"Because you're just older and cooler and all-knowing and more experienced with this thing called life?" Gideon's voice took on a pitch not heard since before his voice finally broke, and he mirrored Micah's smirk with one of his own. But as usual, it didn't carry to his eyes. "Shouldn't have to be, Micah." Too many secrets kept from each other could successfully tear a family apart.
Perverse curiosity overtook him as he glanced over his brother's body; more likely than consented to, if he were to believe his brother's own words. "You wouldn't try to hide something you wanted." The words were repeated softly, again from memory. Because whereas Gideon had hesitated to get undressed, Micah had not. His gaze stayed on the scar that cut across his brother's stomach; he could only try to imagine how far that one reached down, how much blood loss that had caused.
But Gideon noticed details, took importance in the words spoken just moments earlier. "A little." The stylish glass door armoire reflected more scars, this time on his brother's back. His eyes narrowed. He recalled a tall, white porcelain vase that had been gifted to him on his wedding day, which had been broken not long thereafter. Gideon has set on to gluing the pieces back together, one by one and the vase had regained it's former stature. While still hauntingly beautiful, the cracks remained a testament to what had happened to it.
A beautiful, broken vase glued together for the sake of ... what exactly? And why did Micah remind him of that very vase? Did he himself, look like it as well? "What made you crack? What glues you together? " The whispered words escaped him before he realized it, and he contemplated his own questions. "White porcelain breaks so easily." Hands reached over for his coveted cigarettes and lighter, before lightly touching Micah's skin with one, single finger. Flesh. No doubt about it.
His hand held his cigarette as it hovered over and down Micah's right arm, stopping just shy of the tattoo on his wrist. He couldn't shake the feeling that this was like this vase - a key piece of his porcelain vase, since long missing, swept up in a dustpan and discarded, leaving it with a gaping hole that Gideon hadn't been able to cover up. It irked him, with its unwholesomeness. But then the younger brother shook his head, and the cigarette was brought up to his lips again. Hands rubbed over Gideon's head, as they tried to massage the vision of the porcelain vase out of his mind.
"Secret?" And with one fluid motion, his cigarette gestured at the tattoo on his older brother's wrist.