Title: All That Matters
POV: Niko
Author: Obi the Kid
Rating: PG
Summary: Two days after the events in the flashback portion of Slashback. Niko and Cal began moving on.
Disclaimer: All hail Rob Thurman! No profit here, I'm just having fun.
**Spoilers for Slashback
**Minor references to a chapter from my I Remember series, called After Junior.
"Water's cold, Nik."
"Our usual, little brother."
"Yeah. One day maybe."
"One day. I promise."
And I did promise. I meant it. One day we'd have a place of our own with hot water, electricity, our own bedrooms, and even cable television. Until then…until I turned eighteen and could take Cal away from Sophia legally, we'd make do with what we had.
Right now, we were in an abandoned house in some random town in Ohio. Two days away from Junior. Three states away from my nightmare come to life. But we were safe now. And until Sophia and the Grendel found us again, it was just me and Cal, as it should be.
Cal was dressed in his raggedy pajama bottoms and a hand-me-down Marvin the Martian tee shirt. It was two sizes too big, but it was comfortable and familiar as it used to be mine. He'd claimed it one day last month when I decided I might be too old for Marvin. Cal informed me that I was an idiot, that no one was ever too old for Marvin, and took it as his own. His feet were double socked; his wet hair a shaggy mess.
I tossed our one comb his way.
"Fix that mop on your head, Cal. Did you finish your homework?"
He ran the comb through his hair and nodded. "They shouldn't give homework to kids who are there on their first day. We're stymied enough by being in an unfamiliar town and then they toss work at us and expect us to do it."
"Stymied?"
"We learned that word today. I figured I'd use it. I know how you like big words."
Hair neat, Cal settled cross-legged on top of his sleeping bag. We didn't bother to use the bedroom. Sophia would find us soon enough. I had issues to address with her, but battling over the bedroom wasn't one of them. The last of the daylight faded outside leaving Cal and me in the dark. A small lantern and a single flashlight gave us a bit of sight before we turned in. Neither of us had slept much since Junior. The bus ride had been smooth enough, but still… And then we'd gone straight into school. It was a race to see which of us could push sleep off for the longest. Cal was fading fast though, so I began again our daily evening ritual. Junior may have changed us forever in some ways, but I was determined to keep sanity and sense of the world. And to do that, it meant maintaining some type of order.
"One good thing, Cal."
To my shock and surprise, Cal didn't fight me on this one. He always did, it was as constant as the moon, but for one night, he took pity on his worn out big brother as he gave me a smile.
"That's easy. Those two old ladies on the bus. I was wrong, they weren't trying to kidnap or eat me. They were just what they appeared. Grandma's. They smiled at me when they left the bus before us. It was a good smile. Not evil or hateful. Just a smile. They were good people, Nik. There are still some left in the world, I guess." There came a shrug after, his shoulders rising and falling in the lanterned-shadow on the wall behind him.
"Yeah. I think there is, Cal. Get some sleep now."
There was no move to climb into his sleeping bag; instead he just stared at me with a look on his face that only I could recognize as uncertainty tinged with fear. It often surfaced in Cal at the most unexpected times. This not being one of those unexpected times, Cal silently crawled the two feet toward me and pushed his small body into my sleeping bag. His small socked feet kicked me in the knees several times before curling onto his side and facing me, he pushed his head into my chest and lay quiet and still.
Any other child would be huddled in a corner or screaming in terror of incoming nightmares, but this was Cal. He'd not admit to his fear, but he'd accept it and deal with it the only way he knew how; by leaning on the only person he could. The one person he knew could make it all better. Forgetting the fact that my stupidity had almost gotten him killed; that didn't matter to him, I was still Nik. I was still his big brother.
In all its complexity, Cal's world was a simple one. He was half human, half Grendel. His mother hated him. And his foolish, hard-headed, stubborn big brother loved him. In the end, only that last one really mattered to him, as evidenced by his position mashed up against me in my sleeping bag.
My eyes closed hard, stemming the threatening tears. My arms wrapped around my little brother; my chin settling on his wet hair.
I thought he was asleep when his muffled voice said my name.
"Hey, Nik?"
"Yes, Cal." I said, fully expecting him to say something about our recent ordeal. He did - say something about our ordeal - but it wasn't what I'd been expecting. Fool that I am, this was Cal; I should have expected it.
"It's not good for small kids to take cold showers, you know. I hear it affects the way their brain cells develop and can make them stupid. Not to mention the whole shrinkage thing for boys."
As badly as I wanted to swat him in the head, I couldn't. There was not enough room for one, not with him plastered to me, but mostly I couldn't because no matter how hard I've tried with him, I've never been able to kill off that smart-assed mouth of his.
Maybe it was because part of me didn't want to. In this most trying time of our lives, when I knew Cal was emotionally torn and beaten, he could do the impossible. He could force his equally emotionally torn and beaten brother to smile…of all things.
And I did smile; only after I'd admonished his comments of course.
"Cal, what do you know about brain cells or shrinkage? And don't say those things when you're in school. And cold water does no such things anyway."
"Whatever you say, Nik." He curled in tighter. I held on tighter. "Night, Nik."
"Night, Cal." I hesitated a beat before adding, "You're safe here. With me."
"I know, Nik. Night."
Acceptance. Devotion. Each of the highest level. Each aimed at me.
I wasn't deserving. I knew that. I also knew that it didn't matter what I thought about myself.
The only thing that mattered was the small form curled against me this night and for however many nights to follow.
In the end, it's all I had.
The End