Take Me From This Pain, Brian's story

Brian kept looking over his shoulder as he walked down the hallway, making Matt frown as he walked behind the kid. He knew it would take the small blonde some time to calm down after Gary\'s unwelcome visit yesterday, but he hated to see that scared look come back with such a vengeance. He winced as he remembered that it wasn\'t all that long ago when he and Ryan caused the same look on Brian\'s face. He didn\'t feel that anything he did would ever really make up for terrorizing the kid.

The previous night had been the hardest for Brian so far. Matt kept the lamp on low so Brian wouldn\'t be enclosed in darkness. No amount of cuddling and whispered assurances could get him to stop shaking, the tremors so persistent Brian barely got any sleep at all. And when he did finally sleep, the nightmares woke him violently. Matt gripped him tightly through the night but he wasn\'t sure Brian even knew he was there part of the time. The green eyes assumed a distant, horrified look that haunted Matt even now and probably would stay with him long after this was settled.

Matt stopped as he saw that Brian had reached his English class and waited for him to catch up before going inside. The small blonde turned around and looked back at him with a desperate look. Matt smiled encouragingly and touched Brian\'s shoulder.

\"I\'ll be right here when you get out,\" he said as cheerfully as he could. \"Then you, Ryan and I are going out for lunch.\"

\"Out?\" Brian repeated, rubbing his arms frantically. \"But what if he\'s out there watching me.\"

Matt realized that Brian always rubbed or scratched at his arms when he was nervous. He could see the red lines from the kid\'s nails and knew that if Brian didn\'t calm down soon, he\'d draw blood from them.

\"He\'s not,\" Matt soothed. \"The guy my dad hired is watching him 24/7. If he sneezes in your direction, we\'ll know about it.\"

\"But what if he loses him.\"

\"Won\'t happen.\"

\"But.\"

\"Bri, I won\'t let him get to you,\" Matt interrupted. \"I promise.\"

Brian looked up at Matt uncertainly for a minute. He knew the jock meant it, but Matt didn\'t know how desperate Gary would become when he wasn\'t able to get his drugs. On drugs, the man was a nightmare. But off them he was worse. And he now perceived Brian as the main obstacle to his goal. But he also knew that Matt wouldn\'t let him cower and hide anymore. He and Ryan would take him out to lunch no matter how much he protested and the small blonde realized he didn\'t want to argue about it anymore. He was grateful that Matt held him last night and if the other boy thought that going out would do him good Brian would do his best to accommodate the request. He already owed Matt and his parents so much. He nodded and went into his classroom.

As he sat and waited for the teacher to begin the lesson he wouldn\'t be able to concentrate on anyway, Brian thought back over his conversation with Kevin the previous night.

\"I know something\'s wrong,\" Kevin had hissed. \"I can hear it in your voice.\"

\"It\'s nothing,\" Brian protested again, looking up as Matt waved at him. Matt had told Brian he should let Kevin know what happened, but Brian thought it would only worry his brother.

\"Bull,\" Kevin grunted. \"Spill.\"

\"Kevin.\"

\"Now, Bri, or I\'m on the next plane home.\"

Brian winced knowing his brother never bluffed when he was that angry. He\'d wanted to avoid rehashing the whole saga because Kevin was going to worry about him, but now it seems he would be given no choice.

\"Gary showed up at school today,\" he mumbled.

Predictably, Kevin exploded.

\"What?\" he yelled into Brian\'s ear. \"Are you okay?\"

\"Yeah,\" Brian replied in a small voice. He was still kicking himself for not standing up to the disgusting man. \"Matt got him off me before he had a chance to do too much damage.\"

\"Too much?\" Kevin asked in a deceptively soft voice. \"How much?\"

\"Nothing really,\" Brian hurried to reassure him. \"I just have a small bump on my head from the lockers. Matt tackled him right after. I swear I\'m fine.\"

\"You are not fine,\" Kevin seethed. \"You\'re scared. I can tell.\"

\"But I\'m okay,\" Brian pointed out. \"I told you Matt wouldn\'t let him get me.\"

That had seemed to quiet Kevin a little and the brothers changed the subject back to Kevin\'s new school and the friends he and Jason were making. Then Matt asked to speak to Jason and went into the other room. Brian had wondered what that was about but he didn\'t feel he should ask. He\'d settled down to his homework after that.

Now he sat in class trying to follow along in the text but wondering how he was going to get through the day. His head still hurt him and his ribs had been jarred by the impact of the locker yesterday. They hadn\'t really healed yet and he was having trouble drawing deep breaths. He glumly paged through his notes and attempted to catch some of the lesson.

Matt was waiting in the hall just outside, leaning against the wall. He didn\'t want Brian to come out at the end of class and find himself alone. Besides, this was one of his free periods. He was thinking about what Jason had told him last night on the phone.

\"He\'s back to the way he was last week, Jay,\" Matt had sighed into the phone. \"I don\'t know how to comfort him.\"

\"Do what you did last week,\" Jason advised. \"He needs to be held.\"

\"But what if I get . . . an inappropriate reaction to him,\" Matt argued. \"He\'ll really freak now. That son of a bitch should never have been able to get near him.\"

\"I think you have more control than that,\" Jason replied. \"Look, man, you can\'t change what happened. But you have to help him get back on track. He was doing pretty well before this. He needs to see that he can have a normal life.\"

\"How, with his stepfather after him?\"

\"We\'ll settle that soon. But right now, Brian needs to get some confidence back. He\'s probably pissed at himself right now.\"

\"What?\" Matt groused. \"Why?\"

\"Did he call out when He was attacked?\"

Matt thought quickly over the events of the afternoon. He only remembered his ex-girlfriend\'s voice. Brian had said anything.

\"No, I don\'t think he did.\"

\"He\'s angry at himself for not standing up to Gary,\" Jason assessed. \"And that\'s a good thing.\"

\"How is that good?\"

\"It means he\'s reevaluating his actions,\" Jason replied. \"He\'s rethinking his value as a human being. Progress.\"

\"Slow though.\"

\"Take slow over none at all.\"

Matt sighed and shook his head as he waited for Brian\'s class to end. He had pulled out his notebook and was attempting to come up with a few story ideas for his creative writing class.

\"Hey,\" a female voice said and he looked up.

Sherry stood a few feet away and regarded him curiously. He nodded at her and waited expectantly for her to continue.

\"I just want to know what the deal is,\" she said carefully, nit sure if she was going to rock a precariously balanced boat. She didn\'t want her conversation to adversely affect the poor blonde kid she\'d seen attacked yesterday.

\"With what?\" Matt asked calmly.

Sherry didn\'t know how to assess this stranger who looked like her ex- boyfriend. He was Matt and yet he wasn\'t.

\"With you and Brian,\" she replied. \"I can tell you\'ve been watching out for him and I wanted to know why.\"

\"Afraid I\'m playing him?\" Matt asked amused.

\"Kind of,\" she shrugged.

\"I\'m not.\"

\"But you\'ve never.\"

\"Look, Sher, I know what he\'s been through,\" Matt tried to explain. \"My mom and I are just trying to help him get away from that.\"

\"Your mom?\"

\"Yeah,\" Matt frowned. \"You didn\'t think I\'d be able to hide him from her, did you?\"

\"Well, I guess I didn\'t think,\" Sherry began. \"So you really are trying to help him?\"

\"Scout\'s honor.\"

\"You were never a boy scout,\" she grinned.

\"I was a Cub Scout, though,\" he smiled back. \"Thanks for yesterday, Sher. He was in big trouble.\"

\"I could tell,\" she sighed. \"I just knew he needed someone who could get that asshole off of him. You were nearby.\"

Matt nodded.

\"But then you\'re always nearby these days,\" she said curiously. \"Now I guess I know why.\"

Matt smiled again and she waved to him as she headed back down the hallway. The bell rang a minute later and the students all trudged from their classrooms. Ryan waved to Matt as he approached and they both watched Brian slink carefully out of the English classroom. Matt sighed as he clapped a hand to the small blonde\'s shoulder and guided him to the parking lot. It may be a long, slow process. But he intended to get Brian back into the real world.