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They had been about a half a mile from their so called "home". When they had started their short journey back, Race had been tucked underneath Jack's arm as he helped him stay on his feet in his state. But after a few steps, the starving boy's legs had begun to shake and give out from underneath him. The kid had whimpered out a cry for help before he almost collapsed on the ground. If it wasn't for Jack's strong arms, he would've. So Jack did the only thing that he could do. He put the fading boy on his back. He held the kid under the knees and let Race rest his tired head on his shoulder as he walked them home. But he knew that if his brother didn't eat soon, things would only start to spiral more.
Jack sighed and tried to keep his brother talking. "Race?" He whispered, doing his best not to startle the boy. The kid hummed in response, prompting Jack to continue. "You really cheat?" He asked, genuinely curious. He felt the small boy give a tired laugh in response.
"My secrets are my own Jackie-boy." Race mumbled, smiling when his big brother laughed at him. "But, if I was cheatin', he wouldn't of known about it." He smiled, readjusting his head on Jack's strong shoulder, so his chin rested there instead. Jack glanced over at the boy and shook his head.
"Ya got the money?" Jack asked, bumping Race further up his back by pushing up on his knees. He barely felt Race nod his head against his shirt and he could've cried in relief. "Then cmon kid, we're gettin' ya somethin' ta eat."
Race didn't respond, and Jack grew more worried by the second. He went to the first place he saw open and grabbed something for his brother to eat, digging around in the kid's pocket for the money. The girl at the counter didn't seem to even notice that there was a boy in there that could hardly stand and looked to be a bit beaten up, or even that he smelled like he should be drunk out of his mind, but Jack didn't care. He grabbed Race an actual meal and set it in front of the kid at the booth they'd claimed in an empty restaurant.
Watching the kid was becoming torture for Jack as he saw things that he should've noticed days ago. The dark circles under his eyes told Jack the story of how he hadn't slept in a week because he'd been fighting off nightmares and was too proud to wake him up. His ripped clothes showed Jack why Race had been coming to bed late and he'd been too scared to tell Jack about it. The bruise on his forehead made Jack angry. When he'd seen it the first time, he thought nothing of it, but now, two days later he knew why he heard something smack up against a wall while he and Crutchie were in their bedroom.
"Race..." Jack tried to apologize as he saw Race forcing himself to eat, knowing the kid had gone far too long without food and now didn't want it. But the boy shook his head.
"It ain't your fault Jack." Race said, and Jack could already hear the difference in the boy's voice. "It ain't your fault that Crutch got sick and you had ta take care of him. It ain't your fault we are livin' with a crazy man, it ain't your fault our mother was a drug addict. None of this is your fault." Race promised.
Jack sniffled and blinked back the tears that he knew wanted so desperately to fall. He nodded as he spoke. "I just wanna take care of you guys. You're all I have and I can't lose you. And you've been scaring the hell outta of me tonight Race and Crutchie can barely stand up and I'm scared alright?"
Race nodded as he finished about a third of the burger that Jack had ordered for him. "You're scaring the hell outta me too, Kelly. Eat some of this and we can give the last of it ta Crutchie. He's probably worried sick." Jack nodded and did as he was told, happy that Race seemed to be able to keep his eyes open for the moment.
It was one AM. An hour had passed since Jack had found his brother. Now the older boy looked up at the latter to their room. Race was standing next to him, his big brother's arm around his shoulders. Jack knew the boy must've been tired, so he let the boy onto his back and he pulled down the latter to the fire escape. As he climbed up, he made sure there was no way for him to drop his brother. Once he made it to their window, he stood for a moment, telling himself to breathe and that everything would be alright, before he slid the glass up and ducked himself and his brother inside.
The apartment was a decent size. Not too small, definitely big enough for one man and his three servants. As Jack entered, he heard loud, obnoxious snoring coming from the living room, which was just off the kitchen. He tiptoed silently to the back room, which was also the three boys' bedroom.
Jack opened the door and sighed when he saw what was waiting for him inside. "Crutch what are ya doin' up, kid?" He whispered, doing his best not to wake up Race, who he knew was now asleep on his back.
The boy in question sat, his back against the wall, on the single bed in the room. It was a double twin sized bed. There was only a single blanket that barely covered it all, but at least the mattress was up off the ground. There were no pillows and the bed wasn't that soft but it was still a place to sleep. On top of the bed sat a boy, no more than fourteen. One of his legs was stretched out in front of him, at an odd angle, but the kid didn't seem to care. His other leg was bent at the knee and propping up a book in his hand. There was a lamp on a nightstand next to him, shedding a bit of light on the words on the pages. And a metal crutch lay on the floor at the foot of the bed. The kid looked up and when he did, Jack saw the thing he didn't think he could handle.
There were circles underneath his bright, green eyes, not quite as bad as Race's but bad enough to take notice to. His short, blond hair stuck off of his head as if he'd run his hand through it many times. His shaky hands rose to the page to track where his eyes needed to go to understand the story. His skin was paler than Race's and a bead of sweat stuck to his forehead. Despite this, he wore only a long sleeve t-shirt and some sweatpants to keep him warm, but most of all, the thing that broke Jack's heart the most. On the young, blond boy's face were tear running down his cheeks.
"J-Jack?" The kid rasped. It was clear in his voice that he was sick. He had some sort of bad cold. He sniffled as Jack walked closer to him.
"Yeah," The older boy whispered. "Yeah Crutchie... I'm here kid, what's wrong?" He asked, worriedly. He stepped into the room further, feeling Race move his head and stir on his back.
"Race?" The boy's voice made Jack's stomach twist in knots. And the way those green eyes were hoping that this wasn't a dream was killing him slowly.
"He's right here." Jack promised, sitting down on the edge of the bed, the side that Crutchie wasn't on, and gently lowering his brother onto the mattress and turning to him just in time to see his boyish blue eyes open. He ran a hand through the boy's curly blond hair and smiled at him, reassuring him, without words, that they were ok. "I found him and he's alright." He said, looking back up at Crutchie.
That was all it took for Crutchie's tears to start falling. The book fell from his shaking hands, hitting the floor with a faint thud. Race was on his back on the bed but still reached up to Crutchie, letting him into his embrace. The boy collapsed on him, ignoring the strong smell of liquor that covered him, not even caring a little bit about it at the moment. He buried his face in Race's shirt and sobbed.
"Whoa kid," Race whispered, shocked at the kid's sudden outburst. "What happened Crutch?" He asked, gently rubbing the kid's back.
Jack sat on the edge of the bed, beside the two boys and ran a hand through the youngest's hair. "Ya have a nightmare, kid?" Jack asked, hating the way those innocent eyes peeked up at him with unshed tears in them. That was all the answer Jack needed. "Ya wanna talk about it?"
Crutchie buried his head in Race's chest again, trying to stop his quiet sobs long enough to explain. "It... it was so real, Jack... like we was back there all over again..."
Immediately, Race tightened his hold on the younger boy. No more explanation was needed. The two knew what the nightmare was about. "I was holdin' onto you guys so tight but it didn't matter!" Crutchie's voice was still a whisper but it held so much fear and anger at that day. That stupid, terrifying day. "I just heard Race screamin' and tryin' ta get away and then... then they took me and I couldn't do anythin'... I was scared..."
The room got intensely quiet after that. Flashes of that day filling up their brains like a flood. Too many painful memories of what happened that day, the tears, the hits, the doors slamming and then the desperate screams. It was too much for them to handle.
"Crutch..." Jack sighed, noting Race's bright blue eyes beginning to start swimming as he recalled the horrific memories as well. He placed his hand on his youngest brother's knee and smiled. "We're here. We're together and it's gonna stay like that. That ain't ever gonna happen again. Ya hear?"
Crutchie nodded, wiping away the tears that were streaming down his face and sitting up so Race could follow suit, though the blue eyed boy still leaned himself up against the wall. Then, out of no where, the boy laughed. "Race?" He asked and the taller boy nodded up at him, also wiping away the water built up in his tired eyes. "Why do ya smell like a bar?"
Race chuckled and looked down at himself as he sat up. He looked up to Jack to see the other boy smiling too and so Race pulled out of his pocket, the money he'd made from that night. It was a mixture of paper and metal but it was all real. He let it drop onto the bed and Crutchie's eyes lit up at the sight. "You got all that?"
"We also brought ya somethin' ta eat." Jack added, bringing up his hand with a take out bag in it that Crutchie had yet to see. The boy smiled at them and Jack quietly pulled the last of the burger out of the bag, handing it to his little brother. The sick boy took it gratefully and almost devoured the thing, if not for Race reaching up and holding the food back away from him enough to get some air.
"Slow down kid." He chuckled, watching his kid brother finish the last of the food. Race smiled but then suddenly realized how weak he felt. His head started to throb and his eyes started to slip shut. And Jack noticed in the nick of time.
"No no no no no Racer!" Jack whispered, forcing the boy to sit up by gently putting his hand behind the back of the boy's head as his other pulled him up by his arm. "Ya gotta stay awake so we can get this smell off of ya." He explained, angry at the woman that had done this to an innocent boy that had done nothing to deserve it. "I swear I ever see that woman again I'll-"
"Jack..." Race breathed, exhausted, warning his brother not to go into detail as their baby brother was still in the room. The fifteen year old, sat up, immediately falling onto Jack's chest and his older brother laughed.
"Kid," He whined with a chuckle as he tried to get the boy to sit up straight. "Cmon, I gotta do all this too?" He laughed, but he soon realized Race's tired moan was the last response he'd get from the boy that night as Race laid back down and the mattress and passed out of total exhaustion.
Crutchie quietly laughed as he watched his big brother finally give into sleep. He knew Race had been waking up from nightmares too for the past few days. He knew that Race had been giving up his food and striving to get money anyway he could. The gimp boy was happy he'd finally been forced to pass out. "Ya need any help Jack?" He asked when he saw Jack sigh and get up, no doubt to clean the boy up. Crutchie was about to get up, reaching for his crutch to help in some way but Jack waved him off.
"Don't get up." He sighed, not wanting to cause the boy any trouble. But he did need some help. "Just... try to slip his shirt and jeans off of 'im and," he said, moving over to the single dresser in the small room and grabbing some sweatpants and a sweatshirt. "Put these on him after I clean him up." He said, tossing the clothes across the room to his little brother who was smirking at him. None the less, he still did as he was told as Jack left the room.
Jack walked his way through the dark hall to the single bathroom in the apartment. As silently as he could, he opened the creaky door and prayed no one could hear it. His steps were carefully weighed as he slipped into the room. Without turning the light on, he grabbed a bar of soap and an old cloth, wetting it with some tap water from the sink. Then he grabbed a small bucket and filled it with water before laying the cloth over the side and turning back to the cracked open door.
The boy let out a nervous breath before slipping back out and quickly tiptoeing his way back through the hall. When he was at the door that separated him and his brothers, he stopped. He peered his head around the corner to see a man.
The living room was dark but the faint glow of the moon from behind the clouds was enough to make out his features. He was a big man. He had some muscle on his bones but he wasn't what anyone would call a body builder. He was tall, and a bit old looking. He looked like he could fight pretty well. His grey hair was a mess above his harsh, drunk features and his mustache only made him look older. He wore a black suit, the shoes kicked off his feet, lying on the ground beside the old couch. His tie was loosened and his collar unbuttoned. He was dead asleep. The snoring still echoed through the house but that wasn't what made his presence known. There was more liquor in that house than Race had brought home on his clothing. Surrounding the man were bottles of wine and beer and Jack wondered how he hadn't drunk himself to death already. The boy shook his head at the man that lay on the couch without a spec of a care, before turning and slipping back into his room.
He smiled as he saw his youngest brother already done with taking Race's old t-shirt and jeans off leaving the boy in his boxers. The smallest boy was still on the bed, his bum leg stretched out in front of him oddly, while his other was brought up underneath him to prop himself up, over Race. Jack smiled at him and slowly moved over to his brothers. He set the bucket down on the floor before sitting on the side of the bed and grabbing the cloth from the rim of the pale.
Just as Jack had rubbed the soap over the cloth and was about to touch it to his poor brother's pale, bruised skin, he heard a very small voice. "Be careful Jack..." His baby brother whispered, not once looking up at him as all his attention was on Race. "I don't want him ta start panicking again... like last time..." Crutchie weakly coughed after his last sentence and Jack shushed him, shaking his head and placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.
"I'm gonna be real careful, Crutch... I promise." He reassured before moving his hands back to what he was doing. He held his breath as he made contact with the too light skin.
Race felt something cold make contact with his exposed chest. It wasn't an unfamiliar feeling. It wasn't a pleasant feeling. He moaned and tried desperately to open his heavy eyes but found he couldn't. So instead, he started calling out for the only people who he knew would always protect him. "Jack... Crutchie..."
Race's soft, panicked mutters were barely made out to Crutchie. The boy knew his brother must be saying their names, but was so tired he couldn't form proper words. He wondered how Race had even stayed up this long and how Jack wasn't behaving the exact same way, being that he only got, at most, four to five hours of sleep every night.
Crutchie shook his head, moving himself closer to his brother using his arms. He ran a hand through the boy's dirty hair and did all the things he'd known Jack had done to calm both of them down. "Shush Race... it's just us. No one's here ta hurt ya. Go back ta sleep..."
Race heard his baby brother's voice and his whole body seemed to relax again. He let himself drift back into a peaceful sleep, at the same time, allowing Jack to continue what he'd been doing with a small, proud smile.
It took Jack about twenty minutes to clean up Race. He'd had to scrub the liquid off of the fifteen year olds body and then he'd had to run the soapy cloth through the kid's hair several times. Once he was done though, he took Race's clothes from that day and shoved them into the bucket, cleaning them by hand. By the time he finished, Crutchie had been captured by sleep too. The smallest of the three was lying on his side, his arms around himself, only a few inches from Race. Jack smiled at them. He was glad his brothers were asleep before two AM. Now it was his turn.
The oldest boy hung his brother's wet clothes from a bar that hung from their ceiling, for who knows what, dumped the bucket out into the alley way below the single window in that small room and then left the bucket in a corner with the cloth inside it. Then he moved over to the bed, collecting the money that still lay in between his two sleeping brothers and place it in a draw in the nightstand beside the bed. Finally he was able to carefully slip his fifteen year old brother into a pair of sweatpants and an old sweatshirt before he joined his brothers on the bed.
He carefully moved his youngest brother further onto the mattress, smiling as he watched the small kid sneeze and then subconsciously rest his head on Race's chest. He gently felt the boy's forehead with the back of his hand, relief flooding through his body when he felt that it was not too hot. Then Jack crawled onto the bed, still fully clothed, too tired to change into anything else. He brought the blanket up over the three of them and lay down so his chest was against Crutchie's back.
As he drifted off, he prayed tomorrow would not bring back the dangers of today or any day before that. He prayed that for one, simple day, him and his brothers would be safe. But nothing could ever just be simple.
As always, thanks for reading! Make sure to tell me what you liked, what you didn't, what you would change or what you'd improve by leaving me a review. Happy 4th guys!