Greatest

15: it works remorse of conscience in me

The worst week of my life starts with a delayed flight and vomiting in the middle of O'Hare airport. And that's really the highlight of it. 
That's probably dramatic. But I've had a very short life so far and the first five years are kind of fuzzy. And feeling like my head is actively caving in while trying to keep down pills while vomiting every fifteen minutes during a four hour layover due to a snow storm, while Marco and Jas try to help hold me up, hold ice to my neck, and generally prevent me from crawling under the airport chairs to die.
Now, I should note, secret service agents are NOT baby sitters. They aren't manservants. Their job is literally to stand there and watch me and make sure I don't get murdered. That's the beginning and end of it. Now it's rather complicated to watch and tail someone constantly, but they aren't contractually obligated to even speak to me beyond telling me where we are going or the like.
However, most of these guys have been with me for years. Between various escape attempts, and now my illness, they've grown something like used to me. All of them. And when you have a vomiting, skeletally thin, teenager doubled over a trashcan in the middle of O-Hare at ten o'clock at night vomiting up bile, it's less of a duty sort of thing and more of a general human empathy sort of thing. At the end of the day I'm a too thin seventeen year old, shoving prescription anti-nausea pills down my throat and trying desperately to take them at a water fountain. I can't walk properly because of my leg, and I'm shaking, and I can't see because I keep having lights flash in front of my eyes. 
Yes, Jas has to actually carry me to the next flight.
"Sir, is your son drunk?" The flight attendants are suspicious. Reasonable enough time to note Jas and I look enough alike to be mistaken for related.
"Migraine, he just needs to rest," Jas says, neatly, not bothering to correct them. He puts me into the window seat, gets out the throw up bag, and keeps the bag of ice Marco got from a fast-food place, securely on my neck.
That's for nausea by the way. If you didn't already know that, there's some free advice. Cooling yourself down can help you not throw up, and make you feel better afterward. Specifically if you put the ice on a vein, like your wrist or you neck. Who did I learn that from? My mom? No, from secret service agents, who were trying to help me not throw up. Not recently to do with the brain-goop thing. In the past, when my father was on campaign and we first got agents assigned to us.  I had a flu or something we had to be at this hotel and I was trying to get a cold soda, and one of the agents, a female, she helped me use the vending machine and then told me to hold the cold drink on my wrist. That's where I first learned the trick. You're welcome. You have now learned 2 important things from my life: 1) occasionally it might be good to ask people if you're gay 2) if you're feeling sick put ice on your wrist or neck. There. I've not lived in vain those are very valuable lessons I think I can pass on.
Anyway.
I'm blessedly better by the time we reach DC. A couple of car rides later, and only vomiting on the side of the road once, I keep enough pills down to alleviate my headache. So, and this is technically speaking now, I am high as a fucking kite when I go to greet my family.
My father is working, thank god. Maybe I do believe in god. All right.
"I missed you!" Peter runs directly into my arms as I round the corner of our wing. Poor abused Marco and Jas evaporated, as they tend to when we get inside the residence. For the first time in months, I'm free to move about without a tail. The entire house while guarded, is mine to enjoy, assuming I can enjoy things and move about freely. Which is not true, but for information sake, it is true that I theoretically can move around.
"I missed you too! Ugh, you're like two inches taller," I say, grasping Peter in my arms. I stumble and nearly fall, forced to lean on my crutch.
"I'll be taller than you soon," Peter grins, as I set him down.
"Not while I'm alive you won't," I say, trapping him in a headlock to mess up his hair. He grins.
"How is it being the walking wounded?" Micheal asks, punching my arm. He's my height nearly and easily loops an arm around my neck.
"Walking dead more like," I scoff, leaning heavily on my cane, "I can still whip you."
"I bet you can," Michael says, tugging on my shirt before letting me go, "Seriously though, dad's been using your scores as an example of what not to do."
"He's used me as a bad example for years. You two should be glad, actually. I've already succeeded in completing every possible disappointment it's really lovely now he can just be pleased with you both," I say, releasing Peter as I limp towards my room.
"What did you do to your leg?" Michael asks.
"Nothing, pinched nerve, that's all. I just have to stay off it, so I've been swimming, which I've not done at all today, meet me at the pool?" I ask him.
"Yeah sure thing, ten minutes," Micheal says, heading to his room, "I ran at the airport, that was it."
"I ran this morning at school, and did soccer, and I got back first so I helped dad so I get two hours of x-box," Peter says, as I finally let him go.
"Good for you," I say, limping back to my room. All is as it was when I left. Same green walls. Same too high bed. Same big window. Just a deader, gayer, resident. I sigh. The gayer part I don't mind if it means being in love with Bradley.
I check my phone.
Dasher: you get in okay? I saw storms were grounding flights out of Chicago
Searcher: just. You home?
He texts me a selfie of him standing by the lake, looks like shirtless, tagging it as 70 degrees and sunny. His perfect hair wet and slicked back as though he's been swimming, and I can see the ridge of muscles over his shoulders.  His skin glistens with water in the late afternoon sun.
Completely related note, now I have new home screen wall paper.
I don't take a selfie. I look like shit and feel worse. But I do take a picture of my room and send that to him, writing 'missing something'.
Dasher: what?
Searcher: you. I'm going to miss the warm glow of your phone
Dasher: I am reading books! You know that!
Searcher: I was not being sarcastic. It's going to be quiet. Too quiet.
Then I hide my phone and grab my swim things. The phone needs to charge, and I need to convincingly act straight and alive. Two things I am not.
Micheal beats me to the pool, and is already doing laps when I arrive. I hop into the cool water, glad of its simplicity. I find I can keep up with Micheal even though only one leg works well, I've gotten used to compensating especially under water.
"What part is pinched? Can you like not move it?" Micheal asks, as we rest in between rounds. It's been the better part of an hour and we're both tired after our flights home. Usually we wouldn't quit like this but at the moment we'd rather chat than work out.
"It's a pinched nerve in my hip. It needs rest," I say, floating a little. Of course I can't even really feel the leg.
"I heard dad talking with mom. He thinks you're faking," Micheal informs me.
"I'm sure he does. Come on, ten more laps then we're through?" I nod.
I'm sore and now sick to my stomach again, but I have nothing on it to throw up. I also don't care to stop swimming. The cold water if anything quells my nausea, and I'm enjoying just racing my brother across the pool. I realize I don't talk about missing home, and that's because I don't, but I do miss my brothers. A lot. I just wish that seeing them didn't have to involve being home.
Anyway, by the time we're done doing laps, our father is standing at the head of the pool.
Reader, I don't know if you've ever been away from home for a long time, and had time to relax and reflect on how actually crazy your life is.
Yeah. I know my life is crazy. I know my family is crazy.
But when you're away for a while, you like, you want to convince yourself that it isn't that bad. It isn't that abnormal. That it's you, you were being overdramatic. And all that. And that it's not really that bad and that you can handle it and that everyone is a little bit different.
And then you return.
And you discover, no, you were right the first time. It wasn't teenage angst. It wasn't drama. It wasn't alien brain-goop making you think strange thoughts.
No, they are like this all the time, and it is as bad as you thought it was, if not worse.
"Have you been wearing clothes for your weigh ins? Clothes with rocks in them?" My father is staring at me as I float in the pool. I know I haven't mentioned it till now because I don't generally think about it, but we have weekly weigh ins as a part of the activity app thing. Peter's the only one who actually had to lose weight usually. I mean, I guess I did when I was little. Of late, for very obvious-brain-goop related reasons, I've been loosing weight drastically, since I vomit up about half my meals and am nearly maintaining my original exercise levels.
"No," that's exactly what I've been doing. I knew he'd notice considering I sure as hell did.
"You're skin and bones, have you not been eating?" He asks, still staring at me, "And you're barely meeting your quotas."
"I'm sure I'm growing, that's all," I shrug, "I'll weigh again tomorrow." I would not put it past him to threaten to watch me.
"You'll do it in front of me when I've got the time, you look like hell," he says, still staring at my mostly naked body, submerged in the cold pool water. I'm not about to get out he'd see how limp my leg is, and he's no fool; he'd know I'm not stopped by pain.
"As you like," I shrug.
"I have an errand for both of you tomorrow night," he says, looking at me, "If you're not too busy being anorexic or sickly or whatever your latest excuse is."
"I'm not," I say, dryly.
"What is it?" Michael asks eagerly.
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "Cyrus, this can't possibly be good, your father is clearly the antagonist of the piece, I know child-endangerment and child abuse when I read about it in a dead boy's diary, there's no way this will go well". And you would be right. This is not going to go well.
But see nothing does for us, ever. We're Laine boys. Things don't go well, not in the usual sense. And a little activity will be much more fun and interesting (to us) than an exercise, like knife practice, or a morning run, or the like. I mean, we'll have to do those too when we get home, but rest assured there are loads of miserable paces he could put us through, that aren't this neat little errand he's about to describe.
"An assassination. I need it done, and you'll be alibied as being here. I assume you can handle that, Cyrus?" He asks.
"I can, who is it?"
"You'll be sent the details, both of you. Michael what would this be, your fourth kill?"
"Fifth."
"That nobody procured for you?"
"Fourth," Micheal nods, a bit ashamed.
"And Cyrus?" He asks.
"Tenth," I say, rubbing the notches on my left arm. One each from my father's serrated blade.
"Let your brother spill the blood, he needs the experience," our father says, straightening up. "Go get changed for dinner."
"Sir," we both say. We wait for him to go to converse. Micheal heads for his phone where he left it on one of the pool chairs.
"It's at some club—instructions are slip the agents, go out downtown, late, we find the persons, kill 'em in a club bathroom," Micheal says, looking at his phone.
"Who is it?" I ask.
"Just some kids, he probably picked 'em randomly," Michael scoffs, "See if we'd do it."
"So let's not, look, it's an evening free, let's go clubbing," I say, "It's easy night out."
"But this could be fun," Micheal shrugs.
"Yes and I assure you brother getting drunk is equally fun. I promise you wine is sweet as bloodshed, and one pricks the conscience less," I say.
"Maybe you are a bastard. Laine's are born without consciences," he says.
"I mean, possibly, given everything about me," can't really imagine our father fathering a gay child. I climb out of the pool to look at my phone. Yep, the victims look random. "Come on. Once, just try it with me. You're my brother, I'd like to get you stupid drunk in a proper club and we've an excuse to go! We're not gonna get the chance again and as you predicted these are arbitrary victims to keep our taste for blood— it means nothing."
"Nothing but to hone us to the chase," he says, "And there will be hell to pay if we don't do the deed."
"So you can do it if you like, I'm just saying, we've got a full night to enjoy ourselves I'm not going to spill innocent blood when I could be getting drunk," yeah before you say anything no, I absolutely not supposed to be drinking with everything I've got going on. Shh. That's not gonna stop me.
"We'll have some fun then, but help me kill them? If there's not blood on you he'll be cross," he sighs, "You know what that means. He's disappointed in you already half the time."
"I noticed. No, as you said he's already sick of me. He can be," he doesn't get to have me much longer, "I do not care, I promise you, his rage is one of the last things I fear at this point."
"You are brave," Micheal laughs.
"Not remotely, now I'll take whatever lumps he decides to give me for it. But come, have fun with me? I need to get my little brother shit-faced," at least once. I get to do that don't I?
"All right, after the killings," he says.
"As you wish, I'll wait for you," I sigh, "See how late we can stay out, before the goons find us."
"Shane's gonna just implant a tracker in your brain."
"Good luck to him with that, now, you heard him. Let's get to dinner," I say, climbing from the pool finally. This could actually be fun.