Our Boys

Two Sides of the Same Coin

This is an idea from Muke_Puncakes! When Josh and Ethan start fighting with each other for the first time, it's up to the rest of the family to figure out what's wrong.

The ten year old perked his head up as he heard the front door open and the familiar sounds of shoes being thrown off and the thud of feet coming down the hallway. His older brothers entered the great room, their school blazers removed and shirt sleeves rolled up; the weather had been nice the past couple of weeks, it almost seemed like the start of summer.

"Hey Josh! Hey Ethan!" Harry called out as the two walked through the room. The looks they gave him were anything but summery, their blue and hazel eyes were dark and cloudy. Without a word, the two young teens continued on past him, heading straight upstairs to their room, keeping their distance from one another.

The young blond watched them go, perplexed. "Are they mad at me or something?" he queried as his oldest brother entered the room, his headphones around his neck.

"Don't even bother trying Harry," Tobi muttered. "I've been trying to talk to them the whole way home and gotten nowhere," he spoke up loudly to make sure Ethan and Josh heard him from the top of the stairs. Still neither made a comment though, and Tobi sighed and flopped down next to his little brother on the sofa, glancing up at The Simpsons on the TV screen, Harry's regular after school viewing.

"Think they had an argument in school today," he mentioned in a quieter voice.

Harry looked at him in disbelief. That didn't make much sense to him. Josh and Ethan, they didn't argue, they just didn't. The most they would ever argue about would be what food they wanted to order in, and usually a flip of a coin or a game of rock, paper, scissors would solve that problem, but from what Harry could remember, the two had always been as thick as thieves at primary school, and he was pretty sure that trend had continued at the high school.

Tobi apparently didn't have anything else to say on the matter however, and the ten year eventually got caught up in the TV again, already decided in his mind that his older brothers would be back to normal in a few hours. But by the time his dads had arrived home, there was still no sign of improvement. Ethan had come back downstairs and locked himself away in the study while Josh had remained in their room, not a sound being made by either of them.

Harry had at one point knocked on the study door and poked his head round but all he received for his efforts was a cushion to the face. He'd gone to find Vik and Molly after that, his little brother and puppy were much more pleasant company that evening.

His fathers were just as confused by the teens behaviours as soon as Tobi had informed them of what their moods had been like. Simon had been midway through his line of questioning, directed at his eldest, when there was a loud thump from upstairs followed by several smaller ones.

Dashing up to see what was going on, he was absolutely shocked to see his two thirteen year olds - his two sweet, fun-loving thirteen year olds - up in each others faces. Schoolwork was scattered all over the floor and Ethan had Josh pinned against the wall; he might have been the smaller of the two but he was definitely stronger and his brother was struggling to push him away.

Simon's moment of being frozen to the spot only lasted a second, and soon he was launching into full on "dad mode". "Stop it, both of you!" he demanded, striding forward and pulling the two red-faced teens apart.

Ethan noticeably resisted more but the moment he was away Josh was blurting out: "He started it!" The look he was giving his brother was positively stormy.

Ethan took a few steps back, his breathing heavy, body shaking. "He started it," he growled, matching Josh's gaze with a death stare of his own.

Simon looked between the two incredulously. Neither seemed like they were going to back down. "I don't care who started it, you're both acting like four year olds," he reprimanded.