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18
John sighed, watching as his breath filled the air in a tinted cloud. It was a fun little game to fill the time, distracting himself from the fact that the room was icy cold and much too silent for his liking. His fingers ached to pull himself from the chair, his feet yearned to tap or kick, he needed to do something.
But he couldn't. Not when it was his brother that he was waiting to speak to in the sullen yet private hospital room. Tommy lay asleep on the bed, the thin sheets draped messily across his torso. There was very little light in the room, and the only sun that pierced through the shuttered windows was tinted a dirty green, bathing the room in an eerie glow.
A brain haemorrhage, or something like that, he didn't know. But what it wasn't didn't matter to him, per se. It was the fact that his brother was lying in a hospital bed and had done for the best part of three weeks, and yet not a word had been said to warrant any of them to worry about him prior. All he could think about, was the fact that he could have been there to stop it, or at least to lessen the blow. At least then he would be lying in a bed next to him, bloodied and bruised, not waiting for him to get better, if he ever would.
But no. He was stuck with the bloody Italian.
He felt stupid, having spent so long worrying about his feelings for Anastasiya, one of the Russians that his brother had gotten messed up with, when Tommy had been so deeply in trouble. Maybe that was why he hadn't been involved. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. They were all fucking insane.
She had called him stupid and she had been right. What else had Ana been right about?
John didn't know what to think. He didn't know what was what, who was who, or even what tiny thing he could even do to help. As always, he was useless. He sighed out again, watching for any movement from his brother's bed. A flickering of his eyelashes. A twitching of a finger. Tommy stirred, his hands reaching shakily to scrub roughly at his face.
Gradually, Tommy opened his eyes, blinking up at the ceiling as he lay. He didn't acknowledge his brother, sitting by his side, but he knew he was there. He had known for the last ten minutes, and had waited for him to leave, but it seemed as if John was set to stay.
"You have something to say?" Tommy asked, his voice hoarse from the hours left in his room to sleep and recover.
John ignored the abruptness of the question. He was used to the cool tone he would usually take, even to his family. Tommy had been that way since the war. John understood why.
"I want to know what's going on. With the Russians and all that," John said, removing his hat to rub wearily at his hair.
