Look After Your Brother Ch 15
Apr. 25th, 2005 04:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Chapter 15
For two weeks, things were like they had been before Marc. Connor found them a job working "pre-demolition architectural salvage." They worked in a crew of six guys, for a man who paid a bit of money to a demolition company for a heads-up on antique buildings that were about to be torn down in the next few days. The boys would be let into the site in the dead of night with tools and a list. They'd start at the top and bring down ceiling tiles, crown molding, doors, knobs, bathtubs and sinks, window-frames and stained glass. Anything a couple men could lift, they'd pile up near the door. A truck would pull up and they'd load it full and be gone before morning.
It was a little on the shady side of the law, but Connor couldn’t figure how it was a sin to take what was going to be smashed anyways, so he lost no sleep over it. It was risky sometimes, working by portable lamps and at speeds that didn’t leave much time to check things like "load-bearing-walls" and "structurally important columns." The paychecks, based on what they had found, made up for it most nights. They worked two or three times a week and made about the same as a normal job with a little overtime.
They spent a lot of time at the pub, carousing with Rocco and the rest, making pests of themselves until Doc would start swearing and stuttering at them.
Then came the night that Murphy told Connor to go on without him.
"Wha'? Where th' fuck are you goin' then?"
Murphy shrugged. "Out. The bar where we shot pool with Marc, maybe. I'll know when I get there."
Connor felt himself frowning. He had been to the place that time with Marc and Murphy and he didn’t trust it too well. "I'll go too."
Murph's blue eyes met his, pleading for understanding. "Tha' didn' work so well last time, Conn."
"It worked fine." Connor felt like a child. "Ya found Withesea. Ya can't tell me that wasn’t a good end to the night."
He could see Murphy struggle for the words. "It has to be this way. Please understand, Conn. Please."
Blue eyes begged him for understanding, for support. He could hear the distress in Murphy's voice. There was a hurt in his brother that he could only help by not doing anything at all.
"Fine, just be safe, Murphy. Use your fucken head. You've protection already?"
Murph shrugged. "I'll get it from the machine in the john if it comes to tha'."
"Don'cha dare forget," he told his brother as Murphy left for the night. Jaysus, but he hoped the headstrong fuck remembered.
The house was like a tomb without Murphy there to bring some life to things.
He couldn’t go to McGinty's. Not without Murph. Even if the guys believed him that Murphy was out on a date, they'd want to ask a bazillion questions.
He could go out somewhere else, but exploring didn’t look to be much fun alone.
He sprawled in the living room chair, between the towers of newspapers, and stared at the television for an hour without moving to turn it on.
"Fuck this shite," he said when he was done with the last cigarette in the house.
He grabbed wallet, keys and his lighter then set off walking for the train station.
Marc seemed surprised to see him at the diner and Connor couldn’t help a smirk as he sat down at the counter. If he'd been in a better mood, he would've fucked with him a bit, but without Murphy there to appreciate it, there seemed no point.
"I have to say, I expected to see you sooner or not at all, Connor," Marc said as he wrote Connor's usual order on the little pad and passed the sheet to the cook.
Connor shrugged. "It's no' like tha'. Guess I'm just here t' make sure he didn’t make a liar out of me." He watched Marc's eyes.
"As far as I know, he was everything you said, Connor. No worries." He looked away like it was still too soon to talk about it, so Connor shut the fuck up.
He ate his burger when it was ready--missing his brother's crazy wit and the easy banter they shared. There was an empty stool on Connor's right, where Murphy should have been.
He put a twenty under his glass for the check and tip.
"Are you okay?" Marc asked, giving him a dubious glance as he cashed out the register and laid the change back on the counter.
"Wha'? Why d'ya ask?" He left the money where it was and fuck he didn’t want to be thinking about how he felt or why he felt what he felt.
"You used to smile." Marc's lips twitched in something that had nothing to do with humor.
"I just...fuck." he sighed and shrugged and didn’t know what he could say to make the conversation go away.
Marc stared at him for a moment, and for a heartbeat he felt like all his ugly little secrets were out there, naked to the eye.
"Look, Connor, I get off of work in about half an hour. Want to get a beer or something?"
That
earned him a skeptical look. "Wha', like a date?" Connor felt that mix of fear and anger building in his chest.Marc snorted. "You don’t have straight friends you drink a beer with?"
Connor realized he had stepped away from the bar and sat back on his stool. "Oh, aye. Just usually with Murph." He was being an ass and he knew it. "But yeah, sure. We can go have a beer."
Marc dragged Connor out of the first bar after some big girl tried to start a fight with him.
"What th' fuck?" Connor asked as they left. "I was only holdin' the door for her..."
Marc laughed at the bewilderment in his voice. "You really are from a different world, aren’t you?"
"Oh, aye." There was nothing to do but agree.
Marc sobered at that. "Why are you here then, Connor? There's nothing for you in this part of town."
They walked almost another block before he had an answer. "I want to see what Murph's lookin' for."
"Wish I knew," Marc sighed.
They walked the neighborhood until the bars closed. He saw things he wouldn’t have believed a few months ago.
When the crowds thinned out and the streets started to look abandoned, Connor saw Marc safely back to his place then sat at the commuter rail station until the trains started running again at five. He was glad for the quiet, the time to process all that he had seen that night.
It was late when he made his way back. The sky was beginning to turn light as he tried the front door of the place they lived, on the off-chance that Murphy had come home before he did.
The knob turned under his hand and he stepped inside.
"Murph?" he called, soft so he wouldn’t wake him if he was asleep already.
"Conn!" He caught something strange in his brother's voice, and turned towards the living-room. Murphy was moving at him, cigarette falling from careless fingers.
Hurt and relief made a strange mix on the features Connor knew so well, until two steps away they twisted to black fury. "You fucker!"
Connor got his left arm up in time to deflect some of Murphy's punch, and rolled with the rest of the force. The left side of his mouth hurt and he realized that Murphy had actually hit him a good one.
He'd been in enough brawls that his hands didn’t need much instruction from his head, and he slammed Murphy chest-first into the nearby wall. An elbow flew back at his face, and he bounced him into the wall again, keeping the advantage he had by being behind Murphy.
They struggled--Murphy yelling incoherently, Connor silent except for his harsh breathing--until Connor got his darker twin's arm twisted around behind his back. He pressed his shoulder against Murph's spine and braced himself against the floor, leaning in hard.
Connor could taste the blood in his mouth. He tested the cut with the tip of his tongue and didn’t think it would need stitches. Fucken Murphy.
He made soothing sounds as Murphy howled out with impotent fury. With every minute that passed his blood was cooler though, his thrashings less strong. "How the fuck could you do that to me, Conn?"
"Shh, Murph, shh. What've I done?" He knew, he could feel, that it was too early to let him loose.
"You weren’t here!" Murphy bucked under him and he pressed his chest in harder against his brother's back. "I called Doc an' Rocco an' some of the guys an' nobody'd seen ya. It was almost mornin' and ya weren’t here!"
Morning. Murphy had never failed to be home before dawn. Connor hadn’t known there even was a rule, and now he'd been the one to break it.
Murph's free hand scrabbled against the pink-roses wallpaper. Those perfect fingers searched for anything, any leverage he could use to get free.
"I thought you were gone, Conn. I thought you'd fucken left me!"
"I’m here now," Connor breathed into his brother's hair. He smelled of smoke and sweat and that smell that was only Murphy. Jaysus, he was so close, so warm. "I'm here now, Murph. I won't be late again, I swear t' God. I won't leave you. I'll never leave you."
He opened his fingers slowly, and Murphy didn’t jerk away, he just let his hand slide down and around back to the front of him, to press against the wall. No sudden shove. No elbow coming back at Connor's head.
Connor took a slow breath and shifted his weight off of Murphy's back, ready if the battle should resume, but not really expecting it to.
"Are y'alright there, Murph?"
Murphy nodded and turned his head to look over his shoulder at Connor. His eyes glittered gold and went wide, focused on something behind them both.
"Fuck! Connor!"
Connor turned. "The fucken living-room is on fire." The observation sounded stupid even to himself.
For a minute he could only stare and watch the flames licking over the stacks of newspaper, the carpet that clearly predated fire-retardant additives. Ugly black smoke was curling along the ceiling.
It was a mad scramble to grab as many of their meager possessions as they could and break through the bedroom window to get out.
They lay on the grass, panting for breath, waiting for the sound of sirens before they bothered running. The smoke had stuck to the sweat on their faces, and Connor's blood spotted them both. They looked so awful that Connor caught himself laughing.
"You could've said ya wanted to move, Murph. Ya didn’t have to burn the place down."