Title: Valor and Fish Sticks

Series Title: I Remember

Author: Obi the Kid

Rating: PG

Chapter Summary: After the events of Roadkill, Niko flashes back to when Cal was four.

Series Summary: A string of short stories from Niko's POV - Memories from he and Cal's life together.

Disclaimer: All hail Rob Thurman! No profit here, I'm just having fun.

We're here, resting in a hotel room before our trip home. The road trip from hell finally over. We are all alive and intact in some form or another, if changed forever. Cal's Auphe side had come out to play and play hard during our journey. We'd gotten him back, but with major steps in the wrong direction. He's sleeping now; sprawled out on the rutted hotel mattress. Restless. Twitchy. His norm. I won't sleep. Not tonight. I'll catch up once we're home and Cal is more rested, albeit changed forever. He'll see then that I've changed almost as much as he has. Subtly, and in ways that no others would notice except for my brother. He'll see the underlying fear; always there; but now having risen closer to the surface and it'll be his turn to put on the brave face and tell me that it's okay now, that I shouldn't be terrified of him going off the deep end. That Rafferty's fix will give him the chance to make amends for all his screw ups.

There will be no amends made of course, that's just not how Cal functions, but I will depend on him to be the brave one…for a brief time at least, so that I can rest. He might deny it until his final breaths, but between us, he's always been the stronger one; the braver one.

As a kid, my careful step-by-step actions were often a direct reaction to the fear of doing the wrong thing. Cal, though, he just moved forward and whatever happened, happened. Even at the age of four he had more courage in one of his small pale hands than I could ever hope to have in my entire self.

I remember…one of those times, when a very young Cal showed his eight year old big brother how even a toddler can find valor enough for the both of them.

"Nik!"

Cal, proudly holding up a dollar store variety fish stick, called me happily over to the couch where he sat cross-legged munching on his dinner, eyes darting to and from the cartoon flashing in color from the TV screen.

"Nik! C'mere! Hurry!"

The fish stick waved in the air, strawberry yogurt being flung from side to side. I smiled and frowned at the same time, padding over to him.

"No messes, Cal. Eat it, don't play with it."

He was four. I was eight, but I was much older than eight in responsibility and in most other things that mattered. There was no choice, I had to be. I pushed his hand down, but he managed to fake me out, turn his arm up and around and shoved the fish stick right into my mouth. Blech! Strawberry fried fish sticks were not my idea of good food, but the cheap store in town had been out of vanilla flavored, not that vanilla yogurt was a better dip for seafood, but we couldn't afford tartar sauce and Cal didn't know any better.

"Chew it, Nik! S'good."

I made one of those 'this is disgusting, but it's so yummy' types of faces that I'd seen parents of other kids make, as I prepared to exit to the kitchen to spit it out. Cal snagged me first, yogurt covered hand smearing across my shirt sleeve.

"Cal," I said with disappointment, "Napkin, remember?"

Unfazed by my sour tone, Cal responded with, "Wannanotherone?" And he picked up another formerly frozen stick of generic fish.

"No, that's okay. You eat it. You need to keep eating so you'll get tall and strong one day."

"Like Nik!"

"Yup, just like Nik." I wiped his hand and face with the napkin that at some point had been balled up and tossed on the floor. Cal was many things, neat was not one of them. Not that I expected a four year old boy to be neat and tidy, but there were signs that he would one day grow up to be the world's biggest slob. I hoped I was wrong, but I didn't think I would be. "Right now, you're small, and it's because you play with your food instead of eating it. So, what does that mean?"

He thought about it. I could see the wheels turning right before he grinned and shoved another fish stick into my mouth. Giggles followed. There's nothing quite like the giggle of a four year old. It's contagious, even when you are trying very hard to keep a straight face. But I found myself laughing with him. Eventually, I did manage to get him to eat between laughter, but only if I would take a bite first and then he would take a bite. If it got him to eat, I'd do it. Food wasn't always a constant for us, so it was important that he eat everything I put on his plate.

He kept laughing and after the fish sticks were gone he stuck a finger into the remaining yogurt and licked it clean off, smacking his lips in the process. A happy child. Given our home life and our only parent being a hateful, drunken, verbally abusive mother, the fact that Cal was still happy and innocent at this age was a miracle. It made me happy too and that wasn't an easy emotion for me to feel…being happy…knowing what I already knew and knowing how bad things could get.

My brief taste of happy fled when I looked past Cal to see what was peering in at us from the window. I'd seen it before; several times now in the last few months. It's what Sophia had said Cal was; half of him anyway. Cal's monster. But Cal had never seen it and I would keep it that way as long as I possibly could. Evil red eyes and mouth full of needle sharp teeth, it grinned a pale grin that had nothing at all to do with happiness or innocence. I swallowed hard, smiles and laughter completely vanished from my face. My breathing

got faster and more difficult. I felt terrified, panicky and angry all in one huge emotion. I didn't know my hands were gripping so hard on Cal's arm until he said, "Nik, lemme go" and started to turn around to see what I was staring at.

I hurried for his attention. "CAL!" His head came back to me before it had a chance to see the monster. The breath I let out was covered with a fake cough and I moved Cal off the couch and to the kitchen. "We need to clean up, okay? You hand me your dish and I'll put it in the sink for you and we'll wash it together." He walked with me, but was still curious as to what my eyes had been so focused on near the window. I snagged at his shirt collar. "Focus here, Cal. Remember. You have to listen to me when I ask you to do something, okay? It's important."

The dark head nodded up at me and he refocused, the window forgotten. "'k, Nik. I promise. Here." Plate presented to me, I set it in the sink and then lifted Cal onto the tiny portion of the countertop between the sink and the mostly empty pantry cabinet. He couldn't see the window from there. "You sit here with me while I clean the plates. One day you'll be tall enough to reach the sink on your own, you know."

"Yeah, right now I'm small." Bubbles of soap flicked upward at me as he put his left hand in the dishwater and splashed, then reached over to pat my head. "Got bubbles in your hair, Nik," he grinned out.

"I see that. Thanks to you, little brother."

He patted me again, this time in an unexpected and oddly reassuring way. His young voice as calm and gentle as none his age before had ever achieved, as he said, "Don't be scared, Nik."

"Of the bubbles?" I asked as my eyebrows formed a confused 'V' shape.

"Nah," Cal returned kindly, "Of other stuff. You were scared. S'okay now."

I stopped cleaning the dishes long enough to stare into my brother's mirror gray eyes - the only physical characteristic that we shared – and was surprised and amazed in one breath. I was certain Cal hadn't seen the monster just now. I was more than certain that he'd never, at any time, seen the monster that Sophia constantly antagonized him about. But Cal knew that I knew something; that I had seen something. What that something was, he wasn't sure, but he had seen the result. Whatever it was, it had scared his big brother, and in all his four year old wisdom, it was now his turn to be the brave one. To be concerned about the only one who had ever shown concern for him.

"You can be scared, but s'okay now, Nik, yeah?"

I discarded the paper towel I'd used to dry my hands and pulled Cal off the counter, hugging him to me as I did. "Yeah, it's okay now, Cal." Setting him down, he stayed at my side for a long minute. His normal routine after dinner was to hurry to our mattress, pull out his set of four crayons and scribble in his worn and overused coloring books until I came to watch TV with him. His delay in the routine was intended to comfort me. From what, he didn't exactly know, but there was no doubt that Cal had known fear before and he knew that he didn't want his big brother to feel that same way. Not ever.

When he didn't move towards our mattress, I took his hand, led him there and we sat together coloring in his beat up old books until the crayons were nothing more than tiny nubs and our hands were stained red, green, blue and yellow. It was late by then. And quiet - Sophia having not come home yet – and I didn't feel scared anymore. I would, eventually, there was simply no denying that fact, not with what stalked my brother, but right now? It was okay right now. Cal had said so and who was I to argue with one so young and so wise? I'd kept his happiness and his innocence intact, and in turn, he'd take it upon himself to be strong for his big brother when needed.

What he didn't know lurked outside the windows…and within him…would allow him to continue to keep that happy and that innocence inside of him for a little while longer.

And I'd eat yogurt covered fish sticks and splash soap bubbles in my hair for the rest of my life if that's what it took. Of course, I wasn't foolish enough to believe that we would have any kind of a happy ending like that, but for Cal, I could believe it. For Cal, I could and would believe and do anything.

Cal's innocence hadn't lasted much longer. He saw that first monster when he was five. It all started making sense to him then despite my best efforts. I'd kept him happy and innocent until then though. I was glad for that. Proud for it. And first chance I got after we'd finally found a home and settled in New York, I bought him a box of toxic-laden fish sticks and container of sugar-rich strawberry yogurt. The first thing he did upon receiving that box was to stuff one of those same toxic-laden fish sticks straight up my nose.

I smiled at the thought, still watching my brother sleep. That had been Cal, taking charge and being brave again. It's not just anyone who would try and stuff a fish stick up the nose

of the human version of a lethal weapon. I'd been in a good mood that day, and that

had been fortunate…for him. After all, I could have killed him with that fish stick.

The End