Micah was waiting for Eric to get in the car. It wasn't the longest wait, but it was enough that his eyes slowly closed with the rising sun, and his body drooped further down until he rested his head on his forearms, laying on the steering wheel.
It wasn't clear how much time had passed, but he awoke when he felt a tapping on his shoulder. Eric, with a raised eyebrow but otherwise soft expression, had been the one to do so. Apparently they were already in the car; Micah hadn't heard a thing.
While moving to sit up properly, Micah's usual drowsy state of waking up worked against him, as he bumped the horn and woke himself up instead with a startle. The yelp of surprise quickly died down, and he uneasily laughed it off as he looked towards Eric. They found the scene funny as well, much to the other's embarrassment, obvious by the snickering softly behind their hand.
Eric mostly worked days and evenings, even with the hours never being fully 'set'. Usually, hours were tagged on more and more to the end of shifts in hope to finish some clean-up processes, but primarily, they were still diurnal. Micah on the other hand did night shifts in order to let his sister work during the day. In fact, he had just gotten off of a shift right now, (hence his sleepiness) and was picking up Eric to bring them to his house for the since they texted him asking about it at four in the morning.
Eric patted his shoulder, then did a few quick movements that Micah couldn’t comprehend. It was sign language, much to Micah’s tired frustration. They had decided together that it would be best if Micah tried picking it up so it would be easier to communicate, rather than having to use a screen to do so, but it had proven to be rather difficult. Their different schedules, how busy their home lives were… there really just wasn’t time to learn a language– much less teach one.
“What?” Micah asked them, rubbing his eyes and looking again to try and see if he could get an idea of what was being said.
Going slow, Eric pointed at themself first, then put their hands in fists and moved them away from their chest. It was followed by moving them in opposite directions, one up and the other down, to which they repeated once more for clarity. Their eyebrow raised. They were asking Micah if they understood.
“You…” Micah trailed off, thinking of saying some random word to make it seem like he just mixed something up. Before he could, Eric seemed to see through him and shook their head. Reaching over, they moved the steering wheel side to side before pointing at themself. “Oh, you want to drive?”
The other nodded, but pulled out their phone, shooting him a series of texts.
Yes, I’ll drive.
Driving will be dangerous for you if you’re tired enough to fall asleep at the wheel.
And if you do plan to sleep in your car, please lock the doors next time. You didn’t even hear when I got in, you’ll get yourself killed like that.
Without a chance to argue, (not that Micah would have,) Eric was out of the car and opening his door instead to switch. And when he didn’t move, Eric reached in and tried to pick him up to move him themself.
“I drove myself here,” Micah protested, swatting their hands away and getting out himself. Eric seemed to be convinced it was only by luck Micah managed to get himself and the car there in one piece however, and still walked him to the passenger side where he got in. “I do this almost every morning…”
Then, soon enough, Eric was driving and they were on the way home. There were no real interactions, so their drive ended up not too eventful. A few reminders on how to get home, some stares out the window, and… oh, they were already getting out and heading inside.
Micah was more than happy to go inside, ready to greet Ruth and Ezri before going to at least take a nap. Almost rushing, Micah grabbed Eric’s hand and tugged them all the way inside, only letting go to touch the mezuzah hanging on the wall outside of the dining area. Inside the dining area was Ruth, his sister, desperately trying to get Ezri to finish his breakfast.
