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It's ten years later that he sees his brother's face in a port town where he's gone to oversee an especially complicated exchange of goods. He knows his face, of course. The scars are different now, but weren't they different every time he came home? He knows it from the way it looks at him, with the mild interest of a child who's just been given a toy it knows will break easily.
"You're married, I suppose."
"Yeah." He doesn't bother asking, How'd you know I recognized you? It must be written all over his face.
"So you're carrying on the family name. Such as it is." Thorgil beckons to him, almost friendly. Come on, little brother, let's catch up.
Olmar follows him behind the line of stalls without entirely meaning to. He's not sure what kind of company his brother keeps these days, and he's also not sure he wants to be seen talking to him. Even for a port town, Thorgil looks unsavory. Olmar makes his living looking like he'd never dream of speaking to a man like this, let alone following him into an alleyway. But his feet move just the same. At least it's not in public, he thinks.
"Dad died," he says, once they're alone in a darkly shadowed space. "It's been five years."
"How about that." Thorgil is impassive. "I'm surprised it took so long."
"Grandpa too. Just a couple years ago."
Thorgil scoffs as if to say, Well, of course.
"So it's mostly me calling the shots now."
"Finally managed to get a real beard going, I see."
"Uh-huh." He looks at the ground. How can this be different from what he was expecting, when he never let himself picture this to start with?
"Your wife must be proud. Guess I don't even need to ask if she's pretty."
"She is."
"And of course you keep a man on the side, to fuck you like I used to."
Olmar feels his face flush as his body stiffens. He expects Thorgil to tease him for blushing, but he just keeps talking.
"Any kids? Better not leave 'em alone together too long. Whatever you've got might run in families."
"Shut up," Olmar says, a little too sharply.
"Anybody know what you are, little bro? Anyone really know you?"
"I'm not like that anymore."
"Of course, they all must see each and every day what a pussy you are. But are you telling me you really tricked some woman into fucking herself on your limp prick once a year? Or, wait, maybe she picked a lover who looks just enough like you that the kids—"
"Shut up!" He's never spoken like this to his brother. Except the once, that last time. "A lot of things have changed without you. I've changed."
"You never were much for self-awareness."
A hand pins him to the wall by his chest, and another reaches for his crotch. It feels like that one pins him just as hard. And oh, gods, he knew how this would end before his feet started moving.
You're thirty fucking years old, his head reminds him. You run Ketil's farm.
"Better not scream too loud for me, kiddo," Thorgil whispers. "Gotta think of that family name."
He could run, Olmar knows. Even Thorgil wouldn't try finishing this in public. Hell, he could call for help. He's got money enough to keep one or two men quiet. But Thorgil's hands and voice reduce him, as they always have, and his cock jumps obediently to attention.
"Let me tell you right now, if no one else has had the kindness to clue you in." There's a chunk missing from Thorgil's left arm now, and Olmar looks at that instead of his brother's face. "I can smell my own cum on you still. And so can the rest of the world. They know what you are."
"Maybe you shouldn't have left it on me, then," he mumbles.
"The strong take, Olmar. If you're taken from, it's your own fault. I swear by every god there is, you're the slowest learner I've ever met." Thorgil squeezes hard enough to hurt. "I really thought you almost had it, you know. But you never fail to disappoint. Like a dog that just can't be trained. Seems there's no beating can teach you to stand your ground and fight, instead of lifting your arse and rolling over for the whole damned world."
The stall he's pinned against is busy and he can hear the faint sounds of business going on behind him. He prays they don't hear anything.
"Or maybe," Thorgil says, taking his hand off Olmar's chest, "you just like the beatings. Maybe you won't be trained, is that it? Enlighten me, O heir to the family name. I just can't make sense of you." He puts his hand on Olmar's shoulder, slides it around, his arm snaking around Olmar's neck. Gently now, not holding him in place any longer. It must be obvious he doesn't need to.
It's been ten years but the relief of knowing this feeling is too much to give up. Olmar's not going to run from something he knows so well. Maybe he wants help, and maybe he doesn't, but either way he's not going to call for it.
"Maybe there's more than one way to stand your ground." A thin voice he hasn't heard from himself in years.
"Is that what you call this?" Another squeeze, nearly lifting him off his feet. "Standing your ground? I'm your brother, Olmar. A scarecrow of a sparring partner. And you can't stand up and fight a scarecrow."
If every scarecrow acted like you, Olmar thinks, there'd be a lot less crows.
It's quiet for a time, Thorgil pressed almost against him and stroking him through his pants. He smells the same as he always did and Olmar is standing both there in the alley and back home. Not the home he has now, but Ketil's farm as it used to be. As he used to be. He's waiting for his brother to finish and be pleased with him. He wonders why he never noticed the taste of iron in this smell.
His legs buckle when he comes and his mind is blank for a few seconds. He tries to remember where he is, and waits to feel thirty again.
"Still nothing, huh?" The voice cuts through the buzz of the marketplace, the smell of food, the staleness of the alleyway. Through everything. "After all these years. So tell me, is it can't learn, or won't?"
"I won't," he says. He hears their father's exhausted voice coming out of his throat. "I'm not going to fight. You're right, I don't want to. I don't think I ever did. You're my big brother."
"Olmar," says Thorgil, "you are soft down to the fucking bone." It's the first time Olmar's ever heard pity in his voice.
"Not even going to ask me to return the favor?" Like you always used to.
Thorgil just sneers, and in the next instant he's gone. Olmar follows again, cursing the speed of his trembling legs, but at the mouth of the alley he finds only the swell of the marketplace, his brother vanished into a crowd of people who will never know.
He stands there in the midday heat, looking at the smallness of his own shadow, and wonders when he's going to learn exactly what it takes to carve your own blood out of you, when it runs through the very marrow of your bones.