Chapter Text
Daniel was eight years old when Evan was born, Maddie was nine. Daniel didn’t really realise what it all meant, there were lots of confusing words being said between the doctors and his parents and how the baby was meant to help cure Daniel.
He understood that his parents weren’t exited like he thought most parents were meant to be about a baby. They were only happy or appeared to be happy in front of others, there little miracle they would gush and then would roll their eyes when whoever had asked had walked away. They were only ever truly happy with the baby when they talked about how his blood, or something like that, was going to save Daniel and help make him better.
No matter how displeased his parents were about the baby, Daniel was so excited. He was going to be a big brother and when the baby made him better he was going to play with him and teach him were all the best places in the house to hide where.
Apart from him the only one that seemed to be exited about the baby was Maddie. Whenever she visited him in the hospital she would show him all the new baby clothing she had picked out. She would ask him if there was any toys he wanted her to buy for the baby from him and Daniel would show her all the toys he’d been looking at in the baby catalogue that he had begged his mum to get him.
The closer it got to the baby being born the more excited Maddie and Daniel got, while the more frustrated their mother got and when she was frustrated or annoyed so was their father. It made for a quiet a few tense weeks where Maddie and Daniel had to have secret conversations about the baby because any mention would have there mother snapping at them, before she looked at Daniel in horror and would apologise profoundly.
The only indication Daniel even got that the baby was born was that his parents didn’t come to visit him one day. It wasn’t till the next day that his father came that he even found out that he had a baby brother called Evan. A little brother, just what Daniel had wished for.
X-x
Maddie remembered meeting Evan a lot more than she remembered meeting Daniel. While Daniel use to be her annoying little shadow that would follow her everywhere and always wanted whatever toy she had, Evan was her whole world.
His little hand wrapped around Maddie’s pinky with more strength than she thought was possible for his tiny little body. Maddie thought she had never seen something so adorable as puppies until she met Evan. Her parents didn’t seem all that bothered about him. Whenever Maddie was near they would just pass him off to her and go about there business.
Apart from her, Daniel was the only one that was happy to see Evan. In fact his whole face would light up with excitement whenever Maddie brought Evan to see him, he thrived of being a big brother and the hopes that he would soon get to go home and spend all his time playing with him.
It became Maddie’s little hobby, photographing Evan as he grew and experienced the world. Maddie created scrap books of the pictures for Daniel, so that he never felt like he was missing out on Evan’s first months.
The day Daniel finally came home Maddie had never felt more complete. Her parents struggled to get Daniel to stop holding Evan that day, while it frustrated her parents it just made Maddie’s heart burst with love. Her brothers, finally together in the same house. Daniel was finally healthy and back home and Evan well hopefully he would never no any different. He would get to experience playing out all day in the sun on summer days and building snowman in the winter with his brother and he would never know that there was a time in his life where Daniel wasn’t around.
Even tho Maddie was young she could already tell that her parents had little interest in Evan. They lost interest on everything but Daniel when he was diagnosed, even Maddie herself. Whilst Maddie’s only interested had been forced to become Evan. When he cried at nights it was her who fed him, she was the one that gave him baths and read stories to him while rocking him to sleep. It was her who only got a few hours of sleep at night and was constantly exhausted not her parents, like it should’ve been.
Maddie had even dragged Evans crib into her own room, not that he ever really slept in it, normally the second she put him down he would start balling his eyes out. She counted down the seconds till she had Evan back in her arms while at school, till she knew that he was safe and being properly cared for. At nine years old Maddie had basically become a parent, her whole world had change. Her whole world had become Evan.
X-x
For a while all Daniels parents told him was that his baby brother was born and that he was healthy. Daniel begged them to let him see him but they said not until after the procedure, that baby’s were full of germs that could get Daniel even more sick and they just couldn’t risk it. He hated it, he just wanted to see his brother and hold him, he had waited so long already he didn’t want to wait any longer.
Evan was almost a month old by the time Daniel got to finally hold him. Maddie came in holding the bundle, he thought it was weird that it wasn’t one of his parents but he was to excited to finally be able to see his brother that he didn’t pay it much attention.
He held out his arms, waiting for his sister to place their brother in them. Maddie just laughed and brought him over letting him peer down at the bundle before she gently placed him in Daniels arms but remained holding his head. Daniel stared down at him smiling as he toke in the wide blue eyes gazing up at him and the small fist that reached out to him. He never thought that he could fell this way so full of love and joy. That was until he saw a small pink splotch abound the baby’s eye and suddenly that love was overtaken by a fierce protectiveness, one that reminded with him every time he looked at his baby brother.
“What happened to his eye, did someone hurt him?” Daniel questioned accusingly, fully prepared to go find the person that hurt his baby and do something that he wasn’t quite sure about but felt right.
“No he’s not hurt it’s just a birthmark” his mother explained, causing Maddie to laugh quietly, however the rest of there mothers sentence had his sister glaring at her as tho she was the most disgusting thing she had ever seen, “Don’t worry darling, we can properly get rid of it when he’s older”.
“No! It’s cute it makes him look more special” Daniel protested staring back down at his now sleeping brother. The mark much clearer now with his eyes shut, he found it adorable as tho he had been kissed my angel. He didn’t want to say goodbye to his brother that night, he held on to him, even tho he had started to cry for food, until his mother pinky promised that Daniel could see him again soon.
He hated being in the hospital more than ever. Maddie gave him scrap books to keep that were filled with pictures of Evan, sometimes Daniel would cry and beg his parents to let him go home so that he could be there with his siblings and be in the pictures himself and see his brother grow with his own eyes.
Four months after Evan was born Daniel finally got to leave the hospital. He was overjoyed and so were his parents. When he finally got home he wanted nothing more than to hold his brother till he physically had to stop. Every time Maddie brought him when he was in the hospital Evan would change so much between visits, now he got to watch him grow every single day.
Daniel noticed in the weeks after he came home that his parents dotted on him often leaving Maddie to deal with Evan when he was crying. Maddie did everything for Evan really, she fed him, bathed him and was the one to put him to sleep.
Daniel noticed that even tho Evan had a nursery there was no crib, he later discovered it in Maddie’s room when he went to ask her to read to him. All tough he found it odd Daniel was to excited to finally have his normalcy back of his sister reading to him to say anything. There story times become better than they where before. Maddie would sit and read while Daniel would hold Evan in his lap until the baby fell asleep and Maddie placed him in the crib.
It wasn’t until years later when they where both adults that Daniel would asked Maddie about the crib being in her room, she just told him it was because that’s what she had to do that in those years she had to protect her world and so she did it the only way a child themselves knew how to and that was by always having there baby brother close.