Chapter Text
Big brother’s home.
“Welcome back,” you say. He sets his jaw and walks straight to the fridge; IPA, he likes to splurge.
It only takes him one to get drunk. You know that. He’s skinnier than he needs to be for his height, five feet, ten inches, he tells people he’s 5'11" but you know that’s not right because you know everything about your big brother.
He’s got those sanpaku eyes, white on three sides and bushy eyebrows and an oily face that feels gross when it touches yours. And that patchy beard he only shaves once a week. He's got a white shirt he wears every day and only washes every other week, and a pair of Carhartts that look dirtier in the morning when he puts them on than when he gets back in the afternoon.
You know all that, and you know after one beer, he’s not really drunk, but he says he is, he says he’s had a long day but every day is a long day. He never really seems happy when he’s home. You wonder what he’s like when he’s at work.
He’s on the couch now, stuffing his lip with brown shreds and spitting the excess into red plastic cups laid all over the coffee table. “Where’s the remote?” he asks, and he doesn’t say it mean, but you flinch anyway.
“I don’t know,” you say. You’re in the entryway between the kitchen and the living room. He’s never told you to greet him at the door like that, or wait around in the kitchen, but he gets cross if you don’t, so you set an alarm 30 minutes before he gets home. He always has a rough day, and he needs you to make it okay. So at 4:30 you always go and hang around in the kitchen, in the Carolina heat, unless it's winter and then it's just Carolina warm.
“You move it or somethin’?” he asks, rifling around. “How come you don’t clean but you’re always movin’ my shit?”
“I didn’t move it,” you implore. “I been in bed all day." You thread your fingers together anxiously. He's got that burn in his voice he gets when he wants to do something bad.
Your big brother sighs, one of those long, drawn-out sighs like he’s trying very hard not to get angry, trying very hard not to say, "Fuckin' liar."
“Anything to eat?” He says that instead.
“We got leftover pizza,” you say sheepishly. There's not many ingredients in the fridge, just eggs and soda and toast and baking soda (you forgot what for). Stuff like that. There's bags from every fast food joint in a five-mile radius all over the counter.
He doesn’t look at you, just runs his front teeth over his bottom lip. It's dry and chapped and bruised from where those teeth might dig in. He stands up and starts to disembowel the sofa.
“Want me to heat you up some?” you ask.
“Yeah,” he replies.
You scurry over to the fridge and take out some crusty, dried-up pizza from the night before and set it in the microwave, one minute always leaves it a little undercooked so you do it a little extra. And when it’s done, you put a little Tabasco on it like he likes it.
You walk over to him with the pizza on a paper plate and feel yourself tense up as you enter a five-foot radius of him, because now you’re in his range. Within that one-minute-and-some-change he found the remote and he’s watching something dumb, that’s what you’ve come to expect. It’s a cartoon but they’re cursing and stuff so you guess that makes it for grown-ups. That’s what big brother says at least, that you shouldn’t watch it, but when he’s home he watches it so that basically means you have to watch it too.
He tells you to sit down so you do. You know it’s coming. It’s not like you can change anything. So you just sit down. You’re a lot shorter than him, like almost a foot shorter, and you’re a lot weaker than him, too. He’s not that strong, but he’s still stronger than you. So you just sit down.
He's working on that pizza and smacking his lips and burping every once in a while. You've told him it's kinda rude but he doesn't care, he says it's fine if it's just in front of you. 'Cuz you're not a real lady. You’re wearing some panties and a t-shirt. He never tells you to wear that, but if you wear anything else he just ends up taking it off anyways. Except some of that other stuff he bought for you, the thighhighs and the collar and the headband with the ears, you don’t really get it but it seems to make him happy.
It’s not like you ever really leave the house, anyways, except for when he sends you to the gas station or the grocery store to get whatever. Going to the gas station isn’t so bad because it’s only two blocks but the grocery store sucks because it’s six and you’re not allowed to drive his car, not yet, but he promises when you get older he’ll teach you. And it’s not like it’s all bad either, when you go to the gas station he gives you a gram of weed just for you, and when you go to the store he gives you even more, depending on how much stuff you get. And he even lets you keep the change.
When you’re really good though, he gives you even better stuff. Little off-white tablets cut into four quarters. You really, really like those. They turn your brain off, and let you forget you’re a person. You’ll do anything for those.
And he knows it, and you know it, and you both know it, so he’s touching your thighs while you watch TV and nobody bats an eye. Well, touching isn’t the right word, because he’s squeezing really hard, his hands are so bony, and it kinda hurts. But it feels kinda good, too. But even if it feels good, it doesn't make you happy.
You know he shouldn’t be doing that to you. But there’s not really anything you can do. It was different when you were little. When it started. Back when Dad was still around to stop him. But Dad couldn’t stop everything. He couldn’t stop your big brother sneaking into your room at night and teaching you what it meant to feel good. Dad couldn’t stop him kissing you, and touching you. Dad was jealous, that’s what your big brother said, jealous he didn’t get to you first.
You know he shouldn’t be but he’s doing it anyway. So you look down and to the left and let him do whatever he wants, because even if you don’t wanna admit it it feels kinda good when your whole face goes red and he puts his hand down your underwear and touches you and you spread your legs for him and whine into his shoulder while he sips his IPA and watches cartoons for big kids. His fingers are covered in cuts and burns, the pads callused from playing guitar.
“Neil, stop,” you say. Your head’s fuzzy and your eyes are closed, because if you close your eyes, it feels a little less real.
You say that and it makes him grab onto you harder, shoveling his fingers in and out of you and your whole lower body spasms. You're panting, and your diaphragm pumps air in and out.
He picks up your burning cheeks in his big rough hands that feel like cold metal tree branches and stares at your lazy eyes as they half-open, same as your mouth, half-open. You can taste his breath floating into you, sausage and cheese and hot sauce and gastric acid. You see the switch flip in his head and he bites your neck, hard, not one of those love bites, but a hard bite, a hate bite, like he really can’t stand you, like you’re a burden on him, like every day he’s had to take care of you since Dad kicked you two out when he found you fucking in the bathroom has been a chore.
And you scream, of course you scream, you always scream, and that just makes it worse, makes him want to hurt you more, so he does, he always does, always pushes you down and unzips his pants and shuffles on top of you until he’s sitting on your nearly-flat chest. You can't hardly breathe, and he starts humping your face and now you really can't breathe, and the back of your head gets pushed into the cushions, and the entrance to your throat barely fits him.
He doesn’t always do that, though. Some days he does other stuff. Some days all you have to do is just sit there, and he just rubs on you a bit, and then it’s done. Some days he just looks at you. Some days he does nothing at all. But today he’s decided he’s going to use your mouth.
So you sit there and take it, just like you always do, eyes down and to the left, try and pretend like you’re anywhere else but in your body that isn’t even yours, it’s his.
And of course you feel it coming, he stops moving and almost collapses and cums weakly in your mouth. It’s not a lot so you don’t mind swallowing even though it tastes so bad. And he pants, and says he’s sorry. Sometimes he cries. He does today. He sobs and holds onto you and begs you to forgive him, says he’s a terrible brother, says he’s a bad person, says he should kill himself but he has to stay alive so he can take care of you. And sometimes you cry too, but not today. Today, you just lay there and tell him it’s okay, even though you know it’s not.
And he says he loves you; “You know I love you, right?” he says. “I promise I’ll get better," he says. "I’ll get better for you.” He says that a lot, says he’ll stop drinking, smoking weed, doing the pills, and the white powder he only lets you sniff if you're really, really, really good. He says he'll quit nicotine, so he stops dipping and starts vaping, and then when he stops vaping, he starts smoking cigarettes, but then you complain about the smell and get into a fight about it and he's right back to dipping again — and it's your fault, because he was trying to quit.
He’ll get better tomorrow. He said so. It’s just been a really rough day, and he really needs this, okay? So stay here.
He gets up and goes somewhere, where he doesn’t tell you, because he’s going to get some pills. A blue one for him and an off-white one for you. He sits down and says tomorrow, he'll flush 'em all down the toilet, or sell 'em to Jimmy.
“How much you want today?”
“Can I have two?” you ask.
So he gives you two quarters of the off-white tablet. A whole half. You can feel your legs tingling already.
He holds your cheek. “Open your mouth.” So you open it, wide for your big brother and he puts it on your tongue and you swallow it dry.
And it’s all over again, that funny feeling slipping into your veins and working its way through all 80 pounds of your body, and you can feel yourself turning into his doll. And you don’t really want to be, but you kind of do, but not really, but at least now you can close your eyes while you figure it out, and somewhere far away, it'll feel a little bit good.
He takes off your clothes for you just like he always does. Sometimes he puts on new ones, but it looks like he’s feeling lazy today, so he takes you as you are. Just you and nothing else. He doesn’t need to pretend you’re anything else, he just picks you up, turns you around, and holds you up in the air by the waist, and you bend over and back up into him out of habit, out of instinct, so he can press into you even harder than he was before.
And it doesn’t feel real at first, when it’s all still kicking in. But the more he does it, the better it feels, the more you come back into your own body and remember just how much you love him. You flex into him so he can hit the good spots. You say his name to remind him he's real. You’ve learned more about each other’s bodies, more than any pair of siblings ever should, but that’s okay. Because there’s nothing else left but you and him. No one’s coming to save either of you.