A/N: Yay for more FB fanfic! This was written for FourBrothers100 challenge on LiveJournal, for the prompt: "Insides."
No slash intended! Please read and review!
Theme song: "Breathe Me" by Sia.
Told
Jack tried to convince himself that he should get up and go out. Hell, even going downstairs would be good. But his motivation to leave his bed was almost nonexistent. It was dark in his room, even though it must've been past 5 o'clock. None of the lights were on, and the window only let in cut up rays of pale February light. He was thinking too much again.
"Jack, are you home?" Evelyn called from downstairs, having just arrived from work. She shut the door, making her way toward the kitchen with a bag of groceries tucked in one arm.
"Yeah," Jack yelled, not even lifting his head up.
Evelyn set the bag down on the counter, along with her keys. She headed back out the door for the others bags she'd left in the car, calling out to Jack that she thought she'd make a salad with dinner. Jack sighed to himself, partially wanting to get his headphones and listen to music, but the prospect of moving still failed to appeal.
He wished he had been born into this house. He wished he really did belong to Evelyn. He wishes he really did belong with Bobby and Jerry and Angel. He wished it were natural. He wished it had been like this from the start. Why did he have to be born to fuck-off parents and go through the hell of foster care? What had he done to deserve that?
Because either he deserved this house and family and had been unjustly forced to live through the previous years – or he deserved all the shit he'd suffered and didn't deserve how good he had it now.
He was somehow more inclined to believe the latter.
His brothers had often ragged on him about thinking too much. He couldn't help himself as long as he didn't have answers, though. He would bring up this particular dilemma to one of his brothers if he could be sure they wouldn't berate him for stupidity, but since that reaction was almost a given, he had no choice but to reach a conclusion on his own.
He had been told many times that he was wanted here, that he was cared for and loved. But none of that meant he deserved it. No one had ever really told him that he deserved it. He could remember countless old foster parents telling him what he did deserve: nothing, punishment, pain, abuse, not love or a family, not food or sacrifice. Even though part of him wanted to believe better, he could still remember it all clearly.
He heard someone else come into the house as he shut his eyes. Bobby. It must've been Bobby. It was still too early for Angel to come back. Sure enough, he could barely make out his mom greeting his eldest brother, but he didn't smile.
Bobby was currently on a stretch of staying home. He had been gone long term twice already, first for six months and then for a year and a half. None of them much asked where he went or what he did, and he didn't explain. They knew he'd done some jail time.
Jack was sixteen now, almost seventeen, and he had moments where he felt Bobby was bailing out on something really important. Jack was nearing adulthood, and he was in this strange place where he was analyzing himself and his life and trying to get comfortable in a long-term identity. He was unsure and insecure and, true to his childhood personality, in constant need of love. It wasn't because he didn't receive it from his mom and, sometimes, his brothers. It was just Jack being Jack and never having enough. He figured, though, that not being satisfied was either ungrateful or unmanly, and he wasn't about to give his family a real reason to resent him or look down on him.
"Hey, Jack."
Bobby pushed the door open and leaned against the post.
"What's up?"
"Nothin'," Jack sighed.
"Doesn't sound that way."
Jack rolled his eyes. Bobby knew his family too well.
"I'm fine."
"It's almost six o'clock. Why don't you have any lights on in here?"
"I don't need any."
Bobby moved and shut the door behind him, sitting in the chair opposite the bed.
"You're mopin'. Tell me what's up."
"Moping? I'm not moping. I'm lying on my bed. What the hell is wrong with that?"
"Whatever, man. You know I'm not leavin' until you 'fess up."
Jack sighed again. Sometimes he wanted to tell his brothers to just fuck off.
"I was just thinking."
"That's your problem, Jackie-poo. You think too much."
Jack stared immovably at his ceiling, his chest rising and falling visibly.
"So what were you thinking about?"
Jack shrugged uselessly into the mattress. He waited a few minutes, but Bobby didn't move or stop looking at him expectantly. Jack wanted to kick something.
"God damn it, Bobby. I was just thinking about my life, okay? Can't you go bug mom?"
"What about your life?"
"I don't know what I deserve," Jack blurted, regretting it even before he was done saying it.
"What? What the fuck do you mean?"
"Forget it. Forget I said anything."
Jack finally flopped off the bed and made for the door, but Bobby stopped him forcefully. Jack sighed, not in the mood to fight. Bobby held the door shut.
"What do you mean you don't know what you deserve?
"I don't know if I deserve the life I got here or the one I had beforehand," said Jack, looking right at his brother, a tuft of hair dangling above his eyes like a patio shade.
"You can't be serious," said Bobby. Jack moved away from the door, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets.
"No one here ever told me. You told me you care and you want me around and all that shit, but you never told me what I deserve. Not even Mom ever told me I deserve this."
"How the fuck could you think you don't, Jack?"
"I don't know either way! That's the point! Someone's gotta tell me!"
"Why? You think for a second you actually deserved all the shit that happened to you before you were a Mercer? Because if you didn't have doubts, you wouldn't need anyone else to tell you anything, Jack."
Bobby's face was creased with a deep frown, and Jack didn't know what to say. He shouldn't have brought it up. No way to get out of it now.
"All I ever heard for years was that I didn't deserve anything good and did deserve all the shit I got. I come here and ya'll say you want me and care about me, but no one ever says I deserve it. No one ever did, Bobby. How could you expect me to just figure it out myself?"
Bobby gave him a hard stare, not knowing how to answer right away.
"Jack – you do deserve this. You deserve everything we've given you. Otherwise, we wouldn't have given it. You didn't deserve any of that other shit. How could you? You were just a fuckin' kid."
"Mom's given all this to a shit load of children. Does that mean every single one is deserving? Or is it really just her giving because she wants to?"
"Jack, she didn't adopt all those other kids, did she!"
"Maybe that's because all the others could actually get taken by someone else! Maybe that's because she knew if she didn't take us in, no one else would! Because I don't deserve it!" Jack shouted.
"Of course you deserve it, Jack! She didn't take you in because she couldn't find someone else for you! She did it because she wanted you! She did it because we all did!"
"That doesn't mean I deserve this! It doesn't mean I didn't deserve all the other shit that happened first! If I didn't, then why the hell did it happen, Bobby? Why?"
"I don't know, Jack! Shit just happens! It doesn't mean it should've. It doesn't mean you deserved it."
"If I didn't deserve that, how come I deserve this? Do I just deserve whatever it is you want me to deserve?"
"No! You deserve this because you're a good person! Wake the fuck up, Jack! You're less badass than any of us! How could you not deserve a good home? You haven't done half the shit I've done! You think you deserve to get the shit beat out of you? You think you deserve to be starved and yelled at and molested and all that shit?"
Bobby was shouting now, too, and Jack winced painfully at the reminder of what his old life had been, feeling his heart clench up.
"Do you?" Bobby yelled. "Tell me! Do you deserve that?"
"I don't know," Jack murmured quietly.
"Why would you, Jack? Give me one God damn reason!"
Jack shook his head a little, suddenly small and sad. "I don't know."
He backed up against the window, eyes set on the floor. Even with his jacket one, he could feel the cold glass and metal press against his back. He lay his head back and shut his eyes, gripping the windowsill.
"I'll give you one," said Bobby. "You deserve this because you're my brother."
Jack opened his eyes to look at him, still pressed against the window, trapped. He looked like he might cry, though neither of them knew exactly why he would. Bobby moved to stand right up in front of Jack, leaving little room between them. They shared a close stare, and Bobby grew quiet.
"You deserve this because you're my baby brother. You never deserved anything else."
Jack felt something wet slide down his face. Somebody had finally told him.