AN: This chapter sort of cuts off right before a flashback because it just would've been too long. I'll try to get the flashback posted soon, since the rest of this scene comes right after that.

I got up after a couple hours of watching kiddie shows and let Amelia stretch out, using the pillow and blanket typically reserved for Jack to take a nap. I'd decided that I hadn't heard enough noise from my little brother's room and it was time to go check on him. I hadn't gotten any more real sleep, but I'd drifted for a good half hour with my eyes closed, so I felt decent.

Jack's eyes opened a little when I sat down next to him on the bed. He groaned, pulling his blanket over his head. Usually when I don't feel good it's nasty for other people to live with me, but that day I felt strangely—responsible.

"I like your hair," I said.

He threw back the blanket briefly, squinting at me. "What the fuck did you say?"

"Said I like your hair. You think I could get mine to do that whole orderly disarray thing if I used a little gel, maybe a blow dryer? Hey, maybe you can help me. Get started on your career as a stylist."

"Fuck you, Bobby," he groaned, pulling the blanket back over his head. About two seconds later he threw it off again, staring at me. "You cut your hair," he stated dumbly, staring at my head.

I grinned. "You didn't notice earlier?"

"Earlier?"

"I carried your punk ass to the bathroom."

"Earlier?"

I grabbed his pillow and made to smother him with it, holding him down for a good ten seconds while he struggled before letting him breathe again. He coughed a little, groaning when he tried to roll away from me.

"Don't, Bobby, my knee's killing me. I don't know what the hell Tonia did to me with those exercises, but it hurts like hell."

"Don't, Bobby," I mimicked. "Jesus, Jack, you sound just like a little girl."

"Yeah, you're right, I do," he grumbled into his reclaimed pillow. "You never know, maybe today I'll come out of the closet and admit that I'm a flaming homosexual. Or, hey, even more likely—the sun might explode."

"I'll still love you anyway, Jackie. You just have to admit it to yourself," I snickered.

"Yeah, I see that now," he said, his low voice still rusty from sleep. "Okay, Bobby, you win. I'm gay. I've known since I was thirteen, when I used to watch you play basketball without a shirt on and I'd get hard. I think I was fifteen when I decided that I really wanted you to fuck me. When you went away and it just got worse, so I started jerking off every night, thinking about you..."

"Jack, don't make me go get the gas can," I warned, entirely un-amused. Yes, I'm homophobic. Go ahead, put me in jail, see if I care. I learned to be homophobic in prison. Before that I didn't care because I didn't know anyone stupid enough to try forcing shit on me.

He grinned, his eyes floating shut. "You quit calling me fairy and I promise I won't hump your leg in public."

I never thought the day would come, but it looked like Cracker Jack finally figured out a way to dissuade me from humiliating him.

"No deal. I know you won't do it. You like the attention too much. That's why you act like it bothers you when I make fun of you."

"You're a jerk," he informed me, turning over once again. "Why don't you go light something on fire and quit bugging me?"

I shrugged, picking up a cheap, plastic lighter off his dresser. I spun the wheel and watched the flame, letting its beauty draw me in.

It doesn't take people long to figure out I'm a pyro. I mean, yeah, I was a hardnosed kid who liked to smash people's faces in when Ma got her hands on me—but I was only ten, and technically I was still manageable at that age. The reason I couldn't find a home was because I had a well documented history of setting things on fire. I burned down the garage that belonged to my original foster family, I set a fire in another boy's bed at the group home, and no matter how they tried—no one could keep me from getting my hands on a flame source.

Up until I was eighteen, matches and lighters simply weren't allowed in the Mercer household. Ma used to pat me down every time I walked in the door. As a teenager I could've walked into the house with my face smashed in, blood on my clothes, a twelve gauge in one hand, a fifth of bourbon in the other, and a dime bag sticking out of my pants—but I would've only caught hell if I had a pack of matches on me.

Maybe that's why I never really got into smoking. I never had the opportunity to light up 'cause Ma always watched me like a hawk. Jack started up sometime after I left. Since he'd gotten shot I'd willed him to quit. I mean, it's not like the fairy could skip merrily down to the store and buy himself a pack of fags anymore. Someone had to buy them for him. I don't smoke and Angel quit while he was in the service.

That means Jack's shit outta luck.

The lighter burned out, probably because I'd played with it before. I opted to put it in my pocket instead of chucking it in the trash. Later I'd probably be standing around on break, bored as fuck, and get all excited to find it. I'd probably get pissed when I remembered it was burned out.

Jack lay facing me, his head still heavy on his pillow. His ocean blue eyes drooped, but if he hadn't shut them yet he was probably awake for the day.

"Do you remember when I first came here, Bobby?" he asked. "Like, the first day I got here?"

"Yeah. You flipped shit every time a board creaked behind you. First time I saw ya, I couldn't tell if you were a boy or a girl with them big eyes and that mop of hair. You hung on to Ma for dear life every time one of us walked in the room. That one girl, Lia—she lived here then because Ma hadn't placed her yet. She scared the piss out of you too."

"Did Ma do the same thing to you she used to do to me?" he asked. "Hold you on the floor when you freaked out until you calmed down?"

I shrugged, getting up off his bed and settling in a nearby chair, putting my socked feet up where I'd just been sitting, letting one ankle come to rest on top of the other.

"Yeah, she did it with me for a while, when I first got here. I caught on a lot quicker than you did and she only had to do it constantly for a couple weeks, then only periodically after that until I got too big. The only one of us she didn't ever use it on was Jerry. She might've done it with him before I came here, but I doubt it. She got him when he was still a baby and he had all them problems with his legs and spine when he was a kid. His behavioral problems weren't half bad compared to his medical problems, at least not until he was a teenager."

We were talking about mom's method of dealing with young kids when they threw fits. I'm not talking about some little huffy temper tantrum like Dani or Amelia might pull. I'm talking the kind of fit where a kid screams, bites, kicks, punches, and does as much damage to themselves and everyone around them as they can. Some people might've considered Ma's technique cruelty, because it involved complete restraint of the errant child, but there's no doubt in my mind that it taught us all discipline. She reprogrammed us, in a sense.

Now that I'm slightly worldlier, I think I can compare what she did to us with the methods some people use to train young horses and dogs. If you put an animal on the ground and make it completely helpless, the animal will learn that you're the one in control; and when you're in control, they aren't—but at the same time, that animal learns to trust you won't let any harm come to them.

I don't know if that tells you what kind of kids we were, but it should. We were pretty wild.

By the time Jack came along I'd already become proficient in the Mercer brand of discipline. Jerry and I'd practiced on Angel plenty (sometimes when he didn't need it, ha ha), helping Ma out so she didn't have to do it alone. Jackie turned out to be a harder subject to work with, because he absolutely freaked whenever one of us touched him. It took him months to start settling down.

I still remember the first time it actually seemed like I'd made progress with him using mom's technique. It took so many months that it felt like I'd really made a huge accomplishment when he finally let his safety rest in my hands.

That's saying something too, because I'm the first to admit I haven't done a whole lot of meaningful shit in my life.