Chapter Text
“Ha-appy birthday to me,”
Quails' song followed on the warm night air through the open kitchen window.
“Ha-appy birthday to me,”
Somewhere outside on the street, a car door was slammed shut.
“Ha-a-appy birthday, dear Matthew…”
The stubby candle, reused again and again on his, Alfred’s, Peter’s, and Michelle's birthdays ever since Matt was nine, flickered weakly, dejected at its inability to light up anything other than his cupcake and the plate it sat on in the Bonnefoy-Kirklands’ cramped, dim kitchen.
“Ha-appy birthday to… me.”
With a soft, noncommittal breath, he extinguished the weak flame in one. Out the open window, his brother’s voice called to someone across the street: “Thanks for the ride, dude. See you tomorrow!”
Matthew leapt from his chair, pulling the candle from the cupcake and running to the sink to rinse it (Arthur’s lecture from when he almost threw out one of his half-used candles a few years ago still echoed in his head, something along the lines of “Are you loony? Have you any idea what those things cost your father and I, Matthew?”) before it could be slid back into the cheap plastic packaging Dollar General had sold it to them in. He’d spent longer scrubbing off the frosting than he’d ought to, though, as he’d only just shut the pack inside the junk drawer before Alfred stepped through the side door and saw his little brother, halfway across the kitchen island to his lone vanilla cupcake.
Swallowing down the shame clogging his throat, Matthew raises a slight hand and greets his brother with “Hey, Fred,” and his voice sounded like it hadn’t been used all day. Because it hadn’t been, really.
“Hey, Matt,” Alfred’s speech wasn’t nearly as deafening as it typically was, which made Matthew wonder if something was wrong. But when Alfred’s gaze followed his brother’s to the cupcake, his freckled cheeks broke a smile. “Late night snack, huh?”
“Hah. Guess so.” The corners of Matthew’s lips pursed ever so slightly, but he puffed a laugh regardless.
“Where're mom ‘n dad?”
“Maman’s been ‘s-sleep since 10. Started drinking a little after you left,” now, it was hard for Matthew to feign humor, “dad’s probably joined him. Check out, uh, ch-check out what he gave me, though,” Matthew was quick to change the subject, reaching into his pocket and tugging out a thin leather-strapped wristwatch.
Alfred stepped around the table to see what he was holding out, tilting his head as he studied the clock’s glinting face.
“A watch, huh?” He observed in a scholarly tone, “what, you been like, needing one or something?”
Matthew shrugged, the soft chuckle he let out this time genuine, though tinged with exhaustion. “According to Arthur, I guess. That, or he panicked when he realized nothing off the internet would ship out in time.”
Alfred suddenly stiffened beside him and turned to look him in the face, blue eyes wide with alarm. After a moment of staring, his jaw unhinged and spilled a sentence, hushed and hurried. “Today ain’t the first, is it?”
“Don’t bother with it, eh, Fred?” Matthew forced his mouth to curve and shook his head dismissively. “I had a good enough day already.”
Alfred’s eyebrows were furrowed pensively. “It kinda sucks if all you get on your birthday is a lousy watch, dude,” his eyes flicked up to meet Matthew’s, frighteningly serious. “Sorta lame of ya.”
Matthew sighed softly, fighting the urge to roll his eyes. His brother seemed genuine enough, at least. “Yeah, s’pose you’re right.”
“You gonna let me take you somewhere, then?”
“Where is somewhere?”
Alfred grinned, retracing his steps backwards to the door and taking Matthew’s keys off the hook. “Wherever the freeway takes us,” he lilts, eyes lighting up in their familiar mischievous glint. “Persuades you to take it, that is. ‘s not my car, and stuff.”
Matthew let out a condescending ha. “Or you’re trying to dodge another DUI,” he caught his keys as they were tossed to him, “how responsible of you, Kirkland.”
Alfred ha’d back mockingly, squinting his eyes and tilting his head. “Whatever, hater,” he scoffed, pushing through the door into the temperate driveway.
Matthew’s car held the stuffy, sweat-prompting warmth of a vehicle shut up all day in early summer heat that trapped their silence between them, rather than letting it dissipate into the air surrounding. It gave Matthew plenty of room to think; too much, considering he’d already spent half of his day alone and doing just that. Though with the subject of most of those thoughts sitting beside him, he decided he didn’t so much mind a lack of conversation, and he let the hum of the engine and of the wheels on pavement fill the silence between them, as long as they could.
Halfheartedly, he wondered if his brother was just using him as a way to keep the party going, after he’d gone off and done whatever it was he liked to do with his sexy college friends and their infinite supply of liquor. Was he really so pathetic as to eagerly chauffeur his drunken, narcissistic brother, who on any other occasion would treat him as poorly as everyone else did?
Yes, clearly, as he’d already driven him 15 miles out of town, with neither of their parents’ permission, after an incredibly minimal amount of convincing, having known full well in that moment and in plenty before that Matthew hadn’t been anything but something to use to his brother since their balls dropped.
He shuddered, tensing his shoulders and squeezing his fingers tighter over the steering wheel, because he didn’t want to remember what being 13 was like, or that his brother just couldn’t be the boy he was in Matthew’s head ever again.
He was tired of thinking now, so he turned his gaze from the freeway in front of him to Freddy, with his feet kicked up on the scuffed dashboard of his hand-me-down Subaru, and asked him if he wanted something to eat.