scar tissue that i wish you saw [oz]

[blaine mackinnley o'callaghan]

sarcastic mister know it all

[/size][/font][/center]

So far, Blaine had managed to keep control of his anger remarkably well. For somebody who was brought up to talk with their fists, keeping a cool head after being told your brother had got the girl you’d fallen for pregnant was no mean feat. But that’s because Blaine disliked taking his anger out on Adele; a young and comparably innocent girl who had got herself well and truly tangled up in the messed up lives of the O’Callaghan brothers. She wasn’t blameless by any stretch of the imagine but, in Blaine’s mind, she certainly wasn’t the individual most at fault in this situation. That person would be the crackhead waster of a brother Blaine had been unfortunate enough to get lumbered with- Oz. And, unlike with Adele and despite the sibling ties, Blaine had absolutely no qualms about taking his anger out on him.

Pulling up to the apartment, Blaine shut off the engine and climbed out of the car. Hurtling in and revealing all didn’t seem like the right tactic and after all, it wasn’t really his place to tell Oz about his upcoming responsibilities. No, Blaine was going to try to keep calm. Try. But who was he kidding he thought as he headed up the stairs. A guy could only stay reasonable for so long and, as he opened the front door to be greeted by a tip of discarded beer cans and various drug paraphernalia, Blaine realised he had been far too reasonable for far too long.

Oz was a complete and utter waste of space; sitting here getting drunk and high whilst Blaine once again found himself dealing with the fallout of his younger brothers actions. How was it fair that Oz could just casually make his way through life with not a care in the world whilst all those around him got thoroughly screwed over? Blaine’s fists clenched and he felt anger pumping through his veins. His eyes wandered across all of the evidence of Oz’s chilled out evening as his mind flashed back to the scene a few minutes earlier of dropping an emotionally wrecked Adele off at her house. A girl who’s life was never going to be the same because of Oz. A girl who Blaine actually cared about and had been cheated out of by his bastard sibling. They’d just had everything ripped from them whilst Oz carried on with his typical, self-absorbed pursuits. No more.

”Oz!” Blaine suddenly roared, turning on his feet and beginning to pace across the living room in search of his nasty little slimeball brother. The boy had gone too far this time, way too far.

[/size]

[oscar rowan o'callaghan]

well he used to be somebody
and now he's someone else

[/b] Oz muttered darkly, to no one in particular as he watched what he assumed to be one of the main characters fall into bed with one of the nurses. He took another drag on the cigarette and picked up the remote from the couch, switching the television off and standing up. There was nothing good on, and he didn't want to go out tonight. He'd had a hard night yesterday and hadn't arrived home until the early hours of the morning. Still, he'd made a good profit, plenty of people out buying in the club and he'd pocketed a sweet deal from a few of them. He was gaining a bit more of a reputation in Lipton now, more people had heard about him and began to trust him as a good source for whatever illicit substance they required; Oz would get it for them, and he'd do it swiftly, confidentially and without question. All for a very good price, of course. The variety of clientele never failed to amuse Oz; it ranged from the obvious to the unbelievable, the students to the professors, the drunks to the businessmen.

Oz heard his brother's car pull up outside and he swore loudly; he didn't fancy having a little chat with Blaine right now. It was best he kept out of his brother's way, he had a raging hangover and didn't really want to bother himself with whatever Blaine could find to pick on him about. Oz was trying hard to do something right, even if he was going the wrong way about it. He had a semi-stable source of income, even if it was a terribly dangerous source and something his brother now frowned upon. He missed the old Blaine, the one who would have joined in with him for a smoke, not the one who yelled at him for the smallest of incidents and acted like he was so incredibly faultless and guilt free.

Heading to his room Oz shut the door behind him, taking another drag on the cigarette as he walked to the drawer in the desk that had been in the room when they'd moved in. It was a fairly old desk, but Oz had kept it regardless, and in the top left drawer he'd stashed several different things - ranging from his nightly 'wages' to his own illicit substances for personal consumption. Pulling a few notes from the small wad inside the desk drawer, Oz decided he was better off getting out of Blaine's way. He couldn't remember the last time he'd exchanged a good word with his brother. Lipton had changed Blaine; no, Oz thought, that wasn't right. Prison had changed Blaine.

The front door opened and shut again, and all hopes of a quiet night out dissolved as Blaine called loudly for his brother. Oz rolled his eyes and shook his head, slamming the drawer shut and pocketing the notes. He headed to his bedroom door and flung it open. Blaine sounded unusually angry, and Oz wondered what he had done this time.
"What?" He snapped back angrily, walking into the living room. "I'll fuckin' clear it up, alright?" Oz muttered, assuming Blaine was angry about the beer cans that were littering the room.[/size][/ul][/color]

[blaine mackinnley o'callaghan]

Sometimes Blaine found himself thinking that the carefree, if somewhat risky, lifestyle he used to lead back in Ireland would be a welcome change from the endlessly complicated life he tried to lead now. Perhaps, though he would never dare admit it, some of his anger towards his brother stemmed from this jealousy that whilst Oz was still clinging onto the reckless teenage world of fun, Blaine was struggling desperately to stay afloat in the murky waters of responsible adulthood. He knew that changing was for the best and that deep down he no longer wanted to be that kid who spent half their life causing trouble and the other half trying to worm their way out of it, but that didn’t stop him from feeling that resentment towards his brother for having things so easy.

Jealousy may have been a contributing factor but it certainly wasn’t the main cause of Blaine’s current rage. Even taking away the factors of the drugs and the lifestyle, the fact still remained that Oz simply did not give a shit about anyone but himself. And it was this, more than anything else, which wound Blaine up about his brother. He treated Blaine like crap but then he always had and Blaine could, just about, get over this. But now he’d screwed with Adele, using her as a plaything for his own amusement and to wind up his brother before leaving her to sort out the consequences on her own. And this, piled on top of everything else, was the tipping point for Blaine’s patience. He was not going to stand by any longer whilst Oz lived his selfish life. Smacking the boy in the face may well not change him but it would certainly make Blaine feel a little better for all the crap he had taken over the years.

That’s why, as soon as Oz had reluctantly appeared and the grumbled utterances of complaint had left his mouth, Blaine swung for him. His eyes full of rage, he threw himself at his brother, grabbing him and punching him hard across the face. ”You’re a fucking shitebag!” he roared, engaging in a tussle with his brother as he tried to rain down more punches onto him. Blood may run thicker than water but for the boys from Ireland, not even family ties were enough to keep them from fisticuffs. ”Fucking clean up your life you selfish little twat!” he continued, voice strained with the energy he was exerting in trying to beat the shit out of his brother.

[/size]

[oscar rowan o'callaghan]

well he used to be somebody
and now he's someone else

[/i]? But surely not. Oscar O'Callaghan had put to bed any affection for his big brother, right? His sudden, seemingly unprovoked attack meant absolutely nothing.

"Are you fuckin' crazy?" Oz asked, standing up, pieces of crushed metal and plastic digging into his sides, and feeling a particularly sharp bit dig into him, cutting his hand as he staggered to his feet. Even the coffee table was beating him up now, Oz thought dryly. [/size][/ul]

[blaine mackinnley o'callaghan]

If Blaine hadn’t been a bloke with such little connection to his emotions, the steady deterioration of the brothers’ relationship would have been something of heartbreaking trouble to him. Once upon a time the boys had been thick as thieves; never seen apart from each other around the estate in which they lived. Blaine prided himself on being his brother’s teacher, best friend and loyal protector and would show his younger sibling all of the tricks of the trade and just how to be perfectly good at being bad. He had always been there for Oz, taking on perhaps in his mind what was the fatherly figure role they had been missing from their lives. Leading his brother down the wrong track may, in hindsight, have not been the best influence Blaine could have had on Oz but then on the rough streets of their impoverished Irish town, examples of normal upbringings and good role models were quite few and far between. Blaine liked to think however poor the results were, his intentions for looking after Oz had always been the right ones.

Those day of trawling the streets together though, mucking around with petty crimes and general bad behaviour, were well and truly over. The fierce protectiveness Blaine held for Oz was vastly diminished and the respect Oz used to hold for his brother was all but gone. Maybe deep down they still clung to these feelings but on the surface at least, they were closer to enemies than brothers. This could surely be never more true than right now, as Blaine let Oz slip from his grip, allowing his brother to crash down onto the table as he looked down in utter resentment.

Blaine clenched and stretched his hand a couple of times, letting some his knuckles relax a little after they had been smashed with such utter contempt into Oz’s face. Looking down at his brother, Blaine breathed heavily, trying to calm himself down a little. Maybe it would be breaking some unwritten rule of fighting or maybe Blaine just didn’t want to go completely to town on his brother who looked so shocked and taken aback, but something stopped him from carrying on his attack after Oz had fallen. Apparently kicking a guy when he was down just wasn’t Blaine’s style. Instead he wiped the blood from his cut lip, a result of Oz’s self-protective swipe, and just stared on menacingly.

”I’m crazy for not having fucking done that before you little gobshite” he shouted, clenching his fist again as if in preparation as Oz pulled himself quickly onto his feet. ”I’m not doing it again Oz. I’m not fucking picking up the pieces of your life anymore”. Of course it was inevitable that this would all end up leading back to the moment when Blaine took the drugs for his brother, ending his own chances of freedom to save his kid brother’s back. Of course Oz would use his normal argument that he hadn’t asked Blaine to sacrifice himself for him and Blaine would once again realise that Oz had no understanding of what it meant to care about someone so much you don’t need to be asked to take the blame. These arguments went in circles, always did, never with either side backing down or admitting they were even slightly in the wrong. They were always pointless but that didn’t stop Blaine from wanting to carry on. Right now, with a girl out there pregnant with his baby, Oz needed reminding more than ever what a selfish and useless little prick he was.

[/size]

[oscar rowan o'callaghan]

well he used to be somebody
and now he's someone else

[/b] Oz asked, paused but ready to swing for his brother if he had to. Oz wasn't going to be the one throwing the punches... not yet, at least. He narrowed his eyes at Blaine and tried to figure out if his brother had been drinking. Oz could often tell when Blaine had a few pints down him, but he seemed utterly sober, his unprovoked attack wasn't a drunken one. This managed to confuse him anymore, because some part of Oz would have be able to square with and understand one of Blaine's drunken attacks, but a sober one? His brother had a certain level of rational behavior he usually adhered to, and when Oz was involved a good verbal argument usually sufficed.

"What are you talking about?" Oz asked. "I never asked you to pick up the pieces of my life, Blaine. I never asked you to do fuckin' anything for me... ever," he yelled, glancing down at the broken coffee table, he noted several potential weapons in the case of Blaine really going to town with beating him. Oz was arrogant in fights, but he wasn't stupid, and he knew very well that if Blaine tried, really tried, he could do Oz some serious damage. It wasn't like he wasn't good at fighting too, but he certainly wouldn't be able to take on the likes of his older brother. He didn't usually fight using anything but hands, but if Blaine was going to utterly destroy him, he would need some form of protection.

"You know what? You can't blame how shitty you're feeling about yourself on me, Blaine," Oz shouted. "Just 'cause I've got it sorted and you're still wanderin' around doing fuck all," Oz responded, and braced himself for any impact that might come from Blaine's corner. "You try so God damn fuckin' hard to make it look like you know what you're doing. You don't, so stop dumping' your issues on me, yeah?"
[/ul][/size][/color]

[blaine mackinnley o'callaghan]

If there was anything that the ‘upbringing’ of the O’Callaghan brothers had taught them, it was how to be tough. Upbringing was perhaps a loose term for what in reality had been them dragging themselves up, but the sentiment remained. Showing weakness and vulnerability was simply not an option for either of them and so Blaine knew, whilst they both stood here battered and bleeding, neither would give their sibling the satisfaction of seeing them pained. It just wasn’t the done thing. You got hit, you got up, and you got on with it. There was no room in life for cry babies and nancy boys. Blaine wiped his lip again with his hand, smearing blood across his skin as Oz began his retort.


Obviously for Oz, Blaine being drunk would be an easier explanation to fathom for why his brother had just smacked him across the face completely out of the blue. Nobody after all really wants to believe that their own sibling could hold so much hatred for them that they would be capable of going for them without the merest hint of any illicit substance in their body. But it was sadly truth; Blaine really did hold that much hate for Oz right now, without any alcohol present at all. Blaine matched the narrowed eyes he was receiving from his brother, still breathing heavily, both out of the sheer anger pulsing through him and, admittedly, the slow smokers lung recovery from his sudden energetic spurt. As could have been predicted, the boy gave his usual argument, protesting his independence and the fact he had never sought help for anything. Admittedly it was true and, in all fairness, admitting that you were grateful to someone for what they had done for you was tough for any kid with an ego and so his argument was not entirely unreasonable. Despite this, the sheer audacity of his younger brother and the fact it was almost made out to be a fault on Blaine’s part for taking the blame for Oz, never failed to wind Blaine up.


Keeping an intense eye contact, Blaine noticed as Oz scanned the room for something to use as a weapon. He liked to think it wouldn’t come to that; that him and his brother wouldn’t end up stabbing each other to pieces with the remnants of the coffee table but with Oz’s ongoing battle of words, Blaine couldn’t be entirely sure. Oz had it sorted..Blaine was dumping his issues on him?! With his sibling’s cocky retorts only fuelling the rage, Blaine let out an audible growl and went for Oz once more. This time he grabbed his brother by the throat, shoving him backwards and against the wall where he pinned him, eying him furiously. ”You’ve got it fucking sorted have you Oz?!” Blaine roared, knowing that despite promising himself he wouldn’t say anything, the inevitable revelation was about to be aired ”You’ve it so fucking sorted you’ve got an underage girl out there up the duff with your kid” he spat venomously, still holding Oz a little too tightly around the neck. ”So don’t you dare tell me about having your life sorted, you jumped up little prick.”. With a final shove, Blaine let his brother go, his face still contorted in anger. He shouldn’t have said it; Adele’s issues were not a weapon for Blaine to use against his brother but despite this, he had no regrets. What was said was said, and now it was up to Oz to make of it what he wished.

[/size]

[oscar rowan o'callaghan]

well he used to be somebody
and now he's someone else

[/b] Oz asked, when Blaine told him him he'd got an underage girl pregnant. There was even more confusion in Oz's face now, and he couldn't understand what Blaine meant. Was he talking about Adele? But Adele wasn't pregnant, was she? Oz looked bewildered at his brother, and his grip around his neck loosened and Oz let his hand fall to his side. Oz stood in silence for a second, breathing heavily and taking in what his brother had just said to him. Adele was up the duff? She couldn't be, Oz resigned to himself, it wasn't possible.

"You're fuckin' lying," Oz muttered darkly, looking at his brother. He felt a flash of anger now, anger at his brother for pinning him against the wall, anger for the words he was saying. It couldn't be true, Oz thought, Blaine was lying to him to make him feel bad, to try to convince him further that he was screwing his life up. "You're lying!" Oz cried back, and this him he launched himself at his brother, swinging for his face again.[/ul][/size][/color]

[blaine mackinnley o'callaghan]

Quite why Oz would think he would make something up as random as what he’d just told him, Blaine was unsure. He enjoyed many risky pursuits in life admittedly, but making up a story like that in some bizarre attempt to scare the shit out of his brother really wasn’t Blaine’s style. Perhaps it wasn’t a genuine statement of Oz believing that Blaine had made this up, but more of a natural shocked reaction and almost a plea for what had just been revealed to actually be false. Getting told that you are about to become a father at nineteen isn’t after all the sort of thing which would provoke a reasonable and calm reaction from a man, least not a man like Oz. He was just freaking out, wasn’t he?

Any thoughts of Oz’s reaction merely being some sort of rhetorical self-reassurance went out of the window however when Blaine saw him coming towards him furiously, fist clenched. Okay, maybe Oz genuinely did think Blaine was lying about this. ”Fucks sake” he yelled out as he was knocked back by Oz’s clean smack into his left cheekbone, immediately gathering himself enough to shove his brother in the chest, trying to get the boy off him. ”What fucking reason would I have to make that shit up?” he shouted incredulously. It was true, there was literally nothing Blaine could gain from telling Oz a lie like that apart from seeing the look of horror on his face. And considering Blaine thought more of his face than to let it get beat up purely to see Oz look shocked, this was a pretty unlikely explanation.

”It’s true Oz, whether you like it or not” he spat without any sympathy. If Oz had wanted sympathy, he shouldn’t have been screwing girls that Blaine liked in the first place. The boy needed not sympathy but a sharp wake up call. ”I’m sure you’ll make a fucking fantastic father” he added in coldly and almost mockingly, staring at his younger brother and quite expecting a retaliation punch once more. Perhaps the coffee table would end up coming in this evening after all he thought, noting the fierce expression across Oz’s face. Considering what household furniture could be best used to beat the daylights out your brother was perhaps not a normal train of thought but, for the O’Callaghan brothers, for whom normality had never quite existed, it was a pretty reasonable thought to ponder.

[/size]

[oscar rowan o'callaghan]

[/i] time he'd slept with her and thought of the consequences they were now facing. What Adele wanted to do with the baby wasn't his problem, he decided. That was not his bridge to throw himself off; it wasn't his life and it wasn't his body. Adele's decision was not his decision.

He took a deep breath, wiping away blood with the back of his left hand, looking down at the smear of blood he'd left behind. Oz stared at it for a while, transfixed by the thought of Adele being pregnant, and the idea he'd be a father. He knew he'd make a terrible father, he didn't need Blaine to spell that out for him. Their own father had been a rubbish human being in general, and Oz was following in his footsteps, in the direction his big brother had recklessly led him in. He looked back up at Blaine, anger still in his eyes.

"No, you're wrong, I'm not gonna be a father. You know why? 'Cause I ain't gonna be here," Oz spat, tasting blood in his mouth now where Blaine had hit him hard in the scuffle they'd had. In retrospect, Oz wouldn't even have called that fight, but the coffee table served as evidence that they'd been a victim in all of this. Oz's back pained him, as did his nose and the cut on his hand, but he ignored the pangs. "I am done with this, I am done with your bullshit. You're a fucking failure, Blaine. You failed with me and now you're failin' with life and you can't deal with it. I am sick of you treating me like fuckin' shite, alright?" Oz muttered, kicking the living room door open and heading to his bedroom, to grab a bag and pack it.

He pulled the duffle bag that he'd brought with him from Ireland and threw it onto the bed, expecting his brother would follow him into the bedroom to try to convince him otherwise. This was not Oz's business anymore, he didn't care what happened, he wasn't going to be a part of this drama anymore. Oz had grown weary of the soap opera of their lives; he had enough money to get him going somewhere, and enough stuff to sell to get some more money when he needed it. [/ul][/size][/color]

[blaine mackinnley o'callaghan]

Instead of coming at him, Oz just stood his ground, staring at Blaine with cold eyes. Blaine wasn’t entirely sure what sort of reaction he had expected from Oz finding out he was to become a father. He wasn’t stupid enough to think that Oz would take to the idea naturally, settling in to a life of night feeds and nappy changes, but something in him hadn’t expected Oz to run. It just wasn’t him. That’s why Oz’s assurances that he wouldn’t even be here hit Blaine pretty hard. They may try to avoid their problems, dodge out of the way, but never did they run from them. That was just too.. cowardly. That’s why Blaine blinked a little in shock, not having expected that sort of sudden comeback.

He didn’t have too long to reel though as Oz continued on with his rant, riling Blaine’s mood back from shock to annoyance. ”I tried my fucking best with you” he retaliated as Oz went off towards his room. ”And you know what, I may be a failure, but at least I’m not a coward. At least I have the fucking balls to deal with the messes I’ve made in life.” He knew he’d messed up with Oz, that fact troubled him more than anything. He’d led his brother down this road, in fact he’d actively encouraged Oz to become bad. But at least he was trying now; admittedly too late, to turn things around. He took the blame for Oz that day because he knew that it was his fault Oz was even there. He sacrificed his life in Ireland to move here because he wanted to fix things and get Oz’s life back on track from where he messed up. Oz was his problem and in some ways his responsibility and because of that never would Blaine consider just leaving him to sort himself out.

But just leaving his problems was apparently exactly what Oz was planning. As he watched his brother grab his bag, Blaine shook his head, once again wiping the blood which continued to trickle from his lip. ”But you go ahead and run Oz” he shouted, walking towards the fridge and grabbing a can of beer. ”She’ll be better off without you anyway. We all will”. He popped the ring pull and downed a large gulp of the yeasty drink. That last comment was too far. If Blaine had truly believed it he would never have dragged Oz across the atlantic in the first place, but his anger just spat in out venomously anyway. He doubted, despite feeling a bit bad over it, that it would even register on Oz’s radar anyway. The boy didn’t give a shit about Blaine or what he said. Blaine raised the drink to his lips again, taking another sip in silence

[oscar rowan o'callaghan]

[/b] Oz spat back in response to whatever it was his brother was now shouting at him, it hadn't registered in Oz's head, but he replied regardless. He grabbed the duffel bag and picked his house keys up from his wrecked desk. He'd overturned his bed sheets, thrown everything around the room, the floor was strewn with clothes and various items he hadn't considered important enought to take with him. Oz was heading out the door when he heard Blaine's words: 'she’ll be better off without you anyway, we all will'. Oz paused but he didn't let the words visually effect him.

Flinging the house keys at Blaine, who had fetched himself a beer from the fridge, he pulled the duffel bag higher on his shoulder.
"You can have the fuckin' keys, I ain't comin' back," Oz stated, and crossed the room quickly to the front door, walking past the ruined coffee table, blood still drippining slowly from the various cuts and wounds that had been inflicted. This was it, Oz thought, he was going to walk out that door and never see his brother again, and the very thought of that didn't even pain him.[/ul][/size][/color]

[blaine mackinnley o'callaghan]

Blaine watched with a certain amount of disdain as Oz threw the contents of his room around in his hurried attempts to get some stuff together in a bag. If there was one thing to be said for his brother, it was that he never did things by halves. Blaine guessed that, once again, it would be him clearing up this mess. Him picking up the pieces of Oz’s life that Oz no longer wanted to deal with. As more and more clothes and bedding got chucked across the room though, Blaine just gave up and sat down with his beer next to the destroyed coffee table. There was no point saying anything, it would achieve nothing in their current foul moods.

Unlike Oz’s assumption, Blaine’s reasoning didn’t actually help to make him feel better over everything. However much effort he made with Oz now didn’t stop the guilt from leading him to this in the first place. He wouldn’t say he lost sleep over it, whittling over things in bed wasn’t really Blaine’s style, but it was something he regularly thought about.

Reaching out his hand with super quick reactions, Blaine caught the keys being lobbed in his direction, the sudden speed of his movement meaning he took a couple of seconds to process what Oz had actually said. He looked over at the boy, all of the worldy possessions Oz deemed worthy of his travels slung over his shoulder, and let out a small sigh. ”Oz” he interjected suddenly as his brother turned to leave. This was the moment he said something heartwarming, right? Tell Oz that no matter what had gone down, they would always be brothers- that he would always care. They would then have an emotional moment when they both admitted what tossers they had been and pledged to change and get their lives back together.

Yeah, Right. And so in his thick irish accent, Blaine began what was about the most heartwarming goodbye he could muster ”I don’t wanna get woken up in the middle of the night to be told you’ve been found in ditch.” he uttered with very little visible or audible emotion. ”Don’t be a prick.” All things considered, this was relatively heartwarming, in their own emotionless kind of way. With that, Blaine turned away from his sibling and focused his attentions back on his drink, deciding to forget about all the mess from the coffee table and more importantly the mess from his life, and just get drunk. For old times sake.

[/size]

[oscar rowan o'callaghan]

[/i] mess,"[/b] he growled, a certain amount of spite in his voice. He looked across the room at Blaine and wondered if he should muster up something else, something a little more meaning. Oz doubted he'd see his brother again, or at least for a very long time, but he was never too big on last words. Oz continued to look across the room at his brother, imagining himself saying something terribly emotional, or telling Blaine to take care of himself. Oz almost laughed at the very thought.

"Try not to be bigger fuckin' wanker than you already are," Oz said, turning his head and opening the front door. With that, he slammed the door behind him and head down out of the path. He would have to walk to the bus station, but he wasn't too bothered, he could walk off some of the anger. It was already dark outside, by the time he got to the station the last few buses out of Lipton would be leaving. He wasn't too bothered though; things in the dark didn't scare Oz, being alone didn't scare Oz. There was very little Oz would admit to being scared of, admit to himself or to anyone else in the world. It wasn't like he was leaving behind any life, he hadn't really made anything here, just gained a small reputation for being a good dealer, that was all. Nothing more, nothing less. If Blaine wanted him gone, then he'd do him that small courtesy and make them all happy. [/color][/size][/ul]