1. Broken Brothers
-Josh-
“Come on… Almost there…” I muttered quietly, holding onto my brother’s arm tightly as he tried to keep hopping forward one step at a time.
He didn’t say a word, but he couldn’t stay silent. The quiet whimpers broke my heart, but we couldn’t stop. We were still out in the open and gaining nasty looks.
“Almost there…” I repeated for the hundredth time.
The weather was still bad after a week full of storms. It was still raining lightly, and our clothes were completely wet. I wished we could’ve stayed home, but we’d needed water, food, and especially money… But we weren’t really able to get any because after so many shitty days, the stores and shelters had stayed closed to deal with damages and flooding. Maybe if we could’ve walked further, we would’ve found a place that was still open, but…
I peered at my brother, who was struggling to keep walking…
I just wanted to… I was so fucking tired of living like this…
Finally, the corner of an alleyway leading to our hiding place came to our view. I started looking around, making sure no one was following us, but in the dark, it was hard to tell if there was someone watching us in the shadows. Most of the windows surrounding us were already dark, and the few people passing us by didn’t seem to care about us… Much…
“Fucking dirty brats…” some old dude muttered angrily while walking past us.
We did nothing to him… We just wanted to get back home…
I tried to steel my heart against the nasty glances, and also my brother’s pained sounds. We just had to get home…
“I can’t… Josh…” Alex said in a weak voice, sniffing. “Please…”
I gritted my teeth together and forced him to take the few last steps to the corner, and as soon as we rounded it, I lifted him up in my arms and kept walking. He wrapped his arms around my neck and started crying silently against my shoulder, repeating how sorry he was over and over again.
“Almost there…” I only said, but this time to myself.
He was scrawny, too thin and too short for a fourteen-year-old alpha, so he didn’t weigh much… The problem was that I was too thin and too short for a fifteen-year-old alpha, so the only reason I managed to carry him back into our nest was because I was too stubborn to give up.
I reached the old, crumbling grocery store that sane people had abandoned years ago. It looked far from one now after homeless people had spent all that time building their own spaces with whatever bricks and planks and tarps they’d found to get at least a little privacy from others. Now it was a dystopian hut village with narrow pathways and one large common area in the middle of it all.
It seemed like almost everyone was at home, and none of them paid attention to us as I walked past them to our corner by the back wall. Once we reached our small hut, I finally let Alex down. Or more like dropped him… My arms shivered uncontrollably, and for a moment, I could only feel pain. I ignored it and told Alex to get inside. Our doorway was so small and so low we had to crawl through to get inside our nest, put together with four large wooden pallets and several planks as walls, and a tarp as our roof. It was barely big enough for one person. Alex immediately curled up into a ball on his bed on the left, while I sat down on mine on the right. The hut wasn’t wide enough to fit a whole mattress in, so we’d cut one we’d found in a ditch in half so we both had a soft place to sleep.
“Do you have any dry clothes?” I asked him, but he shook his head. “Dammit…”
Neither of us had. Whatever clothes we had were drying above us, but after a week of chaotic rainfall, they just refused to dry. But maybe something was dry enough…
But I didn’t want to stand up. I needed to catch my breath first… And wait for my arms to stop trembling in agony… While I waited, I watched Alex, who was trying to calm himself down. He was cold, exhausted, and hungry… And new bloodstains covered his skin everywhere, as always…
“Where does it hurt?” I asked him gently.
“My right foot…” he whispered, still crying and sniffing quietly.
“I’ll check it, but give me a moment first…”
“Okay…”
I tried to stretch a little to ease my own pain, but while I was at it, Alex tried to reach for his hair. I quickly grabbed his hand to stop him.
“Don’t scratch it,” I told him for the millionth time.
“It’s so bad… It’s so bad…” he whispered, already rocking himself back and forth in his hellish agony of pain and itch.
“Okay, okay, okay… I’ll take a look,” I told him soothingly. “I’ll take a look…”
I tried to hold him gently, but fuck, his skin condition was getting worse and worse in this fucking weather… His hands were so dry his skin felt like sandpaper, and he had dozens of bleeding cracks all over his fingers and especially around his knuckles. Many of his fingertips had cracked open, and as his skin was drying even more, the deeper those wounds became. He could barely touch anything because it hurt so bad… The rest of his body wasn’t any better…
I quickly took a look at his blond, patchy hair, and the fucking bloody mess that lay under it. He’d been scratching again… His hair and scalp were so fucking dirty I had to pull away from the smell…
“We’ll try to find a shower tomorrow, okay?” I told him soothingly. “Maybe someone has soap we can use…”
“It just makes it worse…” he cried quietly.
“I know, I know, but… We have to wash this mess…” I said, while I turned around to grab his shoes. “Try to stay still now, okay?”
“O-okay…”
I let out a breath and closed my eyes. I was so tired… But he was my little brother… I had to take care of him first…
I was just so fucking tired…
“Here goes…” I warned him and carefully pulled his sneaker off.
His entire body tensed in pain, and while he did his best to stay silent, he couldn’t quite hold them all back… I knew it was bad… Really bad this time…
And if his hair smelled bad…
I gagged silently, turned away, then tried to man up. Fucking hell… Once I was sure I wasn’t going to throw up – if I even had anything to throw up in my system – I looked at his foot. It was so bad… It was so fucking bad…
“It’ll be all right. We still have some salve left,” I told him, making sure he couldn’t see why he’d been unable to walk.
There was a huge chunk of thick, dried layer of skin tearing off his heel… Among so many other cracks and wounds beneath all the dead layers of skin. There wasn’t a lot of blood, it was barely getting past the layer of dirt, but… I felt nauseated… It had to hurt so much… Did we even have water so I could wash the dirt off? No? Fuck…
Fuck…!
“It’ll be all right… I’ll try to get us some bandages tomorrow, okay? And I think we need more salve…” I told him soothingly. “We just need to get some sleep first, okay?”
“Okay…” he whispered.
“I’ll go ask if anyone has water for us. Try to stay still and rest, okay? And don’t scratch anything, okay?”
“Okay…”
“Good… Good, good…” I muttered and faced the doorway.
I was getting dizzy from hunger and lack of sleep, but I had to treat his wounds first…So… I crawled back out and went to ask our neighbors if anyone had a water bottle to spare. Most of them were asleep already and yelled at me to get the fuck off if I tried to wake them up. There was light in the middle of the village, so I hoped that at least someone was still awake.
But when I got closer, my stomach twisted unpleasantly… Our community had gotten a few new members in the past few weeks, and I wasn’t sure I liked these people. Three of them were at the center, laughing like they had no worries in the world. But they weren’t alone… There were a few older alpha ladies that were friendly to me and Alex, so I had to go talk to them. I just really didn’t like these new guys…
I approached the lights, and eventually, the five of them spotted me. They all had beer cans in their hands, but they didn’t seem too drunk. Just tipsy.
“Josh! Come say hi,” said one of the ladies, Helga, and gestured for me to come closer. Once I got to her, she offered me an unopened can. “Want a drink?”
“No, thanks,” I said, trying to avoid the three dudes. “I could use water though. It’s for Alex.”
“I think I have a few bottles in my house,” she said, giving me a friendly smile. “Sorry, it’s not much. I couldn’t get any bandages for you, either.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “And thanks for the water. You’re an angel.”
“Water? Pffft! Water is for kids!” one of the new guys said and let out a snotty laugh. “You’re a man! Have some beer with us!”
“The water is for my brother, Alex,” I told him coldly, finally facing him.
“The sickly kid? Face flaking off?” the guy asked with a frown.
I had to fight to hold my tongue. These three alphas were bigger and older than me. I just had to go get the water and go back to Alex.
“He has a skin condition,” I said, trying to sound calm.
“And he’s your brother?” the guy said.
I lifted my chin. “Yes.”
The guy stared at my very black skin, then looked back up at me. “I hate to break it to you, but I think one of your parents cheated.”
All three burst into mad laughter. Fucking drunks… Yes, Alex was white, and we’d known each other only for a few years, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t my brother, my family. I just rolled my eyes at their stupid joke, thanked Helga one more time, then headed to her hut.
“No, no, no! Wait, wait, wait!” the guy shouted after me, still laughing. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! We’re just a bunch of idiots, okay? Please come back! Have a beer with us! We have something we want to talk to you about!”
I slowed down. “What?”
“Business opportunities,” the guy said, and I heard him getting up on his feet. “We’ve got friends who need our help from time to time, and they got money to pay for our trouble.”
I stopped and slowly turned around. “What kind of help?”
He grinned and stepped closer. “Easy stuff. We usually need to just deliver stuff or stalk someone or sometimes cause a scene here and there. The money is good.”
He pulled out a roll of twenties out of his pocket. A thick roll at that. The medical salve Alex needed was around ten bucks for two weeks…
But my alpha didn’t like this guy at all. Even now, it stayed deep in the darkness, watching him carefully and avoiding his alpha. And I didn’t like this guy any more than it did…
“Why would you want me in on it? It would mean less money to you,” I noted.
“Trust me, there’s more of this where it’s coming from. They have a lot of things going on in this city, and we can’t be everywhere at once. Some gigs require a bigger crowd, too. So? Interested?”
I peered at the money. It sounded so easy…
“Who are these friends of yours?” I asked.
He snorted, still smiling, and put the money away. “Look. If you’re not interested, you’re not interested. I get it. I’ll just go ask someone else.”
I gritted my teeth together when he turned his back on me and headed to his seat.
“Maybe I am,” I said before I could stop myself. “I don’t have to decide right now, right?”
He glanced at me over his shoulder, then smiled. “Of course not. We can talk another time. Go help your little brother.”
I nodded and hurried to find the water bottles in Helga’s hut. Once I had them, I headed back home.
Alex was still awake and still sniffing under his small blanket, trying to get warm when I returned. He didn’t move, and he didn’t look up at me when I sat next to him.
“I got us some water. You should drink a little,” I told him.
He slowly reached for the bottle I was holding, but didn’t drink. He just stared into nothingness in front of him. He looked like he was just about to lose his mind. The itching was driving him into lunacy, and I feared I was going to lose him. I feared he was going to kill himself just to get away from it…
I couldn’t lose him…
“Look… I know it’s scary, but maybe we should go see a doc–”
“No!” he shouted and sprung up, his eyes filled with fear and desperation. He grabbed me by my wrists with tears streaming down again. “No. Please. I’m fine. I can deal with it. The weather is already getting better! Please, I don’t want to–”
“Okay, okay, okay,” I said soothingly, freeing myself from his grip so I could take his hands in mine. “It’s okay. We’ll just figure things out on our own.”
His breathing was still rapid, but he was calming down now. His eyes were still tense, but the desperation and fear were fading.
“You know what they’ll do if we go there…” he whispered and sniffed hard.
“Maybe they won’t break us apart,” I tried, even though that was my biggest fear as well. It just hurt to see him in so much pain and agony… “We can ask them not to tell anyone, and–”
“No,” he said almost angrily now. “I’m not taking that risk.”
I breathed out and decided to let it go. “Okay. No doctors.”
“No doctors,” he said sternly.
I nodded and hugged him gently. “I won’t let them take away from me. I promise.”
“Same…” he whispered against my shoulder.
I held him for a moment longer, then gently pushed him back. I smiled at him reassuringly and gave the water bottle back to him. “Drink.”
“You drink first,” he said in his stubborn way.
I chuckled and obeyed his little highness. Once I’d had a couple of big gulps, I gave the bottle to him.
“Your turn.”
He didn’t drink much, which concerned me. We hadn’t had much to drink today, because the water in the two sources we had in a walking distance had been dirty after the storms, and the stores that usually let us use their toilets had been closed for the day. We had tried to beg for money, but there weren’t a lot of people we could’ve asked, so we only got maybe six bucks. We needed to save that for his salve, since it was running out. But he needed to drink… Especially with his condition, he needed a lot more fluids than just a couple of sips…
“Try to drink a little more. I’ll try to find us dry clothes in the meantime,” I told him and stood up to check our clothes. They were all damp… I did find a somewhat dry shirt and pants for him and told him to change his clothes. There wasn’t anything dry enough for me, but it was fine. He needed dry clothes more with his condition.
Once he wasn’t wearing the wet clothes anymore, I kneeled back down, grabbed the small, almost empty tube of salve, a somewhat clean towel, and the water bottle. I told him to lie still and brace himself. Then I tried to brace myself and started treating his wounds the best I could. It wasn’t anywhere near enough… I couldn’t get all the dirt out of the deep crevices in his dry skin. There wasn’t nearly enough salve to treat all of them, either, and the ones I had to use it on only got an extremely thin layer of it.
His skin had always been bad. He’d always been itchy and flaky and bleeding lightly here and there, but this past week with the constant storms had really fucked him up. I feared it would only keep getting worse… Maybe we needed to go see a doctor…
But I was afraid, too… He was my brother. Not my flesh and blood, obviously, but he was my little brother, and I loved him more than anything in this world. If we went to the doctor or any other government worker… They’d take Alex away from me. They’d take him away and put me back in the system…
We just had to deal with this… The weather was getting better…
And if that guy from earlier had been telling me the truth, and he could help me earn some easy money… That would help us so much…
“There we go,” I told Alex once I was done treating his wounds. “Try to get some sleep.”
He was in so much pain after I’d poked around his wounds that he could only nod with his eyes pressed shut. I carefully tucked him in after he curled up on his tiny mattress and wished him goodnight.
“Goodnight…” he whispered back, his voice weak.
I put the bottles and the cloth away, then sat down on my own bed. I didn’t lie down just yet… I just watched him as he tried to make himself comfortable. He wasn’t trying to scratch now, so I hoped the salve was helping. I just wished I could do more for him… I wanted to be a better big brother to him… Because it was entirely my fault that his life was like this… Yet…
Yet he wanted to stay with me…
Eventually, my own weak body couldn’t stay seated up anymore, so I lay down. I couldn’t stretch my feet because there was no room, so I lifted them up against the wall instead. After a while, I started feeling uncomfortable, so I curled up on my side. I still couldn’t close my eyes, though… Alex was in front of me, shivering under his thin blanket… I was cold, too, but it broke my heart seeing him so miserable as he was falling asleep, so I took my blanket, put it over him, and grabbed a drying hoodie for myself instead before curling back down.
Alex slowly stopped shivering, and he soon passed out from exhaustion. I promised him and myself to go find us food, water, salve, and bandages tomorrow. I’d steal them if I had to. We weren’t looters, and normally I despised them for stealing from people and shops that were struggling enough as it was, and now more than ever for all the chaos they had caused lately, but… If I didn’t do everything in my power to help my brother… I feared Alex would actually go insane and do something horrible to himself… I couldn’t lose him…
He was the only person I had left in this war-torn world…
I closed my eyes, trying to force myself to fall asleep. I was so tired I thought I could easily pass out, too, but no… My misery kept me awake… And I could still hear them… The three alphas at the center of our village… They were still drinking, laughing, and having fun…
I couldn’t stop thinking about that roll of money…
And before I could stop myself, I got up, crawled out of our hut, and headed back to where they were sitting. They fell silent when they spotted me, and watched me closely when I sat down on a block of bricks, and laid my eyes on their leader. He raised his eyebrows at me in amusement.
I still didn’t like him at all… But I needed to take care of my brother… So I tried to silence my doubts and took a deep breath…
“What do you want me to do?”
