The Redemption of Peter Wentz

"Bren..."

"Bren..."

His eyelids were being held open, though they never registered. Someone was shining a light into his eyes and poking their fingers around in his mouth.

"Brendon...man, wake the fuck up."

Slowly but surely, the more they coaxed him, the more he came to, and pupils came back into focus. Brendon groaned, head lolling around to regain his bearings. The muscles were loose as if they weren't even there and joints burned like bone on bone. He heard his name again, and once his sight registered again, he could make out the dull shape of Trohman's nose. A smile followed at Brendon's recognition, the fact that he hadn't immediately lunged at him.

Joe smoothed the bangs up and away from Brendon's forehead, and he returned it with a smirk.
"Hey, Jew."

"Welcome back, freak."

The reconciliation was slow and paced. Joe was crouched between Brendon's knees, fingers on the needle in his forearm. Brendon groaned and looked about. It was early afternoon, judging by the hue of light glowing around the black shade over the window. Walls were bare in the room to his dislike, and he was in a corner, farthest from the door, on a metal fold-out chair.

"How do you feel?"

Brendon made eye contact again, and he could tell from the worn gaze on Joe's face that he'd aged. "Shitty, but not the worst I've ever been."

"That's good. That's good... Well, you regained some muscle mass and you've been on packets all day. We've made sure you won't have to go out tonight. Feel full?" Joe asked, looking him over for any remaining maladies.

"Not set to rip you apart if that's what you mean." Brendon stared at Joe's fingers, easing the needle from his arm and pressing a cotton ball to it as the puncture rapidly healed. He examined himself, at the bits of cotton shirt all over the floor, and the tears in his pants. "God, what happened to me? Was I mauled by a bear?"

Joe looked back to Brendon's face, deadpanned and indecipherable.
"Bren, what is the last thing you remember?"

His brow creased at the question. Try as he might, Brendon couldn't get past the dense mental block, as if everything was a black, dreamless sleep.
"I don't. I don't even remember putting these shoes on."

Joe sighed and gave a shake of his head, barely noticeable to those that weren't paying any attention. This was the part where he truly felt pity for Brendon. He really didn't know how to deal with him for the past three years, but all of the nostalgia came crashing in on him now. Joe knew he wasn't pretending. He even called him Jew, when in front of anyone else Brendon would have a zero tolerance policy for that kind of shit. He was back and looking as naive as a Disney movie.

Brendon inspected this nearly microscopic film of dirtbloodgrime on his fingernails as Joe thought to himself.
"Okay, well, you smell like death, so get cleaned up in the shower across--"

"I know where the shower is Joe, I'm not stupid." Brendon tried not to sound so biting, but he couldn't fight that malevolent impulse, like it was embedded into his voice now.

Joe paused vigilantly. "Alright...here are your clothes, ones you might feel more comfortable in. They've been sitting in a box for a while, but I washed them this morning for you."

Brendon still didn't understand the whole picture, especially the part when Joe handed him a cardboard box labeled: BRENDON'S. KEEP! in blatant, demanding, black handwriting.

He was shooed into the bathroom without a word, leaving him to the warm water and his thoughts. He couldn't recall the last good shower he'd had, and he was sure this topped the bill. Brendon stood under the stream of water for what seemed like only moments, hand braced against the tiled wall, letting the lukewarm water pool and run through his hair as it massaged his back and scalp. All of the grime he felt earlier washed away, particularly the coppery odor that had been in his hair with bits of gravel and dirt. Brendon turned up the temperature to the scalding maximum. He sighed inwardly to himself and stood full in the stream, getting a good mouthful of water and spitting it back out. Yeah, this one definitely beat all the others in the long run. He heard a beating at the door, no doubt to ensure his well-being.

With a towel around his slender waist, he shook his hair dry with a rag and pulled on the fresh pair of pants. This was when he looked, really looked, at himself for the first time since he was turned. It wasn't full of delight as it was before, or fascination, just examining himself. His eyes wandered over his arms at how taut and pale they were and with just a twitch he could knock through a wall, his squared shoulders, and his neck, the scar of that first, brutal bite a darker shade of pale than the rest of his body. Brendon lifted his upper lip to see his teeth, not as long as they were before, but still the prominent definition of what he was. It wasn't that he hated them (he accepted it early on, and actually found it quite cool to be a nocturnal predator), but that he now couldn't imagine himself without them. As with this, in the back of his mind, he wondered what it was like to bask in sunlight, like a distant thought. The grey, long- sleeved shirt he pulled on went just past his wrists and hugged his chest, as did the rest of his clothes. He sighed to himself, opening the door and shuffling down the hall barefoot. He didn't bother to be stealthy. He felt at home making as much noise as possible.

Now that he thought about it, that was the only thing that made him feel at home here in the warehouse. It was as if he had become estranged to everything, like it wasn't his anymore. Not like he ever left, right?

He chose a seat at the kitchen table when he arrived. Brendon was alone, self-conscious, and he folded his hands in his lap and looked about.

That lamp wasn't there before.
When did they guys get a new microwave?
Awesome, a TiVo in here now.

"Brendon!"

The voice was growing louder, nearing the hall and thundering down the stairs. Brendon shifted and greeted Joe when he appeared, running his finger along the wall until he sat atop the table in front of Brendon. "Hope your shower was divine."

"It was." Brendon twiddled his thumbs around the hem of his shirt, trying not to be a burden to anyone in particular, not that he was anyway.

Joe tried to make eye contact by putting himself into Brendon's wandering line of vision. He didn't like the job of debriefing. If it was any worse than he thought it was, his heart would break out of pity for the poor kid. "You're quiet."

"Should I not be?" Brendon asked, unsure of how he should fix it.

Joe laughed a bit. "No, no. You would just be a chatterbox most nights, like we couldn't get you to shut your mouth." He looked under the table at Brendon's feet. "At least you still go barefoot. You'd usually just go out in flip-flops or these little black sneakers, but around here, you'd be barefoot no matter what. At least William hasn't changed that about you."

Brendon's brow furrowed. He didn't like to be analyzed like that, to have someone know everything about him.
"Beckett hasn't done anything-- Hey, where is Pete? Did I miss him or something?"

Joe sighed and looked at his hands. He didn't want to tell him this way. He wished he could tell Brendon everything that has happened gradually instead of one big smorgasbord of tragedy.

"You're not going to like this, but do you know where you've been the past three years?"