Disclaimer: I don't own Sorcerer Hunters, but I shall blatantly abuse Carrot until the world ends. Thank you.

Disillusion

When did I know that I loved my brother in an unconventional matter? You could say that, as I matured, my feelings matured. Or perhaps you could simply blame hormones and the uncertainty inherent in existence. Twelve years of age found me bowled over with a series of the most erotic dreams I have ever experienced. What I found most disturbing, or rather exhilarating, was that my partner was not some nonentity female apparition. I dreamt of my brother.

Perverted? Most certainly, but who has the power to control his own unconscious mind? I am certain that there is some clinical term, perhaps even a cure. However, I do not need a diagnosis or a cure. He is a part of me that I will never be rid of, and I prefer it that way.

At twelve I could no longer see him as simply my brother, yet I was all too conscious of society. Everyone knows incest is the lowest anathema. Even at that young age I was not immune to the omniscient censure of the world about me. I must admit to a certain childishness in the way I approached my new feelings. Touches became more than casual in my own mind. Looks became filled with meanings that weren't there. My heart was in my mouth whenever he smiled at me. And all the while society watched with raptor eyes.

I would like to claim maturity in regards to my unnatural desire for my brother, but that would be a lie. I know I am a shell, a covering if you were. People often find it hard to believe that I am the younger sibling. They wouldn't if they knew of the naivete I still harbor inside.

I still believe my brother could love me that way.

*          *          *

"Marron, we need to talk." I stared blankly at my older brother. He looked grave. He looked uncomfortable. In fact, this was the first time he had spoken to me since my disastrous. The abatement of his illness had not brought about reconciliation. He remained distant and unapproachable for several days after regaining his health. I felt monumental change in the air.

"Okay." My eloquence fled. I could hear the hateful panic and insecurity in my voice. He did not seem to notice. His dark brown eyes were shadowed with weighty thoughts. He must have been mulling over our situation under his veil of silence. It was too much to hope for a return of my level of affection. I resigned myself to rejection and whether it entailed a physical or emotional separation. He was my brother. I loved him, loved him in sin.

I followed his lanky body away from this night's campsite. I felt Tira's curious eyes follow our departure. Her approval of our renewed communication trailed after us. She did not know the cause of the rift between my brother and I, and I was not so foolish, or arrogant, to believe her opinion of me would remain unchanged if she were to know. She was not a simple young woman, but she still believed in the power of communication. She was the type of person who liked to try reason before action.

A sickening apprehension boiled in my stomach as the forest closed about us. I would not cry upon his decision, but to feel nothing asked too much of me.

I watched him pace back and forth. His spiky hair drooped under the constant motion of his hands through it. An urge to reach out and smooth it down found me raising my hand a few inches. Hastily I stilled it. He failed to notice for his own thoughts consumed him. I waited impatiently. I simply wanted him to blurt out whatever he felt he needed to say so that we could move on. The wait was playing havoc with my nerves.

With an almost inaudible sigh he shook his head and turned to face me. He stared at a spot just past my right shoulder. It seemed as though he still couldn't bring himself to look me in the eye. I restrained my own sigh. Depression weighed heavily upon my shoulders.

"I…" He faltered and scratched his head. He seemed decidedly uncomfortable. What I wouldn't give to take everything back. Or, perhaps, I wouldn't. I found my own mind buried beneath a deluge of conflicting thoughts.

"Brother?" He flinched. Pain lanced my very being. He never flinched before when I called to him.

"That's right," he murmured softly. His brown eyes briefly caught mine before sliding away. "We are brothers. It wouldn't work. You know…" Oh how I knew. "Besides, I, you know, like girls." He laughed forcibly.

"What about Mille?" The words slipped out before I could stop them. They hung in the air like drifts of poisonous clouds. He blinked in confusion. I had just let slip my twisted act of voyeurism.

"M-Mille? What about him?"

Too late, much too late, to retract my careless question, my only recourse was to plow on.

"I saw…"

"You s-saw?" In the wan light I saw him pale horribly. Then blood rushed into his cheeks and he flushed deeply. A string of inarticulate evasions poured from his panicked mouth. Inexplicably, anger welled up within me. For the first time in my conscious memory, I was infuriated with my brother. I had no true reason, besides his inane attempts to brush off the incident in the hallway.

"Brother, stop it." His voiced died away. He looked shocked that such a harsh, unforgiving tone could come from my mouth. In truth, I was surprised as well. "Just tell me what you were trying to say before."

"Yeah…We're brothers—"

"You have mentioned that already."

"And it wouldn't work."

*          *          *

Carrot Glace shifted restlessly under the piercing, dissecting gaze of his younger brother. Everything he had wanted to say, his explanations and defenses, had sounded perfect in his head. He had rehearsed everything he was going to say a hundred times. And this was what he had to show for it: nothing.

Marron glared at him, truly glared. Unease skittered up the older boy's spine.

"You're my little brother," he continued, "And…I love you, but not that way. You know what, this is probably just some phase. You just need to see more of the world." He watched his brother's face smooth out and become completely expressionless. A strange electricity raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

"You do not understand, brother. This is not some fickle fixation." The younger boy shook his head derisively. Exasperation surged and ebbed about him as he attempted to reign in his emotions. Carrot took a surreptitious step back.

"I'm sorry?" he offered lamely.

"Everything is falling apart, isn't it?"

"Uh?"

Marron stared thoughtfully at his older brother. Carrot shuffled in place. Things were slowly spiraling out of control. First Mille and now his little brother, did the Gods hate him? Did They have some huge meeting and decide to make his life hell?

"Brother, I want you to listen to me."

"Sure…"

"I want you. I love you. I…I'm in love with you. This will not fade. This is not caused by some external pressure. This is me." Carrot winced at the pain filling his brother's measured voice. This wasn't how his life was supposed to be. These weren't the dilemmas, the problems he was supposed to face.

"But, Marron, we're—"

"You think I've forgotten? I know we are brothers. I know I am related to you and you to me. I know all about the sin of incest. Why does that have to matter?" Carrot sputtered unintelligibly for a few seconds. How was he supposed to respond? What was the right course to take?

Every further second in his brother's agitated presence sent him reeling into a primordial darkness. Everything was out of control. His regular, banal life had crumbled around him like a house of cards. He felt small and vulnerable.

"Why?" He wanted to run away screaming. He wanted to curl into a ball and cry.

He wanted to be held.

"Brother…" Cool fingertips touched his face. He flinched away.

"Why, Marron? Why me?" The younger boy laughed softly, sorrowfully.

"Why not? You are the most honest, open person I know. You've known me forever. You know me from when I was a crying child always being bullied by others." Carrot turned his face away. The urge to bolt set his body shaking. Or maybe that was because of…

"Maybe this simply cannot be explained. Maybe that is why it hurts so much." The older boy stiffened as he found himself trapped in a tight embrace. "I just want you. Why does it have to be more complicated?"

Slowly Carrot relaxed. Marron just seemed to want a hug. He could handle that. He wanted to comfort his brother, despite the unsettling confession, but he didn't want to that relationship with him. Hell, he didn't want that kind of relationship with any guy.

What about Mille?

What about him? Those encounters hadn't meant anything. The boy determinedly pushed back fevered images of the effeminate knight. He would not think about skillful fingers caressing him or a hot mouth devouring his own. He would not think about the assortment of helpless noises that poured from his lips. Dammit, he wasn't going to think about that.

If it hadn't been for that insufferable Haz Knight, his life would still be moving along at its own complacent pace, intermixed with moments of blinding intensity. He didn't know for sure, but he was willing to blame Mille Feuille for his brother's impromptu confession. After all, the knight was the root of Carrot's current problems, so why not add in Marron's as well?

"Marron?" His brother remained silent. Carrot tried to wiggle free of the embrace but found that he couldn't. "Are you okay?" A soft sigh met his query and the arms tightened. Carrot found himself nearly smothered against the smooth cloth of his brother's shoulder. After a few moments the arms loosened and he could draw in grateful breaths.

"I am fine. I just…What do we do now, brother?"

"I-uh…"

"We cannot go back to the way things were. We would be living a lie then."

Carrot forced a laughed. "Lies are fun."

"No."

"Uh?"

"I refuse to pretend. I'm tired of secrecy and facades," Marron whispered sadly, "Do you still want me around?"

Carrot wanted to scream. Why was Marron making this so difficult? He was perfectly willing to pretend that nothing had happened. Everything would go back to normal. That's what he wanted. He didn't want his little brother to feel unwanted or to feel that Carrot had rejected him. He needed Marron's calm strength. He needed his presence. He wanted to be the strong older brother, the one who protected the younger, but he couldn't. He knew that all too well. He was useless unless someone threw magic at him.

"I don't want you to go. I need you here," he answered haltingly. Marron was the only close family he had left. His father, damn the jerk, was not someone he liked to hang around with. His little brother had always been his confidant.

"Brother…" Marron released him and stepped back. The cold rushed in to fill the voice where his warmth had been. The older boy shivered. The younger boy watched him with unreadable black eyes. 

"I know what you believe, that's fine. You don't have to pretend or whatever, just…I'm not willing to be anything but your older brother."

"My older brother?"

"Only that. I'm sorry, but that's how it has to be." Carrot mentally congratulated himself. He sounded reasonable and mature, quite a feat to be sure. Maybe Marron couldn't lie to himself, but Carrot suffered no such disabilities. In no time at all their relationship would be back to normal. Just brothers, that's right.

*          *          *

"Why?" My brother stared at me in bewilderment. I refused to let him continue with his life pretending our ill-fated conversation had never taken place.

"Why?" he repeated.

"You say it is because I am male, yet you have been with Mille, as far as I know. You bring up the fact that we are related. Why does any of this matter?" I wanted to enfold him in my arms again. It had felt so right when I had. Though he had remained rigid for a few minutes, his relaxation into my embrace could be likened to a homecoming. A deep-seated yearning tugged my nerves to strings.

"It just does." He looked away, refused to meet my eyes. Turmoil rolled around him, through him.

As I watched him wrestle with his own thoughts, a new determination suffused my entirety. I was through with pining away. I was through with guilt and sorrow. Mille had told me to be the hunter, the pursuer, and that was what I would be.

"I respect your decision." Relief swept across his face. He grinned with the same impish curving of lips I remembered from before my confession. With that look the last remnants of my irrational anger deliquesced. I never could be angry with him for long, especially not when he smiled so freely, so earnestly.

Most people wouldn't call him beautiful, but that was because they only saw a portion of him. I have seen it all. He has a beautiful soul.

Watching his smile from days gone by, I almost rescinded my notion of pursuing him. For a moment I could imagine everything returning to normal. The bittersweet ache of unfulfilled yearning filled me. No, I could not go to the way things were before, not when I had had a glimpse of paradise, heaven, eternal joy, whatever one might choose to call this divine bliss. 

*          *          *

From Sarryn:

Long delay, and again I find myself needing to apologize. This story requires serious inspiration. When it comes it comes, and when it doesn't, well, you can see the results. Enough said, ne?

I have decided on the pairings. Huzzah. And I have decided that the next chapter will have a lemon. Look for it at mediaminer.org or adultfanfiction.net. Unless, of course, I feel particularly bold, then I will post it at ff.net.

Now please REVIEW!!

Next Chapter:

Marron pursues Carrot. Mille comes back into the picture.

From Sarryn:

More things to say. More things to do.