Brother to Brother

Who: Mathias and Caleb
Where: Roadside bar, 50 miles from Marquette
When: Night

Several hours, fifty odd miles, a shower and change, one fake ID and two beers later found Caleb and Mathias sitting in a booth in the back of a smoky roadside bar with the remains of a basket of fries and some buffalo wings between them. Mathias looked, as always, the picture of relaxation and calm as he sprawled out across his side of the booth, beer in one hand, cigarette in the other, as though they hadn't been in a messy fight earlier on in the day. He'd been as good as his word - taking his brother well out of town, before they'd found a motel to properly clean up in. That done, he threw together a fake ID for Caleb from bits he had in his bag (in Mathias' world, there were times when it was very useful to not be known as 'Mathias Lockwood' for a while) and whilst it wasn't great, it would stand up to a glance in the shitty, poorly lit bar they were in. As long as Caleb didn't actually do anything like try and order his own drinks. Which he wasn't doing anyhow, because tonight was on Mathias.

Caleb was kicked back on his side of the booth as well, and while his brother could hide injury pretty well, he'd had a bit more trouble. He got occasional looks from people, which he had been doing a variety of reactions to. Some people he stared at until they got uncomfortable and looked away, others he nodded his head to in greeting, one girl he'd waved to, before she decided the floor was fascinating. And the last person he just nodded. "Hi." he said pointedly, and off they went to find something better to look at. All in all, he wasn't having a bad time. He was still feeling a bit like he'd been trampled, but that was okay. It wasn't a bad sort of exhaustion. And of course, the beers were helping. So he was in a generally good mood for a guy who probably should have gone to the hospital a few hours earlier.

Mathias had been watching in amusement at the different way his brother had been handling the looks he'd been getting and he'd been doing absolutely nothing to help him out with it. The guy seemed to be able to cope with it though he had been casting suggestive looks at the girl Caleb'd waved to, since she seemed unable to stop looking in their direction. Once the looks had escalated to downright leers, she'd decided that being somewhere else, out of their line of sight, was a good idea. He'd watched her leave not too long after that. She'd been a cute thing and another day he might have been tempted to not just throw her looks, but right now his mind was elsewhere. "So," he said, taking a draw on his cigarette. "Do I get to know about New Orleans now?" he asked.

"What do you want to know?" Caleb asked, looking back over at his brother as he propped his head on his hand. Thankfully, he was sitting on the right side of the booth that he could do that. The slash under his chin was on the other side. "And I can't actually tell you about all of it." he added.

"Can't? Or won't?" Mathias asked, raising an eyebrow. "For the record, I'll take either answer - I'd just like to know which one it is." People had the right to keep secrets, after all - he had more than his fair share of his. Of course, once he knew that something was a secret, that didn't mean he wasn't going to try underhand tactics to get them to spill, but that was just the way it was.

"Can't. One of the days I was gone I don't remember." Caleb said, frowning a little. Then his face cleared and he shrugged, taking another drink. "There was this priestess...I remember starting the night with her. Then--" he snapped his fingers. "Nothing."

"Priestess?" Mathias asked, looking at him askance. That was never a good start. "Don't suppose you happen to remember her name do you? How old was she?" There'd been one woman, a long time ago... But New Orleans was a big place and there was definitely more than one priestess there.

"Erzulie." Caleb said. It was something he wasn't about to forget. Much like the little bit of time with her he did remember. "I was hurt, she kind of found me and took me home, or...somewhere. I couldn't even tell you where it was now though. She was..." he paused, frowning again. Why couldn't he pick an age for her? It was like he just couldn't put his finger on even a ballpark decade.

Mathias laughed - what were the odds? "Erzulie? About yay high? Good looking in an indefinable way? Like you wouldn't call her pretty, but there was just something about her that caught your attention?" Mathias asked, his eyes going a little dreamy for a second. Oh yeah, he remembered Erzulie.

Caleb nodded. "Yeah." he said. "Just sort of..." he couldn't come up with a word. Attractive? Yes. But not in your average sort of way, and almost in such away that you wouldn't even call her beautiful. Striking, maybe. Indescribeable. He shook his head to clear it and drank some more. "No idea what she did to me. One minute she was patching me up and being...friendly, the next I remember darkness and music. A scent of something. Incense? I don't know for sure. And then nothing. How well did you know her?"

Mathias grinned. "Well enough not to go home with her," he chuckled. "We had a few run ins - and I had a wicked crush on her when I was about your age. And I think I amused her. Or something. The nights I went out, half the time I'd be trying to find her. Some times I even succeeded and she... Well, looking back on it, she treated me like a puppy - with indulgence and with an eye that I needed training. For me, she was something like I'd never met before - and it was only the rumours I picked up from elsewhere that stopped me losing myself in her world." To some extent, she still held a spell over him, probably always would. Mathias hadn't thought of her in his waking moments for years, yet just the mention of her name was enough to make him feel slightly warm inside.

Caleb could relate. He'd only had the one experience with her, but he sort of felt the same way. She'd taken him home like a stray. And he was fairly certain things had continued on with her even after he couldn't remember. He'd mentioned the 'friendly' part. "What rumors?" Caleb asked curiously, kind of to wrest his attention away from the priestess as anything.

"Oh, you know, the usual ones that go round that city - black magic, zombies... Most of them I discounted, but the word 'thrall' came up just a little too often and with a little more seriousness than I really liked. It made me cautious - not cautious enough to avoid her entirely, but enough that I didn't take her up on it the night she invited me home with her. Or the tmie after that. Or the one after that..." Mathias told him. And hell how that had pissed her off - they'd known each other for months then and Mathias was starting to get a handle on who he wanted to be. "I said she treated me like a puppy that needed training? That was at first, when I first started slipping out at night. When I was eighteen, couple of months before I left for college, I was going out, staying out, a few nights a week. By that time, we found each other more often than not. And one night, she invited me - no, that's not right, she offered me the chance to come back with her. Which she'd never done before. Hell, at one point, I would have taken it. At sixteen? I would have gone without a thought and with a smile on my face. At eighteen? I turned her down, deflected the offer with every ounce of charm I could muster, hating myself for doing it. Three times she made me that offer. Three times I turned her down. And then I never saw her again - rumour was she was pissed at me. And a woman like that? Not good to have her pissed at you - I spent the next couple of months waiting for my heart to explode out of my chest and wondering if she'd stolen some of my hair at any point," he laughed. "Anyway, then I Ieft town, moved on and that was that. And, thankfully, I still have my heart nicely intact."

"Usually a good thing." Caleb said. He felt...slightly uneasy, though. He finished off the beer in front of him, mind grinding along on things. Mathias had pissed her off. Then...a million years later she just...found him. He was sure of that. He hadn't been anywhere some random passerby would happen upon him. She'd walked directly up and knelt down, reaching out to caress his cheek sweetly. Whatever, it was probably coincidence. Or so he told himself, even if he was still feeling a little uneasy. "Anyways...I don't remember that. I just remember her showing up, taking me home, patching me up, coming on to me...then...nothing. I woke up in the same place I had been, where she'd found me, but I'd lost a night. Never saw her again, and really I wasn't looking, I was dodging vampires and other shit."

"She came on to you?" Mathias asked, feeling a sharp stab of jealousy that was a little surprising in its intensity. He covered it as he took a final drag on his cigarette before stabbing it out in the ashtray. Erzulie had been a long time ago - nearly fourteen years, in fact - there'd been a lot of water under the bridge since then. She probably didn't even remember him.

Caleb looked up again, frowning and leaning back in his seat the tiniest bit. "Yeaaaah..." he said. "Thought I covered that with the her being friendly thing. Didn't figure you'd need it spelled out." he continued, not in a pointed sort of way. "Everything goes black though." He really did assume he'd done more. It had felt like it later, and sometimes there were intense dreams. But they usually only showed around the new moon, and he always had intense dreams then anyhow so he just figured his mind had something new to play off of and did.

Mathias called over a passing waitress and ordered some more beers, being rather more flirtatious than was strictly necessary - though the girl lapped it up and hurried to the bar with a spring in her step and a flip of her long, blonde hair. He turned back to Caleb, deciding that he really needed to get off the topic of Erzulie - especially if she'd been involved with his brother. "So, when did you start with the magic?" he asked.

"Like, that morning." Caleb said. "I found a book, had a few things in it, picked it up from there. Found out real fast that I was decent at it. I'd tried a few other things, like, black magic n shit but nothing really worked out so well as the blood magic. That I could do." He smiled faintly. Yeah. His one talent, and it backlashed bad. Figured.

"And you kept on with it, even though it clearly screws you up?" Mathias asked. He turned away for a moment as their beers arrived, flirting once more with the waitress, who promised to keep them coming. Yeah, they'd have their own pet waitress to keep their glasses full all night now, that was for sure. "No offence, bro - but did it never occur to you just to let it be? Live a normal life?"

"No." Caleb said, taking his beer and taking a healthy drink. "What for? It's not like I can wander off and just pretend I don't know what's out there. What am I going to be, a fucking accountant? Go find a girl and have 2.5 and all that bullshit?" he shook his head. "Fuck no. Look, I may not have what you and Dorian have, but that doesn't mean that I can just shut off my head, or pretend everything's normal when it's not. Yeah, it fucks me up, but not much has gotten back up again after it tried fucking with me once I got into it. Where I was...who I am. You don't just walk away without a scratch and do whatever. I said I attract trouble. I do. Fuck, man, I was going for a walk in Marquette and some vamp found me. Just totally fucking random, right there, picked me. I know I wasn't the only one out that night for fuck's sake, but fang boy had to go zero in on me. And that's not really unusual."

"Marquette's not as quiet a town as everyone seems to think it is," Mathias told him, not rising in the slightest to Caleb's rant. He was a hard person to rile, as his brother going off on one certainly wasn't going to do it.

"Yeah, caught that part." Caleb said. "Between him, Melia, Muse...there's a lot of shit going on in town you wouldn't expect immediately." He shrugged. "Oh well. But does that answer your question? No. Never occurred to me. Why, is that what you'd suggest?"

"Because of us all - you could. You came out, well, normal. You don't have to get involved in this world," Mathias pointed out.

"I may have come out normal, but the rest of the world doesn't seem to agree, Math." Caleb said. Actually for the first time shortening his brother's name. Maybe it was the hanging out they were doing. Maybe it was the drinking. "And don't forget. I still have shit on the moon too. I didn't get any of the perks, but I still got the inherent trouble magnet. And..." he paused, then went on. "...mentality."

Mathias nodded, looking a touch disappointed. "Right." He didn't say anything else for a moment, drawing out another cigarette and taking his time lighting it. He took a long drag and then slowly exhaled, before looking back across at Caleb. "Mentality?" he asked. "You enjoyed that today, didn't you?"

Caleb paused, watching Mathias for a long moment, eyes calculating. He'd noted the disappointment, and he didn't know what it was directed towards. But eventually he looked him in the eye and nodded. "Yes."

"Shit," Mathias breathed, his tone a mix of amusement, disbelief and something else as he shook his head. But he was smiling with it. He took a drink of his beer. "Okay - what did you like about it?" he asked. He was quickly coming to the conclusion that his brother was going to get himself killed very young if he wasn't careful. If all he had going for him was blood magic that threatened to do as much damage, if not more, than anything he came up against and yet he still had that mentality that came with the territory.

"What? You can't tell me you don't like a good fight." Caleb said, smirking faintly and drinking some more. He thought though, trying to figure out how to word the unwordable. "I don't know. It's...like alright, first part of the fight, no. That just had me pissed. But after I got my bearings? That's when it gets fun. I don't know how to describe it exactly." He wanted to say it felt like something primal. Utterly uncivilized and the fights he got into were generally speaking life or death, so they meant everything. He was aware that he might not walk away, and that it might not even be his opponent's doing. Might just be backlash. But that didn't matter with him.

"A good fight has its place, sure - but I actually avoid it when I can. In my line of work, if you set things up right, actually getting involved in a physical knock-down? Isn't gonna happen. Today was actually something out of the ordinary for me," Mathias explained. "I'm not a hunter - tried it for a while, but... No, not my style."

"I've gone out looking for trouble occasionally since then." Caleb said, referring to his week out. "Most of the time I kept my head down, but there were nights when I just..." he shrugged. Needed to go pick a fight, was really it. And sure, usually he tried to dodge trouble, but he also knew half the time all he had to do was go for a fucking walk and something would happen. "Not often. But sometimes."

Mathias nodded - he knew that feeling. It didn't often come knocking for him, but then he lived in a world that was surrounded by constant activity and chaos - either of his own making or because he'd specifically gone to an area in turmoil. That was enough to feed his inner need most of the time, tapping it into a path that he considered more healthy. Or course, it was more healthy for him, but not necessarily for the people around him. "If you ever want to work on that - let me know," he said, finally. He'd actually much prefer it if his brother turned his back on all of this and walked away. He'd proven that he could take care of himself, but that didn't actually mean that Mathias was particularly keen on Caleb putting his life on the line, well, ever. But if he was going to, Mathias would support him, if for no other reason than that it'd make him better at it. "In the meantime, tell me about this other girl..."

"I'll keep that in mind." Caleb said, then smirked faintly as he killed more of his drink. "Jamie?" he asked. "She drives me crazy, we've only known each other for a few days and we've had very close to screaming arguments, and did I mention the her driving me crazy part? She's hot, I can talk to her..." he trailed off.

Mathias raised an eyebrow - it wasn't hard to be interested, even though this Jamie could have been the most bland and boring creature on the face of the planet and Mathias would have loved her simply for the fact she definitely wasn't Tensiel. "'Drives you crazy' - always a good start. Followed up by 'hot' and I like this girl already," he grinned.

Caleb grinned. "Well, that crazy thing is really high up there. Seriously, we talk, and fight. She..." he paused, trying to figure out his wording. "She says she doesn't need anybody--pretty fucking firm on that--but I know she does. She's one of those types that decides to take care of everyone around her but won't take two seconds to take care of herself? So I make a point of making her. Did earlier today. Made her take a bath. Which by the way, was up there in the list of some of my worst ideas ever, but she actually did it. I dunno. I don't talk to people really well, and with her, I guess I do." He blushed faintly. "Yeah, I know I sound like an idiot."

"No, you just sound like you really like her. Nothing wrong with that," Mathias said, wondering absently how encouraging would be too encouraging. And not wanting to bend to conversation round to Tensiel at all. "How old is she?" There, safe question.

"Sixteen." Caleb said. "I don't think I've ever met anyone like her. No, scratch that, I know I haven't. I never really talked with anyone before. Kept to myself, but it's kind of different with her." He paused, then decided to devulge what was really the most important point in that 'different' clause. "...I was on the phone with her the other night, and she got pissed when I said I was going to go out for a walk. She actually worries about me. Never dealt with that before."

"So, she's smart as well," Mathias pointed out. "Hot, engaging, intelligent, apparently likes you - enough to worry about you anyhow. Am I missing anything out here?" he asked, indirectly prodding Caleb into singing the girl's praises.

It didn't really take much prodding. "Sweet, fun, great singer, likes a lot of my music, funny, caring..." he paused. "She's a lot of things. It's weird. I actually flirt with her sometimes. I'm not really a flirty sort of person, I mean I know you are. But I've never been quite like that. I can't pull it off like you can." Could possibly have something to do with the fact that Mathias had the sort of look that a lot of women went for, and Caleb most certainly did not. At least in his opinion.

"Don't be ridiculous - of course you can pull it off like I can. Anyone can do it - there's no huge secret or anything, it's just a matter of knowing that you can do it. All comes down to self-belief," Mathias said, confidently. And he actually honestly believed that - 'can't' wasn't a word that featured much around Mathias.

"Sure, you think so, but..." he shook his head, not buying it. "Anyways. There's a problem. Or several. But yeah." he said. "First, what the hell am I going to tell her happened to me? She's gonna be pissed." Which he actually looked happy about for some reason. "But I'm kinda...twitchy. Stand offish, since everything started happening, and I was gone, I kind of don't like contact much. Not to mention how exactly do I explain these?" he asked, gesturing to the scars on his arms. "That isn't where they stop. It's why I never go in to the hospital. People see someone my age as marked up as I am they start thinking they should call the cops."

"You tell her that your idiotically irresponsible older brother took you to a roadhouse for an ill-planned bonding session, got drunk and got into a brawl with a couple of bikers - you got caught in the crossfire," he shrugged, looking around and making shit up as he went. "As for the scars, that one's more tricky. Course, since most of them are of the 'clothes off' variety and I'm not quite as stunningly irresponsible as my little story suggests, I'd think you could put that one off for a while. Since you already told me you don't go in for short sleeves...."

"Trust me, I'll be trying to put it off as long as possible." Caleb said. "Just...if I actually do go for her or whatever, she's going to find out eventually. I'd rather have some kind of story in place that doesn't involve the truth. Because the truth is fucked up, and I don't know many girls who would actively sign up for someone like me if they knew. I dunno. Maybe she would and I'm just paranoid. And overthinking it. But then I'm kind of overthinking everything lately." He talked a lot when he had a bit of alcohol in him. Crazy.

"Hmmm, already planning of long term lying to the girl of your dreams? You do know that's not a great foundation for a stable relationship, right?" Mathias laughed as two more beers arrived from the waitress - who surprised him slightly by telling them they were on the house - and slipping a napkin with her number scrawled on it beneath Mathias'.

Caleb noted it. "See? You can do that with no effort whatsoever." he said when she was gone, grabbing his new drink. He was feeling it now, really. So he was just sort of talking away. "And okay. I don't really want to. I just think it'd freak her out, and who wouldn't be freaked out? C'mon. Look at me. I'm practically a freak show all by myself."

“You’re not a freakshow, Caleb,” Mathias said, seriously. He’d been called a freak a few times in his life. And whilst it rolled off him like everything else, he wasn’t as convinced that his brother would let it go that easily.

Caleb as a matter of fact didn't let it roll very easily. "You said you don't do girlfriends. Never? There's never been anyone? Have you told people? Or do you usually hide that shit, because you might run into someone who doesn't hear that whole 'half' part of the equation and starts having delusions of Charlton Heston?" he asked. Then he paused. "Not that it would matter much to you, you can take anything." He was lost in thought again. "You know all this time I've been thinking I should be asking myself what Dorian might do in a situation. And here you're preaching monogomy, waiting for sex, and truth. Maybe I should be asking myself what you would do." Then he gave a little wry smile. "And then note it and do whatever the hell I was going to do anyhow."

Mathias chuckled at that. "One thing you should remember in life - 'nobody's perfect'. Not even the perfect people are perfect. I've had girlfriends, but not for a long time. It all comes back down to what I was saying before about the bag. I live my life mobile. Very mobile. I have to be able to pick up and go on a moment's notice. Emotional attachments don't go so well with that. But no, there's been nobody. I've never told anyone - I've never got that close," he said, sounding a little sad about that.

Caleb frowned slightly at his brother. "You do realize that there's probably someone out there that wouldn't mind moving around." he said. "And you've never told anyone. But you think I should tell my girls?" he asked. Then paused. "Come to think of it, you know, there are a few of them. And I think I'm actually making friends. Which is kind of freaking me out a little lately. I don't really know much about having those. I'm pretty sure I'll fuck it up. I'm good at that." he said. It was one of the only things he excelled at. "So truth. Being I'm staying in one place, that's probably going to be a pain in the ass because of weirdness popping up and weirdness just loving me. Think they ought to know?" He stopped rambling and looked at his brother, waiting to hear his point of view. It was more a hypothetical question rather than one he was really considering, but he wanted to know what Math had to say.

"It's not a case of just 'minding moving around'," Mathias started, but he didn't continue. It was obvious Caleb didn't get it and, to be honest, Mathias wasn't sure that his brother should. "Look, I never said you should do what I do. And I do think you should be careful who you tell. There are... certain types. Who just wouldn't understand. Make sure you trust someone implicitly before even considering it. But there's going to come a time when you'll want to tell someone and they really should know." Just not Tensiel.

"Trust someone implicitly." Caleb said. Then sighed. "Are both of you two just extreme loners? I never hear Dorian talk about anyone either. Not past anyones, not friends...you don't seem like you've got any either. I didn't, and now all of a sudden I seem to. Though I do have to wonder...but we went over that part before. About staying away from people because it'd be better for them. You were under the impression I shouldn't do that. So if I shouldn't, why have you two?"

Damn, he'd caught that bit then. Mathias had been hoping that he'd slip that one by his brother. "I can't speak for Dorian - his reasons are his own. But mine is lifestyle choice. I'm not an extreme loner, I have friends scattered around all over the place." Make a point of it, actually. "But what you're asking about is lovers, right? Girlfriends? See, now that's a different story - because girlfriends don't do as well as friends on the whole 'being cool with someone dropping off the face of the planet for a few months-slash-years' like friends do. My friends do, anyway. I've never told anyone explicitly what I am, but a good few of them know I'm more than just human. Know me for very long and that's obvious. But the people I'm friends with are very definitely of the 'don't ask, don't tell' kind. But I'm not going to say that my life's perfect either - or that my way of doing things is what you should aspire to. My life suits me. It doesn't suit Dorian. It probably wouldn't suit you. I keep people at arms length because of what I do - not because of what I am. There's a difference."

"I meant both." Caleb said. "So far, it kind of seems like people around me are randomly adopting me. Like take Journey. I bailed him out once, then all of a sudden he's coming up to me on the street and talking to me like we're pals. Maybe we could be. I dunno. Then there's Leija. She helps me out one night, I think she's cool anyways, there's one more. I've got Ten, there's Jamie, who we've talked about and half the time I think we're both trying to figure out if we should just cut and run now, or try to figure out if things are worth it." He sighed, resting his chin on his slightly less injured arm, which really both of them were fucked up. But the one that didn't have stitches. He shifted to do it, now facing his brother. "It's like I blinked and when I opened my eyes again there were all these people." There wasn't really a question on the end there, but he did wonder what his brother would have to say about it. As far as he could tell, this really set him apart from both of his brothers, and he wasn't sure what to do about it. Not that he wanted to be like them, because he really wasn't one who sat back and thought 'hey, I wanna be just like fill in the blank'. It more or less just made him feel like he was on his own on that score.

Mathias shrugged. "Why don't you just try rolling with it for a while?" he suggested. "Less of the major decision making and more just being a teenager in high school. Have a go at the scary world of 'having friends' and see how it suits you. You know, I had friends in high school too - it was after that I took a different road," he pointed out. And hell had Mathias had friends in high school - he'd practically owned the place. Loved, adored, worshipped - the golden boy who could do no wrong.

"Yeah I know." Caleb said. "Trust me, you left a shadow that even I fell under." he added. "Back home I was a ghost as much as possible. I stayed out of the spotlight as much as I could, faded into the background. I was going to do that here too, it suited me fine, I just don't know if that's going to happen anymore." Not with all the people he'd seemed to have collected in such a short amount of time. "Didn't you miss having friends after you bailed on everything?" he asked. "Or did you just have a crowd of people who wanted to worship in the spotlight, and no one who qualified as a real friend?" The question wasn't actually pointed, though it could be taken as such. Curiosity and alcohol were really making Caleb apt to say whatever was on his mind.

"To be honest, I'm not sure. Probably the latter - in retrospect," Mathias admitted, taking a sip of his beer and picking up the napkin with the number on it. He looked over at Caleb. "Nobody else seemed to be able to keep up," he said, with forthright honesty. "I had things I wanted to do, experience. Places I wanted to go - and nobody seemed to be too keen on coming with me once they realised that, yes, I was serious when I said it would be fun to do insert-stupid-thing-here. So I went and did it anyway, on my own. Then I met people out there, but that was a different world. And never the twain shall meet, y'know?" he asked, screwing up the napkin and throwing it into the ashtray.

"So who do you talk to?" Caleb asked. He really could picture it. Not having anyone. Why? Because up until stupidly recently, that's what his life had been like. He was just starting to get the concept of having anyone around at all that he might open up to. Though so far he continually managed to dodge it. He jus didn't know if he wanted to keep dodging. He could. With Ten, whenever they tried to talk about things, it always seemed like the focus was on her. Which was his own fault because that's where he centered it. But she never asked him about things. Ever. And with Jamie, she'd skirt things then stop. He could so easily turn it around and she let him every time. And he wanted to know about them both, wanted to understand them. But there was a part of him that wondered why they didn't want to know about him. Didn't want to understand, or why they wouldn't ask. It wasn't like he didn't have things to ask about, obvious things. Hell, Jamie kicked up his non-touching twitches all the fucking time because she happened to be a physical person. But she hadn't even come close to asking. He realized belatedly that he had gotten lost in his thoughts, and he blinked, eyes clearing as he turned them back on his brother.

"Talk to?" Mathias asked, seemingly thrown for a moment. "Long term - mom, sometimes dad. Dorian." He considered this. "I keep in contact with the people I know, touch base often enough to let them know I'm still around, but I'm not sure that's the 'talking' you're on about," he pointed out.

Shaking his head, Caleb confirmed that. "No, that's not what I was talking about. I mean actual talking. The thing that keeps coming to my attention with all these random people showing up in my life is I've noticed that no one really knows me. You guys don't. They don't. I'm not even sure they want to. I think you might. I think Dorian does. But..." he shrugged. "I don't think anyone actually does. Or hasn't up til now. You have anyone who actually knows you, Math?"

Mathias lit another cigarette, taking his time over his reply. Mostly because it was one hell of a short one. "No," he said, simply, succinctly, as he exhaled.

Caleb didn't look surprised, eyes not wavering from his brother. "Ever wish someone did?"

"Maybe, sometimes. Obviously not enough to do anything about it. And are you always this damn serious all the time?" Mathias asked, starting to get uncomfortable with the way the conversation was going. It was touching on the darker sides of his existence, the places he didn't like to go.

Caleb quirked a little half smile. "Pretty much." he said, not seeming apologetic about it. "But then, I grew up in a different world than you did." he said thoughtfully. "See, you were the first born. And you had alllllll the shit that made you special. As far as the parents are concerned, you might as well have been the second fucking coming. Dorian too. Me?" He laughed a little, though there was something beneath it. Something raw that was beneath the surface, closer than usual. He shook his head. "I disappeared, and they didn't notice, or didn't care, and either way, that tells you just how much I didn't matter. You guys...you were everything. Think if I never came home they even would have told you? I kinda wonder. How many years it would take for you to notice you didn't have two little brothers anymore." He didn't sound upset about that, weirdly enough. He was in a philosophical frame of mind which was allowing him to put the blame where it was actually due, which was squarely on their parent's shoulders. "Point is...I never had a lot of fun growing up. I wasn't good at anything or had anything special to do. I lived in a house where I may as well not have existed, and when I wasn't there, I was at a school that wondered why the fuck I wasn't anything like you two." He quirked that smile again. "Sorta sucks the fun out of life." he finished, propping his chin on his hand again. "But the fight? That was fun."

Mathias jerked back slightly as if slapped, not expecting any of that - even if it didn't have the tone that almost sounded like it should have gone with it. Caleb may have been laying the blame on their parents, but that wasn't how Mathias saw it. "If you hadn't have come home, I would have come looking for you," he told him. Their parents wouldn't have kept that from him forever, surely. "And just because you don't have telekenesis, or more-" Which was the way Mathias came to think of his own abilities, since none of them were anything but ramped up versions of normal human abilities. "-doesn't mean you don't matter!" Except there'd been the conversation he'd had with Dorian yesterday, hadn't there?

"I didn't to them." Caleb said calmly. "Kinda makes a guy wonder if he does at all." He shrugged again and downed the rest of his current drink. "Though to be fair I think it would fuck with both your heads if I randomly disappeared. I think you guys'd notice. And if you weren't around, Dorian would tell you. I didn't know that til like...a few days ago, though." he said. "It's new for me, I'm still figuring it out. Like Jamie worrying. Not quite sure how to deal with that, honestly. No one ever worried about me before. At least, not that I knew about." He was of the opinion that the parents probably just wouldn't have told Mathias or Dorian anything. That he could have never come home and as far as his brothers were concerned, everything would have been reported as 'fine'. "Hey Math. What if when you called and mom told you everything was fine she meant it?" he asked. It was rhetorical, however, He didn't honestly expect an answer, because neither of them could know. And it occurred to him really late that he might be sort of ruining their parents in Mathias's eyes. So he stopped. "Are you sticking around for a while?"

He was, in fact, doing just that. Mathias had always actually loved their parents - he truly had no appreciation of what life had been like for either of his younger brothers. He just hadn't been around for the most part. And he didn't have an answer to Caleb's question, even if he'd been looking for one. He stubbed out the remains of his half-smoked cigarette, not wanting the rest now. "Yeah - I'll probably stick around for a bit," he mumbled without much enthusiasm, sounding more than a little distracted.

Silence descended for a few long moments, as Caleb contemplated things, eyes mostly on Mathias as he turned over everything in his mind. He gave another little unreadable, raw underbelly type of smile to his eldest brother. He sort of looked like he had when they'd talked back at the house. Not quite so bad, but close. There was the same sort of look in his eyes. Distant, something under it that Caleb wasn't at all qualified to try to interpret. "Bet this is the last time you take me out, huh?" he asked. "Somehow I don't think I'm nearly as fun as Dorian."

Mathias didn't say anything for a very long time. Not a thing, the silence drifting between them even in the noisy bar. "You hate all of us, don't you?" he asked in the end, holding his brother's eyes as he did so.

Caleb didn't flinch away from the eye contact, and held it as he thought about it. Because he actually had to. Most people probably wouldn't, and truthfully, two months ago if he'd asked, Caleb would have had an answer in a heartbeat. "I hate them." he said. "I think I used to hate all of you. I don't think I do anymore." He was just starting to understand that he had brothers. And not just a name next to his on the family tree. Both of them had made some semblance of effort, even if they were in...unique sort of ways. And from his place in total screaming honesty land that he'd ventured into with the help of alcohol, he could see that clearly. Actually, probably clearer than he had before tonight. "I think, you really have no idea what happened after you left home. I think Dorian doesn't either. And I think you're both for the first time thinking about it at all, and that's messing with you. But then again, I think I'm messing with you in general. I kinda think I just made your life harder. If it's any consolation, I didn't mean to. I didn't set out to." He was quiet for another minute. "I don't think you would have let me die. Or, at least, you would have tried to make sure." he said. He'd decided that sometime during the course of the night, and he was totally unsure when. "So. Now that I've completely spilled my guts about just about everything. What the hell is going on in your head?"

The first answer that came into Mathias' head was 'you remember when I said I don't talk to people', but he figured that Caleb, right now, deserved more than that. "You were four when I left home," he started instead. "Dorian was eleven. I always knew that he was slightly jealous of me, but I thought that was just a younger brother thing. You know, they go on about middle child syndrome and everything. Dor and I... I know he didn't like me much when he was your age. We got better, once he left home. We spent some time together. Actually got to know each other - kinda like this, I guess. Though, different. he was a bit older and I didn't feel like I had to see if he could fend for himself." I knew Dorian could fend for himself. "We didn't talk about home much though."

Caleb could give a good guess why. He sure as hell hadn't wanted to talk about it when he'd been dumped on Dorian's porch. He was listening, though, and he nodded. "Just sort of ran around together and hung out?" he asked. That's sort of how he pictured it. He knew his older brothers got along. Maybe not famously or anything, but they knew each other. They had a feel for what the other was like, unlike Caleb, who was just now getting a much better idea. And finding out in the process that he had misconceptions.

"Actually, it was more like he went off to college and one day I turned up on his doorstep and refused to leave," Math told him, smiling slightly at the memory. He shrugged. "Dorian may have had a problem with me, but I never had one with him. It's just hard when there's that much of an age gap, y'know?" Of course he knew - he had exactly the same thing.

"Yeah. I know." Caleb answered. "So he had problems with you, you showed up out of the blue and you guys worked them out?" he asked. He almost wanted to ask if that was why he'd showed up now, but he remembered when he had gotten home to find Mathias on the porch. He'd been surprised to see him. So no, that had been an accident. He'd just meant to drop in on Dorian again. He'd had nothing to do with Mathias's arrival. It made him wonder if he would ever have done the same thing with him, or if he wouldn't have bothered, since it was even more of an age gap. Dorian had at least been old enough to have a distinct personality when Math had left home. Caleb had still been too young to even go to school yet. Not exactly the type of thing that encourages bonds. A lot was running through Caleb's mind, but he wasn't sharing any of it now. He was listening.

"Something like that, yeah," Mathias said, one hand lightly holding the beer on the table. "I'd never had any problems with our parents. I don't know if it's because they treated me differently to you, or just because I didn't see it. I know I always kinda had free run to come and go as I pleased. I never really seemed to get in any trouble for anything - but then again, I didn't get caught for half the shit I did, and I talked my way out of the other half. Mom and dad mostly left me alone and I never questioned that that wasn't the best thing."

"Is that an unspoken 'til now', or do you still think things are okay as is?" Caleb asked. "Or is that what's bugging you so bad? You were really bothered when I told you about having left for a week. I can't tell if you're more bothered now because I'm handing over perspective that you might not have wanted, or if you were then. Or what it means to you. But go on." he encouraged, wanting Mathias to get through what he was saying. He didn't know if he was going anywhere with it or not, but that didn't really matter. Even if it dead ended and there was no point, he was interested in hearing how Mathias viewed it all.

"I liked my life the way it was," Mathias told him. "When I was your age - whatever the reaosn behind it. Whether it was just because they gave me my head, or because they didn't give a shit. I liked my life like that. If I'd've had restrictions? I would have been out of there years before I left and I'd probably be dead in a ditch right now." He clearly believed that - and he was probably right. Home had given him the safety and security to experiment with being the person whom he was to become. He could test the waters before diving in. He shrugged. "I'm thinking now that maybe I ruined it for you. Maybe our parents thought that what worked for me would work for you too. Or maybe you're right - maybe they just didn't give a shit, though I'm not sure I can believe that. Whatever, it's not the way I thought it was."

"They care about you." Caleb said. "They care about Dorian." They just don't care about me. He didn't say it though. He was thinking again. "I don't think you ruined shit. I think they were done at Dorian. I guess I used to think that maybe things had to do with you and him, but the more I talk to you two, the more I can see that it really was just them. You told me earlier that I could hate you if I wanted, then said a little bit ago that I did. Kinda a question, but I'm not sure. Would it have bothered you if I'd answered differently?" he asked.

"Of course it would have," Mathias said, feeling the need to reach for another cigarette. But he hadn't enjoyed the last one and he'd smoked more than he usually did tonight already. "When I said you could hate me before, it's because I'd prefer to have a brother hate me and be alive, than to have one think I was great, but end up with him dead. I know you were pissed that I haven't been around more, but believe it or not, my family means a lot to me."

"Weirdly, I'm kind of getting that." Caleb said. "I'm fuzzy on why. Though I guess for you, family was always great, so why not. From my perspective, it's just fucked. They never cared, so I never figured you or Dorian would. And I get why you did what you did tonight." He quirked a half smile. "Not sure I would ever have done the same kind of thing, but I get it." Now that he'd had a few hours to think about it and wasn't gushing blood anymore. That usually did wonders for one's clarity. Not hemoraging was great like that.

"Out of interest, why?" he asked. "Why are you fuzzy on the why?" he asked, looking at his brother consideringly.

"It's hard for me to grasp why either one of you would give a shit when neither one of you know me. Hell, even with Dorian, he left when I was young, and it's not like he ever looked back either. I never knew you. It's weird perceptions. Like, you say you're there, and have been the whole time. And this is the longest I've ever been around you in probably my entire life, and definitely the most I've spoken to you. I never knew that you were around. I never knew if anything happened to me that I could even try to talk to you. Not that I would have known how anyways, but whatever. I mean, you check in, but it's not like I knew that. If you were really calling to check in? All I heard was what you were up to. Or where you were now, and a million stories of back in the day, shit you've done. That kind of stuff. So I don't quite understand where you get this idea that family's everything when ours? Isn't." Caleb explained, doing probably a more thorough job than strictly necessary.

"To you, maybe," Mathias amended. "To me, it is." He gave in then, lighting up another cigarette, feeling the smoke burn slightly on the way down to his lungs, then rush back out again as he exhaled. He didn't say anything else, there wasn't anything he wanted to add.

"Why?" Caleb asked. Because he really didn't get where Mathias had gotten it from. Even from an unjaded perspective, he didn't really see his family as being that terribly...family oriented. It wasn't like they got together on holidays, or did anything like that at all. So yeah, he was curious about that. He also thought it might explain his brother a lot better.

He'd never been asked that question before. Never. "It - just always has been," he said at first, frowning slightly. But he realised that wouldn't be enough for Caleb, not from what they'd both said. And so he tried to quantify it. "What else do I have?" he asked, after a moment's pause.

That actually explained remarkably well. Caleb looked at Mathias for a long, long moment, then nodded. It kind of seemed to click a lot into place about him. Caleb wondered if he knew how he'd set everything up, or if he'd be horrified to know that he'd created a weak point. Particularly considering Mathias seemed to live his entire life making sure he didn't have any. He made sure he didn't have anything else, even down to possessions. People, definitely. Friends but not close friends. No one really knew him and like he'd said earlier, he made sure no one knew about them either. So no matter where he went, he was alone. He just didn't happen to be alone right now. Caleb made a decision there, regarding his brother. Which was he would make a point to be there. Even if that was just keeping a phone that he could be contacted on. He didn't know where the fuck he'd end up in his life, but for the first time he was including someone else in his worldview. Even if it was in a distant, 'just in case' sort of fashion. Either on his end or Mathias's. "Good enough for me." he said eventually, accepting his brother's answer. What more was there to say? It was simple, as far as he could tell, the truth, and summed up everything in a way that made sense. So he didn't need more of an answer than that.

Never in his life had Mathias been so thankful as he was that he didn't have to expand on that explanation. He could have, but just thinking about it made him vaguely uncomfortable. And so he was glad when Caleb seemed to grasp what he was saying without it needing to be spelt out for him. As it was, he'd needed a hell of a lot more exposition than Dorian had ever required. A lot of stuff, Dorian just seemed to get - something for which Mathias had always been thankful. He spotted the waitress heading their way again, but waved her off and indicated that she should bring over their tab. "Think you've had enough bro. KNow I have," he said, giving Caleb a half smile.

Caleb agreed. "Yeah." he said. "Thanks." he added, knowing this wasn't quite what his older brother had had in mind when they'd set out for a bar. But Caleb felt slightly better. He had a lot more information than he had before, and that in itself was something he appreciated. He didn't think Math was particularly appreciative, but if he'd been paying attention, he couldn't say he didn't know him anymore. While he certainly hadn't said everything, he'd given Mathias more than a solid feel for the way his head worked if nothing else. And Caleb really thought he understood him much better now. So...he wasn't thinking it was a bad night. He had a feeling Math might, though.