It was 8 pm, right after dinner...

XL

After Belle hung up, Brett went back to his room, sat down on a stool and simply looked at his sleeping friends face.

Lovely, was the first word that popped into his head. Dorky and weird too, but most of all, Eddy's peaceful slumber features were oh so lovely in Brett's eyes.

How had he not fallen for him earlier? Those feline eyes, that prominent jawline, those chapped, but still soft looking, pink lips, slightly opened... Brett licked his own and scooted a bit closer.
He gulped, wondering, how they would taste, and immediately mentally recoiled from that very dangerous thought he was sure would lead to nothing good. As sure as he knew sitting here and creepily observe someone sleep would lead to nothing good. So he forced himself to avert his gaze and just waited for the doctor to come and finally release him.

The doctor did come, after another half an hour, and just raised an eyebrow, when he saw Eddy instead of Brett sleeping on the bed.
For a proper examination, Brett did have to lie down though, so they had to wake up a grumpy Eddy, who simply went to slump down on the stool Brett had been sitting on and waited with his eyes only half open, until the doctor gave them his okay for Brett's discharge and pulled out the needle of his arm, releasing him from his drip.

Back home, Eddy just mumbled a "Gotta crash out quickly" and went straight to bed to catch up on the lost hours of sleep. Brett was pretty awake and energized though, after having nutritions directly pumped into his blood system, so he made use of the morning hours, took a much needed shower and did some work.

He'd set up breakfast and was writing an email to their apparel team, when Eddy made it out of bed like two hours later.
"Morning", he mumbled, scratched his head and yawned. Lovely, Brett thought again.
"Mornin'. Made breakfast! Want some?"
Eddy yawned again. "Yeah thanks! Let me get changed first." He headed into his room, leaving Brett facepalming because of how fucking screwed he was.

"Shall we discuss our hiatus plan?", Eddy asked, while he spread butter on the fresh bread Brett had bought this morning.
"Sure!" Brett scooped up his congee, his breakfast menu item number one that became sadder with each meal.
"I reckon we'll do the 250th anniversary of Beethoven. We simply have to record that!"
"It's not gonna be like another three weeks until it's his 250th anniversary. We can't wait for that long!", Eddy argued.
"I can manage 'till christmas", Brett replied, but regretted it as soon as he saw Eddy's furious face.
"Christmas? Fucking Christmas? Brett, look at you! You're nothing more than skin and bones! No way we're gonna wait 'till christmas!" Brett was pretty sure, if Eddy would have been a dragon, there would have been fire coming out of his nose by now.

He sighed. Christmas was off the table, he knew. There was no way he could convince Eddy in his current state.
"What do you suggest then?"
"I'd like for you to stop as soon as possible."
"And when would that be?"

Eddy thought for a moment and said: "I agree, that the Beethoven one is too important. And Jordon's composition is just..." he made a chef's kiss gesture. "So, we gonna record it as soon as we can and just upload it on the correct date later."
Brett nodded.
"For the other things..." Eddy took out his phone and looked over their schedule for the upcoming videos they wanted to film. He furrowed his brows and took the knife between his lips, while he tried to determine which could be skipped or postponed.

"The among us one... I guess we'll have to do that one too... Too many parties involved and it was a hassle setting it up with all those different time zones. But at least, we can do this one at home and you just sit in front of the computer. Are you going to be fine?"
"Eddy, I think it's pretty clear that your bar of what I can manage is lower than what I'd set for me. So everything you're willing to let me do, I will!"
Eddy nodded. "It's for your own good, Brett. You know that, right?"

Brett looked away.
"It might be for me... But what about our channel? It freaks me out that we'll leave it and everyone hangin' for God knows how long." He remembered Belle's words just spoken this morning and also, what Eddy had said yesterday. It still didn't put his mind at ease regarding their business and he had to voice his concerns, even if the chance of him actually having a say in this were pretty low.

Eddy eyed him.
"Bro, you must know that a working channel requires healthy creators, right? I bet it's even somewhere in the terms of Youtube."
Brett snorted.
"Besides," Eddy reached out his arm and took Brett's hand in his. Brett felt his face heating up.
"I told you before: You are way more important than any of this and we need to take care of you!"
"I know, I know!", Brett said, giving up the fight.

They decided on some unpostponable videos they kind of had to film and Eddy set the beginning of their break after a week from now. A week! Brett would be dead from all the work he felt he had to do before he could start his forced holidays.

Better start soon! So they set up everything for the Betthoven DEAF video and practiced quite a bit until they were able to play it by heart. Before filming, Brett put on the new notation jumper, courtesy of their merch and stepped into the studio.

"What?", he asked, when he noticed Eddy eyeing him up and down like he was his favourite anime character come to life.
Was he halluzinating, or did a subtle blush creep up Eddy's cheeks?
"I like that jumper on you", Eddy said, still very much looking at him, "The colour suits you nicely..."
"And...?", Brett dug deeper, knowing by Eddy's tone that he wasn't finished.
"And..." Eddy looked away, "You look cute."
Brett frowned, not knowing if he as a grown man should be flattered by a compliment of this sort. It was still better than nothing and he felt a silly happiness blooming in his belly, making everything warm and fuzzy.
"Uhm... Thanks... I guess?", he said and picked up his violin. "Shall we?"

They decided to film their playing first, since that was the nerve wrecking part and required much more concentration than the intro. It was a really nice composition and Brett loved the playful passages, as well as the D,D,E,A,Fs they played in unison throughout the piece.

The black button up practice shirt Eddy was wearing was kind of distracting though and since the other had made comments regarding his outfit, Brett had a hard time ignoring how weirdly buff the shirt made Eddy look. He looked at his duet partner a tad too long, and messed up halfway through the piece.

"Sorry", Brett mumbled and shook his head, deliberately averting his gaze.

The second run through went okay and they did another two just to make sure. Then they continued with the intro, staging a phone call to Beethoven wishing him a nice 250th birthday without him hearing a word and then spelling the word DEAF by playing the tones on the violin.

"God, I'm beat!", Brett complained after they finished their skit. Eddy turned off the film lighting, stepped behind Brett and started kneading his shoulders and neck.
Brett froze, the memories of last time vividly flooding his brain.
"Bro, you're stiff as a board! Relax! I'm not gonna bite."
He tried to do as told and soon, the magic of Eddy's calloused violinist fingers started to have it's effect.
"Mhmmmm...", Brett made and closed his eyes.
"Better, right?"
"Mhmmm..."

They stood there for a while, Eddy massaging him.
"You wanna go to bed? Lie down for a bit?", he mumbled right next to Brett's ear, causing the hair on Brett's neck to stand up and him unable to respond.
"You asleep already?"
Brett swallowed hard. His brain was a pile of mush by now and that was probably why his next words made it past his slightly opened lips before he could consider them (un)wise: "Join me?"
Eddy's fingers were brushing over Brett's soft skin by his throat now and it was driving him crazy.
"I might have to send the footage over to editor-san", Eddy said softly. The movements of his hands stopped and the next sentence was almost a whisper: "I'll join you later, maybe?"

Brett turned around and looked at Eddy. At the clearly flushed cheeks, those eyes darker than his ruffled hair and the glistening, dark red lips...
Those lips he had already wanted to feel against his this morning just a few hours ago...

It took Brett his whole willpower to turn his gaze away.
"I... I go ahead then... Thanks...", he said and staggered out of the studio, his brain having more resemblance with scrambled eggs than a working organ.