𝐂𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐒.
chapter forty; Us Against The World
" You are never going to feel unloved or alone or scared again. "

  VEX AND DEAN had made good progress, but they were still a ways off from Terminus. They had a good system, waking up at dawn, making as much movement as they could, and resting just as it became too dark to be safe.

  But Dean was still worried about his sister.

  He couldn't forget what she had, or perhaps what she hadn't, said in the bathroom days ago, but she wasn't exactly reciprocative to his gentle nudges.

  "Has it been that way this whole time?"

  "You should be asleep, Dean."

  Dean frowned, sitting up to face his sister's back, outlined only by the dim moonlight.

"I just wanna talk to you, V."

  "We always talk about me," Vex mumbled, irritation clear, "What about you?"

"What about me?" Dean laughed.

  The woman turned toward him, resting an arm over her legs as she leaned toward him.

  "What did you do with your life?" She questioned, "In New York, in Georgia. . . you only ever talk about that damn school."

"Maybe that's a story for another time."

"Oh, so I have to tell you about my entire life and every emotion I ever have but you won't even tell me about your college experience?" She scoffed.

  "You get one card, you wanna pull it now?"

  Vex twisted her lips, staring at the index finger her brother held up to show his seriousness. Part of it was wishing for Dean to take the damn spotlight off of her, the other part was genuine curiosity.

  He had scarcely spoken of anything, except the school he went to and the farm he'd purchased.

  So Vex nodded, settling in for a story.

  Dean pursed his lips, sighing deeply in defeat.

  "Well, I moved onto campus my freshman year, had a cool roommate, his name was Lou; funny guy, laid back, loved computers, his family, and Cherry Cola," Dean nodded, "Got a girlfriend in second semester, Lyla— she was real sweet, her whole family, too. Spent all the holidays with her and stayed at Lou's over the summer— I couldn't go back to Dad after knowing what it was like to not be judged."

  Vex frowned, resting her chin on her knee.

  "Broke up with Lyla my Junior year, was still friends with Lou, though. He helped me through it, his parents too. Senior year came, and Lou showed up for my exhibition— I gave him my biggest piece as a present; it was a painting of his family at Thanksgiving, they did that bigger than any other holiday, with me at the table in between two of his cousins. 'Course, I'm sticking out like a sore thumb, only white kid in the room; a lotta people thought it was a piece on race or some shit. . . it was just about a group of people accepting someone different without batting an eye. New Yorkers and a Georgia kid, a book-smart family with an artist, football people, and a baseball guy. . . they never cared. I showed up, I helped, I ate— they became my family."

  Dean took his a shaky breath, laying back down on his makeshift bed.

  "All the pieces were around a central theme, I picked family," Dean explained, looking at his sister, "There was one of me in my room at Dad's. One of mom putting makeup on you. . . One of the three of us, probably before you could remember, eating ice cream in the park on the Fourth. . . one of me doing your hair at mom's funeral."

  Vex felt a lump form in her throat. Even when they were not speaking, even when Dean was not there-- she was still his family. Knowing she never lost this title repaired a part of her that thought she had to earn it back.

  "He always wanted to meet you," Dean laughed, "Lou did. He used to joke that from what I said about you, y'all would've been better friends than we were."

  "I doubt that," Vex said with a soft smile.

  "Oh, yeah," Dean breathed, shaking his head, "He always wanted the dorm to be scorching hot-- said it was freezing even if it was seventy. He believed firmly that every meal deserved dessert after, and that shoes weren't worn indoors."

  "I can see it," Vex said after a moment, earning a smile from Dean. "So did you two stay in touch?"

  A laugh escaped Dean's mouth, knitting confusion in Vex's brow. The man wiped his face, clearly hesitating before sighing deeply and continuing on. 

  "Lou and I moved out together after graduation— it was a shitty matchbox apartment in New York— he was on his way into the I.T. world and I was. . . a barista while I tried to get my art out there," Dean's voice had gone quiet, "It took us a year to realize what we had wasn't just friendship. His parents laughed. . . so loud when we told them, we were so scared . . they laughed because they had known. Because they thought the idea of them rejecting us was so outlandish it was comical. They didn't care if Lou and I were together— they just cared that we came home for Thanksgiving and Christmas."

Vex's face melted into shock as his voice cracked.

"Where is Lou now?" Vex whispered.

"We got engaged after three years of dating," Dean admitted, "I finally grew a pair and asked him. . . Dad died pretty soon after, so we postponed the wedding. I bought that land and started building that house, telling Lou we'd get through anything as long as we were together. .
. he always laughed it off but one day he told me. . . if the world ever ended, he'd go with it. I thought he was joking, or that if the time came he'd have a different mind about it. . .

"Anyway, Lou never got to see the world end," Dean whispered, looking down at his lap, "A couple of years after Dad died, the year before me and you re-connected and I got to meet Zep. . . Lou took this. . . stupid business trip. He'd dealt with some of it before, people judging us, but he was just walking back to his hotel one night, talking to me on the phone. . . one second he's laughing, next he's screamin'. The call got cut, so I called one of his coworkers and ran to the airport— I was there the next night. . . some dudes heard him talking to me, heard him say my name, and just. . . beat him. For nothin' at all."

Dean felt tears running freely as Vex readjusted herself to be closer to him.

"His nose was broken, he had a cracked rib," Dean continued, "But more than anything he was just. . . terrified. A phone call. Telling me about his day, saying he missed me, loved me, couldn't wait to plan our wedding— legally binding or not. . . that's what they beat him over."

Vex laced her fingers with her brother's, the man peering up at her through teary eyes.

"I found him two weeks later in our bathtub," Dean said thickly, "He didn't own guns so he used my pistol. . . There was no savin' him, not like if he had taken pills or somethin' else. He was gone the second he pulled the trigger."

  A shaky breath left her lips as the reality set in. The image of her carefree and wild older brother crumbled in mere seconds.

  Dean had not lived wildly and partied loosely while she was in the military, getting married to a monster.

  Dean had been fighting his own battle, one that their father had bestowed without even knowing it.

  "I didn't. . . I didn't not talk to you because I didn't love you," He said, as if reading her thoughts, "I. . . I was just so scared. That Dad would find out about Lou, and he'd ruin it. . . or that you wouldn't . . ."

  "You're my brother, Dean."

  "I was his son," Dean replied weakly, "He never even knew, but the way he talked. . . it was all about being a man. Doing hard work, hiding your emotions-- he wouldn't have accepted it."

  Vex reached out, grasping his hand tightly.

  "You're my brother," She recited, stronger, "No matter what you do, or who you are. I love you, D. I don't. . . I wouldn't have cared if you were engaged to a guy or a girl, as long as they loved you the way you deserved it. That's all that matters to me."

  Dean smiled tightly, his tears blurring his vision.

  "And I am so sorry that he was taken from you," She whispered, squeezing his hand, "God, Dean, I am so fucking sorry for everything I have said--"

  Dean moved quickly, his arms wrapping the woman in a tight embrace. And all she could do was hug him back, and hold him as his tears dotted the shoulder of her jacket.

  "You didn't know," He said thickly, "Don't beat yourself up about it."

  But that would be impossible. Because Vex had been so mad at him for so long. Cursing him for leaving her alone, for not reaching out, for living his life while she was shot at across the world, while she fought wars inside her own home. She had been so mad at him and their father and whatever higher power there was for letting him have it easy.

  But Dean had never had it easy. He'd been forced to hide who he was until he was 20, and the first person who accepted him suffered the same hate he had, only it drove him to suicide.

  "You're never going to be alone again," Vex vowed quietly, "You are never going to feel unloved or alone or scared again."

  "Those are big promises, V," He sniffled.

  "Well I'm making them," She said, resting a hand on the back of his neck and bringing her forehead to his, "I'm going to do better. I'm going to get better. And we are going to get back everything that was taken from us."

  And what a terrifying picture it was. Two terribly torn siblings vowing only ever to fix each other, willing to go to the ends of the earth for one another, finally and perhaps forever again, with the same goal in mind.

  It went without saying that they would burn down what remained of the world to regain the family they had finally found.

WORD COUNT : 1811