Emerson stood there as his brother walked away, he knew he had to say something to save their relationship, even if that meant sharing the one thing that could tear it apart, he had to try right? "I'm broken Remington" the pain in his voice made the other man stop in his tracks and turn to his brother. There was only pain behind his eyes, Remington couldn't even tell his eye colour because of all the pain that was clouding his eyes. Now that Emerson had Remington's attention, he spoke more, "I'm broken, so fucking broken! I'm barely even the man I was. Damn, I don't even know what the skin of my arms looks like anymore, there isn't any left visible. The pain has been too much.

I know you're going to shout, leave and disown me as your brother. You're stronger than me, you hit rock bottom and climbed back up. I just stayed here. I thought Maisie was helping me find a better way up, but in the end, she was digging the hole deeper. I'm broken to the point I don't even remember being whole anymore, and I'm so tired. Tired of feeling like I'm too weak to be your brother, tired of cutting my skin to an unrecognisable mess. Tired of being Emerson Barrett Kropp, the guy that was too stupid to realise his girlfriend had been cheating on him since he had gotten with her; most of all I'm tired of the nightmares.

She's haunting my dreams. She still controls me, and I'm tired of it. I can't stop her. She might not be in my life, but she's a permanent fixture in my nightmare. The nightmare where she torments me and literally crushes my heart once again."

Remington stood there in shock, he didn't know what to do, this was the most Emerson had said uninterrupted in a very long time, but most of all he had told him how broken he was. He had gotten what he wanted, he wanted to know, but the knowledge was a heavy weight on his chest. Prior to Emerson's outburst and him knowing how Emerson was feeling, he would have said the knowledge would be a feeling of relief on his heart. It wasn't.

The knowledge of what his brother was going through silently pained him to no end, he felt like he had neglected his own brother, any good brother would know what was going on in their sibling's mind not be completely clueless. And that's what he was, Clueless. He didn't know his brother, not anymore.

Emerson was still looking at his brother, pain evident in his features and he slowly pulled off his long sleeve shirt to reveal the damage he had inflicted upon his own skin. He looked away to avoid witnessing his brother's reaction to the secret he had been hiding for over eight months. After Emerson heard his brother's sharp intake of breath he wanted to cover his arms and pretend this had never happened, but his secret was out in the open now.

Emerson closed his eyes as he felt his brother's calloused finger trace the lines that were permanently scarred on the drummer's arms. "Why?" Remington's pained voice forced the younger man to open his eyes. He didn't want to, but he felt like he needed to console his brother, and the only way to do that was to look him in the eyes and answer his questions.

"I'm not good at dealing with the pain," Emerson traced one of the deeper cuts from a month ago and stared at the scattered lines all over his forearms, biceps and shoulders. "Yes you're right, Maisie broke me and she still is continuing to do so, but she's winning. I've reached a point where I don't care about the consequences of cutting too deep. I know that's really not something I should tell you, but I can't help it. You're my brother" The last three words made Remington wince, not too long ago the words had left his mouth, but there was malice under his words, yet with Emerson's, there was just pain.

"I know I've been a shitty brother over the last few months, and sometimes all I wanted to do was speak to you, tell you about the nightmares, about the scars that were appearing because of my actions, but then I would have another nightmare, and Maisie would tell me that she's slept with you, and I would shut down. I know you would never sleep with her, but it's a battle with my own subconscious and I'm losing"

The men were still stood, Remington still had his hand on his brother's wrist and was less than a foot from his brother's body. Despite the nature of the conversation, a calm air had surrounded them; the weights were being lifted from their chests.

"A month ago, the nightmare changed, it got worse. It was so real and I had no control, it wasn't the same as the other dream, Maisie wasn't visible but I could hear her. She was taunting me, and then you were there. She made me rip your heart out of his chest, she was controlling me, embedded in my brain" Emerson turned to leave, but before Remington could pull him back or release his wrist, the other turned back around and faced his brother again. Now was not the time to close up.

"That's not even the worst part, just before I ripped your heart out, whilst my hand was in your chest wrapped around your beating heart, you said one thing: 'I understand' because I know you do. You know that I'm broken, as much as I hate to admit it, I know you knew about the nightmares, I would hear you sit up in your bunk when I woke up and so the nightmare hit pretty hard" Thoughts of regret hit Remington like a truck, even through all this, his brother was still worrying about him and yet all Remington had been worrying about was his own selfish desires to be the only one Emerson ever opened up to.

"That night I sliced my skin, cut after cut, the blood was pouring out of them and I couldn't see any of the skin on my arms. I was cutting blind, and then Codie walked into the bathroom, she cleaned up my cuts and made me talk. It was like a weight was being released from my chest, I knew I needed to tell you and Sebastian, but I was just scared that you would leave me when you discovered how broken I was,"

Remington placed his hands on his brother's arms, ignoring the cuts he could feel under his hands, and made his brother look him in the eyes, "I will never leave you! I'm sorry about tonight, but I was just- I felt betrayed that you had opened up to someone else who wasn't me. I was being selfish." By now both of the men were crying, and it was a good job that neither of them was wearing makeup because it would have been ruined.

"I get it, I understand why you didn't open up, and I don't think I'll ever stop feeling bad for the way I made you open up, it was wrong and you should have done it on your own terms" Remington removed both his hands from his brother and turned around, ashamed as the memories of him screaming at his fragile brother ran through his brain. He uttered a small "fuck" and ran his fingers through his blonde hair.

Emerson winced when he heard his brother repeat the words that had haunted him for the last month, yet he still stood behind his brother waiting for another response. The other man in the bus had taken up swearing at himself and calling himself horrible names. During this time, however, Emerson had put his shirt back on, hoping that his brother's lack of visibility of the cuts would somewhat soothe him.

"I wouldn't have done it without the push" Emerson's vagueness confused Remington, so much so he stopped berating himself and turned to his brother, raising an eyebrow to silently gesture for the other man to continue. "I don't think I would have opened up. I had to open up to Codie because she walked in, and I guess you and Sebastian walking in on me would probably be the only other way you would have found out"

The honesty was like a stab to the heart for Remington, his brother had basically just told him that even with the bond they share he still wouldn't have told him what he was going through. However, despite this, he was beginning to forgive himself slightly for his harsh attack on Emerson earlier as he slowly began to see it as a necessary evil.

The men stood in silence staring at the other, neither knowing what to say. After all, everything had been said already. They were still standing there when Codie and Sebastian returned.

It was when Emerson saw Codie's tear stained cheeks that he moved and slowly walked towards her asking if she was okay. She smiled at him and nodded her head, she could tell something had happened between the two brothers who were alone on the bus and didn't want to put any attention on herself. She knew that despite the obvious tension that was evident in the atmosphere, everyone on the bus was happy.

It wasn't an everyday event that the residents sat on the bus together, especially since Emerson and Maisie. It wasn't even the aftermath of Maisie, when the two were together all of Emerson's attention had to be on her, and if it wasn't she would sit in a corner and sulk.

The four residents of the bus were sat in the living area, Emerson and Remington on one couch, whilst Sebastian and Codie sat on the other. Each of them had taken to doing their own thing not really minding the presence of the others. As always, Emerson was drawing; Remington and Sebastian were drinking; Codie was editing a few images on her laptop.

Drunk laughter of the older two Kropp brothers could be heard by the other two despite them being in their own worlds, and ultimately led to them joining in on the liquid fun. It was as if the events of the day had left their minds. Remington was no longer was worried for his brother as he watched the younger man laugh and smile as Sebastian danced forcefully with a significantly less drunk Codie.

Emerson stood up, he wasn't drunk but he was no longer sober, he walked towards the dancing pair, and placed his arms around Sebastian and pulled him away, dragging him to the ground, laughing as he did so. As well as this, Emerson was screaming and shouting mid laughter claiming that the truce from a few months ago was a lie.

Remington easily recalled the truce his brother was speaking of, it was when Sebastian had blackmailed Emerson into calling the truce, using a very intimate looking image as the weapon, however, in reality, Emerson was using Codie as a human shield.

Remington turned his attention away from the men wrestling on the ground and back to the photographer who he had treated with such abhorrent behaviour that it would make his mother disappointed in him. She was on her phone, not even regarding the scene around her, which made Remington wonder what she was doing. He knew she was probably just randomly scrolling through Instagram, but he felt compelled to see.

He tried to step over his brother's legs but was met with great difficulty as every time he would raise his leg to climb over them, the legs would flail in the air and almost knock Remington over. He had no idea whose legs they were but they were in his way so, after he moved his leg a fair distance away, he swung his leg forward, kicking the flailing legs. The grunt of pain that followed the kick informed Remington that the pair of legs belonged to his older brother.

With a sigh of relief, he flopped down on the couch next to Codie who was, as expected, mindlessly scrolling through Instagram. The effort he had exerted from trying to climb over Sebastian's long limbs had drained him and left him tired, but that might have been because hadn't had a proper night's sleep in two weeks. He leant his head on the shoulder next to him and proceeded to make random noises to annoy the woman next to him, who then proceeded to mutter that she wasn't drunk enough to deal with his shit and then drink half a bottle of vodka.

If there's one thing that happens when you're drunk, it's that rules often go out the window, which is precisely what happened when a drunk Remington and a now drunk Codie decided to play charades. They both stood opposite each other randomly miming different shapes with their body whilst also shouting out random words as guesses for the other person's actions.

They weren't even sticking to the rule that they couldn't speak and had developed a habit of calling the other a series of offensive insults when they got it wrong. The most creative that the other two men present had heard was an insult from Codie to Remington when she called him a "Goose breath unicorn fucker"

"Stop screaming potato! How the fuck could I be acting out a potato" Codie was currently trying to act out a film however her drunk mind kept forgetting which she had decided on and so she ended up changing films and actions every five minutes.

"My turn" Sebastian stumbled into the centre of the drunken pair, making funny faces. He hadn't even started yet but continued to make faces as he thought of an appropriate thing. By now, he was the least drunk of the four people in the bus, which was surprising as he had had way more to drink and had started long before Codie and Emerson who were the drunkest there.

"Are you Emerson when we walked in on him and that girl when he was 17?" Remington blurted out the sentence not even conscious of the words leaving his lips. Emerson's face registered shock but he was too drunk to realise what had been said. Codie however, had heard every word and demanded to be told the story.

"When I was 19 we were all let alone in the house for a week, and in the middle of the week super douche and I decided that we were going to have a nice family day, I think, I can't even remember why we went into his room. But we did. And we found our dear brother with a woman, I think she was 20 or 21, she was missing quite a few items of clothing, a very nice sight to be honest" he rubbed his head to soothe the pain of the impact from Sebastian's hand as a response to his statement about the woman.

"He didn't even realise we were in his room, he was naked getting under the covers when he saw us. He got so scared that he pushed her off him, but he pushed her that hard she landed on the floor at the foot of his bed. The poor girl looked so embarrassed when she saw us there." Codie listened hard as she found it hard to hear the story through Remington's slurred words, but by the end of the story, she was curled up on the floor clutching her stomach as she laughed.

Tears were streaming from her eyes as the images flashed in her head and she wasn't even laughing anymore, she was just making noises with her mouth that resembled that of a sea lion. The noises from her mouth fuelled the laughter from the other men and every time she took in another breath of air more noises would leave her lips.

Pure happiness was raw in the small confined space of the bus, and no-one in the bus wanted to be the one to ruin it.

Codie calmed down from and stopped her metamorphosis into a sea lion and stayed lying on the ground. "Once, I was in my room and my sister Ezekiel was meant to be out with her friends and so I invited a friend over, my mum was out as was my brother" Her inner voice was screaming at her to shut up and leave it at that, but the alcohol was talking now and she was tied to a chair in the back of her mind whilst drunk Codie stood at the front of the stage.

"Well anyway, one thing led to another and we were kissing on the couch. Things were getting heated and we decided to head to my bedroom. They walked through the house carrying me, both of us just in our underwear. Walking up the stairs, they dropped me and I landed on my hand funny and my leg" she was staring off into thin air as she recalled the fateful event.

"My sister walked in the house two minutes later to find her 17 year old sister on the stairs in her underwear with a sprained wrist and broken leg. Obviously, she told my mother how I broke my leg and hurt my wrist. After that I never spoke to the friend again, this friend actually moved away because of the incident" She left the pronouns vague, not really seeing the gender of the friend as a necessary part of the story. After all, what did it matter if her first kiss was with a girl, or that her first time was with a girl?

Standing up, Codie wiped of imaginary dust from her pants and sat down on the couch. However, her drunk mind miscalculated where she would land and she ended up landing on the couch but half of her was on Remington' lap. Despite him being totally drunk and it only being half of her, Remington barely felt any weight on his lap, and couldn't help but be concerned at her lightness. However, he wasn't willing to be the one to ruin the happy atmosphere.

Once again, Codie's drunken mind took control of her speech, leaving her to spill even more secrets. "Maybe that's why Liam was a dick, I don't think he liked that I was bisexual, maybe he was homophobic, wouldn't surprise me" She was speaking more to herself than the group, but Emerson and Sebastian caught her ex's name in the sentence and tuned into what she was saying.

Remington, however, was a curious drunk and always listened into others conversations, yet he was the only one on the bus who didn't know about Codie's past and was quite confused as to the meaning of the words. His brain latched onto her embedded confession and focused on that. "We can talk about girls together" Drunk Remington laughed and started talking to himself, or talking to Codie. But if he was, she wasn't listening, she was off in her own little world, trapped in the memories of the first girl she loved.

***

4 chapters in a month... wow. let's also remember it is the shortest month as well. I have peaked and will never do such a thing again. Also, this chapter is dedicated to LittleTicTac cause they gave me a happy and wholesome scenario.