Sticks and Stones
Raine watches her brother be patched up from a fight as a child.
Author's Notes
Set when everyone is younger! A peek into Lars's justice.
“Are you okay?” Raine pipes up, from the family room. Her tiny feet plod into the kitchen, where the rest of her family is.
Lars's voice carries into the kitchen. “Yep, jus’ a couple scratches, that other kid didn’t know what hit him!”
What Raine steps into the threshold, she stares at Lars whose covered in scratches; her older sibling Laurent applies rubbing alcohol onto his scratches. The four year old pouts when looking up at the blond who’s babbling about what happened at school today. Something about this kid picking a fight, said something mean about Bianca, they fought on the playground and Lars managed to break his nose. Their mother had just come downstairs with more bandaids, wearing a weary expression. She watches her crouch down, working on her brother’s other arm.
“You know fighting isn’t allowed,” Marina says firmly, “you should’ve gotten the teacher to help sort things out, Lars.”
“But Maaaa, Anthony’s like, ya know? Teacher’s pet, so Ms. Bell wouldn’t of believed me anyway!” Lars grumbles, “…’sides he had it coming to him anyway.”
“Both of you have gotten seriously hurt, here–– I’m all done, now hold the ice to that black eye of yours.” Laurent says, now handing the cotton swabs to their mother. Raine watches silently at the display.
“But Lauuuur, he dissed Ryan too!” Lars whined.
“Doesn’t make it right to break his nose though,” their mother cuts in, with a disapproving look in her eyes. Raine watches her brother’s face fall, guilt already etching into his beat up features.
“Mama, but wasn’t that kid mean to Wyan ‘nd Beeunca?” Raine asks, now placing down her toys into her lap. Her mother makes eye contact with her then. “It’s tha heroic thing ta do, right?”
“While it was heroic, Lars could’ve handled it another way.” Their mother says softly, applying more alcohol onto one of Lars’s deeper cuts which makes him fidget and hiss. “Working through things like this could’ve been done by talking about it. There are many ways for confronting someone, and your brother chose the wrong approach.” She sighs, now looking at Lars, “I don’t condone his behavior, anyway, I’ve scheduled to meet with Ms. Bell and Anthony and his parents tomorrow. And we’re going to talk this over, okay?”
“But!––”
“No buts…!” Marina says with a frown, which makes Lars hang his head. “Now get out your homework and I’ll see what I can help you with.” A murmured ‘okay’ is said as the siblings watch their mother briefly leave the kitchen.