Sam stared at the dark ceiling of his dorm room, unable to fall asleep. Most nights he could fall asleep rather easily, but tonight was not one such night. He couldn’t stop his mind from wandering…thinking about his family back home.
Growing up, Sam was not treated the best by his parents. They were incredibly religious, essentially using religion as an answer to anything instead of science. Sam would’ve been severely influenced by his parents actions if it weren’t for his older brother, Michael.
Michael was at that phase of life when he was starting to question everything his parents had taught him, and with a little research (and help from his teachers), he realized that his parents didn’t have all the answers they claimed to have. Using this new knowledge, he taught Sam in secret, educating him on the things that their parents dismissed as “fake”, such as the dinosaurs.
Michael quickly became Sam’s rock. He began imitating his older brother’s friendly and social nature because he wanted to be just like him. The two were basically inseparable…until Michael was kicked from the family.
During Michael’s sophomore year of high school, he came to the realization that he wasn’t attracted to women. Naturally, he couldn’t talk to his parents about this, and he probably wouldn’t have…if Sam hadn’t been there…
As a naive sixth grader, Sam believed that his parents would set aside their beliefs and support Michael. After all, he was their oldest son; how could they possibly not love him? Emboldened by his little brother’s words, Michael came out to his parents…and they kicked him out of the house. They completely cut him out of the family and left him to fend for himself on the streets. Sam’s parents began to crack down and push their beliefs onto Sam much harder than they did before. The young boy played along with their beliefs, developing a fake persona to hide his true self away from the world. When he started feeling attracted to men, he pushed those urges away. It broke his heart to do so, but he knew he had to. Deep down, however, he knew better. Michael taught him better.
The thoughts of what might have happened that day had Sam stepped in to defend his brother have been a constant source of nightmares for over 6 years. Sometimes he would wake up in the middle of the night with a cold sweat, breathing heavily with tears streaming down his cheeks. Other times, those nightmares would bleed into his waking mind, keeping him awake. Tonight, the latter was happening.
“God, why was I such a stupid kid?!” Sam growled. He grabbed one of his pillows, held it over his face, and let out a distinctly feline sounding noise. Thankfully he had muffled it so Todd wouldn’t wake up.
The sound of something vibrating on his nightstand made Sam take the pillow off his face and look over. His phone was buzzing. He glanced over at his alarm clock: 10 PM. Why was someone calling him at 10 PM at night? Against his better judgement, Sam picked up his phone and answered the call.
“Hello? Who is this?”
A jovial laugh came from the other end. “God damn Sam!” the voice said. “Two full days away from home and you’ve already forgotten your own brother’s number? Oh, how could you wound me so?!”
Sam had to hold his free hand in front of his mouth to stop himself from shouting. There’s no way…
“M-Mikey?”
The voice on the other side groaned. “Bro, come on! You know it’s ‘Mike’ now!”
Sam’s hand felt shaky as a barrage of memories began making themselves known to him, as if they had always been in his mind, just waiting to be remembered. The image of a tall, slender orange tiger appeared in his mind. Star high school baseball player, CVU graduate, charming goofball.
“R-Right…sorry,” Sam said, his voice a little shaky from the realization and flood of new memories.
“Hey, you okay Sam?” Mike asked. “You sound kinda shaken up. What’s eating at you, lil’ bro?”
“I…I just woke up from this awful dream…” Sam said, his old memories seeming more and more like just that, an awful dream. “Mom and dad…they were crazy religious and homophobic. I was in the sixth grade again, and you were in your sophomore year of high school. You came out to mom and dad, and they absolutely flipped out and kicked you out of the family, and I had to go the rest of my life hiding the fact that I was gay.”
“Jesus…that sounds rough bud…” Mike said. “I’m glad I listened to my gut and gave you a call. Something told me that even though it’s late, you’d pick up.”
Sam laughed quietly. “Well, your gut was right.”
“But for real, you know mom and dad would never do that, right? They love the both of us to pieces. Sure, they were a bit surprised when I came out as gay, but they accepted me for who I am. I know that they’ll accept you too when you choose to come out to them.”
Right…his parents accepted Mike’s sexuality without question. Mike met his boyfriend, a fox named Adam, when he attended CVU. The two got married shortly after they graduated. Sam was Mike’s best man at the wedding…
“Yeah…I know they’d never do that,” Sam said. “That dream just felt so…real. I would’ve never been able to tell mom and dad about Todd…”
“Todd? Awwww, does my baby bro have a crush? What kind of anthro is he? How do you know him? What’s he like?”
Sam groaned in frustration. “Mike, it’s 10 PM, we can talk about my crush on Todd another time.”
“Alright, alright,” the voice on the other end of the phone said. “Sleep tight little buddy. Love you.”
“Love you too, big bro.”
With that, Sam hung up the phone and set it back on his nightstand, staring up at the ceiling once again, only this time, a large smile on his face.
“I have a brother again…”