Chapter Text
Evan had never been a kid, he’d never had a real childhood. He’d been nothing more than a medical device that spent its days in bubble wrap, being brought out whenever his brother needed something from him. It was an existence he’d become accustomed to.
He’d been homeschooled by his mother so that his parents wouldn’t have to worry about him catching illnesses off of other children or getting hurt if they played too rough. Her lessons felt like she was simply doing them because she had to, like she was filling a tick box, but then again she was. It wasn’t like there was a choice to just not send him to school, she had to provide him with at least a basic education to keep the government happy.
Evan didn’t have friends, he didn’t know any kids his age.
Scratch that, he didn’t know anyone who wasn’t his family.
There were sheltered existences and then there was whatever the fuck Evan was dealing with.
The only times he ever really left the house was to go to the hospital and donate, or post-op check ups should he have to go under the knife for his brother.
He had a love-hate relationship with those trips, because although it was nice to go out and see faces other than his families he hated hospitals and hated having to go through all of the pain and discomfort that came with each procedure.
But Evan didn’t blame any of this on Daniel, it sucked but it wasn’t his fault he was sick or that his parents decided that the best solution was to have a child that was a perfect genetic match so they could harvest biological material from him.
Evan often had dreams about going to the hospital to donate, something like plasma or blood only for the doctors to slowly hack away at him, slicing chunks out of his flesh, hollowing out his bones, cutting off whole limbs, until he was fillet on a table, an empty carcasse.
So Evan lived a closed off life, hardly even seeing his brother, the pair of them having such weak immune systems their parents couldn’t risk the two of them catching something and passing it on to the other.
That meant that Evan hadn’t really had the opportunity to get to know his brother, but he loved him nonetheless and knew it was his duty to help him, so he stayed away, just like he was supposed to.
He’d had Maddie for a short while, but she’d gone off to college with Doug in Boston when Evan was still a baby, so he’d never really known her, meaning it was just him in a too big house with distant parents and a sick brother he wasn’t allowed to see.
But it seemed that every time Daniel got better another thing went wrong, he got sick again but in some other, equally severe, way. So as soon as Evan thought he was free of his purpose he was back in the hospital giving tissue and organs again.
He knew Daniel felt guilty about it but Evan didn’t want him to know how much it hurt him, he loved his brother and didn’t want him to feel any worse than he already did whilst he was so ill.
Besides, this was his purpose in life and there was no changing that, so why should anyone feel bad for him?
By the time Evan was fifteen he was missing a kidney, a lobe of his lung, part of his intestines, part of his pancreas and he’d had a portion of his liver cut out (but that had regrown so he couldn’t find it in himself to complain about it). He’d also given what he could only assume was at least double the amount of blood his body could hold and an excessive amount of bone marrow.
But it was for his brother, so Evan put as much of a brave face on as he could.
A part of Evan was waiting for the day he was told Daniel needed his heart, or his eyes, or both of his lungs. He waited for the day they were going to decide to peel his skin off to give to his brother, unpicking each vein and artery to transplant into the other boy. Eventually taking his bones, and then his brain until he was nothing, not even a memory in his family’s minds.
People touching him always felt like fire on his skin, physical contact only happened at the hospital when blood was being taken and tests run, doctors and nurses poking and prodding him with latex covered hands and metal implements, to the point that was all physical touch was to him; clinical and painful.
Touch meant donations, and donations meant pain. Because Evan was more medical device than person to his parents and doctors; he was the thing keeping Daniel alive, a living, breathing organ and blood bank. That’s all he’d ever been, all he was to the people who were supposed to matter. Because they loved Daniel and they needed him to live, and it was Evan’s job to make that happen, he was the tool that was keeping the good son alive.
He knew Daniel would deny that, but he knew that in his mind, deep down in his subconscious, there was part of him that saw him like that too, the result of their parents conditioning over the last 15 years.
And at this point Evan saw himself as that too.
Evan wasn’t born to be a person, he wasn’t born to be himself, or raised like that either, he was raised to save Daniel’s life and right now he wasn’t saving it, merely prolonging it.
His parents saw him as a failure, he knew that, and so he saw himself as one too.
At night he wondered what would happen to him if Daniel eventually died, would he fade into nothingness, like his whole existence was tied to Daniel and without him Evan physically couldn’t exist? Would he die with him, their existences so intertwined that one couldn’t exist without the other? Would his parents lock him away forever, forgetting about the failed saviour sibling in the attic? Would anyone even remember him? Photos of Maddie, Daniel and ‘oh, what’s his name’ decorating the walls, guests asking who that was in the photo when they came over for dinner, his parents merely shrugging and saying ‘we don’t know’. Maybe they’d chuck him out or abandon him in the middle of nowhere, leave him on the doorstep of a church or fire station or orphanage even though he was a teenager and people only did that with babies. Or perhaps they’d just erase all evidence of him from their house.
Evan didn’t know, but what he did know was that if Daniel died things would get even worse for him.
Every morning his mother would give him a massive handful of vitamins and watch him to make sure he took every single one, and then check he hadn’t cheeked any. She’d been a nurse before Daniel got sick and it showed with the way she treated Evan; clinical and like he was a difficult patient of hers.
At night there were more tablets and pills. They were supposed to promote healthy sleep but he was pretty sure it was just some sedatives and more vitamins, if the way he would get drowsy not long after taking them and would then fall into a deep sleep no matter how hard he tried to stay awake was anything to go by.
For years he’d tried to lie to himself, saying that she was just concerned about him, she wanted him to stay healthy, but it got harder and harder to lie to himself each time she gripped his jaw, checking his mouth, to make sure he’d swallowed all of the pills, how serious and militant she was about it making it obvious that there was no love or care behind the actions, it was a chore to her.
Evan was a chore to her.
Having to monitor his diet meticulously was a chore, having to teach him was a chore, having to care for him post-op was a chore, anything he did that took her away from Daniel was a chore.
Evan was seventeen when Daniel died and his purpose in life disappeared.
The Buckley house was in mourning, the whole place silent as Evan and his father tried to go on as normal, whilst his mother refused to leave her bed, lost to her grief.
But that left Evan feeling lost.
He didn't know who he was supposed to be without Daniel or his mothers constant hovering and clinical treatment. Instead he was left to fend for himself as his father kept working and his mother refused to leave her room.
He’d never had to do this before, his mother so controlling that she hadn’t taught him how to do anything for himself. He didn’t know what her plan had been for him after Daniel had gotten better (or died, but he knew in her mind he would recover), but he supposed she must’ve never paid him much thought aside from what they’d need to harvest from him next. Keeping him healthy for Daniel must’ve been like looking after an extremely high maintenance plant or something, one she could now leave to wilt and die.
Evan wanted to leave, he wanted to up and run, but he didn’t know where he’d go. The only option was Maddie but he didn’t have a phone and didn’t know her number so he couldn’t call in advance. He also didn’t know where she lived past ‘Boston’ so he wouldn’t be able to find her if he tried. Other than that he didn’t know a single person that didn’t live under the same roof as him.
So he was stuck. Trapped. Because he knew his parents hadn’t considered what they’d do with him once Daniel no longer required him.
Look, he knew it sounded bad, but there was a little voice in his head that thought maybe his mother liked the fact that Daniel was ill and needed her to look after him, and Evan was just a necessary sacrifice. He was just some thing she had to deal with so she could care for her baby boy, her baby boy who was her whole world.
Calling Daniel his mothers ‘whole world’ wasn’t even an exaggeration, she’d said it multiple times herself whilst she fussed over him, Evan listening to her gush over him, wishing he could get even an ounce of that affection from her.
But now his mother’s world was gone and he was the reason why, he knew once her tears had run dry and the fog of depression had cleared she’d be mad at him. It was his fault, his fault for not being good enough, for not fulfilling his purpose, and they all knew it.
His mother wouldn’t even look at him anymore, averting her gaze every time they were in the same room.
When Daniel died it was like he’d died as well.
His father had never really paid any attention to him anyway and that didn’t change. But with his mother’s change of demeanour it made him feel like he was a ghost.
Other than seeing Maddie briefly at the funeral he hadn’t seen her since he was four years old, so the only people he had anything to do with on a regular basis were his mother, father and Daniel. But Daniel was dead and both of his parents acted as if he didn’t exist, so Evan had faded away into nothingness.
And then he began to question the point of it all anymore.
It wasn’t that he wanted to die, but he’d lost his purpose and nobody knew he existed, he just didn’t see any other option, it was the only logical conclusion.
So he pulled his shoes on and walked out of the house without so much as a word.