FicWad

The boy walked down the street with his hands in the pockets of his gray hoodie. His head was covered by the hood and earbuds were stuck in his ears. He glared at the ground as if accusing it of his pain.
The lampposts didn’t do much to illuminate the streets and the boy knew that there were dangers to walking outside alone at night. But he didn’t really care very much at the moment. All he cared about was getting away.
Away from his house, away from his family, away from the yelling and the breaking of things. Why did he have to be cursed with this life? He looked up at the sky with his dark chocolate eyes, looking for the God that he was told existed.
After a few moments he gave up and stared at the ground again, still walking to the quiet place that he’d seen but never been to. Tonight it was exactly what he needed. He was lucky that he lived close to the park; otherwise it would take much longer for him to get there and escape.
Upon arrival, he looked up in relief, relief that he was far enough away from his house. But the relief turned to surprise when he saw a thin boy sitting on the swings, pushing himself back and forth slightly and looking down. Brendon had never seen this boy before, and he wondered what he was doing out this late. Maybe he’s doing the same thing you are.
He was struck secondly by how beautiful the boy was. Though he couldn’t see his face, Brendon could tell, it was just a feeling he had. He kept himself from snuffing out the feelings like his parents would have liked; the fact that he had these feelings was one of the reasons for the yelling. Instead he continued to admire the boy from his place on the sidewalk. He wondered what it was that had caused his pain.
****
The park was the only comfort he had. He had no mother to comfort him, and his father didn’t care about him, he choked back tears of anger.
He was past the point of being saddened by his father’s apathy and abuse. Now all he had was anger, anger that burned in his chest, the kind that made him want to hit his father back. Of course he never would, it was just a nice idea and feeling to harbor.
One of the things that he loved most about the park was the fact that he was all alone and it was quiet. He could practice singing without his father hearing and getting mad, he could yell out his anger, he could do anything he wanted when he was here at the park at night. It was his safe haven, his refuge. He smiled a little to himself, he was lucky to have this place to escape to; he could escape whenever he needed to since he didn’t live far away.
The boy looked down at his arm and pushed the sleeve of his sweatshirt back to reveal the bruise in the shape of fingers. He put his hand to his right cheek where another tender spot rested. Why did his life have to be filled with this torture? Why did it have to be him and his life?
He closed his eyes. Sometimes he missed his mother, if only because she would have prevented his father from hitting him. He couldn’t miss her for any other reason since she’d died before he could remember anything about her. All he knew about her was from what he had seen in pictures and a few notes he’d found.
A tear ran down his cheek and fell to the ground between his feet. Ryan was broken and he desperately needed someone to come put him together.
****
Brendon stayed and watched the boy for about an hour. The boy never looked up and he didn’t move at all except for the constant back and forth movement of the swing. But Brendon couldn’t be made to care, he just watched. In the light of the streetlight he looked down at his arms and thought of the thin white marks that lay on his upper arms.
He’d put them there, just to make sure that he could feel something besides fear. The fights were the cause of it, the fear and the white marks. He wasn’t sure why he was scared of the yelling, he just knew that it struck something in him that made him want to disappear when he heard it.
Sometimes he wondered how his parents didn’t notice the changes in him. They never noticed that he rarely talked and that he was usually listening to no one but the voices in his earbuds. Funny, he used to be much more extroverted. It just showed how much they didn’t notice him.
He looked back up at the boy on the swings and was sad to see that he’d left. The boy almost felt as if a part of him left. He sighed and looked at the time on his iPod. It was time for him to go home. The yelling would be over, everyone would be asleep and he could sneak into the house undetected.
On the way home, he didn’t have his iPod playing; rather, he wanted to walk in silence. The silence was something to savor he was beginning to learn. He looked up and saw the thin boy several feet ahead of him. He was out of earshot so he couldn’t hear Brendon’s footsteps behind him. Briefly, he wondered what it would be like to talk to the boy. He decided against thinking about it, he probably wouldn’t see this boy again, why torture himself wondering about things like that?
*****
He let himself in the door as quietly as possible and turned to the steps, he didn’t think that his father was awake but when he was drunk he woke at the slightest sound. The boy had to be extremely quiet if he wanted to avoid a confrontation.
The staircase was right there, all he had to do was try to avoid the places where they creaked and he would be safe until morning.
Ryan walked carefully over to the stairs and began to climb them to his room on the top floor. It was an innocent mistake when he stepped on a bottle and fell backwards down the stairs, crashing to the first floor with enough noise to wake the dead. Fearfully he tried to get up as he heard his father rise from the other room with an angry growl, but he found that he was in too much pain to lift himself off of the hard floor.
He squeezed his eyes shut tightly as he felt the hand grab his shoulder and pull him up. His father slammed his back into the wall and held him there, breathing heavily on Ryan’s face.
“Open your eyes boy,” he snarled.
Acting against everything that told him to disobey, he opened his eyes to see his father’s red face inches from his own. He held back a whimper as his father drew his hand back to hit him.
*****
It was dark again; he was going back to the park. The boy hoped that the other boy would return. Though he didn’t know him he didn’t think that he’d be able to bear it if he never saw him again.
He snuck out of the house while his parents were at the peak of their fight and started to walk down the street.
As he walked onto the grounds he scanned the space to try to catch a glimpse of the thin, brown-haired boy that had stolen his attention the last night.
His search became more frantic when he couldn’t find the boy. He panned his gaze across the whole park but could find the boy nowhere. Brendon blinked back tears, the boy could show up later, perhaps he liked to come when more people were dormant for the night.
The chocolate eyed boy went to sit on a bench and wait. He didn’t quite know what inspired him to want to see this boy again. Was it just his beauty? Or was it something more?
It had to be something more he concluded. He felt an indescribable pull whenever he thought about him, which had been often that day. Surely he had to come back. Until then he would revel in the silence, knowing that it would only last as long as he was here.
Just as Brendon had predicted, the boy walked in to the park a while after he had. Immediately the boy went to go sit on the swings again. He smiled when he saw him.
****
He was sore on every inch of his body. His father had hit him harder than usual; he’d also kicked him when Ryan had finally slid to the floor because of the intense pain. When it was over and his father had left him curled up on the floor he had been surprised to learn that it had lasted only three minutes. Pain made time drag on to the ends of the earth.
Lying on the floor, he’d come to realize that his life with his father was never going to get any better. He’d also realized that he wanted someone to share his pain with. He wrapped his arms around himself and rested his head against the chain of the swing; it wasn’t possible for him to find anyone in his state. He couldn’t bear to talk to anyone, he honestly couldn’t recall the last time he’d uttered a word to another living human besides himself.
Wallowing in his misery he hummed a tune that matched his feelings. He was so lonely that it tore his heart in two. Giving into the pain he allowed his tears to fall freely from his eyes. Soon his body was shaking with such an intensity he was forced to sit on the ground to prevent him from falling.
He pulled his knees to his chest, wrapped his long skinny arms around them, and buried his face in them. If someone happened to walk by he didn’t want them to overhear his misery.
****
The boy began to cry and Brendon’s heart began to break. What happened to this boy that he had come to care so much about? What caused him to hurt like that?
Something inside of him wanted to reach out to the boy, to sit beside him and wrap his arms around him. To tell him that he was there with him and would be for as long as he was needed. Instead he perched on the edge of the bench and watched the boy cry.
He felt like he should do something, but he didn’t know what would be acceptable. His disorder made sure that situations like this were as difficult as they could possibly be. All he could do was watch the boy’s heart spill out and dry up twenty minutes after he began.
He watched the boy as he rose and began to walk on one of the paths that wound around the park. He stayed seated on the bench and watched until the boy was out of sight. Following didn’t seem like the correct thing to do after what he’d just witnessed so he remained sitting for a few minutes before reluctantly rising and returning home.
*****
Walking in the park was one of his few consolations. There were many beautiful places to see on the path. Places that most people never saw because they didn’t take the time to walk in silence and admire them. They were too busy with their lives to pay attention to things as small as the beauty of the path. Luckily for him he had plenty of time and reason to walk and enjoy looking at the only beautiful thing in his life.
He wiped the corners of his eyes and examined his fingers. They were black, from the makeup he put on to surround his hazel eyes. His practice of this was one of the reasons his father beat him. His father said that he was a queer that deserved the punishment he was given; then he would hit him again. The only response Ryan ever gave was a cry at the impact of his father’s fist to his ribs or face.
There was a light coming from above and he looked up to see the nearly full moon uncovered by clouds. He enjoyed looking at the moon, it made his life brighter, and its beauty was something to admire too. After a few minutes of staring, he looked down and went back home against his will. There was nothing he wished more than to be able to leave. But he had nowhere else to go.
This time his father was waiting for him when he walked in the door. Terror struck him when the man reached out and grabbed him by his shirtfront, then another hard beating commenced that lasted only five minutes.
Again he was left trembling on the floor. He remembered how the moon had looked when he’d been at the park. Maybe he would join it someday soon if the beatings continued at this intensity. At this thought he began to sob again, he didn’t believe he could take this anymore.
*****
His parents were waiting for him in the ‘family’ room when he came home. They told him to sit down and they started to yell. He didn’t respond, he never did, he didn’t talk to anyone. He sang to himself when he was alone and occasionally he talked aloud to himself to be sure that his voice still worked. Otherwise, no one had heard his voice since the fighting began.
After several questions, they dismissed him in disgust. He left the room happily and went into his room, closing the door firmly behind him. Tears threatened to fall but he willed them to wait for a few seconds, he had something to do first.
In one of his drawers there was a thin knife that he’d taken when the fighting began. He made haste to find it and roll up his shirt sleeve. When he had completed his task and several red marks shone on his pale arms he let the tears fall. As he cleaned the knife and made sure the bleeding had stopped he cried.
He was crying for himself and for the boy in the park.
*****
The next night Ryan went to the park, intent to walk and soak in as much beauty as he could. It was all he could do to keep himself from thinking about the inevitable thing that was going to occur later.
*****
Brendon came into the park and saw the other boy begin to disappear into the trees that the path led through. Tonight he was going to follow him. He desperately needed to see him closer. Since the night two days ago, the boy at the park had become the second positive constant in his life. The other was music. He loved music more than his life. He wondered if the other boy loved music as much as he did.
He began to walk on the path, behind the boy. After a few minutes he faintly heard something that sounded like singing. Surprised, he inched closer to the boy to hear what he was singing.
“Can’t take the kid from the fight; take the fight from the kid. Sit back relax, sit back relapse again. Can’t take the kid from the fight take the fight from the kid just sit back just sit back. Sit back sit back relax relapse, sit back sit back up up and off. You can take the kid out of the fight.”
The boy sang it with such emotion that he knew the boy had written it himself. He wondered at what he meant by ‘fight’. Could he possibly be in the same situation?
His attention returned to the boy when he stopped in a clearing and stepped off the path. He concealed himself behind a tree and watched to see what the boy was going to do.
The boy reached behind his back and pulled a handgun out of his waistband. Brendon could feel his eyes widen and his breathing stop as he watched the boy cock the gun and level it at his head; the boy’s fingers began moving toward the safety.
“No!” he cried in a short burst, he ran forward impulsively and brought the boy to the ground, the gun flew out of his hand. He adjusted his weight for the boy to sit up. The boy looked at him with glowing light brown eyes, confusion apparent. “Don’t kill yourself,” he paused, “I care about you, seeing you here is the only positive event of my day. I need you. For my sake if nothing else, do not end your life,” Brendon said in a calm, level voice. Then he shifted onto his knees, put his hands on both sides of the boy’s head, closed his eyes, and kissed him gently on the forehead.
After three seconds had passed he reopened his eyes and rose. “I must go now though. My parents…” he left the sentence unfinished and began to walk away. “My name is Brendon by the way. Brendon Urie.”
He left the park and began to walk home, he knew now that it didn’t matter how loud his parents fighting became; nothing would ruin his mood for he’d saved the life of the boy at the park.
*****
Ryan was stunned. That boy, Brendon, cared about him? He was glad that Brendon had stopped him from applying the needed pressure to the trigger; it would have kept him from this new happiness that surged through his chest. He smiled, genuinely smiled for the first time in years. He mattered to somebody. There was someone who would be affected if he weren’t alive.
He thought about Brendon again. He thought of the feeling of his arms as he pushed him to the ground, his body on top of his own. His eyes were such a beautiful, dark brown, a contrast to his own light brown eyes. Brendon was extraordinary, perfect in every way.
And he’d kissed him, when he’d done that Ryan had almost stopped breathing; the kiss’s duration was longer than that of a reassuring kiss to convince him to hold on. It had been more intimate than that.
He stood. He could still feel the memory of Brendon’s arms around him and the feeling of his lips on his forehead. He had said something about his parents being the reason for him having to leave. Could he be faced with the same problem?
As he walked towards his home, he couldn’t bring himself to stop thinking about the other boy. Would he be at the park the next night? Already his mind was racing to think of lyrics and a melody to describe these feelings.
Music was his life, his passion for it surpassed anything else, and it had been the one thing that kept him from giving in earlier, but now he had Brendon as well. He wondered if Brendon loved music the way he did, and if he sang. He enjoyed playing the music more than singing, but he wanted only the best voice to breathe life into his lyrics.
When he opened the door, his father was nowhere to be found. He snuck to the stairs and ascended as quietly as he could, this time he made it into his room without alerting his father that he was home. Because he was unable to do it tonight, his father would beat him in the morning, but Ryan didn’t care, as long as he could sleep happily tonight, the events of the last hour playing through his mind.
*****
At home in his room he recalled what he’d done. He marveled at the fact that he’d talked to the boy. The boy was the first person he’d talked to in a full year and six months. He was the only one who deserved to hear his voice; he decided.
He wondered why the boy had come to the decision to take his life. What could happen at his house that could be so terrible? Then he wondered if the boy had completed what he’d set out to do when he had left. He sincerely hoped against it.
The only reason he could be sure was to go to the park the next night. He was unable to sneak out yet tonight; his parents were still awake and would prevent him from leaving. So he lay in bed thinking about the boy, his light brown hair, hazel eyes, thin frame, and smooth skin. He was even more beautiful than Brendon had originally thought. He allowed his heart to float, doing nothing about his feelings for another boy like his parents encouraged, and he fell asleep happily.
*****
Ryan slept peacefully and happily for the first time in fourteen years.
*****
The next night it was warmer and Brendon didn’t wear a hoodie, instead he wore a fitted white short sleeved shirt that his parents disapproved of. They had begun to lecture him when he angrily walked out, cutting them short. When he walked into the park, he didn’t see the other boy, rather than panic he went to sit on a bench. The boy would come, he just knew it.
Tears jumped to his eyes, how did his parents not notice what they were doing to him? How miserable he was? It was as though they were unable to see him until he did something they disapproved of. The tears began to run down his cheeks, he made no noise; he just let the tears fall. They dried in a minute or two and he wiped his hand over his eyes.
*****
Ryan approached the park, he was limping slightly and his elbow hurt. He was sure that Brendon would be there though. He walked into the park and scanned the grounds. His eyes alit on a bench where a boy with dark hair sat; he cautiously walked over and sat down on the far side of the bench.
Brendon raised his eyes and looked at him. He returned the gaze, nervously meeting the chocolate colored eyes. They were warm, so different from what he was used to. He wasn’t afraid to meet his eyes; they weren’t judging him or looking at him with the hatred he had grown accustomed to with his father.
His gaze wandered down to the boy’s arms; his breath caught when he saw the thin white scars. Brendon looked down to see why he was staring and a look of pain flashed across his face.
“Did your parents do that to you?” Ryan asked without thinking. He realized with surprise that he’d just spoken to another person.
He shook his head; then he paused. “Yes, they caused me to do it.”
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, looking down, he shouldn’t have mentioned it.
Brendon moved closer and leaned forward to peer into his face; he put his hand on his cheek and turned his face toward him, “Don’t be sorry.” There was a long pause and his hand still rested on his cheek; he leaned toward Ryan.
Their lips met and Ryan breathed in sharply. Instinctively he put his hand on the side of Brendon’s face and leaned forward. Brendon broke contact by a millimeter and kissed him again. Then they broke away.
*****
The boy was looking at him incredulously. He was surprised as well, he had not expected to do that, but the time had seemed right and the boy had needed comforting.
“You still don’t know my name,” the boy said, a little breathless, eyes shining.
Brendon looked at him, waiting for him to reveal this piece of information.
“I’m Ryan Ross.”
He smiled. “Well Ryan Ross,” he said standing and holding his hand out to him, “would you like to walk with me?” The boy took his hand, smiled, and stood; they began to walk hand in hand toward the path.
They walked in silence until they arrived at the clearing where they’d first interacted. Beside him, Ryan looked up at the sky and smiled, he looked up as well. The sky was clear and stars could clearly be seen speckling the sky, the most beautiful part however was the full moon that shone down into the clearing and over them.
The other boy walked onto the grass and lay down on his back, gazing at the sky. He glanced over and motioned for Brendon to join him.
He did. Ryan began to hum as he stared upward. After he had heard the full melody, Brendon started to hum a harmony.
Ryan looked at him in surprise that turned to happiness. “Do you like music?”
He nodded. “It’s my life,” he admitted. He thought back to the previous night and the song the boy had been singing. “Do you write music and sing?”
The boy blushed a little. “Yes. I like to play the music more. Do you sing or play instruments?”
“I play instruments and I sing a little,” he answered, focusing on the sky.
“Did you know that I haven’t talked to another person for almost two years? You’re the first person I’ve talked to in all of that time,” Ryan said, turning his head to look at him.
“Honestly? I don’t talk to anyone else either; you changed that last night, though.”
“Why did you have to leave last night?”
“My parents would have yelled at me if I hadn’t gone home. That’s the only time they pay attention to me and stop fighting with each other, when I do something wrong.”
“And you said they were the reason for your scars?” he asked. As soon as the words left Ryan’s mouth he went white and his eyes opened wide. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to ask that.”
“It’s alright, if you want to know something, you only have to ask, I won’t be offended. Yes they are the reason for my scars. They started to fight almost three years ago when all of my older siblings moved out. At the beginning it didn’t happen very often and it was mostly arguments, and they didn’t last very long. But after a while they began to argue more often and their voices would raise more than once. In time their yelling happened more often and they seemed to forget I was there when they did it. I was only twelve so and I was scared when I heard them fight and break things. The scissors accidentally slipped out of my hands one night and I cut my finger, I realized that I could feel the pain and that it drowned out the fear for a little while. I snuck a knife up to my room and began to do it only whenever the yelling got really loud and I was too scared to move. It’s gotten so bad that whenever they fight and ignore me I cut myself. Just to make sure that I’m still here,” he answered. He pushed his sleeves up to his shoulders so Ryan could see the full extent of the damage.
Ryan’s eyes widened and he reached out to touch one of his arms. He suppressed the urge to pull away, telling himself that Ryan would be gentle. The other boy ran the tips of his fingers along the scars, tracing them. Brendon closed his eyes, feeling the chills that ran along his back. He pulled away after a few minutes and Brendon pushed his sleeves back down.
“Why didn’t you talk?”
“It didn’t do any good. My father still hit me.”
“He hits you?”
Ryan nodded and pulled his shirt off. Brendon gasped at the sight of the black and purple marks that covered the boy’s body. They marked his ribcage, his upper arms, his shoulder blades, and along his spine. Dozens of the marks rested on his torso. And there was one long scar across the top of one of his shoulder blades.
“He began to do it when I was three. My mother died when I was a little over a year old and my father began to drink, I stayed with my mother’s parents until he told them he’d been to rehab. He’d never gone and when my grandparents died and he had me back he started to beat me. At the beginning I would cry out and beg for him to stop, but after a while I just cried when he did it and I would still talk to him during the day. Usually that made him angry and he would beat me for it. And when he discovered that I was attracted to boys he got a knife and said he would straighten me out. I ran and was almost in my room when he lashed out and caught me on the shoulder. It didn’t bleed very much, I was able to stop most of it with one of my blankets and it healed in a week or two. Two years ago I decided that I would do whatever I could to try and make him forget that I existed. It works well as long as I don’t make noise when I come home like I did the other night.”
Without any thought Brendon reached out and put his fingers on one of the largest bruises on his ribcage. Ryan winced but when Brendon moved his hand back, he caught it and replaced it on his side. “You let me,” he whispered.
Brendon gently touched the bruises on Ryan’s spine and shoulders and ran his fingers along Ryan’s scar. Then he sat back and Ryan put his shirt back on, he was looking at the ground. He moved closer and put his arms around him gently. “I’m here with you,” he whispered in Ryan’s ear, just like he’d wanted to the night he saw him crying.
*****
Ryan relished the feeling of Brendon’s arms around him. Brendon was amazing; he had made himself vulnerable to Ryan, but allowed him to touch his scars, some of which were fresh. And when he had been vulnerable to the other boy, he hadn’t taken advantage of him and had touched his bruises so gently that he knew he was safe with him.
That was what made Ryan turn his head and put his lips to Brendon’s. Longing for the closeness, he slid his tongue along the other boy’s bottom lip. Brendon opened his mouth obediently and let Ryan move his tongue around his mouth, causing Brendon to moan. Ryan withdrew and they kissed gently with only their lips.
Ryan turned in Brendon’s arms and placed his hands on the sides of Brendon’s face, continuing to kiss him. They broke apart after a minute or two and stared at each other. “I know,” Ryan whispered back, kissing him once, then sliding backwards to lie on his back again.
“I don’t want to go home. I want to stay here with you,” he said, gazing at Brendon as he lay down beside him.
“We could couldn’t we? I’m not eager to go home now either. It’s warm enough, we could sleep here. And no one could find us.”
“But my father…”
“He can’t do anything to you if you aren’t there. And tomorrow we don’t have to go home either.”
“I have to go home eventually. And whenever I do, my father will beat me.”
“No. You can stay over at my house; I’ll tell my parents that we’re only friends and that you’re straight. It’s the only way they’d allow you to stay.”
“After that I’ll need to go home, then I’ll be left to my father.”
“No you won’t. I’m not going to let anything happen to you again. We’ll decide what to do at my house tomorrow night. Until then, let’s just be happy for tonight.”
Ryan smiled. “Okay,” he moved closer and twined his fingers with Brendon’s. He moved closer to his side and they lay together until they both fell asleep, still in each other’s arms.