Somewhat Clear

deerna
somewhatclear

Rating: SAFE
Fandom: the under garden / baldur's gate
Relationship: vesta & logue brimstone
Tags: backstory, sibling relationship, coping mechanisms
Wordcount: 1964
Notes: vesta and logue belong to MAF. the original idea of little stib having been sewn by logue comes from a headcanon by nubs. the title comes from summer skeletons, by radical face

Summary:
the story of how the little staeve doll came to be

Excerpt:

Hearing those words made Logue wince. He didn’t feel much of a grown-up, when he had spent all day making a doll of his own brother because he was lonely.

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He'd been putting the last stitches in the back of his Little Big Brother’s neck, to better secure his head to his body, when Logue’s actual big brother’s voice piped up from nowhere, startling him half to death.

“What have you got there, chickie?”

Nita often scolded him for being loud and attracting too much attention, but Vesta could be very silent when he wanted to be. He just didn't care to. Their sister sometimes didn't see that, but Logue did. He saw everything.

Well, almost everything. He hadn’t seen Vesta creeping from the side, just then.

Logue’s hand slipped. The needle went through his fingertip, and a tiny drop of blood welled up to the surface of his skin. He quickly lifted it out of the way and into his mouth — it didn't hurt, but he didn't want it to stain Little Big Brother. Not after all the effort he'd put in making him.

“Oh, shit.” Vesta was quick to crouch in front of him and grab his wrist, to check the damage. “Are you hurt? Let me see.”

Logue shook his head. He’d pricked himself a million times, it was fine.

“Are you sure?” Vesta grinned. “Don’t you want me to kiss it better?”

Logue rolled his eyes.

Vesta snickered, raised his hands in mock-defeat. “Alright, alright, I know you’re all grown-up and crap now.”

Hearing those words made Logue wince. He didn’t feel much of a grown-up, when he had spent all day making a doll of his own brother because he was lonely. Abruptly self-conscious, he shifted the his little project off his lap, hoping Vesta wouldn’t—

“So, what’ve you been up to? You've been hiding down here forever.”

Logue sighed. Better get it over with.

He pulled the doll back onto his knees, finished to stab the last couple stitches in the fabric, secured the thread with a double knot and severed the excess with his teeth. Then he shoved it at Vesta, making a show of tidying up his sewing supplies while he waited for his brother’s reaction, trepidant and anxious.

Vesta was silent for an eternity, turning the toy over in his hands.

“This is really well made,” he praised, quiet and careful.

Despite the embarrassment, a warm bubble of pride swelled in Logue’s chest. It didn’t look like much, but it had taken him a lot of time to put the thing together, from stealing the right fabrics and thread, to figuring out how to piece the parts together. He was glad he could always trust his brother to recognize his efforts.

“The little fella looks kind of familiar,” Vesta pointed out, raising the doll next to his face. The resemblance wasn't particularly uncanny; that hadn't been the goal and Logue wasn't that skilled a toy maker. But the colours were right, and the little bits of silvery thread he'd embroidered on its pointy little ears were the same number as Vesta's new earrings.

It definitely was a Little Big Brother, right there.

“I don't see it,” Logue quipped, very seriously. “His shirt is clean. Doesn't have holes. And he's more handsome.”

“You little—”

Vesta jumped him. Logue snickered as he got pinned down and playfully roughed up, then let out an actual shriek of laughter when his brother’s hands found their cold way under the hem of his shirt. He tried to swat them away from his vulnerable sides but Vesta always was a cheating cheater who cheated, and kept blowing raspberries onto the ticklish spots on his neck. Fits of twitching giggles made Logue’s legs into jelly.

They weren’t little kids anymore. Logue should have gotten angry at Vesta for still treating him like a baby, but he didn’t. He couldn't.

He'd been so excited when Nita had sent him on a supply run—he’d been looking forward to it. Finally, they thought he could take care of himself. They thought he could be trusted with the important stuff. He'd done so well the first time, Nita actually said she regretted not giving him things to do much earlier, and Logue could swear he’d grown taller by a handspan out of sheer, smug vindication.

He had always known he could do it; but he hadn't expected how miserable a time he was going to have, out there. He always excelled at sneaking around, at not being seen, not being heard. That had been his job, when he'd tagged along Vesta.

As soon as he stepped out of the shadows, his tongue tied itself up, and people looked at him, and he wished his brother was there.

If wishes were horses.

“Stop!” Logue wheezed, pretending he couldn't easily knock Vesta over if he wanted to. “Mercy!”

“We'll see!” The effect of his angry scowl was ruined by the laughter spilling from his lips. “Who's more handsome?”

Logue freed one shoulder from under Vesta, and gave him an exaggerated shrug.

“You're on thin fucking ice there, chickie.”

Vesta untangled them from the messy pile of limbs they had fallen into, and offered Logue a hand to help him sit up. He also saved Little Big Brother from the neglected corner he’d been knocked to during their tussling, and brushed dust off his miniature shirt and pants with a careful hand.

His shoulder pressed against Logue’s shoulder.

“Who's he for?” Vesta ran his fingers through Little Big Brother's thread hair, poked at the little ink freckles on his cheeks, pulled at the tiny ears. “A secret admirer of mine I don't know about?

Logue snorted, and shook his head.

“Wow, alright, rude. Planning to make a pretty copper selling cursed effigies for my exes, then?” He let his head drop against Logue’s shoulder. The warmth seeping through Logue’s shirt felt comforting. Solid. Safe. “I'm not stopping you, to be clear. If you are making good money I want a cut, though.”

Logue shook his head again. Took a deep breath. “Me.”

Vesta, the big silly, gasped dramatically and turned on him with big, round eyes and a wobbly lip. “You want to curse me?”

“No!” Logue scrunched up his nose and shoved him, stealing the doll from him. “He's. For me. For. Because. It’s. He's —”

Vesta’s hand came up to the nape of his neck, gripping gently.

“Easy, chickie. Deep breath. Start over.”

Logue swallowed thickly, closed his eyes. “I have the words. It's just stupid,” he snapped, and elbowed his arm away. He was angry that Vesta was babying him now.

He frowned down at Little Big Brother’s little doll face, and found that he couldn’t keep it up. He was kind of cute. Logue had managed to keep the stitches around his applique grey eyes small and tidy, and you could barely tell they were sewn on at all. He didn’t quite have an expression, but it was charming and funny. Just like Vesta.

Logue took a deep breath. He started over.

“He’s for me. Because I miss you.”

“Oh, Logue.” Vesta wrapped an arm around him and pulled him in a hug, crushing him against his side and rubbing his shoulder. “Chickie, I'm not going anywhere.”

“I know that. It's just. It's been hard. Out.”

“Out,” Vesta said, wonderingly. “On the supply runs?”

Logue nodded.

Vesta hummed. “Too many people?”

Logue shrugged one-shouldered again, but he was relieved. Vesta got it, because he knew him—Nita loved him and she cared as much as Vesta did, Logue knew that, but she didn’t understand.

“I’ll be fine,” he reassured Vesta before he could say anything—because Logue also knew his brother, and he could almost hear his brain click around the problem, looking at it from different directions, pulling it apart and putting it back, searching for a solution. “I’ll be fine, I just need to. Adjust.”

His hand accidentally twitched around Little Big Brother.

Vesta’s eyes softened. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.” Logue squeezed the toy again, with more purpose.

They sat in silence for a while, then his brother shifted next to him.

“Do you remember—? Maybe not, we were pretty little,” Vesta started. “I don’t even know why we were out by ourselves, I think I sneaked out and you just followed me as usual… just like a baby chick.”

He lifted his hand to pet and ruffle his hair, but Logue swatted him away with a half smile. Nuisance. Always touching. He gestured for him to continue.

“But anyway—we were out, and I figure I was trying to get us back home? I remember I took your hand and we started walking.” Vesta’s eyes went a little unfocused as he concentrated on the story. “You were perfectly content to just go wherever, until we got to the marketplace.” His cheek creased up with a fond smile. “You gave a look to the crowd and just. Stopped. You didn’t even make a scene or anything, you were just. Nope.” He stiffened and held his arms along his sides, mimicking him freezing up. “I had to pick you up and carry you the whole way back.”

“I remember you carrying me. When I was little.” Logue shook his head. “Not that one time, though.”

“Yeah, I started carrying you everywhere for a while, after that. I don’t think I ever let you touch the floor when you were four or five.” Vesta snorted, then his face went a little more serious. “I was terrified. I thought I had gotten you hurt, somehow.”

Logue frowned.

“You were perfectly fine, obviously. We were kids, I don’t know what I was thinking.” He shrugged, pushed his fringe back in a nervous gesture. “I don’t know why I’m thinking about this right now. I guess what I’m trying to say is — I’m so, so proud of you, you’ve grown so much. You’re at least a whole chicken, now.”

The only appropriate reply to that was shoving him again, really, so Logue did. But his face hurt with how hard he was scrunching it up to stop himself from crying. He ended up wrapping his arms around his brother’s waist, burying his face in his chest and letting him hold him. Vesta’s purring was always so loud.

“So,” Vesta asked when Logue finally let him go. “Does the little guy have a name, or…?”

“He’s you.” Logue didn’t want to admit that he’d been just thinking of him as Little Big Brother. “Little Vesta?”

“Little—” Vesta’s face twitched in the sort of expression he made when he was trying not to laugh. “Are you sure? Isn’t it a bit—?”

Logue grimaced. He did hate knowing his brother so well sometimes. “No.”

Vesta couldn’t keep himself from laughing. “Your face! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I promise I can be mature about it.” He made a show of wiping the mirth off his expression with a pass of his hand. “Proper introductions, then.”

He solemnly took Little Big Brother’s little arm between two fingers, and moved it up and down like he was doing a handshake. “Nice to meet you, Little Vesta.” He cracked up a little, but he recovered quickly. “Be nice to my little brother, he’s a good one. He deserves a good buddy. Are you up for the job?”

Little Big Brother, guided by Vesta’s grip again, made a little, solemn salute. Vesta nodded back, even more solemnly.

It was entirely silly, and maybe Logue should have been embarrassed by the fact that his older brother was taking the whole thing so seriously—but it was a silly serious. Just like Vesta. It worked. It made Logue’s chest a little lighter.

He tucked Little Big Brother against his stomach, and leaned against Vesta’s shoulder again. “Thank you.”

“Anytime, chickie.” Vesta pressed a kiss to his hair, and squeezed him back, purring back in full force. “You’re going to be just fine.”