Land on a Cloud
Land on a Cloud
author: scalabrine
summary: You’re always so smiley and you make friends everywhere we go, Danny said to Brad last night as they were leaving the bar, drunk in a way only a nineteen-year-old who’s still too eager when faced with alcohol can be drunk. Drunk only in a way that would allow him to say something marginally nice to the brother who he has barely ever said anything nice to, but that isn’t necessarily his fault.
disclaimer: fabricated.
thank you, beta.
LAND ON A CLOUD
“Braddie, come sit with me a second.” Her accent is thick, even to her own ears, an artifact of her time in Oklahoma. She’s been gone for less than twenty-four hours, and it already seems like forever ago.
As she takes a seat at one end of the couch, Brad pops his head into the living room, then smiles at her. He’s always smiling, even when it’s too hard. You’re always so smiley and you make friends everywhere we go, Danny said to Brad last night as they were leaving the bar, drunk in a way only a nineteen-year-old who’s still too eager when faced with alcohol can be drunk. Drunk only in a way that would allow him to say something marginally nice to the brother who he has barely ever said anything nice to, but that isn’t necessarily his fault. Often, their whole family had a hard time saying nice things to Brad.
Brad hops onto the opposite end of the couch, back rail-straight, legs tucked underneath him, staring at her expectantly. She has always been the one who is nice to Brad, all the time, a badge of honor of sorts. She is the only one who visits him in L.A., the only one who cares enough to seek a glimpse of his club-kid life, of his equally crazy, hard-partying friends, of his existence that is so drastically different from the one he was confined to in Dallas. Sometimes, she worries that coming home for the holidays is bad for him, if only because it forces him back into the box he spent his early years struggling against.
But right now, he’s smiling. She’s been checking up on his tweets, too (something he has no idea she does because she has led him to believe she doesn’t understand how Twitter operates, which he surprisingly believes). The tweets are happy, and not even in the fake-happy Cheeks way.
She studies him. He looks happy, too. He looks relaxed, not strung out and exhausted, like he usually looks when he comes home for Christmas. Jennifer suppresses a smile.
“Talk to me,” she says, mimicking his position. “Tell me what’s going on in your life.”
His smile grows as he deflects his gaze to his lap. Maybe it’s overbearing, this habit she has of checking up on him, of staying over-involved in his life. It would help if his mother acted half-interested, but she doesn’t, and it’s not even worth griping about anymore because it’s never going to change. It doesn’t even seem to bother Brad anymore, not the way it used to, when he’d end up in tears at some point every Christmas, when some family member (usually Danny) made some comment like, Do you intentionally talk like that? or, Maybe you should give tits a chance, I think you’d like them, or, Danny’s personal favorite (and the one that “gets Brad’s panties in the biggest wad”), I vote Brad is barred from contributing to the discussion until he goes to a real college.
Brad tells her work is good, life is good, friends are good, and she’s only half-listening but she’s smiling because her brother is so charming, it seems, in the eyes of everyone except their own family, even in the eyes of campus security at her graduation a couple of days earlier, who had a strict no-reentry policy but made an exception for Brad because he generally got what he wanted, or he had finally learned how to get it.
“And how was the concert?” Jennifer asks casually.
As expected, Brad bashfully lowers his eyes and scratches the back of his neck and mumbles something noncommittal.
“I saw something nauseating he said about you in some magazine,” she says, rolling her eyes, but of course, she thinks it’s sweet and adorable that there is someone out there, rock star or otherwise, who is so smitten with her sweet and adorable (and occasionally infuriating) little brother.
“What? Where?”
“Some website.” Most of the time, it seems like these websites know more about Brad than she does, which has its benefits.
“What did it say?” His smile amplifies indulgently.
Jennifer knows he read it, but she humors him anyway. “Blah blah blah, my best accomplishment was falling in love. You know, the works.”
“Actually,” he says, in his overly-articulate podcast voice, “he said he was happiest when he was in love. Which, naturally, is more complimentary than being his best accomplishment, which is something I have also been referred to as. Just in case you were wondering.”
“That sentence is grammatically incorrect.” She cocks an eyebrow. “It’s poor form to end sentences in prepositions.”
“Fuck you,” he says, but he’s grinning.
Without missing a beat, she asks, “So what happens now?”
“With what?”
“With you. You said that he said that when he got home in December, you guys were - what was the phrase you used? - you were going to ‘reevaluate things.” She pauses for effect. “It’s December.”
Again, he averts his eyes to his lap and begins pulling at the cuff of his jeans, suddenly shy. It no longer feels like an affectation. “I don’t know,” he says softly, smiling. “I’m trying not to push it.”
“Why?”
He stares at her pointedly, cocking his head.
“You love him,” she half-taunts, whacking him lightly with a pillow.
He shrugs again and looks away.
“And he loves you?”
Brad snorts. “You read it, didn’t you?”
“Why won’t he come visit you?”
“Here?” Brad exclaims, his eyebrows shooting up. She smiles; his drawl is already creeping out. “Oh my God, could you imagine that? Could you imagine the field day Danny would have with him?”
“He could take Danny,” Jennifer says dismissively. “He’s tall. And prone to temper tantrums,” she adds, recalling the paparazzi-on-the-beach incident back in September.
“Anyway, he has time off for the first time in, like, a year,” Brad says, almost defensively. Jennifer smiles. “He deserves time off, too. And the last thing he’d ever want to do is deal with this crazy-ass family.”
Jennifer, however, knows Brad loves regaling him with tales of their crazy-ass family. She has overheard a million phone conversations over the last three days (including several in the middle of the night, which she will never admit to hearing. It seems like an invasion of privacy, and it feels imperative to allow them something resembling privacy when they barely have any of it anymore).
Jennifer regards him. “And he’ll be good to you?”
Brad’s countenance turns somber. “Yeah,” he says, softly but effusively. He stares at her earnestly, his eyes round and wide. “He’s always good to me.”
Jennifer resists the urge to raise a skeptical eyebrow. Maybe she’s just being protective.
But she heard the way last night’s twilight phone conversation ended. Brad’s words were a response, four words following three, the way it should be. He needs those three words, more than anyone she’s ever known.
She nods, allowing herself a smile. Maybe he’s okay now. “Good.”
author: scalabrine
summary: You’re always so smiley and you make friends everywhere we go, Danny said to Brad last night as they were leaving the bar, drunk in a way only a nineteen-year-old who’s still too eager when faced with alcohol can be drunk. Drunk only in a way that would allow him to say something marginally nice to the brother who he has barely ever said anything nice to, but that isn’t necessarily his fault.
disclaimer: fabricated.
thank you, beta.
LAND ON A CLOUD
“Braddie, come sit with me a second.” Her accent is thick, even to her own ears, an artifact of her time in Oklahoma. She’s been gone for less than twenty-four hours, and it already seems like forever ago.
As she takes a seat at one end of the couch, Brad pops his head into the living room, then smiles at her. He’s always smiling, even when it’s too hard. You’re always so smiley and you make friends everywhere we go, Danny said to Brad last night as they were leaving the bar, drunk in a way only a nineteen-year-old who’s still too eager when faced with alcohol can be drunk. Drunk only in a way that would allow him to say something marginally nice to the brother who he has barely ever said anything nice to, but that isn’t necessarily his fault. Often, their whole family had a hard time saying nice things to Brad.
Brad hops onto the opposite end of the couch, back rail-straight, legs tucked underneath him, staring at her expectantly. She has always been the one who is nice to Brad, all the time, a badge of honor of sorts. She is the only one who visits him in L.A., the only one who cares enough to seek a glimpse of his club-kid life, of his equally crazy, hard-partying friends, of his existence that is so drastically different from the one he was confined to in Dallas. Sometimes, she worries that coming home for the holidays is bad for him, if only because it forces him back into the box he spent his early years struggling against.
But right now, he’s smiling. She’s been checking up on his tweets, too (something he has no idea she does because she has led him to believe she doesn’t understand how Twitter operates, which he surprisingly believes). The tweets are happy, and not even in the fake-happy Cheeks way.
She studies him. He looks happy, too. He looks relaxed, not strung out and exhausted, like he usually looks when he comes home for Christmas. Jennifer suppresses a smile.
“Talk to me,” she says, mimicking his position. “Tell me what’s going on in your life.”
His smile grows as he deflects his gaze to his lap. Maybe it’s overbearing, this habit she has of checking up on him, of staying over-involved in his life. It would help if his mother acted half-interested, but she doesn’t, and it’s not even worth griping about anymore because it’s never going to change. It doesn’t even seem to bother Brad anymore, not the way it used to, when he’d end up in tears at some point every Christmas, when some family member (usually Danny) made some comment like, Do you intentionally talk like that? or, Maybe you should give tits a chance, I think you’d like them, or, Danny’s personal favorite (and the one that “gets Brad’s panties in the biggest wad”), I vote Brad is barred from contributing to the discussion until he goes to a real college.
Brad tells her work is good, life is good, friends are good, and she’s only half-listening but she’s smiling because her brother is so charming, it seems, in the eyes of everyone except their own family, even in the eyes of campus security at her graduation a couple of days earlier, who had a strict no-reentry policy but made an exception for Brad because he generally got what he wanted, or he had finally learned how to get it.
“And how was the concert?” Jennifer asks casually.
As expected, Brad bashfully lowers his eyes and scratches the back of his neck and mumbles something noncommittal.
“I saw something nauseating he said about you in some magazine,” she says, rolling her eyes, but of course, she thinks it’s sweet and adorable that there is someone out there, rock star or otherwise, who is so smitten with her sweet and adorable (and occasionally infuriating) little brother.
“What? Where?”
“Some website.” Most of the time, it seems like these websites know more about Brad than she does, which has its benefits.
“What did it say?” His smile amplifies indulgently.
Jennifer knows he read it, but she humors him anyway. “Blah blah blah, my best accomplishment was falling in love. You know, the works.”
“Actually,” he says, in his overly-articulate podcast voice, “he said he was happiest when he was in love. Which, naturally, is more complimentary than being his best accomplishment, which is something I have also been referred to as. Just in case you were wondering.”
“That sentence is grammatically incorrect.” She cocks an eyebrow. “It’s poor form to end sentences in prepositions.”
“Fuck you,” he says, but he’s grinning.
Without missing a beat, she asks, “So what happens now?”
“With what?”
“With you. You said that he said that when he got home in December, you guys were - what was the phrase you used? - you were going to ‘reevaluate things.” She pauses for effect. “It’s December.”
Again, he averts his eyes to his lap and begins pulling at the cuff of his jeans, suddenly shy. It no longer feels like an affectation. “I don’t know,” he says softly, smiling. “I’m trying not to push it.”
“Why?”
He stares at her pointedly, cocking his head.
“You love him,” she half-taunts, whacking him lightly with a pillow.
He shrugs again and looks away.
“And he loves you?”
Brad snorts. “You read it, didn’t you?”
“Why won’t he come visit you?”
“Here?” Brad exclaims, his eyebrows shooting up. She smiles; his drawl is already creeping out. “Oh my God, could you imagine that? Could you imagine the field day Danny would have with him?”
“He could take Danny,” Jennifer says dismissively. “He’s tall. And prone to temper tantrums,” she adds, recalling the paparazzi-on-the-beach incident back in September.
“Anyway, he has time off for the first time in, like, a year,” Brad says, almost defensively. Jennifer smiles. “He deserves time off, too. And the last thing he’d ever want to do is deal with this crazy-ass family.”
Jennifer, however, knows Brad loves regaling him with tales of their crazy-ass family. She has overheard a million phone conversations over the last three days (including several in the middle of the night, which she will never admit to hearing. It seems like an invasion of privacy, and it feels imperative to allow them something resembling privacy when they barely have any of it anymore).
Jennifer regards him. “And he’ll be good to you?”
Brad’s countenance turns somber. “Yeah,” he says, softly but effusively. He stares at her earnestly, his eyes round and wide. “He’s always good to me.”
Jennifer resists the urge to raise a skeptical eyebrow. Maybe she’s just being protective.
But she heard the way last night’s twilight phone conversation ended. Brad’s words were a response, four words following three, the way it should be. He needs those three words, more than anyone she’s ever known.
She nods, allowing herself a smile. Maybe he’s okay now. “Good.”