He swore one day he'd be older, heads taller, superior in the every thousand ways he was not. And he swore one day he'd be everything, up on his tiptoes, right to his face— he vowed and promised with eyes full of admiration and envy, bluster and love.

An answer in a smile, a scrub to his hair. A laugh, happy and sad. (A veiled foreboding.)

He shakes him off, scowling.

“I’m not a baby anymore, you know?”

And his smile breaks into laughter; affectionate, wistful. He locks his head in by the elbow, ruffles bristly hair into disarray.

“You’ll always be a baby, so long as I’m older than you.”

He doesn't grow taller— can never slam his forearm on the table flat— some things, he supposes, just can't be helped. But he bests him for every defeat, time and time and time again. Best two out of three, one more wheezed in panting breath from where they stand gasping at the top of a hill. And an answer, always; dark eyes cutting up from where sweat soaked hair hangs over his face, a sharp curve to his smile as they both set off like a shot.

“We— didn’t really have to cut through the park, did we?” He rolls onto his back, hand flung over his eyes as his breath comes in heaves.

That sharp smile, soft around the edges, flashes soft as lightning and just as quick. He closes his eyes, grin broad.

“Nah.”

He shoves him, then, gets shoved right back, and then they’re rolling, down, down, down, limbs entangled as they wrestle themselves in a rough tumble shriek— straight into a tree.

THUNK.

Baths and laundry, lectures and bandages, moon hung in the sky and lights clicked off, he rolls over, turns to face the bed across the room. It’s dark, but he can practically hear the smile in his voice anyway.

“Now that, dear brother of mine, was completely unnecessary.”

He gets a pillow to the face.

They do grow older, the both of them; race by race, season by season. They do grow older— he never grows taller, even as the lines of his shoulders broaden, the gangles of boyhood shook out into something solid.

Devoid of laurels, perhaps; but never of strength and growth; never of maturity. (And he swore he'd be better; better than him, better than anyone— yet he's realized he's only ever his best when they’re together, with him.)

A laugh. “That’s sappy, even for you.” His tone is light, but something in it trembles.

He’s shoved then, the embarrassed knock to his shoulder he knows so well. This, at least, is familiar. “Shut up.” There’s a red tinge to his ears.

He grabs one with gloved fingers, pulls even as its owner shrieks, arms windmilling in missed blows until they’re shoulder to shoulder, boots crunching in step beneath an autumn sky.

They don’t say anything, but that’s okay. Maybe they don’t have to.

And then he's standing before him, above him. Older. Wearier.

And then he's standing before him— not behind, not beside. Before. Before him— before himself. Before all the good and happy things, smile and sunshine, grass and the sky.

And then he’s standing before him, another year older, another day colder. And he is— older, now. Older than himself, older— older, than him. He looms where he stands, miles high. Small as a pebble.

He’s taller, now.

There’s a smirk to his voice from where they stand back to back, chins up and feet planted firm.

“Fancy that, huh?”

His palm lies flat across their hair— they really are shoulder to shoulder, now.

A kick to his shin.

“Don’t get cocky, young padawan. I’m older yet.”

He laughs.

And his flowers, delicate and pale; freshly plucked with the leaves still on— and his flowers, lilies in one fist and tears in the other, crease in his grip, petals crumpling before smoothed out with care. Laid gently, so gently, to rest. They strike a stark contrast; white against dark, belied by the gaping tear in one flower, the sun out the sky even as it shines weakly overhead.

He’s taller, now— older. (Still never won that damn arm wrestling match.) He’s all the things he’d sworn to be; all he can be, without him.

You can only ever outgrow someone in death, after all.

A challenge fills his ears, a crack like lighting and no thunder to answer it. A challenge in defeat, contradiction for a victory. A challenge. A promise. A plea, as the sky breaks open to weep.

Best two out of three, right?