Weightless

Prologue to Weightless

A/N #1: This is set in an alternate universe where Cal isn't dead and the two were never adopted, so Ethan doesn't have Huntington's disease in this.

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Ethan could recall, when he was a child, that his Mother dieted often.

It was obvious that she was consumed by it. It was a compulsion that she clung to - something that was unwilling to let go of. He was a witness as she declined slowly throughout his childhood. It never made sense to him. He assumed it was because she didn't want to get 'huge'. It took him a long time to realize that wasn't all it was. Coping mechanisms come in all shapes and sizes.

Perhaps it was his Father's fault. But how could it be? He was never home - he was a doctor, so he worked long shifts - but he didn't want to be either. It's like he made destruction without being there. Maybe that's the point. If he just cut the ties with his family and left them then it wouldn't have been so painful. They could've moved on. There's no moving on over someone when they keep hanging about, prolonging the inevitable.

Ethan and Cal, his older brother, made a pact to never become like them. To never have their lives so undeniably fucked up. They wanted to be doctors - but not lothario medical men like their Father. And they wanted to be happy - not anti-depressant reliant like their Mother.

They know it's not their parent's fault that they are the way they are. But they didn't want to be carbon copies. They wanted to be whoever the hell they were going to grow into because that must be better. Surely.

"Blood pact."

"It's disgusting, Cal," eight-year-old Ethan says. He's got a lisp and a disapproving look on his face that, unknown to him, he'd come to master in the following years.

Ten-year-old Cal has a mischevious smile, lit up by the scarce light which creeps in through the curtain gap. They sit together, cross-legged, whilst Cal teases Ethan with a pin. He stops when Ethan tells him to.

"It'll hurt!"

"It'll be fine," Cal says reassuringly - having the persuasive charm of his father. "This is so we'll never be like then," ironic, "isn't that what you want?"

Even at a young age, Ethan didn't think you could choose who you grew into. Parents have huge roles in shaping their children. Could they escape being even slightly similar to their parents? But Cal was older - that's two more whole years worth of knowledge - so he decided to agree. Even if it'd hurt.

He holds out his hand. "Go on then."

Softly, Cal holds Ethan's wrist and then pricks his thumb with a pin before he can argue. Ethan yelps. Cal does it to himself, screwing his eyes closed, and then they hold their thumbs together. "This is a very serious-" Cal hunts for words that he's heard grown-ups use on television, "-and legally binding blood pact. Myself, Caleb Hardy, and my brother, Ethan Hardy, swear on our lives that we shall grow up into our own people. Never like Mummy and Daddy."

"We swear," Ethan says. He pauses, adds "solemnly," and then feels quite satisfied.

They hold their bleeding thumbs together for a bit longer. Then they drop.

"Did it work?"

"Dunno," Cal smiles. "We'll have to see what sort of people we become one day."

Ethan and Cal continued to be close when they were children. Like others, they didn't leave adolescence the same way they went in - they weren't unscathed by the cruelty of growing up. They split and then reconciled. Life was good when Ethan was with Cal; even when it wasn't.