Title by Snow Patrol[1]
“Hey—come in,” Dreogan said, holding open the door and gesturing invitingly to his brother.
Dreogan didn’t know why, but there was a disquieting formality in Adon requesting to come visit. Owling to set up a time. In previous months, Adon’d just come by when he pleased, and Dreogan’d do what he could to fit him in. But more recently, Adon’d not come by at all.
After the somewhat disastrous discussion with Jonas Trevelyan in his office, Dreogan’d tried to let Adon do things as he pleased, and not push. Adon would do as he liked. And Dreogan was beginning to realize that with this resolve ventured that Adon may prefer spending time with Jonas Trevelyan than himself.
In the face of yet another battle against eventuality, Dreogan had done what he could: he threw himself into his own family—the new life he was starting with Akiva, and their soon-to-be born child (5 months and counting). He threw himself into his burgeoning career, and the new branch of government he was fighting to foster. And now, with the threat on their mother, he was throwing himself into her protection as well.
Hestia was, at present, up in the guest room. Dreogan doubted very much that she was asleep, like Akiva was. When Dreogan had explained the owl over breakfast that morning, his mother seemed to sense preternaturally, maternally, that this was a meeting for the brothers alone.
”Hey,” Adon shuffled in and dropped his satchel. He looked defeated. Dreogan gave a concerned smile and picked the bag up from the floor to hang it from the coat rack, where it swung gently.
“Help yourself—if you want to best seat in the house, just move Tabitha,” he said, gesturing towards the living room, where Tabitha lay sprawled in Dreogan’s usual wing-backed chair by the fireplace. Tabitha, hearing her name—or perhaps sensing the threat to her reign—lifted her regal head and blinked her yellow eyes blearily.
Adon’s subdued laugh as he settled on the sofa pacified Tabitha, who curled her tail about the arm of the chair, lengthening her area of influence. “The tyrant can have her throne, for all I care. You got any—“ he began before cutting himself off.
“Hm?”
“Nevermind. You got something to drink—apple juice or something? Milk?” He smirked at Dreogan.
Dreogan gave a lopsided smile. “Alright--I’ll see what I can muster.” He returned several moments later with two cans of child Filestra’s Fizz-o-la—peach flavored.
“Sophistication in a can. Remember how we used to trade for these at lunchtime at Gaddol?” Adon mused as he snapped the top open and took a sip.
Dreogan smiled, nodded, and waited. There was an air of formality, an air of unpredictability that made him hesitate.
“So. Ima’s here, now? How’ve you been, brother?”
“Mum’s fine. Just settled upstairs. She’s actually been a great help with Akiva. Kiv’s doing better, of course—in terms of the morning sickness, but she still doesn’t much care for cooking.”
“She making you go to the store at all hours for—what was it? Cabbage and—“
“Cabbage and tuna stir-fry. Turns out that doesn’t actually exist. She’s progressed on to St. Catherine’s wheels, now.”
Adon looked at him blankly. “St. What the Whats?”
Dreogan tried to keep his composure, but broke into a smile. “Apparently they’re Muggle pastries. Catholic or something, so I don’t suppose either of us’d know much about them. Mark’s and Spencer’s hadn’t, either.”
“
Saint—how does
she know about them?” Adon asked bemusedly.
Dreogan shrugged. “No idea, really. . .You can get them at Tesco, though.” Dreogan considered filling Adon in on how the Muggle Affairs was progressing—how very close they were, but it felt already that he’d run the full allotted measure of his courtesy question. Adon only asked the same questions he wanted to be asked himself.
“And how have you been?” Dreogan tried to minimize it—the tone of concern. He tried to hide the worry in his eyes. But seeing Adon’s slumped posture and dark circles beneath his eyes—Dreogan looked away abruptly, feeling his heart hurt a little—seeing him like this.
“I broke up with Jacoba yesterday.”
Dreogan gave a sharp intake of breath, snapping his eyes back to Adon keenly. “Did you?” he said, trying to keep the tone neutral. “I’m—sorry to hear that.”
“Yeh. Me, too.” He looked down, reading the label of the can. “Well, not really. It’s fine. I mean, it’s for the best.”
Dreogan waited, intent, for his brother to continue and sort through the four answers he’d just given—and which he’d pick.
“We just—wanted different things, you know? I mean. . . well, I don’t know what she wanted. She accepted the position as sales manager at Reducto, and really has no intention of leaving, I suppose. When I tried to figure out why, she kept giving these answers that just didn’t add up.” He looked at Dreogan and sighed, tilting his head to rest on the back of the sofa, looking up at the ceiling, “at least not to me. We were both frustrated as hell and I just couldn’t make sense of it. Any of it.” He sighed heavily and ran a hand over his face. Dreogan shifted uncomfortably as an inexplicable chill made the hairs on his leg prickle. “Dree. . .” Adon rolled his head to the side to look at him. “Dree, say something.”
“Communication’s the most important part of a relationship. Akiva and I recently came to a sort of. . . crossroads over the matter of--”
“Yeh—the threat letters you keep getting? Was a matter of time on that one.”
Dreogan gave a hesitant laugh; Adon would have known—even without hearing about the report to Level Two—that that would be the sticking point. He was good at piecing things together like that. “Yes. The threat letters. I should have been more open about it. But together, we came up with a plan—how to address it, how we’d change ou—“
“It’s the same thing—with Jacoba and me. Only—by the time we got to that point, to talking about how to change, we weren’t changing the heart of matters. She was just proposing it to keep me around. She still wants Reducto—all other rationale for it aside. And if that’s what she wants, how—or why--should I stop that?”
Dreogan gave a sad smile. “You can’t change what a person wants. Asking that of them—it’s a hard thing to do. Sometimes it’s not the right thing to do.”
“I think I loved her.”
“Yeh,” Dreogan said softly. “I know.” Dreogan swallowed. “Donnie, I’m not going to tell you whether or not you made the right choice. But I can tell you that sometimes—letting people make their own choices, even if it takes them further away from you—is the way to let them become who they want to be. And sometimes you need to accept that their decisions might not be what you want, but at least they--”
Adon was quiet a moment before narrowing his eyes. “Yeh, keep talking, brother. I hope you get this shit out of your system before you become a father and actually think it’s a good idea.” There was a resonant cracking noise. Dreogan looked about for its source before focusing on Adon’s grip. Adon was digging his thumb nail deeply into the Fizz-o-la can, denting the metal.
The shift was sudden—predictably unanticipated and wholly Adon, and Dreogan was quiet several moments as he tried to trace the winding lines of his brother’s thought processes. His brother didn’t wait for long.
“From what I know—and it isn’t much, but it’s probably more than you know—Sasha’s not been making all the right decisions, exactly. Joh was concerned—but it’ll be better, now that he’s back at school. . .” he bristled and Dreogan looked away. “You
do know he’s back at school, don’t you?”
“Yes—of course,” Dreogan said quietly, feeling a pit in his stomach. He had known Sasha
would be going back; they’d exchanged occasional letters, but he hadn’t known it would happen so soon; or that it’d happened already.
“The kid apparently thought the decisions he’d made had displeased you. So he stopped trying. And stopped visiting. And then stopped writing. Or were you the one to pull away first?” The bitterness of Adon’s tone cut, each phrase like an excision. Dreogan felt gutted. As concerned as Adon might have been about Sasha—it couldn’t invoke this level of scorching accusation.
“Donnie—I’m sorry if I haven’t invested enough time—”
“Don’t apologize to me; apologize to Sasha.
I’m fine.”
“I’m apologizing to you,” Dreogan’s voice was firm. And was received with silence. “I thought you—and Sasha—and everyone was tired of me meddling.”
“
Meddling.” Adon gave a derisive smile and Dreogan knew from it that, despite the fizz-o-la in his hand, Adon must have had something to drink tonight.
“Yes,” Dreogan said evenly, “Being too involved; making decisions for you.”
“There’s a difference in being involved and controlling, Dree. I don’t know where you got that idea. . . Where. . .
did you get that idea?”
Dreogan tilted his chin upwards, glancing over to the kitchen. “It was a lot of things, really. The whole Trevor Reid—”
“Well, that
was controlling—to a point. From what I heard from Jonas, at least. But—but Dree, you should have said something to
me about it. I was the lead on the investigation. I can’t call all the shots, but. . . How does it make me feel when you go to my partner to talk to him about a plan we’d come up with? How is that letting me make decisions?”
Dreogan rubbed a hand over his face. Adon was wanting one thing and one thing alone; and now he was ready to hear it. “It doesn’t. Donnie, I
am sorry. I wanted to let you do what you wanted. . .even if it wasn’t what—“
“Well, whatever you’re doing is shit. I don’t even see you anymore. I don’t know why you thought it was a good idea, but if it’s because of anything Jonas said. . .” he stopped. “Dree, look at me. Jonas—he’s smart. He’s one of the best men I know, and he’s good at reading people, but he doesn’t
get us, you know. And he’s not you. So quit acting burned, and start acting like you care a little. I don’t
care if it’s smothering. So far as I know, that’s the only mode you’ve got, anyhow.”
Dreogan’s lips quavered, alternating between a smile and a frown. “Gee, Donnie—thanks.”
“You know what I mean. I don’t mind; I’m used to it. I might not listen to you, but I don’t mind your advice.”
“You won’t—feel like I’m making you do something you don’t want to do?”
“Dree. Seriously?” He gave a single laugh. “I could break your neck if I wanted to. Right now. You can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do.”
Dreogan gave a nervous laugh. “Well. That’s reassuring, at least.”
[May 15] You could be Happy [Snapshot]