moonshadows

Malfurion watched as the tiny Thai girl hugged his twin before being led away by her equally tiny mother, somehow finding a small smile and a wave to give her. He swallowed as his stomach churned, fueled by guilt over having been such a horrible brother. Tyrande’s hand on his shoulder and the fleeting touch of her lips against his cheek shook him out of the regret that threatened to swallow him.

“Remember our deal,” she said sternly, and he ducked his head.

“Yes, Tyrande. I promise.”

“Good. I’ll see you in school on Monday.” She hugged him, tight and warm, and he hugged back before she gave Illidan a brief hug and left.

The sudden insecurity on his brother’s face was like a kick to the gut, and Malfurion swallowed again. “I meant it,” he half-whispered, throat tight. “I’ve been a stupid little shit, Illidan. Help me, keep me from fucking up because god, I don’t want to see the disappointment on Tyrande’s face if I do.” He laughed shakily. “At least you have that much going for you, right?”

Tentatively, Illidan smiled. “I guess I do.”

“C’mon,” Malfurion said, voice shaky with relief. “Let’s get you all bandaged up before we get too tired.”

In the upstairs bathroom, Illidan stripped to the waist while Malfurion dug a roll of gauze and the tube of antibiotic ointment out of the linen closet.

“How bad are they?” he asked quietly as his twin smeared ointment on his forearms.

“You won’t scar, I don’t think.” Malfurion carefully twisted the cap back onto the tube and unrolled a length of gauze. “How are your eyes?”

The blind boy turned his head. “I don’t know.”

“Can I see them?”

The question hung there between them. It’d been nearly two years since the accident, and in that time, Malfurion had never expressed any interest in the source of the rift between them. Guilt turned his stomach again, and he focused on binding his brother’s arms. Illidan was silent for so long that he may as well have not said anything and Malfurion bit his lip, afraid that he’d already ruined the fragile rapport they’d just rebuilt.

“There you go,” he said with a lousy attempt at false cheer as he secured the ends of the gauze with medical tape. “Now you look like one of those anime badasses who go around shirtless and beat up anyone who looks at them funny.” The words died as he realized he could count Illidan’s ribs. “God, I’m such a dick,” he spat suddenly. “I’m so sorry, brother. I…”

Slowly, those bandaged forearms rose and Malfurion watched, transfixed, as Illidan untied the cloth from around his head. He looked absolutely terrified, and Malfurion realized that he wasn’t the only one struggling with fear of rejection by his twin.

“You look like a zombie,” he blurted as the cloth lowered.

Illidan blinked in confusion.

“Your eyes – they’re white. And you’re so thin…”

“What about my eyelids?”

Malfurion leaned in to look, unnerved by the blind, milky corneas where hazel irises should have been. “Looks like a lot of it healed. There’s some paler scar patches, but from a distance they’re invisible.”

“Not to me,” Illidan said quietly. “Not to Tessa.”

Words failed him; Malfurion hugged his twin tightly, struggling and failing to keep from crying. After a few moments, he realized that Illidan was hugging him back and doing a worse job of hiding his tears. It was a handful of minutes before they wound down.

“We’re a mess,” Illidan said with a hiccuppy laugh.

“But we’re a mess together,” the other boy responded. “And we’ll help each other clean up, right?”

“Right,” Illidan whispered, hugging his twin for another breath before stepping back. “Um, I dropped my blindfold.”

“I’ll get it.” He picked up the strip of cloth, then hesitated. “When was this last washed?”

Thin fingers curled into nervous fists. “I dunno. Two weeks?”

Malfurion took a deep breath, pushing aside guilt and revulsion. “Tell you what. You put what’s left of the pizza in the fridge, and I’ll pull all the dirty clothes out of our room and put a wash on.”

“You’re not going to use some weird organic detergent alternative, are you?” Illidan asked warily.

Although part of him cringed at resorting to commercial chemicals, Malfurion said, “I’ll use the regular stuff.”

Illidan didn’t look comforted. “We’re out.”

“Still got that bottle of Tide in your underwear drawer?” He grinned at the look of surprise on his twin’s face. “I’ll use that.”

“You knew? And you didn’t pour it out?”

“Nah, I just went and got drunk. Which…speaking of pouring out…”

“Laundry first,” Illidan told him firmly. “You can chuck that junk while it’s washing.”

“Right.” He didn’t move, however. “Illidan? I know I’ve said it already, and I’ll probably keep saying it until you’re sick of it, but I’m sorry.”

The black-haired twin pulled him awkwardly into another embrace. “Doesn’t matter anymore,” he said fiercely. “You’re going to help me, and I’m going to help you, and god help anyone who gets in our way.”

“Or what?” Malfurion asked dryly.

“Or Tessa will bite their kneecaps off.” Illidan was grinning as he released his twin. “I’m gonna go put the pizza away. Don’t wash that thing with your underwear, okay?”

Malfurion wished his twin could see him grinning back. “Just this once,” he teased.

“I don’t know how you can drink that crap,” Illidan said from the doorway, arms crossed as he leaned against the frame. “It smells nasty.”

Malfurion poured the last dribbles out into the sink before washing the jug out. “It tastes just as good as it smells.”

“Then why…?”

“Because it hurt,” he answered bitterly. “Watching you. Knowing you were hurting, knowing that I was a coward. But it hurt less if I was drunk, and then the hangover was like penance for getting that little bit of relief. I could see the disgust on your face, and the hangover was my punishment for being such a scumbag brother.” He sighed, scrubbing his eyes with the back of one hand. “I saw you, you know. You and Tessa. When she was…when you heard something. It hurt. God, it hurt so much that I went down to the pay phone and called Tyrande and cried like a baby until she told me she was coming by to pick me up. I thought…you had a girlfriend, you were okay, you didn’t need your loser brother in your life anymore.” Malfurion blinked back tears, grateful that his twin couldn’t see them. “If she hadn’t picked up…”

“No,” Illidan demanded. “Tell me you wouldn’t have.”

“It would be a lie. I don’t know if I would have gone through with it, but I thought about it.”

“Damnit!” The doorframe shuddered as Illidan’s hand slammed into it. “It was my life that got ruined, how come I had to ruin yours, too?”

Malfurion stared at him in shock. “Brother, you didn’t…”

“But I did,” he countered harshly. “Didn’t I. You started skipping school and drinking and everything because it hurt to look at me. Because I pushed you away. It’s my fault.”

“No. Stop. I won’t let you blame yourself for my being a stupid little shit.”

“Try and make me, Furion.”

For a long moment they faced each other, blind glare against incredulous stare, before Malfurion sputtered, “I’ll un-ruin my life and then you won’t have anything to blame yourself for, so there.”

The tension held for a moment longer, then they broke into simultaneous laughter.

“Did we really just almost fight about that?” Illidan chuckled.

“We really did. I think we need to sleep.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right. Night, Furion.” He smiled slowly. “Welcome back.”

Once more, feeling as though he would never have dry eyes again, Malfurion blinked back tears. “I missed you, brother.”

When Illidan woke, the room was quiet. For a second, he wondered what time it was and if his brother had ever come home or if he was still drunk out in the woods, and then he felt gauze on his arms and remembered everything.

Then he smelled the bacon.

Stomach growling, he stumbled out of bed and down to the kitchen so fast that he barked his shins on the doorframe and nearly fell down the stairs before rocking to an uncertain stop just inside the kitchen. “Furion?”

“Good timing!” Footsteps, then a hand on his and something warm and soft pressed into it. “Just finished making this.”

Warily, Illidan asked, “What is it?”

“Fried egg and bacon and a little syrup in a pancake. Well, okay, more like a crepe because the first ones didn’t roll without breaking. I wanted to do pigs in a blanket, but we were out of sausage, so…”

Illidan didn’t care; it was food and it smelled fabulous and he wasn’t going to do anything else until it was all inside him. The first bite was sweet and salty heaven, and reflexively, he muttered “It’s good.”

“Good,” his brother said, evidently pleased as he gobbled it down. “I’ll make you another one.”

Once the footsteps had moved away and Illidan could hear sounds at the stove, he felt his way to the fridge for a drink.

“So tell me about your girlfriend.” Malfurion said awkwardly. “How’d you meet, what’s she like, all the things I would have known if I hadn’t been a dick and shunned you.”

“She tackled Garrosh in the hallway on her first day,” Illidan said dryly as he fumbled his way into a chair at the table. “He was calling me ‘Blindrage’, and she just body-checked him. Tyrande pointed her to me at lunch. She gave me half her sandwich, hit on me, and told me she wanted a reputation as the crazy little blind Thai girl who’ll tackle your kneecaps if you make fun of her friends.”

“She hit on you? Really?”

Illidan grinned. “She really did. Kept doing it, too. And the next day, her mom sent her in with an extra sandwich for me. She put up with me being a surly cockmunch, and fed me, and hit on me every day but laid off when I asked her to.”

Scraping sounds from the stove, footsteps. Illidan held his hand out and murmured thanks when Malfurion pressed another breakfast bundle into it. “Why would you ask her to stop, brother? I’d think it would be refreshing to have a girl hit on you again.”

Once he’d swallowed his mouthful, he replied, “Because after a year of being a social outcast after successfully driving everyone away, I couldn’t bring myself to believe anyone would be interested in me ever again.”

“But obviously she convinced you otherwise.”

“Yeah, I…uh…last week, while you were in the shower,” and he was masturbating, although neither of them said that. It was almost a holy tradition that each twin jerked it while the other showered; one getting dirty while the other got clean. “I thought about her, and realized that life was going to pass me by, and I didn’t want her cuddling up to some other dude. She’s…a really good friend. She understands what it’s like. And having someone who understands…it doesn’t hurt so much.” Illidan crammed the tail end of his improvised burrito into his mouth, chewed, swallowed, and belched thoughtfully. “This was really good. Thank you.”

“I’m raiding the freezer downstairs for dinner,” Malfurion warned. “You need to eat more. I can count your ribs, and that is something that’s my fault. I was supposed to make sure you didn’t have to fend for yourself while Dad’s working, and I fucked up.”

Illidan didn’t bother arguing; they both knew it was the truth. “So what’s on the menu?”

“I was thinking maybe salmon with baked potato and broccoli.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Great.” Malfurion sighed in relief. “Hey, listen…let me clean up the breakfast dishes, put a shirt and some shoes on, and I’ll take you for a morning hike.”

Illidan blinked back tears, heart in his throat. “You mean it? God, I haven’t been out hiking in…” He shook his head. “Let me help with the dishes, at least. And I’ll need you to dig my blindfold out of the clean laundry.”

“You sure you want to keep wearing that thing?”

“Hey, give me time to get used to having a brother again, Furion. One thing at a time.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to push.”

Illidan groped for his brother’s hand and squeezed it. “Think of it as leading me. You’ve got to let me get my balance and take it one step at a time. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to go there, just means if I try to go too fast, I’ll fall.”

Malfurion squeezed back. “I won’t let you fall, brother. I’ll be there to catch you.”

Throat tight, Illidan swallowed a sudden lump. “I know.”