"Ryan! Ryan, where are you?!"
Brendon's voice was swept away in the howling storm. He could barely see two feet in front of him. The rain was blinding, the bright lightning burning his eyes. He was already drenched from head to toe; the violent wind threatened to carry him away. He was a blind man marching through a dangerous storm, but nothing was going to stop him from finding Ryan.
"Ryan! Ryan, please! Ryan!"
He feared his efforts were futile. How was Ryan ever going to hear him in this storm?
But still, he pushed onward.
The streets were barren, already flooding with rainwater. Some of the marketplace stalls were rolling away, broken by the wind and pounding rainfall. He was treading through a borderline hurricane, perhaps even the end of the world itself. He wasn't even sure if he was in New Orleans anymore.
No, he was trapped inside his worst nightmare.
He wanted to cry. He wanted to tear his hair out. He wanted to fall to his knees and scream until his throat was raw, because everything was far out of his control. Spencer was flirting with death. Ryan was lost in a dangerous storm. Brendon was trudging through said storm without a clue as to what he was doing, or where he was going. Was he doing any good trying to find Ryan, or was he only putting himself at risk, too?
No, he thought to himself. He didn't care if he was putting himself at risk if it meant finding Ryan and bringing him back to safety. Ryan was more important to him than anything else, and Brendon wasn't going to let anything happen to him.
He'd march through Hell and back if it meant he could have Ryan at his side.
As the storm worsened, Brendon's fears grew stronger. He was running out of time. Soon enough, the storm would completely flood the streets, restricting his access to the abandoned city. The lightning would be too blinding, the thunder too deafening. Ryan would be lost until the storm settled down; the thought of that made Brendon sick to his stomach.
He had to outrace the violent storm.
He kept screaming Ryan's name, listening as the howling wind drowned out his feeble voice. Every time he received no response, but that only fueled his determination to search harder. He may have been running out of time, but nothing was going to stop him now.
He came across a long alleyway, dark and eerie and beginning to flood, and the mere sight of it sent a wave of panic through him. Spencer had mentioned criminals. It was the middle of the night, in the middle of a raging storm, and Brendon was staring wide-eyed down an abandoned alleyway. It was the perfect place for crime.
He was just about to turn and run when he heard a low moan of pain coming from the depths of the alley.
Brendon froze in his place, his blood turning to ice. He wished with every ounce of his being that he didn't recognize the whimpers and whines coming from the alley, but he did. He'd recognize that voice anywhere, and that was what made it worse.
Cautiously, he ventured into the alley, his eyes stretched wide and his heart beating out of his chest. He dreaded what he would see when he reached the origin of those terrible wails, but it was far too late to back out now. He had to keep pushing onward, just like he told himself he would.
Then he saw it, and he had to hold his stomach with trembling hands to calm his sickening nausea.
There, bloodied and beaten in the middle of the flooded alleyway, lay Ryan Ross.
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Mad as Jazzmen |1930s Ryden AU| ✔️
Fanfiction"It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing." * * * The Great Depression was, by far, one of the worst tragedies in the history of the world. People drowned in debt. Banks were ruined. The stock market was broken and unreliable. But one...
