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honey-beann · 6 months ago

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Home (you)

rk brothers (Nines, Connor, Sixty) x Reader

Chapter III - Taking Root

Warnings:

Mentions of death

General angst

Mentions of injury (stabbing)

Pending final edits (sorry for any errors!)

Word count: 2,194

Series masterlist

"Sir, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to accept your insurance card."

"We are literally identical in almost every conceivable way. If you didn't know that he was passed out in the other room right now you would think we were the same person, so just run the damn insurance."

Nines insisted, annoyance evident in his tone as he tried for the fourth time to convince the old receptionist to use his insurance for Sixty's hospital visit.

"Sir, will you please stop trying to commit insurance fraud?"

The woman asked, thoroughly exasperated with the man standing in front of her.

Nines opened his mouth to argue, but Connor spoke up from behind him, sounding almost as tired as the lady who had been forced to deal with his brother for the past twenty minutes.

"Nines, Trouble has his insurance card in her wallet. If the cost is so high that Sixty cannot pay it, I have no doubt that she will have them run the information. Now will you please sit down before you get us all kicked out of the hospital?"

Nines scoffed but did as his brother asked, glaring as he made his way back over to where you sat beside Connor, your six month old held firmly to your chest by his wrap carrier as your five year old slept soundly on his uncle's lap, drooling slightly against his t shirt while Connor continuously rubbed lightly at his back the very same way he had done when he was just a baby.

"If she runs that insurance, she'll have to deal with whatever copayments they ask for, as if it isn't already ridiculous enough that she pays for his insurance out of her own pocket."

Nines muttered to his brother as he sat down beside you, causing Connor to sigh and shake his head,

"She uses the money that Hank left her and you know that, if she were paying for it herself I would have long since put a stop to that."

Nines scoffed,

"The money that Hank left her is supposed to be her money, Connor, not another way for her to keep supporting Sixty's bad habits."

Connor opened his mouth to reply, but you cut him off, more than a little fed up with being talked about as if you weren't there at all.

"Would you two just leave things be? We've only been here for twenty-five minutes and I have a feeling it's going to be a long morning, so I really don't think we should start it off by arguing."

Nines sighed audibly from where he sat beside you, clearly still unhappy with the insurance situation, but Connor simply gave you an apologetic half-smile before he nodded in agreement and changed the subject entirely.

"You know Nines, I didn't realize you were back from your trip already. I thought you were scheduled to be away for another six weeks."

Nines let out a low hum of acknowledgement before he finally spoke, keeping his explanation brief and vague, as per usual when it came to his job.

"I finished early. They gave me the wide time frame assuming I would need longer than I actually did."

Connor nodded, but pressed a bit harder regarding the stipulations of his brother's job.

"Well I'm glad it didn't take as long as projected. Though, I am surprised that they sent you out on a trip they believed would take two entire months to complete. Weren't you placed on a short distance travel list after Finley was born?"

Nines stiffened a bit from where he sat beside you, and you raised a brow at him in response to Connor's words.

"What?"

You asked, hearing Connor let out a quiet "Oh" from your right as he fixed his gaze downward.

"I didn't realize that you hadn't told-."

"I inferred, Connor."

Nines snapped back quietly, causing his older sibling to sigh before he returned his focus to the child on his lap, clearly wishing he were literally anywhere else.

You turned toward Nines,

"You messed with some of your work contracts for me?"

Disbelief and shock were evident in every word you spoke as you tried to make sense of what Connor had said.

Nines was an FBI agent, that much you knew, and because of that he had strict contracts that he resigned every year stipulating where he could go, what he could do, what his pay would be, and what would happen if he were to not come back from a mission.

You knew that because every year he had to call you asking if you were okay with being put down beside Connor as his next of kin, meaning you would be notified if and when something happened to him...

And every year you had to verbally confirm that yes, you were alright with that, no matter how much the idea of ever actually receiving that dreaded call from his superiors terrified you.

But you also knew that the distance that Nines had once been willing to travel greatly bolstered his pay check. When he had been gone for the duration of your pregnancy with Finley, he had made enough money to buy his expensive car in cash and then attempt to fund both of your sons' college accounts.

So why the hell would he change his distance contract for you?

Nines sighed,

"I was unhappy with the circumstances that I had to work with while you were pregnant with Finley. Being unable to support you throughout the process while being forced to get updates through letters addressed to random P.O. boxes is an experience I would rather not repeat, so I told them not to send me so far away that I might be gone for more than a certain amount of time-"

"How much time?"

You asked, voice shaking as you attempted to keep yourself calm. Time and time again you had begged this man not to sacrifice anything else for you and your family, and time and time again he'd ignored you in favor of putting himself last for the one millionth time.

Nines sighed.

"I asked them to not send me away for longer than six weeks at most unless absolutely necessary."

He looked down at you, his voice stern and his expression serious as he spoke,

"And I will not be asking them to change that anytime soon."

You groaned, tossing your hands up in the air exasperatedly while being careful not to jostle the baby who was still sleeping soundly against your chest.

"You are impossible."

You muttered, hearing Nines chuckle a bit as he looked down at you in amusement,

"Only when it comes to your profoundly foolish requests for me to stop taking care of you."

You opened your mouth to protest the idea that he had any responsibility to do such a thing at all, but then the doors to the emergency center opened, and out stepped a doctor who called a familiar name into the empty waiting room, which remained devoid of all life save for your small and atypical family.

"Is anyone here for Caiden Anderson?"

He asked, causing all three of you to stand immediately, though Connor took a moment longer than you and Nines did as he adjusted Atlas properly in order to do so.

The doctor regarded the three of you with a nod, not bothering to ask the relationship that Connor and Nines had to Sixty and moving straight on to you and your boys.

"What is your relationship to the patient?"

He asked, and grimacing, you spoke the same lines you had already said so many times since long before you and Sixty had even started dating. He was an accident prone man, and you and the boys had needed a way to make sure you could get inside of hospitals to see him without issue.

"His fiancee."

You said, hoping that the doctor took your nervous body language as worry rather than the discomfort it truly was.

Because as many times as you had said those words, both truthfully and untruthfully, you didn't think it would ever stop hurting to say them now.

The doctor nodded, gesturing toward your children,

"And the kids?"

"Our sons."

You said, tone a bit more confident this time, and despite how displeased he looked to be bringing so many visitors into one room, the doctor motioned for all five of you to follow him into the room they were monitoring Sixty in.

Walking into the space though, you struggled not to wince at the sight of him, taking note of how pale and sickly he looked bathed in the white hospital lighting, his veins obvious beneath his skin, as if he were made of glass.

You shuddered slightly, staring at him for a moment until Connor, who had just set your son down in one of three available chairs, gently took your hands and guided you toward another, offering you a kind and encouraging smile as he and his brother stood behind you in spite of the fact that there was still one other available chair.

They preferred to stand anyhow.

Sixty had always been the one to sit with you.

The doctor sighed as he fully entered the room behind the five of you, closing the door and taking a look at the tablet within his hand to ensure he was looking at the right patient's chart before he spoke.

"So, it appears that Mr. Anderson managed to pop the stitches and re-injure the stab wound he came in for the other day."

He said seriously, and immediately your eyes grew wide and your hands felt clammy.

Stabbed?

Sixty, your Sixty, the too beautiful jokester with the too pretty smile had been stabbed?

You swallowed thickly, trying to stop your eyes from growing teary at the thought as you continued to listen to what the doctor had to say.

"So, the good news is that he hasn't sustained any new injuries, and that this was likely just an issue of him doing too much too soon. The bad news is that the area already seems to be infected, and while we are trying to treat that to the best of our ability, he will likely require at home bed rest for several weeks afterward. As you likely know, this is far from his first run in with infections, and at this point treatment is starting to become a lot less effective than we would like."

You felt your hands shake as you nodded numbly, wishing so hard that you could shake the sleeping man on the other side of the room awake and scream at him until he told you why he was doing this to himself, why he was doing this to you.

He had been a sickly kid, all four of you knew that, and in taking all of these risks with his health he was bringing himself closer and closer to an early death than you hoped he realized.

"To be clear,"

The doctor began solemnly, looking you in the eyes as he removed his glasses,

"If Caiden does not become more serious about his health soon, there may very well come a day when he is brought in here and there will be nothing that we can do but make him comfortable."

You blanched, watching as the doctor sighed,

"Look Ma'am, if I may be so frank, I have no idea what is going on with your fiancee. Hell, I don't even know if you two are actually engaged. But what I will say is that looking at his chart, he is playing a dangerous game. You can't do the type of drugs he's done and live the kind of life he's leading and expect to make it very far. And I think you're fully aware of that."

You nodded again, avoiding eye contact with the man as you did so,

"I am, of course I am."

"Then for your own sake, either get him to stop doing whatever the hell it is that he's been doing, or let him go. I don't like saying this, and I wish that things were different, but in the end if he won't take care of himself, and you can't make him, this can only hurt you and your children."

He sighed heavily, as if the weight of the world were on his shoulders, and then he stood, his expression still solemn and his eyes sympathetic.

"He should be waking up soon. When he does a nurse will come to inform him of his condition. Whether you stay or go is entirely up to you, just don't disturb any of the other patients please."

And with that he was gone, the door swinging shut behind him as the room filled with a tense kind of silence that you knew all too well.

"Did you guys know?"

You asked quietly, already aware of what the answer to that question was deep down.

"Did you know that he was letting this happen to himself?"

Their responding silence was deafening.

It was all that you needed to hear.

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