Title: role-reversal
Author: Jaime
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Implied Liam/Charlie.
Warning: Language and mentions of drug use, incest, and homosexuality. Bitterness and angst.
Summary: Charlie reminisces on how things were different and how they've changed.
Notes: Spoilers for episode seven, "The Moth". Unbetaed. R&R very much appreciated.
"Stay, please! I was just looking out for you!"
Dully, Charlie thought about how he needed a fix in the back of his mind as he heard his brother's desperate ( pitiful ) voice call to him. It took him a moment to register what Liam had said, for the voice had to cut through the haze surrounding his mind.
Looking out for him? Liam? Charlie almost wanted to laugh ( cry ).
He had always been the responsible one, looking out for Liam. Charlie, the goody two shoes. Charlie, the Catholic school boy. When Driveshaft had gone pro, he had been the one to make sure Liam ate and slept enough, despite their arguments. He had been the one to pick up after the messes that his brother had left behind in his wake.
The only time Liam had ever looked out for Charlie was when they both had fallen into the sweet seduction of heroin. When Liam had supplied him with the fix he needed. When they had stumbled from alley to street alley, laughing as they enjoyed the ride of their high. When he had pressed rough lips against his own , when their heated skin had coarsely rubbed against each other...
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.
Well, that was a particular sin he never planned to tell the Father. Not that Charlie ever went to church anymore, much less confessional. The faces of his disapproving mother and the Father came to mind, joined by the concerned ( hypocritical ) face of his brother, but he brushed the images from his mind.
Straight-laced, sober Catholic school boy Charlie would have never done the things he had done. But a smashed rock god Charlie, high on life, sure had, and he had enjoyed every moment of it.
That is, until Karen had come along. Ah, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Karen. Why couldn't she have been a drunk or a junkie like the other girls? No, she had to be the one sober girl, and she had to be the one that Liam knocked up. She had to be the patient one that insisted that Liam be a father to her child and that she would wait for him until he was clean. And Liam just had to see through the haze of smack and realize that it was his chance to change.
Ah, Karen. Patient, well-meaning Karen. She had taken the only haven Charlie had ever known and turned into ashes, just like everything else had turned out to be in his life. His faith, his reputation, his music...it all turned to ash and slipped through his fingers. She had broken the link that he had finally made with Liam after so long.
So what if it had been a frail thing to begin with? So what if wasn't exactly moral or even socially acceptable, even more so than the drugs themselves? Even if it had been wrong, those kisses, those touches, what mattered was that he had them with Liam. He'd had Liam, and that was all that had mattered.
But there was no use griping about it now. Liam had successfully returned from rehab and married Karen. They had their daughter Megan to care for and lived in their nice, cozy little home.
And where was Charlie? Still a junkie, clinging to the hope of Driveshaft's revival with no one to care for him or miss him if he suddenly disappeared. Oh, sure, Liam would act like he cared, but what did he need a junkie brother for now that he had his happy little life with Karen and Megan? It was rather ironic when he thought about it, how different their lives had turned out to be compared to when it all started. Charlie had been the good boy with a world of success ahead of him and Liam had been the delinquent who's only hope was the band and drugs. Now, though, their roles were reversed.
"You never looked out for me!" Charlie shot back as he whirled around, feeling a twinge of satisfaction and a world of regret when he saw the stricken look on his good brother's face.
Turning his back to Liam once again, Charlie left that sunny backyard, walked away from the perfect life and perfect brother that he yearned for. He left the perfect world that he didn't belong in, no matter how much he longed to.
"I have a plane to catch."