Lights

Ryan awoke the next morning to an empty house. He exited his bedroom with a furrowed brow, throwing a hopeful glance at the couch, which only had a blanket strewn across it that Ryan didn't have the heart to remove. He looked away, scurrying into the kitchen as if the couch was going to hurt him, and made his breakfast with excruciating slowness, feeling lost with no one to make a second meal for. He was nervous when he sat down, keeping away from the blanket. He ate his toast in silence, wishing for another voice to chatter away mindlessly in his ear and make him grin and scowl all in one conversation.

He lingered in the doorway before sighing and leaving the apartment. He had to drag his feet down the stairs, his normal enthusiasm fading completely. He had always looked forward to work before Brendon – and while Brendon was staying there as well – but now he didn't really want to go. He didn't want to stay at home either, however. He had no idea what he wanted to do except for worry endlessly, and he wasn't sure where he wanted to do that. Nowhere seemed suitable. He didn't want to do it going down the staircase, or at some coffee shop or night club. He didn't know where he wanted to go, or what places would make it better. All he could think to do was continue on his way to work, because it was the only destination that seemed reasonable, even if he didn't want to be there.

He hesitantly pushed the door to Lights opened when he reached the restaurant, realising that he would have to face Spencer when he entered. He hadn't even considered what he would say. Did he even have to say anything? Would Spencer ask? Should he tell him, even if he didn't ask? He'd never had to think about this before – he'd never had anything to tell before.

He didn't want Spencer to laugh at him and call him an idiot for being concerned – but what if he wasn't being an idiot? What if telling Spencer was necessary?

Still unable to think of an answer, he stumbled inside and offered a shy smile Spencer's way, who was beaming in response.

“Hola, Ryan!” he greeted, cheerily.

“Hola,” Ryan repeated, weakly.

“Good day, isn't it?”

Ryan blinked rapidly, unsure of how to take this. “Well – is it?” It certainly wasn't a good day for him, and when he had been walking to work, the sky had been a murderous shade of grey that had made him reluctantly quicken his steps. Usually, three minutes from a torrential downpour wasn't what people considered good.

“It is,” Spencer confirmed with a quick nod. “Would you like to know why?”

“Well... yeah,” Ryan said, slowly. “Yeah, I would.”

“Today, I will get off my shift in approximately however many hours,” Spencer explained, wiping down a table with the cloth in his hand. He was concentrating on the table top as he spoke, a knowing smile quirking his lips. “Then, I will go over to Kayla's accompanied by a moving van.”

“A moving van?” Ryan's eyebrows twisted in confusion.

“A moving van,” Spencer said with another nod. “Then, I'll help her move all her things into the van, and help her move them all out again into my own apartment.”

“Wait – are you serious?”

“Serious as I'll ever be.”

Ryan had never experienced being completely ecstatic at the same time he felt wholly miserable, but the conflicting turmoil battling in his stomach told him this was what he was feeling now. “That's... that's fucking awesome!” Ryan exclaimed, not being able to find other words to express it. “You're moving in together!”

“We are.” Spencer's grin grew even wider, though Ryan hadn't expected it to be possible.

“You're doing the commitment thing!”

“I am!”

Ryan punched Spencer lightly in the arm and raised his eyebrows. “You're on the way to being married now, you know.”

“Shut up or I'll get you,” Spencer said in a breezy tone. “Now, you promised we'd go out tonight, so what time and what place?”

“What?”

“Oh please, don't feign forgetting,” Spencer laughed. “I'll tell Brendon, and you know he'll get you to come out.”

“Oh,” Ryan responded meekly, feeling his cover was already blown. He couldn't make his voice any stronger, only frightened and constrained.

Spencer's brow creased slightly. “Is something wrong, Ry?”

“No, no,” Ryan said quickly. Then he added, “Well... well, sort of, I guess.”

“Dude, you let me talk about a girl taking over my apartment when something was wrong? Speak up!”

“Sorry,” Ryan apologised.

“Don't,” Spencer warned. “Now, what is it?”

“It's probably nothing,” Ryan mentioned first, avoiding eye contact. “I mean, I'm probably just worrying about it for nothing, you know?”

“What is it?”

“Well, when I went home last night, Brendon wasn't there. And he, you know, never came home.” Ryan rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “He wasn't there this morning either.”

“Are you fucking serious?” Spencer's eyes widened as his eyebrows sloped down with the concern that Ryan recognised quite well – he had looked exactly the same for at least the past twelve hours.

“I was thinking... you know, maybe he made some friends,” Ryan went on. Spencer being worried made him a little nervous, like suddenly the problem was a lot more real. Something that should be taken seriously. Ryan couldn't quite face the idea that something might actually be wrong with Brendon – that he wouldn't be there when he got home a second night. “Maybe they went out to one of those night clubs. Maybe he drank more. Maybe he couldn't get home.”

Spencer nodded slowly, his facial expression changed completely from what it was merely a few minutes ago. “That's possible.”

Ryan almost smiled – maybe if it was possible, it actually was true. “Yeah?”

“Yeah... but he's never disappeared before, so if he's not home tonight, I'd consider calling the police,” Spencer went on, looking thoughtful. “I'm sure he'll be okay, but you want to make sure, you know?”

“I know..”

“We don't want to lose Brendon.”

Ryan shook his head. “We won't lose Brendon, right?”

Spencer looked at him, straight into his eyes, as if he were trying to look into Ryan's thoughts and understand exactly what he was thinking. “Right,” Spencer agreed after a few moments. “We won't lose him.”

“Okay. I'll call the police if he's not there.” The thought of having to call the police made unexpected tears spring into Ryan's eyes and made them burn. His sight was crystallised and blurry, and he hurriedly blinked the moisture away, feeling Spencer looking at him still. It was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared.

“Good. Now, try not to worry about it too much for now,” Spencer said. “We don't know what's happened, and it's pretty likely that you're right. That's the kind of thing Brendon I would do, I bet.”

“Yeah,” Ryan mumbled, blankly. “I'm gonna get back to work – Sarah's looking at me weirdly.”

“Oh – oh right.” Spencer went back to wiping down the table. “I should too.”

*

The rain had been pouring for a while when Ryan reluctantly left Lights. At the feeling of the cold raindrops on his cheeks, he pulled his hood up over his head, shielding his face away from the water as best as he could. The sky was angry and dark, and the tops of the sky scrapers would have been eaten away by it if it hadn't been for the rectangles of light that shone in the gloom.

As he walked, he seemed to battle with whether he wanted to walk slow or fast. Though his skin was chilled and his teeth were chattering together loudly, every time he thought about opening his apartment door and finding the room empty, his stomach flipped over in fear and he almost found himself gagging.

He didn't want to have to pick up the phone.

He took longer than usual to reach the door of the complex, and he was trembling with both terror and cold when he stepped inside. His clothes were dripping and sticking unpleasantly to his skin, and all he wanted to do was collapse where he was and fall asleep and only wake up when Brendon walked in.

As he started for the stairs, a woman walked off the elevator and gave him a sympathetic look, but he just turned away, but particularly wanting to be the object people were staring at. He felt about as terrible as he appeared.

With every step, his body just shook worse. He couldn't control it when he reached the top of the stairs. When he withdrew the freezing key from his wet pocket, it slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor with a harsh clang. He groaned when he bent down, and had to run his fingers across the carpet a few times before he finally managed to grab the key in his shaking fingers.

It took him a few tries to finally insert it into the lock, and his door handle made a lot of noise as he pushed it open.

He realised that this was it – Brendon was either in the room when he looked, or he wasn't. And he had no idea what to expect. He knew what he wanted, but he wasn't sure if it was realistic. He hated being so ignorant of the circumstances. Absolutely anything could have happened to Brendon, and he would have no idea. No clue. It seemed impossible – shouldn't he know everything that happened to Brendon? He did before.

Except, he didn't before. He knew everything that had happened to Brendon within the month that they had lived together, but Brendon's past was just a vague mess of confusion and nightmares that Ryan had no idea how to penetrate and question him about. What if whatever Brendon had been running from caught him?

Ryan knew he shouldn't have been very surprised when the apartment was empty, but something still managed to twist painfully inside his chest.

“Shit,” he mumbled to himself, hanging up his key and glancing at the phone with a frown. Would he really have to inform the police? Would it really come to that?

He peeled his wet jacket off his body and tossed it on the floor with a sigh. He palmed the thighs of his jeans and they were sticking to him as well, so he pulled them off and threw them away as well. In his boxers, he wandered into his room and started searching through his drawers for something warm and clean to put on. He finally found a pair of slightly too tight jeans that he hadn't resorted to for a while, and wondered uselessly what he was supposed to do next.

To eat up time, he made a coffee. He needed one, he knew. If there was ever a time to drink coffee, this would be it.

His teeth began to chatter less as he wrapped his hands around the coffee contentedly, and sat down on the couch. He switched on the television, but couldn't focus his eyes on it. The words just didn't make sense, and the pictures seemed more hollow and stilted than they ever had before. They just didn't compute in his mind, so he just ignored his inability to understand basic life in the form of sitcoms and sipped regularly at his coffee, until he was taking huge gulps and he was left with an empty cup.

He kept holding it until it wasn't warm any more, then put it down and pulled the blanket beside him over his legs.

He had tried to avoid worrying all day, but it wasn't working at all. It had been a constant annoyance, whispering in his ear every single second and reminding him. Now, completely on his own with no one around, it really started to consume him.

He felt tears filling his eyes again, and though he attempted to blink them away, they wouldn't go. They just kept building up, until he felt them running down his cheeks and dripping off his chin onto the blanket resting across his knees.

Just when he was ready to give up, the door opened. The sound of the door handle being thrust down made Ryan's heart skip a beat. Why didn't he lock it? Just about anyone could barge in and get him.

But it was just Brendon, standing in the door way, the door handle grasped tightly in one of his hands. Grasped so tightly that Ryan could see Brendon's already white knuckles turning even paler with the strength.

“Holy shit!” Ryan shouted, the words exiting his mouth before he had even realised. “Holy fucking shit, Brendon!”

Brendon's head snapped over to look at him, his eyes wide and staring, and Ryan couldn't stop himself from gasping.

“Fucking hell, Brendon!” Ryan shoved the blanket off his legs and leapt to his feet, almost tripping over the corner that had stayed attached to his foot stubbornly. “Oh my God!”

He ran over to Brendon and shut the door behind him as Brendon stayed completely still, barely even noticing Ryan prying his fingers from their claw-like grip.

“Oh my God,” Ryan continued mumbling under his breath, as he grasped Brendon's elbow and steered him into the living room. “What the fuck happened to you? Are you all right?”

Brendon just nodded silently, his mouth a hard, thin line as his lips pressed together tightly.

He looked terrible, and just seeing him like this made Ryan absolutely speechless. Ryan couldn't process the emotions running through him, there was entire mixture that were hard to untangle and recognise. He could feel a definite note of anger resounding through him at who could possibly have done this, and an overwhelming sadness that this had happened to Brendon, who would never hurt a fly.

Beneath Brendon's eyes were two dark smudges, pounding blue. They swelled slightly and it made Ryan cringe to look at the almost-black circles. Blood was smeared across Brendon's upper lip, a trail of red running down from his nostril, and his lips were also more vibrant than they should have been. Ryan couldn't see much more of Brendon because his body was covered by his clothes, but judging by the way that Brendon had shuffled slowly into the room and the expression on his face, Ryan imagined that the damage to the rest of him could rival that on his face.

“Holy shit,” he murmured again, unable to find any other words to fit the situation. He could barely come up with words at all. How could this happen? It was like one of this worst fears had come true – or at least, his second worst fear. At least Brendon was still breathing, even if he did flinch as he did so.

He couldn't think of what to do first. It was all hitting him like a train – he had to do something. Respond in some ways other than a series of cusses that meant almost nothing.

“We really need to clean you up,” he said, finally, looking into Brendon's eyes with his eyebrows knitted. “Come into the bathroom, eh? We'll get the blood off and um, assess the damage. And I'll get you some new clothes.” Ryan lightly pushed Brendon into the bathroom before running off in search of something for him to change into. He returned a few moments later with jeans and a shirt, and saw Brendon standing beside the sink, leaning over it with both hands and staring at his bloodied face in the mirror with hard eyes.

“You must have gotten some stares coming back,” Ryan said, placing the clothes on the floor.

Brendon just lowered his gaze to the drain and nodded. “Yeah, a few.”

“I have a first aid box in here somewhere,” Ryan went on, kneeling down to sort through a cabinet. He eventually withdrew a box marked with a red cross, and waved it triumphantly. “I'm pretty sure there's a cloth in here too, then we can bandage you up and fix you.”

“Sounds good.”

Ryan took out the cloth and ran it under the cold water. He started to wipe the blood away from Brendon's face, noticing at the sweat or rain that was condensing on his forehead. Brendon jerked away slightly at the cold touch.

“Sorry,” Ryan apologised, quickly.

“It's okay,” Brendon mumbled, his eyes focused on the floor.

Ryan tried to avoid the nasty bruises framing Brendon's eyes, and started wiping the blood from his nose and lips. “You've got a cut lip,” Ryan pointed out as he worked.

“Oh,” Brendon said. “I guess I'm not that surprised.”

Ryan made sure Brendon's whole face was clean before passing him a towel to dry himself off. He also dried his hair.

“Get out of those wet clothes,” Ryan advised. “We don't want you getting sick on top of it all. I guess it's easier with lots of cuts and stuff, but I'm not really sure.”

“Me neither,” Brendon said, before obediently pulling his jacket over his head, making sure to avoid brushing his face too much. He pulled his shirt off next, and Ryan glanced at Brendon's chest, a sick feeling rising in his stomach.

There were blue and yellow bruises blossoming over the delicate, pale skin. Ryan could see the vague outlines of Brendon's ribs shake as he breathed in and out steadily.

“My God, Bren,” Ryan whispered. “Who the hell could do something like this?”

“I don't know,” Brendon responded shortly, and Ryan quickly tip-toed around that subject.

“Put these on,” he said instead, picking up the t-shirt and jeans.

Once Brendon was changed, Ryan was again at a loss of what to do. He bandaged Brendon up, though he had no idea if what he was doing was the right thing to do or if he was just using bandages needlessly, but either way, he felt glad for at least doing something.

Afterward, he helped Brendon over to the couch and sat down next to him.

“I'll make you food, if you want,” Ryan offered.

“Could you?” Brendon said. “I-I'm really hungry, actually.”

“Noodles?” Ryan asked.

“Thanks.”

Ryan made Brendon a cup of noodles and the pair of them watched television for an hour or two, almost in silence, except to occasionally comment on a joke. Already, the living room felt more complete, but Ryan knew this wasn't how things were going to stay. He couldn't just not ask what had happened to Brendon – he needed to know. Something needed to be done.

“Brendon,” Ryan said, quietly, after the credits for the Simpson started rolling across the screen.

Brendon glanced at him with his eyebrows raised, the empty cup of noodles still nestled in his fingers.

“What happened?”

“Just... nothing, really.”

Ryan instantly frowned, his brow creasing. “How can you say nothing happened? You've got two black eyes, a cut lip and cheek, and your entire body is covered in bruises.”

“Well... Then, I guess it's pretty obvious what happened.”

“Don't play this game with me,” Ryan threatened.

“I'm not playing a game,” Brendon responded, simply.

“Who did this?”

“Just, people.” Brendon refused to look at Ryan straight on, and instead let his gaze stray away from his face to other objects lying around the apartment.

“Is someone after you, Brendon?”

“Nothing is wrong, Ryan,” Brendon said, firmly.

“Nothing is wrong? Nothing? Are you fucking serious?”

“Yeah, I --”

“Brendon, you cannot fucking do this to me and tell me it was nothing.” Ryan looked at Brendon, even if the other boy wouldn't look back at him. “This was something, this was something important. You have to tell me.”

“I can't tell you,” Brendon mumbled.

“You have to,” Ryan repeated. “Come on, Bren. Look at me.”

Brendon just tilted his chin downwards.

“Come on.”

“Please, don't worry about me, Ryan.”

“Well, too fucking late, because I've been worrying constantly for the past day.”

“I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to --”

“So tell me!” Ryan interrupted with a shout that surprised even himself. “Tell me what the fuck is going on here! I need to know.”

“I just can't, don't you get that?”

“No, I don't get it at all.” Ryan stood up and ran his hand through his ruined, flat faux-hawk. “You have to explain it to me.”

“Some people have secrets,” Brendon said, slowly. “I just can't tell you.”

“I can't have this happening, Brendon. You went out and you came back a complete fucking wreck. You're fucked up, look at you!”

“I know it's bad --”

“It's really fucking bad. Do you have any idea what this is like? Do you have any idea how fucking scary it is to see you like this and have absolutely no clue why it happened?”

Brendon didn't reply, but just bowed his head shamefully.

“Tell me.”

“I'm sorry, Ry, I can't.”

“Brendon!”

“I can't!”

“Fucking right!”

Ryan felt his entire body heat up in the cold night, and suddenly the jacket around his wrists felt like it was confining him. He wanted to scream and shout and cry and he knew he shouldn't, because it wasn't really Brendon's fault. He wanted to know and understand, but he was merely frustrated at not being able to. He wasn't angry. The rage he felt toward those that had done this to Ryan was entangling itself with his frustration, making his temper swell and explode unexpectedly.

He'd never felt like throwing something across the room before, so he resisted grabbing the alarm clock and started toward the door.

“Wait, Ry, where are you going?”

“Out,” Ryan responded, shortly. “Don't go anywhere. I'll be back. My head is just... fuck.”

“But Ry --”

“I don't know how long I'll be,” Ryan said. “Just, for the love of God, please stay here.”

“I—I.. well, okay...” Brendon trailed off as Ryan shut the door on him.