At 4am, Ryan wakes with a start.
It's not all that unusual for his sleep to be disturbed, especially recently. At first he never noticed when Brendon crept away in the early hours of the morning, slipping out of bed and leaving the house altogether. He hadn't noticed that Brendon would get back under the covers at 6am, and when they kissed and fucked, he dismissed the bruises foolishly. But then one time, he woke up to go to the bathroom, he woke to find himself alone in bed. He fell asleep after waiting up for two hours and when he woke up, Brendon was by his side and nothing seemed wrong.
Then he started noticing the bruises. Two huge ones on his ribs, evidently imprinted by a fist. The fingerprint marks on his hips, dark and ugly against his pale and smooth skin. Cuts, even; slashes across his lower back, as though caused by the leather of a whip. A split lip. A swollen finger. Increasingly, the injuries added up, but all Brendon would say when questioned was, "it was an accident," and Ryan felt too terrible to ask anything more. At first he was suspicious that Brendon was sneaking out to see Jon, but no. He realised, after Brendon came home more and more hurt, that it wasn't Jon at all. Brendon was coming home not just with injuries after all, but with drugs.
R.
That bastard. He's beating Brendon and fucking Brendon, and Brendon is willing, all for a few lousy highs. It fills Ryan with jealousy, anger and ... guilt. Why isn't he good enough for Brendon? Why isn't he fulfilling enough, that Brendon never needs another drug? It frustrates him, it upsets him. He'd do anything for Brendon, anything - but it's still not enough. He isn't Jon, either. He can't tell Brendon not to do the drugs because he has no idea what 'that life' is like. He's helpless. He's on the sides. He's so desperately in love with a tragedy, but he can't even save himself.
Except this morning, this morning ... it's so much different. He rubs his eyes and sits up, letting the covers slide from his chest, to see that Brendon is indeed out of the bed - but he's not out of the room, not out of the house. Instead, he's sitting by the window in only his boxers, pale form still. Ryan studies his back, taking in the curve of his spine, the way his boxers ride low on his hips.
"Hey," he whispers, and Brendon starts. He turns his head to look at Ryan and, to the boy's uneasiness, Brendon's face is glazed with tears and his eyes are rimmed with red. His lip is split and bruised, thanks to whatever yesterday's secret outing held. He doesn't reply, but instead gives Ryan a crooked smile and turns back to the window, evidently indifferent to being caught. Ryan watches him for a few moments, waiting for something else to happen, but nothing does. So, he has to take matters into his own hands.
He climbs out of bed, rubbing at his eyes, and grabs his dressing gown from where it's hanging on the door. Pulling it around himself, he glances at Brendon again. His boyfriend hasn't moved an inch. With a frown, Ryan pads over to him and places a hand upon his shoulder, to let him know he's there. After a moment, Brendon raises his own hand and places it on top of Ryan's, his fingers all wet with tears. Ryan sighs in relief at the touch and plants a small kiss in Brendon's dark hair. Brendon sighs, too, and Ryan perches on the window seat next to him.
He glances out of the window. There's nothing worth seeing, nothing out of the ordinary. "Brendon," he whispers, and Brendon stares at him. "What's h-happened?"
Brendon turns his gaze to the window. "Spencer's gone out," he mumbles, and Ryan blinks.
"Gone out? B-But it's, like, f-four in the mor-morning."
"Yeah," Brendon nods, one of his hands moving to Ryan's knee. The skin is exposed, his dressing gown haphazardly pulled on, and Brendon takes to smoothing his fingers over it, almost absently. "I heard the front door open and I went to the window, and he was walking down the street. About two hours ago."
