Jermaine walked with a touch more trepidation as he realized where they were. Even earlier that day (glob, just a day? It felt like it had been a year since they arrived), Jermaine recalled walking up that rickety old ladder with a pit in his stomach.
Everything about the place was so emphatically his brothers', in form and function. They'd built it together, refined each corner with stories. Finn's height scratched into a post in the treasure room, the vegetable garden out front, the scattering of treasure that surely had a story behind each doubloon and ruby... a million little artifacts to a life built together. Two-gether. A family all their own, even divorced from Joshua and Margaret in a way. The fresh start Jermaine never had, surrounded by ghosts every day in their childhood home.
He never imagined it looking like... this. A tomb of their father's obsessions. A flophouse when their Dad was too far to come home. He runs a hand along the uneven wood slats that made up the wall. How long had it looked like this after Jake and Finn came to stay?
"Dusty..." Is all Jermaine can think to say in response to Finn's observation, a shadowy echo of his first thoughts on Mars. "You think Jake's here?"
Distantly, almost as if responding to his name, both of them hear a familiar voice.
"Heh, sorry, man... yeah, no. Not happening. I don't even live there anymore, dude."
It was Jake's phone voice, going from casually dismissive to actively agitated over the course of a few sentences. It sounded as if it was coming from the game room.
no subject
Everything about the place was so emphatically his brothers', in form and function. They'd built it together, refined each corner with stories. Finn's height scratched into a post in the treasure room, the vegetable garden out front, the scattering of treasure that surely had a story behind each doubloon and ruby... a million little artifacts to a life built together. Two-gether. A family all their own, even divorced from Joshua and Margaret in a way. The fresh start Jermaine never had, surrounded by ghosts every day in their childhood home.
He never imagined it looking like... this. A tomb of their father's obsessions. A flophouse when their Dad was too far to come home. He runs a hand along the uneven wood slats that made up the wall. How long had it looked like this after Jake and Finn came to stay?
"Dusty..." Is all Jermaine can think to say in response to Finn's observation, a shadowy echo of his first thoughts on Mars. "You think Jake's here?"
Distantly, almost as if responding to his name, both of them hear a familiar voice.
"Heh, sorry, man... yeah, no. Not happening. I don't even live there anymore, dude."
It was Jake's phone voice, going from casually dismissive to actively agitated over the course of a few sentences. It sounded as if it was coming from the game room.