You And Me - A Collection of Les Twins One Shots

Pop Culture

Larry is a softie at heart.

As far as movies go, he likes anything that tugs on his heart strings and makes him feel like shit. 

When they watch Netflix together, Laurent is much more likely to pick a mindless action-packed Blockbuster than Larry would ever be. He just doesn't enjoy the mindless violence so much, he's all about real life situations like a single parent trying to make ends meet or a child getting bullied at school, or someone losing their best friend to cancer.

It annoys the hell out of Laurent, but he'll shut up and sit through it with him regardless, offering his wordless support through whatever emotional roller-coaster the movie puts Larry through.

One time during their early twenties, Larry decides to stay at home and watch TV while Laurent is out and doing god knows what. He mindlessly zaps through the channels on their mom's TV and comes by a movie that's called 'Four Brothers'. 

If the name doesn't already spark his attention, the fact that Tyrese Gibson is in it, does. So he decides to give it a chance. The movie ticks every box on Larry's checklist. Boys coming from a shady hood with little to no money or perspective. Check. A caring mom who loves them to death. Check. A revenge story arch. Check. A depiction of an unlikely family who will stop at nothing to protect and care for each other. Check.

Five minutes into the storyline and Larry is on the edge of his seat. He's deeply invested in the characters, he relates to the protectiveness of the oldest brother and to how much responsibility he carries for the rest of the family. He likes the somber atmosphere between run-down trailer-parks and graffiti-sprayed houses and the miserable far-away sound of shootings and sirens. And in the middle of it all, he sees the adoptive mother's house, filled with warmth and love and prayers and home-cooked meals and the familiar sense of home that no other place on earth could ever compare to. 

Larry feels like he's not just watching a movie, but like he's watching a piece of his childhood. It resonates with him on a deeper level than usually. The family dynamics, the setting, the problems and dangers the characters are facing...

What he's not prepared for is the ending.

He should have known that something bad was going to happen. That it wouldn't be a realistic movie if all four of the brothers made it out in one piece. He knows the dangers of the hood quite well, has lost enough friends in their circles to give testament to it, but somehow when he watches Jack Mercer die on screen, he's wholly unprepared for how much it wrecks him. Because Jack doesn't just die. He dies slowly and painfully, bleeding out in the snow and screaming for Bobby like his whole world just narrows down to that one name, that one person. 

And Larry's bawling. 

He knows it's just a movie. That it's not real. But the movie is like all of his worst nightmares have come to life, something happening to his mother while they are far away and unable to protect her. And then the worst of all. The thing that is so horrible that Larry can't even go there mentally, that he refuses to even acknowledge the possibility. Something happening to Laurent.

They've always known that people get killed in the hood, getting caught up in drug deals and gang violence. Larry still chooses to believe in the good in people, but every now and then the dark little voice pipes up in his head, whispering about his family getting injured and hurt while Larry's away and unable to do anything about it. 

He knows people get killed all the time doing regular stuff like buying groceries or driving to work, but the thought of losing his brother is so unbearable that he mentally can't go there. 

That's why the movie hits him so hard, because his defenses are lowered and his brain comes up with images of Laurent on the ground instead of Jack, wheezing and clutching at the gunshot wound in his stomach. Coughing up blood. Crying out for help. Crying out for Larry.