I've been studying my older brother for weeks since that late night climax, and it turns out he's nothing like how I thought he was.

He's ten times weirder.

"Where are my sunglasses?" he barked, standing in the doorway of the salon in his swim shorts. "I had them a few minutes ago, and now they're gone! I've looked everywhere! Did you take them?"

I didn't glance up from my book. "Arik, mon fr�re favori, where were they the last three times you 'lost' them?"

"Don't be a smart ass, just tell me�"

"Arik. Where were they last time?"

He reached up to the top of his head and, lo and behold, found his sunglasses. He pulled them down, stared at them for a few minutes, and then skipped off to whatever he'd been previously doing.

Now, according to his college degree and report cards, Arik is an extremely bright individual. However, when it comes to things like finding his sunglasses or figuring out how to work the can-opener, he's about as luminescent as a long-dead firefly.

He is about as quirky as a person as I've ever met. I do believe that all that teenage turmoil halted his psychological development, as he hasn't seemed to have matured past age twelve. He's easily amused, and now and then he'll just whirl around in the spinny chair in the corner of the salon and yell, "WHEEE!" until he falls off. Not even when he's under the influence of alcohol, either; he just apparently likes to spin in circles until the chair falls over. It makes for an interesting sight, him being a full-grown man and all.

He's almost childlike sometimes, especially when he's nervous. We watched the horror movie The Ring together at one point, and he spent the entire hour and a half clutching my arm and screaming whenever he thought something scary might happen. After we went to bed, he kept whispering down to me from his bunk, "Harry! Are you awake?" every five minutes until four a.m. because he was so terrified that little girls were going to jump out of our TV (and I didn't help matters by flicking the TV on static via remote from the other room exactly seven days after we watched it.) He also jumps up on chairs when he sees any insect bigger than a mosquito. Some days I think he should have his own reality show.

He's forever teasing me, good-naturedly bopping the back of my head and making some kind of wisecrack. I don't mind, for we swap insults and taunts back and forth just like any pair of brothers do, and it's all in good fun. If I'm not chasing him around and beating him with a pillow, he's hitting me with it. We keep each other on our toes, and we really do laugh a lot.

However, it shouldn't be assumed that Arik is happy and silly all the time, because Christ Almighty, he's not. He falls into moods often, and for days the color just won't be in his face. He'll throw himself into piloting or working on the ship, but his thoughts are elsewhere, and then that night he'll drink a beer or two or three and stare blearily at nothing. A light sleeper, I once woke up in the middle of the night to muffled sobbing from the bunk above me.

Arik really misses Bryce.

I can understand why he cherishes my friendship so much: he is incredibly lonely. Not until I saw him at his highest exuberant high and his lowest sobbing low did I realize just how sad he really is inside. I finally saw him without his mask, without his painted-on smile�and I was shocked. He really does hate himself. Everything, from losing a business deal to chipping a glass, is cause for him tearing at his hair and hissing, "You idiot, why can't you do anything right?" He doesn't have any friends. He's too shy to talk to any of the other airship pilots, because he's convinced they're thinking nasty gay slurs whenever he walks by. An obviously gay man hit on him once in a town, and when I told him to go flirt back, he muttered, "Naw, he'd hate me." I asked what made him say that, and he replied, "Everyone else does."

He cries constantly.

He tries to hide it from me, but now I can tell when he's locking himself somewhere to cry. Usually he sits on the floor of the uppermost bridge with his head in his arms. I tried to comfort him once, but he told me to leave him alone. He says he's always had crying fits, and that he's over-emotional anyway, and that I shouldn't worry. But I do. When his mini-depressions last a week at a time, horrible images of bloody holes in his head begin to appear unbidden in my mind.

He cries mostly for what he's lost: his friend, his family, his self-love (if he ever had it at all)�and especially for his lost half.

Bryce.

I don't know what happened between them. I think I can understand how Arik's constant neurosis could get annoying�after all, if you can't love yourself, how can you love anyone else?�but I don't see why Bryce couldn't have helped him with it. Bryce loved him, didn't he? From the way Arik talks, Bryce was flawless. (Though sometimes I think about the time I saw him hit Arik, and I wonder.)

I pushed him away, Arik tells me sometimes, usually when he's already had a drink or two. I did everything wrong�it's my fault, it's all my fault�I don't know how he put up with me for as long as he did!

I try to tell him that he's idealizing Bryce, and that it's not healthy, and that it probably wasn't his fault, and that obviously Bryce loved him very much�but he just shakes his head again and again and again.

From what I gather, they'd been fighting for a while, and after one particularly bad fight, Bryce stormed out and never came back. He didn't even come back for his things. Arik doesn't know if he's even still alive, but naturally, he's too afraid to find out. He could if he wanted to; he knows where Bryce's parents live. He could easily find Bryce if he really wanted to, and he could work it out, but he's terrified of being rejected. He'd rather live assuming Bryce hates his guts than take the risk of being rejected point-blank. It's so incredibly stupid, but Arik really isn't in any shape to be rejected again, and his self-confidence is so low he'd never be able to go through with it.

So he puts his head down on the table and cries over old photographs.

("�and even if I did find him, he obviously doesn't love me anymore. He never came looking for me, did he?")

He's such a sick fuck, Arik. Sometimes I think he's a true masochist. He cries himself to sleep over Bryce, and yet he has photographs of him all over the place. He's not trying to move on. He's not trying to get over it. He's not trying to find Bryce again. He's just�crying.

'But, hell, Bryce isn't stupid; eventually he figured out what an imbecile Arik is. That's why he left him.'

I'm fifteen, and I'm straight. I don't understand their relationship, and I don't understand love like that. But I do wish they'd get back together.

I don't want him to be sad anymore. I love him.

Arik is not perfect, and he's not entirely stable, and he's not entirely mature. When I got to know the real Arik, I didn't find a courageous adult I could look up to, no wise hero, no father figure, no pillar of human achievement from which to improve myself and learn the error of my ways.

I found a brother. A friend. And that's more important.

He's messed up, but he's not entirely pathetic. He has his ups and downs. He's human. He's a good guy, overall. He's got a big heart, and he cares a lot about me. He understands my problems with Mum and Dad, and he doesn't want me to be anyone but me. I can't really ask for more.

My change of heart amazed me. I couldn't believe how drastically different Arik was on the ship from when he was at home-and how converse my feelings towards him were. Only a few weeks ago, I'd hated every iota of his existence, and now I loved him more than anyone else.

Life is strange.

Although I worry about him sometimes, it's nice to be thinking about someone other than myself. We commiserate together, and we bitch together, and we keep each other company. We don't have to say it, but I'm glad he's there and he's glad I'm there, and we both know it.

And when all else fails, we go into town and act stupid. Sometimes we sit in public and 'Couple Watch'; that is, we stuff our faces with junk food while sitting outside and making vague remarks about the attractive heterosexual couples that walk by, things like, "Hot damn, check out that ass." He means the guy, I mean the girl, and overall it makes for a half-decent male bonding experience so long as you don't think too hard on it.

That was probably the best summer of my life. I really hadn't been so happy in months. Although I would have liked to have seen my friends, Arik let me use his laptop and cell phone to talk to them, and Arik proved companionable himself. I warmed up to the ship once I stopped getting seasick and spent drastically less time leaning over the side. By the end of the summer I was able to flit around the different levels like a squirrel. You should see me work the riggings and lines. I could be in the navy. My knot-tying skills make Boy Scouts slather at the mouth.

The chow's pretty good, too. As asking Arik to cook macaroni and cheese would short-circuit his brain, either I cook or we order out. I actually enjoy cooking, it turns out. I used to help my mom make dinner often back when she still liked me, so I picked up a lot of tips and tricks. Arik claims I'm a wonderful chef (though he'll eat anything, so maybe his opinion isn't so valid.) When I don't feel like slaving over a hot stove, we order out. Remind me to thank all of Lin's kinsmen and ancestors next time I see him, because hot damn is takeout Chinese food a wonderful, wonderful thing. Arik and I live on lo mein and fried rice whenever we can. Breakfast, lunch, or dinner, Chinese hits the spot. Mexican food and Italian food (well, pizza anyway) are also way up there. We also drink a shitload of Sprite and orange soda. Considering all the crap I consume when on the ship, I really should be as big as a walrus by now. But nope, I'm still a stick. Arik says its the Redde metabolism, because he hasn't eaten anything non-processed for months, and he's still as ripped and trim as a model.

I have to say, working on the ship does wonders on the mirror. Working shirtless in the sun all day causes one to tan nicely, which does wonders for one's acne. Fact: even the scrawniest of chests looks less pathetic tanned than it does when its Day-Glo white. Interestingly enough, my freckles faded with the tan, and good riddance to them! I may have even developed that precious commodity called muscle in my arms from all the physical work. Nothing to make a calendar out of, but hey, I'm taking it one step at a time. Someday I'll have the chiseled stomach Arik does. When I told Arik that, he busted out laughing and said only gay men can get bodies like that�but if I was really that determined, start doing 300 sit-ups and crunches before breakfast every day like he does.

I'm working on it.

Slowly.

As jobs go, working on an airship can be exciting. A lot of the job is wasting time in port towns or dealing the business aspect of it, but the parts that involve sailing on the open seas and interacting with the rough'n'tumble airship crowd can be fun. You haven't lived until you've dangled from the mainmast in a thunderstorm while trying to repair the riggings. I've fallen overboard more than once due to either a nasty swell or my own clumsiness and had to be hauled back up by Arik. And as sensitive and weepy as he can be, when he's piloting he's all rough masculinity. He's an incredible pilot. Around other pilots, one can sense the respect they hold for his skills, even if not for him as a person. He can maneuver the massive ship as easily as if it were a little sailboat, come gale winds or turbulent seas. He puts his above-average intellect to use on the ship, skillfully manipulating business transactions and talking his way out of trouble. I'll never forget the time he managed to fend off a troupe of would-be pirates by talking fast and playing it cool. I never looked at him the same way again.

It's a good gig: adventures on the high seas, a good friend, and lots of good chow. I even get paid, and well!

But the best part?

No parents.

Arik is old enough to take care of me, but young enough to still be a kid. He doesn't impose any rules on me besides the basics. He trusts me to act responsibly and behave myself, and I do. When we're on the ship, we're like two bachelors. We curse, we slobber, and we never clean up anything. Arik does not fit the stereotype of a neat and tidy gay man by any means.

It was amazing. I'd been on the ship for weeks, and not once had I been called selfish or spoiled or arrogant or bratty or stupid. I hadn't been slapped, either! Imagine that! I did not miss my parents at all, not even for a second. It sounds heartless, but it's true. I was glad to be away from their incessant biting criticisms and suffocating disapproval. The more time I spent on the ship, the more detached I felt from them and the clearer my mind became. The airship was my real home. Arik loved me for who I was, he was proud of me, and he wanted me around; my parents didn't. Why should I miss someone who was probably glad I was gone?

In the back of my mind, I knew I'd have to return to that hellhole eventually. Summer wouldn't last forever, and soon I'd be back in the lions' den for another entire school year. Soon I'd be back to being told I was stupid because my grades weren't awe-inspiring, back to being told I was ugly for not wearing preppy clothes, back to being told I was worthless because I wasn't Arik. Ha. That would be interesting, at least. Why can't you be more like Arik? Christ, Mum, Dad, you have no fucking idea.

The more I thought about it, the more distressed I became, and the more tightly my innards wound themselves.

So I didn't think about it.

next chapter...