Took Me A While To Answer Because I Reread It Multiple Times.

Took me a while to answer because I reread it multiple times.

"I would've stood in front of a moving car to spare him a scrape. I would've let the wrold fall apart if it meant he woudln't cry again." You have no idea how much I love Brian's desperate, devoted and twised sense of love. Everytime you write a sentence like this one it doesn't feel like repetition as much as a faithful rapresentation of him. And I love it everytime. Every. Single. Fucking. Time.

"I waited through the heavy ache of wanting someone whose face I saw only in my dreams." These moments. We don't have enough of them. The hospital. His time spent there, alone. They don't get used enough. I'd read an entire story about Brian's own perception of his time spent there. How he spent it. With who he spent it. And how much he thought about Dexter for those like 15 or so years he was there.

"My angel. My other half." THAT'S SO FUCKING SWEET OH MY GOD!

"He didn't remember me the way I remembered him. He didn't look at me with softness." How that HURTS! I can't even comprehend how much that must've hurt him. Poor baby.

"But I did cry when he lifted the blade. [...] And I wept a silent tear." Finally someone that noticed that one little detail!! I don't know if Christian meant it like that or there was another reason behind it but I could never ignore that single silent tear running down his cheek. It hurt the first time I watched the scene and it still hurts to today.

"Because if he needed me to die to be whole, I would die. I would die a thousand times for him." Exactly what I meant with my post about him being silent in death. His acceptance of it, his devotion to living for Dexter and Dexter only! You captured that perfectly.

"So I wouldn't burden him with the sight of me dying. [...] I didn't want him to remember me bleeding." THIS! The way he held on to not traumatize his baby brother any further. The simple fact that even in his death. Even when he should've, for once, thought about himself, he was still thinking of Dexter. Even as he exhaled his last breath, his mind was focused on his baby brother as it had always been his whole life.

"I would still choose to die by his hands. I would still choose him." The reality of Brian as a character explained here, in two lines. He always lived for Dexter and he will always live for Dexter. Whether he got a chance to relieve this one or to find him in the next.

Please, Atticus, my dear and beloved friend, never stop writing. You put such passion in your work that I couldn't ignore it even if I didn't like the pairing. You made me read, and appreciate, strong themes (On The Bound and Still I Adore You...) simply cause of you writing. You're like a modern Shakespeare and I feel so blessed for having found you and for having the possbility of getting to know your work and you. I hope that even if there's just me adoring your work it's still enough. That even alone I can make you understand how much I appreciate what you do. That somewhere in the world, even just one person supports you. I hope you enjoy what you do as much as I enjoy loosing myself in it everytime.

the weeping angel

; (prayers, from the elder brother, brian)

by atticus

Dexter was always the one who cried.

Even as a child, before I knew the names of emotions or the sharp anatomy of longing, I understood that Dexter cried more than any boy should. He fell into the world with a weeping heart, so tender and breakable it was as though he was carved from the softest part of Heaven. While other boys wore scrapes and bruises like medals, Dexter would trip on a step or nick his hand on a thorn and the tears would spill from him like he had been wounded by the world itself.

I remember our mother would fuss with panic, fluttering over him like frantic wings. “Dexter! Oh, sweetheart, what happened?” She never looked at me that way. I could have disappeared into the wallpaper and no one would have known. Maybe it's because I looked too much like my father. And yet I did not envy my baby brother. I watched her rock him in her arms, and I thought he looked like something holy, something worth protecting with blood and teeth and bone.

I would’ve stood in front of a moving car to spare him a scrape. I would’ve let the world fall apart if it meant he wouldn’t cry again.

And yet the world did fall apart. So terribly.

Our dear mother, radiant even in death as her body torn like a garden ripped up by wolves. And the blood... it painted the whole room in grotesque of holy art. I didn’t cry. I watched and counted each of her breath and scream. But Dexter wept like he was breaking open. His sobs were so sharp, so pure, it sounded like a bell turned inside out. He didn’t understand it then. He barely remembered it afterward. But I did. I remembered every second of it. Because I didn’t cry. And he did. And I wished, how I wished, I could’ve taken that pain from him, even if it tore me apart inside.

Time moved on as it always does with cruelty and cold hands. They took us and separated us like wolves tearing pups from the womb. And I waited, I waited through the heavy ache of wanting someone whose face I saw only in dreams.

In the hospital, I watched other children cry and felt nothing. But when I imagined Dexter crying, wherever he was, I wondered if someone was there to hold him. To hush him. To tell him he was still good.

And then, I found him.

He's grown and lean, but still the same boy underneath. Still beautiful, and still breakable. My angel, my other half. I wanted to hug him and see if he's going to cry when he sees me, I would drink them if I could and scoop them from his cheeks like holy water, to feel close to the heart I never had.

But he didn’t remember me the way I remembered him. He didn’t look at me with softness.

I never wept. Not when we were torn apart. Not when they told me he’d forgotten me. Not when I saw him live happily ever after with the Morgan family. I did not cry when I killed to find him. I did not cry when I saw him look at me with a stranger’s gaze.

But I did cry when he lifted the blade.

There was peace in it, in a cruel way. As if our story had always bent toward this ending, like trees leaning to the wind. He was close. Closer than he had been in years. He knelt beside me like a mourner before a shrine, and his trembling beautiful hands touched my face.

Then, when he pressed his forehead to mine. I felt seen, I felt held, and I felt known for the first time.

And something inside me broke.

And I wept a silent tear.

It slipped from the corner of my eye, slow as a prayer.

And then, he cut my throat.

I didn’t fight him. Not really. Because if he needed me to die to be whole, I would die. I would die a thousand times for him.

I felt the blade slip across my neck like a kiss from God. The blood came hot and fast but I didn’t care about the pain. I cared about his face—and there it was just like before, with his eyes wide and lips trembling, and those awful, perfect tears shining in his lashes.

He cried again.

And I could not bear it.

I did not care about death, but I cared more that he was crying. I tried to lift my hand, to reach out and wipe them away but they were wrapped. I wanted to smile for him, to tell him, "Don’t cry for me, Dexy. You are not the villain here. You did nothing wrong." But I couldn’t move, the blood choking me as I fought to breathe.

I struggled against the red tide rising in me, tried to fix my shattered neck and to pull in one last breath, not for me, but for him. So I wouldn’t burden him with the sight of me dying. So he wouldn’t carry the weight of my ending. So he wouldn’t carry the memory of my corpse twitching. I didn’t want to be a weight on his soul. I didn’t want him to remember me bleeding, I wanted him to remember that I looked at him like he was something divine.

So I held on one breath, then another, as long as I could.

And the truth is: he was always the one who cried.

And I was always the one who would bleed, suffer, and die—just to see him smile instead.

But if I could choose again, if God gave me one hour to relive in this cruel, tender world—I would still choose the hour he cried in my arms. I would still choose to die by his hands. I would still choose him.