Title: Always

POV: Cal

Author: Obi the Kid

Rating: PG

Summary: Events of present time triggers a childhood flashback for Niko.

Disclaimer: All hail Rob Thurman! No profit here, I'm just having fun.

(Childhood – Niko POV)

"I don't wanna be a monster, Nik."

"You're not a monster, Cal."

"But mom says I'm a monster and she says she hates me. Why does mom hate me, Niko?"

I held my little brother close, pulled to my lap with my arms wrapped around to cross in front of him. Today was the first that he'd actually begun to take in what Sophia had been spitting at him in the five-and-a-half years since his birth. Before, he was nothing but simple innocence; not needing nor wanting to understand. He was as every child should be at his age. In recent days however, Sophia had turned up the hatred and had begun lashing out at Cal with an almost evil delight. I stood between them, protecting my brother since he was too small and young to protect himself. Her words could hurt him, but there would be no bodily harm. Not if I could help it. I was only ten, moving close to eleven, but I was tall for my age. I could protect him with physical force if I had to. And I would. Cal was all I had.

This time her words had truly hurt him. Not that he completely understood them, but they'd left a lasting sting. Cal knew now that she hated him, but he wasn't yet able to grasp the total depth of those feelings and he wasn't able to grasp the why. Why she didn't have the capability – or the want - to bring herself to offer something as simple as a loving hug or a kind word. It wasn't his fault he'd been born. It wasn't his fault that she'd done bad things with bad people – creatures - to bring Cal into the world. But she'd done everything in her power to make his life a living nightmare since that first breathing minute of his life.

"She's not our mom, Cal. A mom cares about her kids. Sophia doesn't care. But I care about you, Cal. You're my brother. We're family. You and me, okay? Always. Sophia doesn't love you, but I do. Remember that."

"But…she's our mom, Nik" he said; that tiny bit of innocence still clinging to life.

But, no. A mom was supposed to love and comfort and support. Be there when a child was happy. Be there when he was sad. Sophia was none of that…and more.

"All mom's aren't nice, Cal. It's okay though. You have me. And I have you. It's all we need, little brother. One day when we get older and I start college, we'll move away from here and never have to be near her again."

"Okay. But won't mom…I mean, Sophia be sad then? If we move away?"

I sighed, seeing that he was waging a battle of confusion within himself to find some type of five-year-old understanding. I decided, in the end, that he understood the hate, but didn't recognize the true hatred she had for him. There was still that bit of innocence there – still a child in need of a mother.

I tried again. "She won't be sad, Cal. Not ever. She doesn't like us and she never will."

"I've been good, Nik. Right? Maybe I can be better for her?"

"You're always good, Cal."

Leaning his head back so it rested under my chin, Cal sniffled a bit and wiped at his moist eyes.

"I wish mom didn't hate me."

He curled up then, tucking himself into my lap and settling his head sideways on my chest. I hugged him tight.

"You'll never hate me, will you, Nik?"

"Never, Cal."

"I like having you for my big brother. You love me."

I smiled and nodded into his dark hair as he curled in tighter and eventually cried himself to sleep. "Always, little brother. Always."

(Present Day – Cal POV)

Daydreaming was for normal people. We weren't normal.

I kicked Niko's foot to jolt him out of his venture into La La Land knowing full well that in a few rapid (and unseen) movements, he could have taken my foot, flipped me over and pinned me to the ground - daydreaming or not. One couldn't hope to catch my brother unprepared. Still, as I returned from my trip to the nearby food truck, I wondered the reason for the peculiar faraway gaze into nothing.

"Here, Nik. The closest thing they had to satisfy your insipid taste for seaweed and wheat germ was a pineapple smoothie. They claim it's made with natural sugar, whatever the hell that means. Sugar is sugar. I should know; it's my main food group. Oh and I'd share my four tacos with you, but they contain eighteen syllable chemicals, I'm sure. Bite?"

"Perhaps in my next life."

I snorted with enough force to blow several shreds of cheese right off the top of my fat laden lunch. "We're not getting a next life, Cyrano. The world's had enough of us. It can't handle letting us come back again and wreaking even more havoc. This is it for us, which is probably a good thing, by the way. But I do wonder what's floating up there in that luminous mind of yours. It's not like you to allow your brain to wander while we're in public."

Niko knew me better than anyone. I could return the favor. He'd been daydreaming, sure, but only I would have noticed. To anyone else, he was just a guy in the park watching the world go by. I knew better. The world never went by Niko; at least not before some form of meticulous dissection. But for a very small moment, this time, he'd let his mind meander away. It wasn't something that overly concerned me – my brother always had his reasons for everything - but it did peak my interest.

"The past," he finally replied.

I took a bite of taco and responded in full-mouthed muffled form. He flicked me in the ear.

"I raised you better than that, Cal. Care to try again after you've swallowed your toxins?"

They were some damn good toxins was all I had to say. I finished my bite. "I asked which episode in the past are you wandering around in? We have so many wonderfully happy memories crammed back there. And of course, there are countless that are well worthy of commemoration."

He didn't appreciate my sarcasm, but at least he didn't take it out on my ear again. I finished taco #1 as he selected his words.

"Do you remember the first time that you really understood when Sophia called you a monster?"

Jesus! From what random left field did that question come out of? I glanced around – eyes darting here and there - trying to see some trigger that may have gotten Niko's attention enough for that memory. It was pretty damned specific and it was a memory that I did recall, even though I was five-years-old at the time. I remember Sophia's curses and the names she'd slung at me. I remember curling up in Niko's lap, asking him questions about why 'mom' called me a monster; and if I was a monster. More importantly, I asked him why she did those things. She was supposed to love me, and she didn't. I remember crying, horribly upset by it all – most of which I still didn't really comprehend at the time. Most of all though, I remember Nik staying with me and holding onto me. He was ten then and wise beyond his years. And he took care of me. Always.

I kept my eyes moving around the park before I finally spotted it – in the distance - on the playground. Kids who would be about the age I was in the memory. And the people with those kids? Moms. Moms that actually gave a shit about them. One little girl got a hug from her mom when she slipped and skinned her knee. A little boy got his hair tousled when it looked like he'd gone to his mom and said something silly. Moms as they were supposed to be. Kids as they were supposed to be.

I put my second taco down and nudged Niko with my shoulder. "Yeah, I remember. I remember wanting what those kids have," I lifted my chin in the direction of the playground. "I didn't understand why that couldn't be us. Why Sophia hated us…hated me…so much. Why she spent all her days hating me and then hating you just because you loved your little brother. I asked a lot of five-year-old questions and you answered them in a way that you thought best, and in ways I could hopefully understand. I remember not really being able to figure it all out. I was tired after it all too. Exhausted. Confused. But you stayed with me until I fell asleep and then long after."

"You had your first nightmares that night."

Huh. I hadn't known. Nik had never told me. I didn't recall them.

"The first, huh? You must have chased them away, because I don't have any memory of them."

"It's why I kept you with me all night. Why I kept a hold of you. I knew the dreams would come."

Niko knew because he'd already been having them. Not identical, but with enough similarities to scare the hell out of him at that age. And he was old enough and smart enough to know that what scared the hell out of him, would send his little brother back into a permanent fetal position hiding in the darkest corner of our tiny closet.

"It's a mother's job," Niko continued, still watching the playground kids. "…to keep the bad dreams away. To hug her son when he's scared. To explain things to him when he doesn't understand. Sometimes, I hated her for that more than anything. That she so completely rejected you to the point that you couldn't even go to her when you just needed a mother's hug. I still hate her for it."

The rest of my meal I jammed back into the paper bag and I stole a sip from the pineapple smoothie. My face puckered up at the tartness. A blurry hand reached up to thwack me in the back of the head. Never take a man's pineapple smoothie, I guess. Who knew?

"No point in hating her for things she could never do, Cyrano. Besides, I had you."

"You should've had more. You deserved more."

I deserved more? Me? If any kid deserved more that what he got as a child, it was my brother. He deserved the whole damn world. "We both deserved more, Nik. In the end, we had what we had. Us. And you know, Auphe, whore-mother, and Super Ninja issues aside, I think we turned out okay." To illustrate my point, I stole his smoothie again to blow back into the straw to see if bright yellow pineapple-y bubbles would pop to the surface. They did and I got another head smack. A fully expected one. I smiled and handed the drink back to him.

"You and your sordid habits can keep the smoothie. Oh and by the way, that is not made with natural sugar."

I didn't ask how he knew. One sip and Niko could tell probably name the country from where the pineapple originated. I gave up on the bubbles and tried to act like a normal twenty-two year old. Normal. Yeah. Sure.

My brother went back to watching the kids; watching without actually watching of course. Nothing made alarm bells ring like a couple twenty-something men sitting on a park bench staring at children and women, right? We didn't need the extra attention, but Nik had fallen into this abnormal melancholy mood for a reason, so I let him stay there a bit longer.

Eventually he got his fill of those Kodak family moments and turned away from the playground. "Hamburgers for dinner?" he said, leaving me in stunned shock.

"Ah, uh, um…"

"Don't make me smack you again, please."

"Yes? Wait, you are going to eat a burger? One made from an actual cow? And a chemically fed cow at that?"

For a brief moment, he looked repulsed, but the instant passed just as quickly.

"This one time only."

"Damn, Nik. You should get stuck in this 'Cal needed a mommy' phase more often."

"No, I don't think so. I live it too much already. It's true though. You needed more than what a terrified big brother could offer at that age."

No, I hadn't needed anything more than that. "Nah. Then I'd have just gotten confused with all these different people telling me what to do and when to do it. Kids don't need confusion."

"But they do need a mother."

"Or a kick ass big brother to protect them from that mother. Those kids over there, they should be so lucky to have what I had. You were always there Nik. Always. Not sure that any mother on the planet could lay claim to being the same for their kid. Now, can we go eat please? This mushy crap is making me all gooey inside. I need lard and chemicals to make me feel better."

"Followed by a ten mile run."

"Fine, but can we at least wait until the burger has a chance to digest first? And I'm getting fries too. Complete with globs of cheese and gravy and salt…all that magnificent goodness. How about we run tomorrow morning instead? I swear that I won't even scream bloody murder when you have to drag me out of bed by my hair and roll me into the street. Yeah, tomorrow morning is better. I'll be well fed and well rested. Or how about we don't run at all? We'll just pretend we ran and there won't be any stink, labored breathing or side cramping involved. After all, no respectable mother would ever force a ten mile after-dinner/before-breakfast run on their kid, right?"

I ducked my head to avoid a record-tying whack before sprinting away from the park. Niko caught up with me in about two strides and put a hand on my shoulder as we walked.

"You're right, Cal. No self respecting mother would ever put their child through a ten mile after-dinner/before-breakfast run. So…be grateful that you have a big brother instead."

Bastard! "Ten miles? I really do hate you sometimes, Cyrano, I do," I said with a smirk, "but…" I finished in all seriousness, "…I am grateful for having you as a big brother. Even if you kill me by jogging me to death. I am grateful. Always."

The End