Treehouse (13.02.2024)

The treehouse smelled like sap and dust and the faint metallic tang of old nails. At night, the forest went still in that way that made every sound feel illegal—crickets ticking like a broken clock, leaves whispering secrets no one would ever know.

Zeos climbed the ladder up the treehouse without a lantern. He didn’t need one. He’d memorized the rungs by feel—splinter here, loose nail there, the one plank that dipped if you put your weight slightly wrong. He liked the dark. It was one thing that didnt judge him for being average.

Inside, a single candle burned.

Marque sat cross-legged on the floor, notebook on his knees, pen already in hand. The flame turned his hair gold and made his eyes look softer than they ever did in daylight.

“You’re always late,” Marque whispered.

“Dad was still awake,” Zeos said, dropping into the corner. His voice was flat, but his hands were clenched into fists inside his sleeves. “He was arguing with his coworker on the phone again.”

Marque didn’t answer that. He just pushed the notebook toward Zeos.
“Okay. Today we’re doing letters. Like, Real ones. Not just copying random shapes.”

Zeos stared at the page. Black ink. Neat lines. Symbols that other people could easily understand.

“I’m bad at this,” he muttered.

“You’re not,” Marque said hushingly. “You just didn’t get taught. That’s different.”

Zeos didn’t believe he meant it, but he chose to stay quiet.

Marque pointed to a crooked line on the page. “This is a Z.”

“That’s my name,” Zeos said.

“Yeah. See? It’s already yours.”

He guided Zeos’s hand, their fingers touching. Zeos froze for a second, like the contact might expose something. Marque’s hand was warm, steady—too steady for someone their age.

“Draw it like this,” Marque whispered, moving his wrist slowly. “Down, across, down again. Sharp. Like a lightning bolt.”

Zeos copied it. His line wobbled.

“Not perfect,” Zeos said.

“It’s perfect enough.” Marque smiled in that quiet way that never felt loud or public. “Nobody writes perfect the first time. Except for me.”

“Liar.”

“Okay, fine. I was bad too. But they just corrected me instead of ignoring it.”

The candle's light flickered. Outside, an owl called for their mate.

Zeos traced the letter again, harder this time, as if pressure could force knowledge into the page and into his brain.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked.

Marque paused. “Because you should know how to read. Everyone should.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Zeos eyed him up and down.

Marque looked away, toward the ladder, toward the house they could barely see through the trees.

“…Because you’re my brother.”

Zeos’s chest felt weird at that. Tight, then warm, then angry.

“They’ll get mad if they find out.”

“They won’t. They never come here.”

“You never know”

Marque didn’t respond. He just turned the page.

“Okay. This is A. It’s like a tent. Or a mountain.”

Zeos copied it. Then B. Then C. The alphabet unfolded like a secret code Marque was illegally handing him, letter by letter.

After a while, Zeos whispered, “Read me something.”

Marque hesitated, then opened his book. The pages looked heavy in his hands.

“‘The boy looked up at the stars and wondered who was looking back,’” he read softly.

Zeos stared through the little windows in the wooden walls, at the sky scattered with quiet, unreachable lights. The stars.

“Are they looking back?”

“Maybe.”

“Do they like us more than our parents do?”

Marque’s pen stopped moving.

“…I think stars like everyone the same,” he said.

Zeos nodded. He liked that answer. It was unfair in a fair way.

“Write your name again,” Marque said, sliding the notebook over.

Zeos wrote Z E O S in shaky lines. He stared at it, stunned. His name. The one thing that makes him his real person. Maybe others might also know that name someday.

Marque leaned over his shoulder. “See? That’s you.”

They sat there until the candle burned low, until their eyes hurt and the air got cold. When it was time to leave, Zeos tore the page out and folded it carefully.

“Don’t show it to anyone,” Marque whispered.

“I won’t.”

But Zeos knew he would keep it forever.

Years later, he would forget the smell of the treehouse, the sound of the owl, the warmth of Marque’s hand guiding his.

But he would never forget that his first knowledge came from the very brother who would one day be everything he hated, and erased.

-

Wish I'd written more texts about the time they were little. It feels weird though, when u draw (or write about) ur ocs when theyre little knowing what will happen to them