BBB: Sideways [Part 2]
Pairing(s): Brendon/Ryan, Cash/Singer, Jon/Spencer
Word Count: 20,603
Rating/Warnings: PG13 / 2 character deaths
Disclaimer: All of this is completely made up and not true.
Summary: Ryan runs away from home when he’s ten and begins working as a newsboy in New York City. He sells papers on the streets to make money and lives with his friends at Pete and Patrick's Home for Wayward and Runaway Children. Flash forward to the year 1898. Brendon is the son of a man who owns his own manufacturing company and is in with high class society. One day they meet in the park and Ryan’s world is turned upside down.
master post | part one | part two | part three | extra stuff
October 1898
Cash dies on the first snow day of the year.
Ryan wakes early that morning, earlier than normal, thanks to the suns rays shining stubbornly on his face and forcing him away from his dreams. With a small groan he keeps his eyes firmly shut and tries to hold on to the last vestiges of sleep he can feel hovering nearby. Brendon’s arm is slung heavily across his chest and Ryan stretches, warm and comfortable despite the chill in the air and the frost on the windowpane, as the other boy makes a soft, sleepy sound and presses his face against his shoulder.
The rest of the room is quiet, tranquil as he listens to the gentle shuffling of people turning over in their beds. The boy beside him is murmuring in his sleep, lips tickling against the side of his neck as they form unintelligible words, and Ryan’s stomach flip-flops without his consent. With a sigh he gives up on the possibility of chasing down some more sleep and blinks open his eyes carefully, squinting against the brightness of the day.
Turning his head against the pillow to look out over the rest of the room his eyes immediately come to rest on a figure curled up on the floor next to one of the beds. Next to Singer and Cash’s bed.
With a jolt Ryan realizes that it’s Singer. It’s Singer sitting on the ground with his knees drawn up to his chest and his chin resting on top of them. It’s Singer looking small, and lost with blank eyes that meet his own gaze dully from across the room.
Ryan doesn’t have to look at the bed to know what’s happened. He just knows, and his gut clenches as his mouth runs dry.
The air is still quiet but what had just a few moments ago been a pleasurable silence has turned sour and is now thick and suffocating. He wants to say something, anything, but the words are lost in his throat somewhere and all he can do is furrow his brows as he feels Brendon stir next to him. The other boy’s arm tightens around his waist for a split second before he’s yawning loudly in Ryan’s ear and pressing chapped lips against his neck.
“Morning.” He mumbles with a hoarse, sleep laden voice. Ryan doesn’t respond, but his hand finds Brendon’s beneath the sheet and he touches the other boy’s fingertips softly in greeting all the while keeping his eyes on Singer.
Around them people are beginning to move about, waking up slowly, and he knows that Pete and Patrick are going to come up any minute to make sure they’re awake. As if on cue there are heavy footsteps on the stairs and just a split second later Pete is flying into the room hollering at the top of his lungs.
“Everyone get the fuck out of bed!” Pete grins at the chorus of groans and ‘fuck you’s’ that meets him. “Maybe later but first you gotta get out and sell the hell out of those papers!” He says with an amount of cheer that should be forbidden at this time in the morning. As he disappears back down the stairs he sends another cheerful warning over his shoulder, “Don’t make me send Patrick up here, guys. Seriously.”
It’s an empty threat, though. They all know that Patrick is utterly incapable of spurring them into action in the morning, but they grumble good-naturedly anyway just to appease Pete.
“Aw, fuck me. It’s snowing!”
“Snowing? Really?” He can hear Marshall’s voice, notched with excitement, as he clambers to look out the window near Ryan’s bed, “Awesome!”
Gabe slings an arm around Marshall’s neck from behind and pulls him back, “You won’t think it’s so awesome when you’re freezing your ass off selling papers, little one.” He drops a smacking kiss to the top of Marshall’s head before ruffling his hair, ignoring the glare that gets shot his way, and pushing him away so he can look out the window himself. “Shit, guys,” groaning loudly he turns to face the room again, “it’s really coming down.”
“It’s early this year. It’s only October.”
Someone throws a hat, and it lands near Singer’s foot. He doesn’t move a muscle, doesn’t flinch, when the person yells for him to throw it back. It’s happy chaos all over the room as people scramble from their beds to see the snow; pushing and shoving at each other playfully. It’s ordinary, expected, and it burns through Ryan’s belly like fire, making him feel slightly sick.
Behind him Brendon sits up, twisting to look down at him while trying to see out the window at the same time. “Did you hear that? Snow, Ryan. Snow!” Pushing at his shoulder with a great deal of enthusiasm he slides from the bed to go see.
Squeezing his eyes shut for a brief second he rubs at them hard with the heels of his hands hoping that when he opens them again this will all have been a bad dream and that he’ll wake up to Singer screaming and throwing his shoes at Cash because Cash wet willyed him or some dumb shit like that.
“Ryan, hey,” Ryan cracks open his eyes to see Spencer loaming over him, tip of his nose red from the cold, face scrunched up with the concern that’s clear in his voice, “are you okay?”
He ignores the question as he sits up and tries to see around his friend. His heart drops to his stomach when he realizes that nothing changed. He didn’t wake up from the nightmare. Everything is exactly the same.
Turning his head to follow Ryan’s gaze Spencer inhales sharply, “Oh shit.” The soft curse is almost lost in the rustling of his clothes as he reaches out blindly until he finds Jon’s sleeve and tugs, “Jon,” he says with a shaky voice but Jon isn’t listening so he tugs harder, and more insistently, “Jon!”
“What?” He’s smiling as his body turns to Spencer, looping an arm around his waist and dropping his chin to the other boy’s shoulder. Spencer gestures towards where Singer is still curled up and Jon’s smile slides from his face like butter from a knife. Standing stock still for a moment, taking in Cash’s immobile form, he curses under his breath.
His shocked eyes meet Ryan’s and then he takes a deep, steadying breath. There is a shift in the air and Ryan feels a slight pressure being lifted from his shoulders. Jon is taking charge. Jon is going to fix everything now because that’s what Jon does. Has always done.
“Guys.” Jon says loudly.
Brendon looks away from the window where he had been drawing figures with the tip of his finger, startled by the tone in the older boy’s voice, and takes a step back towards Ryan who has somehow managed to get out of bed on shaking legs and is standing at Spencer’s side.
“Ryan?” The query is clear in his voice, and he reaches out to grip Ryan’s thin wrist. When Ryan glances back at him the other boy’s eyes are wide.
No one else is paying any attention to them so Jon tries again, a bit more forcefully this time, “Guys. Cash,” he makes vague hand motions in the air as he tries to get their attention. “Cash. Guys, stop!”
And it finally works.
One by one the other boys fall silent, stopping their activities and giving their focus to Jon.
“Cash…” He’s struggling with the words and gestures instead at the bed. Spencer takes his hand and Jon shoots him a grateful look.
There’s a palpable change in the mood from playful to somber in the span of a few seconds as people begin to realize that he’s getting at.
It’s also at this moment that Pete chooses to make his second appearance. “I don’t hear any sounds of washing,” he appears from the stairwell and looks disapprovingly around the room before stating, “so I brought reinforcements.”
But no one turns to spare him as much as a glance. Even Gabe keeps quiet as they move to the side allowing the two older men access further into the room.
“What’s going on?” Pete’s voice is slower, more careful as he looks quickly around at the solemn faces.
Marshall’s holding Ian’s hand so tightly his knuckles are turning white and Johnson is crowded up behind them with his hand on Ian’s shoulder, his other clutching the fabric of Marshall’s shirt. Ryan feels like he’s been hit by a fully loaded wagon. He can’t begin to imagine how the three of them feel as they stare down at the body of their best friend.
“It’s Cash.” Jon finally says and Ryan cringes. He’s heard that far too many times.
Pete’s face drains of all color as he stops short of the bed, causing Patrick to bump into him.
“Oh,” Patrick says with a hitch in his voice as he catches sight of the bed from over Pete’s shoulder. He looks down at Singer’s form and softly says again, “oh.”
Pete doesn’t say anything. He bites at his bottom lip and rocks back and forth with his hands shoved into his front pockets. Ryan’s head is pounding because even though they all knew it was coming it was never supposed to actually happen and now that it has he doesn’t know what to do next. Cash was supposed to get better. He was supposed to be here, right now, cracking jokes and getting on everyone’s nerves and Singer was supposed to be trying to cover his smiles, and pretending to be annoyed. He’s not supposed to be sitting on the ground like a statue.
“Singer?” Patrick’s voice is soft, soothing, and after a long moment Singer looks up, blinking at them as if he’s seeing them for the first time ever, “Alex, hey.”
The heat from Brendon’s body is stifling where the other boy is pushed up close behind him contrasting with the clawing, numbing coldness that has work its way into Ryan’s bones. He feels lost and out of place surrounded by all his friends. He doesn’t know what to do, what to say, as Singer catches his eye so he just swallows around the lump in his throat and stares down at the tops of his feet.
Singer shifts his gaze and looks up at Patrick with red rimmed, bloodshot eyes and the older man smiles gently at him, “Hey, are you - “
But he’s cut off as Singer closes his eyes and looks away.
With a gravelly voice he states, “Don’t ask me that.”
Ryan wonders if anyone else notices the tremors in his friend’s hands as he brushes them against his knees absentmindedly over and over again.
Ian takes a tiny step forward with his free hand outstretched while whispering, “Alex.” But the other boy ignores him and climbs to his feet.
“What are we standing around for?” Glancing at the crowd of concerned faces his voice cracks the slightest bit and quavers on the last word, “The paps aren’t going to sell themselves.”
He pushes roughly by Sisky, who looks like he’s getting ready to say something but is stopped short by a quick, well placed elbow from the Butcher. No one moves for a long moment - a moment that seems to drag on and on and on - until Patrick finally steps forward.
“He’s right. Those paps don’t sell themselves.” Looking around at them, expression somber and tighter around the jaw he sighs, “Go finish getting ready.”
The boys share a collective look and it’s more than Ryan can take. Brendon’s pressed up behind him, Spencer’s arm is pushed against his, William is tight on his other side and Ryan has to leave. Has to get out now.
He takes a stumbling step backwards, sidestepping Brendon as Patrick says “go” his voice firm, leaving no room for argument and they begin to disperse with William grabbing Brendon’s arm to stop him from moving with Ryan.
He makes it all the way to the stairs before he feels eyes on him. Stopping, he looks back up and catching Spencer’s intent look he shakes his head just slightly and Spencer tilts his in acknowledgement before turning back and letting Jon lead him away with an arm around his waist. Ryan has never been more grateful to have a friend who knows him better than he knows himself.
The last thing he sees is Pete turning to press his face against Patrick’s shoulder once the rest of the boys are out of the room. Patrick’s hand comes up to card gently through his hair as Ryan disappears down the stairwell.
----------
They bury Cash under a naked tree in a wooded area just outside the city.
Autumn claimed all the leaves long ago and the first snow of the year gleams against the branches as their ragtag group gathers beneath it solemnly. Singer stands stony and silent off to the side, slightly away from the grave. His features are rigid, jaw set, as he stares hard at the ground and he won’t look at anyone. He flinches whenever someone puts a hand on his shoulder, or comes in close contact and eventually they all stop trying and retreat within their own sorrow.
Marshall, Johnson and Ian stand in a small semi-circle as close to Singer as they can, but not close enough for him to be overly aware of their presence. Their eyes are all downcast and Marshall keeps picking, and pulling at the hem of his shirt anxiously until Ian grabs his hand, stuffs it into his jacket pocket and holds it there with his own. The other boy jerks in surprise, rotating to stare at Ian with surprised eyes but he doesn’t look back and Marshall uses the opportunity to shuffle closer, enabling him to lean his head against the top of the shorter boy’s.
There’s a very distinct feeling of something missing. A part of them is gone and the entire world has been thrown off balance.
This, Ryan thinks bitterly, is what happens to us. This is the life of a newsboy.
He shoots Brendon a furtive glance. The other boy’s head is down, fingers loosely tangled with Ryan’s. Spencer is standing on the other side of him with one arm wrapped around Brendon’s waist. He has Jon’s hand clasped in his. Ryan’s chest aches when he looks at them.
And then Brendon looks up, meets his eyes from beneath his lashes and they’re glittery from tears. Glittery and big and Ryan stares down at him, his own eyes dry, and tightens his grip on Brendon’s hand.
Brendon doesn’t belong with him. Doesn’t belong in a place like this when he has a family and a home to go back to. Ryan knows how his story will end if he doesn’t stop it from happening. There’s a selfish part of him that is stubbornly trying to ignore it, trying to insist that Brendon came to him and that he gets to keep him, but he can’t. Not when he’s standing here, staring into the grave of one of his friends.
Across from him William is leaning up against Gabe as he chews on his bottom lip and stares out through the trees at something invisible. Pete and Patrick are standing at the head of the grave, in front of all of them, looking intently down into it wordlessly. Ryan doesn’t miss the way that Pete is standing very uncharacteristically still for once with Patrick’s hand against the small of his back. His face is set in a troubled expression and he looks just about as lost as Ryan feels. None of them seem to know what to say and the silence if deafening.
Someone should be speaking, but no one is. It’s just awful, unending silence, and the occasional shuffling of feet in the snow and the soft sound of wind going through the branches as they stand beneath the tree under the grey sky with the flurries floating gently down, landing in hair and on the tips of noses.
The bustling noise from the city is faint, muted in the background.
“Cash,” he finally starts, because someone needs to speak, but the words are choked in his throat and he doesn’t exactly know what to say, “Cash was a great person.” He finishes, feeling lame but Brendon squeezes his hand and sends him the briefest quirk of lips for reassurance.
“He always knew just what asshole thing to do to make you laugh.” Jon chimes in, and a few people chuckle.
“He was an asshole, but he was the best.”
“He sold paps like nobody’s business.”
Ryan retreats back again once people begin to talk - throwing out comments, jokes, stories - and watches.
This is what fate eventually has in store for all of them. It hurts to think about it as he looks at the faces surrounding him. The faces of his friends - people so close to him they might as well be his family. They are his family.
And they can all only keep running from fate for so long.
----------
In the subsequent days Ryan decides that the best thing for himself and for Brendon would be if Brendon were to leave.
He tries to subtly push him away at first, hoping that the other boy will get the hint and leave on his own. He starts using harsher words, and tones mixed with a general aura of exasperation when he’s around Brendon but he just watches him with this look in his eyes and on his face that makes Ryan feel as if he’s being seen straight through.
Nothing he’s doing seems to be working at all, but his methods are attracting glances from everyone else. Sometimes he catches Spencer examining him with a guarded, worried expression and Jon simply frowns at him without saying a word. Everyone seems to have picked up on it.
Everyone but Brendon, that is.
“Ryan.”
Ryan ignores him, bending down to look under the bed for his missing shoe instead.
“Ryan.” Brendon says again, a bit more vehemently this time.
He’s running late. Everyone is already gone, and if he could just find his damn shoe he could go and get his papers too. He’s searched everywhere and he can’t find the damn thing. It’s just vanished. Growling in frustration he snatches the pillow and throws it to the other end of the bed. He fucking hates being late.
The next thing he knows there’s a hand clasping his shoulder, pulling him into a standing position and turning him around until he’s staring at Brendon with startled eyes.
“Ryan.”
Ryan blinks at him. Brendon’s holding his shoe in his hand, but when he goes to reach for it the other boy takes a step backwards.
“That’s my shoe.” Ryan says staring at it with a blank face. “Give me my shoe, Brendon.”
But he shakes his head and tells him firmly, “Not until you tell me what the fuck’s going on.”
“Nothing.”
“Is this about Cash?” Brendon questions, studying the smaller boy carefully and Ryan flinches. The wound from his friend’s death still fresh and raw feeling.
He answers in the calmest voice he can manage, “No. This is about how you won’t give me my shoe and I have work to do.” Glancing at the floor, because he can’t quite bring himself to look Brendon in the face when he follows that with, “Not all of us have mommy and daddy’s money to live off of. Do your parents even know where you go at night because it sure seems like you have the freedom that you claim you want so much already.”
Brendon’s face darkens at that. “What the fuck do you know about it? What the fuck do you know about my life?” His intake of breath is sharp and Ryan keeps his head bowed a mixture of anger and guilt and frustration boiling beneath his skin.
When Brendon doesn’t respond after a few moments he chances a look at him. His face is open like it always is, hurt all over it, as he stares at Ryan but he’s holding out the shoe and Ryan feels about two feet tall when he reaches out to take it.
The moment his fingers wrap around it, however, Brendon is using it to pull him forward. He drops his grasp on the shoe was soon as Ryan is close enough for him to get a hand on his hip. Ryan lets the shoe fall out of his hand in surprise and it hits the floor with a dull thud.
“Brendon, what - “
But he’s cut off by Brendon nosing at his neck and pressing a soft kiss against his collarbone. It’s gentle and tender, completely different from the angry snarl moments ago, catching Ryan off guard.
“Stop pushing me away.” He whispers, eyelashes fluttering against the delicate skin under Ryan’s jaw. “Please stop pushing me away.”
Ryan tenses. “I’m not.” He protests even though he knows perfectly well that he’s lying and he knows that the other boy knows it too.
“You are, and I forgive you for what you said.”
His mouth finds Ryan’s and puts an end to any more of his objections.
Brendon kisses him like he’s going to break - with careful lips and the gentlefirm press of fingertips against Ryan’s hips. Ryan resists for all of two seconds, trying to keep up his ruse, but he can’t seem to ever resist Brendon and before he knows it he’s kissing him back hard because he’s not going to break. Not anymore. He’s determined. He’s strong and he can handle himself. Has to handle himself. He pushes his fingers through Brendon’s hair and tugs, yanking the other boy’s head back.
Brendon lets out a harsh sound when Ryan’s lips find the skin of his neck. His fingers grasp together, pressing more firmly against his hips and Ryan smiles to himself even as his head tells him to stop because this is completely counterproductive to everything he’s been working for.
But he’s greedy and he wants this. Wants this more than anything because this will be the absolute last time he can have it, but beneath his lips and fingers the other boy is pulling back, pulling away to stare at him.
Ryan lets go, and they blink at one another, breathing hard.
“Why are you doing this?” His voice is so soft that Ryan barely hears it over the pounding of his heart and the thrumming of the blood in his veins.
His voice is as steady as he can make it. “Because I don’t want you here anymore.”
Brendon spits out, “Bullshit,” with his lips curling into a small snarl.
Ryan turns away from him, bends down to pick up his shoe and begins to unlace it.
“Ryan, please.” The plea is strained, quavering and Ryan swallows around the lump in his throat and focuses on tying his shoe as best he can with trembling fingers.
“Go home, Brendon.” He states still bending down and not looking at him, “You don’t belong here and you know it.”
And Brendon doesn’t argue, doesn’t say anything else. Ryan was prepared to battle it out over this because Brendon never does anything he doesn’t want to do without a fight so after minutes of silence he straightens up and swivels sharply on his heel to yell at him but the room is empty.
Brendon is gone.
November 1898
“You did what?”
Ryan repeats, “I told him that I didn’t want him anymore.” But it’s lost some of the drive it originally had now that he’s face to face with one of Spencer’s angry scowls.
“That was stupid.” Spencer tells him pointedly, crossing his arms against his chest. “That was really stupid.”
Ryan’s mouth drops into a frown. “It was not.”
“Ry,” Spencer’s frowning right back at him, “this might be the stupidest thing you’ve ever done ever.”
“Guys.” Jon’s watching them with wary eyes and a carefully placed, neutral expression. “They both turn on him with matching glares and he holds his hands up quickly in surrender. “Never mind. Carry on.”
“Jon, tell him it wasn’t stupid. Tell him that it was totally right and legit.” Ryan’s own arms cross against his chest as he stares the older boy down. “Tell him it was for the best.”
“Jon, tell him that it was stupid.” Spencer’s speaking in a controlled voice to Jon but his eyes haven’t left Ryan and he narrows them just the slightest bit, “Tell him that being miserable isn’t for the best.”
He snaps, swiveling furiously on his friend. “I’m not miserable!”
Spencer raises an eyebrow at him and says disbelievingly. “No?”
“No.”
“Bullshit. You’ve been miserable for the last week. Everyone knows it, Ryan. You aren’t subtle at all.” Spencer rolls his eyes and scowls as he notifies the other boy.
Ryan clenches his jaw and pulls his arms tighter against his body and narrows his eyes right back at his friend.
From the bed Jon pipes up, “It’s true, Ry. You’ve looked like shit lately.”
Ryan glowers at him. “I’m fine. Besides,” He turns again to Spencer, “you’re the one who kept telling me that he didn’t fit here. That he shouldn’t be here.”
Spencer’s scowl lessens and he looks pained. “That was before.”
“Before what?”
He finally loses control and raises his voice snapping, “Before you went and sent him away and started moping around!”
“You’ve been so busy with Jon I’m surprised you even noticed.” The harsh statement is out of his mouth before he can stop them and Spencer steps back like he’s been smacked as the room fills with a stunned silence.
Jon gets to his feet. “That’s not fair, Ryan.” His voice is hushed in shock.
And he knows. He knows it isn’t fair. They’ve both taken painful measures to make sure he’s included. To make sure there’s always an invitation extended to him to go out with them whenever they’ve made plans. In all honesty he’s been so wrapped up in Brendon that he’s probably the one who has been neglecting them but he’s not going to apologize for it. He fixes a steady gaze on them instead and grits his teeth.
Without another word Spencer turns and storms out of the room leaving Ryan and Jon.
Jon looks so disappointed in him that Ryan feels his resolve slipping just a little bit. “Jon, I - “ but he shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders before turning and following Spencer out of the room and leaves Ryan standing alone in the middle of it.
----------
Ryan doesn’t really know how he gets through the following days. He tries to live like he had before Brendon had upended his entire life but it’s difficult. Spencer isn’t talking to him, and Jon already told him that until he fixes things he’s going to side with Spencer.
There is no middle ground here, Jon had explained, I can’t play the in-between guy.
He fills his days the same way he had before by selling papers (with perhaps slightly more vigor). Only now he avoids the park and gets his hopes up with he sees tall boys with dark hair until they turn around and his hopes are crushed under a ton of bricks.
Mostly he spends his time trying to pretend that there isn’t a giant hole in his chest.
----------
“Why hasn’t Brendon been comin’ round lately?” Marshall asks one day, chin propped up on the back of his bed. He’s sprawled haphazardly across it, watching Ryland and Nate tossing back and forth a ratty ball, but he rolls his head so that he’s facing Ryan’s bed.
Nate throws the ball in his direction. It bounces off the back of his head and Marshall sits up, hand flying to press against the spot as he cries indignantly, “Hey!”
“Why have you been asking so many questions lately?” Nate asks, and cups his hand for the ball back. Marshall scowls but throws it anyway.
“I haven’t.”
Spencer snaps, “Well, perhaps you shouldn’t start now.”
Ryan can feel at least four pairs of eyes on him but he refuses to respond; stays stretched out on his side with his eyes shut tight. He’s sleeping. He has been sleeping the whole time.
He can hear the pout in Marshall’s voice when he frowns and states, “I liked Brendon. He was fun.”
Later that night he waits until Jon has to use the bathroom, leaving an empty spot in Spencer’s bed, before he climbs into it slipping under the threadbare sheet quickly. Spencer doesn’t stir as he scoots himself closer, pushing until his friend lifts his arm and Ryan is able to fit his head beneath Spencer’s chin.
“I’m sorry.” He whispers against Spencer’s neck as an arm settles heavy on his waist. “I’m sorry.”
“Go to sleep.” Spencer commands, but he kisses Ryan’s head lightly and Ryan wraps his own arm around Spencer as he closes his eyes and is asleep within seconds.
He doesn’t see Jon’s return, or feel him smooth a hand over his hair before he whispers to Spencer, “Is he going to be okay?”
He doesn’t feel Spencer’s grip tighten as he nods carefully. “Eventually.”
December 1898
There comes a time when Ryan has no place left to go on his paper breaks. He’s been switching it up so that he goes all over town, but never has to go to the park, and he’s pretty much exhausted all of the other locations. He’s left every day to wander the streets with no real direction at all until his feet decide where to take him.
Today they’ve decided on Cash’s grave. He doesn’t know why he goes along with it (he hasn’t been since they buried him) but he finds himself making the trek up the little hill to the grave one snowy afternoon.
He’s not surprised to find Singer already there and he sits down next to him on the frozen ground carefully. He doesn’t say hello, and Singer doesn’t acknowledge his presence in any way more than a glance over from the corner of his eye as he’s settling down. The snow is soaking through his pants and he brings his knees up automatically to his chest, wrapping thin arms around them tightly to starve off the cold. The other boy doesn’t seem to be bothered by the crispness of the air as he stares out at the partially hidden cross. The barest hint of brown poking through white giving away its existence.
“It hurts.” Singer speaks softly after a few minutes, words chosen carefully. “I keep forgetting and I’ll go to tell him something, or show him something and then…I remember.” He sighs, and glances down at his hands. “I was so used to him being here and now he’s not.”
Ryan swallows thickly around the lump in his throat. “It’ll get easier,” he hears himself lie (he’s so good at that now) and Singer turns his head to look at him with solemn eyes. “When Brendon left it hurt so much, but it’ll get easier.” He leaves out the fact that it hasn’t and that he still feels like he’s missing this giant chunk of himself.
“Yeah,” he agrees, and Ryan knows he doesn’t believe the word, “but it isn’t exactly the same is it?” Singer scowls at him suddenly. “You knew Brendon for a few months. I’ve loved Cash my whole life.”
His voice grows hushed as he looks back out over the grave, “Ever since we were kids. He was the first person I met after mother died. I remember I was sitting in the middle of town by a fountain and he came right up and sat down beside me and said everyone I love is gone too and pulled out a daisy from his pocket. This wilted, pathetic looking flower and tucked it behind my ear before telling me in a no arguing kind of voice we are going to be friends and I couldn’t really say no.”
Ryan shifts and scoots closer until their sides are pressed together. Singer takes his hand without looking down and they sit quietly together as the wind picks up and the snow begins to fall again until Singer continues, “and now everyone has just forgotten all about him. A few months after he’s gone and everyone has moved on. No one cares anymore. Everyone is too busy watching you destroy yourself to remember and I can’t forget.” He turns pleading eyes on Ryan and when he speaks again his voice is strained, “How? How do I forget him?”
Ryan tells him, gripping his hand hard, “You don’t. You don’t, and we haven’t.”
“No. You’re just too busy missing someone else to care.” Singer declares. Climbing to his feet he glares down at Ryan. “Brendon’s still alive, Ryan. If you wanted to you could see him again. Could kiss him and hold him again.” He sighs and shrugs despondently. “All I’ve got is a nondescript, wooden cross that’s eventually going to rot and fall apart and an empty bed at night.”
As he’s walking away he says over his shoulder, “Think about that for a while before you try and tell me that things will get better.”
----------
Singer is gone one morning when Ryan wakes up. Vanished with no warning, and not a trace of him left to prove he had ever been there in the first place. His bed is made. His stuff (what little there was) gone.
William’s voice is what wakes him when it cuts through the sleepy air of the room. “Guys, where’s Singer?”
Sisky rubs a hand across his eyes and rolls over, burying his face deeper into his pillow. “Whaddya mean ‘where’s Singer’? He’s sleeping like you should be. Shut up, Bilvy.” His voice is muffled and sleep slurred. It kind of fades away towards the end as he’s already drifting off.
The way William rolls his eyes at Sisky is evidence in his voice when he says, “He should be, yes, but his bed is empty. He’s not in the washroom either.”
“What the fuck, William? People are sleeping.” Gabe reaches around on the floor until his fingers close on something solid and then he throws it across the room in William’s general direction. There’s a murmur of agreement as the shoe falls harmlessly a few feet away from him, but Marshall, Johnson and Ian all sit up in their beds with furrowed brows.
Johnson is the first of the three to speak and he addresses William almost hesitantly. “Maybe he got an early start?”
William raises an eyebrow. “This early?”
“Maybe he just went out.” Nate offers from his bed where he’s watching them with his chin on the pillow. “Get some air or something.”
Looking at him skeptically William says, “That doesn’t really sound like him. Besides, it’s snowing. No one goes out this early in the snow just to get some air.”
While this exchange is going on Ryan manages to untangle himself from the mess of sheets twisted around his legs and climbs out from under the heavy weight of Spencer’s arm. Spencer makes a sleepy, soft mumble of disproval when he slips from the bed to stand beside it. Around the room everyone else is beginning to wake up fully and is peering curiously at them.
Suddenly Marshall pipes up, “His stuff is gone.”
“What?” Ian’s eyebrows dip further in confusion and he looks over towards Singer’s bed as he questions, “Where is it?”
“Dunno, but it’s gone.”
“Did he leave?”
Mike is sitting cross-legged on his bed. “He couldn’t have just left. Where would he go?” He throws out and Ryland nods his agreement.
Finally Ryan speaks up, bracing himself with one hand on the bedpost and the other hanging limply at his side. “I know.” Everyone stops their side conversations and he flushes as they all simultaneously turn to look at him. “I know why he left.”
“What?” Beside him Spencer is sitting up and he looks at Ryan. “Did he say something to you?”
“No, not exactly.” He admits after fidgeting for a few seconds, then he proceeds to tell them all about the conversation that he had with Singer about Cash just a few days earlier. He carefully leaves out the parts where the other boy had called him out, and had spilled the secret of just how much he was still hurting.
“How could he think that?” Gabe demands when he’s done. “How could he think we don’t care? There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t miss that damn boy.”
Echoes of agreement come from all around him and Ryan shrugs helplessly, palms up placating. “I don’t know, but he did.” He tells them all.
“I haven’t been to Cash’s grave since we buried him.” Jon admits softly.
Johnson mumbles, “Me either. It hurts too much to think about.”
It’s silent as everyone looks around guiltily at one another and then Marshall is speaking up again, “Well, what do we do now?”
“We go after him of course.” Ian says with no hesitation. “We can’t just let him go out there all by himself thinking that no one cares about him.”
----------
They split up into groups of three. Pete and Patrick agree to stay at the house just in case Singer comes to his senses suddenly and returns before any of them have the chance to find him. Pete puts up a valiant fight to go with them, no one expected any thing less from him, and in the end it’s Patrick who gets him to relent and consent to stay behind.
“I need someone to keep my mind off of it, Pete.” He says smiling sweetly at him while subtly nodding towards the door for them to leave while the older man is distracted. “Stay here with me?”
Pete could never resist anything Patrick requests of him, and the boys can see the slight crumple in his shoulders while Patrick speaks to him. He doesn’t look very happy about it as he stands anxiously with his arms crossed, rocking back and forth on his feet in a coil of forced down energy while he watches them all troop out of the house, but he doesn’t say anything else about going with them.
Ryan, Spencer and Jon head out together, nodding their goodbyes to the other groups as they all start off.
“Where do you think he is?” Jon questions, covering a light cough with his shoulder and wrapping his arms around himself to try and keep the flurries away as best he can. Ryan kicks at a loose piece of the pavement.
“I don’t know.” He answers. It’s still dark out, dawn just beginning to break through the night and he can just make out Jon’s profile as he walks along beside him. “But if he really doesn’t want to be found…” he trails off leaving the rest unsaid.
They walk along together quietly in the stillness of the city, and Ryan feels shittier and shittier with every step they take because this is his fault. It’s his fault that Singer’s missing, that he decided to just up and leave without telling anyone. It’s his fault that everyone is wandering around in the snow when they should be warm in their beds and that Jon keeps coughing and trying to cover it up with a clearing of his throat, or the turn of his head.
Spencer sighs heavily all of a sudden. “It’s not your fault, Ry.” His words break through the quietness and both Ryan and Jon jump just a bit.
“I know.” Ryan grumbles in return. “Get out of my head.” He can feel Spencer looking at him and he kicks another loose piece of pavement. He’s getting ready to say something else when a thought hits him so hard that he’s stopping dead in his tracks. “Hey, guys?” The other two halt and backtrack a few steps to stand in front of him. “Is there a fountain somewhere near here?”
Jon frowns. “A fountain?”
“Anywhere with water?” He tries again, wracking his brain. “He told me that he first met Cash by a fountain after his mother died. Where’s the closest place with water that he might go to?”
Spencer bites his lip and frowns. “The lake in Central Park maybe?” He suggests.
“It’s worth a shot.” Jon says.
When they do finally find him he’s sitting on a bench near the lake with his chin in the palm of his hands looking so small, and lonely, and very breakable.
“Where are you going to go, Singer?” Is the first thing out of Ryan’s mouth when they see him. He sits down next to him on the bench as Jon sits down quietly on the other side and Spencer stands behind them all. “Where else is there for you to go?” He inquires gently.
The younger boy doesn’t look up as he shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know.”
Jon puts an arm around his shoulder and Singer allows himself to be pulled until his head is resting against Jon’s chest. Ryan snakes his own arm around his tiny, tiny waist and scoots closer.
“Everyone is looking for you, Alex.” Spencer tells him, “We were all really worried.”
Singer nods against Jon’s shoulder and purses his lips but doesn’t offer an apology or an explanation.
“You can’t just go running off like that.”
“I didn’t think anyone would notice honestly.” He finally mumbles from behind the curtain his hair has made over his face just as Spencer is opening his mouth to say something else. Jon pulls away to stare at him and he straightens up, tucking the wayward hair behind his ears and says with a small shrug, “Didn’t think anyone would really care.”
Spencer rolls his eyes and says in a tone that Ryan knows all too well, “That’s stupid. You’re our friend, dumbass. Of course we’d notice.”
“Of course we’d care.” Ryan adds.
“We - “ Jon’s cut off by a cough and a violent shiver that has three pairs of eyes darting to his doubled over figure.
“We should get back.” Spencer states, shifting like he wants to reach out to Jon but not entirely sure if he should.
The other two boys climb to their feet and while Jon goes around the side of the bench to wrap Spencer up in a tight hug Ryan turns to look down at Singer who has remained seated.
“Singer, are you coming with us?”
Jon smiles from his place in Spencer’s arms pleading, “Please come back with us, Alex. We’d all miss you like crazy if you left.”
Singer eyes them all briefly before wilting and nodding his consent as he gets to his feet slowly. “Yeah. Okay.” He mumbles. “I’ll come back.”
It’s snowing hard by the time they get back to the house. Big, fat flakes that get everywhere and soak into shirts and hats the moment they land. Ryan is drenched to the bone as their ragtag group stumbles on numb legs through the door.
Pete is flying over to them the second they’ve crossed the threshold demanding, “Did you find him? Where is he?”
He pushes through them as they spread out in the foyer amongst the others who had already returned, dripping and cold, until he reaches Singer who is still standing in the doorway hunched in on himself.
“Hey, Pete.” He says while attempting, and failing, at a light grin.
Pete’s yanking him through the doorway and wrapping him up in a bone crushing hug before Singer has a chance to react. “Don’t ever do that again!” He snarls into the side of his neck, hugging him impossibly tighter. “Don’t ever just leave.”
Singer’s arms come up tentatively to return the hug. Nodding, he lets his eyes fall shut as his chin drops down to Pete’s shoulders. “Okay.” He whispers. “Okay.”
“We were really worried about you, Alex.” Patrick states as he moves from his station against the wall where he had been watching everyone carefully making sure that all of them were getting rid of wet hats and coats. He crosses over to the two of them and stops just behind Pete. “You didn’t even leave a note. You could have left a note.” He’s trying hard to look stern and keep a reprimanding tone but it’s breaking quickly and when Singer looks up at him with impossibly round, vulnerable eyes he gives it up and joins the tangle of arms and bodies.
The door bangs open again and another search team comes spilling through along with a gust of frigid air and some more snow.
“No luck, guys,” Gabe announces, “but we did find Marshall, Johnson and Ian if that’s worth anything.” He draws up short when Singer turns to face him and the rest of his follows after he’s been released from the prison of Pete and Patrick’s arms. “Never mind.” Gabe amends slowly. “I see he’s been found.”
Marshall, Ian and Johnson push around him and William to get through the door and to their friend. As soon as they see him they’re piling over one another to grab him into a hug but it’s too many arms at once. Too many bodies trying to press together at one time and someone loses their balance tripping them all over to the floor in a giant heap of flailing limbs.
“We could never not care.” Ian whispers against the skin of Singer’s neck as the other boys look on amused from around the room. “We could never just forget.”
Singer wraps his arms around whatever he can get a hold of, and the four of them cling to one another on the floor muddied by melting snow and dirty shoes until Pete screams, “Dog pile!” and throws himself down onto the ground with them, worming his way into their hug with ease.
Ryan stands where he is next to Jon and Spencer sitting on the stairs watching in amusement at the sudden mad rush that breaks out as everyone drops to the floor to create this giant, wet pile of people. Beside him Spencer’s murmuring to Jon quiet words that he can’t fully make out but he does catch a strained, tired, ‘Spence,’ and ‘hurts’ in Jon’s raspy voice slightly deeper than Spencer’s that has him looking over and down at them.
Spencer looks up at him in the same instant; his eyes catching Ryan’s and the raw pain all over his friend’s face has the breath leaving his lungs and his heart stuttering to a stop.
“Spencer?”
But Spencer just shakes his head at him and smoothes a hand over Jon’s hair as the older boy curls into him.
January 1899
January is white. Blank. It passes him by with frozen fingertips and empty streets. No one wants to be out in this kind of weather. It passes with numbness (strictly from the cold…at least that’s what he keeps telling himself) and that persistent feeling of being alone again even in the crowd of all his friends.
It passes with days spent sitting with Singer that blur together in quiet conversations and trips to visit Cash.
It passes with nights curled up in his own bed pretending to be asleep as he watches Jon shaking and shivering from a cold that comes from something more than just the temperature of the air as Spencer holds him and runs his hands over his forehead and cheeks and kisses him softly as he works tirelessly to combat the chill. Ryan avoids thinking about the tracks on his cheeks that glint every so often in the moonlight.
It passes with mornings acting like nothing is wrong and January fades away to February without him realizing it.
master post | part one | part two | part three | extra stuff
Word Count: 20,603
Rating/Warnings: PG13 / 2 character deaths
Disclaimer: All of this is completely made up and not true.
Summary: Ryan runs away from home when he’s ten and begins working as a newsboy in New York City. He sells papers on the streets to make money and lives with his friends at Pete and Patrick's Home for Wayward and Runaway Children. Flash forward to the year 1898. Brendon is the son of a man who owns his own manufacturing company and is in with high class society. One day they meet in the park and Ryan’s world is turned upside down.
master post | part one | part two | part three | extra stuff
October 1898
Cash dies on the first snow day of the year.
Ryan wakes early that morning, earlier than normal, thanks to the suns rays shining stubbornly on his face and forcing him away from his dreams. With a small groan he keeps his eyes firmly shut and tries to hold on to the last vestiges of sleep he can feel hovering nearby. Brendon’s arm is slung heavily across his chest and Ryan stretches, warm and comfortable despite the chill in the air and the frost on the windowpane, as the other boy makes a soft, sleepy sound and presses his face against his shoulder.
The rest of the room is quiet, tranquil as he listens to the gentle shuffling of people turning over in their beds. The boy beside him is murmuring in his sleep, lips tickling against the side of his neck as they form unintelligible words, and Ryan’s stomach flip-flops without his consent. With a sigh he gives up on the possibility of chasing down some more sleep and blinks open his eyes carefully, squinting against the brightness of the day.
Turning his head against the pillow to look out over the rest of the room his eyes immediately come to rest on a figure curled up on the floor next to one of the beds. Next to Singer and Cash’s bed.
With a jolt Ryan realizes that it’s Singer. It’s Singer sitting on the ground with his knees drawn up to his chest and his chin resting on top of them. It’s Singer looking small, and lost with blank eyes that meet his own gaze dully from across the room.
Ryan doesn’t have to look at the bed to know what’s happened. He just knows, and his gut clenches as his mouth runs dry.
The air is still quiet but what had just a few moments ago been a pleasurable silence has turned sour and is now thick and suffocating. He wants to say something, anything, but the words are lost in his throat somewhere and all he can do is furrow his brows as he feels Brendon stir next to him. The other boy’s arm tightens around his waist for a split second before he’s yawning loudly in Ryan’s ear and pressing chapped lips against his neck.
“Morning.” He mumbles with a hoarse, sleep laden voice. Ryan doesn’t respond, but his hand finds Brendon’s beneath the sheet and he touches the other boy’s fingertips softly in greeting all the while keeping his eyes on Singer.
Around them people are beginning to move about, waking up slowly, and he knows that Pete and Patrick are going to come up any minute to make sure they’re awake. As if on cue there are heavy footsteps on the stairs and just a split second later Pete is flying into the room hollering at the top of his lungs.
“Everyone get the fuck out of bed!” Pete grins at the chorus of groans and ‘fuck you’s’ that meets him. “Maybe later but first you gotta get out and sell the hell out of those papers!” He says with an amount of cheer that should be forbidden at this time in the morning. As he disappears back down the stairs he sends another cheerful warning over his shoulder, “Don’t make me send Patrick up here, guys. Seriously.”
It’s an empty threat, though. They all know that Patrick is utterly incapable of spurring them into action in the morning, but they grumble good-naturedly anyway just to appease Pete.
“Aw, fuck me. It’s snowing!”
“Snowing? Really?” He can hear Marshall’s voice, notched with excitement, as he clambers to look out the window near Ryan’s bed, “Awesome!”
Gabe slings an arm around Marshall’s neck from behind and pulls him back, “You won’t think it’s so awesome when you’re freezing your ass off selling papers, little one.” He drops a smacking kiss to the top of Marshall’s head before ruffling his hair, ignoring the glare that gets shot his way, and pushing him away so he can look out the window himself. “Shit, guys,” groaning loudly he turns to face the room again, “it’s really coming down.”
“It’s early this year. It’s only October.”
Someone throws a hat, and it lands near Singer’s foot. He doesn’t move a muscle, doesn’t flinch, when the person yells for him to throw it back. It’s happy chaos all over the room as people scramble from their beds to see the snow; pushing and shoving at each other playfully. It’s ordinary, expected, and it burns through Ryan’s belly like fire, making him feel slightly sick.
Behind him Brendon sits up, twisting to look down at him while trying to see out the window at the same time. “Did you hear that? Snow, Ryan. Snow!” Pushing at his shoulder with a great deal of enthusiasm he slides from the bed to go see.
Squeezing his eyes shut for a brief second he rubs at them hard with the heels of his hands hoping that when he opens them again this will all have been a bad dream and that he’ll wake up to Singer screaming and throwing his shoes at Cash because Cash wet willyed him or some dumb shit like that.
“Ryan, hey,” Ryan cracks open his eyes to see Spencer loaming over him, tip of his nose red from the cold, face scrunched up with the concern that’s clear in his voice, “are you okay?”
He ignores the question as he sits up and tries to see around his friend. His heart drops to his stomach when he realizes that nothing changed. He didn’t wake up from the nightmare. Everything is exactly the same.
Turning his head to follow Ryan’s gaze Spencer inhales sharply, “Oh shit.” The soft curse is almost lost in the rustling of his clothes as he reaches out blindly until he finds Jon’s sleeve and tugs, “Jon,” he says with a shaky voice but Jon isn’t listening so he tugs harder, and more insistently, “Jon!”
“What?” He’s smiling as his body turns to Spencer, looping an arm around his waist and dropping his chin to the other boy’s shoulder. Spencer gestures towards where Singer is still curled up and Jon’s smile slides from his face like butter from a knife. Standing stock still for a moment, taking in Cash’s immobile form, he curses under his breath.
His shocked eyes meet Ryan’s and then he takes a deep, steadying breath. There is a shift in the air and Ryan feels a slight pressure being lifted from his shoulders. Jon is taking charge. Jon is going to fix everything now because that’s what Jon does. Has always done.
“Guys.” Jon says loudly.
Brendon looks away from the window where he had been drawing figures with the tip of his finger, startled by the tone in the older boy’s voice, and takes a step back towards Ryan who has somehow managed to get out of bed on shaking legs and is standing at Spencer’s side.
“Ryan?” The query is clear in his voice, and he reaches out to grip Ryan’s thin wrist. When Ryan glances back at him the other boy’s eyes are wide.
No one else is paying any attention to them so Jon tries again, a bit more forcefully this time, “Guys. Cash,” he makes vague hand motions in the air as he tries to get their attention. “Cash. Guys, stop!”
And it finally works.
One by one the other boys fall silent, stopping their activities and giving their focus to Jon.
“Cash…” He’s struggling with the words and gestures instead at the bed. Spencer takes his hand and Jon shoots him a grateful look.
There’s a palpable change in the mood from playful to somber in the span of a few seconds as people begin to realize that he’s getting at.
It’s also at this moment that Pete chooses to make his second appearance. “I don’t hear any sounds of washing,” he appears from the stairwell and looks disapprovingly around the room before stating, “so I brought reinforcements.”
But no one turns to spare him as much as a glance. Even Gabe keeps quiet as they move to the side allowing the two older men access further into the room.
“What’s going on?” Pete’s voice is slower, more careful as he looks quickly around at the solemn faces.
Marshall’s holding Ian’s hand so tightly his knuckles are turning white and Johnson is crowded up behind them with his hand on Ian’s shoulder, his other clutching the fabric of Marshall’s shirt. Ryan feels like he’s been hit by a fully loaded wagon. He can’t begin to imagine how the three of them feel as they stare down at the body of their best friend.
“It’s Cash.” Jon finally says and Ryan cringes. He’s heard that far too many times.
Pete’s face drains of all color as he stops short of the bed, causing Patrick to bump into him.
“Oh,” Patrick says with a hitch in his voice as he catches sight of the bed from over Pete’s shoulder. He looks down at Singer’s form and softly says again, “oh.”
Pete doesn’t say anything. He bites at his bottom lip and rocks back and forth with his hands shoved into his front pockets. Ryan’s head is pounding because even though they all knew it was coming it was never supposed to actually happen and now that it has he doesn’t know what to do next. Cash was supposed to get better. He was supposed to be here, right now, cracking jokes and getting on everyone’s nerves and Singer was supposed to be trying to cover his smiles, and pretending to be annoyed. He’s not supposed to be sitting on the ground like a statue.
“Singer?” Patrick’s voice is soft, soothing, and after a long moment Singer looks up, blinking at them as if he’s seeing them for the first time ever, “Alex, hey.”
The heat from Brendon’s body is stifling where the other boy is pushed up close behind him contrasting with the clawing, numbing coldness that has work its way into Ryan’s bones. He feels lost and out of place surrounded by all his friends. He doesn’t know what to do, what to say, as Singer catches his eye so he just swallows around the lump in his throat and stares down at the tops of his feet.
Singer shifts his gaze and looks up at Patrick with red rimmed, bloodshot eyes and the older man smiles gently at him, “Hey, are you - “
But he’s cut off as Singer closes his eyes and looks away.
With a gravelly voice he states, “Don’t ask me that.”
Ryan wonders if anyone else notices the tremors in his friend’s hands as he brushes them against his knees absentmindedly over and over again.
Ian takes a tiny step forward with his free hand outstretched while whispering, “Alex.” But the other boy ignores him and climbs to his feet.
“What are we standing around for?” Glancing at the crowd of concerned faces his voice cracks the slightest bit and quavers on the last word, “The paps aren’t going to sell themselves.”
He pushes roughly by Sisky, who looks like he’s getting ready to say something but is stopped short by a quick, well placed elbow from the Butcher. No one moves for a long moment - a moment that seems to drag on and on and on - until Patrick finally steps forward.
“He’s right. Those paps don’t sell themselves.” Looking around at them, expression somber and tighter around the jaw he sighs, “Go finish getting ready.”
The boys share a collective look and it’s more than Ryan can take. Brendon’s pressed up behind him, Spencer’s arm is pushed against his, William is tight on his other side and Ryan has to leave. Has to get out now.
He takes a stumbling step backwards, sidestepping Brendon as Patrick says “go” his voice firm, leaving no room for argument and they begin to disperse with William grabbing Brendon’s arm to stop him from moving with Ryan.
He makes it all the way to the stairs before he feels eyes on him. Stopping, he looks back up and catching Spencer’s intent look he shakes his head just slightly and Spencer tilts his in acknowledgement before turning back and letting Jon lead him away with an arm around his waist. Ryan has never been more grateful to have a friend who knows him better than he knows himself.
The last thing he sees is Pete turning to press his face against Patrick’s shoulder once the rest of the boys are out of the room. Patrick’s hand comes up to card gently through his hair as Ryan disappears down the stairwell.
----------
They bury Cash under a naked tree in a wooded area just outside the city.
Autumn claimed all the leaves long ago and the first snow of the year gleams against the branches as their ragtag group gathers beneath it solemnly. Singer stands stony and silent off to the side, slightly away from the grave. His features are rigid, jaw set, as he stares hard at the ground and he won’t look at anyone. He flinches whenever someone puts a hand on his shoulder, or comes in close contact and eventually they all stop trying and retreat within their own sorrow.
Marshall, Johnson and Ian stand in a small semi-circle as close to Singer as they can, but not close enough for him to be overly aware of their presence. Their eyes are all downcast and Marshall keeps picking, and pulling at the hem of his shirt anxiously until Ian grabs his hand, stuffs it into his jacket pocket and holds it there with his own. The other boy jerks in surprise, rotating to stare at Ian with surprised eyes but he doesn’t look back and Marshall uses the opportunity to shuffle closer, enabling him to lean his head against the top of the shorter boy’s.
There’s a very distinct feeling of something missing. A part of them is gone and the entire world has been thrown off balance.
This, Ryan thinks bitterly, is what happens to us. This is the life of a newsboy.
He shoots Brendon a furtive glance. The other boy’s head is down, fingers loosely tangled with Ryan’s. Spencer is standing on the other side of him with one arm wrapped around Brendon’s waist. He has Jon’s hand clasped in his. Ryan’s chest aches when he looks at them.
And then Brendon looks up, meets his eyes from beneath his lashes and they’re glittery from tears. Glittery and big and Ryan stares down at him, his own eyes dry, and tightens his grip on Brendon’s hand.
Brendon doesn’t belong with him. Doesn’t belong in a place like this when he has a family and a home to go back to. Ryan knows how his story will end if he doesn’t stop it from happening. There’s a selfish part of him that is stubbornly trying to ignore it, trying to insist that Brendon came to him and that he gets to keep him, but he can’t. Not when he’s standing here, staring into the grave of one of his friends.
Across from him William is leaning up against Gabe as he chews on his bottom lip and stares out through the trees at something invisible. Pete and Patrick are standing at the head of the grave, in front of all of them, looking intently down into it wordlessly. Ryan doesn’t miss the way that Pete is standing very uncharacteristically still for once with Patrick’s hand against the small of his back. His face is set in a troubled expression and he looks just about as lost as Ryan feels. None of them seem to know what to say and the silence if deafening.
Someone should be speaking, but no one is. It’s just awful, unending silence, and the occasional shuffling of feet in the snow and the soft sound of wind going through the branches as they stand beneath the tree under the grey sky with the flurries floating gently down, landing in hair and on the tips of noses.
The bustling noise from the city is faint, muted in the background.
“Cash,” he finally starts, because someone needs to speak, but the words are choked in his throat and he doesn’t exactly know what to say, “Cash was a great person.” He finishes, feeling lame but Brendon squeezes his hand and sends him the briefest quirk of lips for reassurance.
“He always knew just what asshole thing to do to make you laugh.” Jon chimes in, and a few people chuckle.
“He was an asshole, but he was the best.”
“He sold paps like nobody’s business.”
Ryan retreats back again once people begin to talk - throwing out comments, jokes, stories - and watches.
This is what fate eventually has in store for all of them. It hurts to think about it as he looks at the faces surrounding him. The faces of his friends - people so close to him they might as well be his family. They are his family.
And they can all only keep running from fate for so long.
----------
In the subsequent days Ryan decides that the best thing for himself and for Brendon would be if Brendon were to leave.
He tries to subtly push him away at first, hoping that the other boy will get the hint and leave on his own. He starts using harsher words, and tones mixed with a general aura of exasperation when he’s around Brendon but he just watches him with this look in his eyes and on his face that makes Ryan feel as if he’s being seen straight through.
Nothing he’s doing seems to be working at all, but his methods are attracting glances from everyone else. Sometimes he catches Spencer examining him with a guarded, worried expression and Jon simply frowns at him without saying a word. Everyone seems to have picked up on it.
Everyone but Brendon, that is.
“Ryan.”
Ryan ignores him, bending down to look under the bed for his missing shoe instead.
“Ryan.” Brendon says again, a bit more vehemently this time.
He’s running late. Everyone is already gone, and if he could just find his damn shoe he could go and get his papers too. He’s searched everywhere and he can’t find the damn thing. It’s just vanished. Growling in frustration he snatches the pillow and throws it to the other end of the bed. He fucking hates being late.
The next thing he knows there’s a hand clasping his shoulder, pulling him into a standing position and turning him around until he’s staring at Brendon with startled eyes.
“Ryan.”
Ryan blinks at him. Brendon’s holding his shoe in his hand, but when he goes to reach for it the other boy takes a step backwards.
“That’s my shoe.” Ryan says staring at it with a blank face. “Give me my shoe, Brendon.”
But he shakes his head and tells him firmly, “Not until you tell me what the fuck’s going on.”
“Nothing.”
“Is this about Cash?” Brendon questions, studying the smaller boy carefully and Ryan flinches. The wound from his friend’s death still fresh and raw feeling.
He answers in the calmest voice he can manage, “No. This is about how you won’t give me my shoe and I have work to do.” Glancing at the floor, because he can’t quite bring himself to look Brendon in the face when he follows that with, “Not all of us have mommy and daddy’s money to live off of. Do your parents even know where you go at night because it sure seems like you have the freedom that you claim you want so much already.”
Brendon’s face darkens at that. “What the fuck do you know about it? What the fuck do you know about my life?” His intake of breath is sharp and Ryan keeps his head bowed a mixture of anger and guilt and frustration boiling beneath his skin.
When Brendon doesn’t respond after a few moments he chances a look at him. His face is open like it always is, hurt all over it, as he stares at Ryan but he’s holding out the shoe and Ryan feels about two feet tall when he reaches out to take it.
The moment his fingers wrap around it, however, Brendon is using it to pull him forward. He drops his grasp on the shoe was soon as Ryan is close enough for him to get a hand on his hip. Ryan lets the shoe fall out of his hand in surprise and it hits the floor with a dull thud.
“Brendon, what - “
But he’s cut off by Brendon nosing at his neck and pressing a soft kiss against his collarbone. It’s gentle and tender, completely different from the angry snarl moments ago, catching Ryan off guard.
“Stop pushing me away.” He whispers, eyelashes fluttering against the delicate skin under Ryan’s jaw. “Please stop pushing me away.”
Ryan tenses. “I’m not.” He protests even though he knows perfectly well that he’s lying and he knows that the other boy knows it too.
“You are, and I forgive you for what you said.”
His mouth finds Ryan’s and puts an end to any more of his objections.
Brendon kisses him like he’s going to break - with careful lips and the gentlefirm press of fingertips against Ryan’s hips. Ryan resists for all of two seconds, trying to keep up his ruse, but he can’t seem to ever resist Brendon and before he knows it he’s kissing him back hard because he’s not going to break. Not anymore. He’s determined. He’s strong and he can handle himself. Has to handle himself. He pushes his fingers through Brendon’s hair and tugs, yanking the other boy’s head back.
Brendon lets out a harsh sound when Ryan’s lips find the skin of his neck. His fingers grasp together, pressing more firmly against his hips and Ryan smiles to himself even as his head tells him to stop because this is completely counterproductive to everything he’s been working for.
But he’s greedy and he wants this. Wants this more than anything because this will be the absolute last time he can have it, but beneath his lips and fingers the other boy is pulling back, pulling away to stare at him.
Ryan lets go, and they blink at one another, breathing hard.
“Why are you doing this?” His voice is so soft that Ryan barely hears it over the pounding of his heart and the thrumming of the blood in his veins.
His voice is as steady as he can make it. “Because I don’t want you here anymore.”
Brendon spits out, “Bullshit,” with his lips curling into a small snarl.
Ryan turns away from him, bends down to pick up his shoe and begins to unlace it.
“Ryan, please.” The plea is strained, quavering and Ryan swallows around the lump in his throat and focuses on tying his shoe as best he can with trembling fingers.
“Go home, Brendon.” He states still bending down and not looking at him, “You don’t belong here and you know it.”
And Brendon doesn’t argue, doesn’t say anything else. Ryan was prepared to battle it out over this because Brendon never does anything he doesn’t want to do without a fight so after minutes of silence he straightens up and swivels sharply on his heel to yell at him but the room is empty.
Brendon is gone.
November 1898
“You did what?”
Ryan repeats, “I told him that I didn’t want him anymore.” But it’s lost some of the drive it originally had now that he’s face to face with one of Spencer’s angry scowls.
“That was stupid.” Spencer tells him pointedly, crossing his arms against his chest. “That was really stupid.”
Ryan’s mouth drops into a frown. “It was not.”
“Ry,” Spencer’s frowning right back at him, “this might be the stupidest thing you’ve ever done ever.”
“Guys.” Jon’s watching them with wary eyes and a carefully placed, neutral expression. “They both turn on him with matching glares and he holds his hands up quickly in surrender. “Never mind. Carry on.”
“Jon, tell him it wasn’t stupid. Tell him that it was totally right and legit.” Ryan’s own arms cross against his chest as he stares the older boy down. “Tell him it was for the best.”
“Jon, tell him that it was stupid.” Spencer’s speaking in a controlled voice to Jon but his eyes haven’t left Ryan and he narrows them just the slightest bit, “Tell him that being miserable isn’t for the best.”
He snaps, swiveling furiously on his friend. “I’m not miserable!”
Spencer raises an eyebrow at him and says disbelievingly. “No?”
“No.”
“Bullshit. You’ve been miserable for the last week. Everyone knows it, Ryan. You aren’t subtle at all.” Spencer rolls his eyes and scowls as he notifies the other boy.
Ryan clenches his jaw and pulls his arms tighter against his body and narrows his eyes right back at his friend.
From the bed Jon pipes up, “It’s true, Ry. You’ve looked like shit lately.”
Ryan glowers at him. “I’m fine. Besides,” He turns again to Spencer, “you’re the one who kept telling me that he didn’t fit here. That he shouldn’t be here.”
Spencer’s scowl lessens and he looks pained. “That was before.”
“Before what?”
He finally loses control and raises his voice snapping, “Before you went and sent him away and started moping around!”
“You’ve been so busy with Jon I’m surprised you even noticed.” The harsh statement is out of his mouth before he can stop them and Spencer steps back like he’s been smacked as the room fills with a stunned silence.
Jon gets to his feet. “That’s not fair, Ryan.” His voice is hushed in shock.
And he knows. He knows it isn’t fair. They’ve both taken painful measures to make sure he’s included. To make sure there’s always an invitation extended to him to go out with them whenever they’ve made plans. In all honesty he’s been so wrapped up in Brendon that he’s probably the one who has been neglecting them but he’s not going to apologize for it. He fixes a steady gaze on them instead and grits his teeth.
Without another word Spencer turns and storms out of the room leaving Ryan and Jon.
Jon looks so disappointed in him that Ryan feels his resolve slipping just a little bit. “Jon, I - “ but he shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders before turning and following Spencer out of the room and leaves Ryan standing alone in the middle of it.
----------
Ryan doesn’t really know how he gets through the following days. He tries to live like he had before Brendon had upended his entire life but it’s difficult. Spencer isn’t talking to him, and Jon already told him that until he fixes things he’s going to side with Spencer.
There is no middle ground here, Jon had explained, I can’t play the in-between guy.
He fills his days the same way he had before by selling papers (with perhaps slightly more vigor). Only now he avoids the park and gets his hopes up with he sees tall boys with dark hair until they turn around and his hopes are crushed under a ton of bricks.
Mostly he spends his time trying to pretend that there isn’t a giant hole in his chest.
----------
“Why hasn’t Brendon been comin’ round lately?” Marshall asks one day, chin propped up on the back of his bed. He’s sprawled haphazardly across it, watching Ryland and Nate tossing back and forth a ratty ball, but he rolls his head so that he’s facing Ryan’s bed.
Nate throws the ball in his direction. It bounces off the back of his head and Marshall sits up, hand flying to press against the spot as he cries indignantly, “Hey!”
“Why have you been asking so many questions lately?” Nate asks, and cups his hand for the ball back. Marshall scowls but throws it anyway.
“I haven’t.”
Spencer snaps, “Well, perhaps you shouldn’t start now.”
Ryan can feel at least four pairs of eyes on him but he refuses to respond; stays stretched out on his side with his eyes shut tight. He’s sleeping. He has been sleeping the whole time.
He can hear the pout in Marshall’s voice when he frowns and states, “I liked Brendon. He was fun.”
Later that night he waits until Jon has to use the bathroom, leaving an empty spot in Spencer’s bed, before he climbs into it slipping under the threadbare sheet quickly. Spencer doesn’t stir as he scoots himself closer, pushing until his friend lifts his arm and Ryan is able to fit his head beneath Spencer’s chin.
“I’m sorry.” He whispers against Spencer’s neck as an arm settles heavy on his waist. “I’m sorry.”
“Go to sleep.” Spencer commands, but he kisses Ryan’s head lightly and Ryan wraps his own arm around Spencer as he closes his eyes and is asleep within seconds.
He doesn’t see Jon’s return, or feel him smooth a hand over his hair before he whispers to Spencer, “Is he going to be okay?”
He doesn’t feel Spencer’s grip tighten as he nods carefully. “Eventually.”
December 1898
There comes a time when Ryan has no place left to go on his paper breaks. He’s been switching it up so that he goes all over town, but never has to go to the park, and he’s pretty much exhausted all of the other locations. He’s left every day to wander the streets with no real direction at all until his feet decide where to take him.
Today they’ve decided on Cash’s grave. He doesn’t know why he goes along with it (he hasn’t been since they buried him) but he finds himself making the trek up the little hill to the grave one snowy afternoon.
He’s not surprised to find Singer already there and he sits down next to him on the frozen ground carefully. He doesn’t say hello, and Singer doesn’t acknowledge his presence in any way more than a glance over from the corner of his eye as he’s settling down. The snow is soaking through his pants and he brings his knees up automatically to his chest, wrapping thin arms around them tightly to starve off the cold. The other boy doesn’t seem to be bothered by the crispness of the air as he stares out at the partially hidden cross. The barest hint of brown poking through white giving away its existence.
“It hurts.” Singer speaks softly after a few minutes, words chosen carefully. “I keep forgetting and I’ll go to tell him something, or show him something and then…I remember.” He sighs, and glances down at his hands. “I was so used to him being here and now he’s not.”
Ryan swallows thickly around the lump in his throat. “It’ll get easier,” he hears himself lie (he’s so good at that now) and Singer turns his head to look at him with solemn eyes. “When Brendon left it hurt so much, but it’ll get easier.” He leaves out the fact that it hasn’t and that he still feels like he’s missing this giant chunk of himself.
“Yeah,” he agrees, and Ryan knows he doesn’t believe the word, “but it isn’t exactly the same is it?” Singer scowls at him suddenly. “You knew Brendon for a few months. I’ve loved Cash my whole life.”
His voice grows hushed as he looks back out over the grave, “Ever since we were kids. He was the first person I met after mother died. I remember I was sitting in the middle of town by a fountain and he came right up and sat down beside me and said everyone I love is gone too and pulled out a daisy from his pocket. This wilted, pathetic looking flower and tucked it behind my ear before telling me in a no arguing kind of voice we are going to be friends and I couldn’t really say no.”
Ryan shifts and scoots closer until their sides are pressed together. Singer takes his hand without looking down and they sit quietly together as the wind picks up and the snow begins to fall again until Singer continues, “and now everyone has just forgotten all about him. A few months after he’s gone and everyone has moved on. No one cares anymore. Everyone is too busy watching you destroy yourself to remember and I can’t forget.” He turns pleading eyes on Ryan and when he speaks again his voice is strained, “How? How do I forget him?”
Ryan tells him, gripping his hand hard, “You don’t. You don’t, and we haven’t.”
“No. You’re just too busy missing someone else to care.” Singer declares. Climbing to his feet he glares down at Ryan. “Brendon’s still alive, Ryan. If you wanted to you could see him again. Could kiss him and hold him again.” He sighs and shrugs despondently. “All I’ve got is a nondescript, wooden cross that’s eventually going to rot and fall apart and an empty bed at night.”
As he’s walking away he says over his shoulder, “Think about that for a while before you try and tell me that things will get better.”
----------
Singer is gone one morning when Ryan wakes up. Vanished with no warning, and not a trace of him left to prove he had ever been there in the first place. His bed is made. His stuff (what little there was) gone.
William’s voice is what wakes him when it cuts through the sleepy air of the room. “Guys, where’s Singer?”
Sisky rubs a hand across his eyes and rolls over, burying his face deeper into his pillow. “Whaddya mean ‘where’s Singer’? He’s sleeping like you should be. Shut up, Bilvy.” His voice is muffled and sleep slurred. It kind of fades away towards the end as he’s already drifting off.
The way William rolls his eyes at Sisky is evidence in his voice when he says, “He should be, yes, but his bed is empty. He’s not in the washroom either.”
“What the fuck, William? People are sleeping.” Gabe reaches around on the floor until his fingers close on something solid and then he throws it across the room in William’s general direction. There’s a murmur of agreement as the shoe falls harmlessly a few feet away from him, but Marshall, Johnson and Ian all sit up in their beds with furrowed brows.
Johnson is the first of the three to speak and he addresses William almost hesitantly. “Maybe he got an early start?”
William raises an eyebrow. “This early?”
“Maybe he just went out.” Nate offers from his bed where he’s watching them with his chin on the pillow. “Get some air or something.”
Looking at him skeptically William says, “That doesn’t really sound like him. Besides, it’s snowing. No one goes out this early in the snow just to get some air.”
While this exchange is going on Ryan manages to untangle himself from the mess of sheets twisted around his legs and climbs out from under the heavy weight of Spencer’s arm. Spencer makes a sleepy, soft mumble of disproval when he slips from the bed to stand beside it. Around the room everyone else is beginning to wake up fully and is peering curiously at them.
Suddenly Marshall pipes up, “His stuff is gone.”
“What?” Ian’s eyebrows dip further in confusion and he looks over towards Singer’s bed as he questions, “Where is it?”
“Dunno, but it’s gone.”
“Did he leave?”
Mike is sitting cross-legged on his bed. “He couldn’t have just left. Where would he go?” He throws out and Ryland nods his agreement.
Finally Ryan speaks up, bracing himself with one hand on the bedpost and the other hanging limply at his side. “I know.” Everyone stops their side conversations and he flushes as they all simultaneously turn to look at him. “I know why he left.”
“What?” Beside him Spencer is sitting up and he looks at Ryan. “Did he say something to you?”
“No, not exactly.” He admits after fidgeting for a few seconds, then he proceeds to tell them all about the conversation that he had with Singer about Cash just a few days earlier. He carefully leaves out the parts where the other boy had called him out, and had spilled the secret of just how much he was still hurting.
“How could he think that?” Gabe demands when he’s done. “How could he think we don’t care? There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t miss that damn boy.”
Echoes of agreement come from all around him and Ryan shrugs helplessly, palms up placating. “I don’t know, but he did.” He tells them all.
“I haven’t been to Cash’s grave since we buried him.” Jon admits softly.
Johnson mumbles, “Me either. It hurts too much to think about.”
It’s silent as everyone looks around guiltily at one another and then Marshall is speaking up again, “Well, what do we do now?”
“We go after him of course.” Ian says with no hesitation. “We can’t just let him go out there all by himself thinking that no one cares about him.”
----------
They split up into groups of three. Pete and Patrick agree to stay at the house just in case Singer comes to his senses suddenly and returns before any of them have the chance to find him. Pete puts up a valiant fight to go with them, no one expected any thing less from him, and in the end it’s Patrick who gets him to relent and consent to stay behind.
“I need someone to keep my mind off of it, Pete.” He says smiling sweetly at him while subtly nodding towards the door for them to leave while the older man is distracted. “Stay here with me?”
Pete could never resist anything Patrick requests of him, and the boys can see the slight crumple in his shoulders while Patrick speaks to him. He doesn’t look very happy about it as he stands anxiously with his arms crossed, rocking back and forth on his feet in a coil of forced down energy while he watches them all troop out of the house, but he doesn’t say anything else about going with them.
Ryan, Spencer and Jon head out together, nodding their goodbyes to the other groups as they all start off.
“Where do you think he is?” Jon questions, covering a light cough with his shoulder and wrapping his arms around himself to try and keep the flurries away as best he can. Ryan kicks at a loose piece of the pavement.
“I don’t know.” He answers. It’s still dark out, dawn just beginning to break through the night and he can just make out Jon’s profile as he walks along beside him. “But if he really doesn’t want to be found…” he trails off leaving the rest unsaid.
They walk along together quietly in the stillness of the city, and Ryan feels shittier and shittier with every step they take because this is his fault. It’s his fault that Singer’s missing, that he decided to just up and leave without telling anyone. It’s his fault that everyone is wandering around in the snow when they should be warm in their beds and that Jon keeps coughing and trying to cover it up with a clearing of his throat, or the turn of his head.
Spencer sighs heavily all of a sudden. “It’s not your fault, Ry.” His words break through the quietness and both Ryan and Jon jump just a bit.
“I know.” Ryan grumbles in return. “Get out of my head.” He can feel Spencer looking at him and he kicks another loose piece of pavement. He’s getting ready to say something else when a thought hits him so hard that he’s stopping dead in his tracks. “Hey, guys?” The other two halt and backtrack a few steps to stand in front of him. “Is there a fountain somewhere near here?”
Jon frowns. “A fountain?”
“Anywhere with water?” He tries again, wracking his brain. “He told me that he first met Cash by a fountain after his mother died. Where’s the closest place with water that he might go to?”
Spencer bites his lip and frowns. “The lake in Central Park maybe?” He suggests.
“It’s worth a shot.” Jon says.
When they do finally find him he’s sitting on a bench near the lake with his chin in the palm of his hands looking so small, and lonely, and very breakable.
“Where are you going to go, Singer?” Is the first thing out of Ryan’s mouth when they see him. He sits down next to him on the bench as Jon sits down quietly on the other side and Spencer stands behind them all. “Where else is there for you to go?” He inquires gently.
The younger boy doesn’t look up as he shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know.”
Jon puts an arm around his shoulder and Singer allows himself to be pulled until his head is resting against Jon’s chest. Ryan snakes his own arm around his tiny, tiny waist and scoots closer.
“Everyone is looking for you, Alex.” Spencer tells him, “We were all really worried.”
Singer nods against Jon’s shoulder and purses his lips but doesn’t offer an apology or an explanation.
“You can’t just go running off like that.”
“I didn’t think anyone would notice honestly.” He finally mumbles from behind the curtain his hair has made over his face just as Spencer is opening his mouth to say something else. Jon pulls away to stare at him and he straightens up, tucking the wayward hair behind his ears and says with a small shrug, “Didn’t think anyone would really care.”
Spencer rolls his eyes and says in a tone that Ryan knows all too well, “That’s stupid. You’re our friend, dumbass. Of course we’d notice.”
“Of course we’d care.” Ryan adds.
“We - “ Jon’s cut off by a cough and a violent shiver that has three pairs of eyes darting to his doubled over figure.
“We should get back.” Spencer states, shifting like he wants to reach out to Jon but not entirely sure if he should.
The other two boys climb to their feet and while Jon goes around the side of the bench to wrap Spencer up in a tight hug Ryan turns to look down at Singer who has remained seated.
“Singer, are you coming with us?”
Jon smiles from his place in Spencer’s arms pleading, “Please come back with us, Alex. We’d all miss you like crazy if you left.”
Singer eyes them all briefly before wilting and nodding his consent as he gets to his feet slowly. “Yeah. Okay.” He mumbles. “I’ll come back.”
It’s snowing hard by the time they get back to the house. Big, fat flakes that get everywhere and soak into shirts and hats the moment they land. Ryan is drenched to the bone as their ragtag group stumbles on numb legs through the door.
Pete is flying over to them the second they’ve crossed the threshold demanding, “Did you find him? Where is he?”
He pushes through them as they spread out in the foyer amongst the others who had already returned, dripping and cold, until he reaches Singer who is still standing in the doorway hunched in on himself.
“Hey, Pete.” He says while attempting, and failing, at a light grin.
Pete’s yanking him through the doorway and wrapping him up in a bone crushing hug before Singer has a chance to react. “Don’t ever do that again!” He snarls into the side of his neck, hugging him impossibly tighter. “Don’t ever just leave.”
Singer’s arms come up tentatively to return the hug. Nodding, he lets his eyes fall shut as his chin drops down to Pete’s shoulders. “Okay.” He whispers. “Okay.”
“We were really worried about you, Alex.” Patrick states as he moves from his station against the wall where he had been watching everyone carefully making sure that all of them were getting rid of wet hats and coats. He crosses over to the two of them and stops just behind Pete. “You didn’t even leave a note. You could have left a note.” He’s trying hard to look stern and keep a reprimanding tone but it’s breaking quickly and when Singer looks up at him with impossibly round, vulnerable eyes he gives it up and joins the tangle of arms and bodies.
The door bangs open again and another search team comes spilling through along with a gust of frigid air and some more snow.
“No luck, guys,” Gabe announces, “but we did find Marshall, Johnson and Ian if that’s worth anything.” He draws up short when Singer turns to face him and the rest of his follows after he’s been released from the prison of Pete and Patrick’s arms. “Never mind.” Gabe amends slowly. “I see he’s been found.”
Marshall, Ian and Johnson push around him and William to get through the door and to their friend. As soon as they see him they’re piling over one another to grab him into a hug but it’s too many arms at once. Too many bodies trying to press together at one time and someone loses their balance tripping them all over to the floor in a giant heap of flailing limbs.
“We could never not care.” Ian whispers against the skin of Singer’s neck as the other boys look on amused from around the room. “We could never just forget.”
Singer wraps his arms around whatever he can get a hold of, and the four of them cling to one another on the floor muddied by melting snow and dirty shoes until Pete screams, “Dog pile!” and throws himself down onto the ground with them, worming his way into their hug with ease.
Ryan stands where he is next to Jon and Spencer sitting on the stairs watching in amusement at the sudden mad rush that breaks out as everyone drops to the floor to create this giant, wet pile of people. Beside him Spencer’s murmuring to Jon quiet words that he can’t fully make out but he does catch a strained, tired, ‘Spence,’ and ‘hurts’ in Jon’s raspy voice slightly deeper than Spencer’s that has him looking over and down at them.
Spencer looks up at him in the same instant; his eyes catching Ryan’s and the raw pain all over his friend’s face has the breath leaving his lungs and his heart stuttering to a stop.
“Spencer?”
But Spencer just shakes his head at him and smoothes a hand over Jon’s hair as the older boy curls into him.
January 1899
January is white. Blank. It passes him by with frozen fingertips and empty streets. No one wants to be out in this kind of weather. It passes with numbness (strictly from the cold…at least that’s what he keeps telling himself) and that persistent feeling of being alone again even in the crowd of all his friends.
It passes with days spent sitting with Singer that blur together in quiet conversations and trips to visit Cash.
It passes with nights curled up in his own bed pretending to be asleep as he watches Jon shaking and shivering from a cold that comes from something more than just the temperature of the air as Spencer holds him and runs his hands over his forehead and cheeks and kisses him softly as he works tirelessly to combat the chill. Ryan avoids thinking about the tracks on his cheeks that glint every so often in the moonlight.
It passes with mornings acting like nothing is wrong and January fades away to February without him realizing it.
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