Work Text:
It was a quiet Saturday morning, and sunlight was spilling through Barley’s beige blinds. A new day for new discoveries. There were a few seconds where he thoughtfully stared up at the blank ceiling, lost in the microscopic paintbrush marks from years before. Abruptly, his trance was interrupted by the velvety, melodic sound of his mother, Laurel’s voice.
“Wakey-wakey, Barley! It’s a special day for you!”
Almost as if he had completely switched identities, Barley matches his chirpy mother’s energy, responding, “Isn’t it just? I’ll be down in five!”
Raising from the comfort of his unkempt bed, he sat staring aimlessly at his corkboard. First, a dusty polaroid of a youthful older sister running after her baby brother. Under it read the label: “Ian (18 months) + Barley (4 y/o)” The name Barley was added onto the label on a piece of duct tape, written in Sharpie. Barley’s eyes then redirected to a more recent image, taken on a disposable camera during a family vacation the previous year – the year it was at its worst. The picture was of him, Laurel and Ian on a clifftop on a sultry afternoon; despite this, Barley was wearing a large sweatshirt, looking a bit ridiculous next to his family members who had t-shirts and shorts on.
“Barley! Are you coming down or what?!” Laurel calls from the living room.
“Coming, mom!” He replies, rushing to get whatever clothes he could find from the piles around his room to look somewhat presentable.
As soon as his feet stepped onto the kitchen tile, Barley rushed to the toaster, and more importantly, the last bit of Nutella in the cupboard. Before he could even utter the word “Nutella”, his control over the cupboard was seized by a sparkling blue light, latching onto the door and opening it.
“Aloft Elevar!” a gawky voice invades the kitchen space as Ian runs in with his wizard staff, elevating the Nutella away from Barley.
“Hey!! Just because you have the Magic Gift doesn’t mean you get to torment your poor, gift-less family!” Barley teased, head locking his brother and punishing him with a nuggie to his curly, blue head.
Now distracted from her warrior workout routine, Laurel stormed into the kitchen as if she were a fierce Manticore, or a mighty warrior, “Barley, let your brother go, or else our kingdoms are going to go to war!” Reverently, he ceased his reign of terror over his little brother, instead he facetiously shook his fist with the arm he usually used to headlock him. In retort, Ian blithely punches Barley on his firm upper arm. Their mother begins:
“Oh, and while I still have you two, the cake’s ready now, so will you be so adventurous as to pick it up for me? Thanks!” She regards, as she eagerly walks back to her workout video.
══✿══╡°˖✧✿✧˖°╞══✿══
The sky was a warm purple, nurturing the cotton candy clouds. The afternoon sunlight shone down on Guinevere II's paint job, courtesy of Ian, as they drove through the calm, New Mushroomton roads.
“Hey bro, have you been practicing your ignition spell for my candles?” Barley excitedly asked.
“Bold of you to even think I haven’t!” Ian laughed, then simmering down, “Of course I have, I wouldn’t fail to on such an important day.”
“I guess you could say that the celebration is going to be……lit,” Barley let his boisterous laugh occupy the van, meanwhile all Ian could do was shake his head at the pure cringe of that pun, and continue steering.
Barley glanced over at his brother, finally able to drive, and gave him a grateful smile before looking ahead at the roads, occasionally and impulsively instructing Ian on what to do, or where to go.
══✿══╡°˖✧✿✧˖°╞══✿══
Despite the fact that it was a Saturday, the bakery was barren of any other people, only the co-owners, one at the till, and one further back in the kitchen. The kitchen was almost completely visible to any patrons, aged and borderline senile, giving a strong charm to it. As Ian took on the social part of the transaction, Barley couldn’t help but watch the co-owner in the kitchen scoring a piece of sourdough bread. He was fixated on the way the razor blade glided across the thick dough, leaving a deep, clean incision every time. This trance-like state lasted until Ian nudged him on the elbow, cake box in hand, beckoning him to leave.
Ian kept a tight, firm grip on the box, which had a large window showing a periwinkle buttercream layer on the top, and two tiny toy trucks, painted to look like both Guinevere I and II were stuck into it. Written in an archaic font were the words, “CONGRATS BARLEY! •ᴗ•”, both perfectly and imperfectly over the frosting. Barley’s face did a complete one-eighty, creating crow’s feet at the side of his eyes, and the corners of his mouth reaching the end sides of his face to form an exuberant grin. He couldn’t believe the lengths his family took in order to get the miniscule paint jobs exactly how they were in real life.
Upon the drive home, Ian was behind the wheel again. There was not much to say, really. The brothers simultaneously absorbed the silence surrounding them as they peered put the slightly grimy, yet loved windows. Ian’s eyes, despite being fixated on the road, filled up with a myriad of thoughts. Thoughts from the bakery. Just when he thought his head would burst, he took a deep exhale and uttered, “Barley?”
Barley, still basking in the afterimage of the joy of seeing his celebration cake, turned to his left, almost chuckling in glee, “What’s up?”.
As serious as a secret, Ian tried to make as much eye contact as he could without taking his attention off the road, finding himself stammering, “Have you actually been clean all this time?”
The silence commenced, but it was not a peaceful one, it was a silence that left such emptiness the entire world could fill it with the gamut of its populus. Barley knew he had to decide his next words delicately. Whatever road he went down had its risks; to lie to him would almost be idiotic, Ian was a smart kid, he’d know straight away, and if he didn’t, he’d have the extra weight hanging over him; if he told the truth, the whole day would be wasted, there would be no reason for cake or celebration, and Barley would be forced to face the disappointed faces of the people he loved most – his family; even worse, to say nothing would answer the question in Ian’s head, which would one hundred percent exacerbate things. Barley had three choices.
“Of course I have, I wouldn’t fail to tell you before such an important day!”, trying to fake his trademark grin, his heart was pulsating at a million miles a minute. How could he be doing this?
Ian glanced at Barley’s cast, which he had worn for the past few weeks at this point. He was always seemingly finding ways to get himself into enough trouble to break it, but he only ever supposedly obtained injury on his left arm and nowhere else. He couldn’t magic up any truth out of him, so he decided to take his brother's words at face value and continue on.
══✿══╡°˖✧✿✧˖°╞══✿══
It was 3:59pm, and time for cake. Barley was stood by the kitchen counter, head hung low at his cake. The periwinkle dessert was looking up at Barley as if to shame him for not just not being a year clean, but for lying to his younger brother. As he stuck the blue birthday candles into the sponge, he felt like he was living a false life. However, the guilt of disappointing his family would pick at his conscience forever. Peeking at Ian practicing his ignition spell in the back garden, he noticed his arms were wobbly. It’s probably nothing, Ian’s just a nervous person, he thought to himself, lulling any worries he had of the family house bursting into flames to rest.
As the clock shrieked for 4:00pm, his blissfully unaware and euphoric mother called Ian in to finally cast the spell and eat some cake. At this point, Barley’s usually confident, happy-go-lucky attitude had crumbled into a lingering sense of disorder. His brother took a place the opposite side of the counter, staff at the ready, and Laurel positioned herself at the last side of the counter that was open, in-between the brothers. She looked into Barley’s eyes with a melancholic smile, “Your dad would be so proud of you.”
There was a tightness in Barley’s chest, a knot that refused to loosen. As Ian took stance, he couldn’t even bring himself to correct him. Another silence crept before Ian exclaimed “Infirnia Ignita!”, so harshly there was a decently loud enough echo around the house. However, Barley couldn’t think of anything of that nature, for when his brother’s spell left his staff, it seemed to him that his face was not Ian’s youthful, acne-infested one, but the face of their father, casting a spell to celebrate a lie his screw-up of a son, no a daughter, told their family. Distracting him from this, was Ian’s shaky arms accidentally misdirecting the spell to his right.
“Barley, watch out!”, he yelled restlessly. In that moment, Barley raised his left arm to cover his face, but it was of little use. The fiery spell shot at Barley’s left arm, burning his cast to smithereens. Leaving his bare, scarred arm completely exposed. Upon making eye contact with his shell-shocked family, multiple words brewed in his throat, suppressed by an invisible barrier forcing him to be silent. He watched helplessly as their faces went from surprised to forlorn, and almost disappointed in him. Incapable of much else, Barley shamefully muttered, “I’m sorry, I need a minute,” and made his way to his bedroom.
══✿══╡°˖✧✿✧˖°╞══✿══
Sitting upon his mattress, just as he had done that morning, Barley looked at his mother, her face filled with worry, as she was applying a fresh, pure white bandage on his left arm. Her words “Your dad would be so proud of you.” echoed through his mind until he had to ask her, like a needy little kid, “Mom?”
Laurel’s head turned up as quick as a deer, her eyes a pink color, “Barley?”
“Do you think Dad would still be proud of me?”
Overwhelmed with sorrow, Laurel instantly grabbed her son into a warm, maternal embrace, her tears pooling onto his jacket, as a muffled “Yes, of course he is.” vibrated onto his chest. As the sun set, the both of them could feel the warmth and light of the sun spilling through his blinds, signaling that everything might be alright.