Work Text:
I was cooking breakfast for Megan as I heard the news on the radio. She loved when I made her pancakes and I was in the mood to treat my girl with something special. After Charlie’s visit yesterday, I had been in a sour mood thinking about my baby brother. I wanted to help him, but I didn’t know how. Especially not since he was still using. Aw man... It wasn’t good at all. I didn’t know how to convince him to stay. I knew that I probably wouldn’t had listened to myself in his shoes. Suddenly, the radio was reporting news of a plane crash. ”Flight 815 going from Sydney to Los Angeles has likely crashed... [...] It was at 4:16 P.M. yesterday, on September 23rd that the airliner, carrying 324 passengers, deviated from its original course and disappeared over the Pacific Ocean. It hasn’t been located yet...”
Wait, wasn’t that Charlie’s flight? Shit, I had to look that up. Obviously, he wouldn’t keep in touch so I hadn’t given it much thought that I hadn’t heard from him since his brief visit yesterday. I felt my face heating up and my heart started pounding faster as a result of the thought that something might have happened to my brother. You better be alright.
I turned the oven off and hurried to the kitchen table and opened up my laptop and started searching for the flight number and different departures to LA on the airport’s website. Since it was an International flight it was easy to figure out the airport. The first thing that popped up on the airport’s website was news of the crash and information about resources to check up the missing people who’d been boarding the flight. Fuck, Charlie’s name was on there. I panicked, didn’t really know what to do with myself to be honest. I forgot about everything else. Man, I just froze. Megan was looking at me with big eyes, wondering what I was doing and why her breakfast wasn’t done yet, probably. My eyes flickered looking at her. ”Daddy just have to deal with something, sweet heart” I assured her with a stressed voice.
I was thinking back now on my meeting with Charlie yesterday. He was all anxious, and aggressive too. He clearly wasn’t doing well. I remembered that the drugs had done the same to me, way back. Even worse, actually, he knew I had been in it even deeper causing true misery to everyone around me. And it was my fault he started using, too, wasn’t like I didn’t know that. I didn’t want that life for him, yet I had let him down by just leaving him that night before I went here to Australia. Screwing him over. Fucking hell, it all came back to me now, what a cunt I had been. Maybe still was. Selfish, really. Hadn’t thought much of anyone else other than my new family, not even my brother. Even before that, I just wanted the fame because I was bloody useless at anything else. It was my little brother who had the talent. Wasted, all on me. I hand’t taken him seriously enough back then.
But I was changed now, though, so I had just accepted living with that guilt of disappointing him. Whatever I had done at the time, I would have disappointed someone. That was really fucked up, honestly. Usually I could live with the guilt because I didn’t have to look my brother in the eye going on with my life, living a functional life with the two people in the world I valued the most.
Caring about my own family is what had gotten me here, out of the pain that the drugs had caused me, and reconnecting with them again. Getting clean. At the time, I just couldn’t disappoint them anymore. But now I had disappointed my brother instead. The plan had always been to get Charlie all sorted out too, but he wouldn’t accept my help once I was doing better. I had let him down too much even at that point, no turning back, it was too late already. I didn’t know how to talk to him anymore. It was like we had lost the connection we once have had. It was all about the band. As Drive Shaft had died, so had our brotherly bond.
And now he was dead. Well, missing, but presumed dead. There was many thoughts going through my head at the thought of that. Shit. I really fucked up this time. I should have ran after him when he left yesterday, convince him to stay. Even if he hadn’t listened, I should have at least tried. But I didn’t. I hadn’t seen the point. That was pretty stupid of me.
The prospect of that I might never see him again saddened me deeply. I would never get to fix things between us, sort him out, say all the things I needed to say. Give him the help he needed. It was a done deal, I just had to live with it forever. Those thoughts really shook me to the point that I could feel my jaw tremble, unable to hold the tears in. I hit my fist in the table as I raised my voice and cried out ”fuck!”, letting all the tears out as I felt myself drowning in my sorrow.
Megan looked back at me with a terrified look at first, but then she approached me, hugging my arm, as she sensed I needed it.