HEAVY
Author: Pipsqueak
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Uhm, just the Pilot, I think
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em, just playing with 'em. But hey, at least I know what to do with them, unlike SciFi, who does own them (along with Stu Segall)
You want to know how I found out? AOL. That's how I found out. I was logging on, having my morning cup of coffee, when what greets me on my start page but his not-so-smiling face. My brother. Arrested. Convicted. Again. And what in God's name did he do to his hair?
The sight made me choke so hard I thought my lab partner, Arnaud, was going to have to give me the Heimlich. Or that coffee was going to come out my nose. That would have been just like Darien. The little wiseass was always doing something to make me spurt Coke or some other viscous fluid out my nose at mealtimes. Only this time he wasn't just going to get sent to his room. Oh, no, this time he'd gotten life.
Which again is just like D -- he always has to push everything to the limit. I swear, he should have been a girl, he's such a little drama queen. In fact, when we were really little, I used to tease him and call him my sister whenever he started throwing a typical toddler tantrum. That used to piss him off nicely -- got him going every single time. Dad put a stop to it though. Told me I better lay off D or he was going to lay into me good. So I stopped -- at least whenever Dad was around anyway.
Not that he was around all that much. I mean, he took off for good when I was eight. And before that whenever our loving father wasn't trying to pull off some two-bit crime, he was in and out of jail too many times to count -- just like his youngest son. Honestly, I don't know whom I'm maddest at: my father for being a petty thief or my brother for following in his criminal footsteps. How the hell I ever wound up in this family is beyond me. If it wasn't for my uncle being my mother's brother, I'd swear I was adopted.
Not that my mother's family is exactly chock full of geniuses. But Mom was a smart lady; she just had too good of a heart. See, that's the problem with D. He's trying to be just like Dad when he's really just like Mom. If he'd only own up to that fact instead of trying to buck the system, he'd be fine. But oh no, not *my* brother. He's too damn smart to walk the straight and narrow. No, he's always got to find the shortcut, work the con.
And this, *this* is what it gets him -- a lifetime lease on a suite at Bakersfield State Correctional Facility. The most ludicrous part of it all is that he's innocent. I mean, I know he didn't molest that old man. That's not my brother. But it is *so* D to try and rob the place and then get caught trying to save the old guy from a heart attack. Like I said, he's a drama queen. Makes me almost regret teaching him CPR.
So there he was on AOL -- all over the web really -- and I can guarantee you he'd never even thought once about how this would affect me. That my colleagues, my *boss*, might see it. Most of them don't even know I have a brother. I mean he's not exactly bragging material, is he? I have confided in a select few though: Charlie, Arnaud, Claire. Oh God, I wonder if Claire saw it online. She's probably thanking her lucky stars right now that she's rid of me, probably too embarrassed to admit that she ever even knew one of the Fawkes brothers.
It's stunts like this that made me cut him off in the first place, damn it. I told him, I *warned* him the last time he was released that if he didn't stay out of trouble, I wasn't going to have anything to do with him anymore. And how did my tough love impress him? The little shit *laughed*. He laughed, put on that patented sarcastic smirk of his and told me it was no great loss, that it wasn't like I'd had all that much to do with him anyhow. That's what trying to act like a big brother gets you with D.
To be perfectly honest, I can almost see why he would think that. It's not like I've been a model older brother by his standards. I mean, let's face it, D's bigger and stronger than I am, has been since we were teenagers. By the time he started high school, he'd already gained six inches and some serious biceps on me. At 14 he looked more like 17 than I did -- and I *was* 17, though not still in high school, thank God. I was already well on my way to my first college degree by then, spared the indignity of having D tower over me as he stalked down our hallowed high school halls.
So I wasn't there when he learned to defend himself, wasn't there to pitch in when the townie jocks who'd plagued our existence since we'd moved to Cold Springs ganged up on him. I mean, they'd pretty much ignored me in my braininess -- short, bespectacled, innocuous. But not D. No, it was impossible to ignore D with his long legs, pretty boy hair, and a chip on his shoulder the size of Gibraltar. The girls loved him; the guys hated him. And he pretty much acted like he didn't give a damn about either. That "rebel without a cause" attitude got him two things: plenty of teenage cherries to pop and more than his fair share of ass-kickings.
All of which I missed. But hey, I was getting college-age booty without the beatings, thank you very much. And I was working my way towards mapping the human genome. So pardon me if my attention was somewhere other than my precociously punk younger brother.
Anyway, my point is that D knows better than to expect his -- let's see, what *was* it he called me ... ah, yes -- "pedantic pedagogue" of an older brother to help get him out of a jam if some guy wants to use him for a punching bag. Hell, half the time *I'd* like to use him as a punching bag. He has that kind of effect on people.
And here we are, right back where we've been ever since D was old enough for the cops to take him seriously -- me visiting him in prison. Once again I'm waiting for some armed guard to lead me past the security checkpoint and back to the barred cells where my recalcitrant brother sits, paying for sins not entirely his own. But this, this is a little bigger than some teenage prank or some penny-ante boost. This time he's gotten himself jammed up good. Despite his laughter he must have taken my threat to heart because he never called me, not even when he was in trouble, not even to ask for help. Probably thought I couldn't -- alright, wouldn't -- do anything to help him anyway.
But I think I've found a solution. Maybe it's not as ready as I'd like it to be, but it's not like he's given me a lot of time here. It's not like we've got a lot of options. I mean, it's been tested. Hell, I tore the thing apart and practically started from scratch to make sure it was safe after the Simon Cole incident. I'm not a fool, not a monster. I'd never even consider putting it into D if I didn't think it was safe. I'm trying to save his life here, not destroy it.
And if anything goes wrong -- not that anything *will* go wrong -- I'll be there to take care of him. It's not like it's irreversible. I'll have it out at the first sign of trouble -- not that there's going to be *any* trouble. After all, I designed the damn thing, it's *my* baby. Nobody knows it better than me and I've run it through so many simulations, I've already been able to identify and address any possible side effects. Besides, it's just going to be for a few of weeks of final testing. Just a few weeks, then Arnaud and I can remove it, and D will have his life back. And maybe he'll even be a better person for it. I can do this for him, I can give him this.
It hasn't been easy though, then again it's never been easy with D. I've used every bit of influence I have to get D this opportunity, every bit of pull I have with Charlie to get him to agree to D's participation and pardon. He knows about D, of course, and not just from me. Charlie knew my Uncle Peter, which is how I met him. So Charlie knew firsthand from my uncle all about D's little illicit escapades.
At first I was afraid he'd hold it against me -- figure D and I were two of a kind. But Charlie seems to genuinely like me, as he liked my uncle. He's given me a home at The Agency, a place where I can conduct my research without the fear of having it corrupted. Charlie and I are working towards building something that will help mankind and protect our country. It's not like the SWRB, where I had to constantly fight against having my research twisted into some demented, evil caricature of its original intent.
So yeah, Charlie's given me a home, the resources to make my dream a reality, his trust. And I've had to risk them all in convincing him to let me help D. Charlie wanted to implant the gland into a top-level trained agent again, told me he wasn't going to waste it on some punk kid who couldn't pull off a simple smash-and-grab, even if D was my brother. I tried to convince Charlie that D's experience with criminal activities would provide us with unique insights into how to use the gland, that he could think of scenarios a trained agent would never consider.
In the end, I had to threaten Charlie with losing the one thing he couldn't afford to lose -- me. In order to save my brother, I had to decide I was willing to walk away from my life's work, my dream, just like I'd walked away from D after Mom's death.
And so I hold my brother's fate in my hands. Literally. I flip the flimsy envelope holding the release forms between my fingers as I follow the guard down the dank prison hall.
He won't agree. At least not at first. Oh, I know what'll happen; it'll be classic D. He'll start wisecracking, making some snide one-liner out of everything. As if having to visit him in solitary confinement is a laughing matter. As if wasting your life behind bars is some sort of supreme practical joke. Does he really think I don't know what goes on in prisons? That I'm *that* naïve? For God's sake, he knows I'm a doctor. Can he really believe that I can't imagine how he came by all those black eyes and broken ribs during his other prison stays?
But still he won't agree. He'd rather tough it out with the big boys at the Pen than swallow his damn pride and accept my help. No, I'll have to use every ounce of brotherly bullying and emotional blackmail I have in me to get him to sign the paper. I'll have to force him to let me save him. And all the while he'll be looking at me with our mother's eyes and making me feel completely inadequate. Just like he's always done. All the time growing up, seeing him look at me with those wide eyes, knowing I'd never be able to fulfill the hopes they held. Knowing I could never be the father who left, the mother who died, the brother who could protect him.
And he knows it too. He knows me for the failure I am, the failure that I'll always be no matter how many PhDs I have, no matter how many glands I can build, no matter how many magazine covers I'm on. I'm a failure because I *failed* him. I couldn't be the big brother he wanted, the big brother he needed. *I* should have been the one to take care of him when Dad left, the one to comfort him when Mom died, the one to protect him from the bullies when we were the new kids on the block.
But I didn't. I couldn't see past my own pain to help him with his. Instead I retreated into the safety of my uncle's lab. And even though I knew Darien was getting into trouble, could see him falling in with the wrong crowd, I did *nothing*. Better to just let his wild streak run its course, I reasoned; he'd be fine if I just left him alone. How bitterly ironic that phrase seems now. That's *exactly* what I did. I left him completely and utterly alone, without anyone, not even me, to turn to.
And now I stand here, in front of his cell, waiting for a guard to open the door so I can see him. Every fiber in my body is screaming at me to run away, to make my own personal hegira back to The Agency, my lab. I could leave now and he'd never even know I was here. I could just leave him alone -- again. I *could* do it.
But I won't.
Because I love him.
Because he's my brother.
Because despite everything, I'm still *his* brother.
The guard opens the door and I walk in.
###
Author: Pipsqueak
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Uhm, just the Pilot, I think
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em, just playing with 'em. But hey, at least I know what to do with them, unlike SciFi, who does own them (along with Stu Segall)
You want to know how I found out? AOL. That's how I found out. I was logging on, having my morning cup of coffee, when what greets me on my start page but his not-so-smiling face. My brother. Arrested. Convicted. Again. And what in God's name did he do to his hair?
The sight made me choke so hard I thought my lab partner, Arnaud, was going to have to give me the Heimlich. Or that coffee was going to come out my nose. That would have been just like Darien. The little wiseass was always doing something to make me spurt Coke or some other viscous fluid out my nose at mealtimes. Only this time he wasn't just going to get sent to his room. Oh, no, this time he'd gotten life.
Which again is just like D -- he always has to push everything to the limit. I swear, he should have been a girl, he's such a little drama queen. In fact, when we were really little, I used to tease him and call him my sister whenever he started throwing a typical toddler tantrum. That used to piss him off nicely -- got him going every single time. Dad put a stop to it though. Told me I better lay off D or he was going to lay into me good. So I stopped -- at least whenever Dad was around anyway.
Not that he was around all that much. I mean, he took off for good when I was eight. And before that whenever our loving father wasn't trying to pull off some two-bit crime, he was in and out of jail too many times to count -- just like his youngest son. Honestly, I don't know whom I'm maddest at: my father for being a petty thief or my brother for following in his criminal footsteps. How the hell I ever wound up in this family is beyond me. If it wasn't for my uncle being my mother's brother, I'd swear I was adopted.
Not that my mother's family is exactly chock full of geniuses. But Mom was a smart lady; she just had too good of a heart. See, that's the problem with D. He's trying to be just like Dad when he's really just like Mom. If he'd only own up to that fact instead of trying to buck the system, he'd be fine. But oh no, not *my* brother. He's too damn smart to walk the straight and narrow. No, he's always got to find the shortcut, work the con.
And this, *this* is what it gets him -- a lifetime lease on a suite at Bakersfield State Correctional Facility. The most ludicrous part of it all is that he's innocent. I mean, I know he didn't molest that old man. That's not my brother. But it is *so* D to try and rob the place and then get caught trying to save the old guy from a heart attack. Like I said, he's a drama queen. Makes me almost regret teaching him CPR.
So there he was on AOL -- all over the web really -- and I can guarantee you he'd never even thought once about how this would affect me. That my colleagues, my *boss*, might see it. Most of them don't even know I have a brother. I mean he's not exactly bragging material, is he? I have confided in a select few though: Charlie, Arnaud, Claire. Oh God, I wonder if Claire saw it online. She's probably thanking her lucky stars right now that she's rid of me, probably too embarrassed to admit that she ever even knew one of the Fawkes brothers.
It's stunts like this that made me cut him off in the first place, damn it. I told him, I *warned* him the last time he was released that if he didn't stay out of trouble, I wasn't going to have anything to do with him anymore. And how did my tough love impress him? The little shit *laughed*. He laughed, put on that patented sarcastic smirk of his and told me it was no great loss, that it wasn't like I'd had all that much to do with him anyhow. That's what trying to act like a big brother gets you with D.
To be perfectly honest, I can almost see why he would think that. It's not like I've been a model older brother by his standards. I mean, let's face it, D's bigger and stronger than I am, has been since we were teenagers. By the time he started high school, he'd already gained six inches and some serious biceps on me. At 14 he looked more like 17 than I did -- and I *was* 17, though not still in high school, thank God. I was already well on my way to my first college degree by then, spared the indignity of having D tower over me as he stalked down our hallowed high school halls.
So I wasn't there when he learned to defend himself, wasn't there to pitch in when the townie jocks who'd plagued our existence since we'd moved to Cold Springs ganged up on him. I mean, they'd pretty much ignored me in my braininess -- short, bespectacled, innocuous. But not D. No, it was impossible to ignore D with his long legs, pretty boy hair, and a chip on his shoulder the size of Gibraltar. The girls loved him; the guys hated him. And he pretty much acted like he didn't give a damn about either. That "rebel without a cause" attitude got him two things: plenty of teenage cherries to pop and more than his fair share of ass-kickings.
All of which I missed. But hey, I was getting college-age booty without the beatings, thank you very much. And I was working my way towards mapping the human genome. So pardon me if my attention was somewhere other than my precociously punk younger brother.
Anyway, my point is that D knows better than to expect his -- let's see, what *was* it he called me ... ah, yes -- "pedantic pedagogue" of an older brother to help get him out of a jam if some guy wants to use him for a punching bag. Hell, half the time *I'd* like to use him as a punching bag. He has that kind of effect on people.
And here we are, right back where we've been ever since D was old enough for the cops to take him seriously -- me visiting him in prison. Once again I'm waiting for some armed guard to lead me past the security checkpoint and back to the barred cells where my recalcitrant brother sits, paying for sins not entirely his own. But this, this is a little bigger than some teenage prank or some penny-ante boost. This time he's gotten himself jammed up good. Despite his laughter he must have taken my threat to heart because he never called me, not even when he was in trouble, not even to ask for help. Probably thought I couldn't -- alright, wouldn't -- do anything to help him anyway.
But I think I've found a solution. Maybe it's not as ready as I'd like it to be, but it's not like he's given me a lot of time here. It's not like we've got a lot of options. I mean, it's been tested. Hell, I tore the thing apart and practically started from scratch to make sure it was safe after the Simon Cole incident. I'm not a fool, not a monster. I'd never even consider putting it into D if I didn't think it was safe. I'm trying to save his life here, not destroy it.
And if anything goes wrong -- not that anything *will* go wrong -- I'll be there to take care of him. It's not like it's irreversible. I'll have it out at the first sign of trouble -- not that there's going to be *any* trouble. After all, I designed the damn thing, it's *my* baby. Nobody knows it better than me and I've run it through so many simulations, I've already been able to identify and address any possible side effects. Besides, it's just going to be for a few of weeks of final testing. Just a few weeks, then Arnaud and I can remove it, and D will have his life back. And maybe he'll even be a better person for it. I can do this for him, I can give him this.
It hasn't been easy though, then again it's never been easy with D. I've used every bit of influence I have to get D this opportunity, every bit of pull I have with Charlie to get him to agree to D's participation and pardon. He knows about D, of course, and not just from me. Charlie knew my Uncle Peter, which is how I met him. So Charlie knew firsthand from my uncle all about D's little illicit escapades.
At first I was afraid he'd hold it against me -- figure D and I were two of a kind. But Charlie seems to genuinely like me, as he liked my uncle. He's given me a home at The Agency, a place where I can conduct my research without the fear of having it corrupted. Charlie and I are working towards building something that will help mankind and protect our country. It's not like the SWRB, where I had to constantly fight against having my research twisted into some demented, evil caricature of its original intent.
So yeah, Charlie's given me a home, the resources to make my dream a reality, his trust. And I've had to risk them all in convincing him to let me help D. Charlie wanted to implant the gland into a top-level trained agent again, told me he wasn't going to waste it on some punk kid who couldn't pull off a simple smash-and-grab, even if D was my brother. I tried to convince Charlie that D's experience with criminal activities would provide us with unique insights into how to use the gland, that he could think of scenarios a trained agent would never consider.
In the end, I had to threaten Charlie with losing the one thing he couldn't afford to lose -- me. In order to save my brother, I had to decide I was willing to walk away from my life's work, my dream, just like I'd walked away from D after Mom's death.
And so I hold my brother's fate in my hands. Literally. I flip the flimsy envelope holding the release forms between my fingers as I follow the guard down the dank prison hall.
He won't agree. At least not at first. Oh, I know what'll happen; it'll be classic D. He'll start wisecracking, making some snide one-liner out of everything. As if having to visit him in solitary confinement is a laughing matter. As if wasting your life behind bars is some sort of supreme practical joke. Does he really think I don't know what goes on in prisons? That I'm *that* naïve? For God's sake, he knows I'm a doctor. Can he really believe that I can't imagine how he came by all those black eyes and broken ribs during his other prison stays?
But still he won't agree. He'd rather tough it out with the big boys at the Pen than swallow his damn pride and accept my help. No, I'll have to use every ounce of brotherly bullying and emotional blackmail I have in me to get him to sign the paper. I'll have to force him to let me save him. And all the while he'll be looking at me with our mother's eyes and making me feel completely inadequate. Just like he's always done. All the time growing up, seeing him look at me with those wide eyes, knowing I'd never be able to fulfill the hopes they held. Knowing I could never be the father who left, the mother who died, the brother who could protect him.
And he knows it too. He knows me for the failure I am, the failure that I'll always be no matter how many PhDs I have, no matter how many glands I can build, no matter how many magazine covers I'm on. I'm a failure because I *failed* him. I couldn't be the big brother he wanted, the big brother he needed. *I* should have been the one to take care of him when Dad left, the one to comfort him when Mom died, the one to protect him from the bullies when we were the new kids on the block.
But I didn't. I couldn't see past my own pain to help him with his. Instead I retreated into the safety of my uncle's lab. And even though I knew Darien was getting into trouble, could see him falling in with the wrong crowd, I did *nothing*. Better to just let his wild streak run its course, I reasoned; he'd be fine if I just left him alone. How bitterly ironic that phrase seems now. That's *exactly* what I did. I left him completely and utterly alone, without anyone, not even me, to turn to.
And now I stand here, in front of his cell, waiting for a guard to open the door so I can see him. Every fiber in my body is screaming at me to run away, to make my own personal hegira back to The Agency, my lab. I could leave now and he'd never even know I was here. I could just leave him alone -- again. I *could* do it.
But I won't.
Because I love him.
Because he's my brother.
Because despite everything, I'm still *his* brother.
The guard opens the door and I walk in.
###