Your _brother^lover’s keeper

Mature
Major Character Death
M/M
Abel/Cain, Incest, Murder, Bible, Ambrahamic Religion, Direct bible quotes, analysis through fic, footnotes

You bring the fruits of your labor up to your lover, you bring him the choicest produce, the first harvested. You offer them up to your brother, eyes wide, proud of your work, and eager to provide for him. He smiles, and tells you you’ve done good work. Pride fills you, and you bring the rest to [GOD] wishing to share in your joy. It is not until later that your pair brings his own offering. Give [GOD] the choicest cuts of meat. The fattest parts, the best calf to be slaughtered. It is not until later that you realize you have offered him your best and he did not do the same in turn. This is a betrayal, but one you can live with. One you can accept.

Until [GOD] pays no heed to yours. Until [He] gives all heed to your brother, your lover, your younger. Until you realize exactly how little your offering to him meant. You gave is in love. In courtship. In complete devotion, and he gave you none of it in return. You wonder if you have been too much. If his intent is what has damned them. [GOD] clearly found your intention, your devotion to be too little, just as you find Abel’s to you.

You find your face falling, impossible to hide the upset, at least not from [GOD]. He, of course, takes no notice, too busy basking in [His] favour. [GOD] assumes you must be crestfallen at [His] lack of care. It is unthinkable that you could be upset for any other reason, and so [GOD] asks “Why are you distressed, And why is your face fallen? Surely, if you do right, There is uplift. But if you do not do right Sin couches at the door; Its urge is toward you, Yet you can be its master.” And you have no real answer, apart from, internally, knowing you have entwined offering with lust. And only the choicest offering goes to that whom both apply. It seems you lover _brother did not feel the same.

You have too much love. Far too much of it. He couldn’t ever hold it all, couldn’t ever accept it all, and while you love him it becomes clear he only _loved you. You ask your brother, your lover, your second lung, to go to the field with you. The one you harvested his offering from. The one you took your first and best crop from, the ones you gave to him. No one knows what was said there. None but you and him. And none ever will. Even [GOD] cannot.

His blood wrenches needy, hungry ground, and it wails as it realizes what has fed it’s thirst. You kill him, in your field, with a bone from his offering. The choicest bone, of his choicest flock, just as you gave him the choicest yield of your first harvest. That which he denied you, you use to take him. None have killed before. You love so fully, so intently that you create.

[GOD] comes to you, and asks “Where is your brother (lover), Abel?” And you turn to [GOD] and you tell [Him], still bloody, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” You know you are not. Not anymore. “He would not let me keep him.” You mean is as betrayal, as renouncement. You mean it to absolve yourself of guilt. You mean it to say that if he would not let himself be yours, he will not be anyone’s.

But [GOD] knows, [He] cries, wails, “What have you done? Hark, your brother’s blood cries out to [Me] from the ground!” And this too, is a betrayal. The ground giving up you and your crime, as if in punishment. As if in hatred.

_{‘you gave [Him] that which you harvested from us, and for that we do not forgive. You forsake your lover (brother) and thus we forsake you.’} The ground whispers, words slithering up in turn with the blood. [GOD] speaks, then, in tandem with the ground. “Therefore, you shall be more cursed than the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s (lover’s) blood from your hand.” You curse [Him] and the ground in turn, spitting on the bloodied earth. [GOD] then twists the knife, proclaiming, “If you till the soil, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. You shall become a ceaseless wanderer on earth.”

You wail! This is a far more bitter punishment than anything else could be. To have that which you provided for your _lover^brother with ripped from you…. Now you cannot even find solace in the ground, find him in the ground. “My punishment is too great to bear! Since You have banished me this day from the soil, and I must avoid Your presence and become a restless wanderer on earth—anyone who meets me may kill me!” You cry, sobbing, tears mixing with your kin’s blood in the dirt.

And [He] takes your arm, pulls you searingly close. Impossibly close, to the point it hurts. You are not supposed to be this proximal to divinity. It burns. Burns even hotter as he brands you. You cannot help but scream. Cannot help but cry out in pain, and, heretically, in pleasure. For to be touched by [GOD] is to be touched to your soul, in ways that none else can reach. It is agony, and bliss. When [GOD] marks you [He] says it is to protect you. [He] tells you “I promise, if anyone kills Cain, sevenfold vengeance shall be taken on him.” And you cannot help but continue to sob.

You wander. You are forced to, and you cannot take solace or refuge in the land, in the dirt, in the ground. You are incomplete without him. Without your _brother^lover you are cleaved apart. You try to kill yourself. You try multiple times. Each time [GODS] words echo through your skull, ‘if anyone kills Cain, sevenfold vengeance shall be taken upon him’ and you suffer. You experience death and come out the other side, gasping, only to fall to your knees, feeling death after death after death, each one compounding, building, until you cannot breathe you can only die, and live and die again. Sevenfold, [He] said and so seven more after your first you will die and live through.

[God] said you would not die. Said you would find no harbor or respite in the ground. And you won’t. Not in life, not in death. For when [He] says you will wander ceaselessly, you will.

Your _brotherlover would not let you be his keeper. So now none else may keep him. This, more than your first crop of harvest, is your yield.

[_GOD] says you must live with it.

So you do.

And he does not. [1] _[2]

 

[1]  GENESIS 4.1

4 1 Now the man knew^a his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gained^b a male child with the help of the L.” 2 She then bore his brother Abel. Abel became a keeper of sheep, and Cain became a tiller of the soil. 3 In the course of time, Cain brought an offering to the L from the fruit of the soil; 4 and Abel, for his part, brought the choicest of the firstlings of his flock. The L paid heed to Abel and his offering, 5 but to Cain and his offering He paid no heed. Cain was much distressed and his face fell. 6And the L said to Cain, “Why are you distressed, And why is your face fallen? 7^c Surely, if you do right, There is uplift. But if you do not do right Sin couches at the door; Its urge is toward you, Yet you can be its master.” 8Cain said to his brother Abel^d … and when they were in the field, Cain set upon his brother Abel and killed him. 9The L said to Cain, “Where is your  brother Abel?” And he said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” 10 Then He said, “What have you done? Hark, your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground! 11 Therefore, you shall be more cursed than the ground,^e which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 If you till the soil, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. You shall become a ceaseless wanderer on earth.” 13Cain said to the L, “My punishment is too great to bear! 14Since You have banished me this day from the soil, and I must avoid Your presence and become a restless wanderer on earth—anyone who meets me may kill me!” 15The L said to him, “I promise, if anyone kills Cain, sevenfold vengeance shall be taken on him.” And the L put a mark on Cain, lest anyone who met him should kill him. 16Cain left the presence of the L and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

_{a Heb. yada‘, often in a sexual sense.}

_{b Heb. qanithi, connected with “Cain.”}

_{c Meaning of verse uncertain.}

_{d Ancient versions, including the Targum, read “Come, let us go out into the field.”}

_{e See 3.17.}

_[2] you then read cain and abel through and incestuous lens:

“i killed him not only because of jealousy but because i could not keep him and so i say i am not my brothers keeper, both so as to absolve myself of guilt and as a renouncement of our romanticism” you (god) prefer him and his offering, he prefers you and your favor. only i provide to the both of you.

וַיִּשַׁע יְ־הוָה אֶל הֶבֶל וְאֶל מִנְחָתוֹ. ^ד:ה וְאֶל קַיִן וְאֶל מִנְחָתוֹ לֹא שָׁעָה וַיִּחַר לְקַיִן מְאֹד וַיִּפְּלוּ פָּנָיו.

YHWH had regard for Abel and his gift, ^4:5 for Cain and his gift, he had no regard. Cain became exceedingly upset and his face fell.

The text does not state why YHWH accepts Abel’s offering and not Cain’s.^[3] The most common suggestion is that Cain brought just some form of vegetation, while Abel’s offering was from “their fattest parts,” interpreted to mean “the choicest” (NJPS) of his animals.^[4] The 12^th century peshat commentator, R. Joseph Bekhor Shor, for instance,

IF YOU LOOK AT IT THIS WAY IF HE BROUGHT GOD SOMETHING LESS THAN THE CHOICEST PARTS BECAUSE HE GAVE THE CHOICEST VEGETATION TO ABEL. whereas abel gives god the best and doesn’t reciprocate cains offering to him.

^{בראשית ד:ו} וַיֹּאמֶר יְ־הוָה אֶל קָיִן לָמָּה חָרָה לָךְ וְלָמָּה נָפְלוּ פָנֶיךָ. ^ד:ז הֲלוֹא אִם תֵּיטִיב שְׂאֵת וְאִם לֹא תֵיטִיב לַפֶּתַח חַטָּאת רֹבֵץ וְאֵלֶיךָ תְּשׁוּקָתוֹ וְאַתָּה תִּמְשָׁל בּוֹ.

^{Gen 4:6} YHWH said to Cain: “Why are you so upset? Why has your face fallen? ^4:7 Is it not thus: If you intend good, bear-it-aloft, but if you do not intend good, at the entrance is sin, a crouching-demon, toward you his lust—but you can rule over him.”

These verses are enigmatic. Is YHWH speaking about the failed offering and explaining why he didn’t accept it? Is YHWH warning him about future challenges (“sin crouching at the entrance”) and offering encouragement (“you can rule over the sin”)?

something about entwining offering with lust. offering toward abel vs toward god and how one is intended both as offering and courtship and the other only offering. the intent, its the intent and the difference between his intentions and abel and his intentions on god and one is not enough while the other is far too much And his intent that will never land as he wants. All that love and nowhere to put it and thus: he kills him. now no one else can keep him. Now he can never leave him

Using a bone from the offering Abel gave to god, killing him with the scraps of that which he forsook you through. That which was more important than you. So he deserved it, didn't he? of course he did. for he took your offering and would not give in turn. Not even a word of love in turn, only pleasure that god liked his more. Which wasn't the point for Cain, was never the point of it Yet Abel is so loved it's like Cain's love just vanishes in the pool of it all. Like it doesn't matter. because comparatively, to abel, it doesn’t.