Chapter Seven:

It's a lazy Saturday afternoon and you're watching a foreign film in the living room. It's been a long time since you've seen hide nor hair of Bro, though there's a steady stream of food money left on the kitchen counter so you know he's been coming and going. Since you haven't seen him in so long, you've felt a lot more comfortable loitering in other parts of the house.

You've also become a lot more comfortable rearranging things to your liking. You've moved most of your game systems out into the living room, since the living room has the big screen TV. You've also moved most of the swords into the corners of the rooms and started to keep huge amounts of apple juice and microwavable pizzas in the fridge.

The futon in the living room is uncomfortable, so you've stacked some old pillows under your butt and your back. The movie you're watching is 'Goodbye, Lenin'. One of the girls from the German club loaned it to you. It's still a little weird to think of yourself as having friends in school, but you do.

You'd also joined and made friends with a bunch of kids in the anime club. You have a lot of common interests with them and enjoy discussing your favorite series and webcomics with them, despite their terrifying enthusiasm and fangirl squeals.

You'd also started to attend Tennis practice. You haven't committed to joining the team yet, but you enjoy the physical exercise and all of the guys on the team are goofy and fun. You don't strife with Bro anymore and there are no sprites to fight, so you're glad you have something physical to do.

With your newly rediscovered social life, you find yourself happily exhausted when the weekend rolls around. You know that one of the guys on the team is throwing a party at his house tonight and you're still not sure if you're going to go. At the moment, you're too immersed in the white words scrolling translations across the bottom of the screen to think about it.

It's at that moment that the front door opens behind you.

You jump about a foot in the air. You're not used to anybody coming and going in the house.

When you whip around to see who's walked in (a few kids at school know where you live, but no one's come over yet), you're surprised to find Bro standing in the doorway staring at you with the same startled expression you assume you have on your face.

He seems surprised to see you.

Bro hasn't been home on a weekend in … Well, maybe since before the game started? Since before the two of you moved out to Pasadena, surely.

The two of you share a startled look for a long moment before Bro looks away which is a surprise. You've never seen Bro break a stare first.

He quietly closes the door behind him. Much like the last time you saw Bro, he walks over to the fridge and pulls open the door. He pauses for a moment (most likely looking for a beer behind all the bottles of apple juice you've heaped in the fridge) before grabbing one and turning around and beginning to walk back the hall to his room.

You experience a moment of blind panic. Will the two of you continue to ignore each other like two ships passing in the night? You hate the idea of remaining this way forever.

Before you can think about what you're saying, you hear yourself blurt out, "Hey! Wait."

Bro pauses and turns around to regard you with tired eyes. His usually bright orange eyes have faded to the point that they almost look a regular muddled brown. His posture is somewhat stooped and his whole person screams that he's haggard and tired.

"Do you …" you start, unsure about what you want to say. "Do you want to watch a movie with me?" you ask, gesturing lamely at the TV that's still babbling in German behind you.

Bro regards you for a long moment with those dull eyes. He seems to be thinking deeply, pondering something as he stares at your face. The longer your exchange with him goes on, the more disconcerted you become. Bro had always been one for scathingly quick spontaneous action. He had never been so slow and ponderous before.

Finally, Bro nods and slowly comes around the back of the futon to plop down next to you. He grimaces as his back hits the mattress. The mattress of the futon has been worn out since before you can remember. The cloth and cotton of the futon mattress is now nearly as hard as the wooden boards that support it.

Wincing a little in surprise at Bro's open display of pain and in sympathy for his aches, you pull a pillow from behind your back and hand it over to him. Bro gives you another long sidelong glance before gingerly taking the pillow and arranging it in the small of his back.

The two of you silently watch the movie for a few tense minutes. You've reached the most climactic scene of the movie. The mother is now walking barefoot through the streets of East Berlin in her nightgown, the city bustling heedlessly all around her. As she staggers down the street, above her a larger than life statue of Lenin is being lifted through the air and away by a helicopter.

At the sight of the mother's flabbergasted expression, Bro snorts.

"What the fuck are we watching?" he asks behind a chuckle.

You can feel your whole body relax at the sound.

"Excuse me, but this is a very fine piece of foreign cinema," you respond.

Bro gives you an arch look.

"What you don't understand," you continue, "is that this fine woman had a heart attack earlier in the film and fell into a coma shortly before the Berlin wall fell. She was a devoted communist and, when she woke up, the doctor warned her two children that she mustn't have any shocks in the next six months or she might die. So, they have to put together this elaborate ruse to protect their mother from knowing that the soviet union dissolved. And, this is the pivotal moment when she realizes that everything her children told her since she woke up has been a lie."

Bro turns back to the screen with a thoughtful expression on his face. You flinch at the way his face has fallen slack with deep thought. You had hoped he would laugh in your face for taking such a movie so seriously. That he would joke and you would pose and everything would go back to normal. But, the explanation you gave him only seemed to make his expression more beleaguered.

The son of the mother is now running up to her as she kneels in shock on the dirty sidewalk. He is holding her frail looking upper arms in his hands and shaking her, trying to get her to focus on his face. The look of desperation he wears is heartfelt and the shine in his eyes doesn't look like an actor's crocodile tears.

You and Bro watch the scene unfold. The movie has a ways to go yet. You know that the run time is longer than what you're currently at. But, you're finding it hard to focus on the remainder of what you're seeing.

"Where have you been lately?" you hear yourself asking quietly. Since when were you going to ask that?

"At work," Bro answers shortly, not taking his eyes off the screen. He pops the cap off of his beer with his thumbnail like he did before and lifts it to his mouth. His adam's apple jumps as he swallows it down.

"What do you do?" you ask, mentally smacking yourself in the face. It isn't like you to ask unnecessary questions. But, a part of you doesn't feel like they're unimportant questions at all.

Bro sighs and sinks back into the pillow as much as possible before answering you. "I work at a software company," he says gruffly. "I massage their data and shit, before they import it into their database," he mutters into the neck of his beer bottle.

You let that sink in for a moment. A software company doesn't sound like Bro at all, but he definitely has the experience for it.

"Do they have you work on the weekends?" you ask. But, it sounds more like an accusation, even to your ears.

"Yeah," Bro answers with a sigh. "They have me travel around and work with different customers."

You hadn't expected that.

Then, almost as an afterthought, Bro asks, "Did you have a hard time while I was gone?"

"No," you answer quickly. You know you answered too quickly when Bro's eyes stay trained on your carefully schooled face.

After a long awkward moment, Bro turns back to the screen and takes another deep breath.

"How do you like Pasadena?" he asks casually.

Immediately, you want to strangle him. The two of you have been in Pasadena for months now. You went through all kinds of shit at school and with friends and worrying about him. And, this is when he's interested in knowing how you're adjusting? You're suddenly filled with an intense indignant heat from the tips of your toes, to the back of your neck.

When you take too long answering, Bro looks over at you again. Whatever he sees prompts him to explain.

"I thought you might like it better out here," he says slowly, his gaze glancing away from you. "That it might be easier to get out of Houston. To get away from where … it happened," Bro says, struggling towards the end.

You bite back a dozen sharp retorts.

"I was fine living in Houston," you eventually say. You chew on your tongue for a minute. "It's just …" you struggle for the words. Sometimes you hate the facade that the two of you always put up. It makes it hard to speak about the things that can be so important.

"It was just really hard to start over here," you rasp. You're mortified that your voice got a little tangled in the end. You're grateful that Bro doesn't let the silence hang for too long.

"I'll stop working weekends," Bro says simply, as if it's the easiest thing in the world.

"What? No! Bro, you don't have too. I'm fine," you snap.

"I know," Bro responds serenely. "But, I haven't worked on my site in a while. I need to get back to work," he says, as if he hasn't been working ridiculous hours since the two of you moved in the first place.

You take a deep breath and it feels like the first unfettered one you've taken in a long time.

"That sounds good," you reply. "I haven't heard you spin in forever, either," you mutter, picking up your nearly forgotten apple juice bottle and taking a sip. The taste is surprisingly sweet.

"I still need to unpack my tables," Bro says wistfully, as if he forgot.

You snort a little at that.

Bro grunts and slowly climbs to his feet. At first, you're a little disappointed that he is so quick to leave. You have a small niggling doubt that he won't take off weekends and that it might be months before he sits down like this with you again.

"Thanks for coming home," you say as he gets up to leave. You say it as nonchalantly as possible, but you're still afraid that it sounds too needy. Too fragile and breakable. Like you might actually need and want his company.

You can hear Bro pause behind you before leaning over the back of the futon and ruffling your hair.

You squawk ungracefully and try to lean out of his reach.

"Sure thing, little man," Bro chuckles as he goes to toss his empty beer bottle in the trash and continue back to his room.

You're glad that you were facing away, as you could feel heat flood your cheeks as Bro left.

- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] -

TG: hey rose
TT: Why, Dave! Hello.
TT: How are you today?
TG: A lot better
TT: Really? Pray tell, what has changed?
TG: bro came home
TG: and we talked and stuff
TT: Do you mean to tell me that your brother and you had a meaningful conversation about your emotions?
TG: lets not get carried away
TG: we talked
TG: about shit
TG: about as much as our stunted egos would allow us too
TG: but im feeling a lot better about everything
TT: I'm very glad to hear that, Dave.
TT: You know that all of us have been worried about you since the game.
TT: We all care about your well-being very much and understand that you can sometimes have difficulty expressing things you find hard for you to deal with.
TG: well gee
TG: were all just one big happy family arent we?
TT: I'm afraid you've hit the nail on the head, Dave