Work Text:
'Repeat to yourself that they’re not really gone
Time has proven that fooling yourself into believing a lie is the most effective way to deal with things you have no control over'
The heavy, damp feeling of just waking up sat on his body and he stayed unmoving on the couch. His mouth tasted of sleep. Panicked, he realised he was on the verge of something. Must have been a bad dream, he thought. Must have been a bad dream – he’d tell mom about it.
Sometimes he remembered the breathlessness that came with knowing there was absence in his wake and he’d feel himself settling into the comfort of finally accepting it, knowing it would help and knowing that maybe he’d see his brother looking alive again. At the point of recollection, he’d always call on mom to keep him stagnant.
Stagnancy was safe.
His brother came in like a tornado, strung uptight as ever, gesticulating at the blank pages in a pile on the desk chair that were meant to have been filled to their edges with Alex’s coursework. He couldn’t trust him to function anymore, he accused, hand gripping at the back of his curls. He had enough to tackle, he said. He was too much to handle sometimes, he said. He was trying so hard with him, he said. Alex had never seen him so close to crying and all he wanted was to shut down, but he rubbed the sleep away and slowly tried to interject, to defend himself, to inject some of the logic Jeff usually provided. He wouldn’t take it; kept telling him to be quiet, to turn those fucking tapes off, had he slept with her talking again?
The younger brother was too drowsy to process how little the words all meant. He yelled for a long time. Jeff yelled back.
He could feel the silence of the aftermath. He was raw – they both were.
Jeff hitched a breath, hands shaking as he set the papers straight. Told him to forget about it and get to bed. He flew up the stairs.
After all that had proceeded, all that was left was a chilly mid-December morning. The air was already thick as butter and tentative enough to tear apart with his fingers. Alex could barely make it to the fridge and, caught up as he was in performing the simple task, he almost missed his brother’s stifling presence at the counter. He was pouring coffee, jacket on and hair bordering on greasy. Alex spared him a smile and shut the fridge empty-handed.
To his surprise, Jeff gave him a rare, rough smile back and pushed the coffee mug (a memento of their father’s less than impressive ceramic painting skills) toward him with both hands.
“Careful,” Jeff said gently, “it’s hot.”
Normally Alex would have corrected him on the careful tone – he wasn’t a child – but it was comforting enough for now. He pulled it along the last length of the counter and cupped it to his mouth, sipping gently.
Neither of them seemed overly sure of how to handle the tension that was seeping into every unseen fissure between them. They weren’t the kind of siblings who fought, clearly. Each smile or gesture felt forced and stilted. Alex began to panic.
He didn’t know how to fix this.
“Want to come into work with me today?” Jeff asked abruptly, back turned to the younger as he put away some newly washed crockery in the cupboard overhead.
“It’s Monday…” Alex said, taken aback, “I’ve got school.”
“You can miss it, I’ll phone in sick for you. I’ve got to check on a few patients and file a report on their recovery, but that’s it for today. Shouldn’t take longer than forty minutes.”
Alex shot him a pointed, inquisitive gaze.
“I’m going in to do some catch-up, not for a shift,” Jeff clarified.
“That’s not what I meant.” His words were slow, guilty. “Are you really okay with lying to the school? If this is just about the argument last night then I’m sorry.” Jeff frowned as Alex drew his hands back against his sides. “I’ll have the coursework in for the deadline, I just wasn’t up to it.”
“I know, man, you’re alright. But Mum always said- no, ah, says, what am I-” He caught himself and fell quiet.
After a beat of silence and a glance at his brother’s pale face, Alex graced, “I’ll come.”
Jeff puffed a sigh of relief and rolled his shoulders. “Alright, thanks.” He stretched his hands and fingers, trying to shake some energy into himself. “It’s cold out. I’ll grab your hat for you, all right?”
“No, I can do it.”
Brassy, sombre beats of an old time favourite spluttered through the speakers. The two sat, windows wide open, in the car as it sailed down the highway. A split of bleak near-winter cold and gentle sunlight hailed upon them as they trundled along, and although the roads were clear enough to give them breadth to speed a little, neither was the type to relish in it. Jeff checked his peripherals and started digging in the glove compartment for a CD, which he handed to his brother.
Alex inspected the case – no more Decemberists, this was a charts mix – and raised an eyebrow, ejecting The Hazards of Love and popping it in instead. A bit off-key for Jeff but he guessed that with the small group of friends he’d garnered, not all of them would be indie fanatics and some of them would inevitably have imparted their taste onto him.
The jet gusts of wind were getting a little abrasive and Alex rolled his window up. Jeff glanced his way and did the same on his side.
They didn’t talk. They didn’t often talk at all anymore.
Jeff fixed his scrubs in the light reflection of the vending machine, Alex sitting hunched on the chair beside it with rows of empty seats around him.
“I’ll be an hour.” He turned Alex’s way. “An hour and a half tops. Will you be fine?”
“Yeah, Jeff.”
“Right. You’ve got your book. I’ll be back soon.”
When he came back again two hours later, significantly more exhausted, Alex had reached the penultimate page in his novel. It was a slightly gruesome inspection of extremist religious ideology and yet it managed to be very, very boring. The two hours had felt like a lot longer.
Jeff went straight for the plastic cup of water Alex had poured himself. “They had me running around a lot more than I thought they would Ward to ward…”
Alex nodded, watching him bend and drop the empty cup in the bin behind him and take his jacket from the armrest of Alex’s chair, where he’d been leaning on it. He put it on with no flourish and motioned to the hallway. “Ready to go?”
At the return of another stiff nod, Jeff began expertly navigating the halls.
The glass doors leading to the car park shifted and Alex squinted at the sudden exposure, angling himself away from the sun as Jeff scrambled for his keys. He produced a little set with a plastic-encased picture of him and his new girlfriend ‘Jessa’ hanging from the ring. Alex hadn’t met her yet, but Jeff said that when he and his friends started making that joke series of theirs he’d get everyone together.
Jeff opened the door on Alex’s side and circled around to the driver’s seat. He settled in, rolling his hoodie up to the elbows and waiting for his brother to put his seatbelt on. He pulled out of the space and followed the route leading out of the hospital car park.
Alex was a bit peeved that he’d had to spend so long twiddling his thumbs in a waiting room, but break he’d had two full conversations and a car ride with his brother that day, which quelled any animosity he might have been feeling. He suddenly realised he probably needed more friends.
“Do you want to go somewhere to eat?” Jeff asked in his textbook tone, mumbled and soft and assuredly unsure. “Texas Roadhouse is nearby.” He stopped at the lights.
Alex hummed a note of affirmation and smiled into his lap. “D’you think they still play the songs?”
Jeff laughed, “Those same songs twenty-odd over and over again? Yeah, I’d count on it.”
By the time they got home it was nearing the hour, the evening setting in and the pavement icy. Jeff had gotten changed and offered up his limited expertise in the field of whatever Alex was studying. The work that Alex had been unable to find the motivation to complete alone became a breeze.
The pair went down into the basement for ten o’clock, instruments in tow. They set up Jeff’s camera across the room, sitting cross-legged and strumming the nigh-impossible chord sequence to the nigh-unnavigable rhythm. Music helped them both in their own ways, but the shared effect was an effortless removal of persistent thoughts and fears. During, Jeff almost settled into believing as Al’s tapes layered over their chords in the style the boys adored. It was gentle, warm and teenage. By the last note, they were comfortable.