Should Have Been
thecritter91
Characters: Maggie, Howard, Forrest, Jack
**Basically my idea of why Howard wasn't there for Forrest, ending up with Forrest getting his throat sliced open. Enjoy!
I should have been there Howard thought, taking another mouthful of the jar of whisky. The forest was quiet around him as he sat next to the still, keeping watch out for intruders. The only sounds were the birds chirping and the bugs buzzing, while the light breeze weaved through the trees, rustling the leaves slightly. He felt his eyelids grow heavier and his body sink lower to the ground.
He had been awake for the last two days, doing anything he could to keep himself from closing his eyes. Each time he saw Forrest laying there in the snow, his throat sliced open; his hands clenching the skin together desperately trying to keep the blood inside his body from escaping, eyes wide in fear and desperation.
He could see the men grabbing him and holding him down while one took a crude, unsharpened knife and hacked at Forrest's bared throat. He could hear the laughs as Forrest struggled. He could feel the bite of cold metal against his skin as Forrest was held against the hood of the Ford. The wet of the snow as it melted against Forrest's heated skin.
Howard jerked and spilled the whisky all over his hands as his large body was wracked with tremors. His right hand came up to scrub at his rough face, realizing that his body had betrayed him and let the exhaustion overtake him. Hot, wetness met his dirty fingers as he pulled them back and startled with the knowledge that he had tears running down his face.
Before he could even think to stop it sobs wracked his body, hard shudders causing his left hand to again causing the ground below him to end up being the one to consume the whisky. It was my fault he thought tears never stopping as he pictured Forrest in that stark white hospital bed, skin clammy and paler than the gauze protecting his neck.
He remembered when Mama had had Forrest, she laid in the bed sweaty and exhausted, holding the red, wrinkled, screaming bundle against her chest. As Howard had come into the room. As he had taken the small child into his young, thin arms she had smiled a tight smile at him This is your younger brother she had said he's yours to protect and take care of, you are his older bother.
When the squalling babe had calmed by his touch, all Howard's young mind could hear was He's yours. His dark eyes had stared into those wide blue eyes that stared back at him in wonder. Soon the babe had fallen asleep, as had Mama and Howard did nothing that day except for sit in the rocking chair in the room and hold Forrest.
Even while he had been at war, he knew that he would get back home because Forrest was his to protect. He finally got home as the Spanish Flu was filling graves, Forrest laid up in bed as he fought the thing that had killed Papa and Mama. Then when they went into business dealing with whisky, Howard was there to protect Forrest and Jack.
Even as he was constantly with a jar of the drink in his hand, he knew that he could protect his brothers. Forrest depended on him to be there, for whatever he needed. And Howard was always there whenever Forrest called. Howard knew that Forrest kept him close for the purpose of having someone close as well as for added protection. Because while Forrest would never say it, even if he could, he was just as susceptible as anyone to get lonely.
But when Maggie from Chicago showed up at Blackwater Station, her red hair pulled back and her blue dress clean, Howard knew something had shifted. Suddenly Forrest wasn't just his anymore. Maggie could get Forrest to talk more and stumble over his words at the same time. He saw how Forrest's eyes tracked her as she made her way around the room, refilling people's coffee. He saw her teasing smile as she moved Forrest's hat from the table to the chair, her smile growing as he grumbled and moved it back.
All of a sudden Howard was just the brawn, drunk older brother who's only real use was as the muscle. So when Forrest had told him about the meeting with the out-of-towners and said that he needed Howard there just in case, Howard had felt something in him crack. So had drank more than intended, just desperately wanting to bury the feeling of uselessness that he felt. And it ended up costing him more than he could imagine.
When he had stumbled home and gotten word that Forrest had been attacked, his throat sliced open, and that he was in the hospital Howard had felt that crack grow. He and Jack had sat on the bench in the hallway for hours, both their bodies jerky in their movements. The doctor had let them in to see Forrest and he thought he was ready for the sight.
Forrest had never looked so helpless, even when laid out with the Spanish Flu. His hazel eyes were bright and rimmed by red lids while his face was paler than the sheets around him. The gauze around his neck stained red from the blood that was still seeping through the sown together flesh. But it wasn't the blood stained gauze, the hopeless white of the room, or the pallor of Forrest's skin that cut him. It was his eyes.
Those eyes that were trained on him, accusing, questioning, and hurt. Forrest was ignoring everything else around him as he stared at Howard, almost begging for an answer to the unvoiced questions. Jack was yammering on and on about Forrest's impossible walk from Blackwater Station to the hospital and about getting back at the men who had hurt his brother. Howard felt like his skin was going to crawl right off of his body.
You were supposed to be there Forrest croaked, his voice broken and rough like sandpaper. His eyes never left Howard's. Jack stepped back and looked between them in confusion, trying to put together everything that went said and unsaid between his older brothers. Howard finally couldn't take it and fled the room, not stopping until he got to the old Ford and headed back home.
Home where he could drown himself and the feelings in a jar of whisky, hoping to never resurface. Home where he could forget about the looks between Maggie and Forrest, forget about his broken promises. Forget about those accusing, hazel eyes staring through him. Ignore Jack's indignant squawks about things that he knew nothing about.
Forget that Forrest was no longer his. Forget that I should have been there.
**Alright, so I almost feel like there is a hint of one-sided Howard/Forrest here if you squint and I totally didn't intend for that, but oh well…. Hope you enjoyed it.