Warning: References to domestic abuse, child abuse, and sibling incest.

Tonight, You Belong to Me

Somewhere between the painful thumping in his head, Caleb kept thinking that he should've known better. And on some level, maybe he had.

Not that he was known for thinking before he acted. That was how he had gotten into this, after all, with a son that was also his nephew. That thought didn't make him feel nearly as ashamed as, logically, it ought to – and maybe that was just another strike against him. He hadn't developed right, somewhere. He'd been left out in the sun too long.

This was no time to be waxing philosophical, however, whatever the hell that even meant. As he tried to feel around, he realized that he was strapped to some solid surface and seemed to be surrounded by dirt.

He tried to think back. He'd come back from that disastrous gun run with Dylan to find out that some big man in town had been intimidating his sister and had dug a huge fuckin' pit in front of her hotel. The message was clear to him, even if it wasn't to her.

He'd done… what had he done? It all got hazy after then, but it made sense that this might be the pit.

This was probably the pit.

He widened his eyes and looked up.

What had Norma said – twenty-six feet down?

She had done it. It had taken turning off every impulse in her body, every plea in her mind to hide and lie, but she had finally told Alex the truth.

She'd been willing to tell Emma to go… but not Alex. It wasn't until he had walked out, until he said "Goodbye, Norma" in that tone of voice, mind all made up, that she realized how much she really needed him.

Norma couldn't remember the last time she had felt the same happiness that she'd felt when he drove up in her car. This beautiful thing he had done for her.

Neither husband would have done that for her. They would have told her it was her own fault; actions have consequences; don't get drunk and swap out your car.

Sam would have punctuated it with a right hook to her cheek.

But Alex… Alex had brought her car home. She could trust him.

He had listened. So far he hadn't said anything – that seemed to be a good sign. She reached up and touched his face.

"I'm sorry."

There were so many things she wanted to say, but couldn't. If she started talking, she didn't know if she would be able to stop.

If she started crying, she knew she wouldn't be able to stop.

The problem with living off the grid is that when you go missing, no one really comes looking for you.

Caleb rolled his tongue around in his mouth, trying to get more saliva together. He screamed again.

"Norma! Dylan! Nor-Norman!"

They must have put him down here, figuring no one was going to look for him until it was too late. Until he became a pile of rotted-away bones at the bottom of this pit. A message, a warning to Norma.

Or maybe he was just the first. That was a worse thought – that he was a cornerstone, a foundation. A little pile of bodies stacked one on top of the other. Like Lincoln Logs.

"NORMA!"

There was an iPod hooked up to some speakers sitting on the desk. Norma reached over and hit a button. Shuffle.

As if preordained, a song that fit came on. With Norma's luck, it would have usually been something like "Baby Got Back" (she assumed Dylan was responsible for that addition at some point), but no, it was "Wonderful Tonight".

Alex smiled.

"And brushes her long, blonde hair," he teased, reaching a hand out and brushing against Norma's curls.

It was funny the way that the slightest touches from Alex were a bigger rush than having sex with James had been. It felt like he could see inside her, touch those places within her that she hid from everyone else.

"I'm sorry, Alex. I should have trusted you long ago."

"Shh…" Alex whispered. He pressed her lips against hers, soft and gentle. Their noses touched. Her hand found his side. It was warm. She was careful not to touch the place he was wounded.

She'd be careful with him tonight.

Caleb could hear the faintest hums of music coming from inside the house.

Straining, he could even recognize the song. "Wonderful Tonight" by Eric Clapton.

He began to hum to himself, shutting his eyes, remembering.

"Caleb, quit it."

"No, come on, Norma. Let me see."

"I look like crap. Everyone's going to laugh at me. 'Hey, look at the poor girl.' I'm not going."

"It's your eighth grade dance. You've got to go. Come on, put on your dress. No judging, okay?"

"You know what… You're impossible. But okay."

The creak of the door opening.

"Well, Norma Louise Calhoun, look at you!"

"Shut up."

"I'm serious. You look great."

His hand on her shoulder. She pushed it off.

"Quit it. You're just making fun of me."

"I'd never make fun of you."

There was a song playing on the radio in the living room, though their mother had long since passed out and wasn't paying attention to it.

"May I have this dance?"

"May I have this dance?" Norma asked, flinching for half a second before smiling. "Mr. Romero, sir?"

"I don't dance, Norma Bates."

She grinned.

"I don't know why, but I love it when you call me that."

"It's a little overblown."

"I don't care." She put her head on his shoulder. "I need you. I need us." She tried to swing him around, tried to lead.

"I told you… I don't dance."

"And I…" Norma leaned in, kissed his ear. "Say you do. So tonight, you do. Dance with me."

He was beginning to feel faint, to feel the effects of not having enough water. The straps were tight, too tight, though he wondered why they hadn't just covered him up. But that wouldn't be a message, would it?

It was only a message if the person it was meant for could see it.

He could hear the wind whistling through the trees, a short sharp whistle that sounded like his name. It lilted.

The door was slamming.

"What the hell? You're going to marry this guy you barely know? You're sixteen!"

"You don't run my life, Caleb! As much as you always think you do!"

"You can't seriously think this is a good idea…"

She snorted.

"I've had enough of your good ideas to last a lifetime, okay. I'm gone! Don't try and find me. You never will."

The straps were cutting off the circulation in his hands.

His best hope was if someone came by to look at the hole, maybe… but why would someone come stick their head in a hole?

That would be stupid.

"Norma!" he yelled again, but this time it came out raspy, came out pitiful.

It fit. It really did.

"It does."

Blonde curls, too close, in the darkness, in the pit. He knows it isn't real. That she isn't real.

"Describes you pretty well, doesn't it Caleb? If you had left town when you had the chance…"

"If I had left town, Dylan would be dead."

"If you'd left town he'd have never known about the job in the first place. Nice try!"

Hands on his chest, pushing him down.

Further into the pit.

There was a blanket wrapped around them. Alex was warm beside her. It had felt natural to curl into bed along with each other, more natural than anything had felt in a long time.

Being in Alex's arms felt safe. He was so strong.

She let her eyes slowly slip shut.

They hadn't done anything yet; not really. But they didn't have to.

It was like being wrapped in a cocoon.

Alex's chest was rising and falling beside her, and she could hear his slow breathing. After all, he was a man who was so rarely at peace, yet somehow, he was at peace with her.

And she, with him.

Norma was always playing piano, ever since they'd gotten that old one with the sticky keys. She had learned how to play songs from a handful of musicals, but one of her favorites was "A Little Fall of Rain" from Les Miserables.

"Don't you fret, Monsieur Marius, I don't feel any pain…"

She'd play and pretend to swoon, seeming to picture herself on stage, in the show, performing for an audience of adoring and utterly moved fans. Caleb used to watch her, somewhere between wanting to make fun of her and wanting to stand beside her, to be her one partner in the world she occupied all on her own the way he'd been when they were kids.

He could see her now, all blonde hair and freckles and gangly awkwardness. Even though she was two years younger, she'd been taller than him until he was seventeen.

Caleb had never been good at music, or art, or singing. He was all right at building. At carrying heavy stuff.

At laying waste to anything that got too close.

And here the world was, laying waste to him in return.

Norma didn't really know how they started, or who started it.

Their hands were clasped together and they were sprawled on the bed, Alex's hands in her hair and her hands on his belt. There must have been some agreement because now they were tumbling over each other like kittens, like fawns trying to find their footing.

As if neither of them had ever done this before. His fingers fumbled with her bra, and hers fumbled with his buttons.

Their lips met and her fingertips brushed his sides.

They wouldn't dig into his back. She didn't want to hurt him.

She decided right then and there that she would never, ever hurt him.

"You know, they're never going to find you down here."

She flipped her hair over her shoulder. It was all in one big braid. That had been a hairstyle that had lasted a few weeks, back when she was, what, fourteen, fifteen?

He wanted to tell her that she wasn't real, that this kind of thing did something to a person's brain, but it was hard to tell anymore. Maybe he wasn't strapped in the pit; maybe he was locked in the closet, huddled against Norma, hands over his ears.

Picking scabs off of his arms, his legs. Trying to make scars.

"Look at what you did to me, Caleb! I told you, we can't do this anymore, but you just wouldn't listen…"

Caleb began to hum, to drown it out.

"Way down…by the stream… how sweet… it will seem… Once more… just to dream… in the moonlight…"

His eyes shut.

"Mother! Mother wake up!"

Norma nearly fell off of the bed, pulling a blanket around herself.

"Norman! What the hell?" she railed at him. "Don't you know how to knock?" Out of the corner of her eye, Alex was pulling his pants on.

Norman looked back and forth between her and Alex, shaking his head a moment before emphatically continuing, "Mother! There's someone in the pit! The pit – there's someone in it!"

"I… Norman. This is another one of your things… There's no one in the pit. We put fencing around it – didn't you?" She stood up and started to pull on her clothes. "God, if some kid fell in there… you're sure it's not just a squirrel or a raccoon or something?"

"It is a person, Mother!" Norman reached out and grabbed her hands. "They're down there…"

Alex pulled on his belt. They looked at each other a moment.

"I'll get a ladder."

"You'll need a twenty-six foot one." Norma put her hand on her head. "We're all doomed, aren't we?"

Alex put a hand on her shoulder for the shortest of moments.

"I'll get the ladder."

They were sitting in a porch swing. A big, frilly one.

"Oh, Dylan honey – don't go too far – and – hey! Don't put that in your mouth either..."

"He'll be fine! He's just exploring. Don't get so worried."

Caleb moved his hand to put it on Norma's knee.

"I used to put rocks in my mouth all the time when I was three."

"Yeah, and look how you turned out."

There was a little creak-creak sound. Maybe the swing needed oiling.

There was a pool in the yard. He'd always wanted a pool growing up.

"Get him some water – get him some water, Norma – quick!"

They were buzzing around, spinning around. Norma's attempts to hydrate Caleb mostly ended all over his neck. Norman was staring wide-eyed in the corner, trying to speak for a while before he succeeded.

"Should we call Dylan? I mean if he's…"

"He's not going to die," Norma snapped back, "Bob Paris thinks he can pull this shit, that he can go so far as to bury my own brother in my own front yard, then he's got another thing coming!" Norma ran off, back to the bathroom, and returned with another cup of water to dump on Caleb's head. "Wake up!"

One eye opened, then the other.

"N…Norma?" Caleb rasped out.

"Welcome back to the land of the living."

His legs wouldn't quite work as he tried to stand. He eventually managed to roll over and throw up all over the floor.

"We need to figure this thing out," Norma continued, with a sideways glance. "And we'll need to clean that up. Caleb, get up. You're in this too."

"Mother, I don't think he's really in the…" Norman began.

"Norman. Shh…" She turned to Caleb. "I said we couldn't be friends. And we can't. But we are family, and if you're in it then you're in it for the good and the bad. So as soon as you… recover… we've got to go at them full force."

Her knees buckled and she fell back, with Alex catching her.

"I'll be up… in a second," she mumbled, stress and fatigue etching into her features. Alex set her on the chair, then looked back and forth between the siblings.

"You need a hospital," he said, looking at Caleb.

"No hospitals." He crawled up from the floor into a sitting position, wiped his face, and looked around. He cocked his head to the side. "So what's the plan, Norma Louise?"

The End