So… zero hour on this fic is fast approaching, and I finally hit my goal today. I swear to you all this is the last week I’ll post snippets because I’ll be posting it FOR REAL starting very soon.
Thank you for all you support, encouragement, and enthusiasm. This has been a process and I can’t wait for you all to see what we (yes, we) have made here :)
Phillip read them through, one after the next, then stacks them neatly. He moved back closer to his brother, perching on the edge of the window sill. Henry didn’t show any sign of seeing him. The only movement in him was the rise and fall of his chest, the flare of his nostrils as he breathed.
He took Henry’s hand, pressing the paper pieces into his palm. “Haz?”
Henry’s eyes flickered to his face. Dull; unseeing or unfeeling, Phillip didn’t know. The sight nearly stole his voice from him. He’d never known his brother without the glimmer of something else in his face – mischief, glee, thoughtfulness, even anxiety or melancholy. Now his expressions were as still and closed as the dead.
Phillip pressed forward, comforted only by the living warmth in Henry’s pale skin. “These are good.”
Henry blinked. There had always been something. The nothingness was horrific.
“You were always a good writer,” Phillip offered a frail smile. “Good enough for Oxford.”
Henry’s fingers closed over the papers, then pulled away. Phillip let him, but didn’t retreat. Pulling the pencil from his ear, he held it out to Henry. He was relieved when his brother took it.
“You should keep writing,” Phillip said. “Not to talk with anyone else, but for you.” He looked down at his own hands, massaging his knuckles for the sake of something to do. “If I got you a notebook, Haz…”
Henry inhaled sharply. He was still gallows-eyed, but there was a bit more life there; dull, sleeping, sluggish but a kernel of something.
Phillip grabbed at it faster than he’d ever done before. “If I got you a notebook, would you write in it?”
Henry blinked twice, then his gaze slid to his closed hand. His eyes found Phillip’s again. His head moved in a barely-there nod; so subtle Phillip wondered if it was, perhaps, the rocking of Henry’s pulse moving his body. It wasn’t, and it grew, became more obvious before cutting off completely.
Phillip pushed up off the window, then paused at Henry’s side. Compulsion overtook him and he leaned down to kiss his brother on the top of the head – the same way their father had done with each of them a hundred times before. It came naturally. He swore Henry, for all his stillness, leaned into the touch.
“I’ll be back.” Phillip grabbed his small billfold from the table and left quickly.
