Iscariot

I want to take away the hurt but I just don't have the words

The noise kept hammering Damien. There was no escape from the thoughts as he paced in the darkness of his dreams. He clutched his head, wishing he could shield but this tired? Ironically, he couldn't block a word, couldn't filter, or even focus on any of it and because of the noise, he couldn't sleep restfully to be able to block it.

There were fragments in the madness he recognized. James. As layered and contorted as his eldest brother's mind was, he couldn't follow them. The voice that had once been a comfort to him was heartbreaking now. Damien shouted out in the dark against the cruelty of their father, the viciousness of time taking something good and spoiling it like so many other things in the world.

Izroul, I'm sorry. The thought cut through the wall of sound to find him. Matthew.

His other brother was hard to hear through the chatter of neighbors, of passing cars, of James' raw thoughts of self-loathing and banishment. Thoughts of others battered him, too: those whose spirits lingered quietly, whispering behind the cacophony of the living's mental shouting. The words of ghosts, as weak as his own, it took such an effort to push his thoughts into existence amid it all.

Matthew's voice kept on and Damien tried to follow it. Something about Mika being gone. He knew that already, didn't he? She ran out on him, she left him alone in the street, she wouldn't answer his calls. She was gone.

And went to Matthew, instead. Jealousy burrowed deep.

Damien sunk down to kneel, his eyes closed to the pitch black redundancy of his mind. He had to focus, he had to hold on.

Mika was with me, he clung to the memories. They were his; no one else's. Mine.

Sunshine on his back, they lay on a blanket in the green grass. He recited poetry to her, seeing her eyes light and they tentatively kissed, reconnecting once more after so long. In the moonlight, Mika lay on his bed. His hands were on her, his mouth against hers. Finally, her smile was for him, only him. Her thoughts were so warm he wanted to stay wrapped in them forever.

She liked my smile. She liked holding hands and talking with me. She loved how I love books, just like her. She shared her love of horses with me and they liked me, too. Damien's hands shook and he clenched his head tighter. I made her happy. And during that time a small voice, so small Mika may not even know it existed, whispered to him from her heart.

We could be.

"We could be," Damien forced the words out into the open through clenched teeth. "We could be!" he shouted and it echoed, pushing the foreign thoughts away. "We could be!" He screamed at the top of his lungs, anger cracking his voice.

His brothers. They knew his feelings for her and still, still, they had to have her.

James. She'd always had a level of attraction to his eldest brother. But she chose me! She sought me out, connected with me in the study. Of all of us, I was the one she'd been drawn to. He knew it!

His eldest brother's memories showed Damien Mika's murmured remembrance of James in her sleep as he lay atop her in her bed. Damien felt the attraction his brother felt as she sleepily gave him permission to take her. The drowsy lust and cries as her body answered his rang in Damien's ears; to her, it was a dream of pleasure bandaging her sore heart.

He wouldn't even consider it. James used her.

We could be.

Mika had thought of James while walking and talking with him. There were flashes of memories lingering in her mind: a light dinner at his brother's house, James and how she admired him, she looked up to him. And she thought she dreamed he'd pleasured her. She thought he was perfect, just as Damien had.