The Weight of the Family

47 (REVISED)

KEREN

Clocks, a constant reminder of his irrelevant life. Nightmares haunted him long into every night. Sounds of the city echoed across the canopy of the tallest skyscrapers, held together by the bones of the Malakai syndicate — with the Azaika's erased. Mother's blanket draped over his shoulders, and he buried himself into the last pieces of warmth. He drove his face into the pillow, wondering if it was enough to suffocate him.

He kept his head above the waves but found himself without the will to swim.

"Keren?" Ethan's voice asked on the other side of his door.

Without the will to talk.

"What is it?" Keren groaned out of his pillow and sat up against the boiling in his stomach, sitting on the edge of his bed when Ethan walked in, a more hesitant step to his stride, though nothing else betrayed his passive expression, his rage quelled by the complete destruction of his enemies. Keren shrank into his shoulders when Ethan came closer, holding his datapad. "What? What's going on? Or are you even going to tell me?"

Ethan's face revealed a crack past the lie, and Keren left no room on his bed for Ethan to sit down beside him. "That depends," Ethan said.

"On what?"

"Well, I'd rather you not mope anymore—"

"Oh yes, because people will respect me somehow less than they do already," Keren snapped, but stopped when Ethan stiffened. "Look, Ethan, what happened weeks ago..." Keren shook out the Gorgot from his memory, choosing to gaze out his window.

"We don't need to discuss that."

"Of course not... we never do." Keren held onto the code of silence, trapped with no escape. He scowled when Ethan handed him the datapad.

"Come on," Ethan whispered. "We're going to go for a drive. Just me and you. Father's going to be busy all day, so I've got time to kill." Ethan reached forward to tap the schedule tab. "You've been avoiding me, Keren."

"Like you haven't done that to me..." Keren mumbled under his breath. Tension cracked the space between them, and Ethan's lack of response made him twist his attention to the datapad, and whatever drove Ethan to finally reach out to him after weeks of nothing. His last solace. Ships mocked his dreams, his wants in the form of a flight show, of all things. "What is this?" Keren lowered the datapad into his lap.

Ethan tipped his head with a smile. "What does it look like?"

Keren narrowed his eyes. "Are you trying to make fun of me now?"

"No, Keren." Ethan's smile died. "We're going so I can spend some quality time with my brother."

Keren hesitated, then pushed the datapad back into Ethan's hands. "Right," he choked on old tears, then laughed instead. "Right. Next, you're going to tell me you got me into a Flight Academy." Keren tugged himself out of Ethan's reach when he came closer, coiling into Mother's blankets. "I'll pass. I think I found my life calling in moping." He glared at Ethan, then scowled when he didn't move. "What?"

Ethan took a single step forward, but Keren knew he would never give what he should've given him so long ago. Happiness died at his fingertips, splattered with blood. Keren raised both hands when Ethan wrapped his arm around his neck and dragged him into a headlock. "Ethan..."

"I'm not taking no for an answer," he said with a small, teasing shake, but Keren sat himself back down on the bed. "Come on. We're going. Just us."

Keren scoffed. "I already told Chalen I'd come into the casino a little early to help him with something."