Taking a chance (Jeremy) on At Home

Nathaniel Mordue

December 21, 2020 9:10 PM

Taking a chance (Jeremy) by Nathaniel Mordue

At first, the only thing Nathaniel was aware of was that his nose was cold, an observation which made him want to stick his head under the covers as a prelude to going back to sleep. His second observation, however, involved the smell of pancakes – melted butter, hot maple syrup, warm flaky pastry – and strong coffee, and these were things that encouraged him to sit up, shivering in the thin, not-quite-dawn light.

He might, he acknowledged as he used his wand to float the tray over to him, have just made a serious mistake, all due to sentiment. He wondered if he would even be in this house in the morning. Somehow – perhaps just due to sleepiness – it currently didn’t seem to matter much.

Technically, Nathaniel was an adult now, and while it wasn’t entirely real yet – he was, after all, still living in someone else’s house, and he was in school, and all that – it had allowed midterm to be fractionally less awful than it had been the past few years. He had been able to go out with the excuse of collecting gifts, and while he hadn’t dared try to see his mother yet (there was, he thought, far too good of a chance that his uncle would expect that), it had been a relief just to be…away, at least until he had gotten to the parts where he’d had to pay for things.

He made a face into his coffee thinking of that. He had money now, of course. His maternal grandparents had both left him and Jeremy a bit on their own accounts in the will, and while he hadn’t been sure he’d be able to obtain it after separating from his mother, one of the events of his last birthday had been receiving a rather dry little owl from the bank, delivering a key and the details of the situation. Whether it had just come down to him because his grandparents had willed it that way or whether his mother had simply arranged it, he wasn’t sure – he had never quite brought himself to ask; it was so vulgar, talking about money – but he had it now, and while all his instincts said to hoard every coin of it against the dark rainy day that could come at any time, he knew it would offend his aunt and uncle if they noticed that, and he didn’t want to offend them while Jeremy was still their legal ward. Therefore, he had, wincing every step of the way, not stinted too much when it had come to Christmas gifts. Alexander and Avery’s were nominal, of course, because of that convenient issue of him only technically being an adult giving him a bit of leeway, but for Sylvia, he had had a bracelet enamelled with those white flowers she liked so much, and for Jeremy and Simon, he’d procured tickets to an important Quidditch match which was to be held over the summer. He had also, on impulse, decided to get smaller things for Evelyn and for Alexander Mason, and he thought that was what had set him into a strange frame of mind….

Technically, he was an adult now. Next year, that would matter. For all he knew, this might be the last time he ever spent Christmas as part of a family (however unsatisfactory it was) instead of just as a visitor – he might get disowned today, but even if he didn’t, he couldn’t imagine his uncle would want him hanging around the place all the time any more than he wanted to hang around it all the time. It felt like an occasion where he either had to act or forever stay his hand, and he wanted – almost needed – one last connection to his old life, to his real childhood.

Unfortunately, that was hard to do without Jeremy – and Jeremy was someone it was hard to work with. Nathaniel was not sure if actually speaking to his brother was a real option or if it would just result in his brother, at best, questioning his masculinity and the sort of sex acts he might prefer. At worst, it might cause an explosion. It made him a coward, he supposed, but when he had given into the temptation to try something, he had decided to take the indirect route.

Fortunately, one of the very slight advantages of his position was that the house-elf seemed to have concluded that he was an adult member of the household, and therefore someone to be obeyed. He expected the whole tale would come out if Uncle Alexander specifically asked, but otherwise, he thought the elf would keep his secrets – and why should Uncle Alexander ask? What were the odds that Uncle Alexander would even go into the kitchen, much less notice an extra dish or two? Unless Jeremy exploded….

If he could have, he thought he might have rescinded the order now, but what was done, was done. It was Christmas morning, and therefore, he had a previously-covered single serving of pancake (since he’d have to go through the motions of eating breakfast with the family), and a similar one, plus small servings of a selection of toppings he remembered Jeremy liking, had been sent to his brother’s room, along with a note.

Yes, I’m insufferably sentimental. I’m allowed this once, it’s Christmas. Nathaniel.

16 Nathaniel Mordue Taking a chance (Jeremy) 1412 1 5

Jeremy Mordue

December 29, 2020 6:10 AM

Because? by Jeremy Mordue

The first way in which Nathaniel’s morning delivery reached Jeremy was by smell. Well, okay, smell and irritating shrill shrieking of ‘Good morning, master Jeremy’ but the discordant scratching of sycophantic house-elves was to Jeremy Mordue as the tinny bells of an alarm clock were to regular people – a noise that, whilst annoying, was just so a part of the regular landscape of morning awakening as to be written off. The pancake smell was definitely far more novel. And definitely welcome. Jeremy was fifteen years old, and had naturally woken starving, and who didn’t love pancakes? The hunger and the temptation had hit him before the associations had time to register or the note had met his eyes.

Just like mother had done. From Nathaniel.

He glanced down at the tray in bed. He still wanted them. He wasn’t sure he wanted to want them, but he did, and he was going to ignore all the complex feelings about his family and focus on the bacon and maple syrup like it was as good and uncomplicated as it should have been.

Things got interesting around breakfast time. Real breakfast time. Jeremy had not gone to Nathaniel’s room or spoken to him about the pancakes. He didn’t know what to say. But as he poked half his toast to the side of his plate, he started having to field comments from his Aunt and Uncle. They started as genuine queries about his well-being, sliding into snide jokes about how they’d never thought they would see him leave food on his plate, and how much he cost to keep. He could have told them that he’d already had half a breakfast, but he sensed that was a secret. He could have glared at Nathaniel for setting him up to be the butt of these jokes. But he didn’t do either. He just tried to politely chew his toast until they left him alone.

He made sure not to pass Nathaniel in the corridor. Not to be easy to catch alone, so that he had a continued excuse not to say anything. He still didn’t know what to say.

He kept up the façade that this was a perfectly normal Christmas (a lie they’d all been telling each other on repeat for the last few years, and that was the most routine thing about it, seeing as he could only barely remember Christmases where everyone hadn’t been pretending to be fine – or he had been unaware of it if they had) as they opened gifts. That felt normal. His were routine, and it was the part of the ritual that had stayed the most similar… Until he got to Nathaniel’s. Nathaniel’s present was good. Better than usual, better than just being his brother good… What was going on?

First Nathaniel had tried to play mother. Now he was trying to play father too? Except Nathaniel always said not to trust father. Not to trust his own happy memories, or the gifts they’d been given, which had been overcompensating for bad behaviour. What was Nathaniel trying to make up for?
Jeremy tried to tell himself he was being paranoid, but anyone who had met him would have said he really didn’t have the imagination for that. If the smallest shivering sense of unease was creeping up his spine, it probably meant it should have been big enough to be a great big clanging bell.

He could feel it, in his stomach. The morning’s gesture from Nathaniel turning to lead which churned inside his belly, getting worse as each lavish gift from Nathaniel was unwrapped. What did it all mean?

He muttered an excuse, leaving the room and shutting himself in the bathroom. It was the safest place to be. There was a heavy, wrought iron key which he had turned, and which was bolting the outside world firmly out. For all that every member of the household but him could force the door with a wave of their wand, he thought most wouldn’t when the room in question was the bathroom. He also honestly wasn’t sure what his stomach was doing right now, but it didn’t feel great.

He stayed a while, until it felt settled enough that he could back.

And, of course his absence hadn’t gone unnoticed. He wondered whether Uncle Alexander and Aunt Avery had sent him, or whether he had come of his own volition. But there he was, concern, of all things, written on his stupid fat face. Was Nathaniel really going to stand there looking worried and confused after turning the world upside down repeatedly?

“Are you leaving?” Jeremy accused him. He didn’t know until he blurted it out that that was what he thought, but it was – that was the toxin that had been swirling, half built in the back of his mind, as Nathaniel played out all the things their parents had done to try and make up for the fact that neither of them wanted to be their parents any more.

13 Jeremy Mordue Because? 1443 0 5

Nathaniel Mordue

December 29, 2020 7:54 PM

...because I'm insufferably sentimental? by Nathaniel Mordue

For perhaps an hour, Nathaniel had thought everything was basically all right. Jeremy had not blown up, shouting (accurate, but that was beside the point) accusations about Nathaniel’s tangled set of loyalties, or even shouting anything at all. They had not crossed paths privately at all, but since that was not uncommon, Nathaniel thought little of it as they had gone about the morning playing Happy Families as though he and Jeremy had never had their own family, just like the new usual.

He had only just, being somewhat inclined to over-analysis, started to notice hints that made him think Jeremy might be experiencing some emotion when his brother abrupt excused himself. At first, of course, that seemed valid enough, but after a while, he was fairly sure that he wasn’t just being paranoid – there was probably something wrong, for Jeremy to have absented himself from the group for this long.

This theory was proven correct as soon as Jeremy finally, abruptly emerged from the bathroom. Clearly, from the look on Jeremy’s face, something was indeed wrong.

”Are you leaving?”

“What?” he asked, frowning in confusion for a moment. Did Jeremy mean that he wanted Nathaniel to leave him alone right now…? No, indirectness was not really Jeremy’s strong suit. If he wanted to say that, he’d say it, probably peppered with a few words their mother would not have approved of. “What do you mean?” he asked cautiously instead. “What’s the matter?” he added, a deep furrow of concern still between his eyebrows.

16 Nathaniel Mordue ...because I'm insufferably sentimental? 1412 0 5

Jeremy Mordue

December 30, 2020 6:45 AM

You're just like the rest of them by Jeremy Mordue

Jeremy clamped his mouth shut. Nathaniel’s reaction suggested that that had been a stupid thing to say, and not for the reasons that Jeremy felt like it had been. He had felt like he shouldn’t have said it because he didn’t care what Nathaniel did, and it didn’t matter, and they weren’t going to sit around and talk about how it would make him feel to be abandoned by yet another person in his life. Nathaniel’s reaction seemed to imply that he shouldn’t have said it because it wasn’t accurate.

Though people lied. They did it all the time. Just because Nathaniel was saying he didn’t know what Jeremy was talking about didn’t mean anything.

Nathaniel though, had had the gall to turn it around to him in a direct question. What was the matter? What was the matter?!

“Nothing!” Jeremy yelled, the way his jaw tensed and his fists clenched was in strong opposition with the word, as was the fact that it flew from his mouth with a fleck of spit. “Nothing’s ever the matter, is it? Mother was always fine, just a headache. Father was always just busy or running late. Nothing was ever wrong. Nothing to ever worry about.”

And now Nathaniel was pretending too. Nathaniel was pretending everything was fine. He was handing out pancakes and presents and saying he wasn’t going anywhere. Jeremy had seen him though. He’d seen him talking to the Mudblood girl. He knew what big presents meant. They meant someone had screwed up.

“And you’re fine too, I assume. Nothing’s wrong.” He accompanied it with squaring up. He couldn’t be abandoned if he made Nathaniel go. If he made him go then it was his choice. And he was angry, deeply angry with all of them, but only Nathaniel was left standing in front of him to take it out on. He didn’t have that much insight into why he wanted so very much to yell and scream and tell Nathaniel to leave him alone. He just had the vague notion that making Nathaniel feel crappy was going to make him feel better, and that he really wanted to hit something or someone. Nor did he know that what he actually really hoped would happen was that he could yell and hit and be vile, and that Nathaniel would still actually try to be his brother. He hated it when Nathaniel tried. He hated it when he made it seem like he actually cared. Because he didn’t. And every time he tried or pretended like he did, it left Jeremy still having something left to lose, and he didn’t want that anymore because it was too scary to try to hold onto it and risk failing. So he tried to break it instead. He reached out, shoving Nathaniel hard, wondering whether his brother was unhinged enough to be able to be baited into a fight. “You’re acting just like father,” he said. Or mother. Either of them. But he knew which one would hurt Nathaniel more to hear.

13 Jeremy Mordue You're just like the rest of them 1443 0 5

Nathaniel Mordue

December 30, 2020 6:17 PM

Hello, darkness, my old friend. by Nathaniel Mordue

OOC: CW: allusions to poor mental health and self-destructive ideation. Also, edited following Communication with Jeremy's author. BIC:

He could resist the temptation, most of the time, to allow himself to fall unprotestingly into what he called the Void now. It was always there, that blessed feeling of being far, far away from everyone and everything going on around him, that sort of suspended animation where he could barely even understand words said to him, but it no longer invariably enveloped him whenever it felt like doing so. He could fight it, and many times, nowadays, he did.

Sometimes, though, it didn’t seem worth the struggle. The moment his brother shoved him was one of those moments. It was easier just to let go, to float away, on the inside, from everything – or at least, it was until Jeremy spoke the one sentence that Nathaniel had nightmares about, and he realized, very vaguely, that the trouble with letting himself go Away like that was that he was not really ‘at home’ and able to control himself properly when, just like that, something deep inside him received the one last blow it could withstand, and snapped.

“Like him? Him?” He barely recognized the voice as his own as, unthinkingly, he seized his brother by the collar, giving him a hard shake, shaking himself. “You want to know how things are, Jeremy? Fine. I’ll tell you how things ----ing are! They’re not fine. They’ve not been fine. Ever since – ever since what happened with Mother, nothing has been ----ing fine! It damn near killed me, and I’ve been – I don’t know what – ever since, and maybe I’ll always – because even after years of dealing with that damn Healer, maybe I can stand my life now, but half the time I still think the best things I can imagine in the world anymore still are either dying or seeing certain people dead! And either one of those – they could have at least given me an honorable way out of the mess she created for us, but I couldn’t take either of them, not least because then who in the hell else would be there for you?!”

If he had been thinking clearly at all, he wouldn't have said any of that, because it was wrong. He was not supposed to think it, or feel it, but if he had to, then at least he could refrain from saying it. Except, it seemed, today, he could not, and thus words he had wanted to say for years came out in all the wrong ways in a great whirl of frustration. He would have gone further, had started to do so - "Like hi - !" - but before he could get very far at all, Jeremy cut him off.

16 Nathaniel Mordue Hello, darkness, my old friend. 1412 0 5

Jeremy Mordue

January 02, 2021 8:05 PM

You like darkness better than me by Jeremy Mordue

For a moment, Jeremy was so shocked by actually getting the fight he’d been spoiling for that he didn’t know how to react. Nathaniel didn’t grab him. Nathaniel didn’t lose control. Each of Nathaniel’s vitriolic swear words landed like a punch, and Jeremy found himself almost welcoming them. Whether it was because he’d finally torn down the walls and gotten inside, gotten something real, or whether it was because he loved the feeling of control - of being the one to make someone else do something - he wasn’t sure. There was just that screaming surge of adrenaline, like when he was outrunning a Bludger.

Not that it didn’t hurt. Nathaniel would rather be dead than be his brother?

“---- you!” he spat back, cutting off whatever else Nathaniel had to say, the words snapping him out of his shock. He pushed Nathaniel’s hands roughly off him, pushing back again, hoping it would provoke more of a reaction.

You want to go? Just go. I don’t care. The words formed in his throat but he couldn’t choke them out. He didn’t want to give Nathaniel the satisfaction of thinking he had permission. Just go. I don’t care, but I don’t forgive you either. It’s fine, I can take care of myself and it’s not okay for you to do this.

He shook aside the contradictory words that wouldn’t let him make sense of this, wouldn’t let him tell Nathaniel that he didn’t care about being abandoned again whilst wanting to make sure he felt every bit as bad about it as he should, and just started swinging punches instead. Hitting out, kicking out, pushing back at the person he was desperate not to have leave him.

13 Jeremy Mordue You like darkness better than me 1443 0 5

Nathaniel Mordue

January 02, 2021 9:29 PM

No, I don't. by Nathaniel Mordue

OOC: Mention of Jeremy's actions made after consultation with his author. BIC:

For a moment, after being pushed away, Nathaniel felt almost lightheaded, and strangely removed from the situation – the only coherent thought he could form was so this is what it feels like. Then, though, Jeremy snapped out of whatever momentary catatonia of his own which had allowed Nathaniel to get as far as he had, and he was plunged back into awful, sharp-edged reality.

“Jeremy – “ he began, just before a punch landed.

He had been hit harder in his life, of course. He played Quidditch. Compared to a Bludger, Jeremy really did not hit terribly hard at all. This, he’d think later, was fortunate; emotionally, it was far worse than just being on the wrong end of a Bludger, because it was personal and it was someone who – difficult though he often made it – he loved who was trying to hurt him for no reason other than, as far as he could tell, a desire to hurt him, but physically, he had taken worse knocks, and so, between the shock and the habit of trying to act minimally affected by injuries, his reaction was at first only to stumble back because he was being driven in that direction by a flurry of blows. He raised his own hands uncertainly, undecided between simply trying to shield himself and trying to grab Jeremy’s arms in hope of restraining him, and ended up accomplishing neither maneuver; his back to the wall, he half-turned in the instinctive hope of presenting fewer soft targets and something else was pushed back into his attention by the movement: that he did, in fact, have a wand.

Apparently, though, his failure to fight back alone seemed to be reducing his brother’s enthusiasm for brawling. Now there was shoving and taunting instead, and a word landed - coward.

“You’re not wrong,” he managed. “Protego.” An invisible shield removed the physical contact. Nathaniel stared through it. “I am. But that’s not why – I don’t want to hurt you.”

Somehow, it sounded strangely childish, said out loud. It was not, after all, as though they were still little boys, with their mother constantly reminding him – he had to be careful, he was bigger, Baby was little and also didn’t know any better. He was nearly eighteen, and Jeremy was fifteen. While Jeremy was shorter and slighter, as befitted a Seeker, he was definitely big enough now to know exactly what he was doing. However, the basic idea was still true. He didn’t want to hurt his brother, no more than he wanted any of this…this, which had begun so close to well, and somehow had just fallen apart, without him having a clue how it had happened, or what he could do to fix it, just like everything else.

16 Nathaniel Mordue No, I don't. 1412 0 5

Jeremy Mordue

January 07, 2021 9:41 PM

Are you sure? by Jeremy Mordue

Jeremy was pushed back, not in the way he wanted, not with roughness and a further excuse to keep hitting Nathaniel, but with caution. With safety measures and containment. Let’s make sure no one gets hurt. That was a laugh, when everything was in the state it was in. It was like striding into the wreckage of a living room, curtains torn, the couch overturned, every vase smashed in pieces of the floor and declaring ‘Now, let’s all calm down before something gets broken. And when you planned on then slashing the wallpaper on the way out…

“You couldn’t hurt me if you wanted to!” Jeremy snapped, pride wounded into just yelling without thought. On a physical level, they both knew that was untrue. He suspected Nathaniel would always have an infuriating few inches on him, and broader shoulders. Unless he disappeared altogether, of course. And then Jeremy could have his cake and eat it - keep his Seeker build, and be the biggest in the family. King of Nothing, because all he’d have to crow over would be an empty room. He frowned, realising he’d accidentally given Nathaniel the permission that he hadn’t meant to give. “And it doesn’t make it okay!” he added. “It doesn’t- I don’t care. I don’t care what you do. You wanna leave? Just leave. But don’t think you can just make up for it with stuff. I’d be fine- I’d be fine without you,” he repeated, his voice deciding to betray him, cracking with emotion as he said it, “But it doesn’t make it okay.”

13 Jeremy Mordue Are you sure? 1443 0 5

Nathaniel Mordue

January 08, 2021 6:03 PM

Yes. by Nathaniel Mordue

”Are you leaving?”

Jeremy’s strange question from before came back to him, and suddenly, it made a terrible sense. Everything was clear, and all the more horrible for it.

“No, it wouldn’t,” he agreed, forcing the words out from a throat suddenly too constricted to form them easily. “And maybe you would be all right – “ hell, at this point, maybe he’d be better off; Nathaniel had failed him as thoroughly as their parents had, it seemed, Nathaniel couldn’t even take care of himself, never mind someone else, he was stupid, foolish, broken – “Maybe you would be. But we’re not going to find out, I’m not going anywhere.”

He dropped the shield charm, not caring if Jeremy resumed attempts to turn him into a punching bag. “You thought – oh God, no. I’m so sorry. I didn’t think – I only thought – I just wanted to – I don’t know – remember the good times, one more time. I never thought you would think – I’m so sorry,” he repeated helplessly, his voice also taking it’s turn at breaking under emotional strain. “But I’m not leaving you.”

I am not him. I left her – I threw aside my honor – I don’t know anything anymore. It doesn’t make sense. The pieces don’t fit together at all. But I still haven’t done that. I haven’t left you. He couldn’t tell if that was something to cling to, or another indictment against him, but he hadn’t done that. He was still here.

16 Nathaniel Mordue Yes. 1412 0 5

Jeremy Mordue

January 09, 2021 8:21 PM

Why? by Jeremy Mordue

Nathaniel wasn't leaving. And it made more rage prickle under the surface of Jeremy's skin. This was the sharp sting of humiliation, of feeling wrong and ridiculous. It was the rug-jerking, whiplashing turn of having everything you'd been basing your feelings on snatched from under you, and even if it was good news, it was too sharp a contrast to process and change direction so fast. It was also the pent up fury that had been there a moment before, and wasn't magically gone - the fuel might have been cut to the fire but it still had to burn through what it had left.

Jeremy mostly registered this as anger. He had been angry that Nathaniel was leaving. Now he wasn't leaving, and Jeremy was still angry. He was just... always angry. All the time. Except maybe when he hung out with Leonor.

"I don't care," he repeated, except the words sounded hollow enough to convey exactly the opposite meaning. "Well, what was I supposed to think?" he snapped, forcing himself back to an anger he wasn't sure he still really felt. But it was easy, it was familiar. Lashing out at Nathaniel was safer than admitting that, for a moment, it had worked, that the pancakes had made him happy, that he liked it when Nathaniel tried... "People are only nice when they're trying to compensate for screwing up," he threw back the lessons that life, and Nathaniel, had taught him. Again, the exception was Leonor. Okay, she was partly hanging out with him to annoy Felipe. He knew that, but as it was a shared goal, he could get behind it. He also thought that there was a part of her that genuinely liked him. All the kissing that they did, all the hanging out while he practised... It wasn't directly in Felipe's face. That had to be something else.

"I have exactly one person who genuinely wants to be around me," he stated, admitting something he wouldn't normally - his own loneliness, his own unpopularity - because it gave him a chance to drive the knife in. "And it isn't you."

13 Jeremy Mordue Why? 1443 0 5

Nathaniel Mordue

January 10, 2021 9:24 AM

It's just a Bad Thing. You're my brother. by Nathaniel Mordue

Any comfort Nathaniel might have drawn from realizing that Jeremy was lying – and not even lying very well – about caring if Nathaniel was Here or Not was promptly banished by the rest of what his brother had to say. He visibly flinched, going pale, as the last blow landed.

“That’s not always true,” he managed. His voice was quiet, not even defensive or offended. “We have times when things are…not this.” Lately, mostly around Quidditch games…in the past, there had been the occasional holiday and birthday. But then they had lost their mother, and Nathaniel had gotten sick, and – and even before that, there really had been more bad times than good. “But – it’s not that I just – don’t want to be around you. I’m – “ he struggled with himself, long habit trying to push the words back down, until they burst out of him suddenly. “I’m afraid all the time, Jeremy! I’m so damn scared all the time that I’m going to say the wrong thing, or do the wrong thing, and make things worse - as far as I could tell, all I ever did was say the wrong thing and do the wrong thing, and make you angry – I thought you didn’t want me around you.”

He ran a hand through his hair, disordering it even more than nature made inevitable. “The breakfast thing – it wasn’t supposed to be about that – I thought I was just – trying to make something nice,” he explained helplessly. “Like things were, sometimes, when we were kids, before I'm really not anymore. But you’re not wrong – I’ve screwed everything up. I screwed up worse than even I knew, for you to think – what you did. I let you down,” he added bitterly, a hopeless sort of rage at himself mixing with guilt and anguish at the admission. “I did everything all wrong, and now – here we are.” He tossed his wand toward Jeremy, trusting his brother’s Seeker’s reflexes to catch anything thrown at him automatically. “There. You want to hit me, curse me – go ahead. I can’t exactly say I don’t deserve it, and if that helps you – “ He shrugged. “Or if not that, then tell me what you want me to say, or do, and I’ll do it. Please.”

16 Nathaniel Mordue It's just a Bad Thing. You're my brother. 1412 0 5

Jeremy Mordue

January 11, 2021 2:46 AM

Brothers share by Jeremy Mordue

"Oh, so now it's my fault?" Jeremy countered, when Nathaniel said that everything he did only seemed to make Jeremy angry. "Maybe it's cos you suck," he muttered, but with Nathaniel more or less admitting as much himself it took most of the fun out of saying it, and with it a lot of the spite. It was mumbled, half defeated, like a point he was making just for the sake of it, not because he really believed it.

He caught the wand effortlessly.

He wasn't sure what to make of Nathaniel grovelling. It didn't feel as good as he might have thought, hearing Nathaniel admit to being useless and clueless and wrong. Nathaniel was the older one. He always told Jeremy what to do. The part that had never liked that did enjoy this slightly, and he tried to let that part win out against the bits that were frightened, confused, or just plain revolted by the sight of Nathaniel giving up. He knew it. He had been right all along that Nathaniel knew nothing and shouldn't tell him what to do. He ignored the voice that said that sounded childish.

Catching the wand was easier than deciding what to do with the power he had been given. He couldn't tell Nathaniel what he wanted because he didn't know. He had no idea how to fix this, and it wasn't fair for Nathaniel to make him try. He thought that hurting Nathaniel, really, really, hurting him might be deeply satisfying, although some of the appeal was taken away by Nathaniel asking for it. He didn't want to give Nathaniel something he wanted.

"Tell me a secret," he said, "One that not even Sylvia knows." If no such secret existed, he would settle for one that was just secret from everyone else. He wasn't really sure what it would mean to get it, or what he would do with it. He was just pretty sure Nathaniel wouldn't want him to have it, and that made it worth having.

13 Jeremy Mordue Brothers share 1443 0 5

Nathaniel Mordue

January 11, 2021 5:59 PM

This is so. by Nathaniel Mordue

Nathaniel knew he was commonly regarded as rather humorless, but he didn’t see himself the same way. He had a sense of humor. It just tended to take the form of thoughts he didn’t think it would be wise to say out loud.

A number of them occurred to him when Jeremy made his odd request, and he bit the inside of his mouth to stop himself from saying any of them. The effort was only so successful.

“Technically, I already did,” he said. “She doesn’t know what I said about still not being – “ he shrugged, not wanting to say it again now that he was more in control of himself. “But I didn’t say that on purpose, so I suppose it doesn’t count…I am sorry about that,” he said awkwardly. “I haven’t been that angry…I guess since Professor Xavier told me I had to stop with the Howlers. For months, you see, after…that Christmas, I sent one to Mother every day, but she wrote to Xavier after I, er, sent one to Elphwick’s department store.” He flushed at the memory, wondering exactly what he had been thinking…he’d wanted to scream and swear at Elphwick, of course, but he should have known it would only drive his mother further into her corner. “I’m pretty sure I never told Sylvia about that. And I know she doesn’t know about the time I decided to try to find out whatever happened to Father – I didn’t, by the way, I couldn’t get very far. I didn’t remember enough to even really guess where to start….”

Sort of how he didn’t really know how to start trying to fix this, or where to proceed from here. Were those things secrets, really? He supposed the second one, the one about their father, had been. He’d never told anyone about that, as much out of embarrassment as self-preservation…it had been such a stupid thing to do, to think of at all. What did it matter, even? Why had he even wanted to know? Did that matter, even…?

He had no answers, so he stopped talking and tried to stop thinking, and just wait for a reaction.

16 Nathaniel Mordue This is so. 1412 0 5