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Verin Thelyss was not exceedingly close to his older brother.
They lived together mostly out of necessity—neither of them really wanted to stay in the stuffy old house that their family owned, stifled both by dust and the incessant feeling that you were doing something wrong simply by existing. Moving in together was a natural progression of things. Essek didn’t have any friends to move in with (Verin feels bad for thinking this, but he knows it’s true) and Verin hadn’t been too keen on living in the dorms for his freshman year of college, so a two-bedroom apartment in the city was the perfect solution to all of their living situation-related problems. They ate dinner together a few days a week, watched Great British Bake Off together, and sometimes Essek would help him with his homework, but other that they kept their lives separate for the most part. They’d been living together for about a year and a half now, and while they’d gotten more comfortable with each others’ presences, Verin would by no means consider them close.
He was okay with it. He was past the point of needing his brother’s approval.
Essek, Verin knew, was a man(?) with a routine. He woke up every morning at seven to shower and then make and eat his oatmeal. He gathered his things and left for his graduate studenting at eight-thirty, came home at four p.m., and tried to be in bed at eleven (although, as a grad student, that rarely ever happened). He did his laundry every Wednesday and cleaned the bathroom every other Saturday. Verin had never seen him read anything but non-fiction. He felt he had a pretty solid idea of who his brother was.
Except now, it was seven o’clock on a Tuesday night, and Essek wasn’t home yet. Verin had been in his room when it ticked past four, so at first he’d assumed Essek had simply come in quietly and gone to do work in his bedroom. Then he noticed that both Essek’s outside cane (yes, there were separate ones for inside and outside) and his cold weather shoes were missing from the entryway. At five he started to worry. He considered sending a text asking where he was, but decided against it out of worry that Essek would find it overbearing. At six, he sent the text. u good? caught up with work? ur not usually out this late haha. No response. At seven, he was sitting on the couch, distractedly tapping his thigh while trying to do calculus homework. Did Essek get kidnapped? Any other time he strayed from his routine, he was sure to tell Verin about it (out of some strict parents-induced need to explain himself, presumably). It wasn’t even that late! Verin was out much later than this a decent amount of the time, so he definitely wasn’t judging Essek for it. He was just getting more worried with every minute that went by that something had happened. Essek, bless his heart, was a frail man. He could not fight for shit. What if—
A little after eight, Verin heard his phone vibrate on the table. I’m fine. Went out with friends. Will be home around ten.
TEN?? AT NIGHT???? ON A TUESDAY??????
Something was wrong. Who were these “friends???” Verin was about ready to run out the door and go find him when his brain caught up to his thoughts. Essek was a grown ass man (again, ?). If he wanted to spontaneously stay out a whole six hours past his usual time with friends he’d probably just met today, that was fine. He was a graduate student in the physics department of one of the best universities on the planet. He was smart. He would be fine. It was fine.
Deep breaths, Thelyss. It’s okay. Do your fucking homework.
True to his word, Essek arrived home six minutes after ten o’clock. Verin heard people talking outside the door, but he wasn’t able to catch a glimpse of any of the people who’d apparently walked his brother home. He looked flustered, windswept—he had at least three hairs out of place, which was a lot more than his usual number of zero. “Verin, hello,” Essek greeted him, shucking his jackets. He was chronically cold for some reason and wouldn’t be caught dead wearing less than four layers out as soon as October hit. “Sorry I’m so late, I wasn’t expecting to be.”
“Oh, it’s okay,” Verin said as casually as he could (which was not very). “Did you have fun?”
Essek froze at the question, halfway through taking his shoes off. A look of deep contemplation came over his face. “Yes, I did.”
Taking that to mean he wouldn’t be getting any further explanation, Verin stood up to stretch and yawn. “That’s good. I’m glad.”
“Oh, thank you.”
“Yeah.”
“I am going to shower and go to bed now.”
“Okay, good night.”
“Good night.”
And that was that.
A few weeks passed. Essek began to stay out more frequently, and it seemed to be with the same group of people, but Verin still had yet to actually meet any of them. Hell, he didn’t even know their names. He tried to ask about them, but every time Essek would just blush (which Verin had not seen him do in YEARS) and change the topic. The only thing he knew about them was that Essek had met them in class a few months ago. Maybe his brother had gotten involved with the mob. They hadn’t murdered Essek (yet) and he wasn’t suddenly coming home blackout drunk—that was enough for him. Plus, they weren’t close. Essek didn’t owe him an explanation.
One day, coming back from class, Verin was abruptly denied entry to his home by an open bowl of soup placed on the ground directly in front of his door. There was a sticky note, also on the ground, written in nearly unreadable curly lettering. Soup for my perfect little soup boy :), it read. He touched the bowl. It was cold. It looked like it was supposed to be chicken noodle soup, but if somebody had severely fucked up in the process of making it. There were sprinkles in it. It smelled horrendous.
Verin carefully picked it up, brought it inside, and dumped it in the garbage disposal. Hey, free bowl.
He forgot about it entirely until Essek came home later that afternoon and asked him where the bright pink bowl in the dish rack had come from. He recounted the story. Essek’s eyebrows furrowed into another one of his contemplative expressions before he shrugged it off and went to get a snack.
He forgot about it again until two days later, when it happened again. This time it was a closed tupperware, which was slightly better than an open bowl, in his opinion. The same note was stuck to the top: Soup for my perfect little soup boy :). He brought it inside. He opened the lid to see a concoction that looked like marinara sauce but smelled strangely like maple syrup. It wasn’t even soup. He wouldn’t call it soup, at least. Now he was wondering who in their right mind would consider this soup. A devilish voice in the back of his mind told him to try it, just a little bit. He battled that voice for a good five minutes before logic won out and he, again, dumped it down the garbage disposal. Look, people are weird. What if someone was trying to poison him with strange soup-adjacent gifts? He couldn’t risk having to skip Leg Day because he got poisoned by maple syrup marinara sauce. That would be incredibly stupid. No thanks.
It kept happening. Every few days, Verin would arrive at his door to find a container of some sort filled with various attempts at soup, all with the same note attached in the same handwriting. The soup quality varied, from liquids that genuinely did resemble soup to a thick goo that must have had something to do with gelatin. He was starting to feel kind of bad, throwing out all this food, but what else was he going to do? Eat “soup” from a mysterious stranger? Any time the soupe de jour looked edible he had to remind himself that it’d been made by the same person who brought sprinkle noodle soup into the world and that it was most likely, in fact, inedible.
Two weeks later, the new dishware was piling up because he had nowhere to put the damn things. Essek never commented on it after the first time, and never mentioned having seen soup on their doorstep. Verin did not find this strange because Essek did not comment on a lot of things.
Except one day he commented on something. “Did you see on Nextdoor that that racist asshole on the fourth floor finally got kicked out?” he said, nose wrinkled. “Good riddance.”
“No, I didn’t. Thank fuck, I was about to start swinging.” That was the end of—wait. Holy shit. Nextdoor. He’d forgotten about Nextdoor as soon as he joined and deemed it an old people thing (read: anyone-older-than-nineteen people thing).
“Are you okay?” Essek asked, watching as Verin scrambled to his computer.
“Yeah, I’m good! Just a second.”
Verin Thelyss (2 seconds ago)
Someone keeps delivering soup to my door with a note that says “soup for my perfect little soup boy” I appreciate the free food but I don’t even like soup. Please stop this.
A moment passed. “Verin, why?”
“What do you mean, why?” he exclaimed, throwing his hands up as he walked back into the living room. “Whoever it is keeps leaving fucking soup at the door. I would assume they live here, I don’t know how they keep getting into the building otherwise. I feel like an asshole throwing it all away, but it’s really just not edible, Essek, come on.” He was giddy. He was hysterical. He had finally found a way to be rid of the Soup Problem and Essek didn’t care. “I don’t want it anymore. We have so many fucking bowls. Where do they keep getting them? I don’t even—”
“Verin.” Essek’s face was in both of his hands. “Verin.”
Verin took a deep breath to come down from the high of his Soup Rant. “Yes?”
“Those...are…” Essek took a deep breath himself. “Not for you.”
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
Under his hands, Verin could see that Essek was blushing more furiously than he’d literally ever seen his brother blush in his entire life. “They’re for me. From my friends. Well, from the ones who don’t know how to cook, I guess.” He slid his hands down his face and slumped back into the couch. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was...affecting you...this much.”
Verin was at a loss for words. His brother. His only brother. His only older brother. His roommate. His. What the fuck. He found words. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I’m sorry.”
“No no no no no, dude, have you been EATING? Those things? The ones that I apparently DIDN’T find?”
Essek’s hands went back to his face. “I tried a couple of them.”
“ESSEK.” Verin’s world had tilted on its axis. Essek was not the man he thought he was. Somehow he felt betrayed by this twist in fate. His brother, with his strict schedule and his detachment from the world, was eating supremely shitty soups made by someone who called him—“YOU’RE THE PERFECT LITTLE SOUP BOY?”
“Verin, please stop shouting.”
“Are you sure? Are you sure you’re my brother. Who are you? What happened to—”
Essek fixed him with a look that achieved its desired effect of making him shut up. Another deep breath from both of them. “Look, I...made friends. Strange friends. But they make me...happy? I’ve never had friends like that before.” A strained little chuckle. “I knew it would be weird for me to suddenly have friends. It still feels pretty fucking weird. But if they want to make me really bad soup I’ll let them, because that’s what makes them happy...I guess.”
Verin was going to cry right now. Immediately. He wiped a hand across his eyes. “I’m so proud of you.”
His brother’s open expression dropped into exasperation faster than Verin ever thought possible. “You’re not supposed to be proud of me. I’m older than you. Stop crying.”
“You made friends, Essek!” he warbled through tears.
“You’re making me sound really pathetic.”
Verin sniffed. “Sorry. I’m happy for you, though. Really.”
“...Thank you,” Essek relented. He waved a hand, and Verin took the signal to come over. Essek stood up, and before Verin knew it, he had arms awkwardly encircling him. “I am sorry I didn’t tell you about them sooner. Do you...want to meet them sometime? They’re kind of a lot.”
“Of course!” Verin said into Essek’s hair, which was squished into his face. His brother was nothing if not short. He regained some amount of composure and used it to hug Essek back. “Have them come over for dinner sometime. Just don’t let them cook. Please.”
Essek chuckled, genuinely this time, and let him go. “I will.”