Corrin — the bully's brother

The following evening he biked across town to practice his technique. Seven was missing but that would not slow him down. His uncle was crouched on the front porch, a vintage Gibson resting between his thighs, messing with the strings.

"Hey, kid." He was quiet, subdued. The picnic had taken the vigor out of him. Corrin thought that he might be embarrassed - the paper bag, the unfocused eyes, the runaway son - but he wasn't sure, and he couldn't ask. Not with the screen door propped half-open and the house still inside. Not will all these familiar things inching away.

He skidded across the hardwood floors in his haste. His aunt came out to greet him - hello, hello - and her eyes steadied on his progress down the basement stairs. The room was the same yet different. There was an absence of being, as if Seven had brought something to the white walls and, when he had left, taken it away. But an empty space was simply an empty space; he pushed his sweatshirt off his shoulders, got to work on a song he had been practicing.

Underoath, from We're Only Chasing Safety. He loved the album with a disparate separation than the way which he loved Dookie, but it had been the only song Seven knew enough about to teach him. Before, he had practiced with a metronome downloaded via his cousin's laptop; now he was left without one. He sat down behind the drum set. Positioned his feet. And then, out of the corner of his eye, caught upon a glimpse of silver.

It was what he had suspected it to be: the laptop. Why hadn't Seven taken it with him? The video, Corrin thought, and he squeezed his eyes shut at the memory of it. He was surprised his cousin was able to handle life, even, at this point, and so he couldn't blame him for leaving behind an object contaminated by his failure.

Booting it up, he signed into the music apps. The page was tabbed, his metronome on one, a conglomeration of random chords and notes on the other. And on the farthest one, in font so small it was barely legible, commentaries. He realized it hadn't been there a week ago. Curiosity sparked and flared up within him.

Black background, a row of titles, like songs arranged in an album. The first one - Hang Me - he recognized. It had been Never the Less, You Narcissus's breakout single. Reeking of the morbid, the depressed, and the desperate, it had been a crowd favorite at shows. He knew because he had watched so many homemade concert videos that he could recount, off hand, the occurrences of every tour for every year the band had been in existence.

"The next song, Hang Me, it's about -"

It was his cousin, talking. Had this been prereleased? Or was this exclusive content? His heartbeat thrummed in excitement. He was holding a VIP pass. Holding his breath, he pressed play.

"- it's about this guy, and, uhm, banishment. The kind you get, you know...it's kind of this thing where..."

A break, a rustle. "I'm so bad at this." Then, "I wrote it in English class and I was just - I was just imagining this southern gothic sky and, uhm, of being immortalized, in the sky, but not - not like a night sky, like a day sky, a sunset sort of. And it talks about destruction, how it feels to fall apart."

Frustration scratched and tussled through the microphone. He could hear the hesitation, the defeat. The recording wasn't over but his cousin was silent. "I can't..." under his breath "...can't do these, I can't talk about this, this isn't -"

The sound cut out. The opening cords rolled against Corrin's eardrums, the first line that he had been obsessed with for weeks. And somehow, it sounded passive. Next, shorter, was Prideful/Prideless:

"I wrote this about love. And how it's a lie. Oh, freak..." mumbling, his cousin's voice resumed, "...well, I mean, I never bought into the idea that love was this eternal thing that could stay good and beautiful and untainted forever. So this song is about two people....like, dysfunctional people, I guess....who fall in love and then get pulled - pulled apart."

Coughing. More renditions of how terrible, or worthless, the explanations were, each hitting him like a physical pain. Seven, the untouchable? Seven, the moral stalwart, so intent on helping people? He had never sounded like this in interviews. He had always been braver, somehow, with a courage set apart from this odd vulnerability.

This was why his family had walked on broken china around him. This was why Eden had kept giving him these scathing looks, as if to say, you have no idea. Corrin closed the computer and almost started crying. Because. It had hit him, what was happening, and how significant it was.

And where did that leave him, when heroes began falling from the sky?

***

The weekend was almost over. He had wasted it on Smallville and Daredevil reruns; music spilled out of his stereo, but he couldn't focus on the lyrics, couldn't find his sense of rhythm long enough to tap out a beat. On his back, tennis ball in hand, he added to the collection of smudge marks on the ceiling and tried to shut off his mind.

Defeat was inevitable. Switching off his music, he laced up his shoes to go outside. His dad wasn't on the porch and his mom wasn't in the kitchen. The house was sealed shut, no occupants, no energy. This was why he wished he had a sister, he thought as he took a seat on the steps. They could play basketball in the driveway or watch movies, and it would be epically less boring because he would have someone else to bounce comments off of.

As he was sinking into the misery of his existence, a car powered up the driveway. White van, tinted windows. He was not expecting the person who stepped out.

"Percy?"

"Hey," the boy said. "You must be...the cousin."

"Yeah." He contorted his face - he didn't want to appear too excited, but something like a scream lodged in his throat.

Percy drummed for Never the Less, You Narcissus. His Mohawk was a wild, color-boxed blue and his dynamism, when performing, was infectious. Short of Tre Cool and ____, he was Corrin's inspiration. While it felt weird - even geeky - to admit that he had an inspiration, and that was it, he couldn't really process all of these thoughts at once and so instead he just stared.

"Is Seven here? Has he come back yet?"

"What?" Refocusing, he said: "No. He...ran away? Taegan -" it was strange referring to the band members by first name "- went out to look for him."

"Oh, yeah, I know! But - I don't know - thought he might have come back. I can't just sit around while the boys are all over the place, right? All I'm doing in Nashville is nothing."

Honored to have been trusted with this tidbit, Corrin said, "Sorry you drove out here for nothing. That...kind of sucks."

"Yeah." at this, Percy laughed. "It does suck! But are they close? Do you know? Like, I could drive over. And try to help."

"Don't know," he said honestly. "Philadelphia? Maybe."

Percy puffed his cheeks up, blew out a breath. He scratched his arm, leaned back and examined the house. After staring and looking, in general, deflated, he said, "So you're a drummer, huh? That's sick! I was the same way when I was thirteen, man. I was crazy about it." He seemed be contemplating. More staring. "You wanna get dinner? I mean, I drove all the way out here..."

"Seriously?" realizing that he sounded premature and was probably, most likely, embarrassing himself, Corrin wiped the stupid smile off his face. "I mean, uh...cool. That'd be...cool."

"Cool," Percy said, grinning.

There weren't many restaurants in North Twain - there wasn't much of anything, besides a grocery store and a high school and a lot of drug users - but there was an Olive Garden. Most of the tables were empty. A dim, musty air hung over it, the same air that hung over the town. They were seated by a window; Corrin pretended to read the menu, just to have something to do other than fidget, even though he ordered the same thing every time he went out to eat.

Seven's bandmate was at a loss for words only upon their meeting, and during half the drive over. Then he seemed to snap into a mood that demanded conversation. He peppered Corrin with questions: you in middle school? You like it? Favorite band? Favorite musician? You close with Seven's sister - she's crazy, isn't she, has a thing for Taegan.

Each time he answered he felt like he had gotten it all wrong. He started over numerous times; his hands shook when he took a drink of water; he felt like an idiot, an enormous idiot, by the time the food came out.

"Hey, kid." Percy smiled at him. "You gonna pray?"

"Oh -" he had forgotten, his family did it so little anymore, and Esau had prayed, quite frequently, but he had also been gone for over a month. "- um, no. You, ah, go ahead."

After praying over their meal, and for Seven's health, Percy jumped right back into his stockpile of questions. "You in a band?"

"No," Corrin said, "but I met this girl, and she sings, so we were thinking about it. No guitarist, though."

"Eh," Percy said. "You can always find one. Or learn it. A singer, huh?"

"She doesn't like your band."

"That's too bad."

"No, well, I do." Flushed, he dropped his spoon into his soup bowl, and broth splashed onto the tablecloth. "You guys are, are - an inspiration."

"Were," Percy said, and then apologized. "This whole thing with Seven is...stressful, man. Braxton - you know Braxton, right? - he wants to bring in a replacement. But I told him..."

"Can't happen."

"I know. None of us were songwriters. Like, it's something you can learn, sure, but not the way you can learn to play bass. It's harder. And words. I mean, words...I'm not abstract."

"Seven," Corrin said, "is really abstract. All the time."

"I know! It's like a freaking light switch. I can never understand what he's saying."

Soup finished - and staining the front of his shirt - Corrin cleared the space in front of him. He rested his arms on the table, just like he had seen Seven do, trying to seem capable and talented and more than he really was.

Rather than commenting on this, Percy paid the check and rested his own arms in front of him. "How much ambition you got, man?"

"A lot."

"That's good." He didn't comment again, not as they exited or began to drive away. But then, quietly, turning out into the intersection, he said: "You totally remind me of him. It's a little freakin' creepy, actually."

Corrin waited until he was back at his own house, having said goodbye to Percy, watched him drive off toward Philadelphia, to release a shriek of triumph that would have been embarrassing, should have been embarrassing, but only felt like success. Because: he had talked to a fellow drummer without screwing things up; he hadn't asked for a picture or an autograph, even though as a fan, he was tempted; and he had gotten a picture, an autograph, and a free dinner anyway.

That night he dreamt he was at his sister's grave, telling her that he was going to be successful. And he had fallen into ash and distress. Catharine's life wasn't going to account to anything more than a tragedy, and now, as he was beginning to spot his own dreams and ambitions, the thought kicked him, hard. People said that the dead were never forgotten but that was not true; they, like those that were alive, got forgotten all the time. In his dream there were weeds on her tombstone. In real life there were, too, because the family hadn't visited her grave as a collective, grieving unit in months.

Corrin didn't understand sorrow, not at thirteen. He didn't want to; he felt it enough, in the spaces of where his life was going and - if his sister had lived - what it would look like then. He thought his parents did but he couldn't be sure. They were always telling him to respect those who had passed, respect, respect, remember. Yet they had no respect for each other. His father cursed his mother out frequently; she returned the favor by ducking her head, but neglecting to clean his laundry and make his breakfast. Which incensed him, even more. Also, in August, there had been the variable of Esau. Virulent, suffocating.

These realities grieved him more than he acknowledge when he was awake, and so in his sleep he sat on the hard yellow grass and cried the tears he had been unable to before. Catharine, he said, I don't even know you. He cried harder.

When he woke up, hours later - headache banging at his temples - the tears were still cold and wet on his face.