Hellbent:
It was mid morning, Sunday; for some reason it seemed like an even more beautiful day than usual, this time of year. It was late spring; the weather hadn't yet turned oppresively warm and the gardens outside were already aflame with color. The only drawback to the season was the severe case of allergies it gave him, but today even that seemed subdued in deference to the utter beauty outside. Dei watched Tyler for a moment, suddenly struck with a rare, severe attack of sentimentality. At seventeen years old, he wasn't supposed to feel any sort of sentiment towards his little brother; Ty was a pest, no doubt about it. But right now, sitting in the cascading sunlight with a look of deep concentration on his face, Tyler looked vaguely angelic. His golden hair refracted the sunlight into a halo around his head, and against the backdrop of riotous color outside the window; the ten year old looked positively ethereal.

Then Tyler raised his gleaming new trumpet to his lips and blew a note that completely and utterly shattered any illusions of the angelic about him. Dei flinched. Well, he had only been working at it for a few weeks...

Tyler looked up from the music stand and saw his older brother standing in the doorway. "Hey. This thing sucks. I can't get it to work."

Dei shrugged, repressing a grin. "Take a break from it; I'm going to church right now- you wanna come?"

No one ever commented on his habit of attending Sunday Mass; in fact, the entire dysfunctional family avoided the topic of religion altogether. But if no one commented on his going, it was highly doubtful they'd comment on his taking Tyler with him. Of course, the kid does have a mind of his own; wonder where he got that from...

Tyler gazed at his brother with surprisingly lucid blue eyes and was silent for a moment. "No."

"Are you sure? It'll only be an hour; you never know, you might like it." The room suddenly seemed dangerously quiet; not even the ceaseless birdsong seemed to penetrate the sudden haze of silence that surrounded them.

For one moment, Tyler's childish face seemed ancient; he had their father's eyes, and the same force of will. "I don't care how long it is. I won't go. I don't need to; you can believe what you want, believe who you want. I don't have to, and I won't."

Dei felt a sudden surge of anger, but that quickly subsided. Then he felt a sudden stab of sadness, and an absurd feeling of rejection; why should he care whether or not Tyler went to church, anyway? The hurt didn't subside as quickly as the anger had, though. He shrugged. "Whatever. I'll see you around."

Tyler blew another shrill blast on his trumpet in response and smiled sunnily, his serious demeanor gone. Dei cracked a smile and turned to leave, his car keys jingling in his pocket.

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Um. It's not just because we're reading James Joyce, honest! That scene's been kicking around in my head for a while now- Dei isn't quite what I'd call deeply religious. He's very spiritual, certainly, but he has his own take on Christianity. I suppose the best way to describe it would be as a very left wing-ish radical version of Catholicism. (That whole Reconciliation shiz, yeah, he's into that- and the cathedrals- he really just does it for the cathedrals.) Neeerp. This was less about Dei than it was about Tyler, actually- he was a weird kid. So annoyingly cute that y'just want to kick him in the head- but weird in the sort of deep down intrinsic way that will either leave you being the one who gets sand ground in your hair on the playground every day, or the one rallying the other six year olds to battle against the adults. Tyler was the latter sort, the little instigator.

That didn't make much sense, I realize. It wasn't supposed to. Just suffice to say that this scene has been bugging me for a while and it won't show up in the story until the rehaul (if ever) and I felt the need to write it.