Title: Big Brother Promise
Author: Obi the Kid
Rating: PG
Summary: Niko tends to his five year old brother.
Disclaimer: All hail Rob Thurman! No profit here, I'm just having fun.
"Cal, let me see your hand."
"No, it hurts! It's bleedin', Nik. I need a band aid."
A young Niko grabbed the nearest cloth he could find, his own shirt, and pressed hard at the nasty cut on his little brother's hand. "How did you hurt your hand, Cal? I was only gone for ten minutes, just down the street."
Young, fearful gray eyes looked up, expecting the same gray eyes of his big brother to be disappointed and upset. But they saw neither of those things. The only thing Cal saw in the eyes of his big brother was worry.
"I was hungry, Nik and you said you would get s'mthin' to eat, and I looked for it, but I couldn't find it and m'really hungry."
Niko closed his eyes as he kept pressure on the wound. There was nothing he hated more than disappointing Cal, especially when it came to a basic necessity like food. A five year old needed nutrition; needed three solid meals a day. In the last month, they were lucky to get one of those daily. In recent weeks, Niko was fortunate if he got a few scraps after having made sure that Cal ate first. He did promise his brother they would have a meal today, and for five year olds, promises are a big deal. They mean something. They mean trust. Niko couldn't allow a broken one to grind into the absolute trust that Cal had in him.
But the day wasn't over yet, despite its lateness. There was still time to keep that promise.
"I don't have any food yet, Cal, but we'll get some. I have to fix your hand first, okay?"
"Hurts."
"I know it does," Niko replied softly as he replaced his shirt with a napkin over the cut. "Here, I need you to help me. Keep your other hand on top of the napkin. Just for a minute while I get the band aids."
Band aids in the Leandros household consisted of generic scotch tape and brown paper towels lifted from the public bathrooms of the in-town diner. Disinfectant consisted of a few splashes of the contents of one of Sophia's whiskey bottles. Quick and dirty, but a wiser-than-his-nine-years Niko had learned to make do with what he could scrounge up.
As he sat in front of his little brother on their battered mattress that doubled as both bed and sofa, Niko carefully dabbed a generous amount of whiskey onto the paper towel then took Cal's hand in his own. "Remember how I taught you to deal with pain?"
Cal's gray eyes misted over as he nodded and replied dutifully. "Close my eyes and count real slow."
"That's right. Count until it stops hurting. Close your eyes. You count when I say go. Ready…go."
Niko worked quickly to sterilize the cut. Several inches long and bleeding, but thankfully not too deep. He hadn't yet learned how to stitch up a wound, although he'd been practicing on one of Sophia's pillows with an old partially flayed spool of thread and a rusty old needle; things that he'd gotten from one of the old lady neighbors when he'd told one of them he needed to sew up a hole in his brother's sock. It hadn't been a lie. He had needed to sew up a sock, but he also used the tools to practice stitching up fake wounds. Niko was always trying hard to learn anything and everything medical related that he could. Cal could never go to a doctor or to a hospital. They would see that he wasn't quite right inside and…Niko shook his head, not wanting to think about Cal being taken away from him and dissected like the unfortunate frog in his own science class last week. No, he had to keep his brother healthy and he had to be the one to fix the wounds.
By the time Cal had counted to ten several times, Niko had finished. "Open your eyes, Cal. Does it hurt?"
"A little bit."
"I'll wrap it up and protect it with some tape. The bleeding will stop soon." As he wrapped, he realized…"You never told me how you cut your hand."
Cal's gray eyes fell from his brother's gaze.
"You can tell me. I won't be mad."
"Promise?"
"Big brother promise."
"I dropped a bottle."
"One of Sophia's?"
"Uh huh. It broke and I cleaned it up, but it cut me. M'sorry, Nik."
Niko swallowed a flash of anger directed a Sophia for leaving them for the several days with nothing but a bag of stale pretzels and a few cans of flat soda. He'd made a few dollars doing errands for some of those same old lady neighbors, but it had hardly been enough to feed the two of them for half of a week. Niko tried very hard not to hate. It just wasn't in him and he didn't want Cal learning bad things from his big brother, but with Sophia…he did hate. And his hate for her grew more with each passing day. Never though, at least not yet, had he allowed Cal to see that side of his big brother. For Cal, he bottled things up, built emotional walls…and lived his life for one purpose -his only purpose.
Seeing Cal's expectant eyes on him, Niko said, "It's okay, little brother. You were just looking for something to eat. Sophia'll notice that a bottle is missing though and she'll be really mad, so when she gets home today, we'll go outside. Maybe we'll sleep out in the field tonight."
A few weeks back they'd found a nearby field where they could go lie in the grass and look up at the stars at night – safe, for a time. And while it kept Cal from Sophia's immediate wrath, it did nothing to solve the food issue. But Cal didn't bring it up again. As hungry as he was and as young as he was, he still recognized all that his big brother was doing for him. Protecting him. Caring for him. Keeping him safe. His grumbling stomach would survive until their next meal. No matter when that meal came.
Niko, however, had made a promise. There was no breaking it. Leaving his brother alone for a minute, he wandered into Sophia's room, lifted the corner of the rug and forked out ten dollars from one of her various monetary stashes. Whatever the consequences, he'd deal with it later and shield Cal from it as best he could.
Later that evening in the field, they sat together leaning against a big Oak tree and under the moonlit sky eating fast food hamburgers, fries and soda. An exhausted Cal fell asleep shortly thereafter; his head pillowed in Niko's lap. Niko sat awake, a hand settled gently on his brother as he eyed the stars above. Only nine years old, but with more responsibility than any child had a right to bear. But this wasn't any child. This was Cal's big brother. His protector. His world. This was Niko.
Niko. Who had kept his promises today, just as he did every single day of Cal's life. Just as he would continue to do for the rest of their lives – no matter the cost.
The End