[trigger warnings: suicide/suicidal thoughts/mentions of drug ab/use]
ELIJAH
Elijah stood still as his absolutely drenched sister slowly peeled her palms from the door and turned around.
Her lips were blue, her cheeks had lost their color, and her teeth were chattering madly. Her curly hair was plastered every which way to her face. She wasn't wearing a jacket, and her sneakers were caked in mud.
"Olivia?" he repeated again, trying to be more gentle this time.
"What the fuck?" Logan growled with much less tact and a lot less gentleness.
Olivia visibly winced and Elijah turned to his brother and grit out from between clenched teeth, "Shut up, Logan."
"I should shut up? Why the hell-"
"Blake," Elijah said loudly, trying to drown out Logan's voice with his own. "Get me a towel."
"Uh-um, right." Blake sped out of the room as fast as possible.
Elijah turned back around. Olivia wrapped her arms around herself and tried to speak through trembling lips. Elijah realized his need for an answer was infinitely less than the need to warm her up and he stepped forward and hugged her, shivering and wet, tight to his chest.
She stiffened against him and weakly pushed at his arms. "Y-y-you're g-g-g-get-get-getting w-w-"
His heart ached at her uncontrollable stammering. "No more talking," he said, trying to rub a little bit of warmth into her back. All the questions he had wanted to ask suddenly seemed completely unimportant. "Don't worry about it. It's okay."
He heard Logan curse under his breath and stomp away.
Blake came back with the towel, and Elijah put it around Olivia and pulled it as tight as he could around her shoulders.
"Come on, let's get your shoes off."
"I-I-c-can do i-i-it m-m-myself-"
"I know you can," Elijah said gently. "But we can do it faster if I help."
Eventually, Elijah and Blake managed to peel off her shoes and socks so she wasn't squelching in the foyer anymore. Elijah rubbed her shoulders through the towel. "I think what you need right now is a warm shower, yeah?"
He took her hand and pulled her towards the hall, but she pulled back. "W-wait," she said.
Elijah stopped and waited. "What is it?"
"I- we got d-d-done early and m-my phone died so I ju-just - I took the bus h-h-home except it wa-w-was the one that drops - drops you off at the e-end of the street so w-w-when I was w-walking home...I got w-wet," she finished lamely.
It pained him to have to hear her out through her chattering teeth. He wanted nothing more than for her to be warm. He didn't want her to feel like she had to explain anything to him right that moment. Elijah wrapped his arms around her and put his forehead against her cold, clammy one. "Really, Olivia, it's alright," he breathed into her hair. "You don't have to explain now. You need to warm up first, okay?"
This time, she didn't push him away. She clung to him, her fingers digging into his back as she held onto his shirt almost as tightly as he was holding her, her cheek pressed into his chest.
So he didn't make her get into the shower like his first plan had been. He stood there with her as she trembled violently against him, hugging her until she slowly unclenched her shaking fingers from his shirt and pulled away.
"Come on," he said when she opened her mouth to say something else. "You're not saying anything else until you stop shivering."
When Elijah had made sure Olivia was in the shower, he came back to the kitchen to find Logan standing at the stove, boiling water. Blake was sitting at the dining table, silently watching him.
"What is that?" Elijah asked Logan, motioning towards the stove.
"Tea," Logan said shortly.
Elijah fought the urge to smile at his little brother. The urge vanished as Logan slammed a mug down on the counter and growled, "Why did she say that?"
He knew very well what Logan was referring to, but he asked, "Why did she say what?"
Logan didn't take the bait. "Elijah, you really did not believe that, did you?"
We got done early and my phone died.
His heart suddenly felt very heavy in his chest. "I don't know, Logan," he sighed.
"The hell you don't know. You don't take anyone's bullshit."
Elijah wondered if he should stay silent, not wanting to argue with him, but he knew it was useless. Once he started, Logan was not one to know when to stop.
"I didn't want to scare her to death the second she walked in here with that kind of useless interrogation. She already looked like she was about to collapse."
Elijah didn't know that anyone could viciously pour water, but one glance at Logan and it was clear that it was quite possible.
"Doesn't it bother you that she's lying?" Logan hissed, slamming the pot back down on the stove. "That you have no idea what the hell is going on?"
Elijah glared at him. "It bothers me more that she should have any reason to be afraid of me, or that she should have reason to believe that she can't tell me something."
"That doesn't make any sense when she could be doing the hell knows what!"
"None of this makes any sense!" Elijah finally yelled at him.
Logan fell silent on hearing Elijah raise his voice, but Elijah was suddenly sick of it all and didn't stop.
"I'm the brother and I've adopted my little sister because my dad used to beat the shit out of us and we can't ask him for any help - how does that make sense? And I've got custody of my other brother and I'm having to pay the mortgage for a house that Dad bought and your college loans. Olivia has panic attacks just looking at police officers and you panic just thinking about her and Blake panics thinking about both of you panicking!
"Just because you're not home that often doesn't mean things don't go down when you're not here. There's some weird shit that goes on that honestly freaks me out sometimes. I've seen her Googling police officers and doing research on Dad and stalking some really strange Facebook accounts, and I can't even tell you how many times I've found her asleep at your desk or on the floor of the bedroom - anywhere but actually on the bed - with her pepper spray canister in her hand. For god's sake she almost sprayed me a few times when I went to put her to bed. But you know what?"
Elijah glanced down the hall, where his sister's room was, where he had kicked down her door because of how hard his heart had clenched with terror at her screams, where he had put her to bed after finding her asleep sitting upright on her floor so many times.
"She's our little sister, Logan, and I'm trying to learn to live with her. I'm trying to learn all over again how to get someone to trust you, to make them feel like we won't ever give up on them."
Logan looked away at those words and Elijah sighed and pressed his thumb and forefinger to his eyelids. He felt slightly guilty bringing up the past to Logan but he continued, in a quieter voice, "Just don't tell me what doesn't make sense. You don't have to tell me. I know."
His anger seemingly dampened, Logan silently stirred honey into the tea. The kitchen became stuffed full of an awkward silence that not even Blake spoke into. Eventually, Logan was the one who broke it.
"I still don't know how the fuck you expect anything to change if you just let her keep all these weird secrets all the time," he grumbled, and shoved the steaming mug at Elijah. "Don't bother me anymore, I need to eat."
*****
Elijah knocked on Olivia's open door. She turned from where she was hanging up her wet clothes against the closet doors to dry, and her whole body tensed up on seeing him.
Elijah pretended not to notice. "We can put those in the dryer for you, Olivia. You don't have to hang it up in here."
Olivia shook her head. "It's okay, they're already up anyways."
Elijah handed her the tea and sat down beside her on the bed. She looked down at the floor and held the mug in her hands. He didn't miss the band-aids covering both palms.
"When did that happen?" he asked, pointing to them.
"At school."
"Did you fall somewhere?"
"I cut them in P.E. It's nothing."
There were two band-aids on each hand. Band-aids that hadn't been there when she had stumbled into the house. Elijah doubted what she was saying, but he kept it to himself.
He put a hand in her damp curls and gently brushed them away from her face. She leaned into his touch and he slid his arm around her shoulder. "Do you feel better now?" he asked.
"I'm still a little cold, but I'm wearing two shirts underneath the hoodie so it should go away. Right?"
Elijah had no idea, but he said, "It should. But if it doesn't, then you should tell me, alright? I don't want you getting sick."
"Okay." Olivia blew steam from the mug and took a sip of the tea. "It's really good," she said.
Elijah thought of the brother who tried to be cold and pretended he was heartless. "Logan made it for you."
"He did?"
"Yes."
They sat in silence until she quietly said, "I upset everyone, didn't I?"
Elijah was upset that she wouldn't tell him the truth, but he said, "It was more a bit of a scare."
"I'm sorry."
"Olivia, is there a reason you came home early?"
"We got done early."
Elijah made himself inhale for five seconds and exhale for five seconds. Then he did it three more times.
"Honey, it's okay if there's another reason. Did you have a fight with someone?"
"No."
"Where did your jacket go?"
"I'm sorry, I accidentally left it at the theater."
This was going nowhere. Frustrated, Elijah asked the one question he was desperate to know.
"Did someone hurt you?"
Her voice came out more forcefully this time. "No, no one did."
Elijah's heart dropped like a ball of lead into his stomach. Is that what it was? Did someone hurt her? He took another few deep breaths and tried to think straight through the panic and anger clouding his thoughts.
When he found out who it was - and he would find out - he was going to kill them.
"If there is someone bothering you, it's okay to tell someone," he forced out. "Even if - even if you feel like you can't tell me what's actually happening, just let me know if something's going on."
She was silent for so long that Elijah thought that this was it. That she was working up the courage to tell him. That he would finally know why she made him promise he would follow the Ten Commandments.
"No one's bothering me, Elijah," she said finally.
Elijah's heart fell but he clamped his mouth shut and pretended he believed her.
*****
"Well?" Logan asked when he got back. "Did she say anything?"
Logan and Blake were sitting at the dining table, eating waffles. Blake must have done something right because Logan seemed a lot calmer. His eyebrows weren't scrunched so hard down his forehead anymore, and his tone wasn't so pissed and tense.
Elijah sat down next to Blake. "I didn't ask her to," he lied. "And please don't talk to her about this. Don't bring it up."
Elijah hadn't said anything to Olivia yet, but he was going to have to ask her again tomorrow. She could make him follow the Ten Commandments, but she couldn't make him compromise her safety, and he didn't feel like walking home in the rain - whatever the reason may be - was very safe. He wasn't going to let it go.
Logan set down his waffle. "Elijah, look," he said in a calm, adult voice that compelled Elijah to hear him out. "I get what you're saying, alright? Seriously, I get it. You don't want to freak her out. You don't want to make her feel forced to do something she doesn't want to. But I just have to tell you my side."
Logan put his hands on the table and took in a deep breath. "Look, don't get all dramatic about what I'm going to say, okay, because I'm not bringing it up so you can be a drama queen about it all over again."
There was only one thing that Logan knew Elijah would make a huge fuss about. Elijah tried to hold his heart together in anticipation of what Logan was about to say, but it was already starting to beat at an uncomfortable pace at just the mere thought of it. He swallowed the lump in his throat.
"Before the whole - you know, the whole thing - I...stopped going out with my friends. I started failing all my classes. Things like that, right? So no one - no one becomes all weird for no reason. And I'm not saying she's going to try to, you know..."
Logan trailed off and clenched his hands together. Elijah waited for him silently, trying not to become the drama queen Logan was correct about him becoming. He looked at his brother and tried to see beyond the past. He tried to concentrate on the present.
But he couldn't. He couldn't stop seeing Logan lying lifeless on the bathroom tiles. He couldn't unfeel the feelings he had felt seeing his little brother like that when his whole life, he had tried to protect him.
His heartbeat was pounding so hard behind his eyes he felt nauseous.
Logan took another deep breath and went on, "It's just that sometimes, you don't know you badly you need help before it gets all out of hand. Sometimes it's better if someone stops you while you still know how. Sometimes you need that slap of reality."
Elijah's chest hurt at his words. It had been four years, but he still couldn't bear the thought of what had happened, what he had allowed to happen. He hadn't been able to help Logan before it got out of hand, hadn't been able to slap him into reality.
Logan threw himself back in his chair, dragging Elijah from his gloom. "Look!" he cried, waving his arms at both Blake and Elijah. "Look at the both of you! What did I say about not becoming drama queens?" He shook his head. "God, you're the ones who think about it more, and I'm the one who tried to off himself!"
Blake let out a strangled, choking noise at Logan's blunt words and shakily inhaled shallow breaths. Although Elijah wanted nothing more than to do the same, or better yet, crawl under the table and die, he put his fists down on the table and rasped, "Alright, we're not talking about that anymore. Logan, you've had your say."
"Great," Logan said, his dark eyebrows scrunched up hard against his eyes, anger coating every word. All the calm that he had managed to maintain while he was talking to them suddenly seemed to be sucked out of him. "Just great. When are you two going to stop getting so hung up over this that you can't even hear me out properly? I'm trying to make a point here and you just have to make it all about me and what happened!"
Blake pushed his seat back and stood up like he wanted to escape. "Logan, it's not that easy-"
"Shut up, Blake. Don't tell me about what's easy and what's not. It's hard for me, too, to look at you two and remember what I did to you, okay? It's hard for me to remember I made Elijah cry. It's hard for me to remember I gave you nightmares. But you know what?" He waved a hand between them. "If I can sit here and face you about it, then you have to face me too."
He dragged a hand down his face. "And when the hell did we start talking about me? We're talking about Olivia!"
Elijah felt lightheaded the way his heart was thrashing in his chest, but Logan's words forced him to sit there and face his brother. "Okay," he said hoarsely. "Blake, sit back down. And Logan, please don't repeat any of that right now. We're talking about Olivia."
Blake stiffly slid down in his seat and that, combined with Elijah's words, seemed to placate Logan just the slightest bit. "Yes," he gritted out between clenched teeth. "And I'm telling you that you need to find out what's happening with her so nothing worse happens."
"So what do you want me to do?" Elijah asked. "Demand answers from her?"
"Yes!"
"I've tried."
"You've only ever requested answers. There's a difference."
"If I push her too hard, what if she does something drastic? What if she stops telling us anything? Or tries to deal with whatever it is herself and - and something happens?"
"Okay, so demanding answers is not the right way," Blake said quickly before Logan could say anything else. "How about you ask her social worker? Maybe she knows something."
"All she knew was that her mother overdosed and that's how she died," said Elijah.
"Maybe she's involved with dealing."
Anger flared in Elijah's chest. "Logan, you did not just say that," he seethed.
Logan gave him a come-at-me-if-you-want-to-kill-me look. "So what if I did?" he challenged.
"She is not a drug dealer!" Elijah cried. "Why would you even think that?"
"So if she's not a dealer, maybe she was using herself."
"Logan, what is wrong with you? Do you just say these things to make me mad?"
"Just stop, both of you!" Blake shouted.
That made them both fall silent.
"Stop arguing about that like - like it's something you can argue. She was not on drugs, Logan, and she's not dealing. And Elijah, you're being so loud she can definitely hear you from here. Just - there's nothing wrong with her. Stop trying to make there be."
Logan raised an eyebrow. "There's nothing wrong with coming home dripping wet at seven in the evening and looking like you just narrowly escaped a horde of terminators?" he asked.
Blake grimaced. "Well, you didn't have to say it like that."
"Alright, we're over this point," Elijah cut in. "She's not on drugs. And she's not dealing drugs."
"Her mom just died," Blake said. "Maybe she just needs to talk about it with someone."
"Yeah, it must have messed her up."
"Logan, do you even know any kind words?" Elijah snapped at him.
Blake cleared his throat loudly. "Alright, did she ever see a grief counselor? After it happened?"
Elijah shook his head. "Her social worker never mentioned it. It wasn't in her records."
"You could try taking her to therapy," Logan suggested.
Elijah remembered taking Logan to therapy. They had had many, many awkward, silent, and angry car rides there and back for about nine months before Elijah finally gave up. "All that therapy never helped you," he grumbled.
Logan shrugged. "It helped a little."
Elijah's eyes widened. "Logan, what the hell? I stopped taking you there because you said it wasn't working! If it was helping, why the hell didn't you tell me?"
"What did I say about making everything about me? We're talking about Olivia!"
"How the hell do you expect me to ignore something like that?"
Blake picked up his plate and got up from the table. "Both of you are impossible. I'm going to my room."
"Blake-"
"Both of you have to get over yourselves so we can have a proper conversation. This is going nowhere."
Blake left, leaving Elijah alone with Logan.
Chastised by their little brother, they sat in silence until Logan grunted, "I'm not talking to you."
Elijah rolled his eyes. "I wasn't planning on it either."
So many people guessed that it was Logan that I was actually tempted a tiny bit to MAKE it be Logan. But fan_of_some_tv_shows definitely had the best answer: "the correct answer is probably Elijah but I'm hoping for Logan." YES. Very true lol, we all want Logan.
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