Freedom: (n)
1. the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint
2. exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.
3. the power to determine action without restraint.
4. Nonexistent
Born in the land of the free, he was anything but. More than a billion families in the world, but of course, he was that lucky one who got them. Con-artist parents, a psychotic older brother – he was never like them. Ever.
Even as a child, barely able to understand exactly what was wrong with his family, he secretly wondered if they weren't really his parents, if Casper wasn't really his older brother. And the more he understood, as the ugly truth began to settle, the more he believed that they weren't. He had been switched at birth, a simple accident, a misunderstanding. This wasn't really his family. He didn't share any of their genetics.
At least, in his dreams he didn't.
Sometimes, this was the only comfort he had. It was his one desperate hope that he wouldn't end up like them.
Because he didn't like it.
While Casper had made his preschool teacher pull out her hair, he had always been one of her little "angels," always sharing, always playing nice.
It horrified them.
Almost all families have a black sheep, but in his, it was normalacceptedright to be one. The real crime was being the white.
At school, the children liked him, although he never got to know any of them. What could he do? His parents would never let him go to their houses, and he certainly wouldn't invite them to his. Besides, with his parents' "work," he never stayed long in one place.
The police made sure of that.
Then one day, things changed. They were moving – again – but instead of driving for hours on end like usual, they came to an old farmhouse, stopped, got out, gave him his little red suitcase on wheels and a hug, and drove away.
Turned out, it was the best thing they ever did for him.
An old lady was waiting inside– his grandmother, she told him – and he would be living with her from now on. A little plate of cookies sat on the table, welcoming him, and a brightly coloured room with a homemade quilt and lots and lots of love made him feel right at home.
It was more than his parents had ever done.
And for the first time, he didn't have to wonder if he was actually related to them. If she really was his grandmother, then he really could believe it. What he couldn't believe was how she could have had a child like his mother.
But in many ways, she was a mother to him, and he was her son. They were made for each other, similar in so many ways. She nurtured him, almost to the point of babying him, and taught him everything his mother had never cared to learn. Some of the children at school called him "Grammy's boy," but he never cared. And when he sang, they didn't either. That was his greatest strength, the one thing that made up for his lack of athleticism or popularity. Just like her, he could sing. Like an angel.
He had seen an old clipping featuring her one day and had asked her to sing for him. She was too old, she claimed, but had been willing to teach him. And to her delight, he was every bit as talented.
They made the perfect duo.
For the very first time in his life, he was free from his parents' nagging, their disappointment, their control. And Grammy? She was free from the guilt of raising a wanted criminal.
Together, they were the family they'd never had.
Flashing red lights changed everything.
The minute he saw them, he knew something was wrong. And he was right.
Grammy was dead.
She had gone to the supermarket in the dead of winter, determined to buy the ingredients she had needed to make blueberry pie for his birthday, when she had lost control of the car and crashed into a tree. Her death was instant, they said. She didn't feel any pain.
But he sure did.
Grammy was dead, and it was all his fault. If he hadn't been so insistent on blueberry pie, if he had made sure to get the brakes checked like he was supposed to, if-
There were too many ifs, too many things he could have done to save her.
The policeman was polite, sympathetic, but so cordial. It was as though he didn't understand that this was his Grammy who had died. She wasn't just another car accident victim, she was everything. Without her, he was nothing.
Still numb and in shock, he listened half-heartedly as the man explained that they were going to have to call Social Services, seeing as there were no other legal adults in the house.
And suddenly, it struck him what that really meant. Not only had Grammy died, but this life had too. Either he went into foster care, or he went to live with his parents.
It was back to the one thing he had finally escaped.
Casper picked him up.
He wasn't sure how it happened, but somehow Casper managed to gain custody, despite being a wanted criminal. (He must have pulled another fake I.D.) No one knew where his parents were, and as long as Casper could convince them he was the closest living relative, they didn't care.
It was back to square one.
Casper hadn't changed a bit. Cruel, uncaring, and conniving – if anything, he was worse. And just like Mom and Dad, he travelled far too often. But strangely enough, it wasn't because the police were after him. It was some sort of business he was involved with. Illegal, no doubt.
Of course, though, he never asked Casper because frankly, he didn't have much desire to know.
"Turn a blind eye and a deaf ear every now and then, and we get on marvelously well."
Marvelously? Well, not quite, although following that wretched quote by Ms. Wilmot was the only way they ever got along at all.
The more time he spent with Casper, however, the more he "accidently" began to know. A few mysterious letters, a spontaneous message every once in a while – at first he thought he was just being paranoid because of all those old detective shows Grammy used to watch, but eventually he realized that his brother was involved in something even bigger than his parents had been.
And now he was being dragged into it, too.
Some sort of secret organization, he realized. One that was very, very powerful. One that was also very, very evil. And one that he was about to get sucked into if he wasn't careful.
It didn't take Casper long to figure out that he knew too much. But of course, it also didn't take Casper very long to convince him that he must never evereverever tell anyone what he knew. Casper even showed him exactly what would happen if he did.
After that, Casper started giving him little odd jobs, reminding him what would happen if he didn't comply. Unwittingly, his brain became a storehouse of more dirty secrets than he ever cared to know, much worse than his parents' embezzlement schemes had ever been.
So just like that, he became a slave to a world that he was never supposed to be a part of.
He became the devil's apprentice.
South Africa was different.
He liked it, but it wasn't home. Only one decrepit and decaying farmhouse would do.
Not that he had much of a choice.
It was off to boarding school with him, off to get a "better education" at a school with special facilities for students with extraordinary talents, such as himself.
Yeah, right.
"Spy on the Cahills," he said. And when Casper gave an order, there was nothing to do but obey.
The place was crawling with them – his teachers, fellow pupils, old geezers playing chess. It wasn't hard to get close to them. No, the real problem was betraying them. Because that wasn't his style. Never had been.
He had always been the good guy, the teacher's pet, the suck-up that nobody really liked, except the teachers. And now, everybody liked him, but it was all a lie. But what was he supposed to do? For every Cahill teacher there was, a Vesper janitor was right down the hallway. The whole blasted country was filled to the brim and bursting with both of them, along with more bugs than he could count. Any and every conversation he ever had, whether with himself or someone else, was probably recorded and stored away in some wretched Vesper facility.
Singing was his only escape. He found himself enjoying his choir conductor far more than he should. (The man was a Tomas, after all.) Strangely enough, though, the man also seemed to take a liking to him. His voice distinguished him from the masses, and it didn't take the man long to take special notice of him. Whenever he missed practice, the man acknowledged his absence and inquired after him. The man even offered to give him extra vocal lessons after hours, if he so desired.
It was the most interest anyone had ever taken in him since Grammy.
Then, out of the blue, Vesper activity reached an all-time high. Casper was always busy travelling the globe (thank goodness), but would come back from wherever he was in a more malicious mood than usual.
Finally, after a trip to Oceania (somewhere around Australia, although Casper never said), he came back with new instructions for Kurt.
"Two kids are coming here with a cat and a punk au pair. Deal with them."
Casper's last instructions probably meant something entirely different on the higher scales, but for where he was on the importance ladder, it was simply Casper's way of saying, "Get information."
And so he did.
Just like Casper planned, he played them like a violin. Led him right to a Clue. Problem was, though, he liked the kids. The girl (her eyes really were quite pretty) and the boy were more than half-decent. The girl especially – she was the kind of person who would've noticed him back at his old school, even when he was still "Grammy's boy." She was someone he could see himself becoming good friends with, if nothing else.
The Cahills, as he'd come to discover, were not at all what that stupid Vesper propaganda said about them. Professor Bardsley, Amy, Dan – if anything, they deserved world domination more than the Vespers did. Especially Casper. Casper didn't deserve anything.
And so, when the call came from Professor Bardsley to go on a "field trip," he went, knowing he would be directly placing himself in the epicenter of Cahill activity, against Casper's orders.
He sang.
And it had never felt so good. When the time came, he was the first one to step forward and let out the song that had been begging to be sung. All the while, as he watched the Tomas fall into the pit, as he helped the Cahill children discover their next clue, one thought raced through his mind in a continuous, non-stop loop.
Eat your heart out, Casper!
For the first time in his entire life, he fought. He fought against his circumstances, against his older brother, against the unfairness of it all. It was his time to take a stand.
"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."
Finally, he understood what Martin Luther King, Jr. had been talking about. No way on earth was freedom ever going to be handed to him on a silver platter. If he wanted it, he was going to have to fight.
And fight he did.
Casper was mad.
More than mad, really. Fuming, maniacal, livid, irrational – none of those words would have done him justice.
Even preparing for that moment didn't help. He had mentally rehearsed what he was going to say, planned out his speech, but as soon as he saw the look on his brother's face, it all faded away. Every last word.
There was a price to pay for disobedience, his brother had always said. And Casper may have been a liar, but there were some times when he always kept his word.
This was one of them.
Whatever will he had built against Casper, whatever resistance he had possessed, it was all eradicated. Every last bit.
Did he still want out? Oh, most definitely. Did he still dream of a world where Casper wasn't his brother and his Grammy wasn't dead? Absolutely. Was his desire to make Casper pay washed away?
Not. At. All.
If anything, his punishment only reinforced what he had already known. One teenager against the Vespers wasn't going to make a difference. A force united against them? Maybe. But one measly kid with the voice of an angel? No way.
Alone, he was nothing. His quest for the one thing he wanted most had failed.
Free: (a)
Not or no longer confined or imprisoned
His nonexistent reality.
A/N: Yeah, I know this isn't a Holt story. That one will come, but later. This one had priority.
Anyway, this was following the 39 Clues Monthly Prompt (feel free to check it out), although I don't believe I'll be entering it, as I am the host. So. Voting starts July 1st, I believe, and all are welcome! I decided to go against the subtle route and just went all out on the freedom theme with definitions and such. Just worked well for this particular story.
And yes, in case any of you didn't get this, that was Kurt. I had this random idea that Casper is his brother (no proof, just artistic license) and so I took what I knew about Casper and incorporated it here. My reasoning? Let me be the first to say I DON'T HATE KURT. There. I said it. NO, I'm not supporting an Amy/Kurt pairing (I'm Amian all the way), but I don't hate the guy. He has a lot of potential. And as fun as it is to make him the villain (I have done that and am sure to do it again), I wanted at least one story where he is the victim. So now there is one.