My first fic for Alternative NaNoWriMo. (Alternative NaNoWriMo - One drabble fic each day of November inspired by a Radical Face song.)

November 1 - Wrapped In Piano Strings

No part of a book ever messed me up quite the way that Tom Berenson did. This being the result.

They cut your eyes wide open

And pour into your precious head

My reach don't go that far dear

But please oh please don't let them in

- Radical Face 'Wrapped In Piano Strings'

He can't remember the last thing he said to Jake, that morning before they left for school. He had to be in early to turn in some project and Jake was sitting at the kitchen table with impressively messy hair and eyes still half closed with sleep. A few words must have been exchanged as he ran out the door, jacket halfway on and backpack dangling from one shoulder, but Tom can't remember what they were.

Of all the things Tom could be worried about, this is probably one of the most trivial, but something about it unsettles him greatly. There isn't much to do when you're locked inside your own head. Especially after he stopped fighting it.

(He had wanted to keep fighting, wanted to fight as long and hard as he could, until there wasn't a single piece of himself left to fight with, but he had to think about Jake.)

The thing in his head talks to him. Taunts him. Tells him what it could do to Jake if it wanted, how easy it would be to strangle the boy with Tom's strong hands, hands he has no control over. It talks to Jake in Tom's voice, says things about school and about their parents, and Tom feels sick. He wants to scream at the thing to get away from his kid brother, but it just laughs, tells him 'one good shove and he goes right down those stairs tell me, human, how do you think it would feel to stand here and watch him fall', and says aloud, "See you later, Jake."

Tom feels sick, as much as he can feel anything anymore.

He imagines a conversation with Jake sometimes, imagines apologizing to the kid for abandoning him, for following a pretty girl to the Sharing and getting himself infested, for not protecting him the way older siblings are supposed to protect the younger ones.

Tom imagines telling Jake to never stop fighting, to never give into them. 'Never let them into your head, squirt, in the figurative or the literal sense, hang onto who you are and give 'em hell.'

The days get longer and longer and it feels like none of it will ever end, and slowly Tom resigns himself to the fact that he's never going to be free of them. He'll live as a passive observer to his own life, to the atrocities committed by a thing wearing his face, until the day he dies, and he won't ever get the chance to hug his parents or tell Jake he's sorry.

The years pass just as he knows they will, people die and live and break and put themselves back together, and Tom watches his hands deal destruction and pain, unable to do a thing to stop it. He still sometimes tries to think back to what the last thing he said to Jake was, that morning it all started.

He never does remember.

...

The morning had a normal, if rushed, feel to it. Tom had an assignment to turn in to his math teacher, already several days overdue. He had to get it in before school that morning or else his grade would drop five percent. Jake was groaning about some history assignment he didn't understand, about how unfair the teacher was, playing favorites and taking sides. Tom was only half listening, downing cereal and a glass of orange juice in record time, already running late.

"Tell you what, I'll help you with it when I get home from the new club, okay?" Tom called over his shoulder as he rushed for the door, looking back briefly as he pulled it open. Flashed a grin at his brother. "See you tonight, Jake."

The door had closed behind him before Jake could respond.