Not so long ago

The young man's mother, trying to support her family suffered for her own mistakes. Devil's choices, desperation and anger, and the noxious things taken into her stomach, into her veins. Her Eldest Son, tasked so often with the care of his brother, hemmed in with rules and lectures and ideas of what he should be as a man, as a person. They often fought. He often incurred physical punishments as he turned a face of stone to lecture and words tuned to try to shock him and break him from the ruinous path their mother feared. The Eldest Son in very deed followed the dark path his Father walked.

The path teasingly shown by the shadowed parts of his mother's own path. The eldest son ran away. To be out from his mother's roof, hoping he could be a man somewhere else instead of forever a child, always choosing the wrong thing and getting into trouble.

He swung into and out of his mother and brother's life. Almost all swings in because he needed something, almost all swings out preceded by arguments and unkind words.

The young man was so angry at him. For hurting their mother, for using their family. For running away from the responsibilities in his life and not actually making the man of himself that he claimed he was trying to be.

Before the one who touched the young man. Before the mentor who the young man desired and forbade himself, Elder brother was all this young man knew of what was desirable by young women outside of books, all that was desirable of young men to be in the "real world".

His beloved big brother.
The thief.
The conman (liar).
The user of chemicals and people.
The Rake.
The manwhore.
The fighter.
The Bad Boy.


Loved and hated in nearly the same thought. For his idea of making his little brother stronger was to make him angry until he would try the things that scared him.
Hug only at bedtime, no casual affection, no instead it was always pin the brother make him say uncle, scoot into his personal space but don't half hug or act like you want to be close to him, just do it to be a pain in the ass.

The young man wondered to himself over and over and over why his big brother always had to prove that nothing was safe from him. Not the bubble of space on a seat or in a bed, not the sanctity of a shower, not a trinket or a treat.

Ever and always the Eldest son maintained that his little brother was off limits to all mauling and teasing by anyone but the Eldest son.

When the Mother and younger son became homeless, the eldest son said poisonous words to the mother, and received the same back from the younger son, who saw the wounded look on their mother's face and focused the explosion of anger in his chest to words so cold to slice a trail of frostbite in his elder brother's heart.

The mother fell for a time, after the other touched the young man, after the mentor had come and she feared the different person her baby was growing to be. She was held away for a time, her young man in the care of the Mentor and lacing himself more firmly into the Mentor's family, and delusion.

Th young man made bad choices, touched people he shouldn't. Still kept secret that it was the Mentor and the mentor's Beloved he would rather be touching. Even as the Mentor's Beloved played touch games with the young man to help break the self-protective aversion bullying and secret trysts had instilled in him.

He startled and nearly bolted later, after a break and rejoining of his fortunes to the Mentor's family, when the Mentor flirted with him. The chance he desired, and yet his startlement and stumbling tongue led once again to the loss of chance. (it's okay, it doesn't matter that I want his hands on me so bad that I weep at night, what happens when it stops? She stopped, why wouldn't he?)

Well meaning words twisted the young man, made caring for the family's children a resented task rather than just family and trust and duty.
A blurted comment about not being a jungle gym resulted in an edict that the children were not to touch him.

The lack of even that little contact made the skin-hunger that goaded the young man into hunting for brief blessings of touch from people who didn't love him, in places unsafe, so much worse.

(stupid, cranky, socially maladjusted, complain about things you don't really mind and seek sex when you really want love and touch.)

After losing the chance for love at home, the things that Mentor did with the money that those in the family worked to earn, when his beloved and the young man skinned their pleasure spending to little or none to try to make the bills hurt less. oh it made the young man so angry. and eventually, he acted in kind. took back money to spend on things that made him happy. No more playing games of imagination with Mentor and beloved, because if he played like himself he'd freeze and playing like it was a game was too much of an insult to the characters, in Mentor's eyes at least.

of course the money was found out, and the young man, tired from working and stress and hunting.. Made yet another bad choice and lied.

This then was the beginning of the end. Working two jobs and barely speaking to his "family" the confrontation happenned,

"i've bound a death spell to you, that strengthens with each Midnight and Midday."
((that's fine, I'll break it, each dawn and dusk))

"how long have you been lying to us... about how powerful you actually are"

((for the same amount of time as I've been lying to myself about it))

"you've become a stranger, and we don't feel safe with you in our house"

The young man steeled himself, asking himself if he could live with never being kith to the Mentor and his Beloved again.

((I can do that, I've done so much wrong in their eyes, and they in mine.))

When he considered no longer being kith to their children however, his heart felt near to break to bleeding pieces. For long and long, through another friendship that the young man betrayed and broke to dust and fire through paranoia on both sides,missteps, small lies, and the making of the young man into a scapegoat wrongs he didn't perpetrate. Through a love that was doomed by the young man's baggage and continued missteps (gods how he should have sought therapy young. so many mistakes because he didn't think like a "normal person" and saw slight where there was none and refused to see slight where it was)

The mother who was for so long, two people in the eyes of her younger son. Mom: the worried protector, trying to be strong and give her children what they need (a roof, food, clothes as many small hapinesses as possible) and the wreck of pain, accident, anger and pride that the poison she drank and injected made so much more volitile. She was released from her captivity, bound to someone to help her rid herself from the influence the poisons had upon her and to make herself into someone she could be proud of.

While her younger son fled from home to home, never having one all of his own, she worried. Always worried that he was being taken advantage of. Always worried about him having nothing that couldn't be taken away when the friendship or love or whatever went south.

Her eldest son, he asked for help, asked for money, asked for sanctuary, asked for car, asked asked asked. Took.
Took.
took.


Her youngest son, her baby. He so rarely asked. So rarely asked her to make anything better or easier for him. Wore his stress and hurt and anger so visibly on his face, along with his disconnection from reality and the hysteria-edged joys that he clutched to balance his pains and tried to say everything was right.


There was a thing that the young man feared about himself. Different than the anger and rage he kept locked down or turned inward as much as possible. He first did it on purpose in Biology and Anatomy. ((Stop thinking about it as a baby pig/cat/bunny it's meat, it's science)) A twist of the mind to shove away empathy and compassion. Shove away the tree hugger and leave just the cold, dispassionate scientist to find the use in the dead thing.

It was useful, yes, but scary to the side of his mind that hated all the senseless hurt in the world. Because with that heart, with those eyes, with that disconnection, his own logic stated to him in no uncertain terms that he could do the same thing with a pet, or a person.

The thought terrified him.

and yet.

and yet.

It made watching films that contained violence and gore so much easier to enjoy for the puzzles and the sometime victory of the intended victim.

It made hunting for touch and sex so much easier. (what's wrong with getting what I need somewhere else, it's not like they WANT to know that side of me)

It made the bad choices so much easier. ((well if He/she/they are going to treat me like they do, it just serves them right if i do this))

He should have maybe, stuck with terror as the response.

Yet living in terror and pain and hardship made that so attractive.

he should have, perhaps, talked to someone with some kind of qualifications to help him deal with these things.

But that threat of being branded mad, of being a narc, of being drugged and locked up...No, he refused to do that.

He only showed people flicks and glimpses of his madness and his damage. poured out the parts of his damage that each person he met seemed to be able to bear to shine like obsidian and oil slick.

there is more of this story to set down, but it shall have to wait, for I have a need to be away before the sun sets. Cycling after dark is cooler, but otherwise not fun.
Those of you who read, I wish to say this:
Find your balance of bravery and caution
((I love you))
I give you this story because I need to set it down.
((you are necessary))
I'll come back.
((you are worth care))

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duskboi
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