A/N: hey hey!~ so so so, i probably shouldn't be starting something new but this idea has been toying with me for a while now and i really wanted to get it out to you all before i lost all motivation. rolleigns again! (been very much into them for some reason, but i'm pretty sure my next story will be ambreigns or ambrollins, promise!) anyway, this has other pairings in it and other superstars, so look out for those and i hope you enjoy! hop over to my tumblr to message me or anything. psychrollins. will also be doing a playlist soon, so keep your eyes peeled. - georgia. x
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The thing with Seth was, sometimes he forgot that other people existed. Being mommy and daddy's favourite son had its perks, certainly, but it also brought a lot of baggage. Baggage in the way that they felt they couldn't let Seth out of their sight just in case he got roped into trouble by his older brother Randy.
"We just don't want you throwing away all the hard work, Seth." They'd say, his mother placing a hand on his shoulder.
"Don't be a drop out like your brother." His father would say, fixing him with a firm gaze. These conversations always took place at dinner when Randy was sitting right next to him with a shit eating grin on his face. The conversation would start when their father would ask Randy whether he'd found a job yet and his brother would smile and say the same thing as he always did,
"No." Their father Hunter would look at him with a face full of anger before saying three words in the most animalistic way possible,
"Then get one."
The rest of dinner would be spent in silence, with Seth stealing glances at his brother every so often to see that he's still not fazed by the tone that their father uses with him. Randy has always escaped being in serious trouble, no matter what he does, and his brother seems to take great pride in pushing their father to the brink of explosion nearly every day.
It's probably why they don't let Seth leave the house other than for school. He does understand it a little bit, because he's all set to go to college and do law and become mommy and daddy's little golden boy, but he's so bored with his life.
He does nothing but wake up, go to school, do homework, go to sleep. Oh, and cover for Randy when he sneaks out most nights. Which is what he's doing now, sliding the window open at the sound of Randy throwing the stones at his window. It's too risky to send a text; their father is a sneaky and distrusting man.
Below him, Randy begins to scale the side of the house, using the drains and his althetecism to crawl through the window into Seth's room. Seth closes the window, even though it's early summer - soon to be the holidays - and sits himself back down at his desk as Randy kicks off his shoes and hides them under the bed before flopping down onto it.
Looking at his brother, he can see oil streaked onto his shorts.
"What the hell do you get up to at night anyway?" Seth asks, staring intently at the assignment on his computer screen. Randy smirks, snagging one of Seth's law magazines from the side and flicking through it.
"Wouldn't you like to know," Seth raises his eyebrows at him, before poking him in the leg, directly where the streak of oil is.
"Yeah, and so will mom when she sees that stain on your shorts and you can't think of an excuse." Seth retorts, Randy swats his hand away with his eyes squinted in annoyance at the stain on his shorts.
"Damn it Dean." He mutters under his breath, licking his finger and rubbing furiously at the streak. Seth studies him carefully, although they're very close as brothers, there's a lot of things that he doesn't know about Randy. He has no clue what he does all day or where he goes at night. The guy obviously has friends, but Randy's never mentioned them other than that short snippet of 'Damn it, Dean." Randy has always been somewhat of a closed book when it came to his personal life. Not that Seth was an open book, but he didn't exactly have a personal life to be open about.
As if on cue, their mother Stephanie knocks on his door. She does so every night, checking on her two boys before Randy heads off to his own room to not emerge until the next morning.
"Come in," Seth says, loud enough for her to hear. Randy quickly covers the oily streak with the law magazine and links his hands across his chest.
"Hey boys, you both alright?" Seth swivels around in his chair to face her. She looks a little warn out, but there's still a warm motherly smile spreading across her face. She still has her suit on as she leans against the door to Seth's room.
"Yes mom, same as we are every night." Seth says with a gentle smile. He swivels aimlessly on the chair until Randy grabs hold of the arm to still him.
"Randy, are you taking a sudden interest in law?" Their mother raises an eyebrow, pointing to the magazine on his knee as a playful smile forms on her pink lips. Randy grins.
"No mom, was just looking at the pictures." Stephanie rolls her eyes and shrugs, though she's still smiling.
"Your father can keep hoping and praying." Their mother bids them goodnight and makes her way back down stairs. Another night that they managed to hide Randy's night time escapades.
Seth turns back to his computer, he's been slaving over this essay for hours now, and his eyes are sore and feel as dry as the Sahara desert. He's looking forward to summer, it will be a well deserved break.
He can feel Randy's gaze on the side of his face and it's more than just distracting.
"Can I help you?" He mumbles, not turning away from the screen. Randy is silent for a moment before he sits up.
"Do you really want to know what I do and where I most nights?" Seth turns to his brother, who looks very serious, which is unlike him.
"Honestly? Yes. But only because I'd really like to know what I'm covering you for, you know I don't really care what you're doing, it's your own time do what you want." Randy smiles and pushes himself from the bed.
"As soon as summer starts, I'll tell you."
Seth looks at Randy in confusion. "Why?"
Randy laughs, leaning down and putting his brother in a headlock.
"Just trust me little brother. And thanks for all the covering. I'm a lucky guy to have a little brother as cool as you." Randy ruffles his hair before stepping out of the room and heading off to his own bedroom.
Seth lets out a long breath, staring at the door for a while after Randy has gone. He finally turns back to his computer, but the soreness in his eyes and the time flashing at him from the corner of the screen tells him it's time to turn it off and get some sleep. Seth saves his work and shuts the computer down; he swivels around in his chair for a moment longer.
His brother is right, really. They are lucky; because although they're brothers, they're not brothers. Not by blood, anyway. Stephanie and Hunter adopted them both after finding out they could not have children of their own. Randy was adopted first, when he was five years old, Seth a year after at the age of a few months old. His family never talked about the adoptions, because they didn't need to. They were family, it didn't matter that the blood flowing through their veins was different.
Seth supposes that his older brother could have been someone he couldn't get along with, someone who bullied him. He was indeed lucky to have Randy, a brother who not only a brother, but a best friend too. Randy did all the things that he was too afraid to do for himself. He talked back to their parents (more their father than their mother), he dropped out of school and told them to go to hell with their pre-made plans for him, he snuck out and he disobeyed them more often than not.
If he weren't such a good boy, blindly following what their parents wanted him to do, he'd probably be a lot like Randy, but he isn't.
Seth pushes himself from the chair and rids himself of his clothes, throwing them into the laundry basket by the door. He's tired, but not the type of tired that means he's going to fall asleep as soon as he crawls into bed, it's the type that sits in his body long into the night until exhaustion finally takes over. Seth snags his iPod from his desk and settles himself under the covers, he slips his earphones in and hits the shuffle button. He does this most nights, falling asleep to the sound of his favourite music.
No matter what his family say to him, no matter how many times they tell him he's special and they're proud of him, Seth can't help but feel out of place. Like this isn't him, like he should be doing something else. It makes him restless and sometimes he can't sleep at night. But there's nothing he can do about it.