He was never enough for them, he could never do enough. Ever since he was a kid they'd always pushed him down; everyone. He was always too short or too dumb or too much of a pushover.
"What's the matter with you? Are you trying to piss people off all the time or can you just not help it?"
"It's not like I'm not doing anything wrong."
When he was younger he always thought he could rise above it, become the man he knew his late mother would have wanted him to be. But things just didn't work out like that. You can try and try and try a hundred more times but if the world just keeps on beating you down, you gotta learn at some point to hit it right back. His tongue grew sharp and he grew reckless, often looking for trouble just for the sake of it. If people wanted a fight he'd give them one.
"No, you're just going out and looking for trouble to prove you're 'strong' or whatever. That doesn't make you a good person."
"Yeah, like you know anything about what the fuck makes someone a good person?"
He hated the look in his sisters eyes when he came home with each new cut and scrape, with every new bloodied nose and blackened eye. He hated the tone in his brother's voice when he told him what an idiot he'd been, how he was weak and useless, going down the list of all the exact same things his father used to tell him. But his brother was just a hypocrite. They both were. He knew exactly how they earned their money.
"Just keep your head down. Don't get into trouble. Do what i tell you. You know we're all worried about you, Toby."
"I can take care of myself, I don't need you fighting all my battles for me."
Someone had been harassing a boy he liked at school. Naturally, he'd stepped in. He'd already got beaten up then for his troubles and now it was six pm and the bully's brother was paying him a visit behind the parking lot. The sky was overcast with angry, weeping storm clouds, the only light was the sickening orange hue of the streetlights. He was pinned back against the bins by four guys twice his size that already had a vendetta against him 'cause Alex had sold them something that wasn't exactly one hundred percent, or something somewhere along those lines. He looked them all directly in the eyes and told them he wasn't scared. When they laughed, he spat in their faces.
"Fine..."
"What?"
The rain came down in sheets around him, seeming to get harder every second. His stomach lurched as he was kicked to the ground, thrashing and swearing. With each hit he threw insult after insult, telling them how sorry they were gonna be, leeching off every flaw he could spot within them to try and get under their skin. But his voice gradually grew weaker, each comment making less sense as he struggled to even keep conscious. Their jeering stung in his head like the droning of wasps. It wasn't till he could barely talk at all and was reduced to a cowering mess covering his face on the pavement that they finally left him alone.
"I won't step in next time, promise. From here on out, you're on your own. That's what you want, right?"
He lay there in the gutter for another minute or so, each second feeling like an agonised eternity, struggling to take each breath. No matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't lie here forever. As soon as he couldn't hear their laughter any more, the bruised kid started to pick himself up, wincing as every movement jarred his battered body. Then he felt the weight of soaked-through fabric being draped over his shoulders. Startled, he looked up.
The figure met him with a blank stare, green eyes giving away no emotion whatsoever. Scowling, his heart sank as the realisation hit him and he demanded in a hoarse voice to know how long Alex had been standing there.
"Long enough."
He didn't know what else he'd been expecting. Some reassurance, maybe? Sympathy? Even a bandage... he wiped his nose on the sleeve of the hoodie, leaving a crimson trail of blood. Good, ruin it for him. He blanked for a moment, as if trying to process what was happening. Just before he reached a snappy comment, his brother's voice made him jump. If it were possible for it to be any colder, it was now.
"I kept my promise."
"Yeah, I can fucking see that."
He watched his brother with cold, hateful eyes through the mop of his slick brown hair and the rim of the hoodie that was too big for him. The icy rain splashed onto the pavement around him, causing little streams that ran past him through the cracks in the aged tarmac and rinsed away the gathering blood and mud from his numb fingers and bruised face.
After what felt like hours but was really only a couple seconds, Alex stuck out his hand, a gesture that had more meaning than just 'let me help you up'. Toby glared at it as if it were a spider trying to lure him into its web and then looked at his brother with the same distrust. Defiantly, he brushed it away and dragged his aching body off the ground by himself. He kept the hoodie on though, and that meant enough by itself.
Alex laughed and shrugged. Instead his hand went to his pocket and dragged out a cigarette. Holding it between his teeth and using his palm as a shield from the pouring rain lit it on the third try and took a long drag. Toby stepped away from the cloud of smoke that billowed towards him, holding his breath so he didn't have to breathe any in.
"Suit yourself, you little weirdo."
