Promise

Dedicated to Liviania

---

I sit in the darkness of my room and stare at his shoes.

There’s a big bloodstain that covers half the once white side and spreads out over the top. The laces are a darker black where they’ve been stained.

I took the wrong pair but I know I’m never going to return them.

---

I watched through frigid air as the mop of red curls disappeared under a trendy hat. I sighed to myself, a long trail of white regret rolled out in an evanescent puff. His arms were crawling with the cold before he slid a white coat on over his shoulders, all suave nonchalance. Everything about him was collected and under control now. Everything but that hair he tried to hide under his baseball caps, fedoras, headbands, and beanies.

My feet dangled over the edge of the drab brick wall as I watched him shove his hands in his pockets and start walking, scarlet poking out from in between his hat and the collar of his coat. Arms encircled me from behind and warmth breezed into my ear.

“Just let him go, Ebs. Please.”

I felt the corners of my mouth tense, pulled down and back. My lips were cold and thin as they pressed together to keep my thoughts from drifting out as white ghosts, haunted and full of a terrifying promise fulfilled long ago. Something warm, wet and empty spilled out of the corner of my eye. It started to freeze.

“Fuck off,” I stated but it was halfhearted and tumbled away in the jaws of a gust of winter wind. The arms around my neck tightened and a stubbled chin perched on the top of my head.

“This is going to kill you both if you don’t stop, you know that right?”

“Stop what?” In truth I had the feeling that this would be what I had been dying to hear for a long time now.

“Stop watching him.”

I frowned and mechanically wiped my face with the back of my numbed knuckles. They were dry and rough against my skin. That wasn’t right. That was not what I needed to stop. The silence stretched on for a while before the arms unwound and a pair of legs joined mine as they dangled in space. The image of our spotless shoes swinging in rhythm sent a bittersweet fire up my spine and it spread to the backs of my eyes.

“How’s your father?” he asked, just to change the subject. I couldn’t help but smile. It would be wrong not to, no matter how desolate I’m feeling.

“He’s coming home tonight. I’m going to skip tomorrow so we can go to one of the tree farms in Jefferson.”

“You’re getting a tree?” Surprise colored his voice and I cracked a laugh into the biting wind. The unspoken name and reason hung between us for a moment before I shrugged.

“Who’s going to stop me?” Nobody. Not anymore. Pat looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “In all seriousness it’s not like I want to get one. I’m still a Scrooge to the core, it’s just that,” I pause and lick my lips to keep them from going numb, “dad—he wants to get one more than ever this year, just in case he never has another chance, you know? He’s doing it for mom mostly. You know how she gets. I think he really wants to make it special so I didn’t bother putting up the usual fight. It just wasn’t worth it.”

“Yeah. I understand.”

“Do you think he’ll be angry?” I asked, two parts hope and one part dreadful leaden fear. He never lost his temper nowadays. Not since that night. The sentimental part of me missed it while the me deep down inside was sitting in its own shit and piss, gibbering and cowering in the relative safe zone of a corner it had clawed into my mind.

“On the outside, no. He won’t even let himself acknowledge it. Inside—well, inside he’ll be furious.”

“I bet you’ll have to kiss him under the mistletoe again this year,” I wondered aloud to stop the words from sinking in and Pat gagged and snorted on his indignant, disgusted denials. I braved on and refused to think of burning eyes that didn’t burn anymore. “I used to think he had the biggest crush on you. It was cool to think back then ‘cause it would have been brothercest, you know? I’d never known anyone who was incestuous before.”

“I really don’t understand you sometimes,” Pat’s laugh was breathless, his hair short and cropped. It was a washed out strawberry blond and his eyes were both perfectly different from his brother’s. Despite all of my other regrets about that night I was glad that Pat was the one who found me and fixed me up. I couldn’t possibly imagine where I would be without him. Not here but not there; not dead but certainly not alive.

I leaned my head onto his shoulder thinking that somehow I didn’t deserve such a loyal, protective friend. I guiltily felt like I somehow stole the big brother of a curly redhead who needed him more.

I lifted my head and brought my hands to my mouth so I could blow warmth into them.

“Let’s go. It’s fuckin’ cold out here.”

---

A large textbook is alone and open on the carpet, abandoned in front of the fireplace and its flames. The bedroom door is shut tight against all manner of light. It is almost as though the darkness beyond seeps through and casts shades along the walls. There’s a muted thump and shadow creatures roil out in waves of an aura of ire and sorrow. They bend and dance, fighting with the warmth of the conflagration of wood.

---

A/N: And so it begins.

In the event that anyone wants to know, this is a prize-fic for Liviania awarded for figuring out that the stoner named BartsomethingIcan’tremember Bean in Apples was a ‘baked bean.’ The rules she sent me were as follows: The story must include a redhead, two pairs of shoes, a Christmas tree (does not have to be Christmastime), and either a book or a library.