Steve was right, it hadn't been any easier on him than it had been on Olivia. The man's guarded state fell down, his lips falling to a frown and shoulders falling slack as though he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. "Yeah, I guess so." Ethan's voice sounded far away as his gaze had glazed over and brow furrowed before he decided to pull himself back to the then and now in a matter of seconds. That had been happening more than usual, tuning out and tuning back in, and it wasn't because of lack of sleep, but more so his mind trying to process and settle with the changes around him. It was annoying but it was almost soothing, mesmerizing somehow. 

"Marissa huh?" A bemused grin pulled his lips up from his frown as he gave Steve a raised eyebrow. "Good to hear she kept you in good company." There was a teasing tone to his voice as he shook his head, on another note it wasn't hard to believe that Steve was already senior tech, "You work hard, do your job well so it seems, doesn't sound too crazy to me." It wasn't really Ethan's style to go too far with flattery with his friends but he was happy, proud even, of his friend's accomplishments. 


"Not really," Ethan combed through the dark strands of his hair before scratching the back of his neck, a tick he'd recently picked up from where, who knew but when he became conscious of doing it he stopped and his hand fell to his side. "Honestly, I think the work will be good for me to engage my mind on something other than this past month." With a sigh, his eyes flickered to the spare room that was now Olivia's. Ethan's frown returned with his furrowed brow as his eyes switched back over to Steve, 

"The only thing I'm worried about having my hands full with is Livie. " There was a pause as Ethan chewed on his bottom lip for a moment before speaking again. "There are going to be times when I have to go out of town and I don't need her coming off the rails, so I'm going to push her to focus on academics and other after school activities to keep her out of trouble." Or at least he'd hoped it would keep her out of trouble, he knew that there were other recreational activities that she could possibly end up falling into in her fragile state and he wanted to keep her as far from that as possible. 

God, is this what his parents had felt like raising him and Olivia? Jesus, how did they ever do it? "I want to put her into therapy but I think she would be strongly opposed to that." Oh yeah, beyond opposed. She'd probably swing on him if he'd even suggested it, and she had one hell of a right hook; he knew from horseplay. 

"Either way, in doing this I'm hoping it will keep her out of [i]your[/i] hair too. I can't have my little sister trying to latch on like a leech to my roomie." That's when Ethan managed to smile that was only a shadow of his usual toothy playful grin.