The Clan of Raven (Ryden)

{five}

The next time they meet at the Cave (though Ryan still can't think of it as more than a hollow place under an abandoned railway platform), Brendon is very solemn and still. It's not like him at all, but Ryan soon understands what is going on when Brendon extends his hand towards Spencer, who is the master of matches, and instead of three there are four candles bundled in Brendon's fingers. Four pearly white, fresh candles, one for each.

"Do you know Mary Poppins?" Brendon asks across the circle. They seem to have settled on this arrangement of places here, with Brendon across from him, Spencer on his right, and Jon on the left.

"Mary Poppins?" Ryan repeats slowly. "Uh, yeah?"

"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," Jon grins from his left.

"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," Spencer returns from the right.

Ryan looks from one boy to another, confused. Brendon delivers the candles to his left and right and then hands one over the circle to Ryan, looking at him with serious yet somehow facetious eyes. "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," Brendon grins, and Ryan begins to understand that this is his initiation.

Ryan listens to them saying the string of syllables a few times, and then adds his own voice to the chorus. "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious."

They stop then, abruptly, and Ryan has to bite back the first syllable so it won't surface and break the sudden silence. "It's what you say when you don't know what to say," Brendon hums, grinning playfully. The candlelight frames his face in the dim of their concrete cave, and Ryan finds himself grinning back just as playfully. He glances to his left, and Jon smiles at him. Then, more cautiously, Ryan turns to look at Spencer. The blue-eyed boy is still a little rigid in his cross-legged position, but there is a smile on his face nonetheless.

"So, is this the part where you cut me?" Ryan jokes, but grows serious when no one laughs. "Wait. Are you serious?" he squeals.

Jon's eyes are calm, but Ryan is anything but calm when he sees the pocket knife Brendon fishes from somewhere in his shorts - and as far as Ryan knew, they have no pockets so he wonders where the knife actually was, but the thought gets replaced by a growing level of freaking out when Brendon folds the knife open, revealing the blade that gleams in the candlelight.

"You don't have to," Spencer says, but the tone of his voice is so mocking that he could just as well say, 'I know you can't do it, you pussy.'

Ryan drags in a deep breath and nods. "Let's do this." He silently thinks his mother is going to flip if he comes home bleeding or some shit, but he won't back away. He won't, not under the eyes that are trying to stare him down.

Brendon lowers his candle and steadies it in between the bricks again, and Ryan sees Spencer and Jon doing the same with theirs. He hastily sets his own down, supporting the candle in between a piece of concrete and a half a brick. The eerie light glows on their faces from the middle of their circle, and Ryan swallows in a way he thinks is probably audible to all of them.

Brendon turns his left hand up sideways so that Ryan can see a pale mark just at the root of his thumb. Spencer shoves his left into the halo of the candles and shows a similar mark, and when Ryan looks at Jon he's doing the same on the other side.

To his surprise Brendon takes the knife and slides it to the healed mark on his hand. "I go first."

"What, but you've already--" Ryan splutters.

Spencer's gaze cuts him off. "We do this together, all of us," the blue-eyed boy says sternly, and Ryan senses more than sees the approving nods from the other two.

Brendon's hand is very still, the blade on his skin glowing in the flickering light, and he closes his eyes. Ryan can feel concentration thick in the air, can sense it how something shifts and changes, the atmosphere growing to a headsdown buzz of deep silence. There isn't a single sound in the world, there are only the four identical flames and one steel blade pressed against Brendon's tanned skin.

The silence shatters apart when Brendon slides the knife across the root of his thumb and gasps at the sudden sting. Ryan watches with wide eyes how the dark-haired boy lifts the blade from where it cut through his skin, and for a moment it looks like he's not going to bleed at all, because the clean slit remains skin-toned, but then blood surfaces in a sudden gush like some sickly twisted image of roses blooming on his skin.

Spencer reaches for the knife and does his cut like he does everything in his life - without any fuss and hassle, a neat slide of the knife and then he's extending the knife to Jon. Jon calmly brings the blade to his hand and cuts over the already healed scar, and then it's Ryan's turn. He receives the knife and stares at it in horror while the three other boys are dripping blood on the ground, careful to not get any on their clothes. This is sick, Ryan thinks, but he searches a spot on his left hand, mirroring the ones the other boys already have, and he presses the knife down. It doesn't cut deep enough, not enough to leave a mark, and he can feel Spencer shifting impatiently beside him.

"Hurts," Ryan grits out, looking up as if searching for help.

"I'll do it for you," Brendon says.

"He should do it himself," Spencer snaps, but Brendon's glance silences him. "Fine." Spencer and Jon remove the candles so that Brendon can crawl to Ryan across the space between them. The dark boy settles on his knees in front of Ryan and takes the knife, setting the blade almost gently on the place where a small trickle of blood already decorates Ryan's skin.

Brendon presses down, but hesitates. "Brendonnnnnn," Ryan drawls, looking away. "Just do it, alright?" There is a quick stab of pain as the blade cuts in, but then it's over just as quickly as it started and gets replaced with the warm throb of a newly opened wound. Ryan can feel the blood cooling when it drips down his wrist, and Brendon backs off, looking almost apologetic as he folds the knife away and drops it beside him.

"Hands," Jon says and reaches out. He's got two candles in his other hand and Ryan can see wax pooling over his skin, but the older boy doesn't even wince at the heated substance sliding down his skin and solidifying in irregular patterns. Spencer holds the other two candles up and they all reach out, bloody hands meeting in the middle. The blood smears and it stings and Ryan feels like it's the most unsanitary thing in his life, but he's holding his hand up and letting the blood mix and merge with the others'.

"It's what you say when you don't know what to say," Brendon says again, and he's smiling so wide it must hurt. Ryan's hand throbs, but he finds himself smiling back at all of them nevertheless. He's one of them, now. They're his friends in blood.

They are the Clan of Raven. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.