❝ i’m skin and bones when you’re not near me. ❞ —— @padawanfell.
𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐒𝐀𝐃 𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐒 𝐇𝐄𝐑. how innocently he rips her apart, sometimes —— this frail handful of bones that amounts to little more than what she is, her very flesh, her very blood, he is all that, cut from her rib the day he was born. for that very reason, perhaps, he gets a special power —— one look and her heart aches, a dangerous cocktail of grief and guilt and that infinite kind of love that chokes her breath and turns her childish, stupid, big teary eyes and no intelligible word that would explain why she feels the way she does.
it’s the kind of love that keeps cells together. goes by logic that it could rip one apart, too.
but if there’s anything that can be said about freddie dawson and her hopeless quest to hold everything together, her brother and the shattered life he was born into, this shipwreck they call a home, this life that is sharp and dirty and bleached out by too much compromise —— if there’s anything to be said, it’s she doesn’t give up. so her arms wrap around her brother a little too tight, pulling him close against her shoulder like when they were kids and he’d wake up crying in the dead of night, and she wouldn’t say there weren’t any monsters, but that they’d face them together, whatever came their way.
“ it’s okay. i’m here. you’re home. you’re safe. ” it’s chanted like a mantra, a good luck spell —— muttered softly against his hair as if it could get tangled up in it and stay with him along his journey. there’s things she could say, that might make it easier: she could admit that she thinks he’s braver than she, or anyone in their family, ever could be —— that she’d chosen to never go to college not just to look after him, but because the thought terrified her. but a big sister, she supposes, has to be mythological in a way, and hold some power so that he may always remember there’s a safe haven to return to, and a guardian angel to watch his back. so she says nothing, and rocks him gently instead. just like they were kids. if she could give him anything at all it would not be money or that car they keep arguing over, but the ability to see him the way she sees him: beautiful, bright. how it saddens her that he won’t see the very light he radiates.
“ you’re gonna be fine, cal. no matter what, you’re much more than your bones, much more than your blood. you’ll see... you’re gonna grow brave, and smart, and beautiful, and strong. you’re gonna be a great man, one day, yeah ? ” she pulls away then, hands on the sides of his face so he’ll look into her eyes: but it’s just brief, just enough for her to smile and count the freckles on his face, wondering if they match hers, if it’s exactly the same amount, if they split their flaws so evenly so that they would never feel anything less than one half of the other. when she pulls him in again, it’s so he won’t see the light film of tears in her eyes.
“ you’re a great kid already. you’ll always be a snotty little piece of crap to me, you know ? but you’re gonna kick so much ass, i know you will —— ”
𝐋𝐘𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐒 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐕𝐀𝐒𝐄𝐒 / 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐒 / accepting.
