@creation-is-chaos / Muse: Cassius Stern
“You dare walk out of that door Corvus then you can forget ever returning.”
Cassius stood a ways away, in the back, his eyes downcast as his fingers tightened around his backpack. Just listening to Amanda’s threats made him hunch in on himself in attempts to hide himself from his adoptive mothers wrath. Even if the target of her anger wasn’t him, ever since he was a child he was treated as anything but a son. Even when he would show her a drawing of his new family he would only receive a harsh look and watch as his drawing was ripped in half, only to look in jealousy as she would dote on Connor.
He never blamed his elder brother, he cared for him, read to him, hugged him when he fell and scraped his knee. Yet, as he grew up in a cruel world he wondered if that love was just his duty as elder brother, even if it was he wouldn’t blame him. Caleb? Well he knows he wasn’t liked by his brother then again Cassius never truly belonged. Only Corvus was there when Amanda’s torments were overwhelming, he was the only one who extended a hand to him when he curled in his dark room, afraid of the lighting. He learned from a young age to not be a burden, to lick his own wounds.
As he grew, he also grew closer to Corvus, a brother on Amanda’s list of disliked sons. They both drew the short end of the stick and suffered the injustice of Amanda Stern. When he was older and witnessed the incident with his elder brother falling down the stairs he started to act out where he could, so her wrath would fall on him not on Corvus. He could take it, the sharp metaphorical knife wounds to his heart, the cold eyes and unloving gaze. He stopped hoping that Amanda would look at him with pride as she does to Connor and to an extension Caleb. He had stopped trying to make her like him as he took the blunt of her anger to ease it off Corvus. Anything so his brother can be safe.
And therefore, once they were in college, Corvus extended that hand to him again, promising a future away from Amanda. They were never really wanted were they?
With that resolve, he straightened his back and stood tall, just barely an inch above his brothers but towering over Amanda. The realization was empowering as his icy blue eyes glanced up from under his hood. His free hand lowering to wrap his fingers around the handle of his suitcase, he would pause momentarily in front of Connor and Caleb, wondering when he stopped talking to Connor. When he drifted so far apart from them, ignoring the tightness in his chest he gave Connor an apologetic expression before taking a step towards the door,
“I knew you were always a troublemaker, following in Corvus’ shoes, don’t even dare crawl back here you ungrateful children.”
Ah, he was now numb to her words, no longer did he wish for her approval and he stood in front of her, his eyes darkening in intent as he wondered how it would feel like to wrap his hand around her throat, push her down the stairs as he had witnessed so long ago.
Yet he did nothing but follow behind Corvus out the door and away from the hell he grew up in. Now? He would walk among the crueler world and conquer it, he would no longer be a sheep but be the predator they will fear. Taking a deep breath he reached out with trembling fingers to hold onto Corvus’ sleeve as he did as a child. His moment of strength melted out of him as he murmured, “We’re free now right?”
In that moment of weakness, he wondered if Corvus too would see him as a burden, would he abandon his younger brother as well?
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