#181 - Etic - Visiting Hours - carlosiscute - Original Fiction

[carlosiscute.livejournal.com]

Title: Visiting Hours
Fandom: My brain.
Prompt: #181- Etic
Warnings: One swear word?
Rating: PG
Summary: Prison visits are lame.

 

Brennan is definitely sure that this was not something he wants to do. But it had been years since he last saw his brother and he had run out of excuses for his mother. He could tell her the truth, but there really wasn’t any reason he should hurt her like that. She didn’t need to know the truth about his life since he left her house and she didn’t need to know how Jeremy found out.

 Sighing, he heads into the visiting area of the prison. The sooner he sees his stepbrother, the sooner he can leave.

 It took him a few minutes though, despite Jeremy’s size and general aura, to actually find him. Any hope Brennan has that he wouldn’t show up disappears when he catches sight of him sitting in the corner. He sighs and makes his way through the other visiting relatives and friends.  Jeremy doesn't look up as he approaches. He continues to read whatever textbook he is on this month when Brennan sits down.

 Brennan expects this kind of treatment, he actually deserves it, so he settles in for what he figures is going to be a long wait. To his surprise Jeremy is actually reading the monster of a book, not just using it to avoid him. Brennan can tell by the way his eyes slowly shift from, well his, right to left.  Jeremy still pauses at the end of a paragraph just to make sure he didn’t miss any lines. Brennan wonders if he still reads through each chapter twice like he used to.

 He shrugs; it’s not like he won’t get a chance to find out. He’s got at least four hours before the guards get annoyed and ask him to leave. Plenty of time for Jeremy to initiate a conversation.

 Brennan watches Jeremy turn the page and he wonders when his hands got so large. This leads to wondering about how his arms got so muscular, and continues with Brennan examining Jeremy and all his individual parts (the ones he can see, anyway) and wondering when he got this way.  He’s always been charismatic; he was going to be a lawyer for chrissakes, but this was different. Now the other inmates who walked past them gave off a vibe that felt like part respect and part fear. What could his stepbrother have possibly have done to deserve that?

 Jeremy doesn’t like the fact that Brennan is watching him, he can tell by the way his shoulders tense and lips thin. He has always had excellent control of his emotions, but Brennan knows all his tells. That’s what happens when you spend most of your life with someone, even when you haven’t seen them in a while.

 Which means Jeremy will know he’s watching even when he pretends he’s not. Jeremy still isn’t ready to talk so Brennan leaves him with his book and stares out at the other visitors.

 Three tables away he sees a man and a woman arguing. The woman stands up and for a moment it looks like she’s going to leave, but the man pleads with her. Brennan thinks she looked pretty determined to leave when she first stood up, but now she’s hesitating and has turned back to face the man again. At this point it could go either way.

 Brennan glances back at Jeremy; he’s studying some complicated diagram.  If that woman sits back down, I’ll talk to Jeremy first, he thinks.

 The man has stood up and is speaking urgently to the woman when Brennan turns back to them. Brennan realizes that the universe is obviously against him when he watches the man guide the woman back into her chair.

 “So….made anybody your bitch yet?”