Take Me From This Pain, Brian's story

Matt pulled into the mall parking lot after school and motioned for a confused Brian to follow him inside.

\"Why are we here?\" Brian asked, glancing around him.

As he and Kevin didn\'t have much money allotted to them from Gary, he wasn\'t used to going to the mall. What was the point? He reasoned it wasn\'t productive to spend his time ogling things he would never be able to buy. Kevin would badger him into going on occasion so that they could try out the new video games at the arcade, but Brian preferred to spend his free time reading library books when Gary wasn\'t around.

\"You need specs,\" Matt replied pushing him into the vision store. He turned and said something in a low voice to the receptionist and she disappeared into the back room.

\"I can see okay.\"

\"You can\'t,\" Matt sighed. \"I broke them, so I\'m replacing them.\"

\"They were old anyway,\" Brian protested as Matt gently pushed him down onto a chair in the waiting area.

\"How old?\" Matt frowned.

Brian looked away, embarrassed. It seemed like the more he told Matt about his life the deeper the bigger boy frowned, and it was making Brian feel like a charity case. He\'d never relied on anyone\'s generosity before and he didn\'t want to now.

\"Old,\" he shrugged. \"Look, Matt, I can get my hands on my own money in a few days, so you don\'t have to pay for everything for me.\"

Matt looked skeptical.

\"Really,\" Brian asserted.

\"Not really,\" Matt answered with a small smile. \"I\'ve gotten to know you better in the last twenty-four hours.\"

\"A day is long enough, huh?\" Brian crossed his arms.

Matt grinned inwardly. He figured the kid had some nerve left in him somewhere. It was just a matter of which buttons to push.

\"Yeah, sometimes,\" he replied smoothly. \"I know you won\'t touch that money if you don\'t have to because you\'ve saved it for Kevin.\"

Brian\'s cheeks reddened and he looked away.

\"Look, stop trying to keep me from taking care of you,\" Matt\'s voice softened more than he\'d intended. They both blinked at each other in surprise before Matt continued. \"I\'m going to buy you things. There\'s no way you can stop me.\"

\"Why?\"

\"Because you need them,\" Matt shrugged. \"And because no one else has before. I like being the first at doing things.\"

\"I\'m not comfortable with this,\" Brian informed him.

\"Well, you\'ve got two choices,\" Matt grinned back. \"You can let me and have some say in how much I get you, or you can keep protesting.\"

\"I like option two.\"

\"In which case, I\'ll buy you even more and people are going to start noticing.\"

Brian scowled deeply. He felt like he\'d fallen into a parallel universe. He had just opened his mouth to voice this opinion when the receptionist returned and showed them into the room.

\"You\'re coming with me?\" Brian asked Matt as he sat in the optometrist\'s examination chair.

\"Yep. I\'m shadowing you 24/7, remember?\"

This kind of closeness was getting to be a little too much for the small blonde. He felt safe around Matt and preferred to stay with him rather than taking his chances on his own, but the bigger boy was taking this protection role far more seriously than Brian thought he should. He wasn\'t used to this much attention and when it came from the guy who had previously tormented him, it compounded the discomfort.

\"You\'re going to get used to me, Bri,\" Matt broke into his thoughts, reading them again. \"I know you\'re beginning to trust me because you let me take you home with me.\"

\"It\'s just not normal for me to rely on someone else,\" Brian admitted.

\"Like I said, you\'ll get used to me,\" Matt smiled reassuringly. \"You\'ll have to. I\'m not going away.\"

Brian looked away sadly to keep Matt from reading him again. He was going away and sooner than Brian would have liked. College would start this fall and Matt would be going to one of the many that had accepted him. And that would leave Brian alone with Darren and his friends. Assuming he lived long enough. Gary was still a factor.

Matt watched the boy in the chair carefully, knowing what flitting through his mind. College was around the corner and Brian would be alone when Matt and Ryan graduated. But Matt had no intention of leaving Brian behind. The kid didn\'t know it yet, but he was coming, too. How and where, Matt didn\'t know yet, but he would figure it out before summer.

The doctor bustled in then to check out Brian\'s eyes.

\"Haven\'t seen you in here before,\" he said to Brian. \"Who was your doctor before?\"

\"Dr. Dinkins,\" Brian mumbled.

\"Dinkins? He retired three years ago,\" the doctor looked perplexed and read Brian\'s file. \"You haven\'t had an exam in five years?\"

Brian shrugged and looked down. Matt shook his head. He should have known those glasses were really old. The frames looked stretched out, like they had originally been meant for a younger kid. The more he learned about Brian, the sadder the story became.

\"Well, I\'m sure the prescription has changed,\" the doctor said as he started examining the small blonde.

When he was finished, he announced that the prescription had indeed been inadequate. He wrote a lot of things on the file and told them to wait outside. The glasses could be ready shortly. Brian exited first and Matt hung back a bit.

\"Hey, doc, can he wear contacts?\" Matt asked quickly.

\"Sure,\" the doctor nodded. \"You want me to add those on?\"

Matt nodded and the doctor started scribbling some more. \"I can show him how to put them in.\"

\"No need,\" Matt smiled. \"I wear them, too, so I can show him.\" He went out to sit with Brian as they waited.

\"What was that about?\" the small blonde asked suspiciously.

\"Nothing,\" Matt grinned back.

Well that means something, Brian thought to himself. Matt was probably adding a few more pairs of glasses to the order, or something like that. He would just have to wait and see. They went over to look at frames for the glasses. Brian tried on several that Matt handed to him but opted for the least expensive plastic frames. He turned to go back over to the seats to wait. Matt followed a few minutes later and Brian knew something again was up.

A long while later, they were called over by the receptionist. She produced two pairs of glasses in designer metallic frames and a box of contact lenses.

\"Matt, what did you do?\"

\"Nothing,\" the other boy laughed as he handed over a credit card.

\"These are too expensive,\" Brian went on.

\"Go with it, or I\'ll cause a scene,\" Matt grinned as he waited for the sale to be rung up.

Brian looked around at the other people in the store with them. Two of them were students at school. He was defeated and they both knew it. He glared at Matt but didn\'t say a word as the transaction was completed.

Matt signed the slip and picked up the bag. He didn\'t return the card to his wallet though, slipping it into his front jeans pocket. Instead of walking out to the car, Matt pushed Brian into the sporting shop.

\"Why are we here?\"

\"I told you I was getting you a backpack for your books,\" Matt replied walking right up the display stand.

\"I thought you were joking!\"

\"Nope.\" Matt pulled off a black pack with padded shoulder straps. It looked strong enough to carry the heavy texts.

\"I don\'t want one,\" Brian grumbled. \"And I don\'t need one.\"

\"You\'re getting one,\" Matt replied, bringing the bag toward the register. Brian trailed behind him, clearly annoyed.

\"Matt, please.\"

Matt stopped and turned abruptly, pulling Brian into the nearest aisle.

\"Stop resisting me,\" he frowned down at the smaller boy. \"I keep telling you I\'m going to take care of you. This is part of doing that.\"

\"I\'ve always taken care of myself!\"

Matt resisted the urge to ask where that had gotten the kid and chose instead to appeal to Brian\'s reasonable side.

\"If you were me and Kevin were you, wouldn\'t you buy him what he needed?\"

\"But he\'s my brother,\" Brian frowned.

\"If thinking if me as another brother helps, go for it,\" Matt replied. But inside he found himself assaulted by a sad feeling.

\"It\'s not possible,\" Brian whined. \"Just stop buying me so many things. People are going to start rumors.\"

Matt smiled and his sad feeling abated. He didn\'t want the kid to think of him as a brother anyway, though he still didn\'t want to examine exactly why.

\"People will say whatever they want, anyway, Bri,\" he replied. \"But after this, I\'ll try to control my impulse to buy you everything I see.\"

He turned and went back toward the register with a scowling Brian trailing behind him.