chocolate chip mint and vanilla with whipped cream
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Brothers
Rating: PG-13
Challenge: Chocolate Chip Mint #7: turbulent, Vanilla #20: drinking
Toppings/Extras: whipped cream
Wordcount: 1,308
Summary: Isaac Prowse finds out that it’s your best friends that can hurt you the most.
Notes: F-bomb used here (a lot) for effect because the words they would have used back in the day would make you giggle, and that is not the desired effect. ;) They’re late teens here. Just on the edge of whipped cream I’d say, perhaps seventeen.
When Charlie took a swing at the thick-necked woman behind the bar, Isaac knew it was time to go. Upending his stool in his haste to stand, Isaac grabbed Charlie by the back of his collar and wrenched him away from the bar.
“Ow!” he yowled like the tattered wildcat that he was as he was practically strangled to death by his own clothing, yanked towards the exit of the bar. “Get off!”
Isaac didn’t say anything until he’d dragged Charlie halfway down the dark London street. They were in Southwark; a wide, vice-filled road that ran close to the Thames, full of brothels and taverns and bear-pits. Isaac wasn’t fond of the place but they ended up there quite a lot. Tugging him down a side street, Isaac practically picked Charlie off of the ground as he slammed him into the damp wall of an alehouse.
“Didn’t yer mam ever teach yer not to hit girls?” he growled at the boy. Charlie stared at his friend for a moment-he wasn’t used to seeing him angry. Then he began to wriggle and fight.
“Aw, piss off, Isaac...”
“Yer pathetic.”
“How the fuck would my mam teach me anything, you stupid bastard? She’s fuckin’ dead, been dead long as I can remember!”
“Yer need to get some bleedin’ manners.”
“Oh, get you! Fuckin’ pompous bastard, thinkin’ yer all that. I remember you in the orphanage, poncin’ ‘round like the sun shined out’ve yer arse, too good fer the rest of us...”
This was escalating faster than Isaac had thought it would.
“That ain’t true!” he snapped.
“All that shite you used to spout about yer mam bein’ a vicar’s daughter!”
Isaac’s fists tightened around Charlie’s collar, bunching the cloth.
“She was.”
“Ha! And next yer’ll be sayin’ yer dad weren’t a criminal!”
“He wasn’t.”
“Yer pathetic. Yer lie to yerself, Zac, always ‘ave. D’yer know what Folxholt Alley Orphanage was? A place where they dumped all the screechin’, disgustin’ maggots that got left behind when they ‘anged the latest murderer...!” Charlie gasped for breath as Isaac’s hands tightened even more. “Who the fuck do yer think yer kiddin’? Yer dad got done! He got ‘anged!”
“He was innocent.”
Charlie managed to choke out a disbelieving laugh.
“The number of kids that said that. Bloody ‘ell, Zac, I thought you’d be able to face it by now. I’ve come to terms with it. My dad was a ravin’ fuckin’ nutter that hit me mam ‘til she died an’ so what? He deserved to die and me mam deserved to die and I was born with it in my fuckin’ blood...”
“Stow it, Charlie! What the bleedin’ hell are yer talkin’ about?”
“How...” Charlie suddenly laughed again; a wild, stark gasp of a laugh. “How d’yer know yer father’s innocent, eh? How old were you when ‘ee ‘anged?”
Two. He’d been two.
Charlie knew that.
“You don’t know nothin’!”
“My brothers told me.”
“Oh, ‘ere we fuckin’ go! I wondered ‘ow long it’d be before yer started goin’ on about yer fuckin’ brothers again. On an’ on an’ on. Guess what, sunshine? Yer brothers don’t give a great flyin’ shit about yer! Why else would they ‘ave left you to wither away in fuckin’ Foxholt? I bet they didn’t even look for yer!”
His eyes were wild, just like he was-Charlie got like this sometimes and it was impossible to stop once he started. It simply all cascaded out, tons upon tons of bile and hate and vicious scorn, lashing out at everyone and everything. Even now he was struggling in Isaac’s grasp, squirming like a savage creature and after a moment Isaac let go of him, too disgusted to touch him. Too raw from his words.
“Charlie...” There was a threat in his voice.
“Yer know what? Yer know what?” Charlie rubbed at his neck obsessively before leaping forwards, eyes narrowed, alcohol heavy on his breath. “We ain’t never seen ‘ead nor tail of yer damn brothers. ‘Ow do yer even know they exist, eh? Maybe yer made them up. Little imaginary friends when you was all alone in Foxholt, tryin’ desperately to tell yerself that yer father was so soddin’ great. Maybe they ain’t real. Maybe they never were. Maybe you-...”
He didn’t get further because Isaac’s fist smashed into his jaw with enough force to knock his head back against the wall. The lull lasted a heartbeat and then the two were at each other’s throats. Isaac had never attacked Charlie before, not physically-not to more of an extent than restraining him in any case. Now he assailed him like he wanted to kill him.
The two scrabbled and scrapped and fists and nails met flesh time and time again, but what it came around to in the end was Isaac grabbing Charlie by the shoulders and wrestling him to the ground with such force that Charlie was winded, Isaac’s knees hard in his stomach. Instinctively and at ridiculous speed, Isaac’s fist whirled back to his ear, ready to land a punch that would probably burst Charlie’s skull against the cobbles, other hand tight around Charlie’s greasy collar.
It was here of course that he stopped; fist raised, breathing hard.
Isaac was bleeding from a split lip and had bruises rising all over his body. Beneath him, pinned to the cobbles, Charlie’s face looked like he had gone ten rounds with an ape-not that this was unusual for Charlie, but for a moment Isaac could scarcely believe that he had caused those injuries.
He could also scarcely believe that he was there, in the victor’s position. Even as he had thrown the first punch, Isaac had never for a moment imagined that he’d win.
But things had changed. When they’d been eight-year-olds on the run from Foxholt Alley Orpahange, Charlie had been the big tough one. But Isaac had grown. Burliness was in the Prowse genes; around the age of fourteen he had suddenly shot up, while Charlie’s lack of food and constant brawls had made him scrawny.
His breaths rasped. Pain began to finally get through to his mind that previously had been blocked with anger. Isaac was suddenly glad that he didn’t have his knives on him. Hesitantly, he lowered his fist.
“Fuckin’ wimp,” Charlie croaked from beneath him, blood spilling out of the corner of his mouth.
Tempted as he was to hit him again, Isaac-by some ludicrous miracle-found his lips twisting into a grin. He slowly stood up, removing his knees carefully from Charlie’s midsection, and then offered down a hand to help him up. Charlie looked at his hand with disgust, but after a few moments of sliding on the slimy cobblestones, arms like noodles, he grudgingly accepted it.
The two stood, hands joined as though they were shaking them, meeting for the first time. They both let go quickly, Charlie stuffing his hands into his pockets and staring at the floor, Isaac wiping blood from his face.
It was silent. The night was heavy and the sky wreathed with a thin layer of constantly moving cloud, a cold slice of moon glowing ethereal through its grey veil. The atmosphere was damp and sharp.
“Let’s go ‘ome,” Charlie muttered, spitting a string of blood at the side of the alehouse.
Isaac took a deep breath.
“All right.”
They walked. It was cold, but they were used to that-and at least they weren’t sleeping on the streets any more. They’d found a little room in the back of an inn, nowhere fancy, with only hay to sleep on; but it was a start. London was dark and winding around them but they knew their footing well: the two bloody-faced boys walked side by side, avoiding each other’s gazes, sloping with their bodies curled inwards.
“Zac...”
“Hm?”
“Sorry.”