Iron Skeletons - Part Four
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He's always been a fast eater, so he finishes what's left of the macaroni quickly and puts the pan in the sink. He'd wash it out, but he's no good at that, either, and the last time he tried, he almost flooded the kitchen. Jon told him he'd take care of all his dishes from there on. Brendon had actually felt bad, another foreign feeling, and tried to convince Jon that he'd be able to do it with practice, but no one was willing to take that chance.
"Ready to head out?" Ryan asks, standing up. Brendon nods again and walks over, out of the kitchen and to the front door where his shoes are laying. Ryan follows, grabbing the blindfold and his keys off the table.
Before they get in the car, Ryan ties the blindfold around Brendon's eyes. This is the only part about the situation that Brendon genuinely hates dealing with, but he understands it. He gets that while he knows he isn't about to go off telling anyone the directions to their headquarters, and they probably do too, it's not a chance they can take. It's easier for everyone if he doesn't know, anyway, because he's a good actor and can lie with the best of them, but he's sure someone trained enough would know if he was lying.
He doesn't want them to get busted any more than they do, so he keeps his mouth and eyes shut and gets into the front seat of the car.
"It's lucky for you guys that I can't memorize this all just by knowing which way you turn," Brendon teases, leaning his head back against the seat. Ryan barks out a laugh, rolling his eyes even though Brendon can't see.
"Lucky for us?" he repeats, glancing at Brendon out of the corner of his eye. "What you mean is lucky for you. If you could do that, there's no way I could guarantee you'd still be alive right now."
Brendon shifts in his seat. He doesn't know if he'll ever get used to jokes about his death, even though he knows that they're joking. With the blindfold on, he can't tell if Ryan notices his hesitation, but the subject changes quickly either way.
"Do you go to the park a lot?" Ryan asks, keeping his eyes on the road this time.
Brendon nods. "Yeah," he says. "Pretty much every day after work or during break or whatever."
"Do you have a favorite area?"
It's just idle small talk, Brendon knows, but he thinks that it's nice to be asked questions and feel like the person actually wants to know the answer.
"Yeah," he says, letting a smile cross over his face as he thinks about it. "Turtle Pond."
"Really?" Ryan asks, and it's almost surprised. "I would've pegged you for the type of person whose favorite place was constantly crowded."
Brendon shakes his head. "Nah. There's this rock, if you walk around the pond, and you climb a bit, this rock is over the whole pond. Like, not literally, I guess, but if you sit on it.. You can overlook the whole thing. And it's just quiet up there, and nice, I guess. I love it."
Ryan nods, even though Brendon can't see it, and stays quiet. They drive in comfortable silence, the only sounds being the quiet music on the radio and the rush of wind outside. Brendon fumbles around his car door for the button to roll the window down, finally managing to get it down a few inches. A rush of warm wind blows in at him and he breathes the mid-summer air in deep. He's always loved the smell of this season, the grass and the lingering smell of a thunderstorm.
Eventually, Brendon can tell even through his blindfold that it's gotten darker, and assumes they're in some sort of parking garage. "Can I take the blindfold off now?" he asks.
"Yeah," Ryan says as he cuts the engine, and Brendon lets the blindfold fall into his lap. He blinks a few times to get used to suddenly being able to see things, and then lets himself out of the car. Ryan follows suit, and soon the two are on their way to the park.
The walk isn't too far, but it's not particularly close, either. Their walk is less tense than Brendon expects it to be, but then, he's not really sure what he expected. Maybe awkwardness, or feeling like Ryan doesn't really want to deal with him anymore, now that he knows everything. But things are mostly normal, save for Brendon's impending deadline.
Brendon thinks that maybe, just maybe, he's a little disappointed nothing's changed.
After all, he laid himself bare. He put everything on the table for Ryan to do anything he wanted with it, and he's pretty much done...nothing. Brendon doesn't know how to feel about this, so he tries to ignore it. But on their mostly silent walk, he can't help but wonder what it means. It's only been a few days, sure, and what does he expect Ryan to do anyway? Tell Brendon all his secrets? Maybe that's what he wants, but he can't say he really expects it. So, what, then?
Brendon shakes his head at the questions filling it, as though the action will shake them all away, and he can just go back to not caring. It was all easier then.
Ryan notices him, and gives Brendon a questioning glance. "Something wrong?"
Yes. No. I don't know. "Nah, just trying to get this fly away from my face."
Ryan nods, but looks a little skeptical. Truth be told, he's not sure what to say anymore. He doesn't want to bring it up, ask if Brendon's okay, because he's never been that guy. He's never been the one to be there for someone, always been the one someone needed to be there for. He wants to, though. He wonders if maybe he should ask Spencer for tips.
Since Spencer isn't with them, he stays silent in fear of saying something wrong. The walk goes by quickly enough, and the two find themselves on the Great Lawn. Brendon turns around, pointing in the direction of a pond not too far away.
"There it is," he says. "Turtle Pond. See that rock?" He points, and Ryan's eyes follow in the direction he's pointing. Sure enough, he sees what Brendon must be talking about: an almost cliff-like section of rocks that jut out over the pond. Ryan's already walking towards it, able to tell just why Brendon loves it so much.
The climb up to the top is a bit tough. Ryan slips about halfway up and lands on the grass below, but by that time Brendon's at the top and doesn't feel like climbing down to help him up, so he just laughs. It's not that far of a fall, just a few feet, so he's not particularly worried. Eventually, Ryan makes it up, and the two sit side by side, legs dangling off the edge, looking out across the pond.
"I can see why you like it up here," Ryan says, and he has to fight not to lean his head on Brendon's shoulder. He's not entirely sure why he doesn't.
Brendon just nods. He doesn't have anything to say, so he just says nothing, letting the silence envelop them.
“I don’t really get along with my dad, either,” Ryan says, out of the blue. He sounds tired, something Brendon’s come to learn means he’s struggling with what to say. “Well, I mean. I didn’t.”
Brendon stays quiet. He can tell this is one of those stories, much like his own, that takes time and patience. He may not have a lot of that, but he stores it up for moments like these.
“He… My mom wasn’t in my life, either. She left when I was six, in the middle of the night, and I’ve only heard from her once or twice since.” He pauses. “One Christmas, I think. And my sixteenth birthday.”
There’s another pause again, slightly longer this time, and Brendon wants to grab Ryan’s hand. He doesn’t really think that Ryan would mind so much, but he refrains anyway.
“My dad was an alcoholic,” Ryan says when he starts again. “That’s the easiest way to put it, I guess. Not a really nice one, either.” Brendon doesn’t expect the bitter laugh that comes next, doesn’t expect the pure amount of hatred in it. “I guess none of them are, are they?”
Brendon doesn’t know what to say, and figures the question is rhetorical anyway.
It’s a while before Ryan starts up again. “I guess my story doesn’t take very long. He was a drunk. We yelled a lot. He didn’t let me do a lot, I snuck out. And then he’d hit me.”
Despite how much he should have seen that coming, it still hits Brendon by surprise. Anger bubbles up inside of him and it’s hard to hold it back, not to lash out and punch his fist into the rocks they’re sitting on. He wants to hit Ryan’s dad twice for every time he hit Ryan; he wants to watch him suffer.
“He died when I was eighteen.”
And that’s just, oh. Brendon doesn’t know what to say. He thinks about what he would do if his own dad died, and finds it difficult. He thinks back to their conversation the night before, thinks of the note in his pocket even now, and decides that he’d -- he’d miss his dad, if he died. And that’s maybe one of the scariest thoughts he’s ever had.
His mind is wandering, thinking about everything, and he's not really expecting it when it happens. But something -- someone -- catches his eye across the pond, and all other thoughts fly out of his mind.
"Fuck," he says, eyes growing wide. He's only seen a jacket, hell, even just the emblem on it, but suddenly it's all coming back to him.
"What's wrong?" Ryan asks quickly, following Brendon's gaze. Of course, it doesn't mean anything to Ryan, who's never seen the person Brendon's looking at before. At least, he doesn't think he has.
Brendon takes a moment to think before he responds. He’s just getting Ryan to open up to him; does he want to ruin that by pointing out what he’s seen? But he thinks about how long they’ve been waiting for this, what’s banking on this, and shakes his head. There’s no way he can’t.
"It's, fuck, Ryan, that guy down there, do you see him? He's -- fuck, Ryan, that's. That's him." The words are rushing out once he finally decides to say them, coming too quickly for Ryan to understand at first. Once he does, he has no idea what Brendon's talking about.
"Who?" he asks, furrowing his eyebrows. The guy Brendon's looking at isn't familiar in the slightest -- who could it be that's so important?
The look on Ryan’s face pauses Brendon for a second. In mere seconds, he’s changed from serious and almost vulnerable back to his normal countenance. But Brendon can play that game, too.
"Him!" Brendon all but shouts. "The guy I've been trying to figure out how he looks or whatever, the reason Pete let me stick around, you know who I'm talking about."
And yeah, Ryan does. The guy is facing towards them, his face in plain sight, although Ryan's pretty sure he can't see them. And this is -- this is kind of the perfect opportunity, the one they've all been looking for since these guys came on the scene.
"Shit, Brendon, be quiet," Ryan says. "If they see us, this could all be over." Brendon nods, shutting up quickly, and turning to look at Ryan instead.
"Should we... Should we follow them, or something?" Brendon asks, and Ryan hadn't really thought of that, but...yeah, maybe they should.
"Can you be stealthy enough?" Ryan asks, and Brendon can't help but laugh inside at the use of the word stealthy. He doesn't even know why, but it probably has something to do with how ridiculous all of this is. But he nods his head and the thought goes away; he's not really laughing at all anymore.
"I've got a lot of practice being invisible," he says, and he doesn't know whether or not he wants Ryan to detect the bitter undertone in his voice. As it is, Ryan doesn't. He just nods and climbs down off the rock, and Brendon follows quickly.
Now that he knows what the guy they're after looks like, Ryan can track him easily. Brent's usually their tracker, but Ryan's not bad, and they knew where he was to start with.
Brendon blends in so well with the crowd of people in the park that Ryan doesn't even notice him sometimes, something he's both glad for, and a little worried about. But he doesn't think about it much, because there's other business at hand, and he still has to worry about sending someone a text, letting them know what's going on. He hasn't even thought through what would happen after they caught them, or followed them to their headquarters or anything.
Which explains why he's totally unprepared when they get into a car on 5th avenue.
"Fuck," Ryan says, and Brendon stays silent next to him. This can't just be the end. Of course, even just knowing the face of these guys will change everything, but he was so hoping this could be the end of it. That he would be able to track them, follow them, have other people show up, and that would just be...it.
"Wait," Brendon says, out of nowhere. "This doesn't have to be a problem. It's the middle of the day, and we're in New York City. They're not going to be able to go very fast. We can just follow via the sidewalk, as long as we walk fast, it should work, right?"
Ryan doesn't even respond, just grabs Brendon's arm and walks in the direction the car was going. They're going fairly quickly, weaving in and out of the people on the sidewalks, following the car as best they can. It stops a lot quicker than they were expecting it to, though, in front of a large apartment building. One of the guys gets out while the other stays in the car.
"Shit," Brendon says. "What do we do now?"
Ryan bites his lip and shakes his head. "I have no idea."
Brendon eyes the door of the building, through which one of the guys went through. Whatever they do, they have to make a choice soon. The other guy is pulling away from the curb, and they're both going to get away unless he and Ryan act quickly.
So Brendon does what he does best: fakes confidence, makes a gut decision, and hopes it doesn't end up being a total mistake. He grabs Ryan by the wrist and pulls him toward the door of the apartment building, catching a glimpse of a door marked 'BASEMENT' just about to close. Ryan sees it, too, and dislodges himself from Brendon and runs to catch the door before it closes.
He just barely manages to get a few fingers in before the door slams shut, but luckily, he's much stronger than he seems, as Brendon comes to find for what certainly isn't the first time, and is able to pry it open. They scurry inside and shut the door as quietly as possible, but once they hit the stairs they go slowly. For one, they don't want to run into the guy, and for another, noise is something they're trying to avoid. Not to mention that it's so dark they can't see a thing.
The corridor at bottom of the stairs is lit, but dimly. Neither Brendon nor Ryan see anyone in front of them, but the corridor is twisting, so it's not like they can see too far in front of them anyway. They continue to walk quickly but quietly through the corridor, which definitely isn't getting any brighter.
Ryan starts to wonder if maybe they chose the wrong path. He remembers back to those Choose Your Own Adventure books he read as a kid, and how if the path didn't end up like he wanted it, he'd always go back to where he thought he went off track and just start over. Spencer would always laugh at him, tell him how life doesn't work that way, and come on, Ryan, stop pretending.
Spencer is a reality check Ryan knows he needs in his life, and he wouldn't have Spencer any other way. But he thinks it'd be nice, sometimes, to just be able to go back to a point where you messed up and change it, see what changes because of that. He knows it's not possible, but it's nice to just -- to dream, once in a while.
Ryan is just about to say something to Brendon when the corridor stops. There's a locked door in front of them, and Ryan knows, suddenly, that this is it. He can feel in his gut that this is their headquarters, that this is where they need to be. He knows that he could turn around now, walk out with Brendon, find his way back to Pete and come back later, and this would still be it. A part of him thinks he should give that a shot, but the majority of him is too impatient. They've been working years for this, and now it's right in their hands.
He can't wait until later. He looks over to Brendon, and sees an expression that he's sure mirrors his own. There's excitement, mixed with fear and hesitation, anxiety and adrenaline. Brendon figures the door will be locked, but tries it anyway. Surprisingly, it's...not.
"Fuck," Brendon whispers. This isn't nearly as important to him as it is to Ryan, to everyone else, but it's still something. This is what brought him to them, this is what he's been working towards for the past few weeks, this is... Brendon shakes his head. It isn't nearly as much to him as it is to everyone else, but it's almost everything to him, anyway. He can't imagine what it means to everyone else.
Ryan just nods, and Brendon pushes the door open.
Before they head in, Ryan sends a quick text to Pete that says nothing but apptmnt bldg, 5th av, mile from cent. park turtle rock. basement. bring goat. Then he throws his phone against the nearest wall, looks at Brendon, and heads inside.
There's no one immediately inside, which both surprises Ryan and doesn't. The room they step into is a lot lighter, even though the only light is a fluorescent bulb hanging from the ceiling. It's pretty barren inside, not quite what Ryan expects of the mob headquarters, but then, this is a pretty dirty mob. They certainly aren't high-class Italian Mafia men, at least.
The only thing in the first room is a few chairs, and two doors. Brendon and Ryan look to each one a few times, before Ryan shrugs and walks toward the one on the far wall. Brendon follows close behind, and once again the door isn't locked. Even though he grows a little suspicious of all these unlocked doors, he doesn't say anything; Ryan knows better, and if they needed to be suspicious of anything, he'd have said so.
Inside this door is another surprise. As soon as it shuts, Brendon and Ryan simultaneously notice a few guys in the room. None of them look surprised, which surprises both of them. In fact, they're all smirking, eyes on Brendon and Ryan as one of them walks to lock the door.
"Shit," Brendon breathes out, because he doesn't have to know exactly what's going on to know that they're in trouble.
"Welcome," the guy in the middle says, a small, wiry man with a grotesque scar on his right cheek, "to our humble abode. I see you've found us at long last, hmm?" He casts a glance to the two guys standing next to him, then flicks his gaze back to Brendon and Ryan. "We're going to need to take some things from you. We don't take well to trespassers, you see."
On command, the two guys come forward and push Brendon and Ryan back against the walls behind them. Brendon's too scared to do anything but comply, but Ryan has no problem fighting back. He's pretty small, is able to wriggle his way around a fair bit, and eventually manages to get out of the guy's grasp. His freedom doesn't last long before two guys have him backed against the wall, patting him down for god only know what.
Of course, they don't find anything. Ryan already got rid of his phone, because while he wasn't necessarily thinking far enough ahead to expect this, but he was prepared enough to get rid of his phone. Brendon didn't bring it with him in the first place, so the search on him is useless, as well. The men don't look to deterred.
"What?" the apparent leader says, walking forward. "Did you think you were sly, following us here? Come now, you surely can't think we're that stupid; we've been evading you for months. You walked right into your very own trap. I do hope you said your goodbyes well, last time you saw your friends."
Brendon fidgets, because he knows these aren't jokes. With Ryan and Spencer and Jon and Brent, hell, even with Pete, he knows that they're just joking when they talk about him being dead. They're still hard to hear, but he knows they're just jokes. With these guys, he figures his chances of getting out of this alive are slim.
A few weeks ago, he wouldn't have cared. But he has something to live for now.
Ryan's just standing there, stoic and blank as per always. Even when Brendon's being the best actor he knows how to be, he can't act that calm. He wonders how Ryan does it as they're pushed around some more, through a few doors until they're finally in a concrete room with a few chairs all around and a single light bulb to light the room. It actually looks a lot like the first room they were in, but somehow more ominous.
They leave Brendon and Ryan alone in the room, but they don't tie them up or anything. "Wait here for a while, we'll be back," they say as they leave, and Brendon hears the click of the door locking when it shuts. He looks at Ryan, and they're both silent for a while.
Brendon pushes one of the chairs back against the wall and sits down, looking at Ryan. Ryan's pacing the room, muttering to himself things that Brendon can't really make out, but he catches a 'god damn' in there once, and a litany of 'fucks'. Finally, he turns to Brendon. He looks surprised, almost, to see him, as if he's forgotten that Brendon is there, too.
"Shit," Ryan says, frowning. "Shit, fuck, damn. Fuck, Brendon, I'm so sorry. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I swear I'll get you out of this mess, I should've been thinking ahead, I should've been expecting this, fuck."
This isn't exactly how Brendon sees the situation, and he's about to say something when he hears a noise that sounds like a gun being shot. He assumes that's just what it is, because Ryan's running over to the door, taking something out of his pocket that looks suspiciously like a bobby pin and working to get the door open. Brendon wonders briefly why he hadn't done that earlier, but shoots up towards the door anyway. By the time he gets there, Ryan has it open.
"How'd you do that?" Brendon asks, raising his eyebrows. Ryan shakes his head and pulls him through the door and into the next room. There was no one in there, but they heard another gunshot not too far off, so they followed the noise. The next room they went into held a lot more of interest than the last.
The first thing Ryan sees is Pete diving across the room to hide behind a metal desk, a crazy grin stretching across his entire face. The next thing he sees is Spencer and Brent holding back the guy Ryan had earlier assumed to be the leader of the other mob, who's now got a gun of his own laying on the floor in front of him.
Brendon wonders why Pete dove behind the desk if the guy who would be shooting at him is being constrained, but figures that now is not the time to ask, and also that he probably shouldn't ask in general. No one really understands what Pete does, but it works out anyway. It's then that he notices someone else in the room, but before he can actually alert anyone else of this, something Brendon really is not expecting happens.
Brent gets shot in the side of the head.
He falls backwards, and just as that happens, Pete pops up from behind his desk and shoots the other mob guy in the chest. He falls backwards next to Brent, and everyone kind of...stops. Spencer takes an immediate step away from where the blood is pooling from the two bodies, Brendon and Ryan are frozen in the door, Pete's standing half-above and half-below the desk, and the other guy has fled the room.
After a few moments, Pete stands up fully and walks out to the center of the room, standing over Brent. Ryan follows, placing a hand on Pete's shoulder and leaning in close. Brendon stays by the door and glances over at Spencer, who just looks blank. They're all still silent and in the same positions when Jon busts in, in the midst of a fistfight with some huge guy from the other mob.
They both stop when they see how silent it is, though. Jon looks at Spencer, who nods and Brent and the other guy laying on the ground.
"The fuck?" the other guy says angrily, and Jon doesn't hesitate when he punches him in the face and knocks him down. He walks over to Spencer, wrapping his arms around him. Spencer leans into Jon, and Brendon wishes he had someone to lean into.
"Come on, guys," Pete says, finally, quietly, and everyone follows him out of the basement.
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