Spared

"Aiden!?"

Jamie's eyes widened, seeing his brother standing nearby. Aiden, through some, inconceivable reason, was here now… and his eyes were filled with fear as he watched his older brother poised and ready to kill another person. 

"Aiden, listen to me… I need you to leave right now, I want you to go back the way you came and go home."

Jamie tried to give instructions to Aiden, but his little brother wasn't even listening, only looking at Terry, who was bloody and beaten. 

'Fuck, he can't be here to see this!' Jamie's heart was beating harder than it ever did before.

The Prime family was no stranger to death and violence, hell, look at their life in the slums! But being aware of death and excessive violence was completely different from seeing and experiencing it up close, and Aiden was still a 10-year-old child.

"Why…" Aiden mumbled while shaking, which Jamie knew was NOT a good sign. 

"Aiden, look at me!"

"Why are you killing him?!"

Aiden suddenly yelled, catching Jamie off guard. In front of his older brother turned speechless, Aiden pointed a shaky finger at Terry, and revealed the reason for his distress.

"He's the cop that's always nice to me at school!"

Jamie's blood ran cold. He turned to Terry and pulled his face closer. "It was you?"

Contrary to what Aiden might think, Terry being his "cop buddy" didn't please Jamie at all. In fact, it alarmed him, since that meant that Terry had already been interacting with his family before he even knew about it. 

"Aiden…" Terry managed to choke out. He wasn't even looking at Jamie, despite the venom in the latter's tone. 

Instead, his full attention was on Aiden, and despite his bloody appearance, he mustered up a wide smile to show the kid, even though it hurt too much to do so.

"Aiden, I'm alright, see? Listen to this guy, go home…"

His words made Jamie frown. Why did he comfort Aiden? Why did he act like he actually cared? When Aiden heard those words, it seemed to have the opposite effect, as he ran closer to them and started tugging on Jamie's arm, tears streaming down his little face. 

"Let him go!" He cried, tugging at the sleeve of Jamie's jacket. "Let him go, Jamie!" 

"Aiden, no! Damn it!" Jamie said, exasperated, though that exasperation intensified as Aiden switched tactics, now pummeling Jamie's shoulder with his small fists.

"If you kill him, I'll hate you forever!" 

Aiden screamed and punched harder. Jamie actually began to feel a tingle.

"I'll hate you forever! I'll tell everyone how my brother is an evil killer! I'll run away from home with Yeti, and… and…" Aiden tried to think of more things he'd do, but came up short. "You - you asshole!!"

"ARGH!"

Jamie yelled in frustration and stood up, startling Aiden at the same time, though the little boy mustered up his courage and faced down Jamie. On the ground, Terry still lay, too tired and hurt to move a muscle.

"Aiden, you don't understand a single thing going on-" Jamie began to berate Aiden, but he was cut off.

"I understand that you're an asshole!" Aiden didn't falter even in the face of his angry brother. "You're trying to kill the only one who looks out for me!"

"What?" Jamie was hurt by Aiden's words, his tone turning soft. "Aiden, we look out for you." 

"No, you don't! Where are you when the teacher gets mad at me for not understanding the lesson? Where are you when the other kids laugh at me at lunch because I don't know any food except a slum slider? Where are you, or Amanda, or Amy or anyone when the other kids hit me and call me a freak because I have honeycomb?!"

"Hey, hey, it's okay.."

Aiden cried into a soft surface. He didn't know when, but at some point, Jamie had hugged him tightly. Jamie stroked Aiden's hair as his little brother sobbed into his jacket. 

"...Do you want me to take you home?" Jamie asked, feeling Aiden nod. "Okay, just let me take care of this real quick." 

It was then that Aiden suddenly pushed him away, the anger having returned.

"I thought you weren't going to kill him!"

"No, I said I'll take you home. As in, I'll take you home after I kill this guy!"

"I hate you!" Aiden ran up and started punching Jamie again, making the elder of the two brothers sigh. "Can't you do anything aside from killing, you asshole! Asshole, asshole, asshole, asshole…"

"Aiden, stop it! I mean it! Language!"

"Asshole, asshole, asshole, asshole…"

"Aiden!"

"Asshole.. You asshole… I - Jamie…"

"AIDEN!" 

Aiden suddenly wheezed, falling onto his back. Jamie caught his head and laid him down softly as his younger brother groaned, softly at first, but then it got louder and louder as he began to convulse.

"No, no no…" Jamie immediately pulled up Aiden's pant leg, confirming his suspicions. "Has he been skipping his doses?"

The sickening rows of holes in Aiden's ankle were worse than ever, the skin around the holes looking pale and cracked. Jamie thought that he could see some gangrene around the holes, too.

"Bag…"

"What?" Jamie turned after hearing Terry speak, seeing the Agent raise one of his fingers, pointing at Aiden's backpack.

Understanding what Terry wanted to say, Jamie immediately pulled the backpack off Aiden's back, emptying the contents onto the ground. He dug through notebooks, paper and pencils until he found what he was looking for.

He opened a black case, revealing three syringes and two vials, one of which was empty, the other only quarter full. Without pausing, he stuck a syringe into the vial, extracted a full dose of the liquid, and carefully injected it into Aiden's ankle. 

Jamie threw away the used syringe and put the rest of the stuff back into Aiden's backpack. He then picked Aiden up, and after glaring once more at Terry, he turned around.

"Don't come after me again. Don't tell anyone what happened here. And don't go after my family." Jamie glanced back one last time, his red eyes making Terry flinch, as he was reminded of Prime. "Or I'll kill you for sure."

With that, Jamie walked off with Aiden in his arms, Prime trailing behind. In front of Terry's eyes, a kaleidoscope-esque shimmer surrounded the mecha, and Prime disappeared from thin air just like that.

Before long, all that was left was a bloody, beaten, dirty, but alive Terry, lying on his back as he processed what just happened.

"When… When did the rain stop?"