A Man of Honor.

Chapter 42: Brother, stop!

"A boy has never wept... nor dashed a thousand kin." ~ Dutch Schultz.

"STOP!" Saphron cried, her voice a partial sob of sadness.

Jaune looked away from the fireplace he had been staring into completely lost and looked at his sister. He had gone pale recalling the memory of being tortured, being beaten and cut and waterboarded and electrocuted.

It was all too much for her.

Hot tears streamed down Saphron's face. She looked away from him and the haunted expression he carried on his face.

Jaune blinked at her.

"Why are you telling me this? It's just... it's so horrible." She cried, wiping her tears away from her swollen red eyes.

Jaune dropped his cigar into the ashtray and stood up and walked across the living room. "I'm sorry." He told her, reaching her and gathering her in his arms, embracing her. "I'm so sorry Saph."

She buried her face in his shoulder and cried. She didn't want to think about him like that. She didn't want to think about her brother being bound and broken like that. The way he had described the experience, the pain, the fear, the hopelessness. It was horrifying to imagine that is what he had gone through.

He wasn't talking to her when he talked about it. He didn't look at her, he just stared into the fire and went on and on and on without sparing a single gruesome detail. It had felt like he was talking to a ghost.

"I'm sorry." Jaune told her, patting her back comfortably. He trembled as he spoke to her, resting his head atop her head and squeezing her. "I'm so sorry Saph... I wasn't thinking I just... I want you to understand."

"Why!? What is there to understand!?" She asked him. "They tortured you!"

Jaune stepped away and Saphron saw that he too had shed tears while holding her. "Yes... they did. It was agony... and I'm sorry I told you so much."

"Jaune... why are you still doing this? Those people, they tried to kill you, they hurt you. Is any of this worth that?" She said hugging him once more and burying her face into his shoulder wetting his expensive clothes with her tears.

"It might not be worth it, but I hardly had a choice." Jaune told her.

"You could have ran!" Saphron yelled, her scream muffled by his shoulder, and the sobs. "You could have run with Blake. You should have! Gods Jaune, the way you talk about her I'm sure you would have been happy together."

"Would that have really solved anything?" Jaune asked her. "I would have been on the run, everyone would have been out to hurt and kill me. And I couldn't see you, I wouldn't even be here if I ran."

"And how long are you going to be here, Jaune!?" She cried, pulling away from him and glaring into his eyes with both care and anger. "This can't be worth it!"

"I'm not worried about that anymore Saph... like I said. I'm fine, I've gotten past all of that and I'm safe now." Jaune told her putting his hands on her shoulder.

"I'm alive, I'm in love, I have money and power. It may not be everything I ever wanted but I couldn't ask for more." He explained to her.

"How long is it going to be like that, Jaune? From what you've told me there's no such thing as safety in this life you've built. There's bad men around every corner who have a reason to take a shot at you." She reasoned.

He sighed and shook his head at her. "Well... you're not wrong sis. But it is safer now than it ever was. The people who did that to me, they're gone now, long gone."