Work Text:
Barley always saw himself as a good person. He runs campaigns with his fellowship. He tries to help anyone in need. But most of all, he loves his mother and little brother with every fiber of his being.
He stands up for what he believes in. When he was young, he was told by his mother that if he ever felt like something was unfair or unjust, he should point it out. And he took that to heart.
But his efforts to preserve history have made him a perceived nuisance in the eyes of the general public. Especially the cops.
He's been called every name you could think of. Whether he's protesting the removal of a monument, defending his brother, or just trying to perform good deeds in general, all he gets in return are the same scorns and remarks. Screw-up. Delinquent. Lost cause. Your brother is better off without you.
But he doesn't care. Because he knows that his family and friends support him. Ian loves and supports him. Those people wouldn't call him those awful things...
His reputation among the townsfolk would be set in stone on one lukewarm, overcast day in New Mushroomton. Lined down the street in the historical district were orange cones and construction equipment, not a typical sight seen in this particular area.
But none of the construction workers were working, because something was keeping them from doing so. Passersby were watching the scene that was gradually unfolding in front of them.
At the center of this commotion was a small, ancient statue of an elven warrior that the workers were going to dismantle. And chained to the base of it was a burly elf who didn't look any older than 19, donned in a denim vest with patches and pins.
"I won't let you tear down this statue! This was one of the greatest warriors in the days of yore!"
He cries out in protest against the removal of the statue, which was to be removed and replaced with a new fountain. One construction worker - a cyclops - walks over with a chain breaker.
"You may unchain me, but I will NOT leave this statue." "Oh, you will."
The cyclops breaks the chain, sending the elf falling facedown on the concrete ground.
He grunts at the pain and wipes away the blood slowly trickling from his nose. He hears the laughs of the many people watching the protest take place, mocking him.
He quickly picks up the signs he'd made and holds them up in the air. "You can't make me leave!"
"We can, and we will," says an elven worker. "When we call the cops, you'll be out of here in a jiffy."
"And what are they gonna do? Drag me away? That won't happen."
The burly elf continues to hold his signs up high and yell in protest.
"Alimer the Cunning did not lose his life in the Battle of the Five Realms to be shrugged off for a fountain! And he certainly does not deserve to lose his life again to a bunch of sledgehammers!"
And so he keeps protesting loudly and proudly...until the police show up.
He hears the sirens blare and become louder as they get closer. Before he knew it, several cruisers had arrived at the scene.
Barley kept his guard up and held up the signs as the cops climbed out of their cars and began approaching him.
Among these cops, Barley spotted a familiar face - his mother's boyfriend Colt Bronco. The centaur sighed upon seeing his stepson-to-be once again out in the streets protesting.
"C'mon, Barley, we don't have all day. Put down the signs and leave the workers be." He said, putting his hoove down.
"I won't stand for this! I will not leave! This statue must be preserved!" Barley continues. "You would have to do a lot to pull me away from here!"
"Yeah, yeah, history and all that. Come on, kid," a female satyr officer says.
A tall, buff elven officer suddenly grabs Barley's right arm, yanking him away from the statue and causing him to drop his signs.
"Hey! Let go!" Barley grunts. He tries to escape from the officer's hold and bend down to grab the signs, but this results in the officer holding his arm even tighter.
"OW! You're hurting me, dude!" "It won't hurt if you just follow me," the officer says.
It was apparent that this wasn't going to be a fun time for Barley Lightfoot.
Ian was always a studious elf. He keeps everything organized, he makes lists, and he's at the top of his class. At least that's the part of his life he has the most control over.
Everything else is a disaster. He has trouble with making friends, speaking up, driving...
...he just wishes he had his father.
But instead, he believes his life is as messy as it is because he never knew him.
At least he has a mother and an older brother who loves him. And he loves them both just as much...well, as far as Barley goes, there are some times where he wishes he'd just shut up. This was one of those times.
He'd just finished another long, grueling day at school. He was walking down the halls filled with students talking and gossiping about topics Ian couldn't even pretend to care about. He focuses on the large doors in front of him, the doors he'll walk out of and not have to walk through again until morning when he'll have to go through yet another boring day of school.
But something was different about this day. Ian had gotten used to the routines and schedules of the daily grind, but instead of the students heading to their assigned busses or the parking lot, most of them were gathering in a crowd to the right of him, watching a scene unfold. Through the crowd of curious students, he could see police lights shining and he could hear the sounds of scuffling, cheering, and yelling.
Ian wasn't one to care about petty drama. He wanted to walk away...but his feet only took him toward the scene.
But just as he began to think about heading home...he heard a very familiar voice cry out.
"THIS IS HISTORY! IT CANNOT BE DESTROYED!"
"BARLEY!" Ian cried.
The young elf began racing through the crowd, pushing various students aside and muttering "excuse me" multiple times.
Once he was able to view the scene, his heart dropped.
At the old statue of Alimer the Cunning was his older brother, who was in a scuffle with several police officers. Barley himself had blood smeared down his face and bruises on his arms.
"Let GO of me!...stop hurting me...I'll GO!"
Then, just as Barley stopped trying to fight, he was pinned to the ground by a troll officer.
Ian heard a slight cracking noise...and so did the other students, who all let out audible gasps. Ian was about to puke.
One of the officers was attempting to handcuff him, while Barley began to cry out in pain.
Ian steps backward and doesn't notice his own hard breathing. His eyes well with tears, he doesn't know what to do.
He tightens his sweating fists.
"Let him go..." he says through his teeth.
"Gonna cry?" a voice says behind him.
Ian immediately turns around to find Gorgamon - a troll from his class - laughing at him, along with another elf from his history class.
"What, are you sad that your stupid delinquent brother's getting caught? What good has he done for you?"
Ian can't form any words to say. He looks back and forth between Barley and the students, as the cracking sound and his brother's painful cry replay in his head...
"Can't speak? Wow, you're such a degenerate."
Gorgamon and his goons laugh at Ian once again.
As Ian looks back at Barley, he sees that Barley noticed he'd come. He looks at him with tearful eyes, and Ian could swear that he mouthed "Ian...please help me". He yells once again after being pulled up.
"No..." Ian says, his voice breaking.
He looks down and grabs his hair due to the double whammy of seeing his brother and hearing the taunting and laughing from the students...
But instead of running to his brother...he bolts back into the school.
He rushes away from the crowd and back into the building, making a dash for the nearest bathroom.
As soon as he enters, he throws his backpack on the old tile floor. He runs into the first stall and immediately throws up in the toilet.
He grabs his hair again in response to the burning sensation, and once he's done, he flushes and slumps onto the ground, shaking uncontrollably.
The elf begins to bawl loudly, his cries possibly echoing back out into the hallway. He curls into a ball, squeezing himself.
After a few minutes, he slowly and shakily gets up and leaves the stall, walking over to the sink to wash his hands. After that, he throws water on his face.
He looks up at the mirror as waterdrops fall from his nose and his chin. He tries to control his breathing as he grabs for a few paper towels to dry himself off with.
He bends over to get his backpack, then reaches for the door handle...
...when he stops in his tracks.
Ian slumps onto the ground once again, right by the door, and stays there for a little longer.
A couple of hours later, Ian and his mother Laurel sit in the waiting room of the hospital. Ian slumps in the slightly uncomfortable chair, with his arms around his chest.
"You look exhausted, sweetie...do you feel alright?" Laurel says, feeling Ian's forehead.
"...Yeah," Ian says with a crooked smile. "I'm just worried sick about Barley."
"Well...I'm sure he's getting the best help he could get for his wrist. He'll still have to wear a cast...but we're thankful that the cops didn't do worse harm to him," his mother says, sighing. "You didn't have to see that happen to him up close, did you?"
Ian swallows more bile upon remembering the event.
"...N-no. I missed it."
The two sit in silence as they continue to wait.
"...It's good that he cares about doing good deeds and pointing out injustice, but...to get a broken wrist for something like this...there's a line that needs to be drawn," Laurel says. "I just wish there was something I could do to stop him from causing trouble..."
By the next night, Barley had finally returned home after receiving medical procedures and being interrogated by police. While he was relieved that his worst burdens were out of his face, he had one more thing still sitting in his mind that was giving him a sour mood...a person he was counting on to help him.
Meanwhile, Ian had been yearning for Barley's presence. He wanted to hug him, to encourage him, to tell him that those officers weren't right to beat him up like that.
And sure enough, his face glowed upon heading down the stairs and seeing his older brother sitting at the table, with a cast on his left arm. He walked over with a smile on his face, getting his attention.
"Hey, Barley! I'm so glad to see you again, dude, I was worried for you-"
Ian is interrupted by Barley banging his fist on the table as he finishes setting up his game.
The younger elf is taken aback, gasping loudly. He awkwardly stammers and continues to watch his brother, who obviously doesn't want to be talked to.
"I, uh...w-what's wrong?"
Barley slowly turns his back to look at Ian, who looks threatened.
"I want to know why you ran off." Barley says coldly.
"I- ran off? What are you..."
"You know what I mean. You saw me getting pinned by those cops and you chose to run off."
"Barley, I was NOT going to throw myself in there! Imagine what they could've done to me!"
"I didn't want you to fight them. But I ALSO didn't want you to run away!"
"None of that would've saved your arm from getting broken."
"Are you gonna answer my question?" "WHAT question?" "Why did you run off?"
Ian stands in silence as he begins to sweat. The piercing stare from Barley wasn't helping, and Ian couldn't bear to tell him the truth...
"I...well, uh...I-I had to..." "What?" "I had to...get something. I h-had to get something from school, y-yeah..."
Barley stands with his arms crossed, and Ian knew he wasn't going to take this for an answer.
"...I did all this for you. I did everything for you, and THIS is the thanks I get," Barley says, pointing to the new cast on his left arm.
Ian takes offense and tightens his fists. "...You're blaming me now? I told you, NOTHING I could've done would've stopped you from getting hurt! I can't do anything! I can't speak up to bullies who pull my hair and throw me against walls. I can't step in a driver's seat without wanting to cry and puke my guts out. Why are you saying I gave you this? YOU are the one who decided to chain himself to a statue!"
"I wasn't going to let them erase history."
"Not wanting to erase history isn't worth breaking a limb."
"It is to me."
"Well, you obviously don't have your priorities set."
"If anyone doesn't have their priorities set, it's those cops. I wasn't smuggling drugs or murdering kids, I was protesting!"
"And you were at a construction site, and you were resisting arrest, and you were causing trouble for no reason-"
"Oh great, now my own BROTHER is a bootlicker." "What- I am not a bootlicker!" "Repeat what you said. Tell me again that I deserve this broken arm because I was standing up for what I believe in."
Ian looks away from his brother as a lump enters his throat and tears pool in his eyes.
"TELL ME!" Barley snaps, tearing up as well.
"I...I never said it was ok for them to do it..." the younger elf says, his voice breaking again. "I...I hate what they did to you...I mean it."
Ian begins to cry into his hands.
"I'm sorry I ran away...I'm sorry I didn't help..."
The younger elf looks back up at his older brother upon wiping his eyes.
"...But I also wish you didn't do such stupid things. I wish you didn't get yourself into situations where you got hurt. You won't believe the things I heard those students saying about you, Barley...if only you weren't so reckless, maybe your wrist wouldn't be broken right now. Maybe you wouldn't have a stash of tickets in your van. Maybe you wouldn't have such an awful reputation around here."
Barley's heart sinks upon hearing those words. And as much as he wants to fight back...there's a truthness in those words.
"...I love you, Barley...but what you're doing is worrying me. It's worrying both me and Mom and now that you've broken a bone, it's gone too far. History isn't worth all that. Again, I'm sorry I ran off...but you're not in the right either. No one was in the right."
Barley looks away from Ian while holding back tears. Ian begins approaching him with his arms open.
"Let's hug this out," Ian says.
The older elf turns back to face his brother, then they both hug tightly.
"I'll try to hold back a little bit...I know I scared you two," Barley says. "I just...history is so important to me. And I let myself get carried away...and I caused you grief. I'm sorry for snapping at you."
"It's okay, dude," Ian says. "Let's move on from this."
The brothers pull away from each other and smile. Barley wipes a tear from Ian's eye.
"I love you, little brother," Barley says.
Two weeks had now passed since the incident. The troll police officer who broke Barley's wrist was put on a month-long leave, which of course left Barley furious. He believes the officer should've been fired, but of course, the system didn't work in his favor.
He'd been having recurring nightmares about the hospital, now that he'd recently been in one following a violent encounter with the police. But he still appears brave and invincible to his younger brother, so he doesn't think his older brother is a coward...and Barley Lightfoot is no coward.
Barley wakes up in the morning, opening his eyes to see his cast which was now doused in drawings of dice and band logos. He sits up and rubs his eyes as he picks up his phone. And once he opens his messages, he has a new one from his friend Shrub, which says something he dreaded to hear.
Did you know they're now going to tear down the fountain in front of the high school??
This enraged Barley. Tearing down Alimer was one thing, but the fountain? There's no way that's getting torn down!
He quickly gets up from bed, getting ready to plan for his next protest...