And he said, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?" - New American Standard Bible, Genesis 4.3b
A photograph of four smiling people sits in a small frame on the desk. The man and woman stand close together, smiling widely at the camera. Each rests a hand on the shoulders of a boy in front of them. The older one is, perhaps, thirteen or fourteen. His face has started to lose its childish roundness, but it has not yet gained the crags of manhood. His smile is guarded, but he looks happy. The younger boy smiles widely and innocently. The sun glances off tiny flecks on the boy's skin, like fairy dust.
There are other photographs pinned to the bulletin board in the desk: a group of boys in jackets and ties posed together with a trophy, another picture of the same group of boys in casual clothes at a soccer game, the man and woman smiling proudly with the younger boy in the jacket and tie, a dog, and a photograph of Ellen Page torn out of a magazine.
The only other framed photograph on the desk is a cherubic toddler with honey colored hair in impossibly tight curls and warm café-au-late skin. She's reaching out her cubby hands for a red balloon, and looks entirely content.
A hand slams the photograph down on the desk with a harsh crack. The nails are bitten down to the quick, and a bloody piece of skin hangs off the middle finger. The person attached to the hand gets up, and crosses the small room in a few short strides. He's not particularly tall, but he's attractive enough with his dark eyes and boy next-door looks.
He flops onto his unmade bed. His breath comes short and quick and fast. He clutches his cellphone, although whether he is holding it to destroy it like the frame, or to draw comfort would be hard to determine.
He doesn't know if he wants to cry or scream or throw up or hit something or disappear. He just knows that he needs to be out of his skin. He needs to be out of this little prison of a room. He needs to be out of himself. Because it hurts too much to be him.
"Bastard," he whispers the word. It's a word that he has never used in his fourteen years. It's a sin to use words like that. He doesn't even know who he's calling the name. It's a word that has power. A word that means broken promises and the schism of a family: his family.
He remembers his father's words. "No son of mine will disgrace the family like that. No son of mine will be a junky! No son of mine will father a bastard!"
He remembers the words Kevin snarled as he slammed the door. "You're a fucking bastard! I'll never come back here, again! Fuck you!"
He had waited until his father and mother were sequestered in the kitchen, and then followed Kevin. He would admit that his brother looked nothing like the boy who had been sent away months ago. Or the big brother he knew from before. Kevin had been a handsome, dark haired boy. He had been confident, cocky even. He'd been athletic, intelligent, and charismatic, even during the most awkward period in a person's life. His voice still cracks, and he isn't sure he's long enough. He will never be as smooth and suave and good as Kevin was before he was sent away.
Kevin came back for his first break with blown out pupils and a nervous twitch. His eyes were sunken and his skin was pappery, stretched across his cheekbones. He didn't ask about his brother, or his best friend, Jace, or Amberlyn, or anyone. He just stared straight ahead sullenly and locked himself in his room as soon as he could.
Their parents took exactly three days to discover the bottles of pills with other people's names on the labels. It only took a few hours after that for them to offer Kevin the choice: go back to the program and get treatment, or leave. Kevin chose to leave.
When Kevin returned ten months later, it was in a box.
His mother cried. His father stopped speaking. Amberlyn buried her face in Kaylee's head, and whispered things to the infant. In his ill-fitting suit, the thirteen year old climbed the steps to the pulpit and put the type written pages in front of him. His hands shook and his voice broke.
His parents sent him to Dalton the next year. He didn't argue, much. Kevin would have gone here, if it hadn't been for Amber and Kaylee. It's weird for him to try on Kevin's hand-me-downs. Its weirder for him to realize he is an inch taller than his older brother was. Kevin was always at least a few inches taller than Nick.
He stares at the cell phone clutched in his fist. He stares at the text message. "CALL ME RE: KAYLEE ASAP. AMBERLYN."
He doesn't want to know the news. Because, in his heart, he knows that he will lose Kaylee just like he lost Kevin: too soon.
"Bastard," he whispers, again. And, this time he knows he means Kevin.
The hospital is like a bad dream. The walls are too white, until he gets to the pediatric ward, where they are a bright shade of purple. It's almost uncomfortably bright after the stark whiteness below.
He stands between his parents as the doctors describe the cancer and prognosis. He doesn't have to know much about medicine or biology to know things are bad. The words fly over his head, but he picks up a few. Malignant. Poor prognosis. Twenty-percent survival rate. Transplant. Rejection.
He wanders away from the adults. He cannot listen. Amberlyn holds Kaylee in her crib. The child's honey curls are a distant memory. Her cheeks are too chubby from some medication she takes for the pain. The child holds out her arms for him.
"Niko!" She calls, squirming. "Niko, up!"
He picks her up, mindful of the monitors and devices surrounding her and holds her close. She squirms in his arms.
"Sing, Niko!" She demands, her high voice imperious.
He starts in on A Whole New World. Princess Jasmine is Kay's favorite. He sings Aladdin, and she sings Jasmine.
She snuggles against his chest. "Yubs you, Niko," she says sleepily as he rocks her in his arms.
Once the little girl is asleep, he gives her back to Amber. And, even though it's the last thing he wants to do, he lets the doctors swab the inside of his cheek. Because his parents are doing it. And Amberlyn has done it. And her mother, and her brothers and sisters. Because Kevin would have done it, without a question.
Is he a bad person that he is afraid he might be a match?
He sits on the empty bed in Wes Montgomery's room. The tears run down his cheeks and his shoulders shake.
"I can't do it, Wes." He says, quietly. "I can't!"
Wes flicks his dusting cloth over the impressive collection of gavels, and sighs. "No one is asking you to," the older boy says, comfortingly.
Except that that's exactly what everyone is asking him for. That's why they gave him the test.
Wes drops the dusting cloth and sits next to the younger boy. "Its just so… improbably." Wes has studied biology. "But, if its what they say…"
"It is," The younger boy cuts him off. "It is and they do, and how can I do it Wes? How can I not do it?"
"Because it has risks," Wes reminds, him gently as he wraps his arms around the brunette's shoulders. Wes has a sixth sense for knowing when to physical comfort, counsel, or space will help a person most. Touch offers a release. "I mean, its surgery."
Wes pauses for a moment, to collect his thoughts. "But, it's relatively safe."
"And I could save her life."
"And you could save her life," Wes agrees.
He stands up and paces. "Do you know who Kaylee is?" He demands of Wes.
Wes shakes his head. "Your … cousin, I thought."
"My niece." He flops onto a chair in the corner. Wes has a single, for reasons he would like to keep private. "You're a junior?"
Wes nods, trying to follow where this is going. "Your brother was going to be a junior," he says quietly.
Wes remembers Kevin Duvall all too well. They met at freshman orientation, the summer after eighth grade. Wes's father inquired a bit too loudly about the chemistry labs, and Kevin made a snide comment, just loud enough for Wes to hear, about Asian parents. It wasn't that Wes's father pushed him to excel, Wes had enough drive for that without his parents. Instead, Wes's father got his PhD in science education, and heads a master's extension program for people who want to teach science to high school students. His unbridled enthusiasm for his job embarrasses Wes a bit, at times. But, that time, barely fourteen-year-old Wes wasn't sure if he should be embarrassed for himself, for his father, or for his future classmate.
He will never say so to Nick, but he didn't much care for Kevin the few times they met. Kevin was arrogant, and harsh. He was a bully, drawing on his social skills for fear rather than to help people. Wes was not entirely heartbroken when he discovered the boy would not be joining Dalton's class.
"Kevin, well…" The younger boy's words break into Wes's reverie. "I don't know exactly what happened with Amberlyn," he says, quietly. "I was young, and he didn't tell me everything. He didn't tell anyone everything…"
He stops, then starts again, getting up to pace. "She was our neighbor, growing up, you know? She's a year ahead of Kevin ... than you, but almost two years older. She promised to take Kevin to a party … make him a man."
Wes imagines where this is going. "… Was it … consensual … ?" He asks, not sure how to talk about the subject.
Wes has another gift: super sensitive non-hetero-normative-dar. He'd call it gaydar, but it goes beyond that. Wes can tell if someone is gay, straight, bi, trans*, asexual, experimenting, or something else. He's usually right in the end. And, Kevin Duvall had screamed GAY in a subtle, but definite way.
The brunette shrugs, a bit angrily. "I don't know!" He shouts. It's a question he's asked himself a million times over. Did Kevin mean to do it? Did he know? Was he drunk? Wasted? Conscious? He and Kevin, they had vowed before each other and Jesus that they would fight temptation and stay pure for the girls they would some day marry. They promised to keep their thoughts on the Lord, not on earthly things. They agreed not to look at pornography, not to masturbate, and most definitely not to have sex.
He leans against the wall, with his arms crossed. "I don't know," he repeats quietly.
He doesn't know what would be worse: Kevin actively breaking his promise, or something happening which made his brother unable to keep it.
The tears come, then. Angry, bitter tears that sting his cheeks and tighten his throat so he can't talk, only cry.
Wes just waits. Nick is wrapped in a prickly blanket of hatred and anguish despair. They're palpably solid emotions, and contact will only drive them in, rather than release them. Better to ride them out than get burned.
Finally, things calm, and the freshman continues, resuming his pacing./. "When my parents found out … they sent him away… away from Amber, away from the baby. … Some military school, I think. Somewhere in Kentucky, maybe, or Indiana. … While he was gone, Amber had Kaylee, and when he came back, he was … different."
"Different, how?" Wes asks. He's giving Nick space, taking his clues as they come.
"… Drugs, I think." He crosses the room in a few short strides, and picks up on of Wes's gavels. He studies the grain of the wood. "My dad… he found him with prescription bottles. … They kicked him out."
Wes nods. He knows this part of the story. "Did he every see his daughter?" He asks.
The younger boy puts down the gavel and shrugs. It's not so much angry as resigned. "I don't know," he says. "Amber told me once that he begged to name the baby, though, in one of their last phone calls. Kaywinnet Lee, called Kaylee, if it was a girl, and Jayne for a boy."
If Wes recognizes the names from his DVD collection, he doesn't say anything.
"I feel guilty…" The boy crosses to Wes's bed and sits on the edge. "She doesn't have a father… and there is no one else."
"If not you, then who?" Wes asks, gently, folding the smaller boy into his arms. He feels a muffled nod. He knows before the words are out what his friend will do.
Wes drives the contingent of Warblers to the hospital. The only evidence of David Sullivan in the SUV is the boxed cake held carefully on Jeff and Meatbox's laps. David had waved his wooden spoon and glared at them "If you drop that, I swear to god, I will kill you," he said, amicably.
There was no doubt in Wes's mind that David would do just that. It wouldn't take much to slip something in what the Warblers were eating. They seemed to go through so much food. Painful, gut-wrenching food.
Nick smiles warmly at them when they come in. He's awake, but a little groggy. "Coming off the painkillers," Mrs. Duvall explains as she smoothes her son's dark hair. "He did so well." Wes sympathizes.
"That for me?" Nick asks hoarsely as Jeff starts assembling the cake.
The blond grins. "Davo said we couldn't drop it, he didn't say anything about giving you some." It's covered in pale teal icing and a few gel tigers drawn around the first layer. "I think it's for Kaylee."
The little girl has most of the Warblers, not just her uncle, wrapped around her little finger. Jeff has the entire catalog of Disney songs memorized, both male and female parts, so he and Nick can duet for the little girl, and Thad, as one of the basses, has been perfecting his Sebastian.
"Can we take her a piece?" Jeff asks, enthusiastically. "We can't eat it until the guest of honour… person the cake was made for … has had some."
The boy in the hospital bed looks at his mother, pleading. It has been almost week since he's seen his niece, or Amberlyn. He knows his surgery went well. His hip aches, although the word does not do the feeling justice. Ache is that pleasant sort of pain that comes from stretching a muscle. What he feels is still a dull pain, in that its constant, but it feels like someone has taken his hip, and whispered something to the kernel that governs what it means to be hip and bone and put pain at the very core. Nothing relieves the pain but sleep. His surgery has been declared a success.
Mrs. Duvall looks at the boys, tiredly. "Let me check," she offers, knowing that her granddaughter is in isolation. But, its an excuse for her to leave the room, for a little bit, and for her son to catch up with his friends. Maybe the boys can go sing in the hallway, and she'll hear it. Or, maybe they'll brighten the day for some other child.
The doctors in the Pediatric Oncology ward, where Kaylee usually stays, are more than happy to have an impromptu performance by the infamous Dalton Academy Warblers, with three conditions. Jeff looks cowed that at the prohibition on breakdancing, but it's Thad's slight purpling that amuses Wes the most when Mrs. Duvall returns to announce that there will be no jumping on furniture.
Nick stands out from the Warblers in his white hospital gown and balanced on crutches. "Do you want to sit?" Jeff asks, hugging him from the side while simultaneously taking some of the shorter boy's weight. Nick shakes his head and tries to hide his pain.
The boys and their music are as welcome as David's cake. They sing all the standards: Beauty and the Beast, A Whole New World, I'll make a man out of you, and Cruella Devil. Thad's rendition of Under the Sea, which somehow gets muddled with Van Morison's Brown Eyed girl half way through draws a few chuckles from the adults – nurses, aids, doctors, and parents – who have gathered to listen to the impromptu concert. After an encore of Hi Ho, Hi Ho, the Warblers make an exit.
"Now can I go see Kaylee?" Nick begs from a clunky hospital issue wheelchair. His hip gave out half way through the Haukana Matata, and Jeff had hand signaled one of the cute male aids for a chair. That he'd turned out to be a medical student from Finland, well, that was just luck on Jeff's part.
His mother shakes her head, and wheels him back to his room. "Tomorrow," she promises. "You both need your rest."
The group of young men stands quietly away from the small grave. When Nick sent out the message by Facebook and email, as many as could return did.
Wes took AmTrak from Boston, meeting Kurt and Blaine from New York on his way. David drove from South Bend, and Thad from Ann Arbor. Trent keeps a stern eye on the New Warblers, an energetic bunch. Meatbox and his new bride flew in overnight from Florida, where they were celebrating their honeymoon. He envelopes Nick in a hug as soon as they get off the plane, before he even introduces his bride. No one but Nick knows how he did it, but Jeff, supposedly out of the country, makes it in record time. Even Sebastian is there, looking a bit too thin for Nick's liking.
Wes blows the pitch pipe, like in the good old days, and they start singing.
If I die young, burry me in Satin.
Lay me down, on a bed of roses
The transplant worked. The new bone marrow from Nick took root in Kaylee's little body.
And I'll be wearing white when I come into your kingdom
I'm as green as the ring on my cold little finger
The cancer, though, was insidious, too. A few cells escaped the radiation, and found their way to her lymph nodes. She was in kindergarten when she collapsed on the playground and was rushed to the hospital. Her PETscan lit up like a Christmas tree.
So put on your best boys and I'll wear my pearls
What I never did is done
She'd been good, even up until the end. Nick had taken the semester off from OSU to be at home with his parents and Kaylee. She wasn't biologically his daughter, but she carried part of him in her. He had saved her life. During the periods when she was healthy enough, he taught her to ride a bike and took her to the zoo. When she was too sick, he sang to her and read her endless picture books. And, when the end came, he held her hand and sang with her as she slipped into a coma.
Sink me in the river at dawn
Send me away with the words of a love song
A/N: While I was writing Control, I thought Nick needed some love. I know I said I wasn't writing anything else until I finished my thesis (I now have a little over a week to do so), but between a long weekend, finishing a draft ahead of my boss, and a muse that won't shut up, this happened. So, now it's 5:30 am, I have to be up in about five hours to retain my adult card, and I don't really care.
I don't own any of the works referenced here… whether rights belong to the Disney Corporation, Ryan Murphy and company, various cover groups, or Joss Whedon.
Music is mostly Disney (no lyrics, just songs). The version of Under the Sea being referenced is by the Notre Dame Undertones. Last song is The Band Perry's If I die young. I suggest the cover by Delilah from season 3 of The Sing Off. (Both are on YouTube... you can PM me if you want the links).
Thanks to DifferentChild for reading the first round, advising and trying to teach me the difference between lose and loose. I'll get it eventually. It only took me 20 years and twelve offers of mail-order brides to figure out "secret".