Team Jon: Birds of a Feather Flock Together
Nakupenda


In the heart of Kenya, a tired young man slumped against his desk. He ran a long hand down his face and sighed. In front of his desk, nineteen smaller desks were made into rows, all of them empty. Several books still rested on their surfaces. The man pounded his fist on the table feebly, and fell into his chair, exhausted.

In a college in America, another man was poring over his medical texts, hunched over his lab table. Cramming for his deportation, one could say. With an eager mind, he pushed his dark hair out of his face and underlined several more key symptoms. He finished his studies within the hour and exited silently, cutting off the lights as he went.

Back in Africa, the teacher wove carelessly through the busy marketplace with a parcel under his arm. He made his life routinely – wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast, teach, eat lunch, teach, go home, eat dinner, sleep – and survived day by day. The luster of his dream job had worn off after the first week of dark faces with no ivory ones beside them. (As he thought this, he regretted sounding so racially biased, but he decided he was done lying to himself – he was homesick.)

The Las Vegas airport was bustling, and the young med student stared at his ticket, quite confused. He stumbled to his gate and landed unceremoniously in a chair, only to be called to board not a minute after. A long plane ride was all it would take, he reminded himself; after that, he'd be golden, right where he wanted to be. Excitedly, he clutched his ticket to his chest.

On opposite continents, the two young men waited, chasing their dreams on pause.

--

"There is a message for you at the post office," Ryan heard, and looked down to his left. With a handful of his loose pants clutched in her fist, his student, Makena, gazed up at him with wide eyes. Ryan smiled down at her softly.

"Thank you, Makena. I’ll go after school. Will you take your seat?" Obediently, she sat down with the class, grinning. Ryan took a deep breath, and without considering his patterns anymore, started class exactly the same as before.

Teach. Read. Write. Teach. Read. Teach. Lunch. Teach. Recess. Teach. Write. Teach.

With his messenger bag slung over his shoulder, low on his hip, Ryan made his way to the post office. In the warm air, birds called over his head, and he remembered exactly why he stayed here, now. The natural beauty, the closeness to the earth that you couldn't get anymore in America, the ease everything traveled with… It was liberating.

"Telegraph for you, Mr. Ross." A dark hand appeared over the counter, and Ryan took the slip of paper with interest. He leaned against the far wall and read the typed words.

'MR RYAN ROSS stop,' it started.

'THE UNITED NATIONS IS AWARE THAT YOU VOLUNTEER AS AN ENGLISH TEACHER IN A CENTRAL KENYAN VILLAGE stop DUE TO RECENT HEALTH CONCERNS IN THE SURROUNDING AREA THERE IS A NEED FOR A MINOR INTERVENTION stop YOUR VILLAGE OF RESIDENCE WILL BE RECEIVING MEDICAL AIDE SHORTLY stop WE WILL BE SENDING ONE VOLUNTEER DOCTOR TO ASSIST THE LOCALS WITH THEIR MEDICAL NEEDS stop PLEASE BE READY TO RECEIVE A DR BRENDON URIE ON WEDNESDAY JULY THIRD stop SINCERELY stop THE UNITED NATIONS OFFICE OF HEALTH AFFAIRS stop'

Ryan gazed at the paper, unsure of the cause for such an action. His village seemed perfectly healthy to him. Then again...he wasn't a doctor, so he wouldn't exactly know these things. After a minute or so, he tucked the telegraph into his bag and thanked the officer as he left. He blended effortlessly into the crowd of people at the bazaar and quickly bought bread for dinner. His routine was back in swing.

--

Brendon relaxed comfortably in his seat. After a slight moment of panic in the Cairo terminal, wondering if this was really what he wanted to be doing with his life, he had sorted everything out, and was now at ease.

Momentarily, his small private jet provided by the UN was only hours out from Kenya. He was pretty sure of the schedule of events, but he rifled through his satchel until he found the itinerary that he had hastily crafted from the large packet of information. (Even he didn't need that much of a minute-by-minute instruction, he thought to himself.)

He looked over the sheet, nodding at things and mentally checking them off. He stopped, and let his eyes slip out of focus; he was becoming jittery again. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back, imagining the state the village would be in...

Dying children everywhere. Starving elders and malaria-ridden infants. Parents too far into poverty to provide food for their children. Distended bellies and guinea worms hanging out of their calves. AIDS, AIDS, and more AIDS –-

Brendon stopped himself, regrettably anxious again, and opened his eyes.

--

Four weeks after his arrival, Brendon was up to his elbows in...nothing.

Just as Ryan had guessed, there wasn't really any raging epidemic in the small Kenyan village. Of course, there were minor things, such as scrapes and small sicknesses, but none of the horrors Brendon had been expecting. He decided that the lack of drama was fine by him.

Ryan had been cautiously observing. He hadn't said more than probably a paragraph to the young doctor, due to his own busy schedule and Brendon’s lack of involvement in Ryan's routine. However, he had seen more of Brendon than he would have expected at first.

"Good morning," Brendon greeted cheerfully as he strolled into Ryan's classroom. With only a small nod in his direction, the teacher continued to scrawl words onto the chalkboard. In two minutes the kids would be coming in, and he couldn’t afford to lose any time this morning. Brendon, with his trademark look of amusement written over his face, took a seat on the back row of cupboards. He watched Ryan's hand as it wrote.

One thing Ryan had learned about Brendon was that he was very observant. He chocked it up to Brendon's occupation, concluding that doctors must have to be very aware of every little thing. Lately, however, he had been noticing exactly what Brendon would watch: Ryan Ross.

Ryan was broken out of his reverie by the class filing in and taking their seats. He scanned the room, and found only one empty seat. He nodded to himself, and turned to his attendance record. He marked it off: Makena. He was about to set down his pencil when he stopped.

"Has anyone seen Makena this morning?" A chorus of 'no's rang out through the small classroom. Ryan chewed on his lip. Makena had never missed a day in the past year. That being said, though, perhaps Ryan was thinking it over too much. He started class.

--

"You choked a bit up there today," Brendon commented after the class had left. Ryan ignored him and stacked his papers. Brendon walked a little closer, and crossed his arms. "What's up? You look a little stiff. Stressed?"

Ryan wasn't sure exactly why he didn't ever talk to Brendon. He surely didn't have anything against the young man. In fact, he really wanted to be closer to him. Something was keeping the two of them together. (The forces of nature? No. Too cheesy.) Ryan wasn't sure he wanted to be apart. He realized, though, that if he started talking to Brendon now, the young man would most likely demand an explanation for the lack of conversation earlier.

Or maybe Ryan was simply over-analyzing.

"No, I was just thinking," Ryan spoke softly, amazed that he managed to get the whole sentence out without stopping to think it over in the middle. Brendon smiled charmingly.

"About what? You seemed a little tense… Something unsettling?" Ryan paused to wonder if Brendon was also versed in psychology.

"Yeah. Makena is...hardly ever out. I'm just worried about her. She’s..." Ryan paused to chuckled abashedly, "She's one of my favorites, honestly. It's nothing major, I'm just concerned." He smiled reassuringly at Brendon, and returned to packing his messenger bag to go home.

--

"Are you sure you want to sit in again? You watch every day. It's never any different. And you already speak English, too – it must be so boring for you," Ryan said as he readied his desk for class. Brendon was perched on the edge.

"Sure, it gets a little dull sometimes... But my job here is pretty much done for now," he muttered and shrugged. "Oh. Except, I wanted to ask you about something..." Brendon sighed lightly, worried, and hopped off Ryan's desk. "Yesterday –- " He paused. Nyawira, one of the teenagers around Makena's age, came through the doorway, her braids pulled into pigtails. She smiled sweetly at Brendon.

"Good morning, doctor." He grinned back at her and knelt to her level.

"Hello, Nya. How are you feeling today?" he asked quietly.

"Better." She kicked her leg out and displayed the pale Bandaid on her chocolate skin. "Thank you." Brendon kissed the top of her head shortly.

"No problem, beautiful. That's my job!" He stood again and brushed the dirt off of his jeans. "Run and play now, okay?" She nodded and skipped out the door to chatter happily with her friends.

"You're so good with kids..." Ryan smiled as he set the chalk down and dusted his hands off. "But you were saying...?" Brendon bit his lip.

"I had a question about Makena." He pulled a small desk closer to Ryan's and sat down. Suddenly, a rock hit the bottom of Ryan's stomach; this was serious. He pulled his chair around and sat down as well, keeping his gaze on Brendon's eyes.

"Go on."

"Yesterday morning, she was absent, as you know. Well, after school, I went round to Makena's house." Confusion crossed Ryan's face. Brendon smiled lightly. "I should probably explain.

"You know of the epidemics of venereal diseases in Africa, correct? Okay. Recently, we've been trying to encourage the use of birth control, namely condoms. However, they're not catching on, because of a lot of misconceptions... For example, people have believed since Victorian times that the cure to AIDS is raping a virgin." He chuckled darkly. "As you know, that only makes the problem worse – much worse.

"Anyways, you're probably wondering what this has to do with anything." Brendon took a deep breath. "As a doctor, I'm trained to look at things from every angle. Also, it's my job to look after sick kids," he said with a burst of humorless laughter. "I went round to Makena's house after school yesterday to talk with her mother and possibly get Makena on some medication."

Brendon paused, looking down to his hands in his lap, and every cell in Ryan's body halted its activity except for his heart, which he could feel pounding through every limb. A million scenarios and outcomes ran through his head, and he was about to scream at Brendon to continue, when the young doctor suddenly looked up.

"Do you know what PCP is?" Ryan shook his head, baffled. "It stands for pneumocystis pneumonia... Pretty much your average pneumonia." He shrugged, but his shoulders rather fell back into place. "I knew it by the fever, which was reading at 101.2 yesterday afternoon. Her mother said she's been having night sweats. Also, she's lost 8 pounds in the last week." Brendon finally looked up and straight into Ryan's panicky eyes.

"So why –- ?"

"I'm only telling you this because I have a feeling this is very, very serious." Ryan was beginning to feel that Brendon was giving him opportunities to pull out of the conversation, to not become more involved, to save Ryan the grief. He was sure he would have to prompt any further information.

"I need to know. Brendon, she's my student; she's almost like my own daughter. Makena is..." Ryan's voice broke off. "Please," he whispered. Brendon sucked in a deep breath, and reached out for Ryan's hand. With a tight squeeze, he softly said,

"Makena is showing some of the telltale symptoms of AIDS."

--

"Up you go!" Brendon lifted Makena's slim body onto the counter in his van and smiled brightly at her. "All right. We're going to need to do some blood tests to figure out why you're sick. It’s going to poke a little bit, but you'll be fine. And guess what –- I'll give you some candy afterward. How's that sound?"

"It sounds...pretty good," Makena concluded with a small grin. Ryan was leaning against the opposite counter, holding Makena's mother’s hand.

"Okay. I need your arm, and then I'm just going to..." Brendon paused to tie off Makena's upper arm and ready his needle, "stick you with this. One, two, three," he counted, and stuck the needle into her vein. He pulled a vial of blood and gave her a cotton ball to stop the bleeding. "There you go! All finished. Here, squirt." He fished around in his pocket and produced a fun-sized pack of Skittles.

"When will you know?" Makena's mother asked quietly. Brendon turned his attention to her and sighed.

"I'll let you know. Don't worry –- you and this guy over here will be the first to know," he assured her, smiling crookedly at Ryan. She thanked him, and carried Makena back home, chanting prayers under her breath in her native tongue. Brendon and Ryan watched each other carefully, the small vial of blood still in Brendon's palm.

"Things are changing around here," Ryan started, and Brendon sighed.

"That's inevitable, you know."

"I do know. More than you think." Brendon cocked his head to the side, and Ryan felt obligated to continue. "Well... Obviously, it's only a coincidence, but some of the kids were saying that you...were a bad omen or something."

"Huh." Brendon held up the sample and stared at the redness. "I guess these little buggies just decided to show off when I got here, hm?" He smiled at Ryan. "Well, I guess there's no harm done. Chances are I'll be shipped off when this whole ordeal wraps up in some way," he muttered. Ryan sighed and scuffed his feet on the floor of the van.

"Yeah, and...that's all well and good, except now they're taking it to mean...the white man in general. Not just you, but me as well," he laughed lamely. Brendon peered at him, a strange expression on his face.

"Does it bother you?"

"What, their aversion to me?" Brendon hummed in affirmation. Ryan became frantic. "Their sudden change of heart? Their current fear of contact with me, or even listening to me?" he rushed out, and then took a slow breath in and out. "Yes. Yeah, it does." Brendon stepped closer, closing the thin space, and stood next to Ryan.

"I'm sorry. I know it's kind of...my fault then, hm?" He smiled, though, and reached a hand out to Ryan's forearm. "It'll be okay. As long as we stay strong and proud of what we do, we'll survive. Nothing bad lasts forever. We have each other –- the only white kids in the whole village," Brendon laughed. Ryan crossed his arms sourly, unable to appreciate the joking. Brendon's tone softened. "Hey..."

Ryan hung his head, and in a bold action, turned into Brendon's chest. Without skipping a beat, Brendon wrapped his arms securely around Ryan's small frame and squeezed him comfortingly. Ryan tucked his head into Brendon's neck and shut his eyes tightly, wishing the whole nightmare that had risen around him would just melt away.

"It's all right," Brendon whispered, and moved his hands over Ryan's back soothingly. "You're okay. Look, let me just set up this ELISA test for Makena, and then we’ll get out of this hospital on wheels and get some fresh air, sound good?" Ryan nodded the smallest bit and withdrew from Brendon's arms. He watched with interest as Brendon gathered the equipment and set to work intently.

--

"Paul's left town," Ryan whispered. Brendon waited for him to continue. "He was her boyfriend. Did you know she had a boyfriend?" Ryan asked, turning up to look at his companion.

"No." Brendon sat up quickly. "Was it serious?" Ryan chuckled lightly.

"You forget –- these kids aren't like American kids. They just want to hold hands and play soccer together... Maybe kiss a few times. They don't get 'serious' until they mean it."

"So it's...a fling," Brendon concluded with a snort. "Sometimes I wonder which kids I prefer: ours or theirs."

Brendon spread out again in the tall grass, gazing at the deep blue twilight sky. Ryan adjusted himself, his head pillowed on Brendon's chest, watching as Brendon's fingers threaded through the brittle shoots. Ryan sighed.

"What do you think Makena's going to do when she finds out Paul's left?" Ryan started softly.

"She'll heal."

"What do you mean?"

"It's young love," Brendon mumbled bitterly. "It never lasts. She's, what...14, you said? She'll be fine. She'll find someone else." The corner of Ryan's mouth pulled down doubtfully.

"How do you know that?" he asked. Brendon snorted lightly, an irritated expression falling across his features.

"Trust me," he murmured. His tone was laced with sarcasm, and Ryan picked up on it in a heartbeat. He sat up and gazed at the young doctor.

"It happened to you." There wasn't a hint of questioning in the words. Brendon squinted off through the dense grasses.

"It sure did." A pause hung in the air. Ryan resettled himself against Brendon's warmth. "Well, it's getting late. I'd better get back to the lab truck and check up on those tests." He began to push himself up on his elbows, jostling Ryan in the process.

"I wish you wouldn't," he sighed. Brendon looked down questioningly. "It's so...nice. To have someone to listen to, I mean." Ryan felt a soft hand slide into his hair, rubbing sweetly over his scalp.

"Come with -- I won't be busy for long."

--

"Now it really is late. I need to get to sleep. I've got class tomorrow," Ryan rambled, pulling himself up from the dirt in front of the van. Brendon stayed seated, his back curved against the front fender, a slow smile creeping over his face.

"Tomorrow morning: I'll walk you."

--

Their 'carpooling' on the footpath had become routine. Brendon's silence and melancholic attitude was not, however. He sighed deeply, and shoved his hands into his pockets.

"Makena's got a check-up today, remember. Bring her," he hesitated. "Bring her by my truck right after school. I'll have her mother there. I can't come to class today."

Ryan was about to protest when Brendon peeled away into the grove of trees, making a beeline for his lab.

--

"She's got AIDS."

Ryan knew it before Brendon even opened his mouth. Again, the teacher repeated his accusation. "She's positive, isn't she?" Brendon swallowed hard. "Why didn't you fucking tell me? You knew this morning, didn't you? You knew!" Ryan shoved him against the metal siding of the van.

The midday sun beat down on the cracked earth scuffing around under Ryan's shoes. Brendon opened his mouth to speak, but was violently thrown into his vehicle once more. Still in his orange t-shirt, Brendon hadn't had time to change into his lab coat. Hell, he wasn't even expecting Ryan to come flying down here on his lunch break.

"Fuck," Ryan sobbed brokenly, finally loosening his holds on Brendon's shoulders. He dropped to his knees, curling his hands over his face. "Fuck."

Brendon crouched down carefully and reached a hesitant hand to Ryan's shaking back. When he wasn't rejected, he began to slowly smooth it back and forth, crawling closer to the teacher. He bit his lip hard.

"Why? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I...didn't know how. I still don't. All I can say is 'thank you'... Thank you for figuring it out, so I don't have to break your heart." His voice cracked slightly. "I don't want to break your heart."

"Then fix it, Brendon! Do something to fix it," Ryan cried, falling away from Brendon's soothing hands. His watery stare stayed constant with Brendon's, watching carefully, until Brendon scurried forward. In between Ryan's legs, hands crawling up Ryan’s chest, RyanRyanRyan, Brendon simply kissed him.

Rough lips on lips, bruising pressure, bites Ryan was sinking into Brendon's lower lip; everything was far from perfect. But Ryan, as his hands slid into Brendon's hair and dragged the younger man on top of him in the dust, Ryan wasn't complaining.

"Christ," Ryan managed, as they pulled apart, gasping. He dropped his head back into the gritty dirt, hearing Brendon pant above him, swallow, and pant some more. Ryan's chest heaved underneath Brendon, and everything seemed to burn out into black, only the sound of breathing echoing through the afternoon.

--

"You wanna tell me what happens now? Two ELISAs, a Western Blot test, what other tricks can you pull out of your medical bag?"

Ryan and Brendon were sitting on the floor of the truck, various pieces of data between their gloved hands. Brendon was shaking his head at the results, feeling glummer and glummer every minute that flew by. He looked solemnly up at Ryan and blew a mouthful of air out.

"CD4+ T cell counts. She's going to need to be checked fairly often... And we should get her on some drugs." Brendon cleared his dry throat. "I'll need to talk with her mother about that one."

Ryan reached a hand toward Brendon's, and took it in his own, smoothing his thumb over the latex-free gloved skin. Their brown eyes met, Ryan's light and green-tinted, Brendon's dark and shaded, and Brendon forced a smile before continuing.

"We'll get her a cocktail of retroviral inhibitors, some vitamin A... She'll pull through all right." Ryan tried to convince himself that Brendon was right, but the doctor saw the doubt on his face nonetheless. "You don't believe me," he sighed. A slight smile pulled at his lips. "That's okay –- neither does medicine."

"Surely medicine is holding onto the fact that it's helping people..." Ryan contradicted, confused. Brendon shook his head sadly.

"They know. This medicine, the HAART method of drug cocktails, it takes longer than a lifetime for it to clean out the entire virus." He paused to laugh lightly. "We'll be able to cure AIDS completely before we figure out how to make people live forever."

Ryan was learning more every day about how ironically unfair everything was.

--

"You wanna tell me why you're packing up?"

Brendon's figure was silhouetted in the doorway, casting long shadows over the dirty schoolhouse floor. Ryan sighed heavily and set down his book.

"I don't know –- do you want to tell me why I even thought she had a chance?"

"You believed. You made yourself believe." Brendon stepped out of the harsh light and up to Ryan, staring him unashamedly in the eyes. "I did nothing for that."

"You gave me the hope," Ryan whispered, and he could feel the tears gathering just under his eyelids, about to spill at the words he knew would be coming.

"I gave you the opportunity to find that hope in yourself," Brendon breathed back, and took Ryan's hands in his own warm, soft ones.

"I can't take it." Brendon's gaze didn’t falter, though Ryan knew he was curious to hear the rest of his statement. "I can't sit here and watch her die. I can't teach her every day, knowing that every movement she makes just does that much more damage to her body. I can't bear to watch one of my children waste away!"

"You can't leave." Brendon... Damn Brendon beat him to the punch, with his watery eyes dripping tears down onto his flushed cheeks... Damn Brendon with his squeezing grip that was keeping Ryan glued to the spot... "Please, don't leave me." Ryan screwed his eyes shut and turned away with a sob.

"I'm going back to the States."

--

"How are you feeling this morning?" Brendon was crouched down to Makena's level as she took her pills one by one. He could almost feel the sun's heat forcing its way through the metal siding of the van, and he swept a sleeve over his sweaty forehead. Makena produced something like a smile for him, and wobbled slightly on her feet.

"I'm feeling all right." She took a swallow of water and looked out the back of the lab. "Where is Mr. Ryan?" Brendon swallowed hard and sat back on his haunches.

"I don't know."

--

"I wish you'd stop being so hard on yourself," Brendon called softly. He was standing outside of Ryan's home for the second time this afternoon, twelfth time this week, forty-ninth time this month. It was always the same.

"Piss off." Ryan had long since stopped responding with anything resembling politeness. Brendon sighed as he slumped against the doorway. 'Piss off' was the only thing he'd actually heard in a long time; he'd tuned out everything anyone else said.

"Come outside. Please. Just once, just today," Brendon mumbled through his hands. This had been his plea for the last three days, and it had been fruitless overall. With a frustrated growl, he threw himself at the wooden door. "Ryan!"

"Get out of my fucking doorway." The door gave out suddenly under Brendon's weight, and the doctor found himself wedged against Ryan. "What do you want?"

"You. I want you to help." Brendon had had more than enough time to practice what he was going to say. Ryan ducked away from him, unimpressed. "Makena needs you."

"Bullshit she does!" Ryan shouted. Brendon cringed away from the outburst, shrinking back towards the now open door. "Why would she need me? Why would she give a flying fuck if I'm anywhere near her? She doesn't need me; she doesn't need either of us. Have you seen what you've done to this village? You've scared the shit out of them! I've seen –- I've heard. While you're in there, playing mad scientist with all your fancy drugs and whatever, they're afraid to come anywhere near you. They think you did this to her!"

Brendon froze. Of course, he had expected this, but never had he anticipated hearing it from Ryan's mouth. Never had he anticipated hearing it this harshly, this truthfully, as if Ryan was picking the village over him, over the closest thing he had to home.

"I can't –- no. I can't believe you could do that," Brendon choked. The anger wiped itself off of Ryan's face, replaced quickly by a blank look of shock.

"What are you talking about?"

"You're..." Brendon was whispering by now. "This village is more important to you than everything I'm working for?" He laughed disbelievingly. "The village's opinion is more important that its health? I'm sorry, Ryan, but I don't understand you."

"Neither do I." Ryan looked down at his shoes, twisting his mouth as he chewed on his lip. "I was going to leave for the States last Monday."

"What's stopping you?" Brendon sneered, but Ryan looked up with such a look of hurt that the doctor instantly regretted it.

"You. I keep thinking that if I stick around for one more day, one more hour, something will happen. You'll make a breakthrough or something. I don't know."

"Ryan..." Brendon started softly. "People have been researching AIDS for years. I'm not going to be making any breakthroughs in the middle of the jungle," he laughed softly.

"I know!" Ryan cried. "But I just...keep holding onto that hope. And it's not rational –- I know it's not. But I can't help it. Just let me have my one glimmer of hope. Please." Brendon took a deep breath and let it out in a light hiss.

"I can do that."

--

"How's she doing?" Ryan asked softly as he ducked into the medical van. Brendon was inching around a cot that had been shoved as unobtrusively into the cramped space as possible. Makena was tangled up in a sheet, her midnight skin coated in a thin sheen of sweat. Brendon looked up and ran a hand through his disheveled hair.

"All right for now." Brendon turned back to the girl and placed a cool washcloth on her forehead. He sat up on the counter with a sigh and closed his eyes. "She's relapsed into pneumonia again. This time, she –- " He was interrupted by a violent cough from below. Carefully hopping down onto the linoleum floor, he ran a hand along her burning skin, soothing her. "She's in over her head."

"When you say...?" Ryan couldn’t form a full sentence. Brendon caught the meaning of the sentence and nodded solemnly, subconsciously tightening his grip on her frail arm.

"Yeah."

--

"Are you home?" Brendon knocked lightly on Ryan's door.

"Out back," the teacher called softly, and Brendon adjusted the parcel under his arm as he made his way around the sturdy hut. "What brings you here so early?" Ryan asked, his voice as dead as the grass he sat upon.

"I brought you some food." Brendon sat down across from his friend and offered him the bundle of bread and fruit.

"I'm not hungry." Carefully, keeping his voice low and cautious, Brendon sighed and picked up a new topic.

"Today I went to see Makena –- "

"Stop." Ryan hadn't moved an inch, his head still hanging glumly and fingers still twisting through the brush, but his voice held the tone to suggest he had jumped to his feet in front of a moving train.

"What?"

"I don't want to talk about her." Ryan slowly lifted his head and stared into Brendon's eyes. Silently, he pushed himself onto his knees and inched into Brendon's arms. "I don't want to think about her anymore."

"Ry..." Brendon whispered gently. "It's okay. It's not your fault. There's nothing you could have done... And soon you won't have the opportunity to see her, to say anything to her. Do you really want to waste that?" Ryan was completely quiet and motionless. Brendon took another breath. "Would you like to go see –- ?"

"No." Ryan slid his hands up Brendon's chest and around his neck, pulling their lips together softly. "I don't want to see her; I don't want to feel that pain. I want to feel you, and nothing else." Brendon froze.

"What? I...um, I don't know about... I've never –- " Ryan chuckled lightly.

"That's not what I meant. I want you just like this. Comfortable." He dove into the sweetness of Brendon's mouth again, and ran his hands through the dark hair at the base of his scalp. Brendon's fingers danced down Ryan's cheeks and made their way across his shoulders, etching memories.

Carefully, Ryan crawled into Brendon's lap, twisting himself around the young doctor. The kiss was like sleepwalking, effortless and dreamlike, and Ryan could almost feel his worries ebbing away. As Ryan's hands roamed over his chest, Brendon began to sink back into the dry grass, pulling Ryan down on top of him.

"I want to go away," Ryan gasped after managing to untangle himself and sit up straight. Brendon's eyes filled up with fear, but Ryan reached down to brush his fingers over Brendon's cheek. "But I don't want to leave you here all alone in this."

"Stay with me."

And for the first time in his life, Ryan Ross simply stayed for four months straight.

--

"That's it then?" Ryan hadn't left the side of the van all day. Brendon found him propped against the tire, uneaten hunk of bread in his hand, squinting out over the landscape. The skinny teacher looked up at Brendon. "That's the end?"

"Are you okay?" Brendon asked cautiously.

"Are you kidding me? I've been stewing in un-okay-ness for over six hours now. I've been sitting here so long, I've started making up my own words." Ryan’s voice was a dull shell of even its normally flat tone. Brendon's hands crept up over his eyes and he let out a shuddery breath.

"Then you can stop. Because...yes, that's it," he breathed, and very nearly choked on the small words. Ryan's lip trembled before he gasped a single breath, and the bread hit the dusty ground.

"Well, all right." He dropped his tired head to his arms, crossed over his bent knees, and froze into a silhouette of misery. Brendon swallowed back the wave of tears that seemed to hit him just then, and climbed back into the van. He gripped the pale sheet from Makena's fingers and tugged it gingerly over her short hair. As he let it fall, he hopped out of the van and shut the door quietly. He fell onto the ground next to Ryan and molded his body around the smaller frame. The tears began to drip down their cheeks, forming short-lived puddles on the thirsty dirt.

"Why can't I get away from you?" Ryan asked hoarsely, squeezing his eyes shut and only managing to let more tears loose.

"Because you need me. And I need you."

"But do I need this? Do I need to be crying in the dirt after something like this? After someone dies? Is that necessary?!" Brendon grabbed Ryan's wrists to stop his hands flying all over, and stared into the hazel pools in front of him.

"Yes. You need this because you need me; because I can heal you. Give me a chance," he whispered. Ryan breathed quietly and stared right back, infinity echoing between their irises. Brendon blinked, long dark lashes brushing his wet cheeks, and Ryan stretched his hands out to take the younger man's face between his hands.

"Promise me this, this one thing," Ryan urged.

"What?"

"Promise me that you'll stay with me. I go, you go. We go." Brendon smiled heart-breakingly, and slid his hands up over Ryan's.

"We're not going anywhere."

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