Macau had nearly 100,000 followers on Instagram. Therefore, he had a plethora of images on his phone. Mostly of his and his lavish and aesthetically pleasing life. No one could tell but this lifestyle was fairly new to him. When his father was alive, he wasn't allowed to do any of it. He didn't have friends, he didn't have a functioning family, and he didn't even have the fake comfort and validation of social media. He wasn't simply allowed to be a teenager. Life was a misery, to say the least.
But as the wise men say, nothing lasts forever. Not even bad times. So when good times came Macau adapted quickly. He was a gen Z at his peak. His DMs were packed with thirst traps and admirers. He would occasionally reply to some but mostly text and exchange memes with his friends.
Pete had said Macau had become some sort of influencer. His technologically challenged brother merely nodded at Pete's comment.
The day this picture was taken, Pete was in the mood for eating out. So the three of them went to a local Thai food restaurant. Macau wasn't usually the one to set his phone down and appreciate his surroundings. But he was glad he felt bored enough at that moment to do exactly that. His eyes landed on the two people in front of him.
Pete was showing Vegas something on his phone with a huge dimpled smile. Must have been a meme. Because Vegas looked up from his own phone—Macau could tell he was either reading a news blog or checking his emails because that's all he did on his phone—and smiled at Pete's phone screen.
It was at that moment that Macau realized he had a family. It was not what he had envisioned when he had been younger but it was no less perfect.
His brother was his shield from all the evils. The man protected Macau to the best of his abilities. He took hits for him, he shouldered blames for him, and when teenage angst took over Macau and he messed up Vegas cleaned his mess for him. Up until Pete, Vegas had only two goals in life. To gain the approval of their unworthy father and to protect Macau from their world. And even though the first one was a lost battle, Macau would say his brother did more than a great job on the second one. Whose brother did so much for them? Wasn't he lucky in that aspect?
When Macau's eyes landed on Pete, a memory flashed in front of his eyes. It had been the talent competition in his senior year of high school. He had casually mentioned the night before that he would be acting in a play organized by his class and he would be playing the best friend of the lead. It had been a two-minute role. It wasn't been a big deal, he had added. To be honest, he hadn't expected his brother or Pete to show up. No one ever showed up. Not for sports day, not on his class graduations, not even when he had won 1st place for that science project. Vegas had always been busy and their father had never cared enough.
So he had been rightfully surprised when he heard a familiar voice yelling his name when he had stepped onto the stage to deliver his lines. He had looked among the audience and saw his brother smiling at him with a proud look on his face. And then he had seen the person to whom that voice belonged, with a huge smile on his face holding up his phone recording Macau on stage. It had been Pete.
The play had been awful for Macau. He had forgotten his lines, choked up, and messed up the small dance he had to do at the end. But when he had come to meet his family, no one scolded him. They had patted him on his back being genuinely proud of him. And then they took him out for ice cream. It had been the best day of his life.
Macau blinked rapidly to get rid of the blurriness of his vision and took a sip from his glass of water to clear his aching throat. He then took that picture on his phone and put it on his Instagram with the caption, "Family's night out."
He tagged Pete only. Because his grumpy brother didn't have any social media. So when Pete's phone pinged and he checked the notification before looking up to meet Macau's eyes, Macau simply smiled at him. This was the first time Macau had acknowledged Pete as a part of his family. He could tell Pete was happy. And honestly? Macau felt pretty darn happy too.
[my pinterest feed made me do this. again. sorry if there are any grammatical errors. i can't stop writing these because i'm a hoe of domestic vegaspete. should i make this a series or something? lol. hope you like it. i did look for a picture with ta, biu, and bible in it. but not much luck. nothing that went with what i wrote. but anyway, let me know what you think? 'cause reading your comments and hashtags really makes my day]
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