Chapter Text
The room looks like a fucking baby’s den, walls painted in huge colourful murals of rainbows and meadows and frolicking baby animals with weird-ass faces. There’s boxes of toys, Legos, stacks of paper and crayons all over the place and you want to open your mouth now, ask your caseworker if anyone here at the CPS office got the memo that you’re thirteen fucking years old and don’t need to be relegated to the nursery, but then there’s a soft knock at the door and you go still real fast, silent, like all the air’s been sucked out of you.
Your caseworker gets up to open the door and let him in, exchanges the usual stiff, fake pleasantries with him, and then he’s right there in front of you after weeks of no contact, not even a letter or a phone call, although you were told he’d tried. You want to throw yourself into his arms but don’t, not when you’re so unsure how he feels about you, if he’s still mad, maybe even doesn’t want you anymore because he thinks it’s your fault and maybe it kind of is.
He doesn’t look like your Bro. Or he does, but without all the dumb shit. He’s dressed down in black jeans, boots and his favourite orange hoodie, the one you used to steal from him on the rare days it was cold and he wasn’t home. There’s no cap, no shades—it looks like he’s even combed his hair—and you can see he's actually trying and part of you wants to burst into fucking tears but you're not going to do that shit in front of him because then he probably won't come back and you need him. You need him to be with you, stay in your life, keep trying to get you back even if you’re starting to lose hope that it’s ever going to happen because this is Bro, and you love him but you know he’s never been a fit guardian, not one fucking day of your life. You don’t even know if he’s capable of changing enough to make them even consider giving you back to him.
You’ve never realized how little faith you have in him before and it makes you want to scream at him for all the ways in which he’s let you down, tried to pin this shit on you when he was supposed to be the fucking grown-up.
But then he’s coming towards you, arms out, grabbing your shoulders and awkwardly pulling you into his hard chest, and he’s never put his arms around you before because cuddling is lame. You wonder if it’s just for show that he’s doing it now but you don’t even care anymore; don’t care how fucking lame it is because you’ve missed him and all you want is to be wrapped up in his smell, just like when you were upset or scared as a little kid and the only thing that'd get you to calm your tits was wrapping yourself up in one of the blankets that still smelled like him, hoping he wouldn’t catch you out, figure out what you were doing and why and laugh at you.
You twist your fingers in his hoodie, press your face into his chest, trying to listen to his heartbeat as you breathe him in. He’s holding your body so tightly to him that it almost hurts, and then his hand is on your head. It’s warm and heavy and comforting and you’re trying not to cry like an asshole but it’s getting harder and harder to hold it back when he’s here, and holding you, and all you want is for him to take you home with him.
You can feel the caseworker’s eyes prickle the back of your neck and you know what she’s probably thinking, looking at him with his hands on you. Fucking Judy. You know when they raided the apartment and found all the porn and cameras and smuppets and weird-ass shit laying around for anyone to see that they instantly suspected he was sexually abusing you, in addition to beating on and starving you. You'd even caught a muttered ‘grooming materials’ come from one of their mouths as they kicked stray smuppets out of the way. And even though you’d denied it, flipped your shit at the first officer who’d asked you and told them again and again and again that Bro has never put his dick in your mouth or ass, are they fucking kidding, you know they still don’t believe you.
The only reason they didn’t arrest him on the spot is because you’d screamed and cried like a little fucking kid at the idea of him being taken away in cuffs, refused to admit he’d done anything to you at all—even the shit that was almost-true—because they wouldn’t understand it, would only twist it and call it Child Abuse even if it’s not like that and you just wish you could make them understand him; that he’s not what they say, that he was never abusing you, just trying to make you stronger.
They won’t care about anything you have to say, though. Not when they’ve already got their minds made up about what your Bro did to you. They won’t care that he always fed you eventually, whenever you started to get too thin, your bones all popping out and making you look like the fucking crypt keeper, too weak even to dodge his bullshit anymore. He’d always made sure your clothes were clean and the lights were on and that you had a fucking bed to sleep in, even while he slept on that shit-ass futon for years just for you. And maybe he never really hugged you or held you or told you he loved you, never coddled you when you were sick or let you sleep with him when you were small and scared, but no one really needed that crap and you were better off without it, stronger. No one had ever done any of that shit for your Bro either and he’d turned out to be the strongest, coolest person you know.
So part of you is even glad for all of it right now, glad for the way he raised you, because he was right and if he’d raised you to be like every other piss-weak little shit your age there’s no way you’d be able to handle what’s happening to you right now without breaking down and completely losing it.
In any case, you’re sure their suspicions that Bro’s been touching you up, along with the evidence of physical abuse, is what’s making these supervised visits necessary pending the outcome of the investigation, where they’ll finally decide if you’ll ever even be allowed to see your Bro again let alone live with him, and you fucking hate it. You hate that they’ve torn him down like this when they don’t know anything about either of you, but now that he’s here you’re just glad to see him, glad he turned up for you when he didn’t have to and you don’t want to let him go. You’re already thinking up sneaky ways you can distract Judy, stop her from watching the damn clock, maybe angle for a longer visit 'cause an hour won’t be enough.
Bro rubs your back and gruffly says, “Siddown, kid.” It's weird as shit for you to actually hug him, to have his hands on you in a way that isn't him just beating your ass, but you don’t want it to stop. You want to hold him until he has to leave you again but you know you can’t ask for more than what he already gave and so you don’t.
He gently nudges you over to the couch and you follow his lead, sit down next to him and wait for him to say something, anything. You don’t even give a shit that Judy’s over there watching both your every move with that smug-ass look on her face, like she knows what Bro’s about, as if he’s like every other neglectful or pervert parent she’s seen walk through those doors. You just watch Bro’s face like you haven’t seen him in years and it feels that way, even if it’s been only weeks. Too long for you.
You wonder what it’s been like for him alone at the apartment, if he misses you too, if he’s still mad at you for CPS and the cops showing up, all because you’d opened your ungrateful mouth to one of your online friends and said something you shouldn’t have. Something that was never their business, something they’d taken way out of context and in the process, ruined your whole life, ripped you away from your Bro.
You'll never speak to her again.
Bro sits there for a while with his hands in his lap, scoping out the room and everything in it while avoiding the caseworker’s gaze. You avoid it too because if you look at her it’ll only fuck you off and you want to pretend she’s not here, staring at you both, intruding on the first moment you’ve had with your brother in weeks.
Bro’s looking at the pile of paper and crayons on the table. He stretches his arm out along the back of the couch, sits back, and you settle into his side.
“You wanna draw me a pretty picture?” he asks. “I’ll take it home with me, stick it up on the fridge.”
You roll your eyes and gently elbow his ribs. “Shut up,” you mutter.
He looks down at you then and you appreciate the fact you can see his eyes for once. He looks serious but then he always looks serious, even when he’s not, and you’re desperate to know what he’s thinking, to talk with him about what’s going on, make a plan to get you the hell out of here.
When he speaks next, his voice is so quiet it’s almost a whisper, and you know he’s trying not to be overheard.
“Are you alright? They treatin’ you alright?”
You nod, even though you most definitely aren’t alright. “I want to go home with you, though.”
“I’m workin’ on it, believe me,” he tells you, and you so badly want to do just that.
You follow his lead and speak in barely above a whisper. “Did you get rid of all the porn and weird shit? The weapons? Did you put food in the fridge?”
“I locked it all up,” he says, brows drawing together. “Fixed everything that needs fixin’ and there’s food and shit. Fridge and pantry are full of it. Shit. Dave…”
“What?”
He rubs the bridge of his nose and you notice for the first time, really notice, that he looks tired and drained. “I fucked up, alright? I know I’m fucked up. I know I didn’t always treat ya right, and—”
“Don’t,” you say, because you don’t want to hear any more. You don’t want to hear his weird apologies, or whatever passes for an apology in his mind, because that’s not Bro. He’s never apologised to you before and you don’t want him to start now. Apologising means giving up, and you don’t want him to apologise, you want him to fucking do something.
“Listen.” He looks at you hard, and you think he really is serious now because it’s not the kind of look you recognise on him. You close your mouth and let him talk, straining just to hear him. “Listen to me,” he says again. “We’re not meant to be talkin’ about this shit but they’re sayin' I did somethin' to you.”
You swallow hard and can’t speak for a minute.
“Not the food, or me kickin' your ass or whatever, but that other shit. That’s bullshit, right? They’re tryna say I touched you in your bad place or somethin' fucked. You’ve gotta tell ‘em I never did nothin’ like that to you, Dave.”
“I did,” you assure him. “You know I did. I told them but I can’t help it if they don’t listen to anything I say.”
He lets out a breath, seems relieved for a minute, and bends to pick something out of one of the nearby toy boxes. It’s a battered old Gameboy and you smile when you see it in his hands.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Ya wanna play? If you don’t there’s always Barbies and Kens,” he says, nodding to the pile of dolls and houses and cars in a corner across the room. “I’ll even let you be Captain Crotchless. I can be Barbie and get all mad at you for comin’ home drunk again.” You can’t believe he remembers the weird, in retrospect inappropriate, games he used to play with you as a little kid.
You try not to laugh and just say, “Come on, man.” You nudge the hand holding the Gameboy and add, “Show me what you got, asshole.”
You’re content just to watch him play some shit old Pokemon game for a while, his strong fingers moving deftly over the buttons like it’s 1996 again and he never put it down. You stay close to his side, where it’s warm and you feel safe, even putting your head on his shoulder for a few minutes. If it’s pissing him off that you’re being so uncool and clingy he doesn’t show it, and you’re not sure if it’s because he misses you and wants to be close to you too, or if he’s just trying not to come off like too big of an asshole in front of Judy the social worker.
It doesn’t matter. You’re running out of time with him and you know it, keep checking the clock above the door and hating it for moving so fast. You really want to tell him you're sorry for all of it. You want to tell him you love him before he leaves but that’s dumb and you know he probably won’t say it back. You think he might have said it when he was shouting, that last day at the apartment, when they raided it and took you away from him, but you’re never sure. You know, though, that it was the first time you’d ever seen him truly lose it and the memory is a blur. You try not to think about it too much because when you do—when you think about that last day, about them having to forcibly rip you away from him while he looked at you like the world was ending and you understood for the first time that he was helpless and couldn’t protect you—it makes you want to cry and you know Bro thinks crying is for bitches, so you don’t.
You take the Gameboy when he passes it to you and try your best to complete the level, even if you’re nowhere near as good at it as your Bro. He watches you play and it’s comfortable for a moment, so much that you nearly forget Judy’s sitting there in her armchair across the room watching every move the both of you make. You know she’ll probably write all about it later on her little computer, making sure to be extra critical of Bro even though he’s done nothing wrong today and you know it’s that they just don’t like him because they think he’s done something he hasn’t. They can’t prove it, and you and your Bro, you’re smart enough to beat all this shit. You know you can.
“What are they like?” Bro says close to your head, and you shrug, not taking your eyes off the small screen.
“The fosters?”
“Yeah. They treat you good? ‘Cause you look good, kid. Healthy.” He lightly pinches your arm, which isn’t as bony as it was the last time you saw him.
That’s ‘cause they feed me real food, you think but don’t say. You know if you say that to him you’re just twisting the knife and Bro already knows he fucked up there.
“They don’t hurt you or nothin’?”
“Nah.”
“No one’s touched ya?”
“What?” You look up at him and can’t read the look on his face, which isn’t anything out of the ordinary.
“You know what I mean.”
“Why does everyone keep asking me that? For the last time, no, alright? I remain chaste and unfucked with.” You wonder what it is that makes him worry, then feel like shit when you remember he grew up in foster homes and you can recall all the times he implied some bad shit went down for him.
You put the Gameboy away and try to take his mind off of it by telling him all about the lame-ass couple you’re living with, and how desperately uncool they are so that he’ll understand they’re harmless. You tell him their names are Dave and Kathy, and that Dave is the king of lame dad jokes because he’s started calling himself Big Dave and you Little Dave and everyone but you thinks it’s adorable and hilarious. You tell him all about how they drag your ass to church every Sunday and how at first you thought it was literally the worst thing that’d ever happened to you before you made a game out of photographing, rating and chronicling the ugliest and most visually offensive hats each week. You thought Bro would appreciate it.
He’s silent for too long and when you look at him, his jaw is clenched and his hands are tense on his thighs. “Sounds like they’re real nice, little man. Almost, dare I say it, fuckin’ normal. Must be sweet livin’ in a house like that for once in your life.”
You study the look on his face and start to panic because you think you know what it means. Your Bro has just sat there and listened to you describe this couple that sound all wholesome like the fucking Bradys and now you’ve made him feel like a piece of shit all over again and why why why do you keep fucking up? What if he decides you’re better off where you are, thinks he’s doing you a favour leaving you with these dickholes, and after today you never see him again? The thought makes you want to throw up.
You put your hand on his arm, hold his gaze, and say, “Fuck normal and nice. I don’t belong there; I belong with you. You’re my family, dude.” You silently beg him to understand you, and you think he must.
He must know what it’s like to look around and see nothing you recognize. To feel so out of place in an environment you don’t belong, with people who will never really know or love you; to feel like a fucking oblong among a bunch of circles because that’s what you are when you’re with them and all you want is to be with the man who raised you. You need to know that he still wants you, that he won’t abandon you.
“You want me to come home, though. Right?”
Bro lets out a breath and leans over his knees. “Would I be here if I didn’t?” It’s as close to what you want to hear as you’re ever going to get.
You glance up at the clock and note you’ve got seven minutes left. Judy’s already shuffling around in her seat like she’s getting antsy to get the fuck out of here and back home in time for Gossip Girl and you wish there was something you could do to make the clock stop, give you just a bit more time with him.
“I don’t want you to go.” There’s a lump in your throat the size of Mars now, and when you swallow it hurts. Bro won’t look at you when your voice sounds like this and you think it’s because he just doesn’t want to see you cry.
“You know I wish I could take ya with me but we gotta wait it out, alright? I’m workin’ on it, I promise. Here.” A second later he’s emptied the big front pocket of his hoodie and pulled it up over his head. He throws it in your lap. “You look cold. And I got this for ya, out there.” He dumps a bottle of juice and a pack of candies in your lap on top of the hoodie and it’s so overwhelming, this small gesture of affection, that you almost lose it and start bawling your eyes out.
You’re not cold but you put his hoodie on anyway, think he’s more perceptive than you gave him credit for because he must know what he’s doing for you by giving this to you. It’s warm and smells like him and you know you’ll be able to sleep easier in that house that’s not your own if you’ve got something with you that belongs to him. You stuff the other things in your pockets and then he’s getting up, like he’s going to leave, and you can’t be cool anymore. All you can do is grab onto his arm and cry like the little boy you are, beg him not to leave you again.
When he’s by the door, Judy gets up and stands behind you, as if she’s prepared to physically hold you back if she has to and you almost want to dare her to try to pull you away from him. Who the hell is she to say how much time you can spend with him, that now because an hour has passed you’re just not allowed to see him anymore?
You’re crying, and it’s messy and gross, and your throat hurts and you can barely speak. He can’t even look at you but when you look at him he’s strained, a muscle working in his jaw, and you know he’s holding something back.
You bunch your fingers in his shirt, try to cling on, but then his arms are around you again and he’s saying, “Don’t do this to me, kid,” like you’re actually hurting him and you know you need to stop or he won’t come back.
“You gotta let me go, alright? I’m gonna see you real soon. Next week; same time, same day.”
You peel yourself away from his shirt, which is now covered in wet patches thanks to your messy tears.
“You promise?” you ask him, sniffling thickly, and it’s the lamest thing you could ever say but you want him to promise and mean it.
“Yeah. I promise.” He ruffles your hair, pulls you into his chest one last time, and then you hear his keys jingling, he’s gone again, and now it’s just you, Judy, and the relentless hum of the air conditioner.
You don’t fight her when she takes you back to her car, not like the first time back at the apartment, and you wonder if next time it’ll be easier to part with him, if you'll ever get to the point where you don't fight or cry at all.