Brother

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Prompt: Since you were little you’ve always had your “Big Brother” watching over you. He’s not your real brother, in fact nobody seems to know he exist, but he has always been your best friend and mentor to you. Also, judging by the crater where your shitty school once was he’s a overprotective demigod

https://writing-prompt-s.tumblr.com/post/634234763691065344/since-you-were-little-youve-always-had-your-big#notes

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There’s no TV in your house and that’s why you show up to school. Brother didn’t say anything when you got yourself up, when you made lunch, when you scooped your backpack up on the way out the door.

He didn’t say anything and that’s how you know he’s responsible for this.

You stare at the wreckage of your school from behind the police blockade that’s formed overnight. The ground is still smoking and there’s not nearly enough rubble for this to have been a fire or an earthquake.

You turn and look up at Brother. “You…?”

Brother’s expression doesn’t change. He’s always been like that, silent and calm, a reliable presence right next to you. His black hair is pulled away from his face with the butterfly clip you gave him when you were six. “Me?”

You bite your lip and look down, mind racing. You’ve always wondered who Brother was. You don’t have an answer to that question, but you do have an answer to the other one you’ve always been too scared to ask.

What are you?

You grab Brother’s hand and pull him away before the emergency personnel catch sight of either of you. You don’t know where you’re going—going back home isn’t an option—but you can’t stay at the scene of the crime. That’s what all the detective shows say, right? Never stay at the scene of the crime.

Is divine judgement a crime? You ask yourself somewhat hysterically. You pull Brother across the street towards the shopping center without looking. You barely notice when cars honk or brakes squeal. When you were eight, Brother stopped you from being hit by a car with just one hand. You haven’t been afraid of them since.

The shopping center is deserted this early in the morning, the only stores open being the coffee shop and one or two restaurants. There’s a public bathroom nestled behind the movie theatre so far out of the way that hardly anyone goes there.

You push Brother into the bathroom ahead of you and lock the door.

Brother looks around the bathroom with interest. It’s one of the fanciest in town with a waiting area near the changing tables. The stalls all have floor-length doors and the mirrors extend down the whole wall over the sinks.

You need to handle this delicately. Brother has a tendency to disappear when upset and you’re not going to let that happen today. Today, after ten years of accepting his answers at face value, you’re tired of waiting.

“Did you smite my school?”

Whoops, that wasn’t delicate at all.

Luckily, Brother doesn’t seem upset. Instead, he shrugs one shoulder as if you’ve only asked him about what you’re having for lunch. “Yeah.”

You breathe out slowly. Smite. You know what he is now. He practically just told you himself. “Okay. That’s…that’s not good.”

“Why?” Brother’s eyes darken from grey to black. “You think I should have spared the place? Knowing what you experienced there?”

You meet his eyes and square your jaw. You know better than him what you went through. “No, you jerk. They’re going to know what did it. They’re going to know what you are.”

“Oh?” Brother’s expression lightens. You’ve never been able to predict his moods or even guess at what changes them. Right now he seems almost…amused. “And what am I?”

You glare. “You know what you are.”

“Go on,” Brother says. He smiles showcasing neat, white teeth and long, sharp canines. “Say it. Out loud.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have showed you Twilight,” you mutter. “If you start sparkling, it’s going to be even harder to hide.”

Brother doesn’t respond, still smiling. He gestures for you to get on with it.

You exhale in one annoyed burst. “Fine. Give me my line again.”

Brother obliges. “Say it.” He prowls forward and leans down so your faces are level. “Out loud.”

Your lip twitches and it’s hard work to school your expression. Why does he always make you laugh. “Demigod.”

The word echoes through the empty bathroom. The amusement drains from you so quickly it leaves your head spinning. Right. This isn’t one of your two-man shows with Brother. This is real.

Demigods are rare. Rarer still are those who look like a human or who can communicate through speech. You’ve always wondered why Brother doesn’t age even as you do. He’s always been this, a calm young man in his late teens dressed in simple, cheap clothing.

It doesn’t make sense. For the first time since you were a little girl, you look at Brother with suspicion. The few demigods in the world are idolized. Worshipped. They don’t walk around in threadbare t-shirts or plain jeans. They own houses and estates and have every need provided for.

So why, for the last ten years, has Brother stuck by you?

“Don’t.”

Brother’s soft voice draws you from the beginnings of panic. You look up from your ratty sneakers. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t pull away,” he says. He’s looking at you like he can see right into your mind. You’re beginning to realize that he might be able to after all. “I—I love you. You know that I would never—” He cuts himself off and looks away, clearly uncomfortable.

Your heart melts and you find yourself reaching for his hand before you consciously decide to. “No, I would never—it’s you and me, right? Best siblings forever.” You squeeze his hand and, when he squeezes back, you lose some of your tension. “It’s just…why me? Why…” You trail off, unable to voice each and every why you have.

Luckily, Brother understands. “You’re you,” he says simply. “We were meant to walk through life together. No matter your circumstance, I would stand beside you.”

You stare at him. “You’re embarrassed when you say you love me, but you can say that with a straight face?”

He shrugs and doesn’t let go of your hand. “It’s like having black hair. My eyes are grey and you will always be by me.”

This, you think, might be a lot. You don’t feel like it’s a lot though. You feel the same way. You nod, accepting his words, and go back to the problem at hand. “Blowing up the school wasn’t smart. They’re going to know there’s a demigod in town. They’ll start looking for you.”

Brother snorts inelegantly. “They aren’t very good at looking.”

Your shoulder throbs and you wince, resisting the urge to rub it where Brother can see. He’s right—law enforcement in town isn’t very good at looking. But ignoring one little girl’s claims is very different to finding one of the rarest beings on the planet. “They’ll do well enough. I don’t know if it’s safe here anymore.”

“We’re leaving?” All at once Brother is excited. You can see the edges of his divinity now. He overacts every emotion as if unsure how much to convey on his face. “You’ll finally let me take you from this place?”

You instinctively step back as if to withdraw from his words. The thought of leaving town is scary. You’re only sixteen and you haven’t finished high school. You know you’re not smart and not talented and you don’t have the confidence to survive on your own—

“You wouldn’t be alone,” Brother snaps. He pulls you back towards him by your hand and then drops it to clasp your shoulders. “Please, sister. Let me do this for you. For us.”

You focus on your breathing like he taught you. “I don’t—let me think.” You cover one of his hands with your own. “I just need a second to think.”

“No.” Brother shakes you lightly. “You always talk yourself out of it! What does this place offer? More neglect? Harassment? Worse?”

You’re not a child anymore. You’re sixteen and you won’t be persuaded even by him. So you take your time and think.

The fact is is that you are not loved. Born to parents who didn’t want to conceive and who were forced to keep you by grandparents who never visit. You’re an object in your own childhood home, moved from room to room like furniture depending on your mother’s mercurial moods. When your dad ishome, he does his best to break you. The times they are kind do not make up for the times they are not.

Still, it hurts to think of never seeing them again. Of never being home again. To never be comfortable under your covers or hidden away in your closet. You’ll be losing the safety and security of your hiding places and the chance of things getting better.

Then there is school. Even though your parents say you aren’t good at it, you love learning. You love the library and your science teacher. You take comfort in the predictability of class and the jarring ring of the bell telling you when it’s time to switch.

But there’s always been trouble there too. Kids who don’t like the way you dress in loose, baggy clothes and kids who think the way you won’t meet their eyes is weird and creepy. There are enemies for you there, enemies who have only escalated into familiar patterns of treating you like an object. Like you don’t exist or, worse, like you shouldn’t exist.

Again, your shoulder throbs in remembered pain. Brother had been there to heal it after they’d left, but the thought of seeing them again the next day made you toss and turn all night long.

Oh.

You look up at Brother. “Did you blow up my school so I didn’t have to go today?”

To his credit, he doesn’t lie. He’s never lied to you. “Yes. You would have gone if I hadn’t.” His lips thin. “You would have been hurt again if I didn’t do at least that.”

Brother wasn’t there when you were called into the office to have a “mediated” meeting with your enemies. He wasn’t there when they cried crocodile tears and said you were the one bullying them. And if he’d heard what your own counselor had said about you—flighty, moody, temperamental, unable to process consequences—then you wouldn’t have been the only one leaving the meeting feeling like the end of the world was happening.

Brother was there when you needed him most, after your enemies left you broken in an empty classroom with threats of worse coming if you told again.

It’s not in your nature to run. You don’t know why, but there’s something in you that just…freezes when someone raises their hand. You stand there and you take what you are dealt, and you pray that the next day will be better.

Brother knows that about you and that’s why he did what he did.

But what, you think, chills running down your back, did he do to the people?

There is a part of you that wants to not ask. Something tells you that the answer will cast a light over your relationship with him that you won’t be able to ignore.

“Ask,” Brother says. His hands squeeze around your shoulders. “If you don’t, you’ll regret it.”

He’s right. You nod quickly, looking down at your shoes so you don’t have to meet his eyes when you ask, “Did you hurt them?”

“I’m planning to,” he admits easily. When you jerk your head up, he meets your eyes without any guilt. “Once you’re clear of implication, I will visit them.”

“No!” You step out of his hold and glare. “You can’t! They’re just kids.”

He studies you. “You’re a child.”

“They have time to learn,” you say. As much as you want to see your enemies broken like you were, it makes your stomach turn in equal measure. “They don’t—” They don’t know better. You bite your lip. You won’t lie to him either. “They have time. They’re just kids.”

“Not all of them,” Brother says, “were children.”

“There’s no point,” you say. You think you should be telling him to not hurt anyone, but can’t bring yourself to say the words. You think they should be hurt, should pay for not believing you, but… “They’re not going to change.”

“I was not going to give them the option of changing,” Brother says. A red light flashes through his eyes, there and gone again. The bathroom lights flicker ominously. “After I visit, they won’t change ever again.”

You feel like you’re going to throw up. “You’d kill them?”

Brother nods.

You’re shaking your head. “No, no, no! They don’t deserve to die just for ignoring—”

“They deserve worse!” Lightning crackles through Brother’s hair and for the first time he looks angry. “For not believing you, for allowing you to be hurt, for facilitating it, they deserve worse.”

“That’s not for us to decide,” you say. You’re scared of angry people, but you don’t think Brother is actually angry. You think he’s scared. “I don’t want to kill people.” When you see him open his mouth, you cut him off. “I don’t want either of us to kill people.”

Brother’s jaw sets mulishly. “I’m just trying to protect you.”

“I know.” You step forward and take one of his hands between both of your own. It’s warmer than usual, as if there’s a poorly banked fire just underneath the skin. “I want to protect you too. That’s why we—” you take a deep breath “—we should leave.”

Brother stills. The lights stop flickering and a tentative hope blooms in his eyes. “We should?”

You nod. You won’t back out now. He’s right. This is the best option. “Yeah.” You smile at him a little shakily. “Though you might have to pick the destination. I don’t really know a lot of places that’d be good for a teenager and a demigod.”

“I do,” Brother says. He grins, one of those preciously rare smiles that transform his whole face. “I know exactly where to go.”

When he unlocks the bathroom door, this time leading you by the hand, you follow where he takes you.

----------End-------

I wanted to talk a little bit about what led me write this story! Relationships with deities have always fascinated me so, when I saw this prompt, I knew exactly who/what "Brother" would be.

This is by no means meant to represent a healthy relationship. The main character ("you") is young, in a bad situation, and very reliant on Brother. I was surprised when one of my friends really enjoyed their dynamic and read it as romantic and healthy.

I don't want to limit the interpretations of this story at all but, as the writer of it, I have some thoughts on these types of relationships. It's so imbalanced that I, personally, can only see "Brother" as a manipulative force in the main character's life. On top of all the abuse she goes through during the day, she's expected to manage her emotions and defend the people who hurt her so that Brother doesn't kill them all. There's something escapist in the fantasy of a higher power protecting you through the murder of your enemies, but it is escapist.

The positives would be Brother taking the main character away from this environment, but it's debatable at this point in the story whether or not that will stay a positive.

Thanks for reading!