The invitation arrives not as a slip of paper, but as a series of tense, unspoken questions in the air between you and Adrian.

"My brother,” he says, not looking up, the words clipped. “Gut. And his wife. They’re having a barbecue on Saturday. He said… I could bring people.”

You watch his hands, the sure way he reassembles the weapon, each click and slide a punctuation mark in his quiet anxiety. You know what this costs him. Adrian, with his moral spreadsheets and his devastating sincerity, doesn’t do “casual family things.” They are minefields.

“Of course I’ll come, Ads,” you say, your voice soft against the metallic sounds. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

He finally glances up, and the look in his eyes—gratitude mixed with a sheer, undiluted terror—makes your chest ache. “Chris is coming, too,” he adds, as if bracing for your reaction.

“Even better,” you say, and you mean it. The thought of Chris, a solid, chaotic bulwark in pastel sweaters and a shocking lack of social grace, makes you feel braver. The three of you are a precarious constellation, a triangle of unspoken things. You orbit Adrian’s intense, brittle core; Chris orbits you with a baffled, earnest loyalty; and you all pretend not to notice the gravity pulling you closer.

Saturday is a watercolor of suburban menace. Gut Chase’s house is aggressively normal, a monument to beige conformity that seems to shrink Adrian the moment he steps onto the manicured lawn. Gut is all loud laughter and thicker build, a coarser copy of Adrian. His wife offers plastic smiles and a bowl of potato salad that tastes like despair.

It starts subtly, a series of digs disguised as brotherly ribbing.

“Remember when Adrian tried to build a treehouse and it collapsed in, like, ten seconds?” Gut guffaws, clapping Adrian on the back too hard. “Dad said you had the practical skills of a concussed squirrel.”

Adrian offers a tight, thin smile. “The wood was rotten.”

“The wood was fine, buddy. You were just… you.” Gut’s gaze slides to you and Chris. “He’s always been like this. A brain on stilts. All these big ideas about justice, but can’t even parallel park.”

But Gut is just warming up, fueled by cheap beer and a captive audience. He leans in, his voice a conspiratorial stage whisper. “Seriously, though. The Task Force? You guys must be desperate. Or you’re just babysitting. I mean, look at him. He cried when we had to put the family dog down. Cried for a week.”

Before you can speak, Chris beats you to it.

“Hey, shithead,” Chris says, his voice dangerously calm. He puts his red solo cup down on the patio table with a definitive thud. “You done?”

Gut blinks, the smile freezing on his face. “What’s your problem, man? It’s a joke.”

“The joke’s fucking boring,” Chris says, taking a step forward. He’s all coiled. “And you’re a fucking asshole. You’ve been talking to him like he’s a dog you don’t like for the past hour. He’s ten times the man you are. He’s a goddamn hero.”

You step forward, placing yourself beside Chris, a united front.

“Chris is right,” you say, your voice cold and clear, cutting through the humid air. "He’s brilliant, and he’s brave, and he feels things—which is more than I can say for you. So you can take your pathetic little power trip and shove it.” You look at Adrian, whose head is up now, his eyes wide, swimming with a storm of confusion and shock. “We’re leaving,” you tell him, your tone leaving no room for argument.

Chris doesn’t wait. He just slings an arm around Adrian’s stiff shoulders and starts guiding him off the lawn, a solid, unyielding force. “C’mon, buddy. This place sucks. We’re getting real food.”

In his apartment, the world settles back into a familiar, comforting texture. The place smells of lemon cleaner, and the faint, papery scent of his law books. The silence here is different—a shared, protective thing, not the oppressive quiet of his brother’s yard.

Adrian stands in the middle of the living room, looking lost, the adrenaline of the confrontation clearly having worn off, leaving him hollowed out.