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[For muse or mun]

LINK: Stuart was standing beside the bed in the guest room of Iain's apartment, a good portion of his things collected from Tom's sprawled messily all over the room. He stood in the middle of it all, exhausted to just take in the sight. It was two days after his operation, but it felt like a lifetime. Getting back to Iain's, he had just crawled into bed and slept, no one really bothering him or pushing him to do anything. He appreciated it, until it got to a point that he realised he needed things still back at the Notting Hill home. No matter how he tried to look at it, he couldn't stomach going there. He tried to get the balls to face it, but whenever he tried, he got teary and anxious, like someone had just told him he had to jump into a tank of sharks. He blamed the strong pain medication he was on, depression and anxiety were listed as side effects, so of course that was it.


Only not...

LINK: Braden lost track of how long he had been sitting in the hard plastic hospital chair watching his little brother sleep. He had been sitting there thinking about the past few months and how much their family had gone through. It had been some rollercoaster, to say the least. Everyone had though Stuart had finally found the right formula, despite going through so much with Tom's accident. When he got engaged, Braden knew he hadn't seen Stuart smile like that in a very long time. Now this. It was like some horrible nightmare, and everything else had been a movie... fantasy... and the plug was suddenly pulled. He didn't know what to think. In fact, he had mostly remained quiet as the whole thing had gone down. He hadn't known what to say, and just wanted to believe that Tom wasn't capable of hurting Stuart like that, in that way. He thought as a whole family, they had given Tom enough info about their youngest to know that he had been through a lot, and just wanted to be happy. Now it turned out that it was one big misunderstanding, even if the lack of information about Sophie's younger brother still stood. That had still hurt Stuart, but Braden didn't think it would have led to a break up like this. Now, Stuart was exhausted, he had no energy left to fight and he had let Tom go...

[Follows THIS and THIS]

Stuart had gotten to the point where he just told his family to go home... or whatever their homes were currently in London. He was more than aware that the blow-up with Tom meant that it threw Braden and Angus' sleeping arrangements out the window, right along with Jules and Kenzie's. He wished it could be any other way, of course he did. But he didn't have the energy to think about anyone else right then. He barely had the energy to think about himself. Luckily he had a private room, it gave him the luxury of giving into his emotions if he felt the urge. For a long time, though, in the wake of his confrontation with Liam, he just felt numb. It was like the anger and the hurt hit a brick wall, just like his hand had. He just laid there in the hospital room, staring at the wall or the floor or the empty seat beside him. He couldn't sleep, everytime he tried, everything just came rushing back to him.

( Liam had never come back to his room, obviously and smartly following Stuart's wishes...Collapse )


Word Count | 2,323

[Follows THIS, THIS, THIS and THIS]

Doctors' rounds. Bedside handovers. Seemed really good, in theory. Took the nurses and doctors taking care of a patient to their beside so any vital discussions about their care were in their presence. It gave the patient a chance to know who was caring for them, and to ask questions. The only thing was, it usually involved seeing a string of patients in a row, and because of this, Liam had never really gotten into the habit of pre-empting who he was seeing... looking forward to what patient was next on his handover sheet. In fact, he was still penning in details of the last patient, because he would have to go back there soon for an assessment. A lot of his time was spent doing assessments, that the specialist he was working under and learning from would then analyse and compare to her own assessment to see if he was on the right track. Most patients didn't mind the double assessment, had signed wavers early on to indicate they knew it was a teaching hospital and may get student doctors involved in their process of care. So, no. There was no thought on Liam's behalf to actually know who the next patient was until he, the specialist and another student filed into the patient's room.

( Liam was still scribbling one last thing on his sheet as Dr Margaret Veness greeted the patient, obviously having only been there a short while prior for her own assessment...Collapse )


Word Count | 1,364

LINK: The last thing Stuart needed to was end up in Casualty that night, but when anger gets the better of you and you end up slamming your fist containing your engagement ring into a concrete bathroom wall, warming a seat in the ER isn't really a surprising outcome.

[Follows THIS, THIS, THIS and THIS]

Angus figured it must be the season for soaked and broken-hearted Evans brothers when Stuart finally appeared in Iain's livingroom drenched from head-to-toe and looking just plain miserable. Angus had been watching football with Braden when their baby brother showed up. Iain had an emergency call to his restaurant with an apparent flood in the roofing, so he had to rush over there ASAP to try and get someone in to fix it before all the hard work on the premises went down the toilet. Jules and Kenzie had gone to see the girly Sex and the City 2 at the cinema, so it had left Angus and Braden on their lonesome with a six pack and the footy on Sky, anything to try and get their minds of what Angus had seen earlier that day. At least, until they were suddenly invaded by a shadow of their baby bro's former self. As soon as Angus saw him, it felt like his stomach dropped out his arse, of course the first conclusion he jumped to was that he knew about the 'doctors & nurses' in Tom's office.

( He shot up out of his seat and was at Stuart's side in a hearbeat...Collapse )


Word Count | 2,137

[Follows THIS, THIS and THIS]

Stuart realised it was probably a good thing that he didn't get in to see Ethan when he showed up at the high-rise office building of Williamson Kent Pharmaceuticals. Ethan was in telephone conference, unable to be interrupted because it was some multimillion dollar deal or some other shit Stuart just didn't have the tolerance to think about right at that moment. He didn't care for the moment. It didn't fucking buy everything, did it? Even though he had only been in trackpants and a t-shirt, he still managed to have the intimidating air of a copper and Ethan's PA was bordering on actually interrupting him, probably thinking something was wrong with Tom. Stuart told her not to bother, though, and instead went to the nearest pub and downed a few pints. It saved him tracking Liam down and setting off a domino effect of shit. He kept his cool as well as he could, but that didn't mean that DVD wasn't on constant replay over and over in his mind. Even the look on Tom's face when he was balls deep in Ethan's brother-in-law.

( It was getting late now, almost six at night...Collapse )


Word Count | 1,990

[Follows THIS]

If Stuart was a woman, people would probably be wondering if he was knocked up by now. The only way he seemed to be able to explain his behaviour since returning from the cruise was 'nesting'. In fact, Jules had spent the morning sniggering at him when he went so far as to Google these special muffins for people who needed to eat certain things after abdominal surgery... and then proceeded to bake them, even if they looked nothing like they did in the picture he printed out by the time he was done. And so what?! He was a copper, not Jamie Oliver. He still made them, though, and they tasted pretty damn good, if he did say so himself. That was just one thing, though. Since they got that, he hadn't exactly been overprotective of Tom, he just had an intense urge to take care of him. They were now officially living together for the first time, too, in their own that used to just be Tom's but was now theirs. It felt good. More than good. Despite the difficulties, Stuart was happy for the first time in a long time. He just wanted to make sure Tom was okay, and do what he could to make things easier. It didn't even bother him that they now had both Jules and Gus staying with them. The house was huge, and there was plenty of room. They were in separate rooms, and hardly a bother. It made sense to have them both here, and Stuart was getting too used to having his brothers on tap. It could get messy when they went back to Scotland, but that was a problem for another day.

( It was now his day off, and after the Martha Stewart moment in the kitchen, he went on to tackle the living room, which had somehow gotten messy when they got home with them both returning to work pretty much as soon as they came back from the cruise...Collapse )


Word Count | 3, 186