As much as I really hate to blame my misfortunes on others, I have to say that this one was all my brother's fault. Yep. The only thing I had to do with it was that I was there at the time.

Now my brother is sleeping on my bedroom floor, snoring like a broken truck. The luminous numbers of the alarm clock on my bedside table reads 3 A.M; I am curled up on my bed, huddled under the blankets with only a torch to fend off the darkness and a notebook and pen to record my brother's epic failure of a life. Because I am going to, and when he's fifty I will read parts of this out at his birthday party to remind everyone just how fucking stupid he was when he was eighteen. Or if he ever finds a woman who will put up with him or gay marriage is legalized in this country, I will read parts of out at his wedding reception; hopefully destroying his married life as a result. Revenge sure is sweet.

My brother's name is Cloud, and he is two years older than me. He's pretty tall, and he's pretty hot. Even I, his younger brother, admit it, as much as it grosses me out. Cloud graduated from the local high school for juvenile delinquents about three months ago with a C+ average and a lot of complaints about how he disrupted all of his classes and how he never handed in assignments on time. I'm actually surprised he passed. Cloud is more brawn than brains, you see. Once he tried shoplifting, just to impress his friends, and made it out of the local convenience store with a stack of cheese. I didn't have the heart to inform him he'd just taken off with a handful of free dairy samples.

In the unlikely event someone reading this gives a shit about me, my name is Roxas and I am seventeen. My mother says that I am cynical. And that's about it, really.

So, enough of the pointless introductions, back to getting at my brother. In a nutshell, Cloud's failure has ruined his life, almost ruined mine and practically destroyed our parent's marriage. I'm not going to spoil a good story by summing it up, hell no; I'm going to drag this sweet torture out for as long as I can. Hopefully by the time I finish reading this out to Cloud it will have sunk into his thick skull that he fucked up big time, but he's pretty stupid so that could take a while. As a result, this is going to be pretty long. Sit down, get comfortable – you aren't going anywhere.

It started about two weeks ago, exactly a week before my seventeenth birthday. Yes, it began only a few weeks ago. That's just how much Cloud fucked up – He turned my world upside down in a matter of weeks. Incredible. Anyway, my epic tale of destruction begins when I sat down to have dinner with my family, three weeks ago. We were having steak, and as I recall, it was a Tuesday night and I was reading a textbook book about Ancient Egypt over my glass of water. Mum and Dad were discussing the news, and Cloud was just being his idiotic self. Everything was fine and normal, until Cloud stood up. Yeah, he actually stood up. What the hell, I know.

"I'm moving out" He said suddenly.

We all looked up at him blankly.

"I'm going to rent a flat in the city with Leon."

I rolled my eyes and went back to my textbook, while Mum and Dad stared at him as if his nose had just fallen clean off his face.

I hardly need to explain, but I will. Leon was Cloud's boyfriend, whom our parents didn't approve of. I actually kind of liked Leon – Leon had half a head on his shoulders, and he was the only person capable of convincing Cloud that jumping out of a fifth-story window to squash someone below would be a bad idea. Leon had little to no sense of humour, which is why I liked him so much – no crappy would-be jokes from him. He wasn't good with words, so he kept his mouth shut most of the time (Added bonus, really) but if he had to voice his opinion on something he was generally well-informed and sensible.

I never liked the thought of Cloud living alone – What if he accidentally locked himself into his car and couldn't get out? - But the idea of Leon taking care of him instead of me sounded pretty good. Leon actually understood that cars lock from the inside, you see.

Besides – Leon happened to know quite a bit about Ancient Egypt and was always happy to help me study before a test.

Mum and Dad, however, were in total denial of my brother's retardation. They didn't listen to me when I said the reason Cloud had gouged a great big hole in his thigh was to get an unwanted mole off, and they refused to believe that he had smashed the largest, most expensive window in the house by ditching a brick through it to kill a grasshopper that was sitting on the other side of the glass. When you really sit down and consider it, you have to wonder if stupidity is genetic. Anyway, back to Leon. I'll bag my family out later.

I never cared enough to find out why my parents didn't like Leon, but I suspected it was that they were both slightly homophobic. These days it's a pretty well-known fact that they both hate gays with a passion. But for all their homophobia, they're still pretty good parents and they couldn't make themselves hate Cloud for being gay. I was pretty ignorant of their inner turmoil at the time, though it was a secret I came to know pretty well with time. Back then, I never thought it was my problem – the conflict was between my parents, Cloud and Leon, and I only saw Leon after school on Wednesdays.

"Sit down, Cloud." Dad said quietly.

Cloud sat down slowly, uncertainly. His face was totally blank.

Dad placed his knife and fork down gently on either side of his plate. He slowly pulled his elbows up to the table and rested his chin on his hands, eyes down on his half-eaten steak, obviously thinking deeply. His wrinkles cast long shadows across his face making him seem older and more tired than he really was. The silence was deafening.

Dad's a funny one like that. When he's really mad he gets all quiet, but he's usually a pretty loud and cheerful guy. Mum's the opposite – She's the quiet, calm and rational one, but when she loses it you need to run for cover. She threw a chair at me when I was six because I'd ripped the head off Cloud's Action Man figurine.

When I noticed just how silent things at the table had gotten, I glanced up over the top of my textbook, waiting for the storm to hit. Gleefully, might I add? I never get sick of listening to my parents get mad at Cloud.

While Dad sat and festered away, Mum put her two cents in. She was still reasonably calm, but I could tell from her forceful tone and pink cheeks that she was really mad.

"If you move in with that boy" She spat distastefully "You will be disowned."

"He's not a boy, he's a man!" Cloud said defiantly in protest. "Nineteen in three weeks!"

I snorted from behind my book "You'd know all about Leon being a man, wouldn't you, Cloud?"

Cloud and Mum both glared at me simultaneously, their piercing blue eyes shooting knives at me.

I shut up pretty quickly.

"Cloud," Dad said quietly, but it caught everyone's attention "you are an adult now, and able to make your own decisions. If you move out, your mother and I will support you."

Mum opened her mouth to protest, but Dad held up a hand to silence her.

"However, if you chose to move in with Leon, we will not give you any financial aid."

Cloud paused for a moment. I believe he was trying to think what 'financial aid' meant. After a few seconds, I could see something on his face had clicked, and he smiled daringly at our father.

"That's fine. I don't need your money."

I just rolled my eyes and went back to reading about Seth, the God of death. Like hell Cloud wouldn't try to scab cash off our parents – Cloud was born to scab cash from them. It was, essentially, what he did for a living. He didn't have a job, and he sure as hell didn't do any chores to earn pocket money, because he figured pocket money was childish. For once, I actually have to agree, but I wouldn't mind Cloud actually getting off his butt and doing the dishes instead of sitting around the house all day and doing nothing at all – as he usually did.

Looking back to that meal that finished in complete silence, I wish I'd had some deep philosophical revelations, about how this would be the last totally normal dinner I would have with my family, or how I somehow just knew that it would all go wrong, or even something remotely worthwhile or intelligent – even the hole in the atmosphere or Ancient Egypt. Hell, I'd have been happy to have completed mathematical problems in my head that night. I just wish that I had been thinking about other things that night, but as it were, I was thinking about doing the one thing that, unknowingly, would fuck my life up completely.

I need to talk to Leon.

-x-

Leon was where he usually was at 3:15 PM on a Wednesday afternoon, which was bent over the grill at the local Mc Donald's, flipping patties.

Words cannot even begin to describe just how pathetic the whole scene was, really. Eighteen, finished with education and your major source of income is working the grill at Maccas. Fortunately, however, Leon is cut out for more than just flipping patties, but he ended up here through a series of unfortunate events that were sort of his fault. It's a long story, and I don't know all of it, but apparently Leon was kicked out of his parents' house when he was fourteen for growing cannabis in his bedroom cupboard and flogging it off behind nightclubs in the dead of the night. They were pretty pissed that he wasn't giving them a share of the profit he made, so when he refused to cough up some cash, he was booted out.

I don't know if it's true, but Leon says he never smoked any of it – he just grew it and sold it. However, when he was kicked out of home his plants didn't go with him, so he ended up living in our cellar for a few months. I'm pretty sure the mattress he slept on is still down there. Anyway, during those few months he worked his fingers to the bone (He never mentioned what he did, however, but I'm suspecting more illegal activity) so he could afford his own place. After a while, he rented a flat in the outer city with a friend. I've never been to Leon's new place and I've never met his flatmate, but after some of the stories I've heard I'm not sure if I want to know. So when it all comes down to it, I guess flipping patties at Mc Donald's is just his day job.

And how do I know Leon works the grill at Mc Donald's on Wednesday afternoons? Quite simple really – I work the grill next to him.

I pulled a pair of rubber gloves out of the dispenser on the wall and slipped them on as I fired up the gas burner on the grill. Glancing over at Leon, he looked pretty normal. Eyes had deep shadows beneath them, frown fixed firmly in place, hair was so messed up not even a hairnet could contain it… Yep. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Once I had gotten the plate hot enough and chucked a few raw patties onto it, I turned to Leon.

"So Cloud is moving in with you." I stated flatly. There was no sense in asking questions, because Leon wouldn't answer them.

Leon grunted.

"When's he moving in?"

"Dunno." Leon grunted again.

How useful.

"Who else lives with you?"

Leon shrugged. For an alarming second I thought he didn't remember who his flatmate was, but then he grunted "Riku."

"Riku… who?" I racked my brains. Riku was a pretty common name, and I knew about three, but I seriously doubted I knew the one who lived with Leon. The three I knew were all younger than me and they all lived with their parents.

Leon thought for a second. "He's about this high" He gestured to a level at about his chin, which was a good head taller than me "He has long, silver hair, really girly lookin'."

I frowned as I tried to remember something "I think I met him once or twice. Wasn't he that guy who came around sometimes when you lived at my house?"

Leon nodded, turning back to the grill "That's the one."

I turned back to my grill and flipped over a few patties, not giving Riku a second thought. So, Leon and Cloud hadn't confirmed the date Cloud would be moving in. Interesting.

"So whose idea was it for Cloud to move in?" I pondered aloud as I flipped a patty.

"His." Leon said as he flicked a patty onto a bun.

I didn't say anything else. Questions buzzed about in my head, such as did this Riku know about the move and was there a particular reason behind the sudden move, but I kept quiet. Leon wouldn't have answered them anyway – I might as well have asked the patty I was flipping for all the response I'd get.

But after fifteen minutes of silence, my curiosity got the better of me.

"Do you want Cloud to move in?"

Leon slowly scraped a patty from the grill. "Sure I do."

I frowned. "He didn't force you into anything?"

Leon chuckled. His first sign of higher brain function that day. "He sure did."

I sensed a hidden meaning behind that chuckle, so I didn't pry. I didn't really want to know if my brother had raped his boyfriend or anything. Uh, the mental images!

"Cloud mentioned something." Leon muttered after a moment's silence. "You were going to help him move his stuff."

I almost dropped a patty on the floor. "He said that?" I blew air out of my cheeks in irritation. "I only found out he was moving last night, and he's already trying to get me to cart his shit across the city?" Angrily, I slapped the meat onto the grill, causing some boiling oil to flick up onto my arm. I winced and rubbed at my stinging flesh. "Only Cloud."

Leon shrugged. "He has his reasons."

I arched my eyebrows. "So he had a reason for stealing that car when he forgot that he had parked his three spaces away?"

He chuckled again. "That was pretty funny."

I rolled my eyes. "It wasn't so funny when he got a criminal record and spent the night in police custody."

Leon nodded soberly. "Well-"

"Get back to work!"

I jumped at the sudden shriek, but Leon just smiled. The manager, Larxene, marched over and reeled off an impressive lecture about earning our crappy pay checks and working solidly equals working silently. I managed to tune her out after a little while, and Leon and I flipped patties in a silent alliance for the rest of my shift.

-x-

My bedroom is something of a sanctuary to me. It's my own kingdom, my own little world, where I am the only living thing. The single bed in the corner attests to that – there is only room for one person here. My desk sits in front of the window, so I can look out on the street while I do homework and the like, and the small bookshelf overflowing with my favourite books sits next to it. The books are portals to other worlds – when I sit down to read a good novel, I'm not Roxas in my bedroom anymore, but Frodo in Middle Earth, Harry Potter in Hogwarts or Dorothy in Oz. Novels are a great way to escape cruel reality and go to a place where good always wins over evil.

But books aren't very comfortable to read on a wooden chair, so an old, squishy armchair sits in the corner opposite to my bed. I only have a few posters on the walls – mostly of pretty scenery or promotional posters for my favourite movies, which I get from the local video store.

I like my room, and I like it best when I'm the only person to appreciate it. So when Cloud walked in after dinner that night, I was slightly pissed off that he had invaded my personal space.

"So you wanted my help?"

I inspected my fingernails airily as Cloud tapped the door frame with the toe of his shoe.

"How'd you know what I was going to ask?" He grinned at me. "Have you been reading fortune cookies or something?"

I rolled my eyes. "You're thinking of Tarot cards, but no. I talked to Leon at work today and he said you wanted me to help you."

Cloud stepped into my bedroom and fingered at the curled corner of a poster. "That Leon. He's so straightforward."

I nodded silently, calmly composing sharp insults to dish out later.

"So you're going to help me?"

I dropped my pencil onto my forgotten homework and spun around in my chair. "Do I have a choice in the matter?"

Cloud flashed his pearly white teeth at me. "No."

I sighed and ran my hand through my cowlick. Fucking Cloud.

"Fine. When are you moving out?"

"Today."

I almost fell out of my chair.

"You're moving today?" I gasped, clutching at the chair so I wouldn't fall. "But it's like eight PM!"

Cloud smiled like the idiot he was. "Well, I want to get out of this dump as soon as I can, so I figured I'd get you to move most of my shit over there today and then move the rest of it tomorrow."

I went and saw a school counsellor once after I threw a fit and flipped my desk over in class, and she told me that sometimes I can get very angry very quickly. She helped me recognize the warning signs – the first one is when I clench my fists really tightly. Then I grit my teeth. Then I can feel the anger rising in my chest, and I start to breathe heavily. The final sign of a total freak out is when I start to shout and break stuff.

When Cloud finished speaking, my fists were clenched. Then, before I could remind myself to breathe slowly and deeply, my teeth were starting to hurt from gritting them. Then I could hear myself inhaling through my nose, and feel myself stand up. That's when I knew I was gone.

Before I even knew what I was doing, my chair was lying on the floor, Cloud's nose was bleeding and my knuckles were swollen. Then my throat was burning as I screeched at him. I don't remember exactly what I said but this is the basic idea of it:

"Oh, scornful brother! Pitiful man! Why hast thou promised my services to your fool's errand when thou art quite knowledgeable as to my attendance at school ev'ry morning? You are a shameful fool! I quite plainly refuse to assist thou in this unhappy hour."

Okay, so I didn't say it quite like that. There was a lot of swearing and insults, and I think I actually made up a few insults in the process. Ever called someone a "Shit-faced arse-licking son of a fucking whore"?

I don't think so.

At some point Dad heard us yelling at each other and broke us apart, banishing Cloud to his room and confining me to mine. Once Cloud was gone I calmed down pretty quickly, so Dad didn't book me an appointment to see the school counsellor the next morning. I sat in my room for the rest of the evening, staring blankly at my textbook, trying to remember what I was supposed to be studying. When that got boring I played my PlayStation in the living room for a few hours.

When midnight rolled around I switched off the TV and got into my pyjamas. Padding silently down the hall I paused in front of Cloud's room and peered through the slightly ajar doorway.

Cloud was sitting on his bed, talking quietly on his mobile phone. All around him were boxes, his stuff roughly packed into them. I wondered if he would be leaving right then, but then he hung up and flopped onto his bed and I knew he wasn't going anywhere that night.

I crept into my room, sat on my bed and started to clip my toenails, wondering if I should apologize to Cloud before he left in the morning. But then the weariness hit me like a truck and I could barely put the nail clipper away and pull the covers over my before I passed out. When I woke up, Cloud was gone.

-x-

Fangirl's Rambles: A few years ago I wrote a very, very short story from Roxas' perspective about being at his older brother's party and feeling very young and out-of-the-loop. That story is now gone but its legacy lives on through my next large project, How My Brother Ruined My Life.

I started on this chapter back in the early months of 2009 but lost my drive after the third page. I've been writing on and off ever since and though the complete story has almost reached fifty pages I'm not quite done with it. Unfortunately I know where I want the story to go but I always lose interest for a while after typing a page or two. I really like this story though as it shows some improvement from my last multi-chapter work Rewind and is actually kind of funny. I've debated long and hard whether or not to post it before I've finished with it, but in reality I need to post it now or I never will.

So please, reviews are what I need to get this baby up and running. Do you like it? Why/why not? What do you want to see more or less of? Even just a few words of encouragement would make me one very happy little girl.

Peace out, my lovely readers. Don't mind the dust on my account.

Edit – Changed a tiny, minor detail that will be crucial to the story in later chapters. Good luck finding it. ;)