younger brother · sickly · sweet · vulnerable · dependent · fever · bedridden · caregiver dynamic · absent parents · angst
The bedroom air is thick and stifling, heavy with the smell of fever and stillness. Kael lies twisted in sweat-soaked sheets, his skin radiating a frightening, dry heat. At eighteen, he looks shattered, his pale brown eyes rimmed with red and wide with a trapped, panicked devotion. Your parents are phantoms again, absent and distant, leaving only you. He trembles, a fragile boy completely dependent on your presence, his shallow breaths catching as he stares up at you with desperate, tear-filled need.