The Bottom Club

19 | anecdoche

IT WAS A rule universally acknowledged that Saturdays had been created for sleeping in. (A non-negotiable one, in fact.)

Wyatt's personal philosophy was that anyone who interrupted the fulfilment of this rule deserved whatever they had coming to them in a scorched earth meets Old Testament God kind of way, and naturally, he felt righteously pissed as the incessant ringing of his phone pulled him out of a much needed beauty sleep marathon around―a glance at the wall clock confirmed―ten in the morning.

He wasn't about to get in the way of tradition, and so he let the device carry on until it disconnected before burrowing even further into his duvet to carry on where he'd left off. He was on the verge of falling into a light doze when it started ringing again, and unable to stop himself this time, Wyatt swore, rejecting the call without taking even a peek at the caller ID.

To be safe he set his phone to Silent Mode, and just as he was beginning to marvel at the wonders of the 21st century the vibrating started. Immediately, his mood wilted.

"What do you want?" he snapped, and without missing a beat his sister burst into her best Mariah Carey imitation, belting out the chorus to Emotions directly into his ear, at full lung capacity.

She was good but, honestly, fuck that, Wyatt thought as he hung up with a wince, and almost immediately the phone started up its muffled buzzing again.

Was this how serial killers were made?

He posed the question to Viv as soon as he picked up the second time.

"Possibly," she answered, and Wyatt made a low noise of contemplation.

"Did you know that, statistically, women are much more likely to be killed by someone close to them?"

"I'm telling mom."

"That, what, I told you about a UN statistic?" Wyatt replied smoothly. "Please, be my guest."

The line went silent at this point, and for a short time neither of them tried to fill it.

"You know," Viv said finally. He could hear the sounds her sheets made as she shifted to a more comfortable position. "It's never a good one with you until you try to gaslight me."

Wyatt let out a hollow laugh, pretending as if the words hadn't hit far too close to home, making him want to recoil even though he knew it was just normal sibling banter.

In fact, They'd said worse to each other which was why he didn't hang up, and for the next minute they made small talk until, tired of beating around the bush, he asked her pointblank what it was that she wanted.

"Can't I just call because I want to hear your voice?" she said in a syrupy sweet tone, faking a gasp that made Wyatt shake his head.

"Yeah, no."

Still on the line he got up from his bed and out of his room, padding to the bathroom in the hallway, where he started to take a piss.

"Please tell me you're not doing what I think you're doing."

"Cleaning out the magic wand?"

She sighed in defeat. "And you did not just call your penis a magic wand.".

"Wingardium leviosa," Wyatt replied, stifling a laugh at the sound of disgust his sister let out as he flushed.

"God, you're disgusting."

"You act like you've never seen a dick before."

"I haven't, now repeat after me," his sister intoned. "Between my sister and I, I am the sluttier sibling."