For Joseph and Jacob: “Remember when we were little?”
A/N: Characters/Verse-Setting: Joseph, Jacob, and surprise! John. That Extra Bitchtm decided to arrive fifteen minutes late with Starbucks, only instead of Starbucks he showed up with what’s likely a ground-to-order specially-sourced artisanal coffee from a reputable microbrewery. It’s vague enough to be a general verse setting, but I do set it in A Cold And Broken Hallelujah given the character builds used for the Seed lads here. Just no mention of the psychic shenanigans.Summary: Joseph tries to talk to Jacob, the morning after he and John had found their eldest brother in a homeless shelter. “Remember when we were little?” with Joseph and Jacob as a prompt from Chyrstis! :D Thank you for the prompt Chyrstis!! :D ♥Content includes: Mild religious content here and there, background implication of child abuse, possible implications of plausibly deniable murder in passing, dark backstory allusions, pretentious coffee, etc.Ao3 link here, to avoid tumblr disaster formatting on mobile.————————————
“Jacob?”Joseph kept his voice quiet and soft, and his footfalls even softer, approaching slowly so as not to startle his older brother. His older brother, once lost, now found.Still lost, deep inside himself.Or perhaps the shrapnel and burn wounds had ripped him open enough for his soul to fly away, leaving only the empty shell that sat on the edge of the bed before him.No. No, it had to be Jacob. It had to be. Jacob was still in there, wasn’t he? He had to be.Jacob didn’t move. Joseph couldn’t see much of his face from behind the curtain of grungy ginger hair, grown overlong as if to hide the man’s identity from the world—or to hide the world from Jacob.Joseph could see enough, though. Could still see how vacant and hollow his eyes were. Jacob had always been so fiery, so alive, so obstinate and insistent that the world look him in the eye and acknowledge that he was alive, that he was real, that he mattered, that he would be heard. That what he stood for mattered.He’d been like a hero from the old stories to Joseph at times when they were young, standing seven feet tall with shoulders squared and a fearless abandon while staring down monsters ten times his size.Jacob had fought, for Joseph and John both, and for so much more—Jacob had fought for his ideals that this—abuse and blood and pain and drunken rages of holy scripture spewed forth like a judge passing sentencing upon the condemned—wasn’t the way the world should be.It hurt to remember how brave and bold Jacob had been once upon a time, to hold that cherished memory up against the silent figure sat hunched and huddled so listlessly before him, shrouded in a dirty parka like a pauper’s corpse wrapped in burlap before being thrown into a hole in the ground to be buried and forgotten.Forgotten by the world, and worst of all—forgotten by Jacob himself.The way he’d looked at Joseph and John last night, when they’d found him in that shelter…it’d looked like Jacob didn’t believe they were really real.
Dead eyes staring out of a living man’s soul.
Jacob‘s expression hadn’t changed at all, even as the minutes passed when he’d woken from the nightmare that had him calling out Joseph and John’s names, among a restless murmured litany of others’ that came and went like the coming and going of ocean tides.He’d sounded so lost, like he was hoping that someone would find him—but the way Jacob’s voice had cracked on the ends of the names in desperate and forlorn despair made it sound like there was no one there.
Joseph had thought that upon waking there’d be a few moments of disbelief, of doubt and skepticism, but that there would be the beginnings of what would eventually be joy at the three brothers’ reunion.But there had been nothing.No light of recognition, no consideration, no reaction. Just…nothing.John at least had reacted, even if he didn’t really accept Joseph yet, still didn’t trust, still harbored that tempest of emotion that only showed in those lightning strike moments and flashes of emotion that crossed his face and in his eyes so rarely still.
Another long minute passed, and still nothing was said.Joseph breathed out a sigh through his nose, trying to keep the sound under wraps, lest it cause Jacob to withdraw even further, if that were possible. Sitting down on the foot of the bed, he considered what he might say that he had not already said to Jacob in the hours of the night before, leading their brother out from the homeless shelter—a place full of ghosts and broken dreams where so many were sent to let their spirits wither and die in the dark. Poor souls. Poor souls like Jacob, thrown away after his years of service to a government that held no love nor care for a child of their homeland.”…do you remember when we were little?” Joseph asked, reaching for perhaps a happy memory that might help Jacob thaw out from beneath the layer of unfeeling snow he’d buried himself alive underneath, down in the depths of his soul. “That time after I’d failed that math test back in elementary school, and you came and found me sitting by the old bill board lot fence?”He waited, but as expected, there was no response. Joseph was certain Jacob was listening, though, deep down, somewhere in there.Joseph remembered it. He wondered if Jacob did—the other boys in class had jeered at him, played keep away while laughing and hurling sing-song taunts at him for having scored a D- on it…even though some of the other boys had done as bad or worse. The result of having a teacher who was only there for a meager paycheck, and not to actually teach, without love or care for the craft.That didn’t mean anything to the other boys, though. No…it was just a flimsy excuse to bully and persecute, even if they were all in the same decrepit boat built out of rotting driftwood. It didn’t matter if it would’ve been better if they’d all banded together to work towards a better future, instead of turning on one another in bestial glee at the shedding of invisible blood—how easy it was for people to dismiss tears, because they ran colorless instead of a dark, crimson red. One wouldn’t die quickly from their soul bleeding out through their eyes, no, but a slow death was so often the crueler option, and despair could kill a man, could drive him to do wicked, wicked things, like he had in his grief.
The teacher had issued an anemic order for the other boys to settle down: neither teaching nor correcting, not protecting nor guiding. The man had only done so because the noise was bothering him at that point. Joseph had gone out at the ringing bell with all the rest, herded out of the school hallways with the other children like droves of cattle being put out to pasture. Anger, shame and hurt had left his cheeks and neck seared red at the time, not from the burning sun but from the pain of being ostracized by his peers. Children could be so cruel to each other, he knew both then and now, but now he knew that it was an unfortunate trait of human nature that even as adults, cruelty was inherent as a part of their humanity. Part of their sin.
He’d turned away from the path leading home, hadn’t wanted to go home to whatever everyday horribleness awaited him there—so often he was indifferent unto weariness about the state of their home. That day hadn’t been one of them. He’d kept walking over the rough, cracked sidewalks, the sun so bright, so bright that the colors of everything bleached out in the white and blue light that flooded down from the heavens overhead. Everything was faded out like a worn poster left out upon the wall, one overlapping another in a sea of many.Joseph remembered how he’d taken refuge in the shadow of one of the bill boards that stood like old trees in the lot, proclaiming the empty signage space to be FOR RENT. He’d sat down with his back against the chain link fence, old backpack beside him, arms crossed upon his knees, head resting upon his forearms, tired and breathing in the dry air full of the smell of dusty earth and the scraggly, tenacious weeds, all wild mustard flowers and foxtail grass.Jacob would be looking for him, probably, Joseph could remember thinking. Joseph hadn’t wanted to wait though. Hadn’t wanted to talk. Jacob would find out, Joseph had reasoned, followed inevitably by Jacob having “words” with the other boys, and then it was just…it was just too much.He didn’t know how long he’d sat there, just breathing in the smell of abandonment and crumbling poverty, slowly being overtaken by nature once more with the slow, dogged persistence of repeating cycles season after season, year after year. Would it ever change? the cycle of school, the cycle of home, day in, day out. Would they escape, when they were older? Would they escape if the survived?Joseph remember how much he’d just wanted…wanted it all to stop. Change. Pause. Anything but repeating all of this, again and again and again and again. He didn’t want this cycle of hurt and numbness to be his entire life. He wanted it to be better. For himself and for Jacob too. Not…this. He was so tired sometimes, but they had to hold on. Had to wait until they were old enough, old enough to be free. But then what?He’d heard footsteps crunching on dirt then, and had tilted his head enough to peek out from over the crook of his elbow to see Jacob, all long limbs in thrift-store-picked clothing and a stolen flannel, with a frown of concern upon his face. Joseph had tucked his head back into the criss-cross of his arms and knees, not wanting to face his older brother. He’d tried to study, and he’d thought maybe he’d done enough, tension eating at him the whole morning like a busy trail of ants crawling up and down a garbage can.But he hadn’t. He didn’t want to disappoint Jacob, even though the rational part of his brain even then had known Jacob wouldn’t be.The footsteps had stopped a foot or so to his side, but Joseph still hadn’t looked up. Hadn’t looked up even at the sound of another backpack thumping softly into the dirt a little farther away and the scritching and rustling of Jacob settling down beside him, the chain link fence swaying slightly as the older boy had rested his weight against it.He hadn’t said anything, for a while. Had probably guessed why Joseph had been so upset. Looking back, Joseph’s heart ached a bit, to think of how much his brother had done for him, and then later John too, when their youngest brother had been born. Jacob had always given so much, to them and then to their country…only to be reduced to nothing, bled out and bled dry.Joseph remembered how Jacob had eventually tilted his head to look at him sidelong to ask, You want a Baby Ruth bar?That, had managed to get young Joseph after a moment’s pause to lift his head just enough to turn it and give his older brother a bemused squint. You don’t have a Baby Ruth bar…do you?No. But I can get one. The smile Jacob had worn then had been wolfish, eyes twinkling with knife-sharp mischief.They’d both known what that entailed.He wasn’t sure if Jacob had ever known how much that little moment of emotional support had meant to Joseph on that day. Joseph hadn’t had the words or the understanding to express it, then and perhaps even now.But it’d meant a lot to him, then and even still now. It was only fair that Joseph tried to return the favor, one of many countless moments where Jacob had stepped in to pick him up when Joseph had faltered. Now it was time for Joseph to try to do the same. ”Do you want a Baby Ruth bar?” He asked, knowing Jacob was listening, if still unresponsive.The seconds ticked by, silent and heavy, and Joseph found himself having to remember to breathe as he sat, hoping, waiting.Then— “You don’t have a Baby Ruth bar, do you.” Those words were rusted and worn, the timbre of Jacob’s voice older and marked with so many miles than Joseph had last heard it clearly, weighed with the trials of the years since he had last heard Jacob speak, speak truly and meaningfully, not in the nightmare-riddled mumbles from last night.He was there. His brother. Jacob.Joseph smiled truly then. “No, but I can go get one.”Jacob turned his head just enough to look at Joseph from the corner of his eye, the curtain of hair shifting just enough to show a faint shift of the corners of his mouth—not quite a smile, the effort too anemic and threadbare to be one, like the muscles in Jacob’s face had forgotten how after years of disuse.Then that first sign of life sputtered out as Jacob’s expression became shuttered once more and he faded back into the dark inside of himself, eyes sliding away to stare through the wall into nothing once again.The smile slid off of Joseph’s face and he was left wondering if this was progress or just the illusion of it. But he had to be patient, had to give Jacob time—Then the door swung open abruptly, and John stood there scowling at the two of them through a pair of blue polarized aviators, his vest, dress shirt, and slacks pressed crisp and fresh as if he was headed to the office, holding a plastic bag in one hand, a coffee tray in the other.“Good, you’re both up and in one place.” He said, sailing into the room with all the self-assurance of the elite and powerful gathered around him like a cloak. “I brought us all breakfast, seeing as neither of you appear to be inclined towards eating out right now.”“John—” Joseph started, frowning a bit, concerned that such…abruptness would just make Jacob retreat further into his shell, but John just continued as if he hadn’t heard Joseph interject at all.“I wasn’t sure what you two wanted, so I took a guess and got what looked good. Joseph, I got you oatmeal with fruit, I know you like that, at least.” There was an almost-judgemental glance at that, because John had noticed Joseph didn’t always eat breakfast. Almost-judgemental, with the threat of turning Definitely-Judgemental if Joseph did skip breakfast, Joseph knew at this point. “There’s also omelets, bacon, hash, french toast, pancakes, sausage, and some fruit salad.”“John that’s too much,” Joseph said, but John just continued ignoring him, pulling out the aforementioned plastic container of still-warm oatmeal to hold it and a spoon resting across the top of the lid out for Joseph to take.“So.” John continued brusquely, turning to look at Jacob with a very deliberate movement, shoulders rolling just enough to make it seem like he was squaring up—and Jacob’s gaze actually flicked up to meet John’s, a faint, contemplative frown verging on a scowl upon his face. That John had gotten any response at all rendered Joseph silent by surprise. “Are you going to help eat the veritable mountain of bacon I brought, Jacob, or are we going to have to have words about wasting food?”John was needling him. John was needling their older brother. Their older brother who was a soldier, undeniably with PTSD, and who had a fiery temper at the best of times.Joseph opened his mouth with the intent to chastise John for being so brash…but then closed it at the sound of a huff from beside him. He turned to look at Jacob.Jacob was smiling, not much more than his earlier attempt, but it was a smile.“Mouthy bastard, aren’t you, John.”“Damn straight I am, I had to walk up here with both hands full, sipping my morning coffee wasn’t an option!” John complained, plucking the coffee cup with the name John written across it in black sharpie to give it a sip, followed by a most exaggerated and satisfied “ah” afterwards. “Not as good as my preferred sourcing, but it will do. Now eat before it all gets any colder.”Jacob actually had an unimpressed look on his face then. “We have a microwave you know. Perhaps you’ve heard of it, or is it because it’s not gold plated that it doesn’t count?”“Microwaving food is for heathens, Jacob. Eat fresh or fuck off.”“Fuck you, microwaves are a legitimate way to cook certain foods and to reheat them, and I don’t recall you objecting to me microwaving your food as a rugrat.”“Brothers,” Joseph started, raising his free hand, the oatmeal container still held in the other, concerned that they were going to start quarreling and this too new fragile peace and connection would come crashing down with screams and yelling and angry words—but again John cut him off.“Shush,” John said, pointing an imperious finger at Joseph. “And start on your oatmeal already. It’ll turn to concrete if you let it get cold. I got this.”Turning his attention back to Jacob, John continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted, “That was then. This is now. I know better and so should you. And if you don’t, allow me to introduce to you the wonders of civilized living…after a shower and a haircut,” John paused, giving Jacob’s disheveled appearance a once over before clearly reaching a disagreeable conclusion, as evidenced by how he made a show of giving a very divisive sniff.“I think you’ve mixed up the word “civilized” with “spoiled,” you pampered brat,” Jacob said, the wryness of his voice taking just a little bit of the edge off, like sparring practice with combat steel—still sharp enough to draw blood, but wielded without the intent to kill.“That’s privileged to you, Jacob, and don’t go thinking that means I’m soft,” John said with a winsome smile that was just a bit too toothy to avoid being threatening as he handed over a container of food with a flourish to his eldest, newfound brother, “people who make that mistake are lucky if they live to regret it, and they do regret it so very profoundly then.”Joseph, who had at last pulled off the top of his food container, frowned as he mixed up the fruit and nuts into his oatmeal, along with a hefty drizzle of maple syrup. He didn’t care for this method at all…but he couldn’t deny the efficacy of it, nor that John was getting results. And...that they were enjoying this bickering with one another, if the competitive gleam in John’s eyes was anything to go by, and the fact that Jacob was actually warming up to all this and actually looking more alive.…it actually made him a touch envious.Still, he was glad that they were all there, at least, even if they were still at odds. Still strangers in many ways…but brothers too.The feeling of anxiousness and disapproval eased in his chest as he listened to John and Jacob banter back and forth over breakfast, testing each other’s mettle and exchanging barbs. It wasn’t what he’d envisioned for their family reunion…but it was something. Something promising. And that, at the very least, was something they all needed, and wanted. They could live with that. Live with that, and thrive, as God had promised him. They could do this. They could do this, together.
