Work Text:
Micah mumbled grumpily as he sat in his office, turning the pages of months worth of mission files. Unfortunately, the individual who was supposed to be searching through these files called in sick last minute. These files he had in his hands required a clearance level of 5, the highest of clearance levels currently in the agency. Since all usual members of level 5 clearance were quite busy doing their roles or were unavailable to work, it was up to one of the main agents to take up the part. As the last one to call "dibs not doing it", Micah was forced to check through all these files (which received a lot of complaint from his end).
He was sat down in his black office chair with his desk being scattered with files upon files. Through the reflection of his computer, he could just barely see the eye-bags that were basically mocking him. He had already pulled two all nighters on Monday and Tuesday trying to finish all of his unfinished reports he may have procrastinated on. On Thursday-Friday he had to help Daniel with the new recruits, Shiloh with the mission-planning, Elijah and Mary with inspecting the new artefacts and Josiah with doing the usual maintenance to the Arxis.
And now he was working through files at 12:00am on a Saturday.
Not only was Micah physically exhausted, he was mentally exhausted. He had spent all week worrying about everything he had to do, or who he had to meet, or who he had to help. He had been given a few weird looks from his siblings and Michelle, but Micah figured they must've all turned a blind eye. Of course Micah could have told someone about his exhaustion this past week but...Micah couldn't help but hate being pitied. He didn't want to feel like he was inferior to his other teammates. He didn't want to feel like he couldn't keep up with the work they did. Shiloh and Elijah did plenty of more work than Micah, he wasn't about to be seen as incapable compared to his other siblings and their great works. He was a Nelson. One of the children of the 'Hero Of The Stars'. He should be able to complete a few measly files.
Oops. He had almost caught himself dozing off there for a second. He needed to get back to work. He shook his head in an attempt to clear his mind and turned to the next page of the current file he was working on. After a couple more pages, Micah suddenly started to feel slightly light-headed. Despite the various red flags it gave, Micah decided to ignore it and the headache that was slowly running its way into his skull.
Suddenly, Micah heard the door to his office slam open. Automatically, he quickly swiped his gun from the right side of the desk, spun around on his chair and pointed the weapon directly at the person who just opened his door.
"Woah, woah! Chill Micah, it's just me." Elijah exclaimed, both his arms up in surrender. After realizing it was his older brother, Micah sighed and placed his gun back on the desk. The agency oftentimes received random intruders, to which most agents were trained on dealing with.
"Hey, Elijah. What's up? You need anything?" Micah asked with a hand covering his eyes. Everything just seemed like too much at the moment.
"Nah, nah, I don't. I was just wondering why you're up working this late." Elijah said, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorway. "Y'know you can take a break, right? Everyone's been super worried about you this past week."
"Look I..." Micah trailed off, looking to his left. "I've just been kinda busy with helping everyone and all that stuff. I'm fine, really!"
"Look, I can't say I believe that. You look as pale as a ghost and don't think I didn't see those eye-bags you have!"
Suddenly, a wave of nausea hit Micah like a tsunami. His light-headedness got worse, he felt like he was about to die of a heat stroke or something. To be honest, he couldn't remember the last time he drank water now that he thought of it. Micah tried to play it off by leaning on his arm on th4 desk while Elijah did his usual rants, but he knew he was either gonna throw up or pass out in about 10 seconds. His heartbeat picked up in fear and his vision grew spotty as he nervously called out, "Hey....E-Elijah..?"
Elijah stopped to look straight towards him with a worried stare and took a few steps forward. "You alright?"
Micah felt like the room was way too suffocating for him now. He was no longer resting his head against his arm and was about to stand up before, "I..." everything went black.
He heard someone yelp and instead of hitting the cold concrete floor, he fell into someone's warm embrace.
When he blearily opened his eyes, it was to the absolutely terrified face of his older brother. His back was now on the concrete floor and Elijah was furiously tapping his cheek with a petrified look upon his face. "Hey, hey, Micah." Elijah said after noticing his brother's awareness. "You alright? What happened back there?"
"...Did I pass out?" Micah groaned, attempting to bring himself off the ground despite the whole room spinning.
Elijah was quick to interfere and immediately pushed him back onto the ground with a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, hey, don't move. It's okay. Yeah, you did."
Elijah reached the back of his hand to Micah's forehead and almost recoiled at the hot feeling. Due to Elijah's knowledge in the medical field, it was unlikely that he would need to be taken over to medical right at this moment unless it got much more serious. "What did you drink last? When was it?"
After registering the questions, Micah said, "A black coffee....I think yesterday?"
Elijah gave him an unimpressed look. "Micah..."
"I know, I know!" Micah quickly replied, "I'm sorry."
"Well, it's not me you have to apologise to." Elijah sighed tiredly.
Micah sheepishly turned his head to the side (although it was mostly to try and stop the nausea) and broke eye contact, closing his eyes shut. Elijah sighed and gently brushed some of the hair from Micah's eyes. "We can talk about this later. I'm gonna take you back to my room and keep you alive until morning. In the morning, we're going to head over to medical and get cha' checked out. Sound fair?"
"Alright, alright." Micah sighed, leaning into Elijah's touch. "What about the files?"
"You're really worrying about the files when you LITERALLY just passed out? Getting you to bed is my number 1 priority at the moment." Elijah said while standing up. "I'm- uh.. gonna have to carry you to my room."
Micah turned his head towards Elijah. "You are not doing that!"
"There's no other way!"
"Of course there is! There's..." Micah trailed off. He then realized he had no energy to be fighting with Elijah like this. "Ugh...alright, just don't drop me."
"L'll try my best.." Elijah said, squatting down to where his younger brother lay.
"What's that supposed to mean?!"
Elijah ignored the question, he hooked his arm around Micah's shoulders and the other around his knees. Elijah made sure his elbow was supporting his brother's head. He slightly hesitated before lifting up Micah as carefully as possible. Micah grunted as a wave of dizziness crashed against him and grabbed at his head. "Sorry, sorry!" Elijah fretted as Micah held a tight grip on Elijah's flannel with his right hand.
"It's fine.." Micah slurred as he tried desperately to not throw up, pass out again, die or all of the above. Elijah waited for Micah's wave of dizziness to pass before beginning to walk down the halls of the agency.
"This is the worst thing I've ever experienced.." Micah complained grumpily.
Elijah chuckled, "Not as worse as the haunted mansion?"
"...Okay, I take it back, that was much worse.." Micah shuddered at the memory.
They walked in an oddly comfortable silence for the rest of the walk, only exchanging a few "Sorry"s and "It's okay"s when Elijah accidently send his brother into a wave of dizziness.
When they finally made it to the door (realistically it only took a couple minutes, but time seemed like it was going in slow motion for Micah) Elijah awkwardly stopped for a few seconds in front of the door. "Alright uhh...I'm just gonna put you down right here.." The next thing Micah knew, he was being gently laid down onto the cold, hard, concrete floor. Micah immediately shivered violently and put the hand that wasn't gripping onto Elijah's flannel over his eyes.
"Hey, hey, it's okay." Elijah comforted, placing a hand on Micah's shoulder. Micah grit his teeth in a sudden panic. The world suddenly felt like it was closing in on him.
"Micah! It's okay, calm down-"
Micah realised that Elijah would most definitely leave him alone on the ground the second her got to. Oh god- he didn't want to be left alone. He didn't want to be useless he just-
"Micah." Elijah softly said. "Shh, shh, hey. You're hyperventilating. I'm gonna need you to work with me here."
Micah looked up to his older brothers face who started to breathe deeply. Elijah breathed in and breathed out calmly. After a few tries, Micah managed to do a shaky inhale and exhale. "You're alright. It's okay, I'm here." Elijah comforted and gently held Micah's hand as he continued breathing.
Micah's mouth felt dry and all he wanted was just some water. But, he tried to remain calm for Elijah's sake and sanity. "You with me?" Elijah whispered hesitantly after a few moments of inhales and exhales, gently wiping Micah's wet cheeks with his hand.
"Y-yeah.." Micah croaked miserably, "Can I have some water?"
"Yep, sure. Let me just get you into bed first." Elijah gently picked Micah up and walked into his room (since when had the door been opened?). Elijah gently placed Micah onto his queen-sized bed and sat him up against the pillows with the blanket up to his waist.
"Wait here, l'll be just a second." Elijah patted his shoulder a few times before going off into his private bathroom. In the meantime, Micah just tried to keep his breathing calm and steady despite the aftermath of passing out flowing through his veins.
After just a minute, Elijah returned with a cup in hand. He sat on the bed next to Micah and gently held him the cup. "Just drink it slowly, in little sips." Micah followed his instructions as he was told to and handed the drink back to him when the cup was about a quarter-of-the-way empty. Drinking the water had felt so good and refreshing, it was like he was drinking from the fountain of youth instead of just regular tap water.
"Wait, why do you have a cup in your bathroom?" Micah randomly asked.
"I dunno. Emergencies?" Elijah replied, shrugging his shoulders and putting the cup on the nightstand.
"..Thank you." Micah smiled, slumping against the pillows.
"No need to thank me. That what siblings are for, right?" Elijah said as he helped get Micah into a laying position.
Elijah paused for a short moment, "What's been up with you lately?"
"Huh?"
"I mean..." Elijah thought for a moment, "You've just been..taking on more work than usual. And I've seen your paleness and the circles under your eyes. What's up? You can talk to me!"
"I..." Micah hesitated for a moment. "I've just been feeling...really insignificant, y'know? Like, I'm not as good as you guys at..basically everything."
"Micah...What made you feel like this?! You know-!"
"L-look." Micah interrupted, "Can we talk about this later? I'm really tired right now."
Elijah paused for a moment before sighing, "Alright, fine. You're probably tired from fainting, I imagine?"
Micah nodded his head, his eyes already drooping.
"Okay, you go off to sleep now." Elijah chuckled, turning the lights off via his remote on his ownightstand. "We'll have to talk about what happened in the morning. But right now, you need rest."
Micah smiled and closed his eyes, getting comfortable. Maybe it wasn't to take a break every one in a while. Elijah put his hand into Micah's hair, gently stoking it.
"Oh, and Micah?" Elijah said, making Micah open his eyes slightly. "Please tell us next time when you're feeling overwhelmed. We're a team. We need you. And we need you to be well and rested."
"Thanks..."
"No, I mean it!" Elijah exclaimed. "We care about you, you're as equally important as everyone else!"
Micah stared at him for a moment with gleaming eyes before smiling softly again.
"Thanks, Eli." Micah said.
"No problem." Elijah replied. Micah leant into Elijah's touch and closed his eyes, being lulled into a gentle sleep.
"Sleep tight, bud." Elijah smiled before climbing into the bed himself.