. Tadashi brings up a hand to gently scratch its ears. “Hey, Mochi, sorry for stepping on you last night.”
Mochi meows and licks his paws. Tadashi lightly brings his other arm to cradle the tubby cat. “Do you wanna do anything today?” He asks it seriously.
Mochi only blinks.
“Me neither.” He yawns. “Let’s just stay in bed for a little bit more…”
When Hiro returns brunch in hand, he sees his older brother sleeping quietly with Mochi curled on his lap. He smiles and places the plate on Tadashi’s bedside table.
The food goes untouched for a long time.