inevitable entanglements » a.i. + l.h.

26

His fingers were trembling. His eyes were filled with tears. His whole body was shaking. His voice was unsteady. His shoulders were slumped. His clothes were drenched with sweat.

He was everything a doctor was not supposed to be.

And he knew it. He wasn't nervous. He wasn't scared. He was horrified. And it felt like it was written all over his face. Like the little girl buried underneath the many blankets could sense that something was off, that his smile was strangely shaky, that her brother was about to get carried in covered in blood.

But she couldn't. Rosalie was too overwhelmed by everything to even notice that her doctor had lashed out against the son of the duke. She was warm, she had blankets, there was a tray next to her bed with drinkable water and food. No matter how hard Calum had tried, it had been years since she had everything she needed. It had been so long since she'd last been full that she could barely remember it.

Nicolas was sitting next to her bed, entirely infatuated with a toy that Gabriel had given him. The boy had been shy at first, but as soon as he noticed that the two 'lords' meant no harm, he was outgoing and nice.

The only person who noticed Michael's strange nervousness was Gabriel. The drop of sweat that was making its way down Michael's cheek, the possible forboder of a tear, didn't go unnoticed by him, nor did his cracking voice.

"Mikey, you've got this."

He reminded the teenager on a tone soft enough so the two children wouldn't hear him. Michael nodded shakily, not exactly convinced by his teacher's encouraging words. Gabriel pulled him in a hug, using all his strength to press him against his muscled chest. Michael clenched his eyes shut to keep the tears that were prickling them from escaping and running down his cheeks.

"I know you can do this. I've seen you perform surgeries before. You're a great doctor and we both know everyone in this room, plus the three idiots outside, trusts you with their life."

Gabriel pulled back, studying Michael from an arm's length away. With his thumb, he wiped his eyes before pressing a long kiss to his forehead. The boy knew he had no choice.

"Michael?"

Luke's shaky voice retrieved him from his thoughts and brought him back to his duties. He quickly followed the boy outside Rosalie's current room before the two kids could take him in properly. It was only when they were standing in the main examination room that he noticed the stains of blood on his clothing and the lack of it in his veins. The boy was as pale as a sheet and looked on the verge of passing out.

And he was the one person in the room who looked the most okay.

Ashton seemed like a mixture of upset, horrified and angry and his face was tear-stained. His shirt looked more dark red than white, which had been its colour less than an hour prior. His pleading gaze was glued to Michael's face and he could tell he wanted him to do something as soon as humanly possible.

The worst was of course the boy that was curled up in his arms, carefully folded between his chest and his trembling hands. Calum was shaking like a leaf in a thunderstorm and every few seconds a shiver ran down his spine. His shoulders were shaking because of his sobbing, drenching Ashton's dirty shirt more and more with every moment that passed. He had curled one of his arms around his stomach in a self-hugging manner and the other was hidden between his head and Ashton's chest.

Michael cleared his throat to try and pull himself together.

"You can lay him on the table."

Yes, he had to treat his patients on a table. His father wouldn't let him use cushions, seeing as they got stained every time he treated a new patient. The best thing he could do was help everyone first and clean them up before moving them to one of the rooms next to the examination room, like the one where Gabriel was with Calum's siblings.