Lights

When Ryan awoke the next morning, Brendon was sitting in front of him with a grin on his face. He blinked with bleary eyes and looked at Brendon in confusion, the strange atmosphere of the night prior shooting through Ryan's brain in odd flashes that made him twist his lip as he tried to grasp just how he should be acting right now.

“Thank God,” he heard Brendon say.

“What?”

“It took ages to wake you up,” Brendon said, rolling his eyes. “You sleep like a rock, you know.”

“I do not.”

“You do,” Brendon confirmed, nodding. “I thought you were never gonna wake up. You also snore.”

“Well, so do you,” Ryan shot back, rubbing the sleep out of the corners of his eyes with a sigh. “I'm not late, am I?”

“For work? Um --” Brendon climbed to his feet and peered at the clock sitting on the kitchen counter. “Nope. But it's been a while since I last looked, so you're not exactly early either. Maybe you should eat fast.”

“Cereal it is.”

Ryan crawled across the mattress before standing up and entering the kitchen. “You?” he added.

“Same, please.”

“Two bowls of cereal, coming up.”

“You should really be a cook at your restaurant, Ry,” Brendon grinned. “You're just too good at this to only be a waiter.”

“Those cooks look scary,” Ryan said as he poured the fruit loops into a bowl. “So I'd rather just stay as a waiter, thank you very much.”

“You're right. Spencer's a lot less scary than any of those guys that get paid more than you do.”

“Shut your mouth.” Ryan carried the two bowls of cereal over and handed one to Brendon. “I'm assuming that you won't be back at work for a little while.”

“Why not?” Brendon asked, his brow creasing in confusion.

“Well, something to do with your two black eyes.”

“Oh... right. Well, I don't really need a day off for this. I can function fine.”

“Are you kidding me? You're bruised all over. You're taking time off.”

Brendon frowned. “I don't think they'll appreciate that.”

“Well, too bad. I doubt they want a bruised employee working, anyway. Imagine the complaints they'd get.”

“I guess...”

“Yeah.” Ryan waved his spoon at him firmly. “Well, I know. So, you sit tight here, and I'll see you when I get home from work.”

“Can't I come with you?” Brendon asked.

Ryan shook his head. “You can't walk all the way there like that. Stay in bed and rest up so you can recover faster. Look, you can even watch some videos if you want, in case there's nothing on TV.”

“Okay... What videos do you have?”

Ryan opened the cabinet that the television was sitting on and motioned to the videos with a flourish. They were packed in tightly, all straight and perfect.

“I have a lot from when I was a kid,” Ryan said, quickly. “I mostly just took my old stuff from Las Vegas when I came here. So, I don't have much recent stuff.”

Brendon leaned forward to inspect the videos. “Yeah, I'd expect you to have some DVDs if you were at all modern, Ryan.”

Ryan rolled his eyes. “DVDs are completely unneeded, videos are where it's at.”

“These are mostly Disney movies,” Brendon pointed out.

“I told you --”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Aladdin... Alice in Wonderland...” Brendon paused, staring at the spines of each of the video cases. “Hold on a second...”

“What's wrong?”

“Ryan... are these in alphabetical order?”

Ryan blinked, looking at Brendon was if he were crazy. “Yes?”

“Holy shit, are you actually serious?”

“What the hell is wrong with –?”

“Look at your apartment, Ryan. It's a fucking mess.”

“Thanks for the manners there.”

Brendon rolled his eyes. “Not the point. There's shit everywhere, all over the floor. Yet you have a cupboard of alphabetically arranged videos.”

“They're easier to find that way,” Ryan said, slowly.

“What about everything else here? Shouldn't that be easy to find too?”

“I know where everything is. It doesn't need to be arranged.”

Brendon stared at Ryan in confusion. “Well... okay then... You're one odd cookie, Ryan.”

“So you've told me.”

“Well... I'll watch Dumbo then.”

Ryan withdrew the video and gave it to Brendon with a grin. “Interesting choice. Now, you can take your pick and watch anything, but make sure you put them back in the right order.”

“All right...” Brendon gave Ryan a weird look, not seeming to quite understand why this cabinet in particular was just so organised, while the rest of the apartment was a complete and utter mess.

“I'll be back later, see you.” Ryan made for the door and waved at Brendon before he left.

*

“Thank God,” Spencer sighed, happily. “I was worrying all night, Kayla almost beat me to a pulp when I walked into a wall holding one of her fragile boxes.”

Ryan grinned at the thought. “So, did her moving in go well?”

“It went pretty well, except for the aforementioned incident. She can really control people, those moving men were a little scared of her,” Spencer said with a smirk.

“Really? She didn't seem all that controlling when I met her.”

“She just knows how she wants things done,” Spencer explained. “So, I'm one day in and it's going fine.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“So, what are you going to do about Brendon?”

“What?” Ryan paused with the mop in his hands, looking at Spencer unsurely.

“I mean, you said he got beaten up pretty badly. And I'm glad he's home at all, but that's kind of serious, you know?”

Ryan sighed. “Yeah, I know. But he won't tell me what happened to him.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. He's set on being as stubborn about it as possible. Ugh, I'm just worried about him, I don't want it to happen again, you know?”

“Are you guys gonna tell the police?”

“I think he wants to ignore it and forget it even happened. He wanted to go to work today.”

Spencer raised his eyebrows in surprise. “He's a weird kid.”

“That's what I said,” Ryan said with a grin. “Except he won't let you call him kid. But hey, nothing stopping us while he's not around to defend his young self.”

“So you kept him home?”

“Yeah. He's at my apartment watching Dumbo right now,” Ryan grinned. “I let him into my video cabinet.”

“What a wondrous place,” Spencer said, as if he was unsure of what else he could respond to this with. “I'm jealous,” he added.

“Me too. I haven't watched Dumbo in ages.”

“That's the one with the flying elephant and the feather, right?”

“Yeah... God, Disney movies are weird.”

“Why do you even still have that?”

Ryan rolled his eyes. “I just have lots of videos I brought with me when I moved out, all right? It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“When no one was living with you,” Spencer corrected with a grin.

“Yeah... I guess that is how it works. Dammit, I've finally found the downside of this room mate thing.”

Spencer nodded somberly. “They can see all your shameful videos. I've had to hide a few of mine from Kayla.”

Ryan looked at him, doubtfully.

“Grease,” Spencer admitted. “And Phantom of the Opera. She has a thing against musicals. She's a crazy lady.”

Ryan raised an eyebrow, then shrugged. “At least I just have cartoons.”

“Grease is a classic, Ryan.”

“Sure thing.”

“Ry!”

Ryan raised his hands in his defense. “I believe you, I believe you!”

“You'd better,” Spencer grumbled, before leaving Ryan so that he could serve some customers that had just entered.

*

When Ryan got home that evening, Brendon was sitting on his mattress with his legs crossed, leaning forward as he gazed at the television. He glanced at Ryan when he entered, and offered a hearty grin.

“Welcome home,” Brendon greeted. “I've been raiding your video collection all day.”

“Well, make sure you have some videos left for the next few days, because you're not going back to work tomorrow,” Ryan warned.

“Aw, Ry, you're no fun.”

“You'll be no fun if you don't let yourself recover.”

“I'm fine, it barely hurts.”

“Yeah, right.”

Brendon let out a heaving sigh. “You're tough, Ry.”

“I just do what needs to be done.” He crossed the kitchen and sat down next to Brendon. “Scooch over. What are you watching?”

“Aladdin: Prince of Thieves!” Brendon announced, cheerfully. “It's just about finished, I think.”

“Good choice.”

“Do I make any other?”

Ryan turned to him with one of his eyebrows arched.

“Don't answer that,” Brendon added, quickly.

“I wasn't going to.”

Brendon frowned, shifting his weight slightly so that he was facing Ryan. “Speaking of choices, I have something I need to talk to you about."

Ryan's heart suddenly seized as thoughts of what Brendon could want to talk about flooded his brain once again. One stuck out from the others – he wanted to talk about last night. Ryan had not thought his 'ignoring' plan through properly, for he hadn't decided quite what he was going to do after he had to stop ignoring it and pretending like it didn't exist. He sucked in a ragged breath, and said in a surprisingly nervous voice, “Yeah, what?”

“Well, you know... I've been living here for a while now, and all I seem to be doing is causing trouble and completely disrupting your life.”

“You're not,” Ryan said. “You're not going to threaten to leave again.”

“I'm not going to do that,” Brendon said. “Well, not yet. And seriously, you think I'm not? Have you ever had a room mate come back looking like this before?”

“I've never had a room mate before,” Ryan retorted.

“That's not a valid argument.”

“You're injured, you're not thinking straight.”

Brendon rolled his eyes, trying to disguise the grin that was starting to spread over his lips. “Seriously, I need to talk to you about this.”

“Fine, fine. I'll let you talk – but don't bother offering to leave, because you know what I'll say, yeah?”

Brendon nodded slowly, then sighed. “I have no idea where to start.”

“Try the beginning,” Ryan suggested.

“I'm pretty sure you got that from a movie.”

“Maybe a book,” Ryan said with a shrug. “That's not the point.”

“All right, all right... See, there's obviously a reason behind why we met,” Brendon started, his voice sounding careful as he picked his words. “I mean, you know. I was running.”

“Hell yes, you were.”

“And there's a reason I got beaten up the other day,” Brendon went on. “It wasn't, like, random or anything. It was kind of... the same reason.”

“Someone is after you?”

“Well, yeah. In a way, I guess. Well... that's it exactly, pretty much.”

Ryan tried to take in the information. Though he had guessed such a thing going on earlier, he had stopped entertaining the notion that it was all interconnected and Brendon was in danger. It was a little jarring, realising that the nice boy he had been housing really was running away from someone.

“Is that all I'm going to find out?” Ryan asked. “Or, do I get to find out why?”

“It's not a fun story,” Brendon warned. “Do you want to know why?”

“Are you okay with telling it...?”

Brendon nodded. “I guess I need to.”

“Why the change of heart?”

Brendon shrugged and glanced away. “I felt bad, you know. I feel bad. I mean, I'm being all... crazy, and you just sit there and put up with it and still manage to give me a bed and food and all that good stuff. You helped me find a job.”

“Why wouldn't I –?”

“Some people would never do that. But, I need you to promise me something.”

“What is it?” Ryan's brow furrowed slightly.

“Don't call the police.” Brendon's voice was small, almost squeaky, and Ryan realised how fearful he was. “Don't call them on me, please. Or on anyone else. Ever.”

“Wait, ever?”

Brendon shook his head. “That came out a little wrong,” he said, nervously. “I mean, you know... You can call them if there's a little old lady getting robbed on the street or whatever. But, if I go missing again, don't call them. If something happens to me, don't call them.”

“Why the hell –?”

“Do you promise?”

Ryan tried to search for words, his brain whirring as he took this in. “How can I do that?” Ryan said. “If you're in trouble... I can't let something happen to you, Brendon.”

“You have to,” Brendon mumbled. “It's important. They wouldn't help me anyway. Calling them would be pointless. Now, promise me, Ryan. Or else I can't tell you. And I don't know if I could stay.”

Ryan opened his mouth a little – he thought he was going to reply, but the words couldn't seem to escape. He gasped for air, hoping more oxygen would help his brain work, help him make sense of this situation. Finally, the words came out. “Okay, Brendon. I promise.”

“Are you sure?”

“I'm sure.”

Brendon looked down at the blanket pulled over his knees, then nodded. “Okay. Good. You'd better keep your promise though.”

“I will.”

“All right.”

“So... you're going to tell me why?”

Brendon nodded again. “It's a long story, though.”

“I have a lot of time. I have all night.”

Brendon grinned a little and glanced at him. “Because you have no life.”

“That's exactly the reason.”

“All right... Okay. So, it started a while ago. A long while ago,” Brendon began, pulling his knees up and leaning his elbows on them. “I used to live with my parents in New York, in Brooklyn.”

“And they still live there?”

“Yeah. But I always wanted to move out of my parents house. I didn't like being restricted by them, you know?”

Ryan nodded, wondering if he restricted Brendon in the way his parents had.

“So, I left when I was seventeen, and I wondered where I could go that would be interesting. I wanted to go far away, but I didn't have the means to get to a place like that. So, I took a few buses to Manhattan, and I decided it would be interesting enough. Everyone talks about Manhattan on TV, and I'd be a part of that. It sounded... pretty damn awesome, actually.”

“Guess I thought something similar when I moved here,” Ryan agreed. Then he added, “Except you got more excitement than I did.”

Brendon snorted. “I guess you could say that.” He shrugged. “So, I came here, and it was one of the most reckless moments of my life. I have no idea how I could have been so stupid, I had no idea how real life works.”

“It tends to trick you into thinking you do know how it works.”

“Yeah. Well, I came here, and I had nowhere to stay. I tried to get a job, but I just had nowhere to live. Luckily, it was summer, so it wasn't too bad having to sleep outside. It's a lot worse in the winter.”

Ryan shivered at the thought of having to sleep on cold concrete in the winter. “I can imagine.”

“Yeah... So, it was definitely not one of my best moments. Things started to go downhill fast. I couldn't afford to live, and I had nowhere to not afford to live. That gets old pretty quickly. And... I was on my own one night, trying to sleep, but I was really hungry. I was thinking of going back to my parents' house, but I really didn't want to. It felt like giving up, and I didn't want to do that.”

“You never struck me as the giving up type,” Ryan agreed.

“So, I was trying to get to sleep, when I heard this noise. I'd never worried that it might be dangerous to just sleep wherever the hell I wanted to until that day. Before I knew it, someone had a hand clamped over my mouth and someone else was sitting on top of me so I couldn't move.”

“Shit!”

“Shit indeed.” Brendon smirked. “Suddenly, I started getting this speech about how stupid it was that I was doing this, and how I could be killed at any moment, and that I was an idiot and all that type of stuff. It was like my parents had stalked me out there to give me a lecture or something. But it was a girl and a guy, and they let me go after she had finished talking, and I had agreed with whatever they said.”

Ryan's eyes were wide and still growing wider as he listened to Brendon, enraptured with what he had to say.

“I wasn't sure what they were gonna do next,” Brendon went on. “And what they did do was sorta surprising.”

“What'd they do?”

“They said they had somewhere I could stay, and that they could keep me safe.”

“Woah, seriously?”

“Seriously. They told me there were others like me, and that, if I was willing, I could go with them.”

“And you agreed?”

“Hell yes, I agreed,” Brendon laughed. “My back was sore and I was hungry. I said yes straight away, and they lead me away. They took me to this big warehouse – I guess it was one of those abandoned ones. It was a little way out, but still close enough to the city that it wasn't too long a walk. It was... pretty amazing, really.” Brendon shook his head at the thought of it. “And inside, there was a community.”

“A community?”

Brendon nodded. “People who had come to New York but had nowhere to stay. People who hadn't managed to rely on themselves.”

“What did they do? I mean... in this community. They supported each other?”

“Yeah.”

“So... how?” Ryan asked, curiously.

“They didn't exactly function legally,” Brendon explained, wryly. “They got by doing things below the law. They stole to provide for each other.”

“Wow.” Ryan wasn't quite sure how else to respond. “And you were a part of this?”

Brendon grinned. “I was. I got kind of good at it – you do when you're forced into it. They can be kind of intimidating, and they can get you to get real good at things.”

“It... sounds like it.”

“When you have to do that, sometimes violence can just come naturally. People get aggressive, and they need to defend themselves. It just happens. It becomes a way of life.”

“What about you?”

Brendon laughed. “I think I demonstrated with my grocery carrying skills that I'm not as strong as I should be. But it definitely takes its toll.”

“Scary,” Ryan mumbled.

“Don't worry,” Brendon said, quickly. “I'm not gonna attack you or anything.”

“I didn't think you were. I was just saying.”

“All right... Well, see, there's always people who don't really get right and wrong. And they do stupid stuff. And... some people just can't control themselves.” Brendon stopped, staring off into space for a few moments, and Ryan could hear his breath growing a little quicker.

“What's wrong?” Ryan asked, quietly.

“I did something stupid,” Brendon said. “I managed to live there for a good four years. And it worked well, you know? It was kind of like having a family. You could do almost whatever you wanted, except for stupid shit. And they looked out for you and made sure you were safe. It was Gabe who organised everything.”

“Gabe?” Ryan repeated, surprised at the sudden mention of a name.

“Yeah. He started it, and he was the one who looked out for everyone, mostly. Like, he was the leader. He made sure you got punished if you did something stupid. He kept us safe.”

“So, what did you do?”

Brendon bent his head down. “Something really, really fucking stupid.”

“Come on, Bren.”

“It started a little while ago. It was raining – it was storming. Late fall, an unexpected storm.” Brendon didn't look at Ryan, but instead focused on the blank television screen. Aladdin had ended a while ago, and the credits had just finished rolling down the screen. “People can go a little crazy. Sometimes, I think maybe there's something in the storm that does that to people. Something in the rain, maybe."

Ryan swallowed nervously, feeling the story was taking an especially dark turn.

“There was a man in this community. He was the impulsive type. I mean – I'm pretty impulsive, but he was worse than I am. I sometimes wondered if he thought things through at all, even afterwards.” Brendon shrugged. “I guess it doesn't matter anyway. But, it was raining. And maybe that made it even worse. And... sometimes... things happen. He was older than I was. He came in the night. It was really loud – the storm, I mean, not him. The roof was metal and you could really hear it when it rained. It was like it was thundering like mad.”

“It sounds kind of scary.”

“Yeah, it didn't used to be. I was trying to sleep through it – we had blankets and mattresses and stuff, I don't know where from. It was all pretty cheap, and if you were unlucky, sometimes you'd have to sleep on the ground. But they'd always pile up blankets for you to sleep on. You'd never sleep on just the ground. And you always had a roof over your head.” Brendon sighed as he remembered. “So, he came to my bed. And – and he tried to – well, I dunno. I dunno how to explain it.”

Brendon's eyes were watering now and Ryan heard him sniffed loudly as he wiped his nose. Ryan didn't know where to look or what to do, so he focused his gaze on Brendon's chest and tried to control his breathing.

“Well, yeah,” Brendon went on after wiping his eyes as well. “And I got angry at him. I-I can kind of have a temper sometimes.”

“Really?”

“I haven't been provoked,” Brendon explained. “So, I guess you wouldn't know. But you get provoked a lot when you live with a bunch of aggressive, homeless people. Especially ones that do stuff like he did. I got angrier than I've ever been before. I-I couldn't believe that someone was actually doing that to me, you know? And it was fucking scary. I could barely move, he was huge.”

“God, Brendon.”

Brendon barely acknowledged Ryan's words, but just went on. “And... he moved a little, and suddenly I could get free. I don't know why I did what I did after. I was just so... angry.” The last word was a sob – a heartbreaking sob.

Ryan quickly moved to give Brendon a hug, and Brendon leaned his head into Ryan's shoulder as he went on.

“As soon as I could, I started hurting him,” Brendon said, his voice only just above a whisper and entwined with gasps. “And after I knew I could stop – that I would be okay – I just couldn't. It didn't go away. I didn't mean to, I honestly didn't. I didn't want to.” Brendon hiccuped and his chest heaved.

“Brendon,” Ryan mumbled. “It's okay, Brendon. I understand.”

Brendon shook his head. “I don't know if you can. But... I'm not a good person. I could do that – I did that. He didn't get up, Ryan.”

Ryan could feel tears crawling down his own nose, and he wasn't quite sure when he had started crying as well. “He didn't deserve to.”

“Gabe needs to keep everyone safe,” Brendon went on after a few moments. “And someone was killed. It didn't matter what had been done – there was no way to prove it. They had one dead man, and they had me. Gabe needed to look after them. Gabe needed to make sure they felt safe in their home.”

Ryan leaned back to look at Brendon, who was gazing at the mattress beneath both of them. “Gabe is after you?”

Brendon nodded. “Him. And some others, to help him. I guess they have to.”

“That's insane.”

“No, it's not. It makes sense. But I don't want to die, Ryan.”

“You're not going to die,” Ryan said, firmly. “I won't let them get you.”

“They've been lurking around the city,” Brendon said. “They saw me while I was coming home from work. I'd changed, so they didn't know where – thank God. I wasn't going to change, but I decided I should. They got me, and... I don't even know how, but I managed to get away. I didn't want to lead them here, so it took me a while to get home. I'm sorry for making you worry.”

“It's okay – don't worry. I, uh, I get why you didn't want to tell me,” Ryan said, sheepishly. “Sorry for getting angry at you.”

“It's understandable. Now... I'm kind of tired. I think I'm gonna go to bed.” Brendon opened his mouth in a large yawn on cue, which he smothered away with his hand. “Good night, Ry.”

Ryan smiled and climbed to his feet. “Sleep tight,” he said as he left the room.