Chapter Title: Homesick

Series Title: Unlikely Brothers

Ages in this chapter: Tanner (9) Dashen (15)

Chapter Summary: Four months in to their new life as fake brothers, Tanner is homesick for his Jedi life.

Curled into the enormous couch. The familiar brown fabric clenched in his hand. Arms curled around a pillow. My newfound fake brother. Small. Plain. Unremarkable.

And apparently homesick.

Four months removed from the slaughter of the Jedi. Being orphaned from all he knew. Watching his teacher, mentor... his family die only inches from where he'd been hidden inside a wall.

I sat down, the cushion folding slightly under my weight, and set a blanket over his shoulders. Tanner adjusted position so that his head lay on my lap. Like an idiot, I tried to move before he settled, but missed the opportunity by a split second. Instead, I let him rest there.

"I miss my home."

Despair. Loneliness. Yeah, those things sucked. I'd been stuck in those emotions for years now. But I'd thought the kid was doing all right. He adapted, he was mostly happy. Hell, he'd made more friends in a few months than I had in my fifteen years. Seeing him like this was difficult.

I'd become so attached to this kid so fast, it scared me. Now, here he was empty of all those things that had defined his nine years of life. Those things having been violently ripped from him in barely a matter of hours.

I felt every single ache of his bottomless pain.

"I know you do, kid. I'm sorry. I give anything for it not to be this way."

My thumb voluntarily began stroking across his temple and I struggled hard to push down heartbreaking memories of Kossi. Tanner was unknowingly wandering onto sacred ground - that of the little brother I'd loved more than life and that I'd lost two years ago. My heart couldn't take that type of interference. Kossi was special to me. I'd never get over his death, I could only hope to survive for him. Now here I was sharing the inconceivable pain of another kid, when I was still a kid myself. I was a broken fifteen. How the hell could I fix what this one was feeling when I couldn't even fix me?

"I miss my home." Tanner repeated as my thumb crossed a tear track. Sure, I could repeat my empty words that meant absolutely nothing, but what would be the point? Maybe the kid heard them first time around, maybe he didn't. Maybe he just wanted me to go away so he be alone to cry away his excruciating pain.

No, that wasn't right. He'd curled right up to me when I'd sat. For all my own family and emotional issues, this kid had accepted me like a snap. No one - save for the beloved blood family I'd been born into - had ever done that for me. Accepted and trusted me - faults and all - with such rapid fierceness. The last thing he wanted was to be alone. Hell, the last thing I wanted was to be alone - despite my failed efforts to the contrary these last two years.

This kid came from a community, an Order. Hundreds, thousands of them. Maybe they weren't the most openly emotional people on the planet as a whole, but they were his people. They were what he knew and loved and lived for. They shared a love of lightsaber battles and negotiating peace treaties. They shared that strange dedication to their Force magic.

Every single piece of that was now gone, iced out by the Emperor in less time than it took to digest a meal. I'd had three people ripped from me in the span of a few years. Not sure we could compare the losses and do justice to them, but if not the same, there was a horrible similarity to it all.

And now... now he missed them. The last four months finally settling in that this was his new reality. Evidence of the Jedi was being wiped from existence almost as quickly as the Order had been and I was sure that part hurt almost as much as the purge itself. I'd never pretend to understand Jedi completely, they seemed mostly a good people from the little I knew. Ambassadors and guardians. Doing their part to help eradicate the bad and evil from the galaxy. All until they themselves were eradicated by a bigger bad and bigger evil.

Tanner moved under my touch, his fingers reaching my other hand to squeeze tight. Right. Definitely, no desire to be alone. Selfishly, my thoughts turned to Kossi. Was it deliberate or just habit - both probably - didn't matter. Tanner's intrusion into my own personal hell was weird. I didn't hate it, but I also wasn't sure what I really felt inside. Confusion mostly. Inner conflict telling me that truly caring about this kid would lesson the intense love and feelings of loss that I had for my little brother, Kossi. Those feelings, I clung to those suckers like a lifeboat. Real healthy, right? Didn't matter. It was me and it's how I had dealt with my reality of life since his death.

I owed Tanner more than that. He wasn't trying to compete with Kossi. He certainly wasn't trying to lesson my love for my brother. No. Tanner was working to do what I had been doing for years. Accept. Deal. Remember. Forget. Deny. Hate. Love. Battle with an inner anger that fought with that other need to be happy. A wild vortex of swirling emotions. Too much for any one person, let along a boy of nine that had just lost his world.

Figuring this out between us - assuming he decided to stay with me - I think we could do this. As much as I deny it inside, I really do need this kid. Jury was still out if he needed me long term, but right now at this moment? Yeah, he did. And no lie, that felt pretty damned good. Only one person in my life had ever actually needed me. He was dead. Forever. Not in my head though. He was never dead inside, but let's be honest, my head wasn't all that big on accepting reality these days.

"Dash."

The small voice again. Empty. Needy. Reaching to me for support.

"Right here, Mouse."

Tanner sniffed out a sound. A pathetic attempted laugh drowned out by a quiet sob. Ugh. Poor kid. Trying hard to react to the nickname I'd given him. Mouse. Pretty sure he was more fond of it that he let on, though probably something he would hate as he got older.

Ha! As he got older. Look at me. Thinking me and this lonely orphaned Jedi kid would be a part of each other's lives for a significant time. Was I hoping for that? Maybe. Was he? Only time would tell, I suppose.

For now, he was missing his past life. Missing what he knew so well. Just a homesick kid that had grasped onto me like one of those swamp leeches. Well, without the slimy sticky red scars after. Wait. What... did I just compare Tanner to a swamp leech? I really was out of practice with this family thing. Not that he was family... or was he? Or, ugh! Why was it so damned hard to know what was happening?

Okay, Dash. Stop acting like you're a complete idiot. You do have some abilities. I mean you raised Kossi for two entire years on your own. You looked after him almost from the time he was born. You can handle a fully functional nine year old with magic and... with a planet-sized target on his back.

"Dash."

My name again. His sadness again. Pulling me out of my own weird thoughts.

"Come on, Mouse, you should try and rest."

"M'not tired."

That was a lie. Or it wasn't. I didn't know anymore.

"You want me to stay with until you fall asleep?"

"Not sleepy."

"Okay, kid."

"Mouse."

"What?" I asked. Surprised at the use of his own nickname.

"I like that name. S'comfortable."

Sure it was. Nicknames were comfortable. They were usually given with fondness by people who cared about you. And...

...And there it was.

I did care about this kid. Maybe too damned much. Maybe not enough. See? There I go again. Probably I should stop fighting myself over these feelings, huh?

My thumb continued it's gentle pattern across Tanner's cheek and temple. The tears had lessened, but not gone away. Didn't expect they would. Not tonight. Not when he was so homesick for his past.

I did stay with him until he slept. His battle against fatigue was short lived. So much for his not sleepy line.

He mumbled out one last time about how much he missed his home. I kept silent and just stayed with him. Kept the contact. Tried to do what I could until the worst of the heartache had faded. Tomorrow would be better. These emotional things ran in waves. You could be up for days, then crash and burn in a matter of hours. It's just how it was and how it would be for a while. The heart would play games with the mind and vice versa. You think you're past the worst, then a stupid moment triggers a memory and you fall face first into your bed and cry yourself to sleep. Told you. Been there, done that more times that I'd ever admit to anyone. Except maybe this kid.

Time would tell what would become of us. One thing I was certain of, Tanner would be okay eventually. The kid was resilient. I'd seen that more than a few times already. Maybe I was too. I mean, by some miracle I'd not been successful in my attempts to die after Kossi. There must have been a reason for that. Could be this kid was it. But again, I didn't know. Really didn't want to guess either. It was just too much to think about.

Right now, Tanner was struggling and it was a struggle I knew on the deepest of personal levels.

We'd rest the night and figure out another step in our journey tomorrow.

I slouched into the galaxy's most comfortable couch. (Yes, Colton would murder me later for touching the sacred thing.) My thumb continued it's soft stroke as Tanner's eyes closed and tears finally dried.

His missed his home. I missed my brother. Both homesick in our own way.

Yeah, we were a mess, but we were a pair.

And I guess we'd figure it all out along the way.

END