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His Brother’s Sparrow

The horrible truth of it is this, Robert dies and Liam can breathe for the first time in his life.

Don’t get him wrong he loved Robert, adored him with the fervor only a younger sibling can have, but the distance death placed between them showed him what it was like to spread his wings. He’d never understood until then just how caged he had been, how every smile, every pat on his shoulder, every word from Robert had been keeping him in his place since the day he was born.

Because if there was one thing Liam had known growing up it was that he wanted to be exactly like Robert. His big brother was smart and charismatic and he was everyone’s favorite. Len’s, even though she was his twin, and his parents who always fawned over him, and of course he was England’s favorite. It wasn’t that Liam ever thought to compete, he couldn’t have, that was the whole point, but he had wanted his big brother to be proud of him so desperately that it shaped every breath he took.

And every time he’d been happy, every time he’d been proud, every time he’d found something he loved- Robert had been there. He used to run to him with that childlike hope, proudly showing off his new skills in chess or polo or French. But it never mattered what it was, Robert would correct him no matter how well he did and Liam would return to practice with a hollow sort of feeling in his chest and a frantic determination to be better.

It was easily dismissed as competition between brothers but the truth was he often spent hours every day practicing one thing or another, trying to be better, and Robert still beat him at everything. Even things Liam had gotten into because Robert didn’t do them and he thought for once he might find a place for himself. It had been humiliating and discouraging and there was more than one thing he loved that he'd eventually given up when the constant losses and criticism chipped away at him.

It didn't help that Robert was the type to do everything to the best of his abilities, even if it meant beating his younger brother by such a margin that Liam was left in tears. It had worn him down in ways that had little to do with some childish need to win and so much more to do with how each loss and criticism had chipped away at his already nonexistent confidence. He'd more or less given up any hobby that was even vaguely competitive in nature by the time he was fifteen, and to be totally honest even the ones that weren't didn't really make him happy anymore, nothing did.

It hadn't felt like Robert's fault at the time, only his own failures, but the more time passes without him the more he thinks that might have been the point from the beginning. It's like the image he has of Robert in his head, where his brother is this perfect savior, his savior, sparks and burns and he's left standing in the ash with no clue who he is without Robert there to tell him.

Of course he didn’t really understand any of that as a child, he understood that Robert and Len had always preferred each other to him and that hurt but things had always been that way, he understood that he was the spare and wasn't truly needed, and he understood that being around Robert hurt. But he'd loved him because he was his big brother, his hero, and he wanted to be good enough for him, the perfect spare. At six years old it hadn't exactly occurred to him that that would mean Robert was dead.

Because being King was never of any interest to him and Robert was, he was always patient with Liam's failures if a bit disappointed and distant in a way that only made him want to prove himself more. That had never gone away, not the determination to build his entire life to Robert's exact specifications or the need for his brother's approval or the pain that came from all of it.

Robert encouraged him to be better, he joked about Liam's failed attempts when he made mistakes and ruffled his hair and told him he'd improve next time. Even when he stopped trying so hard he'd still been pathetic, drowning his sorrows in any alcohol he could find from the time he was fifteen. It was one thing he and Len had in common, though he saw how fast she fell into harder drugs and did his best to avoid that particular urge, a bit too panicked at the loss of control.

He stuck to smoking joints in the bathroom with shaking hands, trying to calm his racing heart and panicked breathing. Passed flasks back and forth with Len before public appearances to try to smother the panic and hopelessness that would gnaw at his insides. Drank in pubs with his boarding school mates to paste a smile on his face for the night, brought girls home in hopes that he might be able to make someone besides his dad like him.

It was one of the few things Robert disliked that he hadn't given up immediately. Maybe the only thing he hadn't let his brother take, even when he was angry, even when he blamed Liam for enabling Eleanor, which he swore he wasn't, he hadn't stopped. It was the only thing that had ever helped with any of it.

Of course Robert had blamed him for that particular habit even though Len was both much worse than he was and the one who started things. But it was one of the few things he shared with just her, hiding away for a few stolen moments before events while Robert was busy with more formal duties. Those were good moments, besides the trying not to throw up at the thought of all those eyes on him and Robert's even more discerning than usual not to mention having to be around his Cyrus and his mother. At least his brother had never hit him.

But if he ignored everything else those were some of the better memories he had, better than the other ones he shared with Len. They were always bickering as kids, arguing over silly childish things until Robert came along to insert himself into the situation. He always took Len's side without fail, sweeping her up in his arms to soothe her with gifts and dessert and afternoons riding while she poked her tongue out at him in victory. According to all the stories twins were supposed to be inseparable and he ached for the closeness he watched them share.

And regardless of any stolen moments between them the sibling hierarchy remained crystal clear. Robert, the heir and the eldest was of course on top. Then there was Len, the only girl, the wild child, the youngest. Finally, somewhere far below that, was Liam the spare.

It wasn't until he was gone and Eleanor was left gutted by grief that it really sunk in for him just how much Eleanor's Robert was not the same brother Liam had grown up with. She had been treasured, adored, and protected, while every day of his childhood had been carefully manipulated for his brother's gain. And in his endless love for Robert, Liam had allowed himself to be lured into every trap, more of a puppet to which Robert held the strings than a person of his own.

So he held his sister in his arms as she sobbed like her heart had been ripped out and squeezed his eyes shut as the realization washed over him anew. Robert was gone and all the years he spent tearing himself apart and trying to shape the pieces back together into something his brother could love were for nothing. He would never share in his siblings easy comradery, or see that proud glint in Robert's eyes, or know what it was to be loved by him the way Len had. All of it was gone and he couldn't recognize what was left except that terrible underlying relief and a spark of anger as he wondered why he never stopped any of it, why he always kept trying.

Everything he had done, everything Robert had put him through, the official meetings where Robert would cut him off without fail, always finding a way to make him look and feel absolutely useless. After that it had been girls, any time Liam had liked someone Robert seemed to win them over in a heartbeat and even if he wasn't interested after that it was too painful to so openly accept being everyone's second choice, he never seemed to manage more than a night with someone.

Robert was the eternal favorite, and every person Liam had ever loved had and would choose him over Liam every time, he always knew that. It hadn't even mattered how much Robert took because he wanted to give it all.

It wasn't enough, sometimes he thinks he could've cut his own heart out and handed it to Robert and his brother still wouldn't have been satisfied. Nothing he had done was good enough and he's starting to realize that nothing he did was ever going to be. Even when he'd tried to defend himself as a kid Robert still never got angry with him or called him names or shoved him the way Len sometimes did at that age. He was just so nonchalant, so untouchable, like he knew that every story Liam recounted would never truly paint him in a bad light.

He just grew distant and cold and the more Liam insisted about everything the more viciously everyone turned away from him, irritated with his jealousy and anger and tears until Robert was the only one left to take him back, crying and apologizing and begging his brother for forgiveness. Those were the only times Robert would really hug him and for one blissful golden moment Liam would feel warm, before the familiar hand settled on his shoulder and his brother called him Sparrow in a way that had any joy he felt turning bitter, his insides shriveling up under the touch.

So when Robert dies Liam grieves in a way that feels familiar, that feels like the same mangled mess his heart has always been where his brother is concerned. A bruise he could never resist pressing on. But it's hard to loose something he never truly had and with the grief comes the deepest most shameful sense of relief he has ever felt. A desperate hope that he may finally be free of this torment, and for the first time in his life he breathes. That old hurt finally starting to scab and eventually even scar, without anyone there to keep picking his wounds open.

At first everything feels impossible, he is compared to Robert at every step, still failing at everything and disappointing his father so badly he wants to disband the monarchy rather than place Liam on a throne. He doesn't know what to do about the fact that he's disappointed the only person in his family who he thought actually respected him and it just feels like he has no clue how to even be a person without Robert there steering him.

It's humiliating, he feels like a child, all he thinks about is what Robert would think of everything he does and every time he thinks it that little spark of anger grows. How had he let himself be manipulated for so long without even seeing it, without caring? He has been miserable practically his whole life and sure some of that is the public scrutiny and some of it is Cyrus calling him the spare instead of his name and always touching him and some of it is his mother. But every day that has passed has seemed to unearth some new pain he'd never let himself look too closely at before and far too many of them point back to Robert.

But as time creeps forward things change, he speaks in a meeting and has the chance to finish his thought, his fathers advisors looking impressed with his contribution and no one is there to cut in on his behalf and suddenly turn the approval to laughter. He spends time with Len for real and finds that she's not a kid anymore and that they get on better than he ever could have imagined, she is there for him and supports him even when things are hard and he tries to ease her demons as well- if not the drugs he understands trying to numb your pain with alcohol and sex. He thinks of Ophelia Pryce and feels giddy at the realization that he has the chance for more than just one night with someone, because there is no longer a better model to swoop in and charm her better than he ever could.

When something has been the same as long as Liam's life had each change is like a burst of color. He doesn't want to be angry but there's years of hurt and embarrassment and never being enough and when he lays beside Ophelia she is gentle and he is angry he has never known this before. She strokes his hair and the few anecdotes he shares about Robert are met with pinched frowns and gentle reassurances that it was wrong, that none of what happened was his fault.

It's unimaginable at the time that his big brother would have ever done anything wrong. He may not have described Robert as an especially kind person but he was good and he was right and even if it felt wrong he had always been trying to make Liam better, he believed that with everything in him, it was the foundation of his whole life.

Until it wasn't.

And without Robert there to clip his wings he finally flies.

#my fanfiction #the royals #liam henstridge #anti robert henstridge #robert henstridge #eleanor henstridge