Fan Fiction ❯ The Ties That Bind ❯ Brothers Are People Too ( Chapter 6 )

Chapter 6 - Brothers are People Too

"You're supposed to be dead," Semanche said as she craned her neck up in disbelief at the sight in front of her.
The form of her other brother was clad from head to foot in shades of midnight. Black leather wrapped his legs and waist, even as a black tank top tightly surrounded his muscular chest. A black leather trench coat swept all the way down to his calves, hugging his broad shoulders and tapered waist. Impossibly long golden blonde hair was tied back from his face with a lose tie, even as the strands of silver glittered vibrantly amidst all of that sunshine warmth. His eyes were what caused her the most pain of all, however. Pitch black upon pitch black, without a shred of white to be seen even as the warm chocolate color they had been was lost in all of that darkness.

Bastian, I've missed you so. You were our shadow and our sanity for the longest time. Without you, Crispin and I couldn't keep mother together anymore. I don't think you ever realized how much you meant to this family. But, you've changed so much. What has happened to my sweet brother? Where did he go and who is this stranger towering over me now?

"I love you too, sister darling," came the reply from the man in front of her in his cultured, baritone voice that held a small trace of the patented family smirk that all three siblings had inherited from their father.

"But, you're supposed to be dead! What happened? Where the hell have you been? You couldn't even drop your sister a POSTCARD?" Semanche said in a rush of breath and fevered words as the vast amount of shock, relief, and joy at seeing her brother alive again filtered into her fast words.

"You're going to be dead soon if we don't get moving," Bastian replied, laughing softly under his breath at her quick exhalation of words.

"Crispin's that close?" she asked, nibbling on her lower lip with concern as she began looking at the press of people who were walking around them as they faced off in the middle of the mall aisle.

"Only if you consider twenty feet from us close," Bastian said without a trace of emotion to his voice, though his eyes danced just a shade.

"You can't be serious!" Semanche exclaimed, whirling away and staring behind her as if to prove his words wrong.

"I'm not but he is within a mile from here. Come on, we can play catch up while we get out of here," came the amused, dry response from Bastian as he glanced around after taking her arm and beginning to lightly tug her towards the exit.

"I'm all for that but you better tell me what the hell happened and where you've been or I won't budge an inch, Crispin or not," she said, digging her heels in and refusing to move no matter how hard her brother tried to drag her out of the mall.

"Fine. You always were as stubborn as twenty normal women. Move your ass, sister, unless you want me to hogtie you again and drag you away as I did when you wouldn't go visit the King and Queen at that ball in your honor," he responded with a touch of exasperation, still dragging her along even though the efforts were a sore waste of his energy. When his sister didn't want to be moved, she wasn't going anywhere.

"That was the stupidest excuse of pomp and idiocy I had ever attended. I'm still pissed at you for dragging me to that," she said, laughing softly and shaking her head with long suffering irritation at her older sibling. Reluctantly, she was also allowing him to guide her towards the door and whatever means of escape he had in mind for the pair of them.

"I know," came the suspiciously quiet response from her brother, bringing a narrow eyed glare from Semanche shot in his direction.

"Start talking, brother dear," she said, giving him the look. Any older brother knows exactly what look this is or even man for that matter. The female look of death and chaos threatened if information and explanation are not forthcoming right away. It causes squirming and shifting in the male of the human species, or any species for that matter.

"The Order of Knights started a nasty little rumor that I had committed suicide because they had no clue what really happened to me. All they knew was that I had turned my back upon them, thanks to Crispin and his big mouth. I couldn't very well enlighten them too soon that I was alive now could I, not even to contact you. As much as I love you, Semanche, I could not risk your safety or Crispin's in knowing too much about the designs of my true fate before the time was right," Bastian said softly, imploring her to understand and believe the truth in his words. Finally, she also began shifting towards the exit at a faster pace, much to his immense relief.

"Crispin reported to the King that you were no longer a Knight, even though you had died as honorably as you lived. No one would say the reason why you killed yourself, though everyone assumed it was because of her. Wait, did Crispin know all this time that you were still alive?" she asked, narrowing her eyes again even as Bastian opened the exit door for her with an audible sigh of relief from both of them simultaneously. The siblings faintly chuckled at one another in perfect understanding as they exited into the stifling heat the night wrapped around them. There is nothing like Southern California in the middle of summer, especially when coming out of the air conditioned sanctity of a mall and out into the sweltering heat of early night. The only thing close is Florida or Texas but Semanche had not been familiar with either of those places so here she was on the west coast instead.

"I haven't seen our brother since the night she died, over two years ago now. Crispin would kill me on sight at this point and you know this as well as I. Because he has always been the most sensitive of us, I would have to say that he suspected my death was nothing but a ruse I perpetrated for my own devious reasons. Reasons that not even he could fathom with all of his vaunted intuition and power," Bastian responded at last, appearing oddly out of place in head to foot black leather in the cloying heat, even though it did not seem to bother him in the least bit. He took her arm and began stalking across the parking lot, looking this way and that as they went. It was as if he was expecting to be attacked at any moment, though Semanche knew he had always been like this since completing his training as a Knight.

"What were your reasons, if not for heartbreak at the loss of Lyona?" Semanche asked very softly, almost afraid to even mention a subject that was so very sensitive and raw for both brothers.

"I don't have the luxury of time to go into them now, little starling, but know they were damned good. I did not walk away from everything I hold dear just for the sake of the woman I loved and lost to death that same night," Bastian replied just as quietly and with an edge to his voice his sister did not recognize though it brought cold chills up the back of her spine.

"Aye, she did love you," Semanche said, stating the obvious because someone had to and she wasn't sure if Bastian had ever known just how much Lyona had loved him. Few knew exactly how much that beautiful woman had done in the name of love for both of Semanche's brothers.

"I know, but she loved Crispin more. You could tell me why she killed herself when I would have stepped aside for their love. She knew that. She did not have to do something so foolish and what she thought was selfless. I never wanted her death, Semanche, only her happiness. You could tell me what her last words to you were so that I might find some small peace and comfort in them," Bastian said, stopping at last in front of a sleek, jet black Harley that practically purred with the urge to be ridden. It suited him, down to the shining chrome that ran along both sides and the utter midnight perfection of its body. The look in those dark eyes was imploring, begging, and painful to behold as he looked for any scrap of comfort from his sister and what she knew that none other did.

"I cannot give them to you or Crispin yet. I made a vow to her when I-" Semanche began, voice laced with true regret and sorrow over the wicked dance of the past that was consuming both siblings.

"Yes, I know what you did. The entire Order knew what happened, though they were not supposed to. Crispin would have seen you dead that night if not for my intervention. I do not hate either of you, only what the Council has manipulated the Knights into becoming," Bastian responded without a hint of emotion to his voice, though his eyes revealed the truth of what he was feeling at this moment. He leaned against the bike, folding his arms across his chest as he gestured for Semanche to straddle it. The sooner they were away from this place the better.

"It's not like that, not at all!" she said, defending the ancient order she belonged to with all the conviction of a true believer and soldier who has not lost faith in those that command him even though she should have.

"Oh really. They pit brother against sister for their amusement and call it justice. They make a Forsaken out of you and conveniently attack Crispin's honor and the honor of our House to goad him into Hunting you with all his heart to restore that same honor. They have turned a once strong, courageous, honorable brotherhood of warriors into nothing more than their stupid puppets, labeling anything that they wish to be rid of Forsaken so they do not have to deal with it personally. Where is the justice in what they have done to us? Tell me that, sister!" Bastian said with his own depth of conviction and passion lining his voice, even as he physically picked Semanche up and set her across the bike whether she wanted to be there or not. His eyes blazed as he returned to gazing at her and awaited her response, though he kept scanning the parking lot for any signs of Crispin. His own shoulder blades were twitching now from being in such an open space where they could so easily be ambushed and taken without any innocent the wiser.

"We are who we are. We live and die by the Code, as we have since before the dawn of recorded time. Our honor and our duty will always be to the Code and each other," Semanche said with conviction, though it had the sound of a memorized line of phrase that was said more for comfort than any true belief.

"Did you betray the Code as they accuse you of? Did you betray your flesh and blood as they say? Are you a Forsaken, Semanche?" Bastian questioned her sharply, staring deeply within the faded depths of her eyes as if searching to find the truth of the questions himself.

"No! I don't know why they are saying these things, unless it is because of what I did to Lyona. Crispin is the only one who could have called down a Hunt upon me for that and he wouldn't! He's my brother, though he Hunts me now. He only Hunts me because it is his duty, no other reason," she said, having faith in Crispin though she knew down to her bones that their other sibling would not hesitate to kill her if it was what honor or duty demanded of him. Bastian would never have been able to do such a thing, of that she was sure of, but Crispin could simply because he was the hardest of the three.

"So sure you are of our sibling then? From your line of reasoning, it was our own brother who called this Hunt down upon you, though it has been made to officially look as if he had nothing to do with it at all. I have to wonder exactly who is pulling the strings in this odd dance we find ourselves in," Bastian mused, quirking his eyebrow as she responded. A small smile flickered across the planes of his face as he leaned beside of her on the bike and continued this discussion.

"This is no dance, Bastian. This is my very honor and life we are discussing," Semanche said, shooting him another glare.

"War is always a dance, Semanche," he said flatly but with utter truth flavoring his words.

"War?" she questioned him with a lift of her eyebrow.

"You heard me," he responded again, flatly and devoid of any telling emotion.

"War against whom or what?" she asked, unsure if she was simply wondering aloud or she really wanted an answer from him.

"It still remains to be seen but all will reveal itself in time," he said softly, shrugging his shoulders and causing the leather of his trench coat to shift around him with a soft sound.

"So you really did jump off a cliff and disappear?" she asked with a faint grin across her beautiful features.

"I surely did and earned more broken ribs than I care to count for that stupid act of desperation," he replied with a low laugh of amusement at his own foolish action. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, until he landed anyway.

"You never could land worth a damn," she said, teasing him as younger sisters always will their older brothers, no matter what ages both are.

"You still hit like a girl," he responded, grinning down at her with amusement apparent in his dark orbs.

"I am a girl!" she exclaimed indignantly.

"My point exactly," he said with a very visible, satisfied smirk.

"Brothers are such assholes," she said, grumbling under her breath as she nudged him in the ribs.

"Bastards," he said calmly.

"Huh?!?" Semanche said looking at him as if he'd lost his mind.

"Brothers are bastards. I am not an asshole," Bastian replied with that same knowing smirk of his that always pissed his sister off.

"You can be," she pointed out quite matter-of-factly.
"But not to you, sister dearest," he said just a bit too sweetly for her taste.

"You can so," she shot back, glaring at him or attempting to through the laughter that was threatening to take her over.

"When have I ever been an asshole to you?" he asked with another faint chuckle and a lift of his own eyebrow.

"You want a list?" she shot, looking up at him defiantly.

"I have all night," he shot right back, taking on a stance that did not hint at the direness of the situation that brought them together.

"There was that one time when you were supposedly showing me how to shoot a bow and arrow. You kept laughing your ass off and pointing at the target I was supposed to aiming for though I kept falling short of it. You were a mean asshole the whole time!" she said triumphantly and with an amused smirk of her own.

"You kept trying to make me a pin cushion with your bad aim, which hasn't improved one bit since then," Bastian observed, snickering under his breath at her.
"It has so! I always hit what I aim for now!" Semanche said, fuming and glaring up at him. Brothers could be such royal shits sometimes. Correction, all of the time.

"Really," he said dryly and with no small hint of sarcasm.

"I DO!" Semanche yelled at him.

"I believe you," Bastian said sarcastically, rolling his eyes and trying very hard not to laugh.
"No you don't! You're laughing at me!" she pointed out, shooting him a very nasty look.

"I always laugh at you because you're so damn amusing," he responded with laughter tingeing his voice as well as dancing within the dark depths of his eyes. It was not often that he laughed these days and it felt oddly good to do so. Unfortunately, it would not last. It never did anymore.

"I am not!" she said, stomping down hard on his toe where she sat upon the bike and he was still leaning casually against it. The sound of a soft OWCH could be heard in between the sound of Bastian's dark laughter.

"If you say so," he finally managed to get out, laughing still in between deep breaths as he hopped lightly on his abused foot.

"If you were going to be like this, you should have stayed dead!" Semanche said, managing to glare and laugh all at once over the absurdity of the situation.

"That can be arranged," came a voice that was cold as ice as well as being twice as biting as the depths of winter's chill.

A pair of startling, sky blue eyes looked with amusement at the pair who whipped their heads up to quickly stare at the form that appeared out of the darkness. The fact that he was draped across the hood of his mustang, clad in white leather from head to foot assured neither Semanche nor Bastian in the least. It only signified he was completely on the Hunt and had found his prey at last.

A long moment of silence passed between the three as they traded long, searching looks and waited for the true dance to begin.