Another chapter! And to answer your question, Mini Nicka, no, this is not going to become a J/L. According to the rough outline I have in my head, Lisa's not really going to be inthis storyat all. Sorry. I really hope I haven't disappointed anyone.

The wounded boy sat on the couch for the longest of times. His gaze was forward and down, a look of mingled pain and hatred carved into his face. His eyes were focusing on a tiny piece of black fluff on the tan carpet, but he wasn't really seeing the fuzz. He was deep in the recesses of his own mind. If you were to set foot into his mind at that moment, you'd most likely go insane within mere seconds. The thoughts were so dark and cruel, so hateful and vengeful, and most of all, they were so intense. These were not the thoughts of a ten-year-old, or at least, not the thoughts a ten-year-old should have. Every once in a while, he would break his focus on the black fuzz and glance at his father who was laying in the bed of the adjoining room, dozing as if nothing had happened. He would frown, the crease between his eyebrows would deepen, and his eyes would return to the little fluff-ball. One of the most coherent thoughts floating through his head was.

Steadily the minor discomfort that had started out as a tiny whisper in the back of his mind grew to become cramps in his ankles, and he realized that he never took off his ski-boots. He'd taken off his jacket as soon as he'd entered the cabin, and it was lying in a heap on the floor near the door. But his boots had been forgotten and were causing his ankles to ache. He leaned forward over his knees to take them off, instantly wishing he hadn't. His battered back protested, and he gritted his teeth as he proceeded with the tenuous process of unbuckling the ski boots and the even harder process of prying them off of his feet. Despite the pain he was in, when he got those boots off, he couldn't help but to let out a huge sigh of relief.

He became aware of how tired he was and slowly, stiffly lowered himself down on his stomach until he was lying full-length on the couch. His mind registered with some resentment that he was in the exact position he had been in before when his cheek touched the damp spot his tears had made. He dozed for a little bit.

He jerked fully awake when his coat was thrown onto his head. His eyes flew wide open, and the sleep-adrenaline gushed into his veins, making him extremely jumpy. He couldn't see and something was making it hard for him to breathe. He realized that something was on his head and it felt suspiciously like his coat. He reached for it, pulled it off, and saw that it was, in fact, his coat. He gathered his arms underneath of himself and painfully propped himself on his elbows so he could look around more easily. His father was standing, a tall silhouette, right in front of him. Jackson looked at him, looked at the coat still in his hand, and looked back at his father. Either he missed something, or he still wasn't quite awake because he was confused.

"Put it on," his father said, "and find your regular shoes. We're going to the hospital."

"Hospital…?" Jackson asked groggily, then everything clicked back into place. An exalted joy and foreboding dread swept over him. "We're going to see Richard?"

"Yes. And while you're getting ready, do something about your face," with that, his father walked off.

Jackson creased his brow, his face? What the heck was wrong with his face? He brought his hand up to touch the left side of his face and was almost surprised to feel not smooth skin but a lovely scab. There was something else different about that side of his face too, but he couldn't quite tell what it was. He decided to get up and try out how he'd do on his feet. Dizziness, blinding brown dots, and a disconcerting tingly feeling flashed through him as his blood rushed to his head. He walked shakily to the little bathroom and got a good look of himself in the mirror.

He looked terrible.

His eyes were all red and moist. Tearstains streaked his cheeks. His dark hair was a mass of disorder on his head. His left cheek was a deep shade of purplish blue and concentrated in the middle of this nasty bruise, the cut on his cheek had hardened into the lovely scab his fingers had already explored. He wasn't exactly sure what he was supposed to do about his face, but he knew what else was different about it now. It was a little swollen.

He turned on the faucet, dipped his slender hands into the running water and ran his wetted fingers back through his hair in a good attempt to make it look a bit better. He pulled roughly a thousand tissues out of the little box on the toilet's septic tank, moistened them and used them to cool off his face, rinse off his cheek-wound and get rid of the tearstains. Afterwards he felt considerably better.

The trip to the hospital was short and quiet.

As Jackson walked through the hospital hallways toward his brother's room, tension in his every muscle mounted. He couldn't wait to see his brother again, but in a way he was afraid of what he might see. He didn't want to see his brother hurt. Seeing his brother in a weakened state would be almost unbearable. He and his father finally reached the doorway. They walked through and Jackson's face dropped.

His brother looked worse than Jackson's worst fears. His brother was asleep, but any semblance of color had left the boy's face. An IV tube was sticking out of one of Richard's tiny little hands, and his leg was in a cast that seemed simply too huge for him. In fact, the whole bed made him seem so tiny… so vulnerable… Jackson tried, but couldn't hold back the tears that welled up in his eyes. He went up to his brother's bed and held the hand without the tube in both of his own, silently sobbing. Then it happened. Something in his mind that had been hyper extending in the last several hours or so finally cracked a little.

Dad will pay. No one that does this to someone so little, so vulnerable and so innocent as Richard, deserves to live. I will make him suffer… but not now. I can't do anything now. What happened back at the cabin proved that. If I try now, I'll only succeed in getting another whipping or worse. No… I'll wait… I'll cooperate with him. Make him think he's won this round. Then, when I'm old enough… and strong enough… I'll get him back when he's least expecting it. And that is a promise. Dad will pay.

He came back into reality when Richard's little blue-grey eyes fluttered weakly opened and looked up at him drearily. When they seemed to register who they were seeing, Richard's whole face lit up.

"Jackson! You're here!" the boy said joyfully.

Jackson couldn't help but to smile, the tears glistened in his eyes, "Yes, I am."

They embraced each other tightly, as well as they could with Richard stuck in the bed, and Jackson finally let it all out in his tears. Through thick and thin, pain or joy, sorrow or happiness, he still had his brother. He didn't care that his back was hurting. He loved his brother more than anything else on the entire planet.

And heaven help anyone who tried to take Richard away from him.

Yes, yes, I realize the story's moving kinda slow. I plan to remedy that. Next chapter should be much more fast-pace and have more action (yay!). Please review!