Fandom: Due South
Summary: Kid stuff. No, I mean, really.
“C’mon, Frannie… Give!”
“Ow! You’re hurting my arm!” she wailed, tears welling.
“So. You wanna hurt more? You know I can. You better give over!”
He twisted her skinny little arm until her entire body tilted almost to the point of tipping over.
“Stop, Ray! Ow! Ow! Stop!”
“It’s mine! And you better give over now!”
“Here!” She threw the toy as far as she could with her free arm, hoping it would break. Hoping it would make her brother let her go. Then she could run and hide until their mother got home and she could tell her of Ray’s latest brutality.
Instead of letting go, he dragged her by the arm to the spot where the cap pistol had landed.
“It better not be broke, or you’re in big trouble.”
“You’re gonna be in trouble, Ray. When Mama finds out what you did to me.”
“Yeah?” He tugged on her wrist, further hurting the already sore arm.
“Ow!”
“You gonna tell her?”
“Yes!”
He yanked and twisted again.
“You gonna tell?”
“Ow!” Tears fell freely now, and she sniffed back the mucous that threatened to run into her mouth.
He twisted harder.
“Ow. Ow. Yes.” Her voice was no more than a whimper. “Ow. No,” she whined, defeated.
“No, what?”
“No.” She sniffed uselessly as the snot coated her upper lip. “I won’t tell Ma.”
“You swear on your immortal soul.”
Sniff. Sniff.
He gave another small twist of coercion.
“Ow,” she squeaked. “Yes.” She took a big gulp. “I swear.”
“Good.” He let her arm go, almost tossing it away from him.
His little sister stumbled away, hurt and angry. She sobbed at the injustice, at the pain. Ray should be punished, she knew it. She wanted to tell their mother in spite of her promise. But she was afraid of Ray. Even more, she was afraid of losing her immortal soul, although she wasn’t at all sure just what that was. She only knew for certain that she didn’t want to lose it; even grownups were afraid of that.
Still, it wasn’t fair.
Somehow, she had managed to forget that she had “started it,” by taking his prized new toy, knowing full well it would provoke her brother’s anger. All that she could focus on was her own outrage, her sense of betrayal.
She could never tell anyone in her family why she had done it. They would have been more upset by her reason than by the fact that she had “borrowed” it without asking. Worse, some of them might have made fun of her. Girls weren’t supposed to want to play with guns. Girls weren’t supposed to want to pretend to be cops.
Only boys could play that game.
She watched her brother retrieve his special toy. Watched him check it for cracks or missing pieces. As much as she had wanted to break it to spite him, she was glad to see that it was intact. She really liked the way it was made. The way it felt. She liked the little nubbly plastic on the handle, and the smooth metal round part, and the way the hammer and trigger
clicked when she pulled on them.
Even without caps, it was fun.
And now her brother would make sure she never got to play with it again.
He had been so angry; much more than she had expected. And he had been too rough. He had hurt her.
“You are so lucky this isn’t broken, you dumb little squirt.”
“I didn’t hurt your stupid gun. I only wanted to play with it.”
“Well, you didn’t ask. And besides, you’re just a stupid girl. Go play with your dolls.”
“I am not a stupid girl. You’re stupid. And mean. And the worst brother in the whole world. And you hurt my arm.”
“So what? You’re a little thief.”
“I didn’t steal it. I would have put it back.”
“Who cares? No one said you could take it in the first place.”
She sucked in a ragged breath. “It’s not fair.”
“It’s not fair,” he echoed.
“It’s not! I can’t have a cap gun. I can’t play with yours, and you’re the meanest brother.”
“Aw, poor little Frannie. What a horrible life she has.”
“You… You…” The dam burst.
Ray was both fascinated by, and guilty at, his sister’s response. She emitted a heart wrenching wail, which quickly settled into strangled, heaving sobs. Her face was red and ugly with tears and snot.
“Crybaby.”
Frannie took off past her brother. At the doorway she stopped and turned back to face him.
“You’re my big brother, Ray,” she hiccuped her way through the words. “You’re supposed to protect me!” She spun away and fled up the stairs.
Ray pretended that the words they had heard so often from their mother hadn’t hit home.
Every time Ma had said them, he had taken them to mean, he had to protect his sister from their drunken father. It had never occurred to him that she might need protection from him.
He plopped down on the sofa and threw his feet on the coffee table (the things his mother didn’t know he did when she wasn’t around, didn’t hurt either of them).
He turned the toy over in his hand, noticing the way the light from the window caught the shiny metal.
“Stupid gun.”
He wanted to blame the gun for his problems and shift his guilt onto the seductive toy. He needed to find something to make himself stop feeling so bad. It didn’t work.
“Stupid sisters.” That didn’t help much either.
“Stupid Ray.” That felt a bit closer to the mark, but didn’t really make him feel any better.
He cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger on the pistol several times. He liked the way it felt and sounded — even “empty.” But with the added sound and the wonderfully pungent smell of the caps, it was just about perfect.
What would his little sister want with this? How could she possibly understand what it meant to him? How it fed into his dream of one day becoming a cop, and once and for all, being able to stop all the bullies from bullying their wives, their kids… or their little sisters, his conscience finished for him. Boy, he’d have to squash that cricket.
He sat, twirling the gun on his finger. He was getting better at that. Finally, he pulled his feet off the table, rolled his skinny bod off the sofa and onto his feet.
He headed for the stairs. “Frannie!”
Maybe she couldn’t appreciate it the way he did. What girl could? But he could let her do whatever silly, girlie thing she wanted to do with it, for a little while, provided she didn’t paint it pink or something equally awful.
Maybe sometimes, being a big brother meant that he had to have a little more understanding and flexibility than your average, ordinary boy. Maybe he had to have a little give.
The End
