Chapter Text
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today as we celebrate the life of Abigail Addams, a woman who had so much potential before she was lost to us in a freak fire accident."
It was an accident, Janae reminded himself as he sat, listening to the priest as he continued about the late neighbor. He never knew Abigail well. He knew they looked similar and that she was eccentric and over-the-top. He never got along with people like that, and he can’t see himself getting along with such in the future.
That’s how most kids his age acted. Eight-year-olds are immature and lazy. They rely on their parents for everything while they can sit in bed and play video games all day. That was one pro of having an IQ of 141 and being where Janae currently was in life. A master's degree in geophysics and a well-paying job at a university. With that, who needs friends? He always struggled to make friends, anyway.
So did his older brother.
They had each other, though. That was enough for Janae.
Johnny sat to his right, holding his mother’s hand as he loudly sobbed. Janae felt horrible for her. Her husband couldn’t have cared less how Mark treated her. To the right of her sat Janae and Johnny’s father, who felt nothing more than pride that he had proved Mark wrong and solidified himself as the better football player.
Mark’s priorities were skewed, as well. His eyes were on his football rival, his neighbor, as he spent most of the funeral glaring at him rather than focusing on his wife’s tragic death.
It was an accident.
Janae never let himself get phased by death. It’ll happen to everyone and everything everywhere. It’ll happen to him. It’ll happen to his mother and his father. It’ll happen to his beloved brother. One day, all of Janae’s inventions will be lost to obscurity, with no one knowing who invented them unless they looked it up online. Even then, they wouldn’t remember his name long enough. He would only be remembered by some people. Maybe as the youngest person in history (for now) to graduate university. Maybe as the inventor of the firemogram. Most people will never know who Janae is.
But he’s okay with that. He made peace with it when he was five years old, sitting in his high school classroom. Abigail was going to die one day. It just so happened that she did sooner than others.
It was an accident.
The funeral lasted about an hour. Johnny never calmed down, and their father never acted respectfully towards his neighbor. Janae kept his eyes straight as he walked towards the exit, tuning out as much of the football hooligans’ bickering as much as he possibly could. Abigail was dead, Martha’s heart was broken, Mark lost his wife and his house in one day, and despite all that, this is what takes priority.
Absolute wankers.
They couldn’t stay here, Janae and Johnny. He knew that for a fact. They aren’t safe here. Their father cares about nothing more than football, and their mother doesn’t take them seriously. They’ll be safer somewhere else.
And they need to leave soon before the fire gets traced back to them.
They need to leave tonight.
Janae immediately went to his room as soon as they got home and began packing. He took enough clothes to get by, as many inventions and tools as he could fit in his suitcase, his geophysics textbooks, his passbook, and blueprints for future creations he wished to bring to light one day. He put that case under his bed by the time Johnny came upstairs.
“We killed her!” Johnny sobbed, wiping his face. Janae stood up and walked towards his brother as Johnny continued wailing, “We killed her! We killed Abigail! We ki-”
“No we didn’t,” he spoke in a stern tone as he took his brother’s hand. “Okay? No, we didn’t. The fire killed her. Can you control fire?”
Johnny shook his head.
“It was an accident. A freak fire accident.”
“But we caused the accident!” Johnny cried out. “We set their house on fire!”
“And once we did, everything that happened afterward was out of our control. We bear no responsibility for what happened to her.”
Johnny seemed to understand after that, so Janae went back to packing.
“Johnny, listen to me carefully,” he prefaced. “Take enough clothes and everything valuable and pack them up. As many bags and suitcases as it takes. Leave behind any electronics that could be tracked and anything you won’t miss.”
“Why?”
“I’ll explain tonight.”
And so the boys got to work.
“Can you fucking believe him?” Their father ranted at family dinner. “I mean, it was twenty years ago! He spent twenty years of his life finding me just because he was jealous of my skill! I mean, can you blame him? I am the better football player! I beat him seven-nil when I was 10 years old! Ten years old! We were children!” Martha was about to respond before he went on. “And what does he expect? He was playing on an American team! They didn’t know what the fuck they were doing. They were playing ‘soccer’, not football. He even admitted to me he didn’t get on a single team up here in the north! Rejected! Every single one of them! What did he expect, coming here and finding me-”
“Do you even love me?” Martha interrupted.
Janae and Johnny froze. Janae was ready for this to get worse.
“Of course I love you, Martha, I-”
“Oh, you do, don’t you? Seems all you care about is football Football this, football that!”
Janae knew where he stood with his father. His old man pushed him to follow in his tracks and play football professionally like he did. Janae didn’t want to. He wanted to be his own person, not a replica of his father. He learned fast, studied hard, and became a professor at the same university he graduated from just a year ago. His father never got over that.
He remembered the day he proved himself to be a genius. His kindergarten teacher called his parents into the school and sat them down. “Your son has been displaying some high intelligence. Much higher than kids his age should be displaying,” she explained as she showed them his homework. He didn’t just answer the questions. He went above and beyond with them. In his writing handbook, he’s writing words like “defenestration,” in perfect cursive. His math boxes were doodled with formulas he wouldn’t learn until high school.
So he got tested. He has an IQ of 141, officially making him a genius. His mother was proud of her boy. His father couldn’t believe it.
Janae jumped from kindergarten to high school, finishing it all in one year. He didn’t try out for the football team. That was the only part that his father cared about. At five years old, he enrolled in university and got accepted. It was here that his mother’s pride in him turned into annoyance. She didn’t seem to care anymore what he was learning or creating, his new inventions, or how his experience was. He got a dorm to himself both years and spent all his time either studying or building. Two years later, he graduated and got a job lecturing at that very university. The staff loved him there.
“Are you going to try out for the football team?” his father asked after his first week.
“No, not enough time,” he responded.
He didn’t speak to his father again until winter break.
Johnny was a different story. Johnny loved football and used to frequently play with his old man in the backyard. Janae only found enjoyment in the sport when he was playing with his brother. However, that wasn’t even enough to win his father’s love, as Johnny’s emotional maturity broke their father-son relationship completely.
Johnny was seven when Janae was born. Even then, Johnny would stay up all night crying, have many academic issues, and would never be able to maintain any friends. He was held back a grade because of it, having to repeat year four before he could move on. He just finished his first year of high school. Barely. And alone.
Johnny was bullied a lot in school, as well. Janae invented the bullymogram so he could find the ones making his older brother cry and make sure they got exactly what they deserved. It was moments like those that made Janae wish he had muscles. Or an inch or two. Instead, he anonymously blackmailed them to leave Johnny alone or else. They complied. Janae will take this to his grave.
And even home wasn’t any better for Johnny, either. His mother did her best to show Johnny the love he needed, but even she would yell at him and dismiss him when he needed comfort. His father had no desire for him, despite Johnny’s love for football. He tried to win his father’s love. He tried out for the teams but was frequently rejected. He asked his father if he wanted to play with him in the backyard, but those days ended. He never got anywhere with him.
Janae heard the things he said about his oldest son behind his back. It made his blood boil.
They weren’t the perfect sons his father wanted, so he didn’t want them. Janae realized that. It was why he was taking his brother and running away.
The two parental units continued fighting, shouting over each other.
“Everything I do is for this family!” Their father yelled.
“You only ever think about yourself!” Their mother yelled back.
Johnny was beginning to cry.
Martha interrupted her argument with her husband to turn to Johnny and yell, “Quiet!”
Janae knew at that moment it was time for them to go. He stood up and turned around. If he was stealthy enough, he could get by unnoticed. He watched his feet, mentally noting every creak on the floor and stepping around them.
He didn’t get far. “And where do you two think you’re going?” Martha yelled.
Janae turned his head around. “Away!” he screamed. “Somewhere- anywhere- anywhere but here! We aren’t loved here!”
Even more tears came down Johnny’s face at Janae’s words.
“Where the fuck have you been? Of course you’re loved here!”
“Oh, really? So you do take my inventions seriously? So you don’t yell at Johnny to shut up when he needs you? So you don’t constantly send us away to our rooms or the backyard so you could be rid of us?” He turned his attention to his father. “You’ll always choose football over your family, will you?” he yelled.
His mother turned to her oldest son. “Johnny?”
Johnny stood in the middle, looking back and forth between his family. Janae extended a hand. Martha opened up her arms.
“Come here, my little munchkin,” she said soothingly.
“Johnny, no, come with me,” Janae asked.
Johnny’s head swung back and forth, his sobs getting louder.
“Do you want to stay here, where you’re only loved if you comply with what others want from you rather than what you want for yourself, or do you want to find somewhere where you can do anything you wish to do, free of judgment or disapproval? Somewhere that won’t yell at you to be quiet or talk about you behind your back, or here where you’re walking on eggshells every day just to survive?”
His parents glared at Janae. He glared right back at them.
Johnny ran to his brother. Janae grabbed his hand and made a beeline for their bedroom; the voices of the resumed fighting slowly being drowned out as he got further and further away until they were nothing but muffled background noise inside his bedroom.
Johnny lost it all, sobbing uncontrollably as he gathered the bags and belongings he already packed away. “I- I- I- I don’t want to do this!”
“Look. Father doesn’t love us. He doesn’t care about us or Mother any more than he ever will about football. And with our neighbor out to get him, who knows what Father would do just to prove him wrong. Johnny, I don’t want anything to happen to us.”
“But- but- but I’m Mommy’s little- little munchkin.”
“Mother will yell at you and shut you down if you stay here. You’ll remember that more than you’ll remember the comfort she provided you and you’ll carry the pain with you your whole life.”
“But- but Mommy will carry the pain of no one loving her.”
Janae’s eyes wandered as he wrapped his head for a response. Their mother was in an emotionally fragile state. Their leave would make it worse. But he can’t worry about that. He can’t worry about her.
It’ll be better this way.
“Johnny, do you trust me?”
Johnny looked away, his tears coming down harder. Janae knew the answer to that question immediately. What reason does Johnny have to trust him? He was the one who suggested the fire that took Abigail's life instead of simply calling Father to warn him about the cheating like he suggested.
It was an accident.
“Can you forgive me?” Janae asked instead.
Johnny looked at him. Janae squeezed his hand and wiped a tear, giving his brother a big hug. Johnny hugged tight, sobbing even harder into Janae’s shirt. For seconds, neither of them moved. They stayed right in this present moment. Janae couldn’t wait for more moments like this. Moments where he and his brother can simply exist together. Only, instead of now, those moments will come without any fear. They’ll come without any tears. They’ll come, stay, and go a happy memory.
“We can’t stay here any longer.”
Janae and Johnny let go and grabbed their things. One at a time, they climbed through the window, carefully stuffing their belongings through. Janae was extra delicate handling the suitcase with his inventions and blueprints. Johnny climbed through next. His short stature made it easy for him to slip through, and together they worked on bringing in his bags.
“Take one final look,” Janae said.
And Johnny did. He savored his final look at his childhood home, the only place he knew, as more tears welled up in his eyes. He rubbed them and looked away, and that was Janae’s cue to begin walking.
After traveling on foot for hours, Janae found a park and headed inside, intending to sleep there for the night. Tomorrow, he’d begin seeking out a way out of this neighborhood and far away, where their parents would never find them.
Tonight, they needed to rest. And he needed to think.
“Lay down, Johnny,” he urged his brother, setting up one of his bags for him to use as a pillow. Johnny complied. “Try to get some sleep.”
“I don’t want to. I’m scared.”
The future dreams. Janae couldn’t blame him for wanting to avoid him. The near future for them both will be scary. Janae can plan out as much as he wants, but nobody will know what happens until it happens. Not even Johnny’s dreams are 100% accurate. He dreamed the car would go through the west wing when it went through the east. He dreamed Mark would be under his bed when he was inside their parents’ walls. He dreamed Mark was their real father when that couldn’t be any further from the truth. Johnny’s resemblance to his father is uncanny, and where else would he get his power?
What if this time, it’s different?
What if tonight’s future dream actually came true? And what if it was something bad? Their parents found them. Mark kidnapped them. They never found a new home.
How much did it matter? Sleeping is healthy for the human body, and Johnny is human. He needs to sleep, no matter what his future dream depicts.
Janae was the one in control. He will test fate if it means keeping himself and his brother safe.
“It’ll be okay,” was the best thing he could come up with to reassure his brother. He was never good at helping others feel better. That was their mother’s strongest suit.
“But what if it isn’t?”
“I’ll do everything I can to make sure it is. Try to get some sleep.” He turned to his brother. “Are you tired, Johnny?”
Johnny yawned and nodded, closing his eyes. Janae sat up and stared at the stars.
No going back now.