Septys Nohve Lexig || One (FIN)

XX

Dark, heavily lidded eyes focus upon the lonely text, scanning fitfully left and right across the page. The bastard didn't pay rent again, the unpleasant task of finding the landlord fell upon the oldest yet again. Fumbling through the empty house, he trips across crinkled rugs and a tipped over chair.

To the closet he moves, picking apart the double door, fingers extending to the top shelf. After feeling around for a few moments he withdraws a very old looking book, cover pealing, page slightly askew. Pages poke out, no longer glued to the spine. He flicks it open and offers a low sigh.

Sitting in a hollowed alcove, is rent. A slight smile rises to thin lips as he moves, pocketing the money and replacing the torn book. Lanky legs carry him out into the open, away from a broken home.

Back stiff, straight beyond reason, he struts, lips pressed into the thinnest of lines.

Slender fingers ruffle perfectly slicked down hair, his heart pounding viciously against his sternum. He yearns to fly, to be away from this broken family, yet he lingers, stuck harder than wallpaper smeared on a wall just the tiniest bit crooked. Bangs fall onto an elongated forehead, pointed cheekbones flare upwards, thinned lips pressed down.

The eldest brother continues to walk, his steps clop-clop-clopping down an empty boulevard. The moment is bittersweet- both thankful the money remained in the closet, though rent stayed unpaid. Neither his father, nor a brother found the latest hiding place.

The permanent frown etched into his face, wrinkling forehead radiates the male's outward personality; completely serious, worried, and the shrug of his shoulders echo the weight of ten thousand pounds of responsibility.

He reminisces about his childhood as he walks, hands dangling limply at his sides as he moves, dark eyes cast upon the ground. Together, before the birth of his youngest sibling, the family would walk here- a mother, a father, three dashing young boys.

Fuck.

All he wants is another moment like that, wandering through the sunset with family close by, four blank slates ready to be painted as magnificent portraits of perfection - not an empty shell, a thieving crossdresser, a boy too old for his age, and god knows what Octys is growing into.

Why had it all so suddenly fallen on him like ten thousand angry bricks- raising three younger brothers, struggling between iron-clad fists, and gentle, loving caresses.

Septys will never have children of his own after the experience.

As it is, he practically radiates exhaustion and age, running from place to place, placating furious teachers, classmates, even their own ghostly father some nights. All he wants is happiness, that innocence long lost to the winds, when their support, a caring mother, smeared her skull against a wall.

How much could she have cared, then, if she abandoned five souls to the ages? Couldn't she have stuck around for a few years at the very least, try to set her son straight?

Oh the irony.

The same, but separate.
Together, yet with an immeasurable amount of space and distance between them.

He's thankful he never spoke of his own relationships to the woman, and aches for the pain she must have felt- keeping awake, a watchful vigil for a middle child to return home who may never see the light of day again, fear gripping the ever longing heart, side by side with a man who can do nothing but watch and wait.

He inhales deeply, shaking away the feelings of dread, and steps into the office.