FicWad

A bitter wind twirled through the dark streets, sending trampled newspapers and trash whipping across the pavement to choke the gutters. They crumpled and were crushed under the heels of a boy, not quite yet a man, making his way to the well lit streets to catch a taxi to the apartment which he called home. He pulled his dark coat closer about himself, crossing his arms for warmth and quickening his pace. Chicago was cruel in the wintertime. And that was precisely when he heard it. A scuffling down an alleyway near him, a loud gasp, followed by a low plea. The youth was no fool, and he wanted nothing more than to return to the warmth of his home, away from the bitterness and the dark, but all the same he was compelled to stop, to glance into that cement and brick-walled unknown. And what he saw there made his heart stop.

There, pinned against the dank wall by a cruel figure, was a man. A man like none the youth, like none Brendon, had ever seen. He was tall and slim, dressed all in black, so that in contrast to the lightness of his skin and the dark from the alleyway it appeared he was being swallowed whole. His eyes glittered softly, defiantly, from under long lashes as he stared up at his captor unwaveringly. The other man’s hand slid from his hair to his throat, fingers tightening threateningly, a warning, before continuing their path downward. Brendon had seen enough.

He wasn’t fool enough to think that he could defend the strange man from the sheer enormity of the other, and so he did the only thing he could think to do. Brendon pulled a flashlight from the bag he carried at his shoulder, not liking to use it for reasons he didn’t give too much thought to, and shined it brightly down into the alleyway. The darkness would hide his appearance quite nicely.

“You there!” he shouted, “You are under arrest for criminal misconduct! Face the wall and put your hands behind your head!” He advanced upon the pair slowly, although he need not have for the larger man fled the scene with a jumble of curses, jumping over trash cans and a fence near the end of the alleyway before tearing out of sight around the corner. The slim man hadn’t moved a muscle, appearing as though he had been deciding to stay or to flee and once he decided on the former there was no reason to cross the alley to where Brendon stood. Brendon ignored this and dropped the arm with the flashlight as he reached the man, offering him a hand to help him stand. He was shocked when he received nothing but a furious glare.

“What the hell--” the man growled through clenched teeth, “what did you think you were doing.” Each word was cold and held none of the gratitude Brendon had expected.

“What was I doing! I was saving you from being raped that’s what I was doing!” Brendon exclaimed, shocked by the reprimand.

“Raped!” the man stared, and a smile began to grow on his face, one that Brendon didn’t like. “Raped, he says!” he began to laugh, a thin high sound that chilled Brendon from the inside out. When the laughter died down, he fixed Brendon with a glare that could have been amused or could have been hateful. “You saved me from nothing but perhaps a night in which I had a real meal to eat, or some place to stay. You… you.” this time there was no question of what that look in his eyes meant, and it certainly wasn’t humor. “You chased away a potential customer, that’s what you did. And now, now I won’t have anything to show for it you fool.”

So that’s what it was. The man was a prostitute, a whore. And he was going to… he was going to let that other man… Brendon shook his head furiously, not wanting to accept the response. Not wanting to believe this creature was what he claimed to be. Nothing so beautiful should have to be so dirty, so wretched.

“Stay with me.” The words were out before he could think of them, consider the repercussions. The man seated at his feet stared. “It would be all right… I could help you get a job at my office, and you could help pay the rent, and--”

Silenced. “I don’t need your charity, and I certainly don’t need you. I may be bought and sold but I am no man’s lapdog. I belong to no one.” he hissed those last words like a curse, rising to his feet like a cat and circling around Brendon, never facing away from him, until his back was to the entrance of the alley.

Brendon felt his words like a slap, but in spite of the rejection, he felt… intrigued. Maybe that was what compelled him to reach into his pocket and pull out a business card with his name and phone number carefully printed in the center. He nodded slowly and held it out to the boy. “Of course not. But… if you change your mind about a place to stay… contact me.”

That strange boy… he really was like some sort of alley cat. He bristled at Brendon’s words and stood locked with him in a strange sort of staring contest for the longest time before snatching the card, stuffing it into his pocket, and disappearing with an alarming quickness. Brendon was left once again with nothing but the cold and a strange emptiness which had unpacked it’s baggage in the empty space where the strange boy had stood moments before. With nothing left to do with the nighttime, he put away the flashlight and continued his trek to the streetlights and the traffic signs and flagged down a cab. Brendon returned to his home, not knowing if he would ever see that painfully beautiful face again. But for reasons he couldn’t understand, he hoped.