The Bond of Brothers

“Do you ever sleep?” Kevin asked from across the kitchen table. Patrick sipped his coffee but did not meet his gaze, nor answer his question. They had already been through this a hundred times already.
“You know this isn’t good for you. You’re body is still healing and needs rest.”

“You’d make someone a good wife, Kevin.” Patrick glared over his cup. “You nag very well.”

“Hmmm. Someone took their asshole pill this morning?” His brother smirked.

“Goes great with coffee.” Patrick pushed himself away from the table to search for something sweet to eat. He was not in the mood to whip himself up anything, so he settled for a donut stick made by Little Debbie. Sinfully good shit. Kevin only shook his head as Patrick devoured his unhealthy choice for breakfast. The look of disapproval was not lost on him. He shrugged his shoulders. “I need to gain some weight back.”

“Well, keeping eating those and it will do the trick.” Kevin laughed. But those things sure did look tasty. Surely one would not hurt his waist line too much. Without asking permission, he snatched the box from Patrick’s hands and pulled him a treat out. “Not polite to eat in front of a guest.”

“Ha.” Patrick scoffed. “You ain’t a guest. Just a damn pain in my ass.”

“You boys seem to be in good spirits.” Elisa called to them as she kicked the kitchen door closed with the heal of her left foot. Patrick quickly took the paper bags from her and set them on the cluttered kitchen tabletop. Matt’s, as well as Patrick’s, things laid strode out in an untidy fashion. She sighed. So typical of the male species. “I got your prescription filled, Patrick.”

Kevin grinned as Elisa leaned over and gave Patrick a peck on the cheek. Patrick didn’t even flinch way or grimace from the act. He was making amazing strides, despite the limitations that had been dealt to him. “I offered to just knock him upside the head to get him asleep. He didn’t go for it.”

“Last time I got hit in the head, I went to sleep for three damn months!”

“Didn’t say it wasn’t risky.” Kevin could barely keep his laughing at a normal level. His smile widened as he teased Patrick. “Maybe it will restore your memory.”

“That only works in the movies, dumbass.” Patrick snorted. “Why don’t we try it on you first?” Kevin snorted back in response to that idea.

“I’m going to leave you two kids alone. Got some work I need to get done upstairs.” Elisa smiled warmly at them both. This was the happiest she had felt in a very long time. Things were not perfect, but Patrick was far better than when he first came home. There was a spark in him now and a gentleness that showed more often than his cruelty. He did not touch her like she wanted or say “I love you”, but she could wait as long as he needed her to for that to happen. And it was going to happen one day too.

Kevin took the prescription bottle and studied the label. “Rohypnol. Some strong shit. Can have some nasty side effects.”

“You a fucking pharmacist now?” Patrick jerked the medication from him playfully. He scanned the long word. “Ro..fff...what the fuck? I can’t even pronounce the damn name. Who the hell comes up with the friggen names of this shit? What do they do, grab a bunch of letter tiles from a scrabble game and toss them on the floor?”

“That would make sense.”

He scowled at the bottle while he read the caution label on it. “Think they do it to make us all feel stupid.”

Kevin glanced past Patrick to make sure that Elisa was no longer within ear shot. “I got something far better than this, Patrick. Guaranteed to help you sleep.”

“So is this stuff.” Patrick responded slowly, not really sure he wanted to hear the rest of what Kevin had to say. “See. Will cause drowsiness. In other words, fall on your ass. Night night time.”

“Yea.” His eyes narrowed as his lips curled into a mischievous smile. “But what I got will stop you from dreaming.”

“In an alarming yet effective way, you now have my full attention.” His mouth went dry and his pulse quickened. He had told his brother about the nightmares that had followed him home from the hospital. He had even asked for help, but expected none. Now he wasn’t sure if he should be gracious and accept or be cautious. But this was Kevin. His big brother. He could trust him. “Okay. What kind of magic pills you got?”

Kevin dug in his left pocket of his jeans and produced a small bag with the smallest white pills Patrick had ever laid his eyes on. The fact that they were in a baggy alarmed him. Kevin leaned in closer careful to keep his voice low just in case Elisa came back. “You know I would never do anything to hurt you, little brother.”

Patrick nodded his head slowly not taking his eyes off the pills. Kevin had his back, he knew that without a doubt. He had also been the first one he bonded with and the one person he felt normal around. “What are they?”

Kevin slid the baggy into Patrick’s smaller hand and clenched his brother’s first with his larger hand. “Not something you can get at a pharmacist.”

Patrick slid away from his brother and hid the forbidden gift in the pocket of his sweater. “I’ll think about it.” He said cautiously. He knew Kevin would not put him in harms way, but the idea of taking some unknown drug was a bit unnerving. He would try the prescription first and have these on standby, just in case.

Kevin nodded and signed loudly as he sat back in the dining room chair. “So what’s on the agenda little brother?”

Patrick sipped his coffee and started out the bay window. He eyed the grounds and the workshop. “Think it’s time to do a little exploring.”

***********************************

Kevin followed Patrick out the back and down the finely manicured yard to the wooden shop that still smelt new. He stepped into the darkness closely behind Patrick, who stumbled to find the light switch. In a matter of seconds the rectangular room filled with light. It wasn’t what Patrick had been expecting. It wasn’t filled with remains of half finished projects. The floor was made of white cement and not a speck of dirt could have been found with a magnifying glass. Shelves were built along both long walls and they each contained boxes of neatly organized items. Everything had its proper place in here. “God. I was like a fucking neat freak.”

“Never ever thought of you as that.” Kevin chided. He pulled a box from a shelf closest to him. In it were sets of pictures from the bands previous tours. Each had been placed in a folder marked with a date and year. And everything was tagged and in order. He set that aside and found one marked as music sheets. Hundreds of crisp sheets filled with notes and lines that made very little sense to him. Patrick only glanced at it and shrugged his shoulder.

“Looks like chicken scratch.”

“Guess writing music helped you relax.” Kevin offered, but Patrick couldn’t agree or disagree. Stuff didn’t mean anything to him now. He stopped as Patrick examined a box that did not seem to fit in with the others. The younger man stared at the closed lid, lost somewhere in thought. “What’s that?”

“It’s not marked.” He muttered. After a brief hesitation, he lowered himself to the floor and opened up the package. This one was not neatly organized like the others. Newspaper clippings were mixed with pictures and pieces of paper. Patrick pulled out a random piece of folded notebook paper. Words were scratched out in pen in his handwriting. It was a letter to Elisa. “Love letters?”

“Not just that.” Kevin squatted down beside him and took out a piece of the torn newspaper. He blanched slightly, which Patrick noticed quickly.

He took it from Kevin before he could protest. A picture of a mangled Jeep was there above a caption in small print. Fall Out Boy fights for life after near fatal crash. “Man.” He had never asked about the Jeep. Tried to not think about what happened that night at all. Now, he looked in twisted awe at the mangled wreckage that no longer even slightly resembled a vehicle. Just how the hell did he manage to survive that?

Kevin, for once, was silent. He didn’t study the photograph of contorted metal. “They said the speedometer was stuck on 87. You were going way too fast on wet roads. Like a man with something after him.” He paused watching Patrick flip through the rest of the papers, all with articles about him. His eyes darkened as he scanned words that described the Patrick of this group. “You remember anything about that night now? Dream about it maybe?”

This was a subject he always avoided. Enough so that most people had given up trying to bring it up. Kevin was tentative about bringing it up now, but they were both faced with it. Patrick couldn’t hide from this forever. He let the papers fall back on top of the pile. His eyes rose, but didn’t fix on anything in particular around him. He pushed everything from his mind and concentrated on the one thing he had been able to recall. He winced as the remnants of burning lights flashed in his mind. “Too bright for it to be so dark.”

“What is making it so bright, Patrick?” It was hard to get the words around the hard knot in his throat. Talking about this made his almost as anxious as Patrick. His palms began to sweat while his eyes darted from the box and back to him.

His eyes squinted and lines creased his forehead like a man trying hard to recall fine details. But it wasn’t just that. The world around him began fuzzy, and all he could see was darkness. Kevin was no longer beside him. He was very much alone that night. More alone than he had ever been. He didn’t have to close his eyes to perform this trick. He wasn’t even aware that he was doing it. He was lost in blackness with the sound of rain filling the empty space around him. Then a soft green glow developed. His vision was not clear forcing him to peer closer. Numbers. Gages. Gas gage. Almost on empty. His view panned to his right and he could make out the vacant passenger seat. “Tan leather. Still smells new. CD player. No music is playing. Rain and lightening.”

“Lightening is the source of the brightness?” Kevin could swear that his heart was skipping beats to an erratic drum rhythm.

“No.” Patrick shook his head. Tiny beads of perspiration trickled down to the collar of his sweat shirt. He didn’t even seem to notice it. He felt his breath catch in his chest and a cry of desperation locked in his throat. He saw the rearview mirror. There was the source. Beams bounced off the glass and blinded him. “Headlights on high beam.”

“Another vehicle.” Kevin muttered. “What else?”

He swallowed back the panic and shook away the images. It was over. He was no longer trapped in that nightmare. He had survived that. Yet, he could not shake away the dread that clung to his gut and snaked its away around his heart. “If I stopped, I would have been dead.”

“So, you were being chased?” Kevin asked. “By who? A crazed fan? Paparazzi?”

“I don’t know.” Patrick scowled at hum and turned away. With a swift kick, he launched the box into the air sending it against the wall. His temper flared, and he focused it directly towards the man with him. “This is not a fucking joke! I don’t know what was happening that night. But I was scared. Scared of something. Shit. It’s like this shadow I can see out of the corner of my eye. The truth is there, but I’m not fast enough to catch it. No matter what I fucking do, I can’t.”

“Just calm down, Patrick.” He took him by the shoulders and shook him briskly. “You’re trying too damn hard. Let’s just put this away for now. You don’t have to remember it all today.”

“That’s not what the guys would say.” Patrick said bitterly as he tried to twist out of Kevin’s grasp. “They want me to remember so they can get their precious Patrick back. It’s like their fucking lives depend on it. Fuck the fact that I’m here now. It’s not good enough for them.”

“Whoa, buddy.” Kevin snatched his agitated brother and yanked him back to a sitting position on the ground. “Where is this coming from? They only want you to get better. That’s what we all want.”

“I know that!” He spat at him. His cheeks flushed like a child in mid-tantrum. “But I know why they do. Cause of goddamn Fall Out Boy. They don’t give a damn about anything else. Their fucking careers are on hold because of me, and they can’t stand that.”

“This isn’t about them. Isn’t about the group either.” Kevin knelt to his knees and forced Patrick to look directly at him. “What the hell, Patrick?”

“I don’t want to remember.” He blurted out, tears breaking free and flowing like a flooding river. “I don’t want to remember who I was before. I don’t want to know what happened that night. It’s better to just not know. I don’t want the career. I don’t want them as my friends! I don’t want any more goddamn phone calls from people asking when we are we going out on tour.”

Kevin gently wiped the tears from Patrick chin and pulled him into a tight hug. “It’s okay. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I’ll tell the guys to lay off. This is still just way too much for you. It doesn’t matter to me if you remember what happened. I’m just happy you’re here now.”

He sobbed hard in Kevin’s arms. After months of bundling all of these thoughts and feelings, he finally broke down. He didn’t want to say these things to anyone, but it was the ugly painful truth. He couldn’t help the way he felt. Only Kevin understood that. Elisa tried to see things from his view point, but that was never really a possibility.

His sobs died away. He sniffed and rubbed the sleeve of his shirt over his face. He had needed to do that for a very long time. Those tears had been gathering since he woke up from the coma. It was just a matter of time before he could no longer hold them back. Kevin released his hold and sat back on the cold floor. He looked relieved, instead of worried. This crying fit would have sent Elisa in to a state of panic. Instead of just sitting there and letting him get it out of his system, she’d be on the call to that doctor. That was not what he needed right now. “Thanks.”

“No prob.” Kevin smiled easily. “What’s a pain in the ass brother for.”

“Were we always this close?” Patrick asked. Kevin paused, not sure of just how to answer him. “When we were kids, I mean.”

“Most of the time.” He said. “Wasn’t always so easy to stay close to you when you hit the teen years. You were always on the road.”

“That would make it difficult.”

“Before you left for the last tour, we had become really good friends again brother” Kevin continued. He figured there was no harm in talking about this, since Patrick did ask. But he knew he had to tread lightly. Patrick’s emotions were still way too unpredictable. “Once the touring started, I hardly ever saw you. None of us did. The music career became numero uno. But we didn’t fault you for that. Hell, if I had the chance, I would have taken it too. But....”

Patrick cocked an eye at him. “But?”

Kevin sighed as he played with the shoe lace on his left boot. “I hated that you left. And I’m glad that you’re here now and not so anxious to rejoin them. I finally got you back in my life. And I’m a little selfish, because I don’t want you to leave it again.”

Patrick rose to his feet and went to the box that contained the hundreds of photographs of the band. He tossed the lid aside and pulled out a folder. These pictures were all professionally done. Perhaps taken to be put in a book or tour guide. He looked at the lavish set. Studied the costumes he wore. There was always a huge smile on his face. He looked happy being there. Pete leaned close to him in one, with his arms wrapped around his neck. They were best friends then. He could tell by the expressions on each of their faces. This was what Pete wanted back so badly. Patrick set the box down and turned back to his brother. “I’m not going to leave again.”

“What?” Kevin asked, a little confused.

“Fall Out Boy are over with.” Patrick stated firmly and void of any emotions. It was easy, like flicking off a light. He walked out of the shop and turned his back on that part of his life. Everything else be damned. This was who he was now. If the guys didn’t like it, they could go fuck themselves. He couldn’t have cared less. Besides, he didn’t know how to sing anymore. What use could he be to them now?