Four Brothers and it's characters don't belong to me in anyway.
"What do you mean you're not hungry?" She yelled. "I spent hours making this dinner for us!"
"Baby," he said, "Please understand, I'm just not hungry today."
Bobby sighed irritably as he heard plates crashing and breaking in the dining room; he could hear Loco Ono and Angel arguing further. He didn't mind her staying here, but did they have to quarrel over everything?
Bobby looked at the fireplace; it had been two years since Jack's death. The house was completely re-done and now lively once again with people visiting, living there and, usually, quarrelling; Sofi and Angel, particularly.
After the house being fixed, Jerry had moved back to his own house to live with his own family. Angel and Sofi had moved out too, to some apartment a few blocks away from Evelyn Mercer's house. Bobby was the only one staying there at the moment; nobody could really get it out of him if he was staying in the house because he wanted to or because he had no other place to go.
Every two weeks, Angel, Jerry and their families would come visit and stay over for two days; they had never done anything like it, but it was becoming a new Mercer Family Tradition. Bobby didn't mind; the house was big and empty, no matter what he did to try to make it livelier, and a bit of company every now and then was good to keep from wandering into the depths of the mind, where only depression and darkness lurked.
Only today, for some reason, company wasn't making him feel better; it was worsening the sick feeling he had in his stomach and the headache he suffered from was getting less tolerable. As he stared at the fire intently, he heard Sofi throw a pan at something and then something else break. Having had enough of hearing the house being destroyed once again, but not having the strength to say something about it, Bobby stood up and walked upstairs to his mother's room and locked himself in. Opening the closet, he took out a guitar and placed it horizontally on the bed before sitting beside it.
He stared off into space as memories of that guitar came back to him; that guitar belonged to Jack. After minutes of staring off into nothingness, he took the instrument into his arms and positioned it on his lap like he'd seen Jack do so many times before, so many years ago. He lightly plucked the strings, one by one, clumsily trying to fix his fingers on the guitar's neck as he attempted to make some music. The only thing that came out were horrible noises; the notes he played were off-key; too loud or not loud enough… noises completely different than the beautiful sound Little Fairy was able to produce with those fingers of his.
Bobby allowed the guitar to rest on his lap as he simply stared at it. It was one of the few things that hadn't been destroyed during the gunfight exactly two years ago; not a single scratch was on the instrument. He didn't know how to play the guitar like Jackie did; hell, he didn't know squat about musical instruments to begin with. But he had kept it anyway, because it was one of the objects in this house that had truly belonged to and defined his youngest brother. He didn't know how Jack had been able to play the thing and make it seem so damn easy when it really wasn't.
That Little Fairy really was something else, alright; he was able to display his emotions with ease, something Bobby had never felt the need to acknowledge he had wished he had in himself. He was the oldest, after all; he was supposed to be the role model of a man, a Mercer man, and Mercer men didn't cry. Crying was probably one of the things out of the question in that family.
Despite the fact that Mercer was not the last name the four brothers were born with, they still accepted the name with pride and acted like pretty much any other family out there. Between the three oldest of the brothers, there were quarrels, there was competition, there was teasing; at least one day a month, there would be real fist fights between brothers, only unlike other families, the disputes always ended quickly and at the end there was no resentment, only respect. But Jack had been the kid of the family. Ever since he arrived, the other three knew he was different and would grow up to be different. He was a sensitive one; quarrels, competitions and teasing never truly took place towards him, mainly because he made it difficult and boring by simply accepting everything the other three said to him. He was one to be swayed easily with emotional persuasion, and it wasn't long until Bobby took a notice that the kid needed to be looked after. As the oldest, he had accepted the responsibility by baptizing him with this new nickname; Little Fairy.
Bobby cracked a smile as he remembered how Jack's reaction had been; for once he had behaved like a normal little boy; defensive, aggressive and somewhat eager to fight for his right to change the nickname. It never changed, obviously, but he did fight back at first and then gradually learned how to accept it as a twisted form of affection from his oldest brother.
That was the way they worked, Bobby and Jack; they had formed this brotherly bond apart from the one they shared with Jerry and Angel, and this particular bond was built on so many read-between-the-lines situations. Like the time all four brothers had come into this house the night after their mother's burial; Bobby had gone into Jackie's room and asked if he had been crying. Jack, in turn, had asked if it was too weird in their mother's room.
Anyone outside the brotherhood would have thought they were both teasing one another; reality was, they were asking if they would be alright.
Bobby placed the guitar beside him again and closed his eyes; images of his mother's death, as well as Jack's, came to him. Damn it, he felt helpless. He was supposed to be oldest, he was supposed to look after his family, he was supposed to protect his family. Yet, he had failed; one murder couldn't be avoided, for he wasn't around when his mother's life had been taken. The other death could have been avoided; Jack had been in the same room as him just a few minutes before his murder. If only he had heard the doorbell, if only he had stopped Jack from answering the door, if only he hadn't jumped to conclusions by blaming Jerry for his mother's death… Was he a failure as a guardian? Did he deserve to be the one in charge?
Bobby felt tears form in his eyes and a knot in his throat. He wouldn't cry. He couldn't cry. The Mercer brother's didn't cry. Only… of course they did cry, just not in front of others. Showing weakness to others could be an out of the question situation in what was left of that family.
And that was another thing that had defined Jack; the fact that he was a Mercer, and yet he cried in front of others because he was just so sensitive like that. It made Bobby wonder, what was the whole point of saying that Mercer men didn't cry? Jackie had broken that law many times, and Bobby had always been up his ass about it, always reminding him to be strong and not show weakness. But now that he thought about it, did he really want him to be strong? Or did he just want what Jackie had had?
"Whoa," he thought. He might have envied Jack for the freedom he had, but he would have never taken his own brothers life out of jealousy. Truth be told, Bobby had wanted Jack to remain who he was, because Jack had a chance in life Bobby didn't get. He wanted Jack to be sensitive, despite him telling Jackie he had to be manly and strong and firm. He had avenged his brother's death, as well as his mother's, but he had also had revenge on Victor Sweet for taking away the life Jackie could have had, had he been allowed to live. And that was what pissed him off the most; the fact that he had been looking after Jack so closely, hoping to protect the life his brother had just begun to build and yet Bobby had somehow missed a detail, and that detail had gone through his protective range and hit the structure Jack was building, collapsing all their efforts to the ground, crushing Jack underneath it all.
Jack had always looked up to him; Jack had always felt safer with Bobby around because he was supposed to be a figure of male authority. Had that image crumbled before his death, when all he could do was helplessly watch as his Little Fairy died in his arms?
Bobby leaned forward, placed his elbows on his knees and cried silently, all the time cursing his inability to be a good big brother. Nothing went through his mind, except those images of the last words he had spoken to his brother. He never told Jack how much he loved him, he suddenly thought. If that thought was supposed to encourage anything, it encouraged self hatred and rage; what kind of brother was he if he wasn't able to express his affection for those he loved?
Don't you die on me, you Little Fairy; come on Jack, please… You gotta fucking breathe! Bobby's last words to his brother echoed in his head; he had known all along that Jack was going to die; only he had naively hoped that his brother would prove him wrong by hanging on until the ambulance arrived. He should have said something like, "It's going to be fine," or, "I will avenge you," or even more straightforward, "I love you, little brother." But Bobby was the stubborn type; he wouldn't give up even if others had already. Giving up was probably out of the question; something Bobby wasn't accustomed to handling with peace.
He turned his head towards the guitar again. Little Fairy… Little Fairy… Don't you die on me, you Little Fairy; come on Jack, please… You gotta fucking breathe!
That's right; he had called Jack by the same nickname he had despised years ago, but had grown fond of it. And what was it about the Mercer brothers? They had a unique way of showing affection for one another, didn't they? Especially Jack and Bobby; those two did a lot of reading between the lines after all, so wasn't it possible that, whilst his oldest brother had called him a Little Fairy, Jack knew that Bobby loved him? If he thought back with clarity of that day's events, he had recalled the expression on Jackie's face; he had looked at him straight in the eye for a second, and had looked like he wanted to say something.
But those eyes… those green eyes of Jack, they were emotional and a true window to the human soul, a window wide open and willing to show the world his feelings. Those green eyes had looked at him intensely until Jack was forced to close them due to the agonizing pain that had taken over him as he died… those eyes had wanted to say what Jack's mouth was unable to word out; he understood Bobby loved him, and he had wanted Bobby to know that he loved him too; that's why his eyes had been fixed with such concentration on Bobby rather than anything or anyone else. Then again, maybe that was out of the question; maybe Jack had wanted to say something else to him.
Did Jack understand Bobby had done everything he could do, within his power, to protect his family? Maybe Jack had wanted Bobby to understand that there were two more brothers to look after and that he couldn't afford to torment himself for the dead when the living still had a chance to make it out of the hell hole they had landed in.
Knock, knock. "Uncle Bobby!" Amelia was calling, "It's time to eat!"
"I'll be right out," said Bobby; he heard little footsteps hurry down the stairs and he sighed. He stood up, went to the bathroom and splashed his face with cold water, letting all his sadness and sentimentality be washed away, once again pulling his indifferent mask on. His time pondering about Jack's death was over for now; he'd have to think about it some other day. As he took one last look at the guitar, he realized it was rather silent downstairs. Were La Vida Loca and Angel done arguing? He cursed when he heard a heavy fist land on the table and then Sofi yelling at Angel about something. Bobby rolled his eyes and shook his head; he had spoken too soon.
"Well, Jack, you sure are a lucky bastard," Bobby said to the guitar as he took it and put it away in the closet again. "You don't have to deal with Angel's and Loco Ono's arguments every time they come over." He took his time going down the stairs and leaned on the dining room doorway when he got there, watching how Sofi and Angel quarreled over the way dinner tasted. Beside them, Camille and Jerry were arguing about meddling with other's relationships whilst Daniela and Amelia played tug-war with a doll.
This family was based on drama, wasn't it? Drama's annoying, thought Bobby, as he headed for his seat at the head of the table. Then he smiled to himself; who was he kidding? The arguments he didn't mind that much, actually. Without them, this family would have been one hell of a boring-ass Mercer parody, and that was definitely out of the question.