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The bedroom door squeaked open as a young herald with his trumpet, the glowing orange light of the hallway lamp unfolding to reveal the figure sleeping soundly inside. And the child Klavier Gavin, surely no more than ten years old as he crouched in the halo of the hall outside his older brother’s bedroom, hesitantly poked his head in. It was dark inside, the shape of nearly everything swallowed by the shadows of night, even as he pushed the door open a little further. It should be dark, of course, but there were often nights when Klavier stuck his head out to spy a blinding light still burning from beneath his brother’s door at any hour, and he rather thought that on those nights, it simply didn’t go out at all. But it had tonight, as Klavier squinted at the silhouette that lay before him. Kris sleeps funny, he thought to himself as he did. For Kristoph slept with his face buried somewhere between a desperately outstretched arm and deeply wrinkled sheets, long hair crawling all around like dark serpents seeking their prey beneath the blankets. His lean limbs were equally sprawled out in every direction, one hand limply leaning off the edge. He looked as if he fell, or perhaps, collapsed, into sleep; and he probably did.
“Kris? I can’t sleep,” Klavier half-spoke, half-whispered, as if he was afraid of waking up the one he very much wanted to wake. Not that it mattered, considering Kristoph was always awake when Klavier needed him to be, before he even set foot in the doorway. He was a good brother, the way he always knew things like that. The only one Klavier could ever want, and therefore, the only one he could ever need now, as he shuffled around where he stood a little more to hide the shiver running down his spine, the quiver in his lip. Kristoph didn’t let onto that fact very easily, of course. He made no sign of moving at all, answering only with a muffled groan, turning his head away. After all, he was also quite mean for a brother. But Klavier was quite persistent as his.
“Please? I had that nightmare again…”
“You did?” Kristoph replied, and somehow sounded even more garbled than before. His only continued movements were to settle further into sleep. “Well, excellent, then you mean you can sleep. Good night.”
And at that, Klavier abandoned his loyal post in the doorway to run up to his brother, shaking his arm in plea as he wailed, “Nooooo!” The exclamation, usually more of a persistent and whiny thing until Kristoph gave in anyway, came out more like a strained and suffocated sob. He gasped to catch his breath, to hold the budding tears from cascading down his cheeks. “Please, Kris, it was—” he sniffled, “It was so dark, and really cold… And I looked for you all over, I was looking for you, and when I called your name, you weren’t anywhere! You… You left me!”
Kristoph lifted his head now as he listened, bleary blue eyes glinting against the invading light— both from the lantern down the hall, and from the sparkling tears in his little brother’s eyes. With a sigh more like soft relent, he beckoned Klavier into the covers, held up as a great cape of safety to shroud himself under. The rumbling of his voice, still gentle and gravelled from sleep, called from the cracked smile upon his lips, “Just come here, already.”
And so Klavier climbed into bed and curled up tight, ever so small there in his brother’s arms, against his chest… Where nothing else could ever reach him. His head rocked against the rise and fall of Kristoph’s strong and steady breath, like rhythmic waves keeping him afloat. “Close your eyes,” whispered the waves, and he ran a hand through Klavier’s hair to gently comb the spikes down. He closed his eyes obediently, once more feeling a shiver down his spine at the sensation of nails against his skin, softer now. It slowly travelled through him with the breath he had been hesitantly holding, no longer. So Kristoph only continued, “I’m still here, aren’t I?” And as Klavier nodded into his waters, he responded with a smile as audible as the softly crashing tide. “Your dreams are just dreams, Klav. Even when it’s dark, and cold, and scary… I’m there, I promise. I would never leave you.”
His small fingers squeezed the fabric of Kristoph’s silk shirt, wet spots seeping into the skin beneath as Klavier murmured, “But… what if…?”
“Klavier.” Kristoph’s voice was firm. “Do you trust me?” And Klavier barely even needed to breathe his response before he drew him in closer, close enough to hear not only the sound of his breath but his beating heart. To feel the warmth of his body beaming through him, and the weight of his chin resting atop Klavier’s little head. To be wholly and entirely enveloped by his brother’s safe and certain love.
“There is nothing that could ever take me away from you. I love you, my little Klavier… always.”
Klavier shot up from sleep, gasping for air as his long, blond hair snaked around his throat as if to suffocate him in silence. His heart pounded in quick rhythmic harmony with every heavy pant, heat flushing through his face as he reached to feel the dewy beads of warm sweat against cold fingers, clammy and trembling. And as his hands gripped hopelessly around the bedsheets beneath him, his eyes swung around the shadowy room to reorient himself. He studied the shelf across the foot of the bed, strong as it stood with its load of law books and classic literature, and a single framed photograph too dark to make out now, though he knew its faces by feel alone. The potted plants in perfect line by the windowsill, their leaves delicately dancing their shadows down the wall. The wooden dresser, carefully carved down to the detail, atop which sat only the bell-shaped night lamp, the clock, and his phone.
It was no wonder he had such a dream, after all, he was surely asking for it. In Kristoph’s home, in Kristoph’s bed, Vongole snoring softly at his feet. She didn’t seem to stir, even as he shuffled to draw his knees close to his chest, curled up so tight. At least one of them could sleep so soundly.
“This house,” he mumbled, once he had assembled enough air to speak at all. He pressed a hand over half his face, and any other words that would have followed simply trailed and turned to ash in the back of his throat. After all, what words could he have said? That he must leave this house, and every miserable memory within it? How could he, when the sheets beneath his head still smelled of his brother? The warmth they provided around his body, like an embrace he could feel no longer? When it held all the remnants of a life he had left behind, with every intention of coming back to it in just a mere matter of hours? And Kristoph’s only other family, his dear and doting dog, has only known this home for all her life, fated now to spend her life alone in it, just as he was? She whined and waited by the door day and night, twenty-three nights in total now, but still she had not yet figured out that simple fact. He could not make her understand this fact, even as he stepped through the door for twenty-three days in his place, and saw the disappointment betraying itself in her body. Kristoph would not be returning home.
And if home were to be the haunting that followed Klavier from his dreams into each waking day, he supposed, Klavier would not be returning either.
With a great sigh, he swiped his phone from the nightstand and trailed off down the hallway. His fingers traced the trim of the wall as he went about blindly, nearly sending himself stumbling into a large potted plant. As he swore countless German phrases beneath his breath and steadied his step, he knew it had been too long; the paths had changed in his absence. Still, he walked them. Down to the living room, to the couch, where he sat down and began to dial the number. Kristoph’s number, which he knew by feeling alone despite the darkness, eyes squeezed shut so as to block those bulbous tears threatening to tear down his cheeks with any moment. Each button pressed felt like a searing strike of pain, the pounding in his chest and gasp for air. The ringtone like relief, breath filling his lungs again. Though he knew how it would end.
“This is Kristoph Gavin’s cell. I’m afraid I’m not available at the moment, so please do leave a message.” And the click as he hung up then and there. His fingers were already moving before his mind could fathom the desire. The desire to hear it again.
“This is Kristoph Gavin’s cell. I’m afraid I’m not available at the moment, so please do leave a message.”
“This is Kristoph Gavin’s cell. I’m afraid I’m not available at the moment.”
“This is Kristoph Gavin’s cell.”
“This is Kristoph.”
On and on, it went. Something must have roused Vongole over time, whether it be Klavier’s run-in with the plant, or the voice of her owner down the hall, or perhaps it was the simple fact that she awoke and remembered that Kristoph was gone, gone, and she missed him so. Same as him. No matter the reason, she padded down the hall, clinking metal of her collar and soft scratching of her nails against the polished wooden floor. Her white fur was all that was visible against a sea of inky black shadow, catching whatever moonlight was left streaming through the shutters drawn in tight, as she approached Klavier just enough to place her head on his thigh. Warm, against the air of the house that had never felt so cold. He stared into her eyes, dark and doe-like, that just couldn’t understand why Kristoph couldn’t come back. She whined. He dialed again.
This night wasn’t the first time it had been like this: calling over and over again, never to leave a message, never to declare that the only thing he desperately desired was simply to hear Kristoph’s voice. Short and simple as it was, but meaning everything in the world. Meaning that Klavier would always have his big brother to run to: that he would always walk down the hall into his bedroom, and climb into bed with the sound of his voice. This was far from the first time. But it was the first time that he had never gotten a message back eventually, after some matter of minutes, or maybe hours, depending on the day. Always chiding him for calling so incessantly, like a child clinging onto his leg. But always letting him do it, again and again, and only asking what was wrong. If he called enough times, perhaps, Kristoph would answer. If he called enough times, it would erase the fact that the phone on the other end was simply sitting in an evidence locker somewhere, and his big brother behind bars, barring him from sight for twenty-three days and nights. That he sat within Kristoph’s walls, with his dog and all his things, all his life, and Kristoph would not be returning home.
He must have called… perhaps fifty times, now. He barely even registered the words whispered into his ear, his fingers already going through the motions to play them again. Maybe it wasn’t fifty. Perhaps seventy, or a hundred. He didn’t really know. He didn’t even know which one made him begin to cry.
“This is Kristoph Gavin’s cell. I’m afraid I’m not available at the moment, so please do leave a message.”
Klavier swallowed down the thorns in his throat, tearing up the flesh from the inside as he opened his lips, the taste of salt and a staggered, panting breath between them. His fingers froze in their flurry, long enough for the voicemail to go on, to take his message. The words came out cracked: barely audible, whining like a dog for her owner as he simply said, “You left me.” And he hung up.