Chapter Text
Your name is Derek “Bro” Strider and you’ve been living alone for four years now after your little brother abandoned you and went no-contact. You’d gone back to your old trucking job that you’d had before raising the kid. It was steady pay, you lived in a shitty little trailerpark that you stayed in maybe 4 days every other month. You’d moved out of the high rise complex you’d raised the kid in so you didn’t have to think about him not being around.
You’d been having a pretty shitty week so far. You finally got some vacation hours and so far you’d almost totaled your pickup, the hotel you’d planned to stay in had bedbugs so you got saddled with sleeping in your truckbed, and you just got off the phone two days ago with a lawyer informing you that your old man had died.
It wasn’t a bad thing he was dead. The hateful old prick had it a long time coming. The bad part of him being dead was the fact you hadn’t done it yourself.
You were on the road up to Wortham, from where you’d been on vacation in Austin, for the will reading. Not that you probably got much, considering between you and your twin brother, you weren’t exactly the favorite. For a number of reasons.
Your leather-clad hands tighten around the steering-wheel as you glance over at the manilla envelope that sat on the passenger seat. It held important paperwork that the lawyer suggested you should bring for identity verification reasons.
Fuckin’ stupid bullshit. Why were you even going? He probably just left everything to his favorite, successful son.
You clench your jaw tightly and huff before reaching to turn up the radio, raising the volume as loud as you can get it.
…Grandpappy told my pappy, back in my day, son
A man had to answer for the wicked that he done
Your hand relaxes on the wheel a little as you quietly start to sing along to yourself, reaching for the rockstar in your center console, bringing it up to your lips and taking a nice, long drink from it.
It only took another hour before you were rolling down that old, familiar dirt road. You lean back, rolling down the window and resting your arm on the door, nodding your head along to the music you’d been listening to for the past two and a half hours. You keep your elbow just outside the door as you reach for the cigarette between your lips and flick the ash out the window.
In the near distance, you recognized your old family farmhouse. It wasn’t in too terrible shape, you concluded as you roll closer. It had some wear and tear from the years, but it was otherwise still standing. There was two vehicles parked out front, a black SUV and a very pristine red corvette.
Clearly your soft-handed brother was already there.
You pull up slowly, parking close to the car you know for certain is your brother’s. You waste no time hopping out, grabbing the folder off the passenger seat as you did and looking around. You notice out by the barn that your dad’s old truck is parked there alongside another pickup that you gauge as familiar. It takes you a minute to realize, as a guy comes out of the barn carrying some tools, that it was the old farmhand your pops had hired back when you were in highschool. The guy was still working on the farm, and you’re assuming at this point he’s doing it for free considering the old fuck bit the dust.
You take a long drag from your cigarette, grabbing it from your lips as you blew out the smoke. You snub it on the hood of your brother’s corvette as you walk toward the front porch. Your combat boots thump on the creaky wooden floorboarding as you walk up toward the front door. You reach for it, pausing in your movements just before your turns the knob. You hear faint talking on the other side of the door.
You hear what could only be your brother talking to someone.
“Y’hear that? Sounds like your aunt Dolly might be here.”
Your grip tightens on the handle momentarily before you twist the handle and let the door creep open.
You don’t know what you expect.
Your twin brother, David “D” Strider, stands in the entrance hallway of the house, wearing a red suit jacket and black slacks, tie all done up tidy and white shirt tucked in. His hair is perfectly combed in a way that pisses you off for some reason, and he wears a pair of aviators you swear to god make him look like a douchebag. He has a shocked expression on his face.
“Who the fuck…” It looks like the gears are turning in his head as he stares at you, and you have to contain the urge to punch him because you know he doesn’t know, “Dolly?”
“It’s Derek now. Or just Bro.” He still stares at you as you step inside, shutting the door behind yourself.
“When the hell-”
“24 years.” You respond without waiting for him to finish. “Told pa when I was visitin’ the farm ‘round 20. Y’can guess how he reacted.”
“Why didn’t…”
“You an’ I both know neither of us wanted to really talk after highschool. ‘Sides, you were busy with college, then your big ol’ directin’ career or what the fuck ever happened. Figured it’d be best to just keep m’distance.”
He opens his mouth to say something in response then closes it before clearing his throat. You watch him turn his head to the entryway of the living room where he motions for someone to come over.
“Dirk. Come meet your uh. Uncle Derek.” He says.
You watch quietly without much of a reaction as a young man with perfectly groomed, gelled hair and a pair of triangular anime-shades just like yours walked up to stand beside D.
“Do– Derek. This is my son, Dirk. He’s on spring break from UCSC. He’s working on getting his Master of Science for robotics engineering.”
You look the guy up and down quietly before giving a small nod. “That’s what I was gonna go back to school for myself. Never got ‘round to it.”
“Cool.” Dirk responded. He clearly wasn’t much of a conversationalist.
The three of you stand there awkwardly for a few moments before D clears his throat again (he would always do that to break tension as a kid it drove you nuts) and gestured towards the living room. “Well. There’s a will to be read. I brought snacks.”
You can’t help the way you roll your eyes as you proceed to shoulder past him and into the living room, where a well dressed young woman wearing a pair of triangular reading glasses sits in a dining chair beside the old tube television.
“Ah. Looks like everyone’s here then. You have the paperwork, yes?” She holds her hand out to you expectantly.
You reach out and hand her the manilla envelope, which she proceeds to open and take the documents out of. All of it is your identifying information, birth certificate, proof of name change, the works. She hums as she looks through it. “Mm. Yessir, everything appears to be in order. Have a seat, Derek.”
You don’t hesitate to sit in the old armchair that used to be your old man’s. Sack of shit wasn’t here to stop you from doing it anymore and it’s the most comfortable seat in the living room. You knew that for a fact.
Your brother and his son go to sit down on the couch next to you and Dirk pulls out his phone, starting to silently text on it.
“...Why did you bring a college kid on spring break to a will reading?” You grumble.
D opens his mouth to respond before the lawyer, Miss Amann you believe her name was, interrupts. “Can we proceed with the reading?” She asks politely.
You turn your head back to her, now ignoring your brother and his kid, and give her a nod.
Throughout the reading, you’re quiet. You don’t really do much other than pull out a pack of cigarettes from your shirt pocket and put one between your lips, lighting it quietly as you listen.
As you’re taking a drag from your cigarette, you hear your father refer to D as someone who “can’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag”, which makes you snicker at first until you hear the next part of the will that the jab is meant to be followed by.
“... So I leave the farm, the farmhouse, and all the responsibilities that come with it to my daughter, Dolly Strider–”
You nearly swallow your cigarette as you gasp. It burns like hell and you start hacking and coughing up a storm, slamming your hand down against your chest, writhing a bit as you spit out the now busted fag onto the old carpet, iconic shades following.
Your eyes are stretched wide in shock and you feel yourself shaking a little. Your mouth hangs open and you try to gather your wits. Try to process the words that had just been spoken. You swear you can hear D and Miss Amann trying to talk to you but all you hear is muffled static.
There’s no way in hell you just inherited the house you were beaten in. The house you lost your baby in. The house you tried to kill yourself in. The house you were raped in. The house your mother was murdered in. The house your scumbag of a father probably fucking haunted now.
You don’t realize what’s going on around you until you feel a hand on your shoulder and you bolt up, swinging quickly at the face belonging to the offending hand and sending them falling flat on their ass.
Your shaky vision slowly comes into focus to look at who you’d sent tumbling onto the floor. Jaw tense.
Your twin brother stared up at you holding his nose, which you could see very clearly a crimson red fluid gushing from.
“Jesus H. Christ, you could’a broke my nose!”
“Are you alright?” Miss Amann is fumbling for her bag, reaching for either a cellphone or a handkerchief or something.
You’re about to lose it again. You could get in deep shit for punching your bigshot director of a brother before he pushes himself to his feet, stumbling a little.
“No, I’m good. I’m fine. Shit happens, used to do it to me as a kid too. Just twin shit. I’m good. So good.” He pulls his hand away and the blood gushes down onto his white button up shirt, “Fuck, on my favorite shirt too… I’ll be right back.”
D quickly moves past you to head down the hallway and find the bathroom, while you looked around the room, swallowing thickly.
Your nephew stares up at you with raised eyebrows.
“Can you teach me how to throw a punch like that?”
It’s such an absurd question from this otherwise twinkish 20+ year old guy that it fucking grounds you solidly to reality and you stare back at him.
You don’t answer him. Instead you grab your sunglasses off the floor and put them back on before sinking down into your father’s old recliner once more. You draw in a slow, shaky breath before clearing your throat.
“Sorry ‘bout that.” You apologize. You know you should be saying sorry to your brother, but he’s busy trying to clean up that pretty face of his that you just brutalized mid-shock.
Miss Amann clears her throat, eyes darting away from you, looking back down at the will in silence. She didn’t respond to the apology. She honestly looked a little terrified.
Fucking typical. Yet another outburst of yours fucking something up.
Y’know what? Who gives a shit? Not like you’d be seeing her again after this anyway.