The moon doesn't sleep

Day 4: addiction / "Together we're hopeless so maybe now is the time to go alone"

Ethan walked into Vian's room already knowing what to expect: his twin brother would either be silently sobbing into a pillow, which would be fine, or he would be sleeping soundly, which would be concerning. Ever since "the big bad breakfast" as he called it in his head, their parents had done what both twins had feared for months, they prescribed Vian sleeping drugs which they watched him take every night for the first two months.

Tonight, Vian was awake, which meant he didn't want to sleep for whatever reason. Ever since they started forcing him to take sleeping drugs and anxiety drugs, Vian couldn't sleep without them, which he exploited whenever possible because the dreams he had on them were worse than Ethan's nightmares. Or so he'd said when Ethan asked him why he did this to himself.

Ethan didn't want to hate his parents for making an addict out of his brother, he understood that they were misguidedly trying to help, their parents loved them after all. But every time they were out of town, it was his job to make sure Vian took his medication, and so Vian begged him to let him not take it, to flush the pills down the toilette and just let him stay awake.

They fought the first night, Ethan even tried to physically force him to swallow the damn things. He also had thought it was for the best at the time, for the brother he had grown up with, full of life and brightening every room he walked in was but a shell of himself. After the BBB, when their parents had tried to force him to get a rape kit and Vian had said he wouldn't testify against the man he loved, something had broken in all of them.

For six months Vian silently struggled with his insomnia, only managing to rest when able to sneak into his brother's room. The night before he was found out, Vian had said something when he thought Ethan was already asleep, and Ethan wished with everything he had that he could go back to that night and actually be asleep during that confession.

This night, Vian wasn't awake and crying as usual, tonight he was at his window seat and staring at the moon.

"You need sleep, baby brother." Ethan spoke barely above a whisper.

"I need to forget I ever loved him." Vian responded without taking his eyes off the bright light illuminating his face.

"That I can agree with." Ethan leaned against the door frame. "We're going to college in a few weeks, soon it'll feel like nothing ever happened."

"I don't think it will ever feel like that." Vian murmured.

"Together you were hopeless V, you said so yourself."

"I didn't say it E. He was the one that broke my heart, He was the one that said it would be best if we never saw each other again after he made love to me one last time."

"That was not love." Ethan was breathless.

"And how would you know?" Vian turned vacant eyes toward him.

They were identical twins, mirror images of one another differentiated only by their preference in hair length. But in this moment, Ethan could not recognize the person in front of him.

"If he loved you he wouldn't have left you like that, if he loved you he would have ended things before they even started."

"You don't even know who he is."

"And I don't need to know that to know that he was a piece of shit that did nothing but take advantage of you."

"Whatever." Vian responded, reaching for his pills on the nightstand.

Ethan sprung into action and yanked the bottle out of his brother's hand. He wanted to dump the entirety of its contents into the toilet, instead, he shook one pill out and gave it to Vian.

"I'm keeping them until they get home." He whispered as Vian swallowed the pill dry.

"Whatever." Vian responded after sticking out his tongue, both in petulant mockery and to show that he'd in fact taken his medication.

"Try to get some rest baby brother." Ethan said, turning towards the door but Vian stopped him, pulling at the hem of his pajama shirt.

He didn't have to say anything else. Ethan nodded and walked his twin back to the bed. Vian got under the covers and Ethan sat on top of them, resting against the excess of pillows and stuffed animals his brother kept on his bed. Ethan started petting Vian's hair like their mother had done a million times since they were little kids, he hummed Vian's favorite song and his brother was soon asleep.