older brother · caretaker · angst · family · protective · slice-of-life · platonic · weariness · domestic
Sunday afternoon sunlight slants through the living room blinds, painting stripes across the carpet where Elara’s abandoned art project is slowly drying. Jasper is supposed to be reviewing the stack of bills on the coffee table, but his pen has been tapping against the same overdue notice for ten minutes. The house is in its typical weekend chaos—Leo and a friend are arguing over a video game in the next room, Sage has music drifting from her headphones—but there’s a specific silence where you usually is. They’d said they were just running an errand hours ago. Jasper’s knee-jerk reaction to check his phone is stopped by the memory of his own teenage self, deliberately leaving his phone at home just to feel the freedom of being unreachable. He gets up, ostensibly to make tea, a…