Immortal

07. Things I never asked for.

Eliam eventually came home, and Alaric hid from him in the same makeshift little corner. He was terrified. I on the other hand had to tell Eliam everything. I had no choice, he could automatically tell I was under some distress and keeping something from him. He waited patiently for me to finish recounting the tale of events.

He stared at me like I was an idiot for the fight I'd jumped into with zero fight training. He laughed and I glared. When I got to Alaric though, Eliam fell silent. I hesitated on mentioning too much. I still knew I had to tell him the truth, there was no avoiding it. Alaric's presence put all of us in danger. On cue, to the sound of his name, Alaric crawled out of his space slowly. He crept toward me and kept his distance from Eliam who stared him down. He was visibly terrified for a few moments.

"This is Alaric." I said after I finished explaining myself. Eliam's expression looked focused, I had seen the look a million times. He stared blankly but he was thinking of all the same things I probably already pondered.  He looked at Alaric, "Can you read?" He asked him. Alaric looked bewildered by such a question. "N..no." He answered. "I can't read. But I know what books are, I look at the pictures inside them." He admitted. Eliam picked up a pen and wrote something down. He held up the paper to me, on it in black ink where the words:

We have to report him, and send him back.

My eyes widened and Alaric stared blankly at the page.

"Do you know what any of these symbols mean?" Eliam asked Alaric. "I've seen them a lot, but no." He said glancing at me hoping I would translate it.

"Why." I asked.

It felt wrong to send him back. After I'd seen him beg not to go back. He had cried. Screamed even. He didn't want me to see the marking on his arm. I had seen it anyway. Eliam gave me a stern look, I knew the meaning of it. He was asking me to be rational. I had abandoned rationality, but I knew what he meant. We didn't have the resources for another mouth to feed. He was property of a farm wether we wanted it or not. Someone was going to come looking and if it went unreported there would be dire consequences.  We couldn't cover this up, even if our sector was out of the way and loosely monitored.

We didn't know Alaric, and he was raised apart from us. I swallowed at Eliam's reasoning, he had too many good points. Part of me though, couldn't let go of Alaric. I don't know what it was but I didn't like the idea of sending him back.

"No." I said. Mentally deciding that Alaric was going to stay with us.

Eliam blinked at my answer. "That wasn't a question." He began. "No." I said again.
His expression hardened into a glare.
"You wouldn't do that if it were me." I defended Alaric. I doubted anyone ever had defended him before this. Alaric just stood beside me confused at the coded conversation going on between the two of us.

"You're not him. You don't even know him that well." He demanded rationally.

"No." I said again. I refused to give into his argument.

"Do you know what the hell will happen if we don't report him?" Eliam started his logical argument. I didn't care. I wasn't listening anymore.

"Fuck what will happen!" I yelled at him.

"Sam, of all the irresponsible fucking bullshit to pull this one is way out of league!" He began to yell back. He was right. It was irresponsible. It was stupid. It put everyone in danger, and yet I didn't give a single fuck.

I stood up having heard enough of it. "You're not doing that to him!" I said with a hard glare.

"Oh, and you're going to stop me tough guy?" Eliam mocked me and I punched him without thinking.

"So that's how its going to be." Eliam spit blood out onto the floor between us. Alaric stood off to the side watching both of us. Eliam's expression hardened into a dark look, and I knew he was going to kick my ass. Alaric stepped in front of me before either of us could take another swing at each other, his arms spread out in a defensive manner and he screamed "Stop!" Eliam looked at him, his weak stance, how he stood there anyway as if he could protect me.

"Stop! Don't fight!" He said loudly again. His body shook and I stared at Eliam, waiting for him to kick him out of the way. His expression was still angry but he didn't hit Alaric.

"If you're going to do that, then tell me with a straight face that if it were me, that you would send me back too." I said with a hardened tone.
Eliam looked at me distastefully, like I what I was demanding him to say was utterly stupid. "Sam, you're being irrational." He retorted. Though the words had meaning, he knew this.
He knew I wanted him to feel the emotion.
I waited. "Say it then." I said again.
"Say it and you can send him away." I dared him.
Eliam never spoke the words. He remained silent.
By then, Alaric got an idea about what the fight was over. Eliam waited for him to run and hide. He waited for him to cry. React. Scream. Beg. Anything. We both knew he should have figured out what was written down on that page by now. Alaric did none of those things. He stood his ground, he stayed in front of me.

His words finally broke the silence and tension.
"I don't want my brothers to fight." Alaric spoke brokenly. The word brother now had a meaning to him. It wasn't just a definition to him anymore.
Eliam stared at him, and twitched when he used the word brother, in regards to him.

"How do you know you that we're actually related to him." Eliam asked me.
The words cut like knives. I had known just by the looks on Alaric's face. The expression of his caution, the emotion behind his eyes. His curiosity about our home. The heaviness of the life he had to carry on his own before being brought here to us.  I didn't need a test to tell me if we had the same genetics I knew. The exact same way I knew Eliam was my brother, Alaric was too.

"The same way I know I'm related to you." I answered with a cold tone. Eliam looked like he had been slapped when I said that. "You're not sending him back." I said with a final hard tone. "If you do you lose two brothers, at the price of one." I walked away from him. He sighed heavily, which meant he had given in. He wasn't going to fight me on this anymore.

It had stung me to say those words, but I knew it was the only way to get him to give in. As much as I might've wanted Alaric gone originally, I didn't want him to leave anymore. He was going to stay with us. Alaric of course followed me, as I made way into my small bedroom and flopped on the ancient bed. I was infuriated and I noticed him standing in the doorway. He was hesitant to come in.

"You can come in." I said. He walked in slowly and watched me on do nothing on the bed. "What?" I asked him. Then noticed that he had begun crying again silently. His smaller frame was shaking as he tried to wipe away the tears. He was trying hard to hide it. I patted the bed offering him a spot on it. He took it climbing on top of me, he felt ice cold against my body heat. His hands brushed against my wings lightly and he put his arms under them and buried himself against them. He shook for awhile until finally I heard the first couple of soft snores come out of his mouth.

I smiled at the sound and gradually fell asleep myself.