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If you're raised with an angry man in your house,
there will always be an angry man in your house.
You will find him even when he is not there.
- Catherine Lacey, Muliebrity
Macau startles awake in the middle of the night. He is breathing too fast and his heart is hammering almost painfully in his chest. The sheets are all tangled up around him and he is distantly aware of the sound of fabric ripping apart as he fights to sit up.
He is afraid.
Not because of a bad dream, his mind has long since stopped being able to create horrors worse than reality. It’s not because of the looming shadows in the corners of his room either. He knows he is utterly alone in the dark space, there is nothing to fear here.
What makes his blood run cold is the barely audible sobs coming from the next room. He is scared; if he can hear the sound, there is always the possibility that someone else will hear it too.
It’s not often that Vegas Theerapanyakul cries but when he does, Macau’s whole world seems to come near collapsing.
His brother always seems so unshakeable. Unmovable. Unafraid. No matter how cruel their father is, Vegas takes it and gives him hope that they can make it through the day to the next one. That they can make it out of here.
Macau can’t tell which one scares him more. The fact that their father is inhumane enough to break his own son. Or the fact that his brother is capable of breaking.
With shaking fingers Macau turns on the lamp by his bed, filling the room with warmth. Slowly, he untangles himself from what is left of his sheets and gets up from the bed.
The floorboards feel cold against his bare feet as he makes his way to the door. He barely dares to breathe as he listens to the silence around him. Apart from the muffled sob every now and then, the house is as silent as a grave.
He stops by the door; his hand resting on the door handle and just stands there for a long while. His room door creaks no matter how carefully you try to open it and Macau has to mentally prepare himself for the sound. In the stillness of everything that small noise always sounds like a gun being fired.
Crack.
Macau waits, holding his breath, and prays to every god he knows that no one heard it. The house is old and every sound echoes easily through the long hallways. So many times, he has been caught at this very moment while sneaking out during the night.
It’s not that their father really cares whether he spends his nights in his bed sleeping or out doing god knows what. Everything is alright as long as you do it under the man’s nose. It’s alright as long as you don’t make a sound in the heart of the night. If Gun Theerapanyakul is a difficult person to deal with when awake, there is no containing his fury if his sleep is disturbed.
On a night just like this one, a long time ago already, Vegas had cried. No one ever told him what happened, what their father did to cause it.
He hadn’t really feared their father in a long time. He knew then that the worst thing the man can do to him is kill him. (And sometimes, death sounded like the only way out of here.) But that night – he was afraid.
Macau shudders involuntarily at the memory of hurt Vegas. The image is so vivid as if the other is there, in front of him, in the middle of the dark hallway. There wasn’t a part of his skin that wasn’t blooming violet.
That is why he creeps out of his room in the darkness and hopes he makes it to his brother before their father. Hopes he can make him quiet before their father can do it.
He stops, holding his breath. He can hear distant footsteps somewhere in the house but they are far and stop soon. After that house stays quiet.
That was the hardest part. Vegas’ room door does not make a sound and Macau knows exactly where to set his feet to avoid the creaky floorboards. He leaves his own door ajar, drowning the hallway in complete darkness once more. It doesn’t matter – he could walk around this house blind.
The curtains in Vegas’ room are open, letting the moonlight in and it paints everything in a silvery glow. It makes everything look hazy and dreamlike.
His brother is sitting in the farthest corner from the door, curled up in himself. His head is bowed and he tries to muffle his sobs by biting down on the soft skin of his forearm. It’s such a familiar scene. Except for the way his other hand rests heavily against his throat.
Except for the way–
Except–
Macau has to grip the door frame for support so that he doesn’t collapse to the floor as his legs threaten to give out under him. He bites down on his tongue until he tastes copper to stop himself from breaking apart. He feels sick.
It’s such a familiar scene. Except for the fact that it’s not his brother who he is looking at.
No. It’s Pete.
The other man looks up, his eyes wide and full of tears. And there is a hopeful spark in his eyes that dies as soon as their gazes meet.
That is when all strength in Macau’s body leaves him and he stumbles the few short steps to his brother’s bed. He feels like he is drowning when he desperately grasps the crumbled sheets. His knees hit painfully against the bedframe and he collapses to the floor.
He rests his head against the mattress and inhales deeply the familiar scent of his brother stuck in the sheets. That is when his own tears finally spill out uncontrollably. The sheets smell more like laundry detergent than Vegas.
He cries. He cries freely and without fear for the first time in his life. He cries until he can no longer breathe and gasps for air.
Even in the darkness of the night, fresh out of a dream, how could he have forgotten? His family is dead. His father is never going to hurt him again. He is never going to hurt his brother either.
Nothing and no one will ever be able to hurt his brother again. His brother finally sleeps peacefully.
(Vegas is dead and he killed him.)
Macau loved Vegas enough to let him go. And now he is stuck in an empty house with the man who loved his brother enough to not resent him for it.
After Macau is finally able to pull himself together again, Pete is still sitting in the corner like he hadn’t moved at all. Like he is rooted in his place. He wonders how much can one person cry as the tears still run silently down his cheeks.
When their eyes meet, Pete moves his hand slowly from his throat and reveals a bruise right on top of his collarbone. Even in the pale light of the morning sun, he can see its purplish-green color. The bruise is fading.
The other caresses the bruise like a lover and whispers, “It’s all I have left of him.”
Macau doesn’t know what to say.
They are sitting in Vegas’ room full of his things that now belong to Macau. He has everything that is left of his brother. But really, none of those things are his. Like they were never really Vegas’.
Everything – the house, the things and people in it – they all belonged to their father. There is only one thing, one person, who their father never owned—never laid his hands on.
Pete is all Macau truly has left of his brother.