Le Monde Dans Vos Yeux // The World In Your Eyes

Chapter 3

Brendon woke up to light streaming onto his face. But Jon was nowhere in sight. He sat up, and scratched the back of his neck, straining to see straight in morning-blurred vision. There were scribbled marks on the notepad beside his bed.

B,
Good morning! I went out to get some coffee.
Enjoy your afternoon free in the city!
Love,
J

He stared at the note until it made sense, and looked at the clock. 11:23 am. His eyes flickered from the note to the clock again, disbelief flashing over his face, followed by annoyance, then exasperation.

"Dammit, Jon!" He hissed to no one in particular.

May as well get some breakfast, he figured as he got dressed and mulled over the many ways he could kill Jon and make it look like an accident. The afternoon sun hadn't quite gotten the chance to warm the streets yet; Brendon clutched his jacket tighter around his chest.

He entered the first café he spotted, the sign out front reading Le Café de Petite Fleur. Just as expected of a Paris café, it was fairly busy, but the lunch crowd hadn't kicked up yet. Brendon sat at an open table, and picked up the menu... which was, of course, in French.

"Bonjour, monsieur. Comment peux je servez-vous?" Brendon's head swiveled from the menu, up to meet the voice he heard from his side. He was a tall, lanky man, looking to be about his age, maybe older. With honey brown hair and similar colored eyes, staring back at him with a raised eyebrow. There was a black apron around his hips, but other than that, he was normally dressed, in black slacks and a button-up shirt.

Brendon stuttered, and tried to remember what the man had just said. "Um..."

The man sighed, not annoyed, and not amused, but somewhere on the border between the two. He repeated his sentence slower, this time Brendon understood enough to gather what he meant. He scrambled back down to the menu to find the pancakes.

"Um... Puis-je avoir..." Brendon turned the menu towards the man and pointed at the buttermilk pancakes. "Pancakes?" Please don't let the waiter think badly of him for his poor French. Yes, he was in France now, he should speak the language. But it wasn't like he knew German or Italian either.

Waiter-guy laughed and shook his brown hair softly. "Je serai bientôt de retour," he said, before retreating to the back of the restaurant.

Brendon watched him leave, but didn't notice the slight swing of his hips or the quick glance over his shoulder. Instead, he mentally smacked himself for his utter lack of foreign language skills.

The camera hung from his neck with the cap held snuggly over the lens. He'd taken a picture of the café from the outside, and looking around, he figured he should take one inside as well. He adjusted the shutter speed to accommodate the sun shining through the window onto the floor, reflecting back up to the faces of the guests. Aim, focus, click.

He turned back towards his own table, looking at the screen on the camera critically, before he noticed someone walking up to his table and standing next to the empty chair.

"Salut. Can I join you?" The French accent was thick. Very thick. It was obviously a native.

Brendon looked up at the scruffy man in an apron. He must work here, he thought. "Uh, sure." He gestured to the open seat.

The stranger made quite a show of sitting, and scooting up to the table before extending his hand. "Spencer."

"Oh, um. I'm Brendon." He shook Spencer's hand.

"It's my break. I hope you don't mind, I just wanted to introduce myself. Ryan and I have been talking about you, and I figured I'd come and meet you since—"

His voice stopped the second the waiter's hand touched his shoulder, eyes widened and body frozen.

"Spencer?" The waiter growled.

Spencer smirked and rested his head on his palm. "Huh?"

"Que fais-tu?"

"Just talking to my good friend... Brendon, was it? Yeah. My good friend Brendon while on my break." He turned his eyes to Brendon. It looked to be like he was having quite a lot of fun with his friend's anger. "Brendon, this is Ryan. Ryan, this is Brendon. Now you've met and—"

Ryan glared at him before setting a plate of pancakes onto the table in front of Brendon and mumbling, "Enchanté."

Brendon might have looked a little confused, so Spencer stepped in. "He said, 'nice to meet you.' You should take your break now, Ryan. Supervisor says so."

Ryan sighed, and went back behind the counter without a word. Spencer rolled his eyes and adjusted the silverware on the table. "He refused to come over here and talk to you himself, so I figured I'd introduce you two."

Brendon's eyes seemed to reflect confusion, awe, and nervousness all at once. He swallowed. "Why?"

He just smiled in response, seeing Ryan on his way back without his apron to pull up a chair. Brendon took a bite of his almost-forgotten pancakes, and didn't stare.

"So Brendon, where are you from?" Spencer asked.

"Las Vegas."

"Nevada?"

"Yep." Brendon nodded, and wondered if there is any other Las Vegas he doesn't know about. He felt Ryan's eyes on him, but willed himself not to let on that he noticed.

"Faire vous aimez la photographie?"

Spencer cut in. "Do you like photography?"

Ryan pointed to the camera around his neck, as if to affirm Spencer's translation.

"Oh." Instinctively, his fingers touched the camera. "Yeah. It's kind of my hobby, I guess. I take come classes at the University of Las Vegas, but it's just something I do in my spare time."

"What's your major?" Spencer asked.

"Music. Piano. They have a really great pianist's program."

"Génial." Ryan smiled, and Brendon thought it's comparable to the sunrise.

Brendon blinked, pushing the smile out of his mind. "Wait. You can understand English? Can you speak it?" He hoped he wasn't coming off rude, but why would Ryan speak only in French if he understood English just fine?

Spencer smirked at Ryan. "Il a droit, porquoi ne pas vous parler de lui en anglias?"

Ryan frowned. "Parce qu'il est la plus belle chose que j'ai jamais vu, et il n'ya a aucune manière il pense la même chose de moi, alors porquoi embêter?" he snapped at Spencer.

A knowing grin spread over Spencer's face, and Brendon really wanted to know what Ryan said. "What...?" He looked to Spencer for translation.

"He said he wants your babies."

Both Ryan's and Brendon's eyes grew three sizes in shock, but it was Ryan who spoke. "What?! I did not say that!"

"You do speak English!" Brendon accused, shock rising to his face again.

Spencer laughed. That's it, he just laughed, and Ryan put his head in his hands. "Yeah..."

"How come you didn't speak in English before?"

Ryan didn't answer, not to much surprise, just turned to Spencer and said, "I hate you."

Spencer wasn't fazed. "See, Brendon, we pretty much grew up together. When we were younger and just learning English, we decided that it would be our sort of... secret language, I suppose. Since not many of our family members..." He looked at Ryan briefly. "Or caretakers spoke it. We tend to argue in English, talk about important things, you know. Stuff like that."

"Ahh." Brendon pecked at his pancakes, feeling a little overwhelmed and outnumbered. "So, since you know about me now, you should tell me about yourselves." He looked at Ryan, but addressed them both.

Ryan cleared his throat. "Well, I was born in Germany, but my father and I moved here when I was very young. We... moved after my mother left. I met Spencer here soon after. He's... technically my supervisor. We're trying to get enough money for school."

"I've known him since he was still in diapers," Spencer adds.

"I moved here when I was six..."

"I know."

Brendon laughed, and wished he had a best friend like they had. But he found himself listening to the way Ryan's accent made him speak. His H's and R's were hardly audible. Brendon kind of maybe loved it.

"So, how long are you in Paris for?" Spencer asked, tilting his head.

"About a week? Our bus leaves on Monday."

Ryan nodded and scratched the back of his head. "Well... Do uh."

Spencer looks at him like he knew what he was going to say... and was evidently shocked by it.

"Need a tour guide? I could uh, show you around or something."

Brendon's eyes lit up. "Really? That'd be great. I mean, Jon was an ass and didn't wake me up so we missed the tour bus. I don't even know how he snuck out of the hotel room without me noticing. I mean, I'm a pretty light sleeper but... yeah. That'd be really great."

"Jon? He's uh. Your travel buddy, or something?" Ryan's face fell.

"He's my friend. I met him in one of my English classes at the UNLV."

"Ahh. Well, I'll give you my number, if you like? I'm free tomorrow. If you'd like to go sight seeing."

Brendon fished out his phone and handed it over, allowing Ryan to put in his number. That international plan was a good idea after all.

"Great well, uh. Call me? Tomorrow? I... better get back to work."

"Sure thing."

Ryan left with one last smile and an awkward wave.

He wasn't sure if it was the pancakes or Ryan making his stomach warm.

Chuckling, Spencer got up too. "You know, Ryan's never bold like that. I think he likes you. But here." He made a grabby motion at Brendon's cell phone, taking it and putting in his own number. "In case you ever need some translating. Ryan's cryptic like that."

"Thanks."

"De Rein.".

"Uh, what were you two actually saying?"

Spencer grinned and leaned back in the chair. "I asked him why he didn't speak to you in English. He said, 'Because he's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and there is no way he thinks the same of me, so why bother?'"

Brendon's face flushed a little, and Spencer grinned wider. Brendon liked Spencer's smile. It seems to know everything.