MORNING
Jason hoped the boys were still asleep. If he could slip in and not waken anyone he could pretend (let/make them think) that he'd just come in after they were in bed. That would be best, of course, and he really didn't owe his younger brothers any explanation. They were accountable to him, not the other way around.
Of course, he hadn't thought that was a good thing yesterday. Yesterday he would have traded places, to be anyone but wished he'd had an older brother. (If he couldn't have had his father, just a while longer.)
He stepped as lightly as he could, and slowly opened the door as silently as possible, and glanced toward the boys' beds.
They were unslept in; empty.
He had barely registered that when he saw them, wrapped in one of the blankets from his bed, over by the fireplace. Josh was holding a book, closed on his fingers.
And looking directly at Jason, with his infuriated cold-blue eyes.
Jason, after that first look, crossed to the stove and stirred up the fire and started coffee. "Chilly night," he said, in a low voice.
Josh shrugged. "Not inside the cabin."
"It got late before I knew it."
"Yeah?" Josh slid away from Jeremy without waking him. "Would you accept that excuse if I told you that? Or him?"
Josh was going to be difficult. Well, Jason couldn't really blame him, and he was right. It was a poor excuse. He would have told him so, too. "I'm sorry. That's what happened. What else can I say?"
Jeremy woke up at Jason's rising voice. He threw off the blanket and threw himself at his brother. "J-jason! You aren't d-dead! The b-bear d-didn't eat you!"
Josh snorted and tossed the book on the table and went to fold the blanket.
Jason put down the coffeepot and picked up the boy. "No, Jeremy. I'm not dead, nor eaten by a bear. But I might have been, if I hadn't made a safe camp for the night. The night predators are getting more active by the day. Or night, I suppose." Jason backed into a chair.
"Th-tha'ss what Josh s-said."
"He was right."
Josh snorted again.
Jason picked up the book and looked at it. "Oliver Twist? Really, Josh?"
"I told him it," Jeremy said.
"He wanted to be prepared," Josh explained maliciously.
"Don't be ridiculous! We're a long way from London!"
"Yeah, but who knows what can happen to a poor orphaned child who was abandoned by his brother?"
"Abandoned? Abandoned? I stayed out too late! That's a mistake in judgment, not abandonment!" Jason jumped up, sliding Jeremy off his lap.
"Yeah? Maybe someone with poor judgment has a poor definition of abandonment!"
"No," Jeremy said, but his brothers were already yelling at one another too fervently to hear him.
Jeremy put his hands over his ears and went to sit on Jason's bed. He pulled his legs up to his chest, and dropped his forehead on his knees. He sat there, muffling the sounds as best he could, his head while they shouted at each other. He couldn't help but hear some of it anyway.
It started out with bandment and judgment, but accelerated into responsibilities. They were head to head then, Jason yelling about Josh knowing nothing about all the many things he had to be responsible for now and Josh yelling back that he knew more about it than Jason did, since Jason went running off and leaving his 'responsibilities' to Josh. And how was Josh supposed to know how he was supposed to handle Jason's responsibilities if Jason never talked to him about how he should handle things 'if something happened'?'
At that point they started shoving one another, and it dawned on Jeremy that he was the responsibility they were arguing about.
He didn't like that. He whimpered.
He didn't like the shoving, either, and ran in between them. ""Stop! St-top it! Don't!" He shoved at their legs, trying to put some distance between them.
"What the devil are you doing, Jeremy? Get out of here! Go sit down!"
"Don't yell at him to get out of here when you wouldn't even let him go outside yesterday! Keeping him didn't keep you from going off and leaving him alone, did it?"
"Now, you look here! I – we needed some distance! You don't know anything about it!"
"You made sure to send me away so I wouldn't, didn't you?"
Jeremy pulled on Jason's sleeve. "Stop it Jason! Stop it! D-don't yell at J-josh! H-he w-was –"
Jason shook Jeremy's hand loose. "This is between me and Josh, Jeremy. Stay out of it!"
"But, Jason!"
Jason roared at Jeremy. "Can you for once just do as you're told? Stay out of this!"
Jeremy backed away, his large eyes filling with tears.
"NOW look what you've done!"
Jeremy ran out the door, scared and crying.
He ran and he without paying attention, until he was so tired he stumbled. By then he was deep in the forest, where the Old Places were. The golden green darkness, the scent of moss and water, and old rocks sprinkled around.
He wasn't lost; he knew where he was.
He found his favorite nest of rocks.
He hoped Josh and Jason didn't hurt each other too bad. They were both really mad. All that yelling.
He didn't like his brothers thinking he was responsibility, though. He was a person. And even before Da had died, Jason had said he was as much a person as they were.
And he didn't call Josh a responsibility.
Of course, Josh would probably punch him if he tried.
But they was doing everything but that anyway.
Jeremy clenched his fists. Too bad he wasn't big enough to punch them. BOTH of them! At the same time!
BAM! BAM! Jeremy threw a couple of punches into the air. That felt pretty good, even without hitting anyone. Or anything. He did it a few more times.
Until he punched himself in the face.
It wasn't supposed to work like that!
He giggled. Maybe Jason and Josh should punch their own selves in the face instead of each other.
The giggle changed to outright laughing, and the laughter turned to tears.
Jremy laid his head on his crossed arms on a rock, and cried himself to sleep.