Chapter Text
The Brother Keeper
By: Saphirott
Chapter 1: Innocence Lost
The room is illuminated by the blue glow emanating from the electronic alarm clock located on his bedside table. One second later, the news station he has programmed begins to sound.
"Today is the day that the verdict of the recently reopened trial will be known and it has raised a lot of controversy in our city's court of justice. The defendant..."
Reach out and turn off the radio, he doesn't need to keep listening to all that.
He sits up, sitting on the edge of the bed and rubbing his face with tiredness. He hasn't managed to sleep a wink all night, his mind going over every detail, every step of a job he's been doing for years, a job that, in any case, will end today.
He's terrified, terrified as he hasn't been in a long time. If it does not go well, is sure to collapse, can not wait more, has been waiting a long time, too. The same way he doesn't need to listen to the radio, he doesn't need to listen to his fears. He takes a deep breath and gets ready to get up, just at the moment his mobile chooses to start ringing.
“Pastor Jim...” he answers in a soft voice, feeling the small smile that forms on his lips after recognizing the number of the man who took care of him for so long.
“Will you ever stop calling me Pastor?” asks the man in a funny tone.
“It's a habit,” he answers, “just like that.”
It's a kind of family joke, they don't talk much, but they understand each other well. Sam has been in college for four and a half years, is in his practical year, and if all goes well, he will graduate before the summer.
“Are you going to the trial today?” the man asks, with a more serious tone now. There is a moment of silence and Sam sighs before answering.
“Yes, today is the last session. The jury has reached a verdict.”
“Are you nervous?”
“I can't tell you...” answer hesitantly. “I guess so.”
“You're going to see him. It's been a long time...”
There is no answer on the other side of the line and the Pastor can get an idea of why. He has no trouble imagining how the boy feels, he knows him too well.
“Calm down.” The Pastor does not give up in his efforts to comfort the young man, of whom he is so proud. “Everything will be fine. We'll talk later, okay?”
“Of course,” he says after swallowing the knot that has formed in his throat.
"Everything will be all right," is a phrase that stopped comforting him long ago.
“I have to get ready. Singer is waiting for me at seven to go over the last details.”
He' s proud that his tone has sounded safe enough, even though he has had to make a fist of the hand that doesn't hold the phone so as not to see the tremor in his fingers.
“Luck, son.”
He puts the phone back on the table and walks to the shower.
******
He has lost count of the times he has adjusted the knot in his tie, that thing seems ready to choke him before the day is out, and also of the times he has put the lock of hair behind his ear during his walk down the university corridors to Singer's office. "Relax. You're just nervous," he says in front of the door, before knocking.
He enters the elegant office once his owner gives him permission to do so. Professor Robert Singer is the head of the law department at KU, the University of Kansas, located in Lawrence. Sam hesitated for a long time to join this university, he was not very happy to return to the place from where he once had to run away, but the scholarship he was offered was really good and he could not miss it.
Singer is also his end-of-degree project tutor. He has a deep appreciation for that strapping man, with his friendly face and penetrating gaze, who took him under his wing in his second year of studies and, thanks to that, he has made it this far. He only regrets that he could not be completely honest with him, although he hopes that one day he will be able to correct that fact.
“Sit down, Mr William.” He asks, looking at him with a smile and pointing to one of the leather armchairs in front of his table, which is packed with files.
He pushes into a forgotten corner of his mind the discomfort that still, after so long, causes him to hear his new name. It was a difficult but necessary decision, and now, some time later, he can still see the advantages of the change, although he will never get used to it. Have a seat and let the teacher continue talking.
“Good, boy. Today is the great day,” says the man, charged with an optimism he himself would like to achieve. His answer is a tense smile, which doesn't escape the sharp eyes of the professor, who leans back in his seat and looks at him somewhat more seriously.
“Listen to me, son. Whatever the outcome of today, and for the record I believe it will be favourable to us; your work in this case has been impeccable, you have devoted effort and tenacity that I have not seen in any of my students in many years.”
Sam shuffles in his seat, somewhat uncomfortable with the compliments. The teacher smiles at him affectionately.
“You're going to be a great lawyer, son, and with the recommendation letter I plan to write when you graduate, every law firm in this town will be banging on about you.” He finishes by saying, with a little laugh and pointing appreciatively with his index finger.
At any other time or circumstance, those words would have made his day, but right now, they are not important to him, there is nothing more important now than what will happen in that court room to which they would soon be addressing.
“Thank you, sir.” It's his short answer. Singer nods silently and gets up to prepare his briefcase before leaving. Sam imitates the gesture, eager to get out.
“Just one more question before we leave, Mr Wilson...” The professor's eyes are studying him intensely. “Why did you insist so much that I take care of this case? It had been closed for years, and although we have seen the nonsense in the way it was handled in that time, in principle, it was not a case that attracted attention either.”
His body tightens imperceptibly, he feels the sweat running down his back, but he drags with him years of training his body and mind in the grueling art of hiding his emotions, hiding his life, and ultimately hiding who he really is. He shrugs his shoulders and offers a smile that shows a certain disinterest.
“I told you, Professor. I was checking newspapers in the newspaper library of the city and I found that news, I read a little of the case and I found curious the speed with which they closed the investigation and settled the case. That's why I presented it to you, and well, here we are.”
“Yes, you had a good eye, boy,” answers Singer as he looks at him.
Sam forces himself to hold his gaze, nothing is going to make his house of cards fall apart before its time.
“Come on!” says the man at last. “If we keep on here, we're going to be late.”
******
"It's still early," he says to himself as he lies with his shoulders against the wall that serves as the headboard for his narrow bed. His legs are crossed at the ankles, just as his arms are crossed over his chest. His eyes are closed, he doesn't need to open them to know that the meager light that penetrates through the small window still doesn't manage to shape the shadows of the few things that take up that austere place.
Body gets used to routines, and his body has been doing the same thing for ten years, at exactly the same time. Although it may not seem so, the clock is the only thing that marks some sanity in that place, it sets the times and that, although some people may not believe it, is important. With that knowledge his body tells him that it is still early, even though he has been awake for hours, even though he has not really slept. It's early and he's just focused on breathing. The movement over his head tells him that he is no longer the only one awake.
“I bet you haven't slept a wink tonight, blondie,” says a hoarse, doughy voice, still full of sleep.
His eyelids open and he watches with veiled eyes the slight bulge in the bed frame above his head, which indicates the position of his cellmate.
“I have told you a thousand times not to call me Blondie. Not if you don't want us to have a problem.” His tone is dangerous, but his lips have curved into a small smile.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, blondie,” the voice replies and he mutters "idiot", wrapped in a little laugh.
There is more movement upstairs and a head appears hanging over the edge of the mattress. The long curly hair falls down, while blue eyes look at it curiously.
“Well, what then?” he asks again.
“I slept,” he says.
“I don't believe you,” he snorts from above. “Even you can't be that indifferent. Dude! This afternoon you could be out!” He exclaims with a certain indignation at his partner's passivity. “Fuck, you still have twelve years left, and in a while you could forget everything.”
He shrugs his shoulders and closes his eyes again for a moment. Twenty-two years, that had been the sentence. He would be forty-one when he could finally get out of there. He won't lie to himself and say that it didn't shock him when the jury read the verdict, he would have spent more years in there than he had even lived before, but the shock lasted only a moment. He has no regrets. He didn't do it then and he doesn't do it now, and he would certainly do it again if necessary.
Twenty-two years, he was fine with it. The beginning of his life there was not easy, but honestly, was any part of his life easy? He had endured much outside and was not willing to continue on the same path, it took a while, but he took a place and some respect there. He did not mess with anyone, but also nobody messed with him.
He remembers two years ago, the day one of the guards came to warn him that he had a visitor. He had never had any visitors before. He followed the warden to the communication room, where they pointed to one of the seats. Through the glass, a man in his fifties, stuffed into an expensive suit, looked at him with some curiosity. He sat down, keeping his eyes on the man with the thinning hair and graying beard who wore glasses made of paste, even though he was looking over them, reading some documents he was holding in his hands. He picked up the phone next to the glass and he imitated the gesture.
“My name is Robert Singer and this is your lucky day,”
He looked at him blankly.
“I am a lawyer and I am going to get your case reopened,” he concluded with a self-effacing smile.
That's how it all started and he still doesn't quite understand why. The fact is that this lawyer seemed to take his job seriously, even though he had not asked him to do so and had already warned him that he did not have the funds to pay what was sure to be an expensive fee. Apparently, he must have been the professor's good work that year. Deep down, he didn't care.
Now, two years later, it will all end today and to be honest, he still doesn't care.
“I don't care,” he replies indifferently, ignoring the reproach reflected in his companion's gaze. “I don't have anything out there either. What am I supposed to do when I get out?”
There is a grunt, and for a moment the head disappears from his vision, to make way for the stocky body that is dropped heavily from the top bunk. His companion glances at him, clearly angry.
“I don't know, blondie. Maybe... being free! What the hell is wrong with you? You're twenty-nine years old, you haven't been like most of us useless people in here, you've taken advantage of time, you've trained. You could find a job, resume your life,” says the brunette.
“Would you hire a guy who's been in prison for ten years on a murder charge?”
“I would,” answers his partner with conviction. He can't help but smile cynically. “Besides,” continues, “if all goes well, you'll be innocent.”
“And do you think that will really matter to anyone after ten years in here?”
Defiantly, he fixes his green eyes on those of his partner, who finally sighs in defeat. The brunette slaps his legs, urging him to put them away. He stands up, sitting on the edge of his bed, and the other one takes his place beside him.
“I'm sure you've got someone out there, some relative, some friend, someone to help you out for a while,” he says in a softer tone.
Take a deep breath, squeezing his hands around the edge of the bed base. “I've told you many times already. There's no one there.”
He stares at the wall in front of him, still in semi-darkness, he can only make out the silhouettes of the posters torn out of magazines and stuck together with tape, he remembers the images on them that he can't see now; the two half-naked girls in suggestive poses whose skin they both know by heart, to the point where they can list the exact place of each mole; and then, the luminous landscape of that paradise beach in Cuba.
He concentrates on that because he does not want to close his eyes and see some expressive and changing irises that he has treasured in his memory in many forms, associated with many memories; warm but also painful memories.
“At least you will be out,” insists his companion. “Even if you are alone, it will always be better than this shit. I can give you my cousin Mark's phone number, he's a good guy, he'll give you a hand if I ask him to, at least until you get settled in.”
“Yes, I guess so,” he finally admits, tired of that little argument. “Thanks, man, it'll come in handy, if I go out,” he adds with a touch of irony.
The alarm indicating that it is time to start the day sounds at such times and the lights of the whole ward go on. They both stand up and face each other, looking at each other with intensity. Finally, the brunette comes closer and wraps him in a tight embrace.
“Good luck, dude,” he mutters in his ear, squeezing it a bit tighter before he separates, but still leaving his hands on his shoulders. “It'll be better for you if I don't see you here tonight,” he concludes, unable to stop his voice from sounding emotional.
“Thank you, Chris.” He didn't know what else to say. Chris nods and hugs him again before going out to the daily routines of the ward.
He must dress up, Singer had sent him a suit to wear to the trial sessions, to improve his image for the jury, he had said. He feels a bit ridiculous when he puts it on, so many years in orange is what it has, anything becomes strange. He dresses up and waits patiently to be picked up.
Sitting in the transport van, he rests his head against the glass and closes his eyes, they have more than an hour's drive ahead of them, and frankly, it won't hurt him to rest.
******
He opens his eyes in awe at the sound of something breaking. Confused, he looks around, but what he sees has nothing to do with the van where it's supposed to be.
It's a room, it's night and it's dark, although the moonlight illuminates it in part, sneaking through the glass. There is a small desk under the window, with some notebooks and a jar full of pencils. There are drawings hanging on the wall next to the window and a couple of shelves on the opposite side. A couple of trophies, quite a few books and some games. There is a collection of classic cars to scale and there are two beds, one of them untouched and the other one, a jumble of blankets.
Now he knows where he is. He feels his pulse racing and the sweat running down his back. He doesn't have to go near the bed to know what he's going to find under that mess of sheets and blankets. There are only two children under there, a little one who shows the typical fears of his age and who does not want to sleep alone and an older one who, although sometimes he is also afraid, will always be brave in front of his little brother, giving him the security he needs.
Downstairs there are more blows and drowned curses thrown into the air. His body tightens even more, he feels the hairs stand up on his arms and the back of his neck as he watches the bundle of blankets begin to wake up. He no longer knows just where he is, he also knows what day it is; the day everything started to go wrong.
The blankets fall back and leave a thin child in Batman pyjamas in sight, who, resting his hand on the mattress, lifts his body and turns his head over his shoulder, looking at the door. His hair is blonde, disturbed by the hours of sleep, his eyes are green and still half closed.
Another knock is heard downstairs.
He discovers himself, looking at the door again, just as the child does.
The boy rubs his eyes and looks at the mattress, just below his chest.
He knows what he's looking at, he knows that, next to him, there's a five-year-old boy, with long brown hair, who, however much he tries to comb his hair every day, always looks like a bird's nest. He knows that the child has not woken up. He also knows that, right now, he is curling up, bringing his knees to his chest, because that is what he always does when he is not at his side.
He knows what's going to happen, he knows. He wants to scream, in fact, he is screaming, he is screaming with all his might at that stupid child who does not listen to him.
"Don't get up! Please... Don't get up! It will pass... Be still. Please, God! Be still! I don't want... I don't want it to happen..."
But the boy doesn't listen to him.
The boy carefully stands up and tucks in his brother's little body. Barefoot and rubbing his eyes, he goes out into the hallway, closing the door behind him.
He looks at the closed door, shaking from the need to run after that boy, but he cannot move. He closes his eyes and bites his lip so hard that he soon feels the metallic taste of blood on his tongue. Silent tears fall down his cheeks and he notices how, each time, it is harder for him to breathe. When he opens them, he is no longer in the room, but at the foot of the stairs and surrounded by light.
**
“Dad?”
The voice is strange to him, but evidently loaded with familiarity, it has been a long time since he heard it like this; the tone, reflects a certain confusion. He raises his head and sees the boy at the top of the stairs, his right hand on the handrail and rubbing one foot on the other.
He does not remember that he was so small.
The child looks down and he follows his gaze, to find the body unraveling right in front of his feet, a body that has left a trail of broken things and fallen furniture.
“Dad?” asks the boy again, and the body grunts something unintelligible as it tries to get up again.
He closes his eyes and can only ask him to leave, but by now he knows that all he can do is look.
The man finally puts his hand on the railing and manages to stand up.
He still seems very tal to him.
He's tall, he's strong and he's drunk, he always is lately. He puffs as he staggers down the steps.
“Go away!” He grunts from the middle of the stairs.
The boy hesitates for a moment, but he's more worried that his father might fall, so he waits. He is indeed too drunk, his feet stumble and he falls on the last stretch, fortunately forward.
“Dad!” The boy runs up the four steps that separate him from his father's body and clings to his arm trying to help him.
“I said get out of here!” The man grunts, shaking him off and throwing him on his ass against the steps.
The boy looks hurt and displeased, but it's his father in there, and he's not going to let him down. He hasn't always been like that, when his mother was alive, everything was different, very different. His mother had died a year ago, the battle finally lost against a cancer that played with her for too many years. His father hadn't gotten over it, and he's been drinking too much ever since. He gets up determined and comes around again ignoring the previous threat.
“Come on, Dad... I'll help you,” he says, running his little arm around the man's armpit and pulling with all his might.
This time his father doesn't resist, with one hand on the railing and the other arm around his shoulders, they climb the remaining stretch. When they get to the top, the elder's body wobbles again and he alone does not have enough strength to hold it, so they both end up embedded in the wall.
Watch as the man rests his palm against the wall, pulling away from the boy who is trapped under him. He witnesses how the alcoholic eyes look at him from top to bottom, and he senses when their confusion turns into something else, something dirty and dark, which the little boy up there does not yet know how to recognize.
The man brings his free hand to the boy's hair and caresses it tenderly. The boy's cheeks are flushed and he still breathes with some difficulty because of the effort to help his father upstairs, but even so he smiles openly at his father's already unusual caress.
“Do you know...?” he says with a crooked smile. “You remind me of your mother.”
The boy looks down and blushes even more, but he also smiles more broadly, because looking like his mother is a good thing, isn't it? His mother was beautiful, loving and funny and, above all, she loved them.
His father holds him by the chin and makes him look up again.
“You have his hair colour,” he continues, “and also his eyes. God, you even have those big eyelashes.”
The huge hand caresses the boy's face, his forehead, his cheek.
“You also have his lips, you know?” And he slides his thumb across them, pressing perhaps more than necessary, making them stand out red on the pale face of the freckled boy.
The boy squirms uncomfortably and tries to get away, but the hand slips to the back of his neck and holds him firmly. The man rests his forehead on the boy's and leaves it there, while he closes his eyes and breathes heavily.
He begins to shake again, harder. He knows that this tremor is the boy's, he feels the warmth of the man's hand on the back of his neck, his index finger sliding along it, marking a tempo that was a countdown to what was to come. Again he can feel the smell of whiskey escaping from between his lips and the concentrated smell of cigarette smoke on his clothes.
“I loved your mother very much. You know that, right?”
His teeth are so tight, he feels like they're going to explode at any moment.
The boy nods and his father smiles.
“I love you very much, too...” continues in a low, heavy tone.
As he says this, he turns and bends until his lips touch the boy's. A gentle rubbing as his hand holds him steady in place. He pulls away and looks at him, his eyes open wide and he can see the beginning of the panic. That should make him stop, but contrary to that, the boy's fear turns him on even more, giving free rein to that dark rage he carries inside him, the one that blames his children for being there instead of his wife and the one that blames his first-born son for being the spitting image of her, for reliving her memory every day with his presence.
He kisses him again, this time with more violence, while he presses his body against the wall.
“Dad...” He whispers in fear.
The boy trembles in his arms and that only excites him more, he needs more.
“Come on...” He orders, separating from him and pointing the way to his room. Come with me.
“No...” he protests quietly, managing to slip out of his hand, but not daring to run away, sticking to the wall, as if the wall could protect him from something.
“You don't want to make me angry. I told you to come” demand in a tone that the boy knows how to recognize as dangerous.
The green of his eyes is drowned in tears and his lower lip is pursed trembling. His gaze nervously slips from the intimidating figure of his father to the door of his own room and he tries...
“I should go back to my room...” says.
His father looks at him with his eyes full of mistrust.
“Sammy might wake up...”
No answer from the older one.
“He's afraid if he wakes up alone, he's too little...” he finishes saying, hopeful with his father's silence. A few seconds pass during which the man doesn't stop looking at him, as if he were considering something important.
“Come on,” he repeats in a dry voice.
It didn't work.
“No,” he's whispering a little louder now.
His father moves towards him with his hand up and tries to cover himself as best he can. He doesn't hit him like he expects, but he grabs him by the arm and shakes him hard.
“Listen to me well..., do what I tell you and you can go back to your room, and if you want to avoid trouble, you'd better not let Sam wake up. Do you understand?”
He feels the fear overflowing from every pore of his skin, the desperate need to flee. But he also, both now and then, clearly sees the threat from his father, a threat that did not only include him. He sees the boy nodding his head between hiccups and letting himself be dragged submissively into his parents' room.
“Lie down,” his father says, pointing to the bed. The boy looks at it with suspicion. “We won't do anything wrong,” he continues, as he throws away his jacket. “Come on, lie down.”
The boy does it and his father lies down beside him, in front of him. His green eyes are still wet, scared and wary. The little body shrinks when he feels his father's caress on his face.
“Shhh..., nothing bad is going to happen. You're so like... so like her...”
Looking up from the foot of the bed, he feels the disgust growing in his guts. Disgust for the false sweetness that surrounded those words, vain justifications and merciless lies.
“I love you, son...” His lips cover the lips of the child, who remains petrified, moving over them more and more anxiously. “I love you so much...”
He holds his little body against his own, feeling his desire increase, as it presses against the hard fabric of the jeans. He rubs himself against him, while kissing his lips, his face and his neck.
“You have to love me too. Good children love their parents. Do you love me?”
The little boy looks at him dubiously, but the father's eyes are filled with a real anxiety and hope, which confuses him and he doesn't understand. He nods his head and his father smiles pleased.
“That makes me very happy, son... You know how I know I'm happy?”
The boy says no. His father pulls at his clothes and then takes his hand and holds it to his crotch, the boy's face shrinks when he feels the skin hard and warm.
“Shhh...” repeats his father again. “This happens because I love you... and you love me, so it's okay to touch me.” The boy doesn't say anything, he doesn't move and hardly breathes, and the man is starting to get impatient, because he's really hard and needs to finish.
“Do it like this,” he says, taking the boy's hand in his own and guiding it up and down over his limb. The boy is not participating, he just keeps quiet, letting himself be guided, but he doesn't care anymore, he will have time to teach him, now he just needs that, to feel that it is his hand that caresses him, even if it is under his direction, and to be able to lose himself in those green eyes that look so much like hers.
His hips thrust again and again, more and more erratic as the rhythm of his breathing quickens. He feels the release so close... He takes the boy's lips and kisses him hard, moaning "I love you" over his mouth and spilling over both their hands and the black fabric of the flannel pajamas. He stands still, slowly regaining his breath and with it, some of the sanity he had lost.
He feels as the child's hand still stands on his now flaccid limb. He pulls it away and puts it back under his underwear, turns around and stares at the ceiling.
“Can I... can I go?” The little voice next to him mumbled. He takes a deep breath and nods his head.
“Wash your hands,” he orders. “And don't tell anyone about this. Is that clear?”
The little boy nods and slides carefully out of bed.
He follows him on his shaky way to the bathroom, still feeling in his hand the sticky sign of the infamous act. Already in his room, he watches him as he returns to the warmth of his bed and envies him, only because he knows the peace that comes when the little sleeping body stretches out and embraces him, a peace that manages to alleviate some of the gap that opened that day in his soul.
A hand shakes his shoulder.
******
“Wake up, we've arrived.”