Note: I don't own Four Brothers or What's the Matter Here by The 10,000 Maniacs

Chapter Eleven

That young boy without a name


Anywhere I'd know his face

His dingy laces skimmed the floor as his feet dangled above the dull gray linoleum. The chair was hard and orange. He never understood why anyone would make anything such an ugly shade of orange.


Instead of people watching, he was feet watching. It was just easier to keep his eyes glued to the floor than to risk making eye contact with the people walking back and forth. One thing was for certain - there were sure a lot of boring, sensible shoes in this place. Seeing the polished leather loafers and high heels made him want to tuck his feet up under himself to hide the holes and dirt of his crappy sneakers.

The weird thing was that even with his head down, he could tell which people looked at him. He could even tell what they were thinking as they glanced his way.

That guy in the brown shoes with the laces thought he was just another punk kid, probably headed to juvie. There was a woman in white sandals who hurried past because she thought he might try to steal her purse. And the bird-like lady who manned the front desk across from where he was sitting thought he was the most pathetic thing she'd ever set eyes on - broken and battered, like an old dog you'd find in the pound, days from being put down.

It was people like her that really pissed him off. He could take the suspicion, no problem; he was even kind of proud of it, figured it proved he wasn't completely worthless. But he was tired of the pity. Especially when the pity didn't do him any good.

He'd seen her before, been stuck in that chair more than once. She'd do this concerned chin-tilt thing and then shake her head sadly, her mouth turned down into a parody of a frown. She'd even offered him candy once, but he'd just stared at her without blinking - kind of hoping he'd creep her out so she'd stop looking at him. It didn't work, so he'd taken to staring at the floor.

His hands were in his lap, still for a change. He had to force himself to leave the bandages alone. He didn't want to draw attention to them so he kept pulling his sleeves down to hide them, but that put pressure on the cuts and hurt like hell, so he had to keep them pushed back past his wrists, practically to his elbows to avoid the worst of the injuries. He hated how white the bandages were, it was like some flashing neon sign pointing down at him. "Hey, come look at the kid who tried to off himself."

Thing was, that wasn't even what happened, not that anyone would believe him. Shit, he wouldn't believe him if he was in their shoes. But it was the truth - he wasn't trying to kill himself. He was trying to get away from that asshole, that asshole who had decided it was high time to show him what it meant to live under his roof.

He'd fought like crazy. Fought harder than he'd ever fought before. Clawing and kicking and punching.

But … Jack took a deep breath, not ready to let his thoughts go there.

He didn't think he was ever going to let his mind go there - at least not while he was awake. It was bad enough that he got to relive it every night when the lights went out. He'd stripped his throat raw from all the screaming he did during his nightmares. The nurses at the children's hospital told him he screamed nearly every night. He had to take their word for it because he could never really remember it the next day, just that his throat felt like he'd gargled with fire the night before and that he felt so dirty that he was sure there wasn't enough soap and water in the world for him to feel clean again.

He looked down at the healing cuts on his fingers that hadn't needed stitches, fighting the urge to pick at the scabs. His knuckles were still bruised, but they no longer felt like they were broken. Those cuts and bruises proved he didn't just wuss out and lay there. He could at least feel some pride in the fact that he'd fought back, or tried to, anyway.

Somehow … after … well, after what happened, Jack had gotten a hold of a beer bottle and smashed it, holding it in front of him like he'd seen in a movie once, ready to gut the guy if he tried to come near him again. Shit, ready to gut him even if he didn't come near him again. The asshole didn't let it scare him, though, and he fucking smiled.

Just thinking about that smile made Jack clench his hand, imagining that he was holding the broken bottle again and that he didn't screw it up this time. But he did screw it up - just like he screwed everything up.

The guy outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds and easily overpowered him. Jack had gotten in a couple of good swipes with the bottle, but it wasn't long before the asshole grabbed it from him and started slashing at Jack with it. Jack had covered his face with his arms as he screamed for help.

He was on the verge of passing out and covered in blood by the time the police showed up. The asshole - his foster father - made up some lie about finding Jack like that. That Jack was depressed and talked about killing himself, that he had tried to stop him but got cut for his troubles.

Jack lightly ran his fingers over the bandages that covered his right arm from wrist to elbow. There were three slashes on that arm. The doctor must have thought he had a really bad aim if he actually bought that whole suicide story.

But regardless of whether or not the doc believed him, he made him talk to a shrink - some guy who constantly clicked his pen and asked stupid questions about his feelings and shit like that. And they kept him on a suicide watch like he was going to pop some pills and jump out the window the minute their backs were turned.

The exam they forced him to get at least proved the part of his story he didn't want to tell. The part he needed to forget. The cops told him that he had to talk - that he had to tell them what happened if he wanted to put the creep away. He couldn't help but thinking that if he didn't give them anything to write down in their little notebooks, then it didn't really happen. The cops eventually gave up anyway - just like everyone gave up.

A pair of white sneakers entered his line of sight and stopped instead of continuing past him. He sighed and rolled his eyes. He knew who those sneakers belonged to. Moron thought they made him look cool and relatable to the kids he worked with. Jack just thought they made him look like a tool because he always wore black socks with them.

His name was Richard - Jack always liked to shorten it to "Dick" whenever he got the chance - and he was Jack's social worker. The third one he'd been assigned since entering the system six years ago when he was five. Jack wouldn't have been surprised if he was soon introduced to social worker number four before the day was over.

Richard had visited him the hospital a couple of times and Jack pretended to be asleep because he really didn't feel like dealing with him. One day, out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw just how stressed Richard was over him - he had his file, a thick folder overstuffed with God knows what, and he was reading over it and mumbling to himself, obviously not liking what he saw. Jack figured he was making life pretty difficult for poor old Dick and Dick had no clue what to do with him anymore.

Another pair of shoes joined the white sneakers - some lady's shoes. A pair of soft looking loafers that looked really comfortable and well loved. Like they were her favorite pair.

Jack still didn't bother to look up.

"Jack," his social worker said.

"Dick," he said flatly. He tried not to grin when the lady chuckled.

Richard sighed, like he always did. Something about Jack made the guy really tired, but Jack didn't care. He was tired of being moved around, being told things were going to be taken care of, that someone would come along to adopt him if only he'd straighten out his attitude. Tired of being put in situations where he had to defend himself. Tired of being forgotten. Just plain tired.

"Evelyn, are you sure you want to do this?" Richard asked the woman.

"Yes, Dick, I'm sure." Jack could hear the smile in her voice without even looking at her.

Richard sighed again. "Evelyn, you're supposed to find placements for them, not take them home with you."

She took a step closer to Jack and stood there, her hands folded in front of her. She slowly reached out, like she was going to touch him, but he flinched, trying to avoid her. He heard her take in a deep breath and she dropped her hand.

"Jack," she said softly and he finally raised his head. She was older than Richard, maybe in her fifties or so. She had soft, curly hair that was more gray than blonde and she had lines around her eyes, like she smiled a lot.

He had to force himself to keep his face blank, to look tough even though it felt like butterflies were having a boxing match in his stomach. There was something different about her - something he couldn't quite put his finger on.

"Jack," she repeated with a smile, "are you ready to go home?"

XxXxXxXxXx

"Fuck off," Jack said suddenly.

"Excuse me?" Bobby said, looking over at his brother like he'd suddenly sprouted two heads.

"Huh?" Jack said, blinking slowly, as though he was coming out of a trance. He was leaning forward in his chair, the same ugly chair from when he was a kid. His hands were gripping the hard plastic of the seat, the edges digging into the palms of his hands.

The overhead fluorescent lights were flickering behind plastic coverings that hadn't seen this side of white since the seventies. Everything in the lobby looked gray - well, everything except for those goddamn orange chairs.

"You just told me to fuck off," Bobby said slowly.

"I did?"

"Yeah, you did. You feelin' okay, Cracker Jack? You look a little pale. You ain't gonna faint are you, fairy?" Leave it to Bobby to turn brotherly concern into an insult.

"I'm fine." He took a deep breath and shook his head, glancing down at the floor in front of him, half-expecting to see Evelyn standing there in her well-worn shoes. "I was just remembering when I met Ma for the first time."

"And you told her to fuck off?" Bobby asked, sitting up in his chair, an incredulous look on his face.

Jack felt his face redden as he ran his fingers through his hair. "Yeah, I did."

"You told, and I quote, 'The sweetest woman in the goddamn world' to fuck off?" Bobby was grinning like mad.

"It wasn't one of my finer moments," Jack admitted, matching Bobby's grin. His brother settled back in his chair, his legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles, not caring that he was in the way of the people walking by. In Bobby's world, he got out of the way for no one.

"You gotta take a piss or something?" Bobby asked suddenly and Jack stared at him for a second.

"What?"

Bobby pointed at Jack's leg, the one he hadn't realized was bouncing a mile a minute, like a nervous five year old waiting to get his father's belt for misbehaving. "Shit, Jerry's dog is the picture of calm compared to you. Chill the fuck out."

Jack forced his leg to stop shaking and loosened his grip on the chair as he leaned back in his seat, keeping his face blank. "I'm plenty calm."

Bobby laughed, tilting his chair back on two legs. "Man, you have the worst poker face in the world."

Jack just rolled his eyes and looked around, taking in the familiar surroundings - suddenly ten years felt like ten minutes and everything was exactly as he remembered it. He hadn't stepped foot in the offices of Child Protective Services since the day he'd been released from the hospital and was placed in Evelyn's care, but he could tell you exactly what the office behind the first door looked like - right down to the gouge in the front of the desk where some kid had kicked it.

"It's this place. Doesn't this place give you the creeps?"

Bobby didn't answer, but rather let his gaze followed the path of a woman who stepped into the reception area from the offices in the back. She was older and heavier, but there was no mistaking who she was. She took a seat at the desk across from the chairs lining the wall and Jack had to force himself to keep his eyes level, to not become that defeated eleven year old again who stared at the floor for hours on end.

"I'll tell you something around here that gives me the creeps," Bobby said under his breath as he nodded inconspicuously toward the bird lady.

"Tell me about it," Jack whispered back. "She ever offer you candy?"

"Man, don't ever take candy from strange women. Didn't Ma ever teach you that?"

The receptionist nodded in their direction, her nose bobbing like pinched beak. "Boys," she said in her shrill voice that was like fingernails down a chalkboard, "Mr. Delaney will be out to speak with you in a moment."

Jack groaned and leaned his head back against the wall. "Fuck."

XxXxXxXxXx

"So that guy was your case worker?" Bobby asked as he glanced up and down the hallway before shutting the door.

"Yeah, Mom wanted to get him fired," Jack explained as he limped over to an empty chair and sat down.

"Instead he got promoted."

"Naturally."

"Fuckin' system," Bobby muttered as he started to look around the room, sitting the empty box Evelyn's boss had given to him on the desk.

It was their mother's office and the only thing that had changed about it since the day she died was the thin layer of dust coating everything. Cutbacks and a reduction in government funding meant that Evelyn's position hadn't been filled yet and might not ever be. For once, the system was working in their favor, and they could go through her things without prying eyes watching their every move.

There was stuff all over the desk - mostly pictures. Some books were stacked here and there, the titles were things like Bunnicula and Super Fudge and Bobby figured Evelyn kept them around to keep the kids she saw at work occupied and distracted as she tried to find a future for them. There was a basket in the corner overflowing with toys - dolls, stuffed animals, trucks - you name it. There was even an old Game Boy sitting on top of some battered Magic Treehouse books and Bobby quickly snatched that up - he'd pass the rest of the kid stuff off to one of his mom's coworkers, but the video game was coming home with him.

He tossed the box to Jack without warning, who sat and watched it fall on the ground next to his feet. Sighing, Jack reached over to pick it up.

"Jackie, grab her stuff while I check out the files." Bobby made his way over to the filing cabinet, pulling out his set of lock picks from the pocket of his jeans. He hadn't used them in years, not since his last stint in prison and he was a bit out of practice. Granted, the flimsy lock on a filing cabinet was nothing compared to some of the things he'd managed to break into in his wilder days.

There was a computer on the desk and he hoped like hell he wasn't going to have to figure out a way to find the information they needed on it. Worse came to worse, they'd smuggle the damn thing out of the building because there was no way in hell he'd be able to figure out how to turn the stupid thing on, much less locate a file on it.

He had faith in his mother, though. They may not have been related by blood, but he had inherited her mistrust of technology. Even if she was forced to enter every bit of information she had into that contraption, he'd bet his life that she kept a paper copy of everything.

Picking the lock took no time at all and he soon had Jack's thick file in his hands. Sitting in a chair that was in the corner, he started paging through it, stopping suddenly when he came upon some pictures. His hands shook as he picked up one of them.

"Find something?" Jack said and Bobby almost dropped everything he was holding. He looked at his brother who was all the way on the other side of the room - opening desk drawers and pulling out anything that looked important or sentimental.

Bobby cleared his throat. "Not yet," he said, hastily turning the picture over and shoving it back into the file.

He couldn't stop seeing the image, though. Every bruise and cut was burned onto his memory. The vacant blue eyes that stared back from the photograph were somehow even worse than the injuries themselves. Like the kid could recover from some cuts and bruises, but there were some injuries that you could never recover from.

It was Jack, right around the time he'd come to live with them. Hell, it must have been just at that time because Bobby recognized the cuts down his arms. Evelyn had asked him to come home to help out, explaining that her new foster son was a bit of a handful and she thought Bobby could get through to him. Bobby remembered thinking that the kid must be the most fucked up person imaginable if Evelyn had to settle on him to help out.

He made a fist, wishing he had the bastard in front of him who'd violated his baby brother. Part of him was hoping Sweet's daddy would show up on his doorstep, just so that he'd have an excuse to beat the shit out of someone.

Flipping to the back of the file, he found the pages he needed and he slipped them into his pocket. He was locking up the filing cabinet when Jack startled him again.

"Hey," Jack said as he held up a box, "she never opened it."

Jack looked really disappointed and Bobby couldn't help but grin. "What the fuck is that?"

"I gave it to her for Christmas one year," Jack explained, opening the box and pulling out the ugly brown figurine that was inside of it. Bobby stepped over to the desk and picked up the now empty box, reading the description on the side.

"You gave Ma a Chia Pet?" Bobby snorted, dropping the carton in the trash can sitting on the floor. He was shaking his head as he picked up the heavy box that Jack had packed up . "Lame, man, really lame."

"I was thirteen," Jack offered as an explanation, following Bobby to the door.

"I really should have stuck around more to show you the ropes - even Angel would know that's a cheap ass gift."

"Chia Pets were cool back then," Jack argued.

Bobby stopped just before opening the door and turned around, the expression on his face dead serious as he looked his brother in the eye.

"Chia Pets were never cool, Jack. Never."


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A/N - Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to respond to everyone - alerts were messed up and then things got hectic. To make up for it, I wrote a long chapter and managed to work in a Chia Pet reference, lol. And if you're wondering just why I would include a Chia Pet - make sure you watch the extras on the DVD. It's from an outtake in the "Behind the Brotherhood" documentary. Cutest outtake ever, lol.