Work Text:
“Ahh, there you are,” says a voice Elliott tries not to cringe at. It is his own brother, after all.
“Alistair,” he states woodenly, letting the book in his hands creak closed. He doesn’t bother marking his page. Doesn’t want his brother to hone in on what he was reading.
Alistair wanders through the quiet home library, letting his fingers run along the spines of the books – priceless first editions with their pages still uncut – not truly seeing their value, only how much they’re worth.
“Father expects you at dinner tonight.”
Elliott turns his head with a divisive sniff, watching his brother approach through the reflection of the window pane. Some would call it foolish, turning their back on a predator, but sometimes a show of strength is required.
“Let’s cut to the chase,” Elliott starts, already exhausted to the very marrow with whatever fresh turmoil is about to be dumped in his lap.
“Don’t you think it’s time you put an end to this quaint pastoral fantasy of yours and come home, brother?”
He doesn’t need to turn around to feel the bored smirk boring a hole into the back of his head, or to know those words are meant to inflame. Elliott doubts anything Alistair has ever said to him has come from a place of concern for his well-being.
Still, he falls prey and takes the bait. His family has been prodding at him all week, slowly pulling apart the peace he had worked so hard to build, and he’s feeling frayed.
“That pastoral fantasy,” he begins, jaw clenched, “has produced the love of my life.”
“You were always so dramatic, Elliott,” his brother says dismissively. “What will you do when that meagre trust fund of yours runs out and you’re still not the published novelist you aspire to be? Will you live on love?” he scoffs. “Get down on your hands and knees in the dirt – to what? Pull weeds with her? Muck the pigpens?”
The silence could cut glass. In the past, he had always ceded to his brother; it was simply easier than the relentless drone of his voice. Ever the politician, Alistair didn’t believe in the word no. Would simply come at the same problem in a slightly different way until his opponent relented or tripped up. It reminded Elliott of ancient humans tracking animals over long distances until their prey grew too tired to carry on and collapsed.
Elliott supposes that up until now, he never truly had anything worthy of defending so fervently before.
“You will not speak of them that way.”
For the first time since Alistair invaded his space, he turns to face his brother. Pushes himself up from the windowed alcove he had been seated at and stands to his full height.
When had he grown taller?
Elliott marvels at how his brother always felt larger than life in the past. Almost insurmountable. Realizes now, with startling clarity that Alistair no longer carries the same weight in his mind that he once did.
“Hmm, so my pip of a brother is gearing up for a tirade, is he?” Alistair crosses his arms in front of his chest and assumes a relaxed pose that Elliott can’t help but suspect is to offset the obvious difference in height.
Or had he truly never stood up straight in his presence before?
“Merely reminding you, dear brother,” he starts, letting each word sting as it rolls off his tongue, “that my life – and those I have chosen to share it with – are strictly off-limits to your scrutiny.”
Alistair bristles, takes in a breath, fully prepared for rebuttal, but Elliott simply continues on, louder and firmer than before.
“I was summoned home under the false pretense of need. Through some warped sense of familial loyalty, that I so badly wanted to believe,” he sighs. “But I was once again, the fool.” He trails off, lamenting at how the people who were supposed to love him unconditionally have failed him so miserably at every turn. “Well, no more. This is the last time I return to these cold halls. If this family truly wants me in their life, it will be on my terms. You may come to me. To our farm and meet the kindred spirit I claim as my heart.”
His brother is staring at him like a stranger; and Elliott supposes that is what he’s always been to his family on some level.
“You would throw away legacy for some podunk town and some rustic bumpkin of a farmer with no proper—”
“I would renounce this whole blasted family for them,” he hisses. “Burn every bridge and revel in the flames, Alistair. Do not test me. You will be found wanting.”
Elliott catches the way his brother’s nostrils flare, the briefest flash of distaste across his features, like he’s trying to work his jaws around something bitter he does not wish to swallow.
Good, he thinks. Let him stew. I am done here.
Elliott picks up the book he was reading – an old volume of poetry he often sought comfort in as a child – and tucks it under his arm, striding past Alistair and out the door of the one room in this house full of ghosts that had truly felt like his own.
A single memento, he muses, sliding the thin volume into his breast pocket, striding with purpose towards his bedroom to pack. He’s wasted too much time sifting through these memories, chasing the call of ghosts meant to claw him back when all he truly wants to do is move forward.
“It’s time to go home,” he says, letting the sound of his voice echo back to him in the cavernous room of a house he burned up in, rising stronger from the ashes into the life he was always meant to lead.