InsaneJournal

Summary: Alec is in college and his brother is just a vague memory he's tried to forget. When Dustin reenters his life, it's with a man Alec always dreamed of meeting. He has to take a good hard look at the past, his father and his upcoming career in law enforcement. Where has Dusty been for three years...

Warnings: Angst, physical and mental abuse *Note* This is told from Alec's POV, except for the parts marked Dusty



~*~*~Chapter One~*~*~ 

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I don't know how old my brother is.

Saying it that way, realizing the fact seems unusual, doesn't it? But I honestly have no idea; there was never a birthday mentioned, never a card or a cake the whole of his growing up.

Who knows how old a dish is, or a sofa or a lamp? You have to understand, I grew up with him in the background...not the background of my life, just the backdrop of the house we lived in, my father and I. It seemed normal to me. He was a barely functional person; a fixture.


I've told people that I have no brothers or sisters, not lying...just...he didn't count as one. I think I was even a little embarrassed. I didn't know any other kids with blind, retarded siblings who spent their days talking to themselves in their rooms.

My mother died at his birth and he nearly did, too. I remember more about him from back then than I did the ten or so years after. Mainly, I think, because my father hired someone to care for him when he arrived home from the hospital. Her name was Amy. She lived with us for almost three years and she took care of me, too. I needed it back then, losing Mom had hit me hard. I wasn't very old, four or five or so when she died, and I didn't understand how something that was supposed to have been such a great event in our lives had turned out so horrible.

My father went from an energetic, loving parent to one who came home from work and poured a drink before even taking his coat off. Not that he was a drunk, mind you, he was...suffering. He didn't laugh or smile much anymore. He would sometimes hold me, let me sit close and he listened to me, but he didn't play anymore, didn't tease me or tickle me and God, how I missed it.

The home I was used to was gone. We had a big, beautiful house in a neighborhood of big, beautiful homes, but it wasn't beautiful to me anymore. It was now a dark, quiet and depressing version of the place where I was once happy. I rarely invited friends, I went to their houses whenever possible.

My father's friends stopped coming. Everyone stopped coming, even my grandparents.

After all, they were her parents, not his.

His parents, my other grandparents, lived out east somewhere, about as far from Oregon as one could get and they sent me cards on my birthday, but I had never seen them. At least I don't remember seeing them, my father said I did when I was first born. They were at Mom's funeral, but I was in too much shock during that time, there was just too much I didn't understand for me to pay much attention to people I didn't know.

I wasn't even in school yet, what did people expect? There were so many touching me, telling me my mother was in heaven, it was all very confusing. It seemed they all thought I knew where this heaven was. I didn't. I wanted to know more about it, how far away was it, when would she come back...could I visit her? But all the crying and the sympathy was overwhelming in a terrifying way. I was scared to ask questions, not sure I wanted to hear the answers.

Dusty, though. That's what his name was. Although it was rarely used in later years. If my father or I spoke to him it was 'Hey, the toast is too well done' or 'Hey, I need clean socks for tommorow' and he knew we meant him. So, really, 'Hey' sort of became his name.

He was blind, my father said, from the injury he got being born. Cerebral palsy. He couldn't learn normally, he also said, was little more than a vegetable and we should, by all rights, put him away somewhere.

That sentence scared the hell out of me, put away somewhere.

Right up there with put down or put to sleep.

Sentences that meant something more sinister than they sounded. So, my father was a saint in my eyes because he kept Dusty home, taught him things and put up with him. I thought the little creature was lucky not have a father who would put him away somewhere, despite how much he may have deserved it.

Yes, that was how I thought when I was little, for his coming had signaled the beginning of unhappiness, and my father seemed to blame Dusty, too. So it was no wonder that his birthday wasn't any cause for celebration, not for either of us. It was my mother's deathday, the day much of the warmth in our lives ended and we didn't need him to be a reminder. As it was, his presence was little more than an annoyance, so when Amy moved out Dusty started to fade away from my mind as well.

Everything was his fault, my father made that subtly, but unmistakeably clear. Yet, I knew it wasn't as if he'd done it on purpose. I didn't like him or dislike him. As a fixture, I guess he was okay.

You see, he whined all the time at first, when Amy was first gone. My father kept him locked in his room most of the time, it wasn't safe for him to wander, sightless, around the house. My father explained it to me, why he had to slap him so much, so he didn't get himself killed, or worse, all of us by lighting the house on fire or something.

I understood. My father had never slapped me. He wasn't mean, he was just concerned. It was necessary, he explained, like spanking a puppy with a rolled up newspaper, the only thing that got through to the weak-brained.

I barely noticed my father training him after awhile, Dusty was just so submissive, so quiet, and my father told me it was for his own good, to give his simple mind something to do. I thought it was nice of him, to care enough to even try to teach my brother anything.

So, over the years Dusty learned to make coffee and then to make toast, and then to cook actual meals, eventually. I wondered how anyone could do that blind, but my father explained that he could distinguish light and dark, watching him though, I suspected he saw more than that. My father insisted it was just repetition and routine.

Dusty cleaned up after us, wordlessly, staying in the shadows, in the background as much as he could. He did laundry, he swept the floors and vacumned. In accordance with his training, he never spoke.

Not that he couldn't talk. On occasion, passing his room, I heard him chatting away to himself, but around us, never. He even walked silently. He had learned my father's lessons on being quiet very well. He didn't eat with us, he ate at the far end of the counter standing up in case we needed anything. He didn't watch TV with us for obvious reasons. When he had nothing to do, he was banned to his room for everyone's safety, and when my father was at work or out, his bedroom door was locked from the outside. I think Dusty slept a lot.

It was many years later, that I once again noticed him. Because something was terribly wrong with him. And he spoke to me. Dusty spoke to me, startling me.

It brought back a memory of...of...

I had put it out of my mind... but I had been, maybe twelve, thirteen at the time.

It had been late at night, way past my bedtime, but my stomach was sick and I had gotten up and headed for the bathroom, stopped outside the closed door by the sounds within. Odd noises they were, Dusty was crying, choking and I thought maybe he was sick, too. My father was with him, not a surprise, he took care of Dusty. I could hear him, he was making odd grunting sounds that reminded me of a tennis match on fast forward.

I didn't have much time to wonder, I clamped a hand to my mouth and twisted the knob to get in. It was locked...why would it be locked? Neither my father nor I ever locked the bathroom door.

Then, I heard my father's strangely strangled voice, telling me to wait a minute and he didn't sound happy. Neither was I, I didn't have a minute, I'd held it back as long as I could. My stomach lurched and emptied itself right there outside the door, and that was when it opened.

Dusty was kneeling on the floor, his eyes wide and blacker than I'd ever seen them and he was shaking all over with tears running down his face. He was gasping, his face was red and so was my fathers.

I stood there, puzzled, and opened my mouth to speak; that was when my father hit me, square across the face, stinging my eyes. He'd never struck me before. I was too stunned to cry. He grabbed Dusty's arm and pulled him up so roughly I thought his arm would break, then he stormed out, dragging Dusty with him.

"That's what you get," my father growled at my astonished expression, "for listening at doors. Now fucking go back to bed before you get punished, too."

It was all so surreal. He hadn't cared that I was sick; he'd made no acknowledgment of the mess I'd made; very strange. I heard him hit Dusty, hard enough to make me wince, and I heard the sharp little whimpering cry of his but I was so scared that I just hurriedly cleaned up everything with clean towels, threw them in a corner of my room for Dusty to take care of, and I slunk back in to bed.

The next morning my father apologized without any explanation. All he said was that maybe it would be best if he sent Dusty away.

I asked no questions. Of course, or should I say, as usual, this had somehow been my brother's fault, even if I didn't understand how. With time and with everything seemingly back to normal, the incident lost its importance, as in I lost my fear of it. Dusty stayed. I guess my father's heart softened. I was glad for that much.

Dusty faded into the background again, and he remained unobtrusively there until I was a senior in high school. I had things on my mind besides family. Even my father had faded from importance in my life by this time, and I didn't question the change in either of us. I had friends, I had a social life that kept me from being home much on weekends. At the same time, neither was my father home much, he went out at night frequently, and often for most of the weekend. Dusty went with him. What did it matter to me if they weren't around? I took care of myself.

I mean, my father never even came to see me play. Not once. I had made varsity that year, varsity, for fuck's sake, not bad for a kid five foot eight who was an aberrant ball hog. I could leap, that's how I made it, I could jump like you wouldn't believe. And I was quick. Okay, so my father isn't interested in basketball, fine. But he wasn't interested in me. It's not like I was good enough for a sports scholarship or anything, but I was his only child. Or the closest thing to it. It would have meant a lot to me.

What did he even know about me? Nothing. He didn't know the names of my friends. Not even my best friend. Jason Halbrook. He didn't know how many girls I've dated. None. How many boys I wanted to date. Two. He didn't know the subjects at school that I was good at. Algebra and English. Or the ones I sucked ass at. Geometry and Chemistry. He didn't know the college I'd applied to. Everest. Or even what I wanted to study. Criminal Investigation.

Most fathers know that stuff. Maybe not about dating boys. But the rest of it, yeah. When I'd informed him that I wanted to go to college, he'd simply smiled and said fine and told me to let him know when to bring out the checkbook. How could I complain?

Life went on as usual. Except Dad left me alone most of the time. I never saw him talk to my brother, despite all the time they now spent together. He just took him with him everywhere, which I suppose I should have felt was strange, but I just thought he didn't want a blind kid alone so much. I guess he just didn't have the energy to care for both of us, and Dusty needed him more.

Maybe he was dating, I didn't know and I didn't really care. I could play the same game he did. Dad became my obliging roommate who conveniently paid the bills.

There was a difference, a slight one. I noticed it, without attaching much significance. Dusty had become a nervous wreck, shaking all the time and the injuries I was so used to, the bruises on his face seemed to have gotten worse. Long ago, my father had explained that Dusty looked that way--banged up that way-- because he ran into things all the time. It had made sense to me despite the fact I had never actually seen him bump into anything.

Then, the real shock came, when one morning Dusty spoke to me.

Startled, I looked at him, into his large, brown eyes that I couldn't tell were blind, and they gazed back, directly into mine as if they were searching.

"Alec?" Dusty had said very softly, churning up those memories, bringing with them a sort of anxiety that I didn't like. "Please, don't send me away."

I wondered how to respond to him. How much did he even understand? When was the last time I had even spoken to him? Not to mention that he had sounded so normal I was taken aback.

"I won't," I said, lamely.

Dusty nodded and took a long deep breath, whispered thanks, then he didn't say anything else. But the next weekend, my brother was gone, just like that.

My father told me he had left to live with others like him in some sort of group home and that he would be happy there.

I asked my father where. He said Utah. The conversation ended. I hoped Dusty would be happy. I couldn't say I'd really miss him.

Now to the reason I'm dragging up all these memories. It's been three years since my little brother was sent away, and I think back on everything because I just met Dusty again. In my living room.

Not to mention the tall, incredibly handsome god whose arm my brother's hands were locked around. 

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Next - Chapter Two