Chapter Text
When Alex was little, he had a big brother.
Ben was just three years older than him and everything Alex wanted to be in life. Alex could remember toddling around the farm, clinging desperately to Ben’s hand as his brother babbled on and on about all the different plants and animals they had.
They lost him just before Alex turned three.
It had been a car accident. They’d been coming back from the supermarket and they got into a horrible accident. Alex and his mother were lucky to get away with their lives.
Ben was not.
They grieved. They all grieved. Growing up, every day Alex wished he had his big brother to help him navigate the world.
But time moved on. Life moved on. Even though he loved Ben with everything he had, he couldn’t be bogged down by the grief of it all.
Now, though— things had changed.
”Did you know Chad’s adopted?” Morgan had said one night, drunk off a bottle of red wine and pure exhaustion. ”His parents died in a car accident, so ours took him in. I was only, like, two.”
There was no way— it was impossible, Ben was dead— but—
”They never had anything nice to say about his birth parents. I think they were villains or something. They talk about it like they saved him.”
Saved. Ben didn’t need to be saved. He had been safe. Happy. With his family.
There was only one thing left he could do.
Alex needed to find out if Chad was Ben and bring him home.