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There was no doubt about it; the new boy was different.
Thrass had seen many foster kids pass through the household, and as many adopted; but this one stood out in a way few others had - and not necessarily in a positive way. For one, he stood apart at the family - gathering, his entwined fingers tying his arms stiffly behind his back, a pinched, distracted look on his face. Instead of focusing on the people, his eyes were always darting to the objects around the room. When Thrass asked him what he was looking at, his face lit up a little, and he started rattling off all sorts of observations about the color and composition and the materials of the artworks, at times in an oddly formal way, but with a spark of insight and enthusiasm Thrass had rarely seen.
And instantly, he decided that this child - well, more like young adult - needed someone. To listen. And if no one else was going to do it, Thrass would.
.
It quickly proved to be a much harder task than anticipated. Hardly a week passed when Thrass wasn’t getting called in to some meeting to discuss Thrawn’s behavior - “challenging” they called it. Thrawn seemed to love being a challenge - to friends, family, and teachers alike.
“But isn’t he fulfilling all his schoolwork?” Thrass questioned.
The professor pursed her lips. “To an exceptional degree - yes. But he questions authority, undermines the teacher. Just last week he corrected the history professor on a quiz.”
Thrass had never known Thrawn to be willfully rebellious against teachers; it was simply his nature , his inability not to want to improve what he saw to be mistaken.
“And today in art class he said that he couldn’t draw anything. That if he did people would be able to - to read him, to -” she checked her notes “ ‘ take advantage of my weaknesses ,’” he said.” She snorted. “Instead he spent the period looking at the other students’ works and commenting on their family history and emotional states. I believe this culminated in another student having a breakdown and then a physical altercation by another student.”
Thrass bit back the comment that maybe, just maybe , Thrawn wasn’t the issue here and that the other students were the ones bullying him , but he flattened his lips in a thin smile instead. “I’ll speak to him about it.”
That afternoon Thrawn was quiet in the car, as he often was, his knees drawn up to his chest and his eyes fixed unblinkingly out the window.
Thrawn could be so articulate on almost anything, and yet when it came to his own emotional state, Thrass often felt like he had to slowly weave it out of him - as if Thrawn didn’t know himself.
“Why didn’t you make art this afternoon?” Thrass asked, finally, hoping his voice sounded inviting, not accusatory.
“I never make art,” Thrawn corrected after a moment.
“You mean you’ve never made any art in the art class ?”
“No.”
“And...why not?” Thrass asked, after a moment. “Can you explain it to me?”
Thrawn’s eyebrows furrowed and his lips thinned in a faint sign of discomfort; some hidden pain, maybe, that Thrass had often noted, but never pressed. “It’s...too exposed. I simply do not wish to.”
“What do you mean, exposed?”
“They...the other students, when they draw, when they paint, it’s all so-- obvious to me, Thrass,” Thrawn said, distantly. “They don’t even seem to realize it. Their body language, how they would talk, how they felt that day, who their family is--it’s all there , in the piece--not everything, of course,” he adds hastily, glimpsing Thrass’ rapidly rising eyebrows. “But just--it’s them . They don’t seem to notice. But I do.”
“And--you don’t want others to see? But isn’t that the whole point of art? To express emotions?” Thrass asks.
Thrawn hunches his shoulders slightly, protectively. “Emotional expression is indeed a goal of art. But it’s more than that,” he persists. “I would know them. How to defeat them. Like in a game. Their style. Way of doing things . And I - I don’t know if I would ever be able to put everything I want in a work of art anyways.”
“But maybe you could try?”
“It would be unbalanced,” Thrawn insists, his voice oddly passionate. “Art - it should be pure inspiration. If the artist is not at peace, the work will be imperfect.”
“And are you - how did you say it - not at peace?”
Thrawn frowned again and turned away. Thrass decided not to push it.
“Alright, I’ll let the teacher know that you won’t be submitting assignments. Perhaps she’ll let you complete an alternative.”
“I doubt it,” Thrawn said quietly, flat and miserable.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Thrass remarked, a mischievous tone to his voice that made Thrawn glance at him despite himself. “I can think of some pretty cool alternatives.”
Thrawn turned to him, his expression drawn with curiosity and suspicion. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see,” Thrass said, smiling.
Forty five minutes later, they drove in beside a stately white marble building.
“The art museum,” Thrawn breathed, a smile spreading across his face.
“It’s the impressionism exhibit this month,” Thrass remarked. “You mentioned you’d loved watercolors.”
“Yes, but - the fee…”
Thrass waved a hand. “It’s about time all of grandma’s allowances got put to some good use.”
Thrawn just stared at him, a curious expression on his face.
“Well?” Thrass said. “Are you happy?”
“I...yes. Thank you for remembering,” Thrawn said, a slight strain to his voice, and Thrass smiled and touched his hand lightly.
“You’re welcome.”
He pretended not to notice as Thrawn briefly paused to blink as they got out of the car. Just the sunlight.
“Don’t forget, you’re here on an assignment ,” Thrass said teasingly as they passed up the steps. “Don’t forget to take notes, Mr. Art Student.”
“Oh, I intend to,” Thrawn said equally seriously, already pulling a notebook from his backpack and fiddling the pen. “Thrass - do you see that painting? Look, it’s from the early 1800s, you can see the brushstrokes…”
Only three hours later, Thrass was already considering if he might not have given Thrawn too much of an open invitation, but the subdued excitement shining in Thrawn’s eyes was too endearing to Thrass to quench. So he simply smiled, nodded, enjoyed the paintings, and listened. He’d promised to stick around for Thrawn, and he would.
.
And he did. Even as it got harder.
The cheating incident caused a slight uproar in the family. Nobody volunteered to go pick Thrawn up from the special meeting at the school, so as always, Thrass did.
Thrawn was standing in the parking lot, dejected, when he rolled in. A girl was standing next to him who looked like she’d been talking to him - tall, frowning, and with waist-length jet-black hair in a somewhat severely tied-back pony-tail.
“Who’s that?” he asked quietly, after Thrawn folded his long legs into the passenger seat.
“Ziara,” Thrawn mumbled quietly. “She’s a TA. Honors student. She helped me today. They - they said they’ll decide tomorrow.”
“I see,” Thrass said, setting his jaw.
“I didn’t do it, Thrass, you know I didn’t - I’ve tried explaining it so many times, but they won’t listen.”
“I know,” Thrass said.
A long pause of nothing.
“Do you want to go to the art museum again today?” he ventured.
He’d bought annual passes a few months ago. Since then they’d gone nearly every week.
But for once Thrawn didn’t smile that quirked smile of his.
“I don’t know if it will matter tomorrow,” he said dully, staring ahead at the changing road. “What if none of it matters.”
“That’s not true,” Thrass said, severely. “They just don’t understand you. But you just need to hang on till graduation, and then you can go to college and they’ll see .”
Thrawn thinned his lips, and Thrass didn’t need to be a psychic to see what Thrawn was thinking: will they ?
“We don’t have to go to the museum if you don’t want to,” Thrass continued finally. “But I have a different idea.”
It was starting to snow lightly when they parked at the ice rink.
It was only an hour or two before closing time, on a Monday, too, so there were few other cars in the parking lot. Thrawn looked at him questioningly as they entered the building.
“You’ll like it,” Thrass assured him as he checked out two pairs of ice skates. “Have you skated before?”
Thrawn shrugged noncommittally. “No.”
“Then this will be fun,” Thrass laughed.
Five minutes later, he slid confidently onto the ice, holding out a hand behind him for Thrawn. After a moment, Thrawn took it, his fingers grasping tightly around Thrass’ mittens.
“Just bend your knees, look up, and go slowly,” Thrass instructed, as they wobbled a bit on the first few yards. Thrawn nodded, his face settling into that intense focus Thrass often saw when he was examining some work of art .The look that said nothing is beyond me, if I just look long enough. Sometimes he would stare for hours, unblinkingly. Sometimes the other students called him crazy or weird or scary. Thrass found it intriguing.
And sometimes frustrating. Like now. Because damn it all, within fifteen minutes Thrawn was gliding around the rink entirely unaided and with a grace that rivaled Thrass’.
“That’s unfair,” Thrass commented across the rink. “I never said skating was allowed to be an art form.”
Thrawn grinned as he sped by, stretching out his arms in a graceful mock-presentation as he passed. “Dance is an art form,” he called. “But far more open to interpretation than the painted mediums.”
“Just be careful -” Thrass warned. It was probably futile. Predictably, Thrawn crashed within five minutes after attempting to skate backwards.
“I told you so,” Thrass said, helping him back up. Thrawn appeared calmly unperturbed; amused, even.
“If at first you don’t succeed,” he said lightly, and took off again. Thrass rolled his eyes slightly.
But as he watched Thrawn fly across the ice, he wondered if what Thrawn had told him about art, about balance, and wondered if he felt more free knowing that here, with music, with dance, he was free from judgement - secure in the knowledge that no one could read him like he could read others.
As they took off their ice skates an hour later, Thrass finally asked, “Did you really never skate before?”
“I never did, truly,” Thrawn said. “But...my birth sister was a dancer.” It was soft, offhand, but Thrass stiffened slightly. Thrawn had never mentioned a sister.
“That’s nice,” Thrass said, determined not to break the levity that the night had brought. The cloud had lifted slightly from Thrawn’s face, though it returned again when they passed out the doors. He was silent all the way back home, and given the shadows under his eyes the next morning as he left for school, Thrass was sure he didn’t sleep.
When he came back the next evening, the relief in his frame was evident - the charges had been dismissed. He fell asleep next to Thrass on the couch that evening. Thrass was careful not to stir. Thrawn so rarely ever touched anyone.
And he had promised to stay.
.
The months passed, and Thrawn graduated with honors and went to Taharim college. Ziara and he were basically joined at the hip now, though not always to Ziara’s liking - Thrass got more than a few texts a year of Ziara messaging him in frustration when things went wrong. Because they did.
And yet Thrawn persevered. Thrass spoke to him less often now, usually only a weekly phone call, but whenever he visited the college, they went to the museum again. Especially the impressionism exhibit.
The shy boy Thrass had viewed with curiosity and a little pity had now grown taller than he, his face calm and chiseled, with a voice that had settled into a cool confidence; and yet Thrass still saw the same intensity in his eyes and the same air of lostness in amongst all the other students.
“How are you doing?” he asked one late night on the phone.
“I am well,” Thrawn’s voice assured him, as collected as ever. “My grades are honors-level--Ba’kif in particular noted my paper on military strategy.”
Grades . Thrass had seen Thrawn’s room once on his last visit - meticulously clean in his particular way, yet with artworks scattered all over the walls in a collage that made sense only to him. And he know from Ziara that they went to the gym nearly every morning. To any observer, a model exterior presentation. But that was not the same as well .
“And the incident yesterday?” Thrass asked, a little more persistent.
Thrawn’s voice chilled slightly. “I didn’t know you’d heard about that.”
“ Everybody heard about it, Thrawn!” Thrass said, exasperated. “It was on the news . Exposing a smuggling ring through stolen artwork is all fine and good, but please - maybe at least try to work with the authorities a little better next time before getting into a fight with potentially deadly people you don’t know are involved!”
“I thought you might be pleased.” Thrawn’s voice was small.
“I-I’m pleased that you’re doing what you think is right,” Thrass said, “but Thrawn-- think about it . Our family was implicated in that crime. Thurfian already says you’re bringing shame on the family. The rivalries in this city are centuries old, you can’t just waltz in and do what you want.”
“Not even to help others?” Thrawn challenged.
“I’m just saying you might hurt others unintentionally if you don’t keep aware of the bigger picture,” Thrass sighed. Then in a lower voice, he added, “Or get hurt yourself.”
“I apologize,” Thrawn said. “I will attempt to do better next time.” The voice on the other end was dry. “Besides, you are not the first to lecture me on this today. Ziara was not happy.”
She wouldn’t be , Thrass thought. The Irizi family had been a Mitth political rival for well over a decade now.
If he didn’t know better, he might have suspected her of foul play, but at this point he had seen her stick with Thrawn for far too long to doubt her sincerity.
And right now, the thing Thrawn most needed was allies.
“Just look after yourself,” Thrass repeated. “Please.”
“I will,” Thrawn promised.
.
The call came a bit later than Thrass had anticipated. If he was honest, half of him had feared it might not come at all before he passed out of cell phone range; the other half had been relieved at the thought.
The number was a hospital line. Of course, he noted distantly.
But the voice was unmistakably Thrawn’s.
“Thrass,” came the hoarse whisper. Thrass was unused to hearing it so soft, so raw, but it still contained its full intensity.
“Thrawn,” he said.
“Thrass, I - they said you left with - with that cult girl. It cannot be true, can it? Tell me you are not about to do something so foolish as to reason with criminals.”
“What, like you haven’t taken foolish risks before?” Thrass asked with a levity he did not feel. The road flashed away before in front of him, a path to nowhere, into night, and his stomach clenched coldly.
“This is different ,” Thrawn insisted. “It’s political suicide. And it could be dangerous.”
“Someone has to do this for our family,” Thrass said, perhaps with more sharpness than he intended.
“But it’s my fault.” Thrawn’s voice on the other end was trembling. “They’re angry because of me . I should go.”
“No offense, Thrawn, but you’re not exactly our family’s best representative,” Thrass said through gritted teeth - trying to keep the edge of bitterness out of his voice, but still, he could feel a sting. “Besides, you can’t even walk right now.”
A pause, then -
“You asked me once what I lost before I was adopted. Before I became a Mitth. It was my sister. She disappeared.”
“I’m sorry -”
“ I will never see her again .”
“Thrawn - ”
“And if I never see you again-”
“It’s not like that,” Thrass said, his voice cracking. He was glad Thrawn couldn’t see the tears escaping down his face, though he was sure Thrawn could infer it. “Besides, you already have everything you need, Thrawn--you’re so brilliant, more than me, more than anyone I know--just don’t get carried away, alright? Try to keep out of trouble. Even without me.”
“I don’t know if I can do that.”
“Then think of me, at least.”
“No.” The voice wobbles. “I-I won’t have a sibling ever again, I’ll never make art ever again. I won’t be happy ever again.”
“Where’s the logic in that?” Thrass laughs weakly, tearfully.
“It’s a promise.”
“Thrawn, I have to go.”
“ You’re the only one in the family who doesn’t hate me .” Finally, Thrass heard a muffled sob on the other end.
“You have Ziara-”
“She is not…” You . “...Mitth.”
“I promise, I’ll be back as soon as possible,” Thrass says weakly. He glances over at Lorana. She looks tense. “Alright? Love you.”
The connection on the other end is breaking up. “--pl--se--ust-- Thrass --don--go--”
He hangs up.
And grips the steering wheel tighter.
Perhaps...perhaps this can all still be fixed. All he needs to do is convince--
A sudden beam of headlights too bright takes up the windshield.
Lorana screams.
Instinctively, he slams the brakes and swerves to avoid impact to the passenger seat.
.
He’d promised Thrawn he’d stick around. So he did.
It was harder to do that when watching from the shadows, when all he could get were glimpses of news, far-off whispers from beyond the borders of another country.
What news he did hear wasn’t always to his liking.
He’d wept with joy when he heard about Thrawn graduating with honors - and then again with grief when the familial exile came.
Sometimes he barely recognized the figure he heard about anymore: tales of a soft-spoken white-clad art major turned into one of the most exacting of strategists.
And, of course, there was the war.
Ziara still sent the occasional text. Mostly angry messages. Asking why he couldn’t be there.
Thrass wished he could respond.
And sometimes he wished he could not hear of Thrawn at all.
But when he didn’t, the vision of him, all alone, plagued him.
Until one day, finally, he came. And Thrass reached into the wreckage of the car totaled on the side of the road, and pulled out his brother.
Thrawn was trembling, his white outfit red with blood - not just his blood, but all the blood on his hands - but somehow he was still that same lost boy Thrass had seen all those years ago.
“You horrible, horrible child,” Thrass wept, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. “You selfish idiot.”
“Thrass-”
“How dare you use your gifts like that!” Thrass half screamed, half sobbed, stabbing his finger into Thrawn’s chest. “How dare you abuse your beautiful mind! I told you to use your talents, not use them to - to lie and hurt and destroy!” Thrawn looked like he was about to protest, but Thrass didn’t let him. “Tell me how you used them for the greater good-- tell me, Thrawn ! And all of it, to lead to this…”
“If you hate me, I can go,” Thrawn says, his voice flat and nearly nonexistent. Thrass just closes his fingers around his hands tight. Painfully tight.
“Don’t you dare , ” Thrass hisses a breath. “How could you ever join such a horrible man? Tell me you understand what you’ve done.”
Thrawn’s eyes are distant. “I did what I had to.”
“You ruined our family! You ruined our people !” Thrass screams. “And you ruined yourself . Didn’t you know that I loved you?”
Thrawn says nothing.
“Come on,” Thrass says finally. “Let’s go.”
“What?” Thrawn asks. “Where--why?”
“Because god knows no one else is going to show you,” Thrass said, pulling him along. It was starting to snow again, the air thickening with flakes. “And seeing as everyone else hates you, I guess it’s up to me now. Again.”
“Where are we going?” Thrawn asks finally, quietly.
“You’ll see,” Thrass says shortly. He glances up at the sky for a minute. The parking lot lights are dim and flickering. “Look - the moon’s coming out.”
Behind the swirl of soft snow clouds, the moon throws everything into a soft white glow. Like a painting. Maybe Van Gogh should have painted that.
Thrawn smiles faintly, as if he’d thought the same.
“Come on,” Thrass says. “Let’s go home.”