Hello! It is Wednesday and it is May so I am back to continue uploading on here :3 Like I explained over on Dear Darlings, the break was good for me and it really gave me some room to write things I was really passionate about but to also get some perspective. One of the stories, however, that I wrote before my break in April was this one! We get to see the dynamic between Sammy and his cousin who is actually his half brother, Jorginho, thanks to their mother, Jennifer, having a teenage pregnancy long ago. Also, we get to learn a little bit about Sammy as a young boy for the first time! I hope you enjoy this one. I loved writing it :)
Disclaimer: I own the story and all the OCs mentioned!
Reunions always put the same feeling in my heart as observing a sunset or perhaps even a sunrise. They are inevitable. You experience them frequently. But still, you stop and you stare and you admire. Reunions caused my heart rate to elevate and time to appear to slow down for me all in the same breath.
I experienced this as I watched Jorginho and Sammy see each other all over again, Sammy pressed up against and engulfed by the chest of his older brother and Jorginho holding him in return, treasuring him. He wanted to pull away and see the man that Sammy had become during their years apart. Yet at the same time, the gentleness of his fingers around his shoulders indicated that no matter how many seasons passed, he would always be that same little boy to him.
Watching with a smile tugging at my lips, my heart hammered blissfully in my chest. Soon enough, a vision took over my mind that was beyond what I was seeing in front of me. I began to see with my mind's eye and in an instant I knew. I knew of the bond that they had once had. And I understood why they were rendered breathless at the chance of having it back once more.
Sammy had always loved morning time. From the second that his childhood bedroom filled with that citrusy hue of a new day and the bird Pokémon morning choruses began for all to hear across the regions, his eyes often pinged open, delighted at the chance of a new day.
He was reaffirming his love for morning time on one particular day in the region of Kalos that was then his home, inhaling all that there was to inhale along with taking in the glory of a sun that was only just peeking above the horizon.
Aah. He didn't even need this sound of appreciation to tumble out of his lips because his shoulders raised upwards towards the heavens spoke everything of his joy. Although he couldn't see the soft rolling waves of the sea beginning a journey of their own as they were concealed by rows of houses and shrubbery instead, the scent of the ocean was very much alive inside of him as he took another breath.
Shalour City sure was the place to be. He thought of exactly this as he pushed off with his small feet once more, rollerblading down the moody cloud coloured pavement that lie in the centre of the city. Sammy's eyes were able to fix permanently up at the breaking sunrise each and every second that he made these moves, hardly a new citizen of the great city but revelling in knowing the pathway like the back of his hand.
You might be wondering where on earth his parents were at this time of the morning, not around to prevent their son routinely sneaking away from their house overlooking the beach to scurry to the very heart of the city with his rollerblades. But if you knew them like Sammy knew his mother and father, you would understand.
Even if Jennifer had heard her son creaking along the floorboards at barely past seven clock strikes of the morning, all she would have done was mumble sleepily out from between her lips, reminding him not to be late for school. She raised her son to be independent and strong yet punctual all the same.
Peter might have had more words to say about such dishonesty as sneaking out of the house before your elders and betters had a chance to unlock the front door for you. But even he wouldn't be able to argue too much that what he was doing was wrong.
As long as Sammy wasn't committing pure evil atrocities, he was pretty much free to do as he pleased. And how free the six year old Sammy felt when he stretched his arms outwards and flew down the hill of the pavement once more!
If he squeezed his eyes so tight shut that he could will himself into a state of a headache, he could kid himself that he really was soaring along so much that his feet had left the ground and he was then alongside the Fletchling, and even the Pidgey and the Pidove having migrated from Kanto and Unova respectively.
The world was at his fingertips and he wanted nothing more as he air rushed all around those hands of his.
But of course, soon enough, he would flutter his eyelashes back open once more and revel in the beauty of what actually was rather than a pure fantasy of his mind. After all, it had been drummed into him from a young age to appreciate the beauty of what was on offer rather than wishing things were a certain, different way.
Praying was actively encouraged though!
In the moments on that particular day as he made the most of the early morning before school, he couldn't stop his mind from wandering to how things sometimes were when he got out on his roller skates down that particular path of the city and he envisaged it all to the highest degree, noises and sounds and everything.
Sammy couldn't stop feeling like a jovial marionette was tugging up the corner of his mouth as he imagined not being alone on the tracks, having to make extra careful strides and manoeuvres not to bump into anybody else enjoying the popular hobby of that part of the Kalos region.
He would almost bow, practically saluting a hand as he waltzed out of the way of a bunch of girls, an even bigger grin on his naturally elfish face as he was more than happy to let them have the biggest area of the pavement to practice on. The sounds of their musical giggles would cause his own cheeks to warm and his eyes to squint closer together all over again.
Sammy would be in tune to the sounds all around him as much as the sights, eavesdropping in on the advice that one particular brother was giving to a more uncertain twin and the way that a father yelled down to his son out from the window of a looming house, reminding him to watch out for one of the bigger kids.
He was hardly ever one of the most filled out children of that age range at the best of times but he knew he would be sure to keep out of people's way anyway. That was just his way. That was the time in his life when he didn't cross paths with anybody just for the sake of it.
Funnily enough, in the moment that he decided to be at one with the wind once more and be present in the seconds that he was blessed with, Sammy did accidentally cross paths with somebody. He came up against them with quite a bit of force. His almond eyes were forced to spring open as his right shoulder collided with a firm albeit softer than concrete surface.
A voice hit him nearly as harshly as the collision that had occurred.
"Hey! Watch where you're going, punk!" a tone of voice far deeper than his own yet still an octave or two away from manhood barked at Sammy, wanting to make a point before leaping away from him as if he was covered with some sort of germ.
Fortunately, the other two people that came in tow with the boy who had bumped into Sammy managed to swerve just in time so as not to collide with their friend as well. The brown haired six year old boy immediately recoiled in his own way at the words that he heard, wanting to get a better view of who was talking to him like that.
Sammy's eyes were encouraged to travel quite a bit higher than his own eye line to look into the face of the other boy. Yet despite the size difference and also the fact that that he started to skateboard on his way with his friends, evidently passing through to a different part of the city rather than enjoying the skate route, he didn't allow himself to get walked all over for no good reason.
Like a deer taking his first steps but pretending they had years of practice behind them, Sammy wobbled around to call back to the other people on the road.
"Why don't you watch where you are going?" Sammy retaliated, managing to follow in the teachings that had been drummed into him from a young age, turning the other cheek with regards to not spilling out his own name calling. "You had plenty of time to skate around me like your friends did to you."
He showed intuition in a short space of time by sussing out the situation without needing to garner too much of a look. And while he fought back, he looked at the one person and the one person only and that was needless to say the one who was giving him such an attitude.
Sammy forced his spine attached to his legs that were weighed down by the heavy roller blades to straighten like he had no fear about talking back to a person twice his size. He probably didn't. He knew which kind of deity had his back.
The tall, shaggy heard kid narrowed those already naturally squinted and sunken eyes of his, not hesitating to stand his ground all over again. He ignored his shorter friends muttering behind him that they should just get going.
"Who do you think you're talking to?" another question was posed by the fellow kid and just like the first time, it clearly wasn't two friends having an interaction. He straightened his back even though he didn't have to, still perched on his skateboard like it was an accessory that couldn't be parted from his feet. "We're passing through out of the city. You're the one coming from the other direction and blocking our way."
Continually reminding himself to keep his back elevated, Sammy's gaze didn't drop down from the face of the person who was quickly becoming an opponent during the early hours of the morning. He didn't dare trace his fingers along to the empty slots on his belt. Whoever these people were and especially, whoever that particular person was, would quickly realise that he didn't come hand in hand with his own friends, human or otherwise.
Fortunately, he was equally as observational as his new foe. He noticed the way that he spoke as if Sammy was causing them all problems rather than just the one talking all the smack – and furthermore, he noticed how his friends started to look at each other, as if they didn't really want to be getting off the wrong foot with someone so early in the day.
Suddenly, the six year old boy allowed air to torrent out from his slightly parted lips as if he carried the wind from the nearby beach within his lungs. He knew when to turn the other cheek towards more than name calling.
"Whatever." This was the single word that he spoke as calmly as he could muster before he decided to turn away from the confrontation entirely, preparing to crouch down while still wearing his roller skates in order to rid himself of those clumpy boots that he was wearing.
He loathed that his joyful activity was coming to a harsh end and it made his skin crawl all the more that it wasn't because of anything that he had done on purpose. Yet he also knew when to call it quits. And who knows, he might have been able to catch another hour of it after school and save his cousin the bother of giving him a ride home in between work shifts.
Sammy turned away from the scene and he prepared to undress himself of the roller skates, crouching down. However, the word that had befallen from his lips had already started to brush the shaggy haired boy the wrong way and turning his face away from him hadn't done Sammy any favours either.
A pinched expression with eyes like they had been burnt from the rays of the early morning sun didn't exactly fade away but rather had an additional of a very mercurial smile tugging at a pair of lips. At long last, the older boy put one foot on the ground from being attached to his beloved skateboard and started to take strides with that same right foot, breaking the distance with the younger boy.
Sammy promptly felt the front end of his skateboard digging into the small of his bony spine as he did his best to still not turn around.
"Hey, aren't you that freak who is in my little brother's class?" he began. Ironically, Sammy almost wished that they were acquainted so he would at least have another thing up on him. Purposefully this time, the older kid dug his skateboard further into the back of Sammy as he proceeded, his friends just watching. "The one who asks those inappropriate questions."
If the six year old boy had decided to look at something other than the laces of his roller skates that he was still trying to untie but failing not from lack of skill, he would have seen the way that the friends of the new foe were slowly skating closer to them both too but also had their hands in their pockets.
If Sammy had glanced at their expressions then they would have been as clear as the sky in Shalour City on that particular morning. Oh how they loathed getting in scuffles because of the tallest boy at that time of day!
Again, Sammy let wind out of his nostrils strong enough to fly a kite but silently all the same. Showing skill of his own in spite of his much younger age, he managed to swivel around while still crouching, adamant on getting his laces undone sooner or later.
He, however, couldn't bite his tongue and stop it from retorting to the older boy.
"I don't know who your brother is." Sammy responded, not needing a minute longer to look at the face of the boy with unruly, almost wolf like hair because he decided straight away that all of these people were strangers.
He also responded with honesty because that was one of the lessons that he taught that he saw no reason not to disagree with. His almond eyes were made to grow more like chestnuts when, catching him off guard, the older boy's tone stopped being just argumentative and started to become aggressive.
He practically hissed out of the gaps in his teeth as he edged closer to Sammy, towering over him and barging his skateboard into his shin so much that he wobbled to the ground, toppling down onto his bottom.
"Yeah well I know you!" the wolverine boy snapped over Sammy's muffled noises of pain after the skateboard had collided with his feet. The friends behind the foe dismounted their own ones. Sammy through a swallow started to fear it was because they could use them as weapons in a different way. "You're the freak who believes some other entity created all that we know."
In another circumstance, it would have been fascinating to see someone switch off the hostility inside him just for a moment in order to almost gracefully wave a hand up towards the bird Pokémon flying high in the sky, crowing in their own way the joys of facing another day.
But that display lasted barely even a heartbeat and eyes colder than some of the most frozen parts of another region were latched back onto the face of Sammy. Because of this, the six year old understood the reason that a hand had swanned towards the heavens and he was not clueless towards the past – his own father had had a stern word about him regarding the sort of questions he posed in class - Sammy was able to respond with the same intuition.
A sigh tumbled out of a croaky throat but didn't display cowardice. He continually spoke his truth. He would never do anything less than that, he often reminded himself.
"I don't though." His child-like voice rung out. It could have been endearing to some but as it fell on the ears of the three pre-teens and especially the one at the forefront of what was going down, it sounded like nails on a chalkboard. "All I said is that Arceus came first, everybody knows that. But funnily enough, it's Mew who-"
Sammy didn't have time to expand on what he had read about the beginnings of the Pokémon World. The shaggy haired boy suddenly lost it even further than his temper had been presenting itself thus far and his friends had no choice but to keep close to him, to join in or to restrain him, it was unknown.
"Shut up!" he hissed back once again although he had clearly been asking for Sammy to explain himself from the way that he had questioned his motives in class. "You're such a know it all, do you know that?!" Rage poured out of him so much he was practically embodying a lake in the Johto Region. Sammy skidded further back across the pavement as this time, instead of a skateboard colliding with his chin; a foot shoved him back onto the ground again after he had only just regained some of his balance. "This is why my parents don't let you talk to my little brother! And it is why you were here all by yourself acting like a freak!"
It goes without saying that words thwacked against Sammy's spine hurt as much as his back thumped against the pavement, his eyes squeezing shut and his lips allowing a groan to escape out of them in pain.
This time as he blocked out the vision of the world, he wasn't imagining himself flying but rather, was imagining himself falling. He knew that from the great teachings of the book that he kept tucked inside his heart equally as much as he kept underneath his pillow at night, he had to accept whatever was to come.
Whether it was a slap straight to his face or something far more brutal, he had to go along with it because it was apparently part of a greater plan and he couldn't disappoint anybody by using his fists in the same manner.
Instead of Sammy being shown that he was on the right path, he was shown that it might very well have been part of somebody's greater plan but him ending up black and blue with crimson dripping out of the creases of his nostrils were not part of everybody's plan.
Causing his brow to crease as his eyes remained shut, another voice barked into Sammy's eyes. The noise made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck with its depth and assertiveness but it was familiar all in one. As he creeped his eyes open barely a fraction, he saw the silhouette of someone pushing the two friends out of the way in order to grab his true foe properly by the shoulder.
"I think the freak just might be the person picking on a six year old kid." The not so much of a stranger retorted to the words that he had heard, such a demonstrative grip on the twelve year old's shoulder that it forced him to spin around without even wanting to rotate in such a way. The older man shook a disgusted head from side to side, observing the height difference between Sammy and the pre-teen, as well as the pre-teen and himself. "What the hell is your problem? Do you like bullying someone half your size?"
The presence of Jorginho gave almost as much reassurance as when Sammy closed his eyes late at night and encouraged a higher power into his dreams. It was of course not felt by the shaggy haired boy who, after his friends shuffled further into the backdrop of the statuesque young man, retaliated to the hand on his shoulder with an expression like he had just sucked on a bitter lemon.
He proved that he went with aggression no matter the danger from the way that he squared up to the man towering above him in the same way he had done to Sammy.
"Who the hell do you think you are, beaky?" he attempted to goad Jorginho into a bigger reaction, the slant of his eyes demonstrating a diamond hidden below the rocky terrain even if his mouth didn't quirk upwards in the slightest.
Jorginho proved that he wasn't ill practiced in turning the other cheek either, letting go of the shoulder of the boy and watching how long it took him before even he couldn't help but give into massaging the sore spot even though he played it off as swivelling his arm, preparing to get into fisticuffs with the fully fledged male.
Like his much younger relative as well, Jorginho seemingly always knew what to say. For someone who had just had one of his most distinctive features pointed out to him, he actually rotated the cap on his head around so that it was facing backwards, giving the cocky pre-teen even more of a view of who he was dealing with.
"Who the hell do you think you're talking to?" his floppy hair beneath his backwards cap was revealed as he responded, his tone of voice an utter contrast from how the pre-teen boy had hissed this words straight towards Sammy.
Jorginho had a look about him that at the best of times could melt whoever he was talking to, man or woman, young or old or friend or foe alike. It was the eyes. It was his eyes that were as rich as soil yet in the right sunlight, were bursting with auburn rays of their own.
He looked past his strong nose with those eyes of his towards the bully, mouth pressed into a firm line and waiting to see how the younger kid proceeded. He should have known that it was going to be with more hostility. He should have known that it was going to be with more violence.
Sammy had blood on the back of his hand after attempts to sniff it back at been futile, watching from the ground as the wolf boy took a bold step forward, all of a sudden proving that he wanted to show Jorginho exactly who he was with a fist colliding into his strong jaw.
Jorginho, however, at the end of twenty was far too quick for the slighter twelve year old. Moreover, his fist could barely make contact with his jaw if he had even made it that far!
In a quick motion like that of a prowling feline, the oldest of them all snatched the fist with one hand and then did the same thing to the other, weaker one that made an attempt to slap him while he was perhaps distracted.
Sammy listened with hazy ears and even hazier vision as Jorginho's own blood started to boil in his own way.
"You keep your hands away from me and you keep your hands away from my little brother, do you hear me?!" Jorginho thundered with a passion that burned as red as his baseball cap. And yet, his bursts were able to be controlled like he was some magician of the emotions.
His grip was tight around the bully's fists but it was not in an effort to hurt. It was in an effort to prevent hurt. To redirect. Jorginho didn't intend to get angry and he certainly didn't want to get violent. He just wanted to protect his…
No…
While his grip didn't falter on the twelve year old boy, the strength of his jawline started to weaken as his tongue took a moment to flick over his lower lip as he realised the kind of words that he had let slip out. He didn't want to look over at Sammy. He didn't dare.
Acting as if this new countenance was more of the kind of rage that couldn't be contained, Jorginho kept his gave fixed on the wild boy and it was this that finally rid him from the scene as well of his friends for good. He vehemently shook his fists away from the much older person and attempted to make a run for it on his skateboard but that was another thing that was rendered futile.
The floppy haired male with a baseball cap upon his head might have possessed a white hot heart beat still thudding in his ears but he still had his wits about him. With continuous quick reflexes, he yanked the skateboard out from underneath the feet of the kid and caused him to half trip before regaining his balance in a dazed manner.
Jorginho held the skateboard in the one hand, slapping it loosely yet firmly with the other hand, speaking words in between an authoritative line of a mouth.
"This is mine now." He informed the fleeing kid, a bob of the head being offered to all of them and not just the main one as a warning to them all. "It'll teach you that these things are to enjoy, not to be used as a weapon."
The black skateboard with a bright graffiti patterned underside was suddenly held by Jorginho behind his head the crooks of his raised elbows holding it there as his sturdy neck. For half a second, all three of the pre-teens wondered how on earth he knew when that same skateboard had been collided into Sammy long before he arrived.
…..Hadn't it?
They didn't waste more than a second longing to find out. They fled the scene, the main bully muttering all sorts of things about how his parents were going to make him pay, and his friends keeping their distance on their own skateboards in case he confiscated them as well.
There and then, both Sammy and Jorginho had an eerie feeling travelling through each of their ear holes and swirling through their brains, both for very different reasons. The younger of the two tried to push past it and gather enough strength to sit himself up all over again but it was to no avail.
Meanwhile, Jorginho had to push past things of his own and after licking his lips once more, he had to push aside the urge to ask Sammy what kind of words he had heard when he was being defended.
As if he was praying, the twenty year old young man dropped down to his knees and in quite a paternal way, cupped the six year old around the face with his strong hands, his gentle brown eyes seeing the contrasting crimson hue dripping out of Sammy's nostrils.
"You should have told me that you were planning on sneaking out to rollerblade, Samuel." Jorginho tried to be firm with the young boy but he knew that it was pointless trying to tame him as much as it was for people to whip him into shape. One hand left his cheek as it disappeared into his pocket for a tissue instead. "What are you like, being up this early?"
You would have thought that after everything, Sammy would be too shaken up to talk all that much, let alone come out with any sort of quick response. He, however, still somehow had just as much to say as ever and didn't stop himself from speaking out thickly through his nosebleed and also Jorginho mopping him up with a tissue that was quickly becoming the colour of his cap.
"What are you like, being up this early?" Sammy quipped in response, gaining merely an eyebrow shooting upwards towards his foppish locks covering some of Jorginho's face. The six year old couldn't stop his stinging eyes from lacing with wonder. "How did you know where to find me?"
Honesty was a thing that ran through both of their veins. Well, as long as it wasn't a certain truth that Jorginho was forbidden to even speak to Sammy.
He was forced to ignore the boiling sensation throbbing in his ears and washing over his cheeks as he showed off a brief, sheepish grin, turning the tissue inside out in between mopping him up as if that was going to help in some way.
"I always know where to find you." He answered earnestly at first before answering properly, not quite as diligent on his knees as Sammy was from the way that he needed to alter his position to be comfier on the gravel. "I went looking for different jobs I could apply to before my early shift. Luckily I forgot my ID so was on my way back when I saw the familiar sight of you on the floor."
As Sammy heard this, a frown started to decorate in between his two dark eyebrows and it wasn't because of him bloodying up a tissue seeing as Jorginho had finally brought these actions of his to a halt.
He looked away for a brief moment. Jorginho wasn't to know that it wasn't rare for him to be on the receiving of problems with the other kids. He already often defended him from his father who was also Jorginho's uncle so didn't want him to have the added amount of worry on his shoulders.
In a flash, though, Sammy managed to switch that expression from thoughtful to wondering.
"Did you manage to find anything good?" he questioned, his childish innocence at last being on his side as he believed that the older male could land anything that he wanted. Jorginho's baseball cap swaying from side to side as it was still backwards on his head spoke otherwise. Sammy decided to cheer him up by teasing him. "Well, maybe you should be a bit better at it then!"
These were words that Peter would often drum into Jorginho. If only he was a bit better at things then he would succeed. If only he was a bit more diligent. If only he attended church a bit more. If only he followed the correct path. If only he was a lot less like himself, these were the words that Peter never spoke yet Jorginho knew as if they had really scurried across his lips.
The sound of them coming out from Sammy did not cause his expression to pinch inwards, however. Instead, that carefree wide smile flashed across his own face once more and after momentarily glancing away, he looked back over at the young boy, holding him about the face one more second before he made an attempt to at last lift him from the ground.
"Let's just get you home and properly cleaned up, shall we?" Jorginho suggested, a different kind of white hotness dancing across him as he felt the six year old's arms wrap around his neck from the first second that he made an effort to lift him up. "And let's see how much better you are at explaining your mishaps to your father!"
And with that, Jorginho carried Sammy back up the path to the suburbs of Shalour City, the six year old boy feeling heavier than usual. Jorginho believed that it would be similar for him if someone made an attempt to make a grab for him, but his reasons were not because he had roller skates weighing his feet down.
He could not believe that he had let words slip. Granted, it didn't seem as if Sammy had heard them because his inquisitive self surely would have questioned him straight away. Still, it did not leave his mind even for a single second on that day. What he had let spill. How angry Peter would be if he found out. And worst of all, all the harsh judgement and memories of the past that Jennifer had been trying to outrun most of her life coming flooding back to her like a tsunami that couldn't be stopped.
Jorginho just had to pray that Sammy didn't hear. His acts of prayer during that time of his life were few and far between. But he decided that that reason was as good reason as any. And, well, he needed somebody else on his side just in case he had made one of the gravest mistakes of his life.
Prayer was the thing that he was trying to focus on later on that evening when he crept up the stairs of the household in the darkness, though his unwelcomed anticipation that Sammy might pose certain questions in the near future was battling for placement in his thoughts as well.
Regardless, he knew that something that may be not for certain was not a good enough reason to avoid his little relative until the next morning, allowing only them meeting up in their dreams for the time being. He wasn't that cowardly, he reminded himself.
He might have been a little careless with his tongue but Jorginho knew more than anybody that he treasured their time before bed equally as much as Sammy did.
After successfully and silently creeping up the stairs of the household, Jorginho allowed the soft thumping of his balled knuckles against the blue wooden door to be the only other sound before he invited himself into the room, already knowing it would be more than okay for him to be there.
Like ever, Jorginho was not just merely greeted by the serene, fading orange light of Sammy's night light but he found his eyes wandering across a sleepy smile of the boy too, noticing how he wriggled under the covers in an attempt to sit up even after a full day of school and church youth club. And that wasn't even mentioning the scuffle in the morning!
The twenty year old couldn't stop his shoulders from softening as if they had absorbed some of the glow of the light and that quality was oozing through him. He started to forget all that had been occupying his mind for the rest of the day.
It was one of his greatest blessings in life that Sammy was always excited to see him, no matter how much time they spent apart, and even despite how much time they spent in each other's pockets.
"How have you been feeling today, little Brawly?" Jorginho humoured him as he invited himself down onto the edge of the bed next to Sammy, no longer in the boiler suit from earlier on in the day but clad in a smarter, white shirt and black trousers. "Did your nose give you any grief?"
The cap that hadn't abandoned his head in spite of the contrasting outfit change was switched to backwards facing all over again, giving Sammy an even better view of his face as the glow of his nightlight lit him up from his chin and beyond.
In between feeling the older male's playful albeit careful pinch of his small nose with his forefinger and thumb, Sammy suddenly showed off an expression that was far more forlorn than the one that he had greeted with him initially. The reason for this wasn't because Jorginho had aggravated the stress in his nose.
His shoulders dipped back underneath the covers as he explained to the older male who then possessed a tilted as well as hat adorned head.
"It started to bleed again right in the middle of a lesson where we were being taught about sin." Sammy confessed, those almond eyes of his appearing like chestnuts all over again as they mirrored Jorginho's own ones as he listened. "It really freaked some people in the class out."
From the way that his eyes had widened previously as he had listened, you might have thought that the rest of his expression would have softened with empathy. But not there and then! Not when it came to Jorginho. Regardless of his relationship with that particular relative, he couldn't stop himself but showing a blunt streak that he too possessed by bursting out into chuckles, his straight and white teeth lighting up the room almost as much as the night light while he giggled.
All Sammy could do was scowl and cross his arms underneath the covers before his bottom lip poked out for good measure as well. Jorginho had to encourage his laughter to die down when he saw the expression of the boy, a hand reaching out to his shoulder rather than to his nose like before.
"Oh, I don't mean to laugh. I just like the way that you tell stories." Jorginho made an attempt to explain himself yet from the way that he couldn't stop the giggles from hiccupping in his throat even if he tried to suppress them made it sound like his reply was phony. Sammy felt hot as he tightened his skinny arms over his chest under his duvet. "Oh, don't worry so much about what people think of you. All people." Sammy's nose was loosely pinched all over again as Jorginho's laughter subsided for good. He clearly knew him all too well. "You're as wholesome as they come. You always encourage me to reflect. So shall we?"
It was as if, as Jorginho's index finger and his thumb left Sammy's nose once and for all, all doubt and embarrassed insecurity was released from the six year old's body. He knew that the older male hardly made fun of him, not really. And he was often so quick to make it up to him if he did that most things promptly became water under the bridge.
Nevertheless, Sammy spied him for just a moment, watching the way that he settled himself sitting on the end of the bed, a hand of his enclosed around a fist full of duvet, feeling the material with his fingers and occupying his hand in that way before he became palm to palm as he joined the younger male with his nightly prayers.
A few ticking noises of the clock later, Sammy revealed his shoulders back out from the duvet once more and a bit of his pyjama covered torso appeared also. However, he had other things on his mind that he wanted to do before prayer for a rare occasion.
"Can I ask you a question first?" he asked, relaxing his head back against the plush of his pillow behind him, silently revelling in how much more wonderful it felt compared to the pavement earlier on in the day. He didn't allow his mind too far away, though, in case he forgot what he wanted to ask.
Needless to say, from the second that he heard these words, Jorginho wished, oh how he wished that Sammy would somehow forget what he wanted to ask him.
In spite of the dryness that encapsulated his throat so much he believed that he had swallowed a mouthful of desert and his heart practically skipping a beat in his chest, he very quickly complied with him.
In his head, he vehemently beat himself up for this and it was a noise that accompanied the drumming sound of a heartbeat that was back in his ears.
"Sure, what is it?" he said in return, for once his gritty mouth getting the better of him and being unable to accompany it with some quick wit, acting as though he had some juvenile suggestions for what kind of question Sammy was going to ask him.
Like fate can often seem completely against us, Jorginho was left feeling as if he was sitting on a hard surface from the way that his bottom shuffled against Sammy's mattress, as if it was the hardest thing in the world than one of the most comfortable.
He experienced this only furthermore with the rare time that the young boy took in formulating what he wanted to know, looking away and his thick brows locking together in a unison that people who knew him well understood that this was him wondering whether he should even ask this sort of question.
After all, asking what he perceived to be questions in order to expand his young mind was often seen as disobedience in his eyes of his teachers and certainly his church.
"Do you believe that there is a creator?" Sammy eventually posed this question. It left him a state of utter disbelief that fate had been kind enough to have his relative ask this rather than the question that he had been so certain was coming. "I know that you don't really like to pray anymore. You just do it for me."
A weak smile began to tug at the corner of Jorginho's lips as he tried to feel comfier next to Sammy on the bed but to no avail. Even if it started to dawn on him that he hadn't come up against the dreaded query after all, he still couldn't relax enough to show Sammy a full smile.
Still, from the moment that his words floated into his lips, he knew from the very first second that this was something that he should very much be honest about. He knew that to some people, doubt was a dirty word and that people should always possess faith in their hearts.
Sammy was never one of these people. Not even as the adult that I went on to know him as, and not even in the times in his life where he clung onto the idea of a perfect deity wishing nothing but the best for him during the toughest, most anguish filled moments of his life.
That wobbly smile didn't fade as Jorginho thought about his own answer, briefly ridding himself of the hat on top of his head. A pair of almond, patient eyes watched a strong hand of his push through thick, floppy brown locks in consideration.
"Sometimes I question whether there is or not because I hear of great suffering in the world and I can't imagine how that could possibly be part of someone's great plan." Jorginho put forth, immediately garnering a nod from Sammy's own head even if his eyes flickered, as if a chunk of his young self just wanted to believe in good because being faced with bad seemed far too scary. "But in the next moment, I see a beautiful sunset or a sun rise or how the moon wanders through the sky, lighting up the world beneath it and I can't help but believe that a creator made a world full of wonder."
As if Sammy was hearing a part of a story that he couldn't help but be captured by, he relinquished his head against his pillow all over again and he stretched out his legs underneath the covers. When, inadvertently, he felt his limb brushing Jorginho's own one through a barrier of feathery duvet, in the same manner that answers came to the older male after thinking about them, words of his own merit filled the young mind of Sammy.
Jorginho was not unaware of the light that was back in the six year old's eyes and it wasn't the reflection of the night light on that particular night.
Sammy often had the whole world visible inside his irises and when thinking of a world that was mapped out and fated, he had practically all the galaxies and every planet in there too.
"A lot of things do seem meant to be." He agreed, his legs still stretched outwards in such a way that he doubted he could ever bring back closer to his body. It was as though they needed to be out there, fending for themselves yet resting in the same knowledge as the rest of him. "Look at how you managed to find me and you fought for me."
Sammy's shoulders had long since stopped hiding under the covers and in the next few seconds, it started to be because his whole arm shot out of the duvet. After not just hearing the boy's words but listening to them too, Jorginho started to feel his little hand sliding into his after his other one had been occupied by placing his hat back upon his head.
This sensation of such innocence and such love ebbing away close to him encouraged Jorginho to speak promptly in return.
"We fight for each other. Always have, always will." He affirmed, feeling his heart rate accelerating in his ears yet for a rare time on that day, it out of an expression of brotherhood rather than being afraid that their true brotherly nature had been exposed once and for all. Jorginho started to grip Sammy's hand in both of his strong ones. "Maybe you should use that feeling as inspiration for our prayer tonight. Won't you lead us?"
And though this could have been the case, Sammy didn't give Jorginho a look that spoke of how, in recent months, it was always the younger of the two leading the night time prayers because Jorginho often didn't know if he believed what he was saying, let alone if he had anything of the sort to say.
Instead, Sammy started to reveal all of him from the covers entirely as he switched his little body into prayer position against the mattress, legs tucked underneath him. Rather than breaking their hands away from each other, as they prepared to reflect with their own palms pressed against each other, they proved to any future versions of themselves that they had always been able to read the room and act accordingly as well as from the heart by the new stance that their hands took.
One arm wrapped around each other's shoulders respectively, Sammy's right palm reached outwards and touched Jorginho on the left, identical, albeit much larger palm of his and the two of them connected in a bigger way as together they were lead in prayer.
Whether you were touched by worlds beyond the one at your fingertips or not, it was quite a sight to witness a child speaking concisely and eloquently and connecting with whom he wanted to connect with most in the whole world.
Sammy set forth a prayer, hoping for the safety and the sanctity of not just his mother and his father and all that they both loved, but the rest of the region, whether they were believers or not. He asked a higher power to touch the lives of those who searched for answers and those who turned their back onto the light, imagining that if they were meant to be then they would join in on that path too.
And like Jorginho suggested, Sammy settled his mind on a world where people stand up for each other no matter the cost and that people felt connected everywhere.
Like usual, they ended their prayer with an embrace and after this lingering moment was said and done, Jorginho possessed a far slower heart rate than he had done for the rest of the day and this was so very welcomed.
He couldn't help but smile, the light of love in his brown eyes as he used those crafted hands of his to gently push Sammy down onto the pillow once more when he saw that, while that same quality was being reflected back to him in his own eyes, the essence of sleepiness was the biggest part of his orbs.
Jorginho knew that prayer always wiped it out of him. His grin couldn't help but widen and after he leaned down to press a kiss to Sammy's forehead as he bid goodnight to him properly, he roamed a hand over his forehead, essentially wiping the contact away that had just been placed though, of course, it had already sunk through his skin and into his heart.
"Goodnight, my little buddy." Jorginho offered to him, slowly standing up to his full height off the bed before needing to curve his spine a little more, tucking Sammy's arms back under the covers all over again because, in his sleepy, nonchalant state as he tried his best to stay awake, they had flung themselves out all over again. "You keep these arms to yourself, huh? They're more for hugging than for fighting and you know it."
The twenty year old male had more jovialness streak across his young features although this time, it was shown more from the creases around the eyelids and inside the irises as the wide grin had dulled down to a close mouthed elevation of the lips.
In sleepiness, Sammy with the world fading in his eyes murmured something or other, turning around onto his side as he prepared for sleep. But then, like it often was when he became Jorginho's age and even older as I knew him, just as he was on the cusp of sleep, something sprang into his mind that surely had the ability to keep him up at all hours.
It's funny how in the moments that Jorginho started to relax once for all and put all worrying to bed as well as his little relative that it crept up on him like a shadow that could not be avoided. In retrospect, even I don't know whether it was the word 'buddy' that reminded Sammy of a different word he had heard this day or it was the second part of his words that was the thing that cast his mind back to the beginning part of both of their days.
Jorginho had since switched off Sammy's night light with a single flicking noise, bringing the room to total, navy blue darkness but the curiosity that was bouncing off the irises of the sleepy six year old boy was practically like a lighthouse beam leading the ships to shore in the dead of the night.
One hand underneath his pillow where his prayer book resided and the other pressed against his cheek, cupping his own being as he fought against slumber, Jorginho was slowly approaching the door in order to leave.
He didn't quite make the entire distance. Just like it had sounded in the centre of Shalour City, Sammy's innocent and child-like voice echoed off the walls of his childhood bedroom.
"What did you mean when you called me your little brother when you came to rescue me?" Sammy wondered, deciding that this question of his own was getting the better of him so much that he needed to sit back up in bed all over again, looking at Jorginho with his entirety. "I mean, I liked it. But…"
The gentle sea breeze blowing in through the windows wasn't the reason that Jorginho stopped in his tracks halfway to the door, a frozen state hurriedly taking over him. While his body didn't move, all colour drained from his face like the remnants of a paint pallet being washed down the sink. His mind flicked into overdrive.
This was the only occasion where honesty was not to best policy. The truth was, in this instant, honesty was forbidden.
Even so, Jorginho went against his better judgement and the fact that Sammy could possibly read straight through his countenance by turning fully towards the six year old, even approaching his bed side all over again and sitting back down too. His every move was watched. Yet for once, his every move was not understood.
He asked for answers because he hadn't been able to guess them himself. And whatever they were, Sammy wanted to know.
But what these answers were, Jorginho could never give them. The flush of his baseball had that was an enormous contrast to the ghostliness of his cheeks became a thing of the past as the twenty year old ran a hand through his thick locks.
He knew if he found honesty located there then he would never be able to use it anyway. He just had to hope that he could find courage. In the end, it was lies that became captured by him. Good-natured ones. But lies all the same. And he hated that.
"What I meant," Jorginho began, the sound of the bed creaking as it detected his suffocated urgency breaking up his words. "Is that we are all brothers in this world." He wanted nothing more there and then to reach for Sammy's hand in the same way that he had previously felt the little boy's sliding into his. However, he knew that his clamminess wouldn't go undetected. It was a miracle that he hadn't noticed his eyes pricking with wetness in the darkness. "And you are mine. More than you could ever know."
Jorginho told him, his jaw secretly contorting for only him to know about and his eyes possessing restrained dampness as somehow, he told himself that he had to look right at his relative's face. At first, no more sounds were made from either of them and the noise that passed through them both was the gentle whistling of the wind.
It was as though the breeze was trying to confess all. Maybe existed some higher power after all. And maybe they wanted Jorginho and Sammy to be the brothers that they were rather than the cousins that Jennifer told them that they were and Peter forced them to be.
Sammy's silence as this answer whirled through his young mind was unbearable and his expression for once portraying no leads was even more so. In an act of desperation to feel comforted for himself, Jorginho went against all prior instinct and the six year old boy suddenly felt a flushed hand pressing against his cheek.
It was as if this bit of contact gave Sammy the answers that he was looking for once and for all. And most importantly, it opened his heart and his mind wide enough for him to accept the answers that he had been told.
After all, why would Jorginho of all people lie to him?
However, Sammy didn't exactly go on to respond equally as achingly passionate words as Jorginho had somehow managed to muster for him. Perhaps this was for the best. In the end, the young boy went on to show affection in his own way but – perversely – turning away from Jorginho and snuggling against his pillow instead.
"Goodnight." Was his answer for him, allowing his eyes to flutter shut and able to drift off to dream land now that everything was a lot clearer to him.
No word followed this. No calling him a brother in return. For better or for worse, no more words were spoken. Instead, for the next few moments, actions did all of the talking as Jorginho inhaled the heftiest bout of air that actually seemed to weigh his chest down rather than filling him relief as his heart felt more energy to continue pounding.
Quite sadly, a clammy hand roamed over Sammy's forehead for a second time that night. But then, he didn't linger. The last thing he wanted was for the boy to sense the truth in him, or worse, how near impossible it was getting to carry this truth inside of him with no possible means of allowing it to escape.
At least Jorginho could escape that room and he could head to his own one with his own belongings and his own ceiling to stare up against and where he could kid himself that he felt that he belonged right there and in that house with everybody.
Unfortunately, Jorginho didn't get as far as he hoped. In the same manner that Sammy had prevented him from going the full way out the door only minutes before, the twenty year old young man was stopped from disappearing into his room quite so unscathed.
Wasn't it enough that he had the world weighing on his shoulders at that point, knowing that he was lying to the most treasured person to him and heart-achingly knowing that his mere presence in the house bought his true mother turmoil almost every single day?
Apparently it was not. Someone there was determined that the truth was going to stay a secret and this person immerged from the shadows in the hallway. Even if his face was half hidden from the dark of the middle of the night, he stepped into one particularly patch where the moon was streaking in through a gap in the curtains and it caused half of a pointed nose, one serious eye and strands of long hair to be revealed.
Nonetheless, Jorginho knew who it was straight away. He was backed up against his shut bedroom door, a hand around his shoulder in the same manner that he had done to the bully.
Somehow, this hand was even less forgiving.
"You better watch yourself, stranger." Peter's voice set afoot, already somehow bruising Jorginho more than the grip around his broad shoulder. "You're getting dangerously close to letting something slip, do not lie to me. You better get more believable with your answers." He continued. Hot breath close to his face didn't warm him up against the coldness that washed over Jorginho as he realised that their prayers had been listened into. "If my son finds out-"
Peter's sentence wasn't finished. Jorginho should have known better than to interrupt him but he didn't. Well, he knew not to do such things but he did them anyway. He wanted to show him that he had as little respect for him in the same way that he loathed the young man who was his wife's only other son.
"He won't." Jorginho answered, stepping out of the grip that Peter had on his shoulder and making an attempt to dodge backwards into his own bedroom. He failed. He only got as far as turning the knob of his door and edging a couple of inches away from the older male. "He won't find out. And I'll be out of here soon anyway."
And with that, Jorginho and his heart slowly hammering in his throat managed to ignore Peter breaking the distance with him all over again and tried to show dominance by backing into his own bedroom, wanting to disappear into the darkness in there rather than the darkness of the truth.
Even so, he didn't break eye contact away from Peter and he didn't stop engaging with him until he was actually dismissed by the head of the household himself. He would be waiting for a long time, it seemed, because Peter seemed as though he wasn't going to let things go down without a fight for quite some time.
Steely blue eyes met the gentle hue of brown that were then forced to stand their ground a little more than usual. Eventually, Peter dismissed Jorginho in a different way. He didn't stretch his hand outwards, allowing him to relax for the night and be up to his own devices. He didn't relinquish, of course he didn't.
Peter's hand stretched outwards and Jorginho immediately recoiled, physically able to tolerate it but not mentally wanting to acknowledge his hand squeezing his shoulder all over again. He, however, wished to do something different. He wished to do what he believed was an act of acceptance. But to Jorginho, it was downright cruel.
At long last, Peter smiled almost approvingly at Jorginho's answer as he patted him on the face. He had these words chosen for Jennifer's son long before he responded in the way that he did, clenching his strong jaw together and shuddering away from his touch.
"Good." Peter answered himself, using that hand of his that was no longer reaching out to any part of Jorginho and tucked a loose strand of luminous hair behind his ear instead. "You've stuck around here long enough."
And that was that, not another word was spoken out loud for the rest of the night. Not Sammy who was peacefully dreaming even with that conversation going on outside his bedroom door. Not even Jennifer who possessed the tightest knot in her stomach as her husband climbed into bed with her, it not falling on deaf ears how he had spoken towards the lad who was meant to be known as her nephew.
Jorginho didn't talk to himself either. He certainly didn't speak of his anguish to himself and he didn't even have the capacity to doodle words on a secret spot on his walls only for them to be washed away long before the morning light of sunrise hit them.
Unlike Sammy, he often loathed morning time. A whole other day to pretend that his presence in the house wasn't weighing Jennifer down more and more let alone everybody else, whether they were attune to it or not. A whole other day to pretend that he felt that he belonged. Yet just like Peter always called them, he would always be a stranger to them all.
Well, almost them all.
Regardless of whom they called each other, Jorginho and Sammy would always see right through everything. No wonder they embraced in the way that they did when they reunited after all those years and were free to be the brothers that they always should have been.
They would always fight for each other, they once promised. Down the road, they ended up fighting to be near each other. And what a beautiful thing. You can't keep apart two things that are meant to be. Like celestial bodies that find each other over and over, Jorginho and Sammy fought and they fought hard to be on the same page of the atlas.
They would have a lot of making up to do! They would have a lot of stories to set right. And in turn, I ended up with a lot of stories to hear about. And to tell you my own bit of truth, selfishly, that might be my utterly favourite thing about this reunion of theirs.
The End.
There you go! Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed :) I really did have so much fun exploring a six year old version of Sammy in this chapter. He is such a vivid character in my own mind but mostly within the time frame that he knows Justin and his family so it was very interesting to figure out the child version of him. Additionally, of course, it was great to get to write the dynamic between him and Jorginho. I very much look forward to the day that I write them when as adults they are both aware that they are actually half-brothers rather than cousins, and their dynamic can blossom even further :3 Thank you again and I will be back again next Wednesday with another chapter so see you then!
Amy signing out :)