Gods and Monsters

Ch. 1 The life of Sage

Small blue handprints covered the lower half of the wall, a guilty five-year-old held his paint-stained hands behind his back. Sage held back his frustration and angry words knowing Marlo would cry, the kid got yelled at enough and Sage knew he had only done this because he wanted attention. The youngest of the seven Taylor siblings tended to be left out when Sage wasn't home.

"Come on little man, let's get you cleaned up." Sage scooped up his little brother and carried him into the kitchen where Elias sat at the cluttered table doing homework. Sage held Marlo in front of the sink and stuck his paint-covered hands under the water and proceeded to wash off the evidence. "Where are the twins? You're supposed to be watching them until I get home." Sage looked back to his brother who ignored him and continued mumbling to himself.

As if summoned, the twins could be heard running down the stairs and giggling as if up to no good. The seven-year-olds ran into the kitchen, brown hair a mess of unruly curls and big brown eyes pleading innocence. Most of the time no one could tell the two apart but Sage knew that Aurora had the tendency to bounce and it was impossible for the girl to stay still, Mia was the complete opposite and could stand like a statue for hours. Sage had already gotten the story from Marlo that it was the twins who supplied him with the paint and he was the last to fall victim to their innocent smiles.

"What are you two doing going through my stuff?" The twins smiles faltered, Aurora rocked on the balls of her feet, Mia rolled her eyes.

"Eli told us where to find it!" Aurora accused, her small finger pointing at the teen who finally looked up from his binder.

Elias sputtered and pushed up his wire-framed glasses, a nervous habit. "They needed a distraction." He admitted with a sigh of defeat.

"That distraction was Marlo finger painting the wall, mom's gonna be mad." Sage sat Marlo in the empty seat beside Elias.

"Sorry," Elias turned back to his binder and Sage glanced over his shoulder to see the trigonometry worksheet. "I'm getting twenty bucks from each person, That will be a hundred and forty bucks tomorrow." Elias spared Sage a glance before continuing with someone else's homework. Sage chose not to comment, at least his bookish brother wasn't getting bullied into doing it for free.

Sage left his younger siblings in the kitchen and ran upstairs to the room that he shared with Elias and Marlo. Maverick or Ricky as he goes by now, left a couple of months ago, leaving Sage to try and take care of his younger siblings alone. Their mom makes sure to drop by sometimes, usually high or drunk and in need of somewhere to crash. She lost her job as an RN three years ago when she was caught stealing prescription pads and selling them. After that, Sage started putting food in the fridge because she started selling the food stamps to get cash for pills.

Sage tossed his work shirt in the overflowing hamper and sniffed a black shirt already on his bed. With a shrug, he pulled it on and ran his fingers through his unkempt sandy blond curls. The teen had three hours to feed his siblings and make sure no one burnt down the house before he was due for his second job.

Downstairs he dumped fish-sticks on a cookie sheet and stuck them in the oven. Marlo stayed by his side, talking about his day at school. His blue eyes were big with excitement and Sage felt guilty for not being able to give his little brother more of his time. The twins had each other, and Elias barely moved away from the laptop, leaving Marlo to find ways to occupy himself. Very rarely their oldest sister Myla would stop by with gifts for everyone from one of her many boyfriends, Maverick wasn't so thoughtful and the only time Sage would see his older brother was on the streets.

The twins screaming had Sage telling Elias to watch the food as he ran up the stairs, Marlo following behind. The twins stood on one of their beds screaming and holding each other, pointing down at the spider on the floor. Sage grabbed a shoe to kill it only for Marlo to start crying about its feelings. Using a plastic teacup and a piece of paper, he captured the spider and ran downstairs to release it outside. Marlo wiped at his puffy eyes and sniffled, a smile in place after seeing the spider runoff. Back inside, the fish-sticks were overcooking and he had to rush to find an oven mitt to pull them out.

Sighing, he looked back at the fourteen-year-old but chose not to say anything. After heating up corn on the stove he cleaned off the kitchen table and called everyone down. Dividing the fish-sticks equally and scooping corn onto plates, Elias put up his school work and decided to help by getting juice for everyone.

"You're not going to eat anything?" Elias asked.

Sage looked over his siblings and smiled. "No, I have to go."

He checked his pockets for his house keys before giving the younger three a kiss on the cheek and ruffling Elias' hair. The younger teen complained halfheartedly as Sage rushed off so he wouldn't miss the bus.

The job he had stocking shelves at the small corner store was paid under the table because he was still underage and could only work so many hours a week legally. The owner, David, had agreed to it after Sage had seen how the older man looked at him and offered to give him a blowjob when he wanted. Which was every day. Sage didn't care as long as he kept his job. And it wasn't like the older man would tell anyone, he had a wife and kids.

He only worked a six-hour shift until midnight when the store closed. He stuck around for no more than twenty minutes with David in the back and the man was generous enough to drop him off a few blocks from home. By the time he made it home, all he wanted was to shower and sleep. That would have to wait though. He locked the front door behind him and spotted Marlo asleep curled up on the couch beside Elias who had the tv muted and was on his laptop.

Sage carried his little brother upstairs and tucked him into the top bunk. Luckily he was a hard sleeper and close to nothing could wake him up. That's what happens when you grow up in a loud household. He checked on the twins before he went back downstairs to snatch the laptop from Elias who blinked before jumping up.

"Hey! I was working on something." The younger teen complained. Sage raised a brow.

"Really? What?" He never knew what kept all of Elias' attention, he knew it wasn't anything inappropriate because he'd looked and all that's been on there was documents of pages of numbers and some kind of codes. But he wasn't really good with computers, only knowing what he'd learned from school. Elias had saved his own money to get it but he wouldn't hesitate to take it away if his younger brother was doing anything bad on it.

"None of your business. Come on Sage, give it back." Elias pushed up his glasses and tried to reach for the computer but Sage held it out of his reach.

"You can get it back tomorrow. It's time for bed."

"I'm not a kid! I can stay up however long I want." Sage wasn't going to point out that he was acting like a kid now. Instead, he walked away with the laptop. There wasn't a lot of food in the fridge, just enough to get the kids by until he could go to the store, so he ignored his hunger and poured a glass of water. He listened to Elias stomp up the stairs and prayed that the twins didn't wake up.

Elias is a sweet kid, he's just at the age where he thinks he knows it all. Sage learned it was best to just let him talk and not respond because that usually led to shouting matches.

Finally, when Elias stopped slamming dresser draws and banging around, the house was silent. Sage exhaled and grabbed his backpack from by the front door. He spent the forty minutes it took to do his homework. He didn't get that shower he wanted, he didn't even make it upstairs and instead fell asleep on the couch.

_______________________________

🖤