#cry.

They had a messy home life during their childhood, their father left a few years after Houston’s birth and after that, their mother became emotionally unavailable, leading to her being neglectful, ultimately leaving Houston in Dallas’ care

Because of that, they had a strong sibling bond, even if it was sometimes difficult, it was like the two of them against the world

Dallas usually hung out around shady people, therefore picking up smoking from them as a young adult, those people eventually roped him into the Chicago mob

After joining the mob, he wanted to keep Houston safe from the mess he was in, he abandoned him completely, thinking it’s the only way to keep him out of harms way

Houston never knew about Dallas joining the mob, all he knew is one day his older brother never returned home. He couldn’t help but think he did something bad to make him leave without saying a word

As Houston grew older, that thought of him being the reason Dallas left dissipated and instead turned into resentment towards him. He trusted him with everything he had and he just disappeared. The betrayal resulted in him building walls around himself, developing trust issues and avoiding closeness/intimacy as a whole

Houston learning to raise himself caused him to feel a constant need to be independent, so as soon as he was old enough he applied for jobs, but due to not being able to hold one for long, he turned to a life of crime, resulting in a lot of enemies and loan sharks on his tail

Dallas by that time was leading the Payday gang, after Hoxton’s arrest he caught word of his younger brother also taking on a life of crime due to struggling financially. He invited him to join the gang in order to have a member in place of Hoxton and in hopes of making up for all the lost years. Houston took the opportunity but only as a last resort to escape his loan sharks

Dallas is desperately trying to apologise for leaving him behind and get to know about his brother and his life again, Houston remains closed off for a long time and avoids Dallas whenever he can, trying to keep their relationship professional. In reality, he’s afraid of getting close with his brother again, because he doesn’t want to be left behind or feel hurt by him again

Even after Houston warmed up to the gang and got used to the idea of his brother being around, he still isn’t fond of him referring to him as “little brother” or “Franklin”, trying to talk to him about his personal life or even the occasional squeeze of the shoulder.