𝙰𝙿𝙿𝚁𝙾𝚇𝙸𝙼𝙰𝚃𝙴𝙻𝚈 𝚃𝚆𝙾 𝚈𝙴𝙰𝚁𝚂 𝙰𝙶𝙾...
"Have you ever considered going back?" Alfonso asks, cautiously awaiting his friend's reaction. "To your siblings, i mean."
Chin resting on interlocked hands, Zephaniah scratches his well-groomed stubble and avoids Alfonso's calculating gaze.
"You even miss them?" he continues, causing Zephaniah to huff in annoyance.
"Of course i've thought about it," he replies, paying no mind to the second question.
"And?"
Alfonso is determined to find out what good reason Zephaniah has to justify his on-going absence.
And in his case, having both older and younger half-siblings from each parent, he can't imagine being apart from them for such a long period of time.
"And i've made the decision to return by the time i turn thirty," Zephaniah says, his face void of emotion.
"Four years down the line?" Alfonso pins him with a skeptical look, his tone that of incredulity. "The triplets will be seventeen by then. The rest of them adults. You'll have missed out on seven years of their life...their childhood and teenage years. Zephaniah, that's not right."
He can't help but be so opinionated when it comes to his friend's situation. It may not be his business, nor does it affect him, but Alfonso wants what's best for Zephaniah and his family.
Zephaniah, however, often claims that he merely tolerates Alfonso.
He is by no means the type of guy to check up on his so-called friends, or ask them to hang out. If anything, it's the opposite.
Most commonly, they will drink and get high to forget about all of their troubles for a while.
And unfortunately, Zephaniah's happiest moments are the ones where he is so fucked up that he forgets his own name.
"It was their thirteenth birthday last month." Zephaniah ignores him. "I was going to visit them. I wanted to...I even got them a gift," he admits, bashfully.
"You don't get anyone gifts." Alfonso laughs in good nature.
"Yeah, well...it wasn't anything special. Besides, Xavi won't return my calls. He doesn't want anything to do with me, never mind allow me to see our siblings."
"Xavi was hurt by you, Zeph. He feels betrayed," Alfonso says. "Perhaps if you guys were to reconnect, things would gradually improve," he suggests with a shrug.
"Xavi was hurt by the truth." Zephaniah corrects him. "And nothing in my power could change that."
"The truth was that you left him behind with no explanation," Alfonso insists.
"No," Zephaniah disagrees, with a humourless scoff. "No, the truth is far more complex than that."
— RORI —
Xavi's car pulls up in front us at around one am.
He took approximately seventeen minutes to get here, definitely driving over the speed limit in order to do so.
He immediately sets foot out of the car, not even bothering to close the door behind him as he rushes to meet my brothers and i on the sidewalk.
"What the hell happened to him?" he asks, in a pressing tone, when he sees the state of our older brother.
After Zephaniah fell unconscious, the other eleven men in the room were escorted out by security. They offered to call an ambulance for our brother but we refused, insisting we would drive him to the hospital ourselves.
Zephaniah remains unconscious even now; his heart beat irregular, arm draped over his younger brother's shoulder in order to keep him upright, and head resting on said shoulder also, giving the appearance that he has fallen asleep.
A rather wholesome image if it was actually the case, one which would leave me no choice but to tease him endlessly for the rest of our lives.
'Remember the time you fell asleep on Yakov's shoulder?' sure sounds better than 'Remember the time your drink got spiked and you fell into a deep state of unconsciousness?'...
Xavi is quick to assist us after finally coming to his senses, and Zephaniah is slowly lowered into the back seat of his car.
"It's hard to tell exactly what happened but i believe he could have been drugged. Hopefully nothing more," Yakov eventually answers him, ushering me to sit in the back seat with our brother.
I shudder, not exactly wanting to be near him right now, but begrudgingly sit down, regardless.
"What do you mean he could have been drugged?" Xavi slams his foot onto the pedal and a feeling of exhilaration courses through my entire body.
I take one long glance at Zephaniah, bewildered by the dishevelled state i find him in...head resting against the window, small beads of sweat dripping from his hairline, his tanned skin which is now closer to my pale, olive complexion.
Not to mention his legs, which are so, unnecessarily long, leaving barely any room for my own. If it were not for his ill-fit state, i would have shoved them away from my side of the vehicle.
I also take note of his gold signet ring, which sparkles every so often due to the melancholic glow of the street lights surrounding us, narrowing my eyes in curiosity, my mind sparking questions about what its meaning could be.
"The scotch he was drinking right before he fell unconscious, i believe it was laced with something," Yakov furthers his explanation. "It must have been."
Xavi's face appears in the rear-view mirror, scrutinising our older brother.
"What if he was poisoned?"
I audibly gasp, diverting their attention to myself.
"What do you mean poisoned?" i ask in a panicked cry. "He can't have been poisoned. Tell him, Yakov!"
"The chances are highly unlikely," he muses. "It was most likely a fast-acting drug."
Xavi locks eyes with mine.
"By the way, what was Rori doing at the club?"
Yakov glances at me for a brief moment, a sympathetic look making its way onto his face.
"She received a phone call from an unknown number earlier on, while she was out with her friends. She appeared at the club in a frantic state and ended up clashing with our brother, who had already drank half his body weight in alcohol by that point. She was trying to make him aware that the night would end badly if he were to remain at the club...Neither of us listened to her, and here we are."
The three of us are totally silent now, the only sound heard being that of the roaring engine, the gentle rainfall slowly making its way down the windows, and the windscreen wipers clearing my brothers' view.
Xavi is extremely worn out.
I can tell due to the lingering creases formed between his furrowed eyebrows and the dark circles which reside beneath his eyes.
I feel worn out too, and definitely look it, though it's nothing compared to he or my second eldest brother.
I'm glad i'm not the only person in my family who is suffering right now, as it makes me feel a weird sense of belonging.
I just wish those of us who are brave enough to offer help to others would also be willing enough to accept it.
I just wish we could relate to each other and have meaningful conversations without feeling shameful about it.
"As soon as we pull over, you'll give me your phone. I don't want you, or anyone else who is still under my care to be out after eight pm without an adult there. In fact, i don't want any of you to leave the house without letting me know first. Are we clear?"
I wordlessly nod.
"As soon as you received that call, you should have contacted one of us immediately. You know better than to lie to me, Rori. To lie to me about your safety, your whereabouts. What were you thinking?"
I knew it was coming.
The shouting, the lecture, and most likely the punishment too.
I know i messed up. I messed up big time, for all of us. I let my brothers down.
I always do.
And now, because of me, Zephaniah is going to hospital.
"Ever since you became a teenager, it's like disobeying me is all you wanna do," he says with a sigh. "I blame it on the environment. Back home, you wouldn't have gotten away with sneaking off to parties in the middle of the night, or...or God knows what it is you do," he continues.
"Xavi," Yakov interjects. "There's no need to take it out on your sister. How about, instead, you focus on getting Zephaniah to the hospital in one piece?" he advises.
"Yeah, whatever," Xavi dismisses him. "Ria, i'm not angry at you, okay? I know it seems that way, but i'm not...I'm just stressed. And Yakov's right, it's wrong of me to pin the blame on you."
— SUCKER PUNCH —
In my ideal world, i lead a perfectly normal life and have a perfectly normal family who each have perfectly normal occupations.
Unfortunately, the ideal world does not exist.
I wonder what would've happened tonight if i had not received the call.
If i had not showed up to the club, if Yakov had not led us to the room where Zephaniah was, would the outcome be a different one?
The fear on our faces as we witnessed him collapse to the ground...I thought he was going to die right there and then, to be honest, and i wonder if he thought the same.
Perhaps the look of remorse he gave me right before it happened was him showing me that he did.
Младший брат 💕
Today 01:00am
Hey, you okay?
Today 01:15am
Answer me, Rori.
Today 01:17am
We agreed to stay in touch, remember?
Today 01:23am
Why aren't you picking up my calls?Please let me know if you're okay.
• • •
Идиот 🤡
Today 01:27am
Could've at least taken me with u if u were gonna runaway or smn
Today 01:28am
Text Quen back rn. You're stressing him tf out and now i have to deal with him.
Today 01:31am
Ur such a cunt. He won't leave my room. Come home rn.
Today 01:31am
Idk man i'm 2 high for this shit and ur dumb af. Go fuck urself.
Today 01:31am
Fukcing cow
Today 02:47am
Love u. Pls don't kill urself.
• • •
As i scroll through each individual message on my phone, i begin to feel a wave of guilt and uneasiness pass through me.
My fingertips hover over the keyboard as i struggle to muster a valid response.
What am i supposed to tell them?
But before i can come up with one, Xavi snatches my phone from my hands.
"Hey! I was replying to a text!"
Both Yakov and Xavi roll their eyes at me.
"Don't cry," Xavi mocks. "You can reply later on."
I growl and reach for my phone, which he moves into the hand furthest away from where i am sitting.
"Behave, Rori," he placates, sternly.
"What are you going to do with it?" i ask.
"I'm going to see if i can trace the call," he answers.
"Oh," i say. "Well, when can i get it back?"
My brothers share a look of disappointment.
"Our brother is in hospital as we speak and all you care about is when you'll get your precious device back?"
"God, don't remind me." i groan into the palms of my hands. "Please don't remind me."
"Family of Mr Łabanowski?"
Our heads shoot up at the sound of the nurse's voice, and we are quick to follow her out of the claustrophobic waiting room.
We had been stuck in there for what felt like an eternity, not speaking to one another until Xavi confiscated my phone, too busy anticipating what the nurse would have to say about our brother.
"Is he okay? Is he awake?" i rush out at once.
"Yes, he's okay, and no, he's not awake at the moment," the nurse answers.
"Well? When will he be? What happened?"
"We found that he overdosed on sleeping pills. As well as that, there is way too much alcohol in his system. Given his past records, that's something he's going to have to watch out for and i advise you guys to help him control his intake. If drinking is a daily occurrence for Zephaniah and he finds himself relying on the alcohol, partying regularly, taking drugs and whatnot, maybe rehab is the place for him. Does your brother live alone, have a spouse?"
"No. He lives with me at the moment. He's been prone to sleepwalking in the past. It's not recommended that he lives by himself. And no, no spouse."
I lock eyes with Xavi, our eyebrows scrunched in confusion.
Rehab? Sleepwalking?
What the hell is going on?
The nurse talks further details with Yakov before finally leading us to Zephaniah's room.
It is a scene similar to the one i found Vinnie and Uvaldo in just a few weeks ago, as he lies there in the hospital bed, unmoving, an IV drip attached to his left arm.
His hair is ruffled in a classic 'just rolled out of bed' way and i know our teen brothers would be envious if they saw him right now, as they often try to achieve such look on purpose.
Some colour has returned to his skin also, which i am glad to see, but he is still paler than usual.
I don't think i have ever seen a more peaceful sleeper in my life.
In fact, i do not think i have witnessed peace until now.
There's something so comforting about seeing my eldest brother in such a vulnerable position; one where his mouth is curved upwards into a slight smile, rather than spouting childish remarks. One where he looks smaller than everyone around him, even though he is undoubtedly the tallest in the room.
When i was younger, i thought Zephaniah was some sort of superhuman who didn't need sleep like the rest of us.
He was forever sneaking out in the middle of the night, not returning until the early hours of the morning.
A lot of my brothers would sneak out to race cars, or go to parties with friends, but Zephaniah was the only one who snuck out to work at such late hours on a school night.
He really did do a good job to provide for us, i guess i have to give him credit for that, even if he was emotionally distant throughout his years of guardianship.
"Zephaniah's an alcoholic," i muse. "And...a sleepwalker,"
"Alcoholic is a strong word."
"And the correct one, apparently."
Yakov sighs, barely nodding his head in agreement.
"He's just...had a tough life. Has a tough life. It gets overwhelming."
"You think i don't know?" i raise an eyebrow at him. "Of course he's overwhelmed, the whole world is out to get him. Right? But we're in this together. He needs to quit it with the partying, and the alcohol, and the drugs. He needs us to be there for him as much as we need him to be there for us."
My brothers glance down at me with the same surprised look on their faces, a hint of fondness in their eyes.
"She's maturing," Xavi mumbles to himself.
"She is indeed," Yakov responds, gently placing his hand onto my shoulder, as he always does when he wishes to marvel at someone.
I have never felt this comfortable around my eldest brothers until now, albeit the most troublesome is asleep, and for the first time in a long time, it feels as if they are looking at me instead of past me.
Zephaniah always told us that the only person who could kill him and get away with it was himself.
And i never thought anything of it until tonight.
Sure, my brother was targeted. His drink spiked.
But suddenly, any fear of my Uncle killing him begins to dissipate as new thoughts spring to the fore-front of my mind.
Zephaniah has always been a 'go big or go home' character. He has always partied hard, and abused any substance he could get his hands on.
But when does it become too much?
Too late?
I'd like to see my brother turn thirty...and forty, and fifty, and so on.
But if his lifestyle doesn't soon change for the better, perhaps the only killer will be himself.
"The doctor will run tests on him in the morning," Yakov's voice breaks through my thoughts. "His heart beat has levelled out, which is a start."
I approach Zephaniah's bedside, eyeing the beads of sweat which glisten on his forehead.
"Do you think the temperature is too hot for him?" i ask. "He's sweating continuously."
"I'll mention it to the nurse." Yakov nods.
"What about water? There's no water by his bedside," i point out.
"He's not awake right—"
"When he wakes up, his throat will be parched. Get him some water. The best damn water you can find," i demand in a harsh tone, which surprises both me and my brothers.
"We will," Xavi agrees, to appease me. "And i promise you, Rori, he will be fine."
"Of course he will," i mumble, softly. "He's Zeph."
𝙰𝙿𝙿𝚁𝙾𝚇𝙸𝙼𝙰𝚃𝙴𝙻𝚈 𝙴𝙸𝙶𝙷𝚃 𝚈𝙴𝙰𝚁𝚂 𝙰𝙶𝙾...
The sound of glass smashing against tiled floor startles seven year old Rori wide awake.
She is for once grateful to be woken up, having experienced yet another nightmare.
Shouting follows soon after, but unusually, it is not her parents' voices she hears.
Instead, they belong to her three eldest brothers.
"The kids are sleeping, for fuck sake!" Xavi whisper-shouts at the eldest. "For the first time in forever, all of them are sleeping at once. Don't you dare ruin it, Zephaniah. I have an exam in the morning, i need fucking peace and quiet!"
Rori instantly clambers out of bed, gripping onto the paw of her stuffed toy Simba who she can't seem to part with.
"C'mon, Simba," she whispers to the stuffed animal. "We're going on an adventure!"
She hugs him tight against her small torso, the stuffing in his neck already wearing thin from the amount of cuddles the two have shared over the years.
Although each and every one of Rori's toys are precious to her, she considers Simba to be her favourite, which probably has something to do with her life-long obsession with The Lion King.
She isn't sure who it was that gifted her the stuffed animal, having had it since she was a mere baby. But it is only fitting considering the nickname her eldest brother gave her.
Piccola Leonessa.
Lions are surely the little girl's favourite animal, something she shares in common with him.
"You'll protect me if they catch us, right?" she asks the toy, moving it's head up and down so it appears to be nodding in response. "And i'll protect you too...We can both protect each other."
"To hell with those fucking kids and your fucking exam!" Zephaniah snarls from the other room.
Glass smashes once more and Rori flinches as she travels towards the sound.
Zephaniah is a bad boy, she thinks. The baddest boy in the whole, wide world.
According to Quentin, Zephaniah's first word was a curse word. A very infamous Russian curse word which the children had been warned to never say.
Not that they listened to their brothers...
"Go to Vanya's house, Zeph. Get out," Yakov demands.
"I had sex with her mother after we ended things, so no, i'd rather not," he answers, with a nonchalant shrug.
"You guys split?"
"You did what with her mother?"
He rolls his eyes.
"Whatever, doesn't matter."
It's at this moment Rori involuntarily makes her presence known, a quiet 'ow' escaping her mouth as she bumps into god knows what.
She really is a clumsy little thing.
Zephaniah raises his eyes to the sky, not in the hope to gain some patience but in the hope that karma will deal with his sister's habit of eavesdropping.
It takes him not even two seconds to reach for the door, open it, grab the back of his little sister's pyjama top and dangle her in the air.
"What did i tell you about prying ears?" he whispers into her ear, his tone of voice dangerously calm.
"They—they're the ones that get chopped off." she whimpers, helplessly kicking her feet in an attempt to break free, which causes the other two boys to laugh, despite themselves.
"And don't think i won't do just that," he threatens, his eyes lowering to meet that of her stuffed toy.
His eyes flick upwards and he greets his little sister with a devious smirk.
"You know what i think would hurt more than chopping off your measly little ears?" he asks her. "Something that would actually be worthwhile to teach you a lesson?"
Rori shakes her head in fear but quickly catches on when her brother snatches the toy from her grip, dangling it by the ear.
The boy laughs at her sullen expression.
Oh, how he loves to torment his younger siblings.
"If i have to deal with a crying seven year old at four o' clock in the morning, i might actually end your life," Xavi warns him.
"Be my guest." Zephaniah scoffs, reaching into his pocket to produce a pair of sharp, red scissors, before swiftly cutting off the lion cub's right ear.
(Edited)