Autor: Scar

Beta reader/editor: Paoloqaf

genre: drama, angst
rating: R
Character: Brendan Brady, Steven Hay, Cheryl Brady
Warning: mentions of child abuse
Summary: Seamus can hurt you much more than you think, but you won't be alone in dealing with your suffering and fears.

No. 2
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xHOx
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Brendan looked away from the man whose eyes asked him for his help, as if he deserved it, as if, in the middle of the crowed square, he was the only innocent, the only one who his son should feel sympathetic with, as if that old man still had the right to be forgiven.
The truth was that his father was a man suffering from a disease for which there was no forgiveness. As Brendan looked up, he saw the police car fading away with the man who had ruined his life. At last.
Jack, Frankie, the Osbornes all, and anyone else he could say vices and virtues about, were staring at him in silence. Fortunately, after two years in that village, he had realized something important, and people as well: sometimes ignoring each other was the best thing.
Nevertheless he exchanged a half smile with little Charlie, surrounded by the safe arms of his family – for fear in first place - and then turned to direction of his flat. It had been a long night.
Steven ran into him, breathless, bright eyes, wide and shining in the shadows.
At first he thought that Steven was worried about his bleeding lip or his swollen eye, the last taste of what his father was still able to give him, despite his age.
"I asked you to stay with Cheryl," he said wearily. He didn't even have enough strength for arguing with him.
As soon as his sister had realized the kind of man his dear daddy was, she had had a conniption and Brendan had asked Steven to take her away with him. Everything else was already painful by itself.
Frankie screamed like crazy and Jack had been about to jump on Seamus's neck to lynch him. If the police had not arrived on time, the old bartender would have succeeded. Brendan was more than sure about this. Just as he was sure that a hundred eyes, the next day, would have seen him more as a pedophile's son instead of the hero who had saved the little Charlie from a worse fate than his, maybe.
"Brendan!"
Brendan felt his heart bouncing into his throat.
"What are you doing here, Steven?"
"Cheryl..." said Ste, tormenting his own hands.
There were very few things that Brendan could not bear to Steven. For example when he used to talk too much, but even more when he wasn't going to speak at all, and so he was forced to decipher him as if he was a fucking puzzle.
But there was no time to do it right now. And so he found himself flying towards home, even before Steven opened his mouth again.
Brendan had thought to find his sister in tears, trashing the furniture or any more breakable objects, screaming, swearing, drowning in a jar of chocolate ice cream, but never ever that way: weird air, strong blush and a doll that had seen better times. Twenty years ago at least.
A childhood memory. He remembered her name: Katy.
Cheryl rocked herself, cross-legged onto the bed, humming a nursery rhyme in a thin voice, almost as if she were imitating a 5-6 years little girl, and with loving care she was combing the doll's gristly hair, stroking the worn clothes.
Brendan approached her cautiously.
"Cheryl".
Brendan reached out to caress her face, but her sister pulled away, as if she was almost frightened because of him.
"Who are you?" she asked in a tiny voice, shaking.
Brendan did not understand if Cheryl wanted him to scare, joke or drive insane.
"Cheryl ... it's me... Brendan ... your big brother."
Cheryl frowned, staring at him intensely. "You've got a mustache... you're ugly. "
Then she went on to hum again.
Brendan turned to Steven who had remained silent behind him all the time.
"What happened?"
"As we came here... Cheryl cried... shouted. Then she ran up the stairs to her room... she pull down the curtains... broke something... "
Brendan directed his gaze to the corner pointed out by Steven. He noticed the mess in the room at that moment. Maybe, because, in Cheryl's shoes, he wouldn't have even left a room.
"I wanted to go down to the kitchen to make some tea" continued Steven, "but I couldn't leave her alone. I tried to calm her down. After five minutes she was as you can see her right now. "
Brendan moaned in assent. He turned to his sister, following her movements with tears in his eyes. He had done everything because she shouldn't know the truth. He had pretended, for a lifetime, all that had happened to him was a thing concerning just him. But when Charlie had vanished he couldn't pretend anymore, and he felt froze at the thought that, in the past years, he hadn't been the only one to receive his father's morbid care.
"Cheryl... she will get over this" Brendan sighed, barely trying to convince himself.
"Brendan..."
Steven's hand lightly lied on his shoulder, and Brendan grabbed it, holding it tight, to feel it as real as possible. He wanted to feel his skin, Steven's heat.
"Brendan ... do you hear what she's saying? "
Brendan turned on him, frowning.
"I mean ... Cheryl's saying something weird. "
"It's just some old rhyme" he replied absently.
Steven shook his head slowly. "Listen carefully."
Brendan went back to his sister with caution, trying not to frighten her further.
Eventually he realized.
A wet chill poured down his whole body
His heart seemed to stop for an endless second.

Take the doll.
Hold it strong.
While the princess plays,
Daddy pull her undies down.

After talking to the doctor who was taking care of Cheryl, the situation became immediately clear, but clearness did not mean that Brendan would have accepted it. Finding out that Seamus had abused them both, as children, was a big shock for him, with the difference that Cheryl had removed that atrocity, burying it inside of her unconscious, while he had only pretended to do the same.
His bones ached, his head was throbbing. Steven told him that it was for lack of sleep and because he ate badly and not enough. He had no need to take a medical degree to realize this.
Outside the room of the psychiatric hospital, where Cheryl had been admitted, Brendan stopped, petrified, and turned to Steven, trying to let out the few words he had brooded for days.
"You know ..." he began, his voice was broken because of a lump that he was been bringing with him all his life. "You shouldn't do this. You should stay away from me... from all this. You-"
Steven's covered Brendan's mouth with his hand. "Stop it!"
Steven's expression was angry, his voice strangely low, but as hard as Brendan did not remember he had ever heard.
"You think I'm with you because I feel obligated, do ya?" continued Steven. "You're such an idiot! You didn't understand anything."
"Doing this is already hard enough for me. You shouldn't take my shit. "
Steven gave him a light punch against his shoulder.
Here, that was his boy.
"When I fell in love with you, I never thought it would have been easy" Steven continued with an ardent look. "And I knew I'd have taken all the shit I could as long as it would have come out from you. Even more now. "
"But-" he tried.
"Shush!" He silenced him with a peremptory expression.
Then he kissed him, pressing impetuously his lips against Brendan's ones. Finally, he put in his arms a stuffed bear wearing an embarrassing pink tutu.
"We must think of Cheryl, now" concluded Steven, pushing him towards his beloved sister.
"Stay close to me, please" Brendan begged him. "I'm terrified".
"I know. I'm terrified, too." Steven clung to his arm and gave him a kiss on his cheek, then rubbed his back affectionately. "And now, let's come in! I'm with you."