Take Me From This Pain, Brian's story

Brian picked at his dinner sullenly, trying not to worry Matt. Matt\'s mom was working the night shift again and the boys were alone with a reheated tray of lasagna. A very tasty dinner, too, and Brian wished he could eat more of it. He looked up at Matt apologetically as the jock forked up another bite.

\"You have to eat some food, Bri,\" Matt said seriously. \"You\'re not doing yourself any favors.\"

\"I know.\"

\"Gary hasn\'t been able to tried anything else in three days,\" Matt went on. \"I told you the detective would work out.\"

Brian nodded and looked down, considering his plate carefully. If he could just manage to eat half of it, Matt would relax a little. And maybe the small blonde wouldn\'t feel so weak if he ate more food. He mentally went over what he\'d eaten in the past few days and grimaced. Other than a burger at lunch with Ryan, Matt and Sherry, Brian didn\'t eat much at all. At dinner, Matt\'s mom would make subtle attempts to get food into him and he tried his best to comply. But he just couldn\'t seem to manage it as well as she would have liked. She never said anything, but Brian knew she was disappointed.

\"I\'m trying,\" he finally looked back up to Matt. \"Really. But I\'m just not used to eating this much.\"

\"This much?!\" Matt exclaimed, exasperated. \"Brian, you eat less than a four year old! In fact, I\'m pretty sure Suzie next door eats more than you!\"

\"She\'s only two!\"

\"Yeah, but she\'d still be all over this lasagna!\"

Brian raised a skeptical eyebrow and Matt just laughed.

\"See?\" the jock shot back. \"I knew you still had that stubborn streak in there somewhere.\"

Brian forked up a bite of lasagna and began to slowly work his way through it. It went down easier than he thought and about twenty minutes later, the plate was empty.

\"Wow!\" Matt muttered. \"That worked better than I hoped. I\'ll have to remember that trick.\"

Brian gave him a small smile as he brought the plates over to the sink and began the dishes.

\"You don\'t have to do that, you know,\" Matt grunted. \"You are a guest.\"

\"Don\'t you think that status should wear off after a week?\" Brian asked.

\"No.\" Matt took the rinsed plate from Brian and began to dry it. \"We do have a dishwasher, you know.\"

\"For two plates, two forks and two glasses?\" Brian laughed. \"Don\'t you think that\'s a little nuts?\"

\"You should do that more often?\"

\"What? Wash dishes?\"

\"No,\" Matt grinned as he finished drying the next plate. \"Laugh.\"

\"Oh.\"

They finished the dishes in silence and went to Matt\'s room to get some more homework done. Matt had a creative writing assignment due the next day and Brian needed to read it to see if it needed polishing. The assignment called for a detailed description of an event that happened in the writer\'s childhood. Brian read the story carefully as Matt lay on his bed and pretended not to be watching for a reaction out of the corner of his eye. Brian was surprised to read the story of the party they attended when they were twelve. Matt had written about the basketball game. When he finished reading, Brian took out a pencil and made a few small notes in the corner for Matt.

\"It was really good,\" he said as he handed the pages back to Matt. \"With a line or two about the rest of the party, it should be an A piece.\"

\"Really?\" Matt asked excitedly. \"I did a good job?\"

\"An excellent job,\" Brian clarified as he pulled out his math book and began the problems he had to turn in the next day.

\"Thanks, man!\"

\"Thank YOU,\" Brian murmured. \"I owe you more than you know.\"

Matt smiled at him and they both turned back to their work. They were both heavily engrossed in it when Brian\'s cell phone rang. He quirked a brow at the clock as he answered the phone.

\"Kev? What\'s wrong?\"

\"Nothing,\" Kevin answered dully. \"I just felt like talking to you.\"

\"You\'re not fooling me,\" Brian mimicked his brother from a few days prior. \"Spill.\"

Matt watched cautiously from the other side of the room, trying to get any information from Brian\'s side of the conversation.

\"Nothing,\" Kevin insisted. \"I just felt lonely without you and wanted to talk to you.\"

\"If you\'re sure that\'s it.\"

\"That\'s it,\" Kevin huffed.

\"I thought you made a lot of friends already,\" Brian replied. \"There\'s no reason to be lonely.\"

\"Yeah.\"

Brian knew something was bothering Kevin, but his brother seemed unwilling to just spit it out, so he\'d have to patient and let Kevin get around to it on his own. Kevin would probably dance around the subject for a while, like he did when they still lived with Gary. Curious how easy it was for Brian to leave that house, especially since he\'d lived there all his life. But then, it ceased to be a home when their mother died.

\"So, how\'s my story coming?\" Kevin asked. \"Did you really like all of the pictures I drew for you?\"

\"They were great! I\'ve been working on an outline.\"

\"Really?\" Kevin seemed pleasantly surprised. \"I\'ve got some color drawings now, too. Gina gave me a sweet set of artist pencils!\"

\"Hey! That sounds great, Kev! Can you do me a favor?\"

\"Sure, what?\"

\"Can you send me photocopies of all my other stories for you?\" Brian asked tentatively. \"Ryan and Matt asked to see them, and I think it would be good to have a copy for myself, to see where I think I could improve them.\"

\"Those stories are great! They don\'t need fixing!\" Kevin griped. \"But I will send you copies. In fact, I\'ll scan them in on Jay\'s computer and e- mail them tonight. It\'s quicker than mail, huh?\"

\"Thanks, Kev.\"

\"No problem,\" he murmured back. \"Bri?\"

\"Yeah?\"

\"Never mind.\"

\"Whatever it is, Kev, you can tell me.\"

\"I know,\" he sighed. \"Maybe I\'ll do that next time.\"

\"If you\'re sure.\"

\"Yeah, it\'s nothing urgent,\" Kevin replied. \"Talk to you soon.\"

The connection severed, Brian hung up thoughtfully.

\"Is everything okay?\" Matt asked.

\"Oh, I guess,\" Brian mumbled. \"He wouldn\'t tell me, but I know something\'s bugging him.\"

\"Should I call Jason and ask?\"

\"Not yet,\" Brian stretched and yawned. \"He\'ll tell me when he\'s ready.\"

\"You about ready to turn in?\"

Brian nodded and they went through their nightly rituals before slipping into Matt\'s bed, Brian curled snuggly into the larger boy\'s frame.

\"Matt?\"

\"Hmm?\"

\"What did you and Ryan mean when you said you weren\'t going anywhere I\'m not?\"

Matt squirmed and laid his cheek on Brian\'s head. He knew this would come up. Now, how to answer the guy without scaring him? This is what he\'d warned Jason might happen. Still, he couldn\'t go off to college and leave Brian here alone, a sitting duck. That sounded reasonable enough. Not too stalker-ish either. He hoped his feelings weren\'t becoming obvious to Brian, though.

\"I\'m not leaving if you\'re not.\"

\"But you have some great colleges that you\'re accepted to,\" Brian whined. \"You can\'t give them up for me.\"

Matt was quiet for a moment. He wanted to think about his words carefully before he said them, so that Brian wouldn\'t worry so much but also wouldn\'t figure out Matt\'s true feelings.

\"You don\'t need to stay here, do you?\"

\"Huh?\" Brian seemed perplexed. Matt was thankful they didn\'t leave a dim light on tonight, so he could hide behind the darkness.

\"You can graduate from high school somewhere else, right?\" Matt proposed. \"Or maybe do a GED if you don\'t want to go to school.\"

Brian was stunned into silence. Why would Matt want to take him with him when he left? Wouldn\'t he just hold the jock back? And he didn\'t want to be a financial burden anymore. But he couldn\'t touch his money. That was for Kevin\'s education.

\"Hey,\" Matt prodded. \"I\'m not leaving you here alone. So if you want to stay, I will, too.\"

\"Why?\" Brian finally asked, tears stinging his eyes. \"You\'re not responsible for me.\"

\"But I want to be.\"

Brian felt a chill run down his back. Matt had said he didn\'t expect . . . that from him when he took him out of his house. Was that a lie?

\"Stop,\" Matt said, stilling Brian\'s sudden tremors. \"I don\'t mean like that.\" \'Yeah, SURE you don\'t, Henshaw,\' his conscience spoke up. \"I meant that I want to take you with me so you can find a better place to start over. Maybe have a more normal life.\"

\"A more normal life,\" Brian sighed snuggling back into Matt\'s arms.

\"What?\"

\"Just that I don\'t know what to say,\" the small blonde replied. \"A few weeks ago, I didn\'t even expect to be alive anymore. I don\'t know what to do.\"

\"That\'s why I want to take you with me,\" Matt offered. \"You can figure it out along the way.\"

\"But I don\'t want you to support me,\" Brian protested. \"You\'ve already done too much! I want to make my own way.\"

\"You can. You have to get the high school diploma first though. Most jobs that pay anything decent will want one.\"

\"A job,\" Brian murmured. \"Yes. That\'s it! I want to get a good job.\"

\"Well, you should also go to college.\"

\"Kevin needs to go to college!\" Brian said. \"That\'s why I saved his money.\"

\"When this is over, my dad will make sure you get your mother\'s house back,\" Matt pointed out. \"When you sell that, you can both use the money for school. And state schools don\'t cost as much, so it should last you at least until the end of undergrad.\"

\"I never thought about that.\"

\"Yeah. And then you could have a really good career, not a job, one that you enjoy doing. And so can Kevin.\"

Matt didn\'t know why he was babbling on so much. He just knew that these ideas might help him hold on to Brian, at least for a while. He wanted to prove to him that life was worth living, that he was worth a higher education, that he could have a life. Then, he hoped, maybe Brian would see that he was also worth loving.