A/N: Wrote this for the LJ community FourBrothers100, for the prompt "Fixed."
No slash. Please read and review. Thanks!
Listen to "Brothers in a Hotel Bed" by Death Cab for Cutie.
Comfortable in the Dark
Jack woke almost surprised to find himself in tears. The curves of his neck were sticky, and his punk band t-shirt clung to his back and chest in unwanted wrinkles. The only light came through the top four blinds – another unappreciated moon. All that surrounded him were black silhouettes almost lost in more black. He lay still, almost yearning for those four strips of moonlight. He tried to catch his breath and remember what it was he had been crying in his sleep over.
Another nightmare. He wanted to shake his head. He was too old. Too old for this. It hadn't happened in years, but tonight was his first night home since his mother's death. He wanted to blame it on that, but he wasn't sure if that was it.
His guitar pick glinted on his chain as he dragged himself up to his feet, almost laughing when he found himself standing up on the bed, nearly hitting his head on the ceiling. He remembered being twelve years old in this room, standing on this bed. He would wait a while, feeling the uncertainty of that spring mattress, but eventually, he would jump off and pretend to fly. He had always wanted to fly. He knew it had something to do with escaping.
He didn't bother flipping on a light in the kitchen. He found his way around in the dark – an old skill. He squinted into the refrigerator and retrieved a beer. The hiss of the bottle cap giving way must have split the air in two. He tried to compose himself.
"Jack? What the hell are you doing?"
Bobby's figure stood in the doorway. Jack was grateful for the dark. He didn't want anyone to see his vulnerability.
"I just needed a drink," he said.
"At 3 o'clock in the morning?"
Jack didn't even bother shrugging. He looked away, back to some spot in the dark, and sipped his beer. Bobby sighed and pulled out a chair from the table, plopping down despite wanting to go back to sleep.
"What's up, man?" he asked, rubbing his forehead. "You really that fucked up over Ma? I'm not saying you shouldn't be, I just want to know if that's it or if there's some other shit I should know about."
Jack took another drink, his eyes approaching the blank stare his family had spent so long trying to get rid of. They had never been completely successful. The look came back whenever Jack was particularly scared or if he felt trapped. Sometimes all it took was too much tension. For the most part, though, that stare stayed buried with his old self, the child he had been before reaching Evelyn.
He hung his head, rested his free hand on his hip.
"I had a nightmare," he admitted quietly, waiting for some degrading remark complete with a feminine nickname. Instead, bobby just looked at him and asked what the nightmare had been about. Jack glanced at him in slight disbelief and sipped his beer.
"Same old shit," he tried to shrug, his ribs still moist. "That asshole Martin coming into my room when I was a kid, doing all the wrong shit in all the right ways."
He drank. Bobby waited. The blinds were closed here in the kitchen.
"I think I would have preferred he beat me like all the others instead."
Bobby looked into his lap, knowing that apologizing was stupid and overdone. He didn't know what else to say. It wasn't as if he hadn't known for years about Jack's past. Most of the time, he liked to think that his brother was okay about it, that time had done it's job in distancing jack from that past. It was a comfortable belief. If Jack was okay, Bobby didn't need to feel guilt and helpless for not being able to go find all the abusers and beating the shit out of them. But on occasion, Bobby faced the truth that jack wasn't totally over it and may never be.
"I guess now that Mom's gone," Jack drawled, "Deep down, I must feel like I'm not protected anymore. She always was the one to make feel safe everywhere and anywhere, even in myself. All I needed was to be hers."
"Jack --" Bobby started, unsure where he would go. "You know as long as you got me – and Angel and Jerry, you're all right. We may not be Ma, but we are your brothers."
Jack took a moment before meeting bobby's gaze. He gave a nod, more hope than acceptance. Bobby stood up and decided to be tender for once, probably his one moment of the year. He pulled jack into a hug, a long and close hug. Jack may be taller, but he was still Bobby's baby brother.
The younger man folded his arms around Bobby, his protection. He knew no demon was coming back for him. His brother was here, holding him in the middle of their dark kitchen, and it was quiet. Bobby felt Jack's erratic heartbeat and damp neck. He smelled tears, and he knew this wasn't just a nightmare. Looking back on it later, the eldest Mercer brother would decide that this was the moment where he had truly grieved for his mother – comforting the youngest in their family.
"I love you too, Bobby," Jack whispered.
Bobby wanted to smile. He hadn't heard the words so seriously in a long time.
"Jackie," he whispered back. And Jack smiled.