Chapter Text
The clock above the garage bay read 11:47 PM when Clive Rosfield wiped the grease from his hands and squinted at the crumpled paycheck in his back pocket. His third shift this week at the auto shop, the one that paid cash under the table, had left his knuckles raw and his shoulders screaming. But the number scribbled on the paper—$297—made the acid burning in his throat worth it. That was groceries for two weeks. Or half a textbook for Joshua.
He lingered in the parking lot, watching moths batter themselves against the flickering streetlamp. Six years ago, on the night their parents’ car skidded off this same rain-slicked road, he’d stood in this exact spot waiting for the tow truck. The paramedics had let him hold Joshua’s hand in the ambulance, his baby brother’s fingers impossibly small and cold beneath the shock blanket. “Don’t leave,” twelve-year-old Joshua had whispered, phoenix pendant glinting under his collar—their mother’s last gift, still warm from her neck. Clive hadn’t left. Not then, not ever.
“Clive! You’re late.”
Joshua’s voice, bright and teasing, cut through the fog of exhaustion as Clive shouldered open the front door of their crumbling Victorian house. The foyer light was broken again, but he didn’t need it to navigate the creaky stairs or the water stain on the ceiling shaped like Valisthea’s moon. Home.
“Says the kid who still can’t tell time,” Clive grunted, shrugging off his oil-stained jacket. He’d bought that joke wall clock for Joshua’s sixteenth birthday—the one with Chocobos instead of numbers. Joshua had laughed until he cried.
“I’m eighteen, you relic.” Joshua emerged from the kitchen, hair tousled from studying, sleeves rolled up to reveal ink-smudged forearms. He held a saucepan like a weapon, a comically charred grilled cheese smoking inside. “Dinner’s ready. Sort of.”
Clive’s chest tightened. The scene was so ordinary, so theirs—Joshua’s disastrous attempts at cooking, the way he bit his lip when he burned something, the faded Mythril Knights poster hanging crookedly behind him. This was why Clive worked triple shifts. Why he’d sold his motorcycle, dropped out of the police academy, let his own dreams rust. To keep this. To keep him.
“Move over, fire hazard.” Clive nudged Joshua aside with his hip, grabbing the spatula. “You’d think the ‘Phoenix of Rosaria’ could handle a stove.”
Joshua snorted, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. The nickname was an old joke between them, born from Joshua’s childhood obsession with the legendary bird that rose from ashes. “It’s resilient,” he’d argue whenever Clive teased him for rereading the same myth compendium. “Like us.”
As Clive scraped blackened crust from the pan, Joshua’s fingers brushed his wrist. “You missed the parent-teacher conference today.”
Clive stiffened. “Work ran late.”
“Mr. Telamon said you’ve missed the last three.”
“Since when do you tattle on me?”
“Since you started lying.” Joshua’s voice softened. “The shop closes at eight on Wednesdays. You were there until ten. Why?”
The second job. The one unloading freight trucks behind the grocery store. The one Clive hadn’t told him about.
“Since when do you stalk me?” Clive deflected, flipping a fresh sandwich.
“Since you started coming home smelling like diesel and rotten bananas.” Joshua swiped a tomato slice from the cutting board, popping it in his mouth. “You’re taking too many shifts. Again.”
“Says the human chimney.” Clive jabbed the spatula at Joshua’s sweater—gray wool, two sizes too big, sleeves swallowing his hands. Clive’s old academy sweater. “You’ll set yourself on fire one day.”
“You’d put me out.” Joshua smiled, small and private, the one that still made Clive feel sixteen again—awkward and invincible, teaching his baby brother to ride a bike in this very kitchen while their parents’ funeral wreaths withered in the parlor.
The night their parents died, the rain fell like shattered glass. Joshua, twelve years old and trembling beneath a hospital blanket, counted the cracks in the ceiling tiles to silence the ringing in his ears. Seventeen-year-old Clive stood rigid in the hallway, his school blazer stained with their mother’s blood, signing paperwork with hands that refused to stop shaking. The social worker’s voice droned about “temporary guardianship” and “financial assessments,” but all Clive heard was Joshua’s muffled crying through the thin wall.
He dropped out of high school the next morning.
“You’ll hate me when you’re older,” Clive muttered one night, slumped at their foldout table as Joshua bandaged his blistered hands.
Joshua’s laugh was too bright for the flickering bulb overhead. “Impossible. You’re terrible at math, but even you can’t subtract family.”
At fifteen, Joshua began outgrowing his shoes. Clive noticed during their weekly thrift store ritual, watching his brother limp slightly in battered sneakers.
“Size 10,” Clive told the clerk, slapping down a week’s tips.
“Nine and a half,” Joshua corrected, already reaching for cheaper used pairs.
Clive bought the size 10s anyway. “You’ll grow into them,” he said, and something in his voice made Joshua’s throat tighten.
That night, Clive found Joshua’s sketchbook left open—a detailed drawing of Rosalith University’s clocktower, its spires cutting through clouds. Beneath it, in careful script: Early Admission Requirements.
Joshua turned seventeen on a Tuesday. Clive arrived home at 1 a.m. to find the apartment spotless, a single cupcake with a crooked candle on the table.
“Happy birthday,” Joshua said, grinning as Clive stared.
“This is your—”
“I’m giving it to you. For keeping me alive six years.”
The candlelight caught the gold in Joshua’s eyes, and Clive’s chest ached with a feeling he refused to name. He blew out the flame, pretending not to notice Joshua’s gaze lingering on his lips.
They ate at the rickety oak table their father had carved, knees bumping beneath it. Joshua talked about his philosophy midterm, the way his professor had compared the Phoenix’s rebirth to Nietzsche’s concept of eternal recurrence. Clive mostly listened, memorizing the cadence of his brother’s voice, the way his hands danced when he spoke. This was their ritual: Clive working himself to bone, Joshua stitching him back together each night with ramblings about dead poets and older gods.
When the ancient landline rang, Joshua lunged for it. “Rosfield residence! Joshua speaking, future destroyer of academic curves—”
Clive froze at the sharp inhale, the way Joshua’s knuckles whitened around the receiver.
“Y-yes. Yes, this is he.” A beat. Then, voice cracking: “Are you serious?”
The plate slipped from Clive’s hands.
Acceptance letters arrived in the morning, Joshua stood in the post office, trembling as he ripped open the cream-colored envelope.
“Dear Mr. Rosfield,
We are pleased to inform you… ”
Clive’s vision blurred. Joshua’s fingers brushed his wrist—a grounding touch they hadn’t dared in years.
“You did this,” Joshua whispered. “Every night you came home smelling like diesel and despair? That was my tuition.”
Clive’s laugh came out ragged. “Don’t romanticize poverty, brat.”
But Joshua was already tracing the embossed university seal, his thumb catching on the raised phoenix emblem. “This is yours too. Our parents’ legacy. Our future.”
Clive had framed it himself, hanging it pride-of-place above the fireplace. “Rosarith University. Department of Classical Literature. Full scholarship.” Joshua’s name gleamed in embossed ink, a testament to late nights spent poring over applications together. No secrets, no defiance—just the two of them side-by-side at the kitchen table, Clive proofreading essays while Joshua debated mythos versus logos.
“Day student, though,” Joshua had insisted, tracing the tuition breakdown. “Dorms cost a fortune. I’ll take the train.”
Clive had ruffled his hair. “You’ll miss my cooking.”
“I’ll survive,” Joshua snorted, but his smile faltered. Clive knew why. Neither of them wanted to acknowledge the unspoken truth: Joshua staying home wasn’t just about money. It was about them.
-
Clive found him two hours later in the attic, curled in their mother’s velvet reading chair, her manuscript open in his lap. Rain lashed the circular window, casting watery shadows over the ink-stained pages.
Joshua didn’t look up. “She wrote this when she was nineteen. Younger than I am now.”
Clive knelt before him, ignoring the protest of his knees. He’d forgotten how to do this—how to be soft. “Joshua…”
“Do you remember her funeral?” Joshua traced a faded sketch of the Phoenix, wings outspread. “You held my hand through the entire thing. Told me stories about her sneaking out to meet Dad. How she’d climb down the trellis in her nightgown.”
“You cried when they lowered the casket.”
“You didn’t. Not until bedtime.” Joshua finally met his gaze. “You waited until you thought I was asleep.”
Clive’s breath hitched. He’d forgotten that. The way he’d muffled his sobs in the pillow, only to feel small arms wrap around him. “It’s okay,” tiny Joshua had whispered. “I’ll protect you now.”
“You’ve given up everything.” Joshua’s voice broke. “Your job, your friends, your life. I can’t… I won’t let you die here with me.”
Clive gripped the chair arms, leather creaking. “You’re not a burden.”
They celebrated Joshua’s acceptance at dawn.
Clive woke him with a gentle shake, eyes red-rimmed but steady. “Get dressed.”
He’d transformed the overgrown garden into something from their childhood—fairy lights strung between apple trees, their mother’s lace tablecloth spread beneath the crumbling gazebo. A feast of Joshua’s favorites: cinnamon rolls from the bakery they couldn’t afford, imported oranges that cost half a day’s wages, sparkling cider in chipped crystal flutes.
“Clive… this is too much.” Joshua hovered by the roses their father had planted, now wild and thorny.
“Sit.” Clive pulled out a chair with an exaggerated flourish. “The Phoenix deserves a proper send-off.”
They ate as the sun rose, trading stories like currency. The time Joshua tried to dye Clive’s hair blue (“It was art!”). The summer they camped in the attic, pretending it was a pirate ship. The night Clive taught him to shave, hands steady around the razor as Joshua giggled at the foam mustache.
When the cider was gone, Clive slid a small box across the table.
“Open it.”
Inside lay a silver pocket watch, its surface engraved with a phoenix mid-flight.
“Dad’s?” Joshua breathed.
“Had it restored, ” Clive cleared his throat. “So you’ll always know when to come home.”
Joshua clutched it to his chest, tears slipping free. “Thank you.”
They fell asleep in the gazebo, Joshua’s head pillowed on Clive’s shoulder, fingers intertwined. Around them, the garden whispered of endings and wings.
That night, Clive watched Joshua sleep.
Moonlight gilded his lashes, his parted lips, the phoenix pendant rising and falling with each breath. Clive’s hands ached to touch, to claim, to keep.
He’ll leave, a voice hissed. He’ll forget you.
But as Joshua murmured his name in dreams, Clive made a vow.
He would let the Phoenix fly.
Even if it killed him.