E N C H A N T E D

Don't be mad at Liam

Liam came around over the lunch hour. Max was still sleeping and Remus was anxiously awaiting the arrival of the hospitalist and eventually the chemo team.

The three men sat silently and watched him sleep. Tense wasn't quite the right word to describe the mood in the room, but Liam wasn't quite happy with how out of the loop Remus had left him and he wasn't thrilled with how in the loop Sirius was.

Remus' read on Sirius was probably less accurate, but he certainly didn't seem to be trying to hide his displeasure with Liam's selfish attitude. Beyond a quick hello and a handshake when Remus introduced them, they seemed intent on ignoring one another.

After about 15 minutes of sulking, Sirius' phone rang and he excused himself from the room.

"Can you please just try to be nice to him?" Remus scoffed. "He's just trying to be helpful, and without him I don't even know that we'd be here right now. "

Liam chuckled but it lacked humor "sure, whatever."

Remus noticed his foot tapping as he began to feel more agitated. "What the hell is your problem? Why can't you just try to be nice?"

"You didn't even fucking call me!" He shouted. Remus glanced back to Max who was still fast asleep, unaware of his two brothers having an argument.

"You were with Mel. I didn't want to bug you."

"Remus ... Remus hospitalizing our brother is exactly what you should bug me about."

Remus sighed again "this isn't your problem to deal with though Liam. I didn't want you to worry, I have it perfectly under control. "

"Under control? You're missing work! The rest of the kids are with some stranger, you're here with some stranger, Max is so sick he's in the hospital to get chemo. That is not under control "

"They're not with a stranger, they're with Sirius' mom who is more than capable of watching them. I'm not missing work because I'm not going back to work. Max is here and already doing better, and Sirius isn't a stranger to me."

Liam sighed now and picked at the hem of his pants. "I'm not trying to talk to you out of it Remus, but let me tell you how it looks from my perspective. You just spent the last few weeks crying because of him. We've been scraping by together this whole time and you didn't even call me when you needed help. And I don't want to say this because it's gonna sound a lot harsher than it needs to be, but you're behaving a lot like you did with Travis."

"This is entirely different than Travis!"

"You left your job because he's providing for you entirely. That's exactly what happened with Travis. You're letting him take care of the kids, which is what Travis did."

"They were his fucking kids!"

Liam leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms, "yeah because that makes it better."

Remus felt tears welling in his eyes. "It's different. Liam, it's really different but I don't want to argue with you about it."

"Look, whatever. You've made your decision. All I want is for you to treat me like I do contribute to this family.

"You do!" Remus wiped his tears. "I just feel so terrible that you even have to help as much as you do. You're just a kid, Liam. And I'm not saying that to try to make you feel like you contribute less. I just want you to have a life as a young adult that I never did."

They sat in silence.

"I didn't exclude you because I thought you weren't a valuable person to have here. I did it to try to protect you from things you shouldn't have to be responsible for."