The only family he got
Jul. 30th, 2011 08:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solrosanNotes: Let the record show that I will not write any more co-addiction fics for a while now. It was supposed to be about how John reacted when Harry told him she was gay but...this was the story that wanted to be told instead.
Many thanks to my mistress who provided me with the medical student hypochondria symptoms, with out even asking what I needed them for. If that's not love....
Summary: An explanation to Harry's drinking and part of the reason John didn't have anywhere to stay when he came back from Afghanistan.
***
She was his sister and he loved her.
He had to tell himself that over and over again.
She was his sister and he loved her.
She was his sister.
Therefore he had to love her. Apparently it was the law or something. There had to be a law that stated that siblings had to love one another, because he had no other explanation for why he still loved Harry.
Love was the only explanation he had for why he always dropped everything and drove across London to get her, why he continued to pick her up from bathroom floors and why he dragged her away from parties. At least she was tiny compared to him, so the physical stress was not even worth mentioning compared to the psychological.
It had to be love, because the alternatives were hard to live with; Harry couldn’t be his responsibility – he was the younger one for Christ’s sake! – and if she was an obligation he wouldn’t be able to live with himself. It just had to be love.
“’m sorry John…” Harry spluttered as he put her to rest in his bed in his tiny student flat. Another night in the armchair for John! What on earth would’ve happen to her if he had been living in a different city? Sometimes he wished he would, those were some of the times he needed to remind himself that he did this out of love. Because he loved his sister. Very much. He did.
He did.
Right?
“You just…sleep it off,” he mumbled back to her, covering her with a blanket – it was months and months since he had stopped undressing her before he tucked her in. “It’s okay,” he said and most nights, that was a true statement. It was okay. He didn’t mind. She would do the same for him.
She would.
Right?
“I love you,” Harry continued and John believed her. Maybe it wasn’t called believing when it came to things one already knew. So he guessed he knew, he knew she loved him. Like he loved her; because there was a law or something. They had to love each other.
“I love you too Harry,” he said, getting up to get a bucket to place next to the bed. Hopefully she wouldn’t need it, but he didn’t take any chances. Taking care of his sister sick wasn’t what he had planed for tomorrow, just in the same way as he hadn’t planed for this to be his Friday night.
She was just unhappy.
John couldn’t blame her.
Truth be told, he was a bit unhappy himself.
***
At some point during the evening someone must have told him Harry was there. Someone just must have. Still it totally threw John off guard when he walked in on his sister and one of the guys from his rugby team undressing each other.
Right there and then it was hard to say what was the worst; if it was the basic fact that he had walked in on his sister about to have sex in general or if it just was the insane detail that it was his out-and-proud sister who was about to have sex with one of his teammates.
“Harry!” he said in an angry voice – why it was angry he couldn’t say – and it was first at that point the snogging couple noticed his presence.
“John!” his teammate gasped.
“What the hell Fred?” John yelled.
“Sod off!” Harry told him, “This isn’t any of your bloody business.”
“You’re a bloody lesbian! Christ! You know that Fred!” John kept on yelling even though he knew she was right, it wasn’t his business if she wanted to screw guys every now and then. It wasn’t even his business that this particular guy was his friend.
“Sorry Johnny…” Fred blushed but neither of the Watsons seemed to care too much about his presence.
“Mind your own freaking life!” Harry frizzled, not letting go of Fred, not even stopping undressing him though he looked a bit uncomfortable. What was she trying to prove?
“You’re pissed,” John sighed in a lower voice. He wasn’t sure if he was informing her (and Fred!) about that fact or if he was making an excuse for her so he would calm down. She was pissed, she didn’t mean it…she just…she was just pissed and confused.
“I don’t need my baby brother to babysit me!” Harry snorted, now kneeling in front of Fred who tried to back away as graceful as possible, but Harry wasn’t planning on letting him do that.
“Never expect me to again,” John said, backing out of the room, adding in a grump, “Just go for it Fred.”
Yes, preferably Fred over someone else. Fred was one of the good guys. A lot of dumbshits at this party, so if Harry wanted to behave like an idiot she could have picked a lot worse. Wow…it felt like a creepy, alternative universe, judging his friends as potential hook-ups for Harry.
“Eh…John….”
John jumped when Fred, not even 15 minutes later, gently tapped his shoulder to get his attention. The poor guy looked terrified and John’s heartbeat increased rapidly.
“I didn’t do anything, honest….She just started to cry and she won’t stop, I tried, I…”
John had stopped listening, placing the rest of his beer in Fred’s hand and made his way through the crowd to his sister. Fred yelled after him that he was sorry; John made a mental note to apologise to his friend the next time he met him.
The sight of Harry on the floor, curled up in foetal position, half naked but covered with her red top as a blanket – most likely a gesture from Fred – was the most heartbreaking thing John had seen in his life. If he hadn’t argued with Harry in the middle of it, or if he hadn’t known Fred, he would have thought she’d been raped. His mind still went there. Maybe he shouldn’t apologise to Fred after all. Rape or not.
“Harry…’t’s me,” he said in a low voice, carefully placing his hand on her bare shoulder. Half a moment later he had a hard-sobbing sister around his neck, soaking his shirt. Lost, and a bit uncomfortable, he patted her back. It didn’t really help, but what could he do when she shook with tears?
“What happened?” he whispered in her ear, “Do I need to kill Fred? If he did something I will, you know I do.”
She shook her head as good as she could against his shoulder. He took it as if she didn’t want to talk now and nothing else. This was so stupid. So unnecessary and so stupid, like most of the things Harry did. He realised he was too intoxicated for this; his whole body felt numb and the room was spinning just a little bit. The part of drinking that was fun and liberating when together with friends was just inhibiting and frustrating when trying to console a close-to-hysteric sister on a hard floor.
“Let’s put this on you and go home,” he suggested after a while, forcing her away from him, even dressing her. Damn it Harry. “Come on…please Harry…just…there…all dressed. Now we leave, okay? Just…did he do anything? I, I need to know.”
Harry shook her head again, wiping tears from her cheeks. John sighed with relief; Harry wasn’t raped by one of his friends, he hadn’t let that happen. Drunk or not, he should have known better than leaving her with a guy.
“Why can’t I just suck dick and enjoy it?” she wondered and her eyes flooded again. So that’s…damn! He held her, glad to have been here tonight. Not glad that she had been here though.
This was why John never invited Harry to the parties he was going to.
He hated himself for it. He just wanted to be the irresponsible one sometimes; he wanted to be the one who had too many beers, the one that got all crazy. It was impossible for him to do that when Harry was around and for that, he hated her.
And he hated himself for hating her, but it was better to hate himself. So, so much better; because when it came down to it, he was the only family she had. She was an orphan, he wasn’t.
Sometimes he despised their parents for that, bur most of the time he didn’t think about it.
He knew it was the other way around for her.
***
Five empty cups in various places. A plate with leftovers on nightstand. Curtain closed for five days. A heavy pathology book in lap. Notes taped all over wall. Feet on desk. Fingers entangled in phone cord. Crying sister in ear.
John couldn’t hear a word of what she was saying. Honestly, he didn’t try so hard. No, most of his focus was on tissue samples. Two days from now he had a huge exam and, as always, he had started to study a week too late.
Drunken phone calls from Harry were never welcomed. Even less so when he had more important things to do than tell her the expected “It’s going to be okay”, “You did the right thing”, “She’s an idiot” and so on. Well, he had always more important things to do than that.
He didn’t have the time for this; instead he put the phone on the desk and returned to his book. It wasn’t hard to refocus, he wasn’t overly concerned about whatever problem his drama seeking sister had this evening. It was always something, always someone, especially when she was partying. She did it more often now, on complete random days, but John had sympathy for her, she had it…rough. That’s why he didn’t hang up, even though he really wanted to.
After finishing a paragraph, he picked up the phone and said something to her. Not that it mattered, not that she would notice if he didn’t. This continued until the time John picked up the phone and instead of sobbing heard drunken snoring.
Sighing, he hung up the phone and took a moment to ponder if he should go to her and put her to bed. The decision to stay at the desk was not as easy as the one putting down the phone, but it was the right one. Exam trumped passed out sister.
***
It was hard to tell the difference sometimes. If what you saw was real or if it was just because of something you just read. Like when they had started to read about neoplasms and half of the class got convinced they had tumours, or the five girls who never crossed their legs anymore, afraid of getting deep vein thrombosis or when they had studied bacterial infections and John had been sure his tonsillitis was caused by MRSA. Studying medicine was like signing up for a touch of hypochondria.
Maybe this was the same, maybe he looked for zebras when he should be looking for horses. He had never hypochondriacally diagnosed someone else though; most of the time they used to debunk each other’s apocalyptic self-diagnoses. John wasn’t the first one noticing it, but after Tom had pointed it out, it was too obvious to miss.
Harry had a problem.
It was called gin. It was called vodka, rum, wine and bear. Sake. Raki. Schnapps.
Or just alcohol.
It had taken four days after Tom’s statement before John had accepted it. Harry was on the brink of becoming an alcoholic and he had to stop making excuses for her. None of the whys mattered anymore.
Well, yes, they did; they did still matter. Obviously it did matter that their parents didn’t accept her sexuality, not to mention how important it was that she hadn’t come to terms with it because of their parents’ idiocy. It mattered. It counted as really good reasons. Just not as good excuses. Not anymore.
He had done it for way to long; letting her get away with it because he hadn’t had the will or strengths to deal with it. To help her. Because of, or thanks to, Tom though, he keep his eyes closed anymore.
“You’re so cute when you worry,” Harry told him, lying on the sofa(his sofa!), and smiling innocent at her baby brother who was standing next to her with a concerned look and arms folded over his chest.
“Seriously Harry,” John tried, almost pleading, “You’ve a problem.”
“Oh sod off you,” she asked him, turning off the telly and sat up, “I’m not one of your practice patients.”
“No you’re my sister, that’s a hell of a lot more important,” he said, trying his hardest to sound honest and concerned. It came out mostly frustrated. Even a bit irritated. Well, frustrated and irritated were the feelings Harry provoked most of the time, so maybe it wasn't so strange.
“I don’t have a drinking problem,” she said slowly, emphasising the words more than she had to. She had done it a lot when they were kids to imply that John was slow. He’d hated it then, he hated it now.
“Prove it,” he demanded.
“Doctor Watson, please,” she said condescending, almost rolling her eyes at the doctor-part.
“Shut up,” he snapped.
“You shut up.”
“How old are you? Five?”
“That would make you what? Two?”
How did this, which was supposed to be a serious, adult conversation, end up being a childish argument? Did that happen to all siblings, or just the ones where the younger tried to be the more mature one?
“I’m serious Harry,” John tried again, it had cost him so much to come to this realisation, he had even shed tears because of it, and he was not gong to let her get out of this conversation.
“That’s your problem,” she interrupted, “You’re too serious. You see diseases and problems where there aren’t any. Then you worry about things that don’t exist….You shouldn’t worry about me, I should be the one worrying about you.”
“Well, who’s supposed to worry about you then?” he asked, seating himself next to her.
It was just three years between them. When they’d been children, Harry had looked after John to her best ability, in the way older sisters did John supposed. Entering her early teens, Harry had soon ditched her baby brother; something else that John though was perfectly natural. Then they had been allies all through her late teenage years, sharing her secret, hiding it from their parents, until she’d had the courage to come out to them.
From that day forth, John had been her only family.
“It’s okay John,” she said, putting her arm around in. Comforting. “I don’t have a drinking problem.”
“Prove it,” John asked of her again, “If you’re sober for…one week, I’ll stop worrying.”
“Deal,” she said, smiling and hugging his shoulder.
She did it. Not for just one week, she stayed sober for sixteen days.
John was pleased (even if the seventeenth day had ended with Harry falling asleep on his bathroom floor again), but he remembered Tom’s words and kept a closer eye on her drinking from now on. She might have kept her part of the deal, but somehow, stop worrying seemed much harder than stop drinking.
***
It was Tuesday.
Tuesday.
Damn it Harry.
***
It wasn’t their fault. They weren’t to blame, their mutual childhood friends (all two of them). It was just customary to invite people to weddings and birthdays and garden parties. Just as customary was the tradition (er…lets call it that) to serve alcohol at these occasions.
Social expectations. Rules? Norms? Who decided that alcohol was mandatory? The Vikings? It sure as hell wasn’t Queen Victoria. Barbaric, mead drinking rapists. Good-for-nothing Scandinavians.
A welcome drink (often something sparkling), a glass of wine or two at the table (or beer or cider depending on the festivity), something to the coffee and desert (maybe a whisky, a cognac, a liqueur), sometimes a bar…sometimes an open one.
John never wanted to go anymore. He dreaded each invitation, but he always accepted because if Harry didn’t go, he would have a good time and if Harry did go, he needed to be there. To watch her. To make sure she didn’t make a scene. To guarantee their friends remembered the festivity, the cause of celebration, and not just Harry making a fool out of herself.
Good thing it only happened three, five times a year. Never any family Christmas parties, no baptising of small children, no funerals of beloved grandparents…no nothing with any relatives, ever.
John never admitted it, not even to himself, but he was grateful his family seemed to have forgotten he had a sister. To be fair, John had made a point of not going to family spectacles (except Christmas with his parents) where Harry wasn’t invited. No Harry, no John; that was the rule. Still, it effectively cut down on the times when he had to play a round of drink-blocking with Harry.
It was a skill actually. Not nearly perfected and sure, he wished he hadn’t needed to acquire it, but it was a skill none the less. In secrete he used his friends to sophisticate the technique, watering down their drinks, asking bartenders to serve them non-alcoholic alternatives without telling them and so on. Most of the time he’d be caught, but he never explained himself, always sticking to the story that it was just a joke.
Hilarious.
John was a self-proclaimed expert when it came to making up suitable excuses for each and every given situation; always finding reasons to explain Harry’s behaviour or the fact that he insisted on being the one bringing Harry all her beverage. It was tiring, making him a bad guest and lousy company for everyone around. No wonder he was considered to be stiff and boring while Harry was presumed to be fun-loving and outgoing.
Sure, he could stop doing it; let Harry face the consequences of her actions. Let her make a repeated fool out of herself and just stand by and watch. She wasn’t his responsibility. She just wasn’t.
But she was his sister.
And he loved her.
It was the law.
Therefore he could never put her through that. When it came down to it, it wasn’t even her fault; it was their bigoted parents. Harry wasn’t like this, not really. She just had a hard time right now. The last couple of years. He could endure some difficult parties to save her from embarrassment.
He was her family, if he didn’t look after her, who would?
***
John didn’t know what this was supposed to be like. He had been in school his whole life, and now all of a sudden, he wasn’t. All exams were done. All rapports neatly written and handed in. All hours clocked at hospitals and surgeries.
In his hands he had his medical license. Finally. He was a real doctor now. Sure, he was unemployed, but he actually thought about joining the armed forces anyway so.... They had talked about it a lot, he and his mates.
Work. Real work with real patients. It all felt so surrealistic, so scary. It felt so much as something he wasn’t ready for that the very thought of it made him nauseated. Obviously, the patients he had met through his years had been very much real and their diseases maybe even more so, but it was still not the same thing. Not at all.
At this very moment, standing in an elegant, brightly lit dining-room, surrounded by friends and family – all of them supposedly there to celebrate his graduation – it didn’t really matter though.
The guest list for this alleged celebration of his success (and/or his first day as unemployed) was composed by his parents. John hadn’t seen most of these people since he'd been a child; so he was pretty sure this was more a celebration of his parents who had managed to produce a doctor. It didn’t really bother John, he’d had his own (his real) celebration of this with his classmates and friends already – and he got a lot of nice envelopes with money tonight. He had just enforced one alteration to the guest list and, because of it, suggested a change to the menu.
The enforced alteration was to invite Harry (and Clara, her girlfriend of two month) and the suggestion being “no alcohol”. Since Harry’s invitation had been an ultimatum (“If you don’t let me invite Harry to my party I won’t be there!”) his parents had gone along with it, but taking the wine and champagne out of the menu had been out of the question.
So he guessed he had just himself to blame for the spectacle that efficiently had made everyone forget that they were there for his sake. Nothing would have made him happier than to be able to blame the rest of his family, but truth be told, he was the only one with all the cards.
His parents – their parents – had not idea Harry had a drinking problem; not just because they hadn’t seen each other for years, but also because John had always failed to remember to tell them. It hadn’t even occurred to him to use it as an argument for a non-alcoholic reception. He didn’t want them to know just how much they hurt her, she was too proud to allow that. In addition, he hadn’t told Harry the invitation came from him rather than from their parents since he hoped it would make her feel at least a bit included.
Standing on the sidelines of the greatest argument (tears and broken glasses) in modern time, John could not help but feel that he’d made a bad call and almost lead his sister to slaughter. He couldn’t gather any sympathy for his parents though, no matter how hard he tried.
At the other side of the room stood Clara, arms wrapped around herself, eyes directed to the floor as she heard how her future in-laws calling her and Harry an abomination, saying that they were never welcomed here in the first place and other really nasty things that John actually never thought his parents were capable of verbalising
If the invitation had been unfair to Harry, it was a terrible injustice to Clara. Harry, lead to slaughter; Clara, pushed straight into a minefield, while people shot at her from every direction.
Remorseful for what he (and the rest of his family really) put her through, John walked over to her, gently touching her arm and nodding towards the door. There was nothing they could do here now anyway and she gladly followed him away from all this. If this would have taken place some 50 years ago, he would surely have handed her a handkerchief to dry the very obvious tears in her eyes, but now he just looked the other way when she dried them on the sleeve of her dress.
“Harry didn’t tell you, did she?” he said when they had been standing in silence outside the house for a while and she shook her head to confirm. Stupid, stupid, stupid Harry! Sure, maybe that your parents being narrow minded arses weren’t the first thing to disclose in a semi-new relationship, but defiantly something to explain before dragging someone along to a family gathering.
“’m sorry,” he continued, “I should’ve seen it coming.”
“Not your fault really, now is it?” she tried to ease his guilt by putting on a brave face. He couldn’t help but wonder if she had been in similar situations before. How did her family handle her sexuality?
“Well….” John shrugged; that was clearly debatable since he was the one inviting them, “I hoped they’d be glad to see how happy she’s now. Haven’t seen her this happy” – or sober, spared tonight – “for years.”
John knew it was all because of Clara. For some reason she was different from Harry’s previous girlfriends, for some reason she made his sister feel worthy of being loved. John had never been capable of doing that, but had he really tried? Maybe Clara would even make it possible for Harry to love herself, because John strongly believed his sister agreed with some of the horrible things their parents were now yelling at her. Some day he was probably going to tell Clara this, if she was around next year maybe? To tell her all this now, this early on, would probably just ruin things one way or the other.
Should he warn her about the drinking; the fact that it might become a problem, the fact that it might already be a problem? No, Harry had behaved so well these last month (again, spared tonight but the situation was forgiving) and something like that would surely scare Clara off. It might never become a problem; maybe Harry would behave the rest of her life. Maybe. Hopefully.
For the first time he did actually consider telling someone though. For the first time he felt that telling someone might protect Harry better than covering it up as he always done. John knew right there and then that Clara was valuable and hoped she would continue having this effect on his sister.
“She…it hasn’t been easy…with them” he said with a sigh; their parents – the root of all evil that surrounded his sister – his favourite go-to excuse when he wanted to justify Harry’s behaviour for himself, “It took her a lot of courage to come here.”
“I know,” Clara said, drying her eyes again, “She was so nervous, even picked out my dress. Thought it was for you.”
“It’s a nice dress,” John said with a faint smile, felt like a ridiculous thing to say, all things considering. He wanted to tell her that if there ever was any trouble, with the drinking he had yet to mention or their parents who she’d most likely never meet again, she could always call him. Talk to him. Complementing the dress was easier, it didn’t put any pressure on the future; it didn’t betray Harry. God, he hoped Clara would stick around.
“You look pretty smashing yourself,” she managed a smile and John’s grew a little bit stronger, “You know, for a bloke.”
“Aouch,” John put his hands on his chest, then he sighed and got serious again, “Do you think….You don’t have to go in again, actually, you don’t have to meet our parents ever again, but if I bring her out here, can you take her home?”
Clara nodded and John had the need to grip his chest again, the affection and gratitude he felt towards this, rather unknown, woman made it hard to breath. It wouldn’t matter if she and Harry broke up tomorrow, it didn’t matter that Clara didn’t know everything yet, tonight John wasn’t alone. Tonight they were two.
“Thank you,” he said, very emotional, before entering the battlefield again. It looked the same as when he and Clara had left: his family in the middle of the room, both sister and mother crying now, and the rest of the party just standing around, goggling. John hated them all for not interfering, for not stopping this; grown-ups who just stood there, watching how two parents verbally ripped apart their daughter.
Determined, John walked up to his family, placing himself between his sister and their parents.
“Go to hell,” he told his parents, hasher than he had planed, but satisfied with how silent they became and how shocked they looked before he turned to Harry. She looked so terrible, his heart ached and he felt so ashamed for bringing her here. Tonight, her drinking was entirely his fault.
“Clara’s waiting…let’s just go home,” he said in a low voice to Harry so no one else would hear, putting her hair behind her ear just as their parents (read: their father) started to go at it again, telling John to not embarrass them (as if they needed the help) and not use that kind of language. Something about honouring your father and your mother; Sunday school had been such a waste on him.
“Sod off!” John screamed over his shoulder, making most people in the room jump, before turning back to Harry and leading her out of the room, arm sportingly around her waist. She cried and he whispered apologises and promises of killing their parents slowly. Just before walking through the door he looked back at his parents, eyes filled with venom, wondering if he could ever forgive them.
Harry fell in Clara’s arms as soon as the door closed behind them. Now the apologises were flowing out of her mouth instead of John’s. It was noting John hadn’t heard before, no he had heard all of Harry’s drunken apologises many times, but it was a long time since he had listen to them. The guilt over ruining the night and drinking too much, the promises to never do it again, the declarations of love (he wondered if she had told Clara she loved her before); all of it sounds strange when directed at someone else.
Clara, face reading of slight shock and discomfort, met John’s eyes. With the help of his hands he tried to communicate that he would call tomorrow and he mimed “Thank you.”. It was hard to tell, but he thought she mimed back “It’s okay.”. Either way she gave him a smile and the comfort he found in it was beyond comparison.
He watched them leave together as he tried to work up the courage to go back inside and deal with their parents and the other guests. While walking Harry out of the room he’d realised that he had a decision to make, or rather that he had made a decision already; he couldn’t let his parents be a part of his life anymore. It came down to a choice between Harry and his parents; and no matter how fed up he was with Harry from time to time, or how much he wished to have a life where all the problems were his own and not hers, he could never reward his parents with his company when they treated Harry like this.
She was his sister and he loved her. It was the law. Surely there was a law stating that he had to love his parents too (besides from the one from that part of the Bible his father had said something about), but they had broken the “You must love your children no matter what”-law, so he didn’t feel so ashamed about that. Not now at least.
Starting tonight, as soon as he left, he too would be an orphan with living parents. From now on, there were just him and Harry. But…that wasn’t really true; Harry had Clara now. And, really, so did John.
Many thanks to my mistress who provided me with the medical student hypochondria symptoms, with out even asking what I needed them for. If that's not love....
Summary: An explanation to Harry's drinking and part of the reason John didn't have anywhere to stay when he came back from Afghanistan.
***
She was his sister and he loved her.
He had to tell himself that over and over again.
She was his sister and he loved her.
She was his sister.
Therefore he had to love her. Apparently it was the law or something. There had to be a law that stated that siblings had to love one another, because he had no other explanation for why he still loved Harry.
Love was the only explanation he had for why he always dropped everything and drove across London to get her, why he continued to pick her up from bathroom floors and why he dragged her away from parties. At least she was tiny compared to him, so the physical stress was not even worth mentioning compared to the psychological.
It had to be love, because the alternatives were hard to live with; Harry couldn’t be his responsibility – he was the younger one for Christ’s sake! – and if she was an obligation he wouldn’t be able to live with himself. It just had to be love.
“’m sorry John…” Harry spluttered as he put her to rest in his bed in his tiny student flat. Another night in the armchair for John! What on earth would’ve happen to her if he had been living in a different city? Sometimes he wished he would, those were some of the times he needed to remind himself that he did this out of love. Because he loved his sister. Very much. He did.
He did.
Right?
“You just…sleep it off,” he mumbled back to her, covering her with a blanket – it was months and months since he had stopped undressing her before he tucked her in. “It’s okay,” he said and most nights, that was a true statement. It was okay. He didn’t mind. She would do the same for him.
She would.
Right?
“I love you,” Harry continued and John believed her. Maybe it wasn’t called believing when it came to things one already knew. So he guessed he knew, he knew she loved him. Like he loved her; because there was a law or something. They had to love each other.
“I love you too Harry,” he said, getting up to get a bucket to place next to the bed. Hopefully she wouldn’t need it, but he didn’t take any chances. Taking care of his sister sick wasn’t what he had planed for tomorrow, just in the same way as he hadn’t planed for this to be his Friday night.
She was just unhappy.
John couldn’t blame her.
Truth be told, he was a bit unhappy himself.
***
At some point during the evening someone must have told him Harry was there. Someone just must have. Still it totally threw John off guard when he walked in on his sister and one of the guys from his rugby team undressing each other.
Right there and then it was hard to say what was the worst; if it was the basic fact that he had walked in on his sister about to have sex in general or if it just was the insane detail that it was his out-and-proud sister who was about to have sex with one of his teammates.
“Harry!” he said in an angry voice – why it was angry he couldn’t say – and it was first at that point the snogging couple noticed his presence.
“John!” his teammate gasped.
“What the hell Fred?” John yelled.
“Sod off!” Harry told him, “This isn’t any of your bloody business.”
“You’re a bloody lesbian! Christ! You know that Fred!” John kept on yelling even though he knew she was right, it wasn’t his business if she wanted to screw guys every now and then. It wasn’t even his business that this particular guy was his friend.
“Sorry Johnny…” Fred blushed but neither of the Watsons seemed to care too much about his presence.
“Mind your own freaking life!” Harry frizzled, not letting go of Fred, not even stopping undressing him though he looked a bit uncomfortable. What was she trying to prove?
“You’re pissed,” John sighed in a lower voice. He wasn’t sure if he was informing her (and Fred!) about that fact or if he was making an excuse for her so he would calm down. She was pissed, she didn’t mean it…she just…she was just pissed and confused.
“I don’t need my baby brother to babysit me!” Harry snorted, now kneeling in front of Fred who tried to back away as graceful as possible, but Harry wasn’t planning on letting him do that.
“Never expect me to again,” John said, backing out of the room, adding in a grump, “Just go for it Fred.”
Yes, preferably Fred over someone else. Fred was one of the good guys. A lot of dumbshits at this party, so if Harry wanted to behave like an idiot she could have picked a lot worse. Wow…it felt like a creepy, alternative universe, judging his friends as potential hook-ups for Harry.
“Eh…John….”
John jumped when Fred, not even 15 minutes later, gently tapped his shoulder to get his attention. The poor guy looked terrified and John’s heartbeat increased rapidly.
“I didn’t do anything, honest….She just started to cry and she won’t stop, I tried, I…”
John had stopped listening, placing the rest of his beer in Fred’s hand and made his way through the crowd to his sister. Fred yelled after him that he was sorry; John made a mental note to apologise to his friend the next time he met him.
The sight of Harry on the floor, curled up in foetal position, half naked but covered with her red top as a blanket – most likely a gesture from Fred – was the most heartbreaking thing John had seen in his life. If he hadn’t argued with Harry in the middle of it, or if he hadn’t known Fred, he would have thought she’d been raped. His mind still went there. Maybe he shouldn’t apologise to Fred after all. Rape or not.
“Harry…’t’s me,” he said in a low voice, carefully placing his hand on her bare shoulder. Half a moment later he had a hard-sobbing sister around his neck, soaking his shirt. Lost, and a bit uncomfortable, he patted her back. It didn’t really help, but what could he do when she shook with tears?
“What happened?” he whispered in her ear, “Do I need to kill Fred? If he did something I will, you know I do.”
She shook her head as good as she could against his shoulder. He took it as if she didn’t want to talk now and nothing else. This was so stupid. So unnecessary and so stupid, like most of the things Harry did. He realised he was too intoxicated for this; his whole body felt numb and the room was spinning just a little bit. The part of drinking that was fun and liberating when together with friends was just inhibiting and frustrating when trying to console a close-to-hysteric sister on a hard floor.
“Let’s put this on you and go home,” he suggested after a while, forcing her away from him, even dressing her. Damn it Harry. “Come on…please Harry…just…there…all dressed. Now we leave, okay? Just…did he do anything? I, I need to know.”
Harry shook her head again, wiping tears from her cheeks. John sighed with relief; Harry wasn’t raped by one of his friends, he hadn’t let that happen. Drunk or not, he should have known better than leaving her with a guy.
“Why can’t I just suck dick and enjoy it?” she wondered and her eyes flooded again. So that’s…damn! He held her, glad to have been here tonight. Not glad that she had been here though.
This was why John never invited Harry to the parties he was going to.
He hated himself for it. He just wanted to be the irresponsible one sometimes; he wanted to be the one who had too many beers, the one that got all crazy. It was impossible for him to do that when Harry was around and for that, he hated her.
And he hated himself for hating her, but it was better to hate himself. So, so much better; because when it came down to it, he was the only family she had. She was an orphan, he wasn’t.
Sometimes he despised their parents for that, bur most of the time he didn’t think about it.
He knew it was the other way around for her.
***
Five empty cups in various places. A plate with leftovers on nightstand. Curtain closed for five days. A heavy pathology book in lap. Notes taped all over wall. Feet on desk. Fingers entangled in phone cord. Crying sister in ear.
John couldn’t hear a word of what she was saying. Honestly, he didn’t try so hard. No, most of his focus was on tissue samples. Two days from now he had a huge exam and, as always, he had started to study a week too late.
Drunken phone calls from Harry were never welcomed. Even less so when he had more important things to do than tell her the expected “It’s going to be okay”, “You did the right thing”, “She’s an idiot” and so on. Well, he had always more important things to do than that.
He didn’t have the time for this; instead he put the phone on the desk and returned to his book. It wasn’t hard to refocus, he wasn’t overly concerned about whatever problem his drama seeking sister had this evening. It was always something, always someone, especially when she was partying. She did it more often now, on complete random days, but John had sympathy for her, she had it…rough. That’s why he didn’t hang up, even though he really wanted to.
After finishing a paragraph, he picked up the phone and said something to her. Not that it mattered, not that she would notice if he didn’t. This continued until the time John picked up the phone and instead of sobbing heard drunken snoring.
Sighing, he hung up the phone and took a moment to ponder if he should go to her and put her to bed. The decision to stay at the desk was not as easy as the one putting down the phone, but it was the right one. Exam trumped passed out sister.
***
It was hard to tell the difference sometimes. If what you saw was real or if it was just because of something you just read. Like when they had started to read about neoplasms and half of the class got convinced they had tumours, or the five girls who never crossed their legs anymore, afraid of getting deep vein thrombosis or when they had studied bacterial infections and John had been sure his tonsillitis was caused by MRSA. Studying medicine was like signing up for a touch of hypochondria.
Maybe this was the same, maybe he looked for zebras when he should be looking for horses. He had never hypochondriacally diagnosed someone else though; most of the time they used to debunk each other’s apocalyptic self-diagnoses. John wasn’t the first one noticing it, but after Tom had pointed it out, it was too obvious to miss.
Harry had a problem.
It was called gin. It was called vodka, rum, wine and bear. Sake. Raki. Schnapps.
Or just alcohol.
It had taken four days after Tom’s statement before John had accepted it. Harry was on the brink of becoming an alcoholic and he had to stop making excuses for her. None of the whys mattered anymore.
Well, yes, they did; they did still matter. Obviously it did matter that their parents didn’t accept her sexuality, not to mention how important it was that she hadn’t come to terms with it because of their parents’ idiocy. It mattered. It counted as really good reasons. Just not as good excuses. Not anymore.
He had done it for way to long; letting her get away with it because he hadn’t had the will or strengths to deal with it. To help her. Because of, or thanks to, Tom though, he keep his eyes closed anymore.
“You’re so cute when you worry,” Harry told him, lying on the sofa(his sofa!), and smiling innocent at her baby brother who was standing next to her with a concerned look and arms folded over his chest.
“Seriously Harry,” John tried, almost pleading, “You’ve a problem.”
“Oh sod off you,” she asked him, turning off the telly and sat up, “I’m not one of your practice patients.”
“No you’re my sister, that’s a hell of a lot more important,” he said, trying his hardest to sound honest and concerned. It came out mostly frustrated. Even a bit irritated. Well, frustrated and irritated were the feelings Harry provoked most of the time, so maybe it wasn't so strange.
“I don’t have a drinking problem,” she said slowly, emphasising the words more than she had to. She had done it a lot when they were kids to imply that John was slow. He’d hated it then, he hated it now.
“Prove it,” he demanded.
“Doctor Watson, please,” she said condescending, almost rolling her eyes at the doctor-part.
“Shut up,” he snapped.
“You shut up.”
“How old are you? Five?”
“That would make you what? Two?”
How did this, which was supposed to be a serious, adult conversation, end up being a childish argument? Did that happen to all siblings, or just the ones where the younger tried to be the more mature one?
“I’m serious Harry,” John tried again, it had cost him so much to come to this realisation, he had even shed tears because of it, and he was not gong to let her get out of this conversation.
“That’s your problem,” she interrupted, “You’re too serious. You see diseases and problems where there aren’t any. Then you worry about things that don’t exist….You shouldn’t worry about me, I should be the one worrying about you.”
“Well, who’s supposed to worry about you then?” he asked, seating himself next to her.
It was just three years between them. When they’d been children, Harry had looked after John to her best ability, in the way older sisters did John supposed. Entering her early teens, Harry had soon ditched her baby brother; something else that John though was perfectly natural. Then they had been allies all through her late teenage years, sharing her secret, hiding it from their parents, until she’d had the courage to come out to them.
From that day forth, John had been her only family.
“It’s okay John,” she said, putting her arm around in. Comforting. “I don’t have a drinking problem.”
“Prove it,” John asked of her again, “If you’re sober for…one week, I’ll stop worrying.”
“Deal,” she said, smiling and hugging his shoulder.
She did it. Not for just one week, she stayed sober for sixteen days.
John was pleased (even if the seventeenth day had ended with Harry falling asleep on his bathroom floor again), but he remembered Tom’s words and kept a closer eye on her drinking from now on. She might have kept her part of the deal, but somehow, stop worrying seemed much harder than stop drinking.
***
It was Tuesday.
Tuesday.
Damn it Harry.
***
It wasn’t their fault. They weren’t to blame, their mutual childhood friends (all two of them). It was just customary to invite people to weddings and birthdays and garden parties. Just as customary was the tradition (er…lets call it that) to serve alcohol at these occasions.
Social expectations. Rules? Norms? Who decided that alcohol was mandatory? The Vikings? It sure as hell wasn’t Queen Victoria. Barbaric, mead drinking rapists. Good-for-nothing Scandinavians.
A welcome drink (often something sparkling), a glass of wine or two at the table (or beer or cider depending on the festivity), something to the coffee and desert (maybe a whisky, a cognac, a liqueur), sometimes a bar…sometimes an open one.
John never wanted to go anymore. He dreaded each invitation, but he always accepted because if Harry didn’t go, he would have a good time and if Harry did go, he needed to be there. To watch her. To make sure she didn’t make a scene. To guarantee their friends remembered the festivity, the cause of celebration, and not just Harry making a fool out of herself.
Good thing it only happened three, five times a year. Never any family Christmas parties, no baptising of small children, no funerals of beloved grandparents…no nothing with any relatives, ever.
John never admitted it, not even to himself, but he was grateful his family seemed to have forgotten he had a sister. To be fair, John had made a point of not going to family spectacles (except Christmas with his parents) where Harry wasn’t invited. No Harry, no John; that was the rule. Still, it effectively cut down on the times when he had to play a round of drink-blocking with Harry.
It was a skill actually. Not nearly perfected and sure, he wished he hadn’t needed to acquire it, but it was a skill none the less. In secrete he used his friends to sophisticate the technique, watering down their drinks, asking bartenders to serve them non-alcoholic alternatives without telling them and so on. Most of the time he’d be caught, but he never explained himself, always sticking to the story that it was just a joke.
Hilarious.
John was a self-proclaimed expert when it came to making up suitable excuses for each and every given situation; always finding reasons to explain Harry’s behaviour or the fact that he insisted on being the one bringing Harry all her beverage. It was tiring, making him a bad guest and lousy company for everyone around. No wonder he was considered to be stiff and boring while Harry was presumed to be fun-loving and outgoing.
Sure, he could stop doing it; let Harry face the consequences of her actions. Let her make a repeated fool out of herself and just stand by and watch. She wasn’t his responsibility. She just wasn’t.
But she was his sister.
And he loved her.
It was the law.
Therefore he could never put her through that. When it came down to it, it wasn’t even her fault; it was their bigoted parents. Harry wasn’t like this, not really. She just had a hard time right now. The last couple of years. He could endure some difficult parties to save her from embarrassment.
He was her family, if he didn’t look after her, who would?
***
John didn’t know what this was supposed to be like. He had been in school his whole life, and now all of a sudden, he wasn’t. All exams were done. All rapports neatly written and handed in. All hours clocked at hospitals and surgeries.
In his hands he had his medical license. Finally. He was a real doctor now. Sure, he was unemployed, but he actually thought about joining the armed forces anyway so.... They had talked about it a lot, he and his mates.
Work. Real work with real patients. It all felt so surrealistic, so scary. It felt so much as something he wasn’t ready for that the very thought of it made him nauseated. Obviously, the patients he had met through his years had been very much real and their diseases maybe even more so, but it was still not the same thing. Not at all.
At this very moment, standing in an elegant, brightly lit dining-room, surrounded by friends and family – all of them supposedly there to celebrate his graduation – it didn’t really matter though.
The guest list for this alleged celebration of his success (and/or his first day as unemployed) was composed by his parents. John hadn’t seen most of these people since he'd been a child; so he was pretty sure this was more a celebration of his parents who had managed to produce a doctor. It didn’t really bother John, he’d had his own (his real) celebration of this with his classmates and friends already – and he got a lot of nice envelopes with money tonight. He had just enforced one alteration to the guest list and, because of it, suggested a change to the menu.
The enforced alteration was to invite Harry (and Clara, her girlfriend of two month) and the suggestion being “no alcohol”. Since Harry’s invitation had been an ultimatum (“If you don’t let me invite Harry to my party I won’t be there!”) his parents had gone along with it, but taking the wine and champagne out of the menu had been out of the question.
So he guessed he had just himself to blame for the spectacle that efficiently had made everyone forget that they were there for his sake. Nothing would have made him happier than to be able to blame the rest of his family, but truth be told, he was the only one with all the cards.
His parents – their parents – had not idea Harry had a drinking problem; not just because they hadn’t seen each other for years, but also because John had always failed to remember to tell them. It hadn’t even occurred to him to use it as an argument for a non-alcoholic reception. He didn’t want them to know just how much they hurt her, she was too proud to allow that. In addition, he hadn’t told Harry the invitation came from him rather than from their parents since he hoped it would make her feel at least a bit included.
Standing on the sidelines of the greatest argument (tears and broken glasses) in modern time, John could not help but feel that he’d made a bad call and almost lead his sister to slaughter. He couldn’t gather any sympathy for his parents though, no matter how hard he tried.
At the other side of the room stood Clara, arms wrapped around herself, eyes directed to the floor as she heard how her future in-laws calling her and Harry an abomination, saying that they were never welcomed here in the first place and other really nasty things that John actually never thought his parents were capable of verbalising
If the invitation had been unfair to Harry, it was a terrible injustice to Clara. Harry, lead to slaughter; Clara, pushed straight into a minefield, while people shot at her from every direction.
Remorseful for what he (and the rest of his family really) put her through, John walked over to her, gently touching her arm and nodding towards the door. There was nothing they could do here now anyway and she gladly followed him away from all this. If this would have taken place some 50 years ago, he would surely have handed her a handkerchief to dry the very obvious tears in her eyes, but now he just looked the other way when she dried them on the sleeve of her dress.
“Harry didn’t tell you, did she?” he said when they had been standing in silence outside the house for a while and she shook her head to confirm. Stupid, stupid, stupid Harry! Sure, maybe that your parents being narrow minded arses weren’t the first thing to disclose in a semi-new relationship, but defiantly something to explain before dragging someone along to a family gathering.
“’m sorry,” he continued, “I should’ve seen it coming.”
“Not your fault really, now is it?” she tried to ease his guilt by putting on a brave face. He couldn’t help but wonder if she had been in similar situations before. How did her family handle her sexuality?
“Well….” John shrugged; that was clearly debatable since he was the one inviting them, “I hoped they’d be glad to see how happy she’s now. Haven’t seen her this happy” – or sober, spared tonight – “for years.”
John knew it was all because of Clara. For some reason she was different from Harry’s previous girlfriends, for some reason she made his sister feel worthy of being loved. John had never been capable of doing that, but had he really tried? Maybe Clara would even make it possible for Harry to love herself, because John strongly believed his sister agreed with some of the horrible things their parents were now yelling at her. Some day he was probably going to tell Clara this, if she was around next year maybe? To tell her all this now, this early on, would probably just ruin things one way or the other.
Should he warn her about the drinking; the fact that it might become a problem, the fact that it might already be a problem? No, Harry had behaved so well these last month (again, spared tonight but the situation was forgiving) and something like that would surely scare Clara off. It might never become a problem; maybe Harry would behave the rest of her life. Maybe. Hopefully.
For the first time he did actually consider telling someone though. For the first time he felt that telling someone might protect Harry better than covering it up as he always done. John knew right there and then that Clara was valuable and hoped she would continue having this effect on his sister.
“She…it hasn’t been easy…with them” he said with a sigh; their parents – the root of all evil that surrounded his sister – his favourite go-to excuse when he wanted to justify Harry’s behaviour for himself, “It took her a lot of courage to come here.”
“I know,” Clara said, drying her eyes again, “She was so nervous, even picked out my dress. Thought it was for you.”
“It’s a nice dress,” John said with a faint smile, felt like a ridiculous thing to say, all things considering. He wanted to tell her that if there ever was any trouble, with the drinking he had yet to mention or their parents who she’d most likely never meet again, she could always call him. Talk to him. Complementing the dress was easier, it didn’t put any pressure on the future; it didn’t betray Harry. God, he hoped Clara would stick around.
“You look pretty smashing yourself,” she managed a smile and John’s grew a little bit stronger, “You know, for a bloke.”
“Aouch,” John put his hands on his chest, then he sighed and got serious again, “Do you think….You don’t have to go in again, actually, you don’t have to meet our parents ever again, but if I bring her out here, can you take her home?”
Clara nodded and John had the need to grip his chest again, the affection and gratitude he felt towards this, rather unknown, woman made it hard to breath. It wouldn’t matter if she and Harry broke up tomorrow, it didn’t matter that Clara didn’t know everything yet, tonight John wasn’t alone. Tonight they were two.
“Thank you,” he said, very emotional, before entering the battlefield again. It looked the same as when he and Clara had left: his family in the middle of the room, both sister and mother crying now, and the rest of the party just standing around, goggling. John hated them all for not interfering, for not stopping this; grown-ups who just stood there, watching how two parents verbally ripped apart their daughter.
Determined, John walked up to his family, placing himself between his sister and their parents.
“Go to hell,” he told his parents, hasher than he had planed, but satisfied with how silent they became and how shocked they looked before he turned to Harry. She looked so terrible, his heart ached and he felt so ashamed for bringing her here. Tonight, her drinking was entirely his fault.
“Clara’s waiting…let’s just go home,” he said in a low voice to Harry so no one else would hear, putting her hair behind her ear just as their parents (read: their father) started to go at it again, telling John to not embarrass them (as if they needed the help) and not use that kind of language. Something about honouring your father and your mother; Sunday school had been such a waste on him.
“Sod off!” John screamed over his shoulder, making most people in the room jump, before turning back to Harry and leading her out of the room, arm sportingly around her waist. She cried and he whispered apologises and promises of killing their parents slowly. Just before walking through the door he looked back at his parents, eyes filled with venom, wondering if he could ever forgive them.
Harry fell in Clara’s arms as soon as the door closed behind them. Now the apologises were flowing out of her mouth instead of John’s. It was noting John hadn’t heard before, no he had heard all of Harry’s drunken apologises many times, but it was a long time since he had listen to them. The guilt over ruining the night and drinking too much, the promises to never do it again, the declarations of love (he wondered if she had told Clara she loved her before); all of it sounds strange when directed at someone else.
Clara, face reading of slight shock and discomfort, met John’s eyes. With the help of his hands he tried to communicate that he would call tomorrow and he mimed “Thank you.”. It was hard to tell, but he thought she mimed back “It’s okay.”. Either way she gave him a smile and the comfort he found in it was beyond comparison.
He watched them leave together as he tried to work up the courage to go back inside and deal with their parents and the other guests. While walking Harry out of the room he’d realised that he had a decision to make, or rather that he had made a decision already; he couldn’t let his parents be a part of his life anymore. It came down to a choice between Harry and his parents; and no matter how fed up he was with Harry from time to time, or how much he wished to have a life where all the problems were his own and not hers, he could never reward his parents with his company when they treated Harry like this.
She was his sister and he loved her. It was the law. Surely there was a law stating that he had to love his parents too (besides from the one from that part of the Bible his father had said something about), but they had broken the “You must love your children no matter what”-law, so he didn’t feel so ashamed about that. Not now at least.
Starting tonight, as soon as he left, he too would be an orphan with living parents. From now on, there were just him and Harry. But…that wasn’t really true; Harry had Clara now. And, really, so did John.
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