Brotherly Bonding (Meghan)

Little brothers are just smaller targets, built to squish and smash and torment. Nobody said I had to get along with the miniature version of myself, and I certainly never intended to. It was because of his existence that I was forced to share my inheritance. My life was squared away, all my coins in a line ready to be spent at my leisure, and then the monster was born. The boy that made the veins on my head swell, swell, swell uncontrollably until I represented a mutant more than a man. The boy that forced me to drown myself in a sea of red wine and cheap beer until every memory of him was forgotten for the evening.

I wanted to kill him half the time. I wanted to drive a knife through his eye and paint the world with his blood. But hush, that wasn't my duty. He would get that if he ever entered the games and it was my job to protect him.

They expected that much of me, and I at least knew to live up to expectations. They would never doubt me if I did that.

"A-A-Achilles." I greeted coldly, placing a firm hand on the shoulder of my brothers back as he lifted a blade to throw. "You m-mustn't play with f-f-fire. You might get... get burned."

"A-Always a ch-ch...how do you s-say that word?...charm...charmer, t-there we go. Aren't you, A-A-Achilles? What a dar-darling." My palms shook with every broken word. I could feel my breath catch between phrases, and I knew that my face was slowly gaining color behind my eyes. The atmosphere of the room was growing denser, and I knew that I would lose it if Achilles said something about my increasingly worse stutter.

The worst kind of betrayal,
Is when those who should believe in you,
Do not.
The worst kind of pain,
Is Knowing you're a failure,
Without even trying.*

I attempt to project confidence, but I find my fingers snaking away from my brothers back and into my pocket, where the mask I wear sits in a silver bottle.

"Fire?" I ask simply and glare a hole through the younger boys head, "Is th-that what you k-kids call it th-th-these days?" I chuckle, and pull the bottle out of my pocket. Nevermind my trainers are potentially watching. The urge for my drink is like an itch I cannot seem to tame no matter how hard I scratch it. I unscrew the lid and drink the hot liquid in one swoop. It trickles down my throat like an avalanche, painting me with the eager confidence I had forgotten only minutes before.