Light in the Dark
Characters: Evan, Edan and Brady Setting: Music Room, Block B, Evening (just as the power goes out)
This time when the lights went out, they didn’t come back on. Not right away and not a moment later like they had before. Edan was holding tight to Evan’s shirt, but as the rain didn’t stop and the lights stayed off she felt her panic rising. Thunder crashed again and she moved in closer, face more in his chest. “Why aren’t the lights coming on?” she asked, voice hurried and demanding. “Why is it still dark? You said...you said there’d be a generator. You said the lights wouldn’t go out.”
Evan was looking towards the ceiling, for any sign that the lights would be coming back. Which, there wasn't. "Yeah, I said that because I was thinking this place wasn't run by fucking morons who would leave a bunch of criminals locked in with no supervision and no backup generators." he said, rolling his eyes. "Jesus fucking christ, this is made of stupid." he muttered. "Who does that? What kind of absolute dickbrained slack jawed yokels thinks this is a good fucking plan?"
“You said they’d come on,” Edan repeated, voice higher pitched as she pulled at him. “You said...What happens now? What do we do? I can’t even get back to my room can I? I’m stuck here. I have nowhere to go.” She was babbling, close to frantic, voice getting louder as she went.
This damn storm with the flickering power was souring Brady's already bad mood. Today just wasn't a good day, and he really wanted to punch someone, starting with whoever had sent those fucking messages. He'd wandered over to B Block early in the afternoon and had spent his time banging around in the workshop. When the power went out yet again and didn't come back on within a couple minutes, he practically snarled.
"God fucking damn it!" Brady yelled at no one in particular, throwing the tool he'd been holding in the direction of one of the toolboxes. He couldn't see a damn thing, and he carefully made his way out of the workshop, managing to bang his knee not once but twice along the way. All full of nervous energy, once he was outside, Brady started walking around the farm.
Visibility was limited with the rain, but there was no mistaking the sound of a female becoming hysterical as Brady neared the music room even over the storm. He poked his head in the door, narrowing his eyes as they tried to adjust to the deeper darkness inside. "Edan?" he called out, thinking that voice sounded familiar. And then he saw their silhouette, misinterpreting it immediately as he took a few quick paces inside. "Let go of her," he demanded.
"I don't have hold of her." Evan said first, since technically, all the clinging going on was one sided, there. It was her clinging to him. He also didn't know who the fuck this guy was, or why he was sounding like that, but he tried to get a glimpse in the next flash of lighting, which only really gave him a shadow.
The flash of lightning did catch Edan’s face though, bruise standing out against paler than usual skin from being terrified. “Brady?” she asked, still holding on to Evan, but only half sure of what she was hearing. Or was that someone else?
Brady wasn’t about to take the guy’s word for it, though he did acknowledge even just mentally that there might be more going on than what it appeared. “Yeah, it’s me. Edan, are you okay?” he called out to her, coming further into the room.
Brady. Awesome. He hadn't exactly gotten along great with him, though mostly for Evan, it had been dismissal as opposed to outright disagreement. He glanced down to Edan, wondering if that was going to be when she ditched and went to someone else. This guy. "She's fine." he answered. "Though 'fine' is relative."
Edan didn’t let go of Evan though, not sure she could. “Except the power’s gone out, the weather’s terrible,” she was babbling a little, voice still full of fear and anxiety. She still hadn’t let go of Evan, though she was watching Brady as he got closer.
The guy’s voice sounded vaguely familiar, but Brady couldn’t place it, so he just focused on Edan as much as he could. As she spoke, it became clearer to him that she was upset from the storm and not being attacked by the unknown man. “Fuck, yeah the power’s out, but it could come back on. Been flickering all afternoon. You got any matches on you? I can see if I can find some candles or something so it’s not completely dark,” he offered. He remembered seeing some in the toolshed on the other block, so there might be some in this one.
"I don't." Evan answered to the question about matches. He didn't smoke. He'd never started, and hadn't seen any reason to do so after he was locked up. "I think there might be candles in the shed, or whatever." he added, since he was pretty sure he'd seen something like that, some tapers in a drawer in there. He just hadn't thought they'd be of any use, but clearly he'd been wrong on that.
The way Evan spoke made it sound like he was thinking about leaving again, or at least that was how Edan’s frazzled mind interpreted it and she moved closer to him. Her grip was still on his shirt with one hand, but the second reached into her pocket, pulling out a book of matches. “I do.”
“I wasn’t asking you,” Brady said without any real bite. He’d been asking Edan since he knew she had a knack for burning things and figured she would probably have some. “Okay, good,” he said when Edan held up a book of matches. “I’ll go see if I can find some candles. I’ll be right back, Edan,” he assured her, though it almost seemed like she was pretty attached to that guy who was definitely not Matt. It made him curious, he admitted as he turned around to head to the shed.
"Of course you have matches." Said Evan under his breath, light half smirk on his lips. And since she hadn't let go, and even seemed to be trying to get closer, he finally just rested his hand on her hip. He also shot a glance in Brady's direction, unimpressed. He didn't actually say anything, however, and turned his attention back to Edan. "Looks like you've got a knight in shining fucking armor there, sweetheart. You going to latch onto him when he gets back, then?"
Evan’s hand on her hip was warm, grounding as she leaned into him more. She wanted to protest Brady leaving, but he was gone before she could say anything. It left her staring at the door he’d disappeared from until Evan spoke and she was looking up at him again. “Latch onto...what?”
Brady took the long way around to the shed, keeping under the balcony. The rain was coming down hard enough that he was sure he’d get soaked through his jacket if he spent too much time in it, and not having access to his room at the moment, he didn’t really want to deal with that just then. He rushed out from under the balcony and into the shed, cursing when he realized he should have borrowed Edan’s matchbook to use even just one so he could get an idea of what was where in the shed. It wasn’t completely dark, though, so he focused as well as he could and felt around to try to find any candles that might be in there.
"Him. Brady." Evan said, nodding towards the door. "You going to switch it up when he gets back?" he asked, figuring that was the logical thing. She clearly knew him, and Mr. 'I wasn't asking you' didn't like him already, so...there was that. Seemed to him like the kind of situation where that other guy came back, and took over.
Edan looked back enough glare at Evan. Maybe he was trying to distract her again, but even if he wasn’t, it was working. “Why the hell...Switch it up? What exactly do you think...” God, maybe he was an asshole. Edan took a step back from him even if it didn’t get her out of his grip just yet.
It was taking longer than Brady wanted to find the damn candles, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was a hell of a lot more off with Edan than they’d wanted him to think. Something wasn’t right, and it put an itch between his shoulderblades. You will destroy everything around you. He let out a curse when the paraphrased message went through his mind yet again. Fucking asshole. He wanted to hit something, but he couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t do a lot more damage than he wanted, so he pushed the thought away and kept looking for the candles.
"Yeah, you mentioned him earlier. He's a friend of yours. So, considering you're kind of in the middle of a trying time, wouldn't you pick him to spend the rest of your night with? Especially if the lights don't come back on." Evan said. "Not sure why you wouldn't." he said honestly, frowning slightly as he watched her eyes in what little light there was, and in the flashes of it that lightning provided. “I mentioned the knight in shining armor thing. You’ve got one, running into a rain storm to get you candles, if you didn’t notice.”
Edan was beyond torn, not sure what Evan was saying or why he was saying it. “He knew my brother,” she told him, trying to explain it. “But what about...you didn’t leave.” The rest of the night. That was a long time. “Do you want to leave? I thought...I don’t want to.” She couldn’t find the right words, not to properly explain what she was thinking because she was thinking too much at once.
At long last Brady found the candles. “Fucking finally,” he muttered into the darkness as he picked two up and put them in his jacket pockets. He grabbed a few more, cradling them upside down so that the wicks wouldn’t get wet as he went back from the shed to the cover of the balcony. Hopefully the damn power would be back soon, like it had through the afternoon every time it had flickered out. Though considering it had already been out for quite a bit longer than earlier, he wasn’t holding his breath.
Evan was a tad confused as well. She'd been kind of making sure he didn't leave, now she was taking note of it like it was a surprise, and he wasn't sure he had any idea of how to follow the last two thoughts there. "You don't want to what?" he asked. "Switch?" he asked, just to clarify that he wasn't totally misreading things. He felt slightly out of his depth. Or maybe more than slightly.
“No.” The answer came before Edan fully realized it, but the moment it was out there, she felt it to her core, not sure what it meant. “I don’t want to switch. I don’t want you to leave.” And the realization itself confused the hell out of her. It was because he was here, because he’d been here, not anything else. Or at least that was what she was hoping.
Brady reached the music room and slipped inside, blinking his eyes to adjust to the darker room, even if it wasn’t too much darker than outside. “Found some candles,” he announced. “Brought five of ‘em back, but there are more in there. Hopefully we won’t need them,” he explained as he continued further into the room. “You wanna give me those matches and I’ll light a couple, or you wanna light them?” he asked Edan, wondering if it might help calm her.
Evan was simultaneously thinking it was a terrible idea to give a fire bug the whole burning things option, and at the same time he kinda wanted to see what she might do. If there would be any trace of anything while she lit the candles, if it made her want to burn other things. While he'd met other arsonists in prison, they weren't like her, and it wasn't like he'd made friends with them. So, he kind of wanted to see, even if his logic centers screamed 'stupid' very loudly at the idea. He knew he ought to answer her back, as well, but hero was back, so he just kept quiet, sitting back against the desk he'd been leaning on in the first place. At least for right this second, apparently he was staying put.
Evan hadn’t really even addressed her comment and she was left staring at him as Brady came into the room. He’d let go of her and while he wasn’t leaving she wasn’t sure what to make of it. “I can,” she said, eyes still on Evan for a long moment before holding out a hand for the candle and fishing the matches out of pocket. It was just taper, something that was harder to use without a stand, but it was better than nothing. She held the candle out to Evan to hold then struck the first match, her breath catching in her throat for the briefest of instances before holding it up to the wick. For a moment, she was completely focused, eyes on the flame as it grew from one to two and she pulled the match away. It burned almost to her fingers before she blew it out.
Brady handed Edan one of the candles, then just stood there and watched her as she handed it off and lit it. Because he was so focused on her, when the soft light of the flame glowed, lighting her features, he spotted what he’d missed in the flashes of lightening earlier. A fierce rage rose up in him, and it took all of his self control to set the candles he was holding down on the desk rather than dropping them and addressing that bruise on her face. “Who did that to you?” he asked her in a low, tight voice, clearing struggling to reign in the rage.
Evan wasn't positive he wanted to be holding the candle, but he did anyways when she handed it to him. His eyes were on her, though. He caught the little catch of her breath, and he opened his mouth to say something, starting to reach out with his free hand when it looked like she was going to burn herself. He didn't get to complete the motion before she blew the match out herself, which was a good thing, but still. The image she'd created was a striking one. Lightning flashing behind her, the light from the match there. Her very clear, very narrow focus on the flames...yeah. He wouldn't forget that any time soon. He was going to say something, but then Brady cut in with demands of information. He moved away, thinking this was a conversation best not participated in, and instead, he looked for a good place to stick the candle.
Edan’s focus was pulled from the flame, in two different directions, once with Brady’s question, then again as Evan moved away from her. She stared at him, watching to see where he would go before she turned back to Brady, shaking her head. “Pippa,” she told him, touching her cheek. “She hit me when I tried to stop her from flooding the basement.”
At the one word answer, Brady narrowed his eyes, taking a step closer to Edan, hand lifting slowly to grasp her chin lightly. He turned her head a bit to get a closer look at the bruise as she explained. “Fucking-A. She’s fucking nuts.” And he had a very strong urge to find her and make it clear just what would happen if she touched Edan again, but he was stuck on this block. “She do any more damage to you?” he asked, dropping his hand from her face.
Edan froze slightly when he touched her, not expecting that. It wasn’t until he let go the she found her voice again, swallowing a little. “Just a scratch on my arm,” she said. “She didn’t get out uscathed either.”
“Good,” Brady replied firmly, almost impressed that she’d done some damage to Pippa as well. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t say something to her if he got the chance, but it was good to know that Edan wasn’t completely hopeless. “Who knows how long we’re gonna be stuck over here,” he commented, running his hands through his hair. “Should maybe sit down, get comfortable or something,” he suggested, glancing around. He caught a better look at the other guy, eyes narrowing as he realized who it was. He didn’t know the guys’ name, but he recognized him in spite of their very brief meeting.
Edan nodded, agreeing with his reply on how she’d done a good job even if she still hated the idea of hurting Pippa. She hadn’t wound up in the stocks though, so that was a good start at least. “You really think we’re stuck?” she asked, moving away from Brady to grab another candle, turning it over in her hands. “That’s Asher,” she hesitated for a second on his name, but got it right without more than just the hesitation. Edan pointed towards Evan, rolling the wick of the candle between her fingers, wishing Evan wasn’t so far away.
“Power’s out,” Brady answered with a shrug. “Means no elevators, means no way of getting to our block.” He nodded slightly when she gave him a name for the guy. “Good to know,” was all he said on it, moving over to pick up a guitar and sit down on one of the bean bags. There was no way he was going to leave now, though at least Edan didn’t seem quite as hysterical as when he’d first arrived.
Stuck. She was so very stuck and she was sure Evan was going to leave any moment. Steadying the candle between her knees as she sat on the desk, she went through the same process, lighting it without looking up at the men. “So we just wait.” Which she guessed meant Evan would leave.
"So, this the part where you tell me to fuck off, Brady?" Evan asked neutrally, having found a good place for the candle. There was a metal shelf against one wall, and he'd cleared a few things off of it to make room. Then he'd dripped the candle's wax onto the shelf, sticking it there upright to get it to stay. He looked back at the two. Brady was only speaking to Edan, it seemed, and didn't like him, that much was clear. And the longer he was in the guy's presence, it was getting mutual, so there was that part too. "That you've got this covered, all that?"
“Didn’t tell you to fuck off before, not gonna tell you to now,” Brady answered in a similarly neutral tone. Asher’s walking away from their conversation before hadn’t really put him high on the list of people Brady wanted to hang out with, but Edan clearly had some kind of interest in the guy. “You can stay or go, that’s your choice. You live on this block?” he asked.
“Ash,” Edan said, looking over at him. Maybe he was looking for a way out, a chance to get away from her again. Even without any bite to his tone, it seemed like he was just trying to be a jerk.
Evan leaned back against the wall, and looked in Brady's direction. "...yeah, you've already told me that you weren't talking to me, have kind of ignored me since you got back, and seem to have it all in hand here with your girl. So...my incentive to stick around would be...?" he trailed off, it being rhetorical. "Yes, I live on this block. I'll be right back." he added, heading towards the door.
He was talking about her like she wasn’t in the room and that was more than annoying. Since when was she Brady’s girl? When Evan said he was leaving though, Edan jumped up not thinking about the candle in her hand and causing the wax to drop on her hand. Swearing softly she still held out a hand to try and stop Evan. “Where are you going? You said you wouldn’t.” Maybe he hadn’t but, she was still saying it.
He walked backwards towards the door, eyes on Edan. "Careful with that thing." he said first, to her swearing. "And I said I'd be back. He's here. Just, give me a few."
Brady snorted derisively. This guy sure seemed to have a way of twisting words around and making assumptions, not that Brady was in any hurry to correct him. He waited until Asher was gone to say anything more, turning his head to look at Edan as he started strumming softly on the guitar. “What’s your deal with him? The storm just got you spooked and he was conveniently there? Or something more going on there?”
Edan watched Evan go, not sure what to say but not really able to do more to stop him from leaving. There was a sinking sensation in her stomach that he wouldn’t come back, but she supposed that was his choice. Looking back at Brady she shrugged then went back to the desk to sit on it. “Nothing’s going on. He’s just interesting. Then the storm.” She tilted the taper in one hand, this time purposefully watching the wax trail towards her fingers.
Quirking a brow at her, Brady shook his head. “Interesting? The guy’s a fucking ass.” He really didn’t see what Edan could possibly see in the guy, and he wasn’t really buying that nothing was going on, not with the way Edan had clung to Asher and the way she’d seemed almost anxious at the thought of Asher leaving. “You sure there’s nothing going on, though? Cause it sure as hell looked like it.”
“He’s...He’s not an ass to me,” Edan clarified because he wasn’t despite his best efforts. Though she was seeing the ‘asshole’ part he claimed now that he wasn’t alone with her. She still didn’t look up at Brady, but shook her head. “Nothing. He keeps trying to get rid of me, then doesn’t do a very good job of staying away. What did it look like?” Edan’s eyes ticked up at him with the question, honestly curious.
“Fair enough,” Brady conceded with a shrug, letting it go for the time being. There were probably a great many people that would call him an ass and deservedly so, but there were also probably a few who would defend him by saying he wasn’t one, so he got that. “Way you were clinging to him? Looked like you really didn’t want to let go of him. Call me old fashioned, but a girl clings to a guy like that? It’s usually cause she wants more from him - unless he’s family of course. That’s a whole different game,” he added almost as an afterthought.
Edan bit her lip and went back to the candle. “I don’t...no. He’s,” her eyes ticked back to the doorway, looking for him, expecting him to be there. He’s not coming back Edy. It was her Evan’s voice, her twin, telling her the logical side of things. Edan shook her head again. “He’s just interesting. And he was here when the storm started and I’m a child apparently.” She hated that the moment the thunder clapped her body was shaking, shrinking in on herself and wishing she had more on than just the tiny little dress.
Brady would have loved nothing more than to call bullshit on the way Edan kept starting to say something and then falling back on the ‘interesting’ thing, but he didn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to when he saw the way the thunder made her shake and shrink back. “Having a fear of storms doesn’t make you a child. Edan, come here,” he requested in a rather gentle tone. People had irrational fears all the time; it was stupid to refer to them as children because of it.
She was anxious about going towards him, not when Evan had been on her about switching out who she was clinging to just a moment before. There was a moment of hesitation before she moved closer, sitting back on the piano bench. “It is childish. I know it’s stupid.”
Although she had moved closer, she still hadn’t come to him, which Brady tried not to be annoyed about. She was acting strange, at least from the limited experience he’d had with her so far, and he wasn’t really buying that it was just because of the storm. “Your words not mine,” he said with a shrug. Obviously she thought her fears were stupid and childish, and he didn’t really think anything he could say would change that. “So what makes him so interesting, anyway?” he asked, switching back to the Asher topic in the hopes it would distract her from the storm. That and he did want to know.
Edan looked at the candle in her hands instead of him. “He just is. He’s...contradicting. And a vigilante. He talks about being dangerous, and trouble, and then gave me this.” She picked up the ice pick from where she’d left it on the piano. “To arm me.”
A vigilante, Brady thought with a mental sigh. That could be dangerous even if he did get the mentality. He glanced at the ice pick, then ticked his eyes back up to hers. “Good. You should be armed. But just because he’s given you a weapon doesn’t mean he isn’t dangerous or trouble. What’s he in for?” he asked, though he wouldn’t be entirely surprised if Edan refused to answer that.
“I know it doesn’t,” Edan said shaking her head. “But he could have used it on me, instead of lecturing me on how to use it,” she pointed out. At his question she hesitated then glanced at him. “Double homicide. He was on death row.”
Brady didn’t really think it would do any good to lecture her on trusting dangerous people considering they were in prison surrounded by dangerous people. “You should learn how to use it.” When she actually did give him an answer, he looked surprised briefly. “Death row,” he repeated. “And you still think he’s an awesome choice in company?” He clearly was questioning her reasoning skills with that question. He just didn’t understand why they even had people who were on death row in this place. It was supposed to be centered around giving cons a chance at starting over once they got out, but death row inmates were never going to get out anyway, so it didn’t make sense. It was something to think about.
“I’m not helpless Brady,” she pointed out, even if she wasn’t quite skilled in knife or ice pick wielding, she wasn’t useless. Her eyes ticked back to the doorway, wanting to see Evan there, but he wasn’t there. Still not coming back Edy. Her brother’s voice was gentle in the back of her head, but firm. Like he’d always been.
“No probably not. This is only the second time I’ve really talked to him. The first he was picking me up off the ground after my run-in with Pippa, then he was...here. Showing me how vulnerable I was without doing anything to hurt me. I don’t know what to make of him, but if you ask him he’ll be gone tomorrow.” Which as she said it, Edan realized she didn’t want.
“Didn’t say you were,” Brady replied simply, and it was true enough. He just thought that if she was going to have a weapon, she should know how to use it. He noticed the way her eyes went back to the doorway. “You want me to get lost when he gets back?” he offered, though he didn’t really have any intention of going anywhere.
Well, at least she was acknowledging that Asher probably wasn’t the best company to be keeping. “What do you mean he’ll be gone tomorrow?” he asked, finding the way she’d phrased that a bit odd.
“What? No. You don’t have to.” She glanced at the door again and shook her head. “He’s not coming back.” Sighing a little she set down the ice pick and went back to the candle. “He thinks they made a mistake. That they’ll take it back and ship him right back to death row any day now.”
Brady didn’t think telling her it wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t come back would go over well, not when she looked somewhat disappointed at the thought. “Can’t say I blame him for thinking that. Seems kinda stupid to try to rehabilitate someone who was supposed to be put to death for their crime. That whole welcome message talked about how cons struggle to start over after prison, right? Well there was never gonna be an after prison for someone on death row, so it doesn’t make sense that they’d get put in this program,” he shared his thoughts on it with her.
“Maybe they don’t like the death penalty,” Edan pointed out, looking up at Brady. “Which makes sense. Doesn’t quite fit with their whole mantra and attitude.” Which was to rehabilitate. Killing someone seemed to negate that.
“Maybe they don’t,” Brady agreed neutrally. He still didn’t think it made sense for them to put cons who were on death row in here, but then he didn’t think the whole program made any sense at all, and so he rather thought it was pointless to try to rationalize it. “But then you said he’s a vigilante. Those types have a high chance of killing again. You really think he can be rehabilitated?” he asked her. He didn’t know the circumstances of the double homicide, but he thought the odds of rehabilitation weren’t that great, especially in this place where they didn’t seem to be doing anything to actually try to rehabilitate people.
And Evan had killed again, but Edan kept that to herself. “Maybe. I don’t think it’s my place to judge.” She wasn’t the one in charge, the one deciding if Evan succeeded. She had to wonder though, if he would have killed those three others if he knew he might get out of prison, if death wasn’t waiting.
“I think in a place like this it’s something you should be thinking about. Just because he hasn’t seemed threatening toward you doesn’t mean you should automatically give him or anyone a free pass. Could be the difference between living and dying.” And he was getting way too fucking morbid, Brady thought, rolling his shoulders as if trying to shake it off.
Edan almost laughed, a short noise. “He won’t hurt me.” It was sure, probably slightly ridiculous to say in such a place, but she knew it. “He likes me too much.” Which might half be in her head, but he’d had his chance and the best he’d done was leave. Her eyes glanced towards the door again. “I understand being safe. I haven’t thought of it. I just can’t see him as a threat to me. Someone else, yes, but not me. Just like Matt isn’t.”
Brady quirked a brow at that, though from the little he’d seen he couldn’t really disagree with the assessment that Asher seemed to like Edan. “Like Matt isn’t, huh? Met the guy. I think I offended him,” he remembered with a short laugh. “So how might Matt be a threat to others?” Since she’d brought him up and all. He really wanted to ask if Matt knew she was snuggling up to some other guy, but that was something he just wasn’t going to get mixed up in.
“He was a threat to the guy he killed,” Edan said plainly. Matt wasn’t going to hurt anyone else, but he didn’t feel bad about what he did. He didn’t regret it. “Just like you got worried when I lit the first candle or you saw the charred books in the courtyard. No one’s fixing us overnight.” She’d veered from his question, but her mind wasn’t completely what it had been before the storm. She was too frazzled now to care.
Both of Brady’s brows rose at that, not having pegged Matt as a murderer. It was a surprise and reason enough to look at the other man in a different light. “Wasn’t worried when you lit the candle, and I didn’t think the charred books were your handiwork,” Brady countered with simple honesty. “And no one’s fixing us period. Dunno if you’ve noticed, but they haven’t really done any actual rehabilitating yet. Not really holding my breath that they’re going to.”
“What were you expecting them to do? Lock us in room and have conversations with us? When has that worked?” Edan asked, looking up at Brady. “I didn’t say you thought it was, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if you did.”
“Don’t have any expectations of what they’d do, but please, enlighten me on how anything they’ve done is rehabilitation,” Brady replied with just a little bite to his tone. He was having a hard time believing that she was actually defending them in any way.
“I never said they were. I just think there’s something going on that we can’t see yet. We’re stuck in the forest and all we see is trees or something like that. There’s a bigger picture Brady.” Edan looked up again, thinking she saw something, but it was just lightning flashing across the empty doorway.
“I know there is,” Brady replied simply. “I just think that bigger picture is a hell of a lot darker than some people imagine. I’m not buying into their mission statement.” Not that he was trying to force her to think pessimistically. If she wanted to believe there would be a future after this place, then more power to her.
“I don’t know how else to think,” Edan said shaking her head. “I’m not sure I like the idea of disappearing here.” Or dying here, but she kept that to herself. “I hope you’re wrong. I’d hate to have this turn into some sort of horror film.”
“Don’t want to disappear here either,” Brady admitted. “And I hope I’m wrong too. But I’m not so optimistic to think that things aren’t going to get a hell of a lot worse around here. And I’m bringing myself down now, so how ‘bout we talk about anything else. How’re things going with Matt?” he asked.
Edan hated that she didn’t fully disagree with him. That things would get worse. “Fine. Same as ever. He let me stay in his room last night.” He’d been sweet to her, even with all the pictures, but he was trying not to think on that too hard.
That announcement was a bit of a surprise, and it showed in Brady’s expression. “Huh. So he’s not keeping his distance now,” he commented, making the assumption that things had gotten physical if she’d stayed in the guy’s room.
Edan shook her head. “He slept on the couch. I was just there because I was anxious. Kind of scared.” Nothing had happened, nothing like Brady was suggesting at least.
Brady was torn between that brotherly feeling of relief that nothing like that had happened and thinking that it was a shame that things were so innocent with a guy that she had clearly been into. “You okay with that?” he asked, though he wished he could take it back as soon as the words were out of his mouth. He really didn’t want or need to know about her sex life.
What else could she be with it beyond okay? Nodding, Edan glanced towards the door again. “He didn’t have to let me stay. It was a sweet of him. I appreciated it.”
While Evan was gone, he'd headed to the tool shed first. He'd gotten what he needed, and tried a few things to attempt to break into one of the empty rooms. Picking the lock didn't work. Dismantling the doorknob didn't work. He even tried for a while to shoulder or kick it open, and that didn't fly either. The windows wouldn't break. After what felt like forever, he finally gave up the ghost, and with one final kick at the door, he headed back to his room. There, he stripped the bed, trying not to drip rain water down on everything as he was soaked. He briefly debated changing, but in the end didn't. It was wet out. End of story.
Trying to keep the blankets and pillow as dry as possible, and keeping himself under the overhang of the walkway to the second floor, he arrived back at the music room, hearing the tail end of what Edan was saying, though he had no context for it. So he didn't comment. "Here." he said, heading into the room. He walked to the piano, and dropped the bedding down on it. "Just in case you're stuck here all night."
That it wasn’t what he’d meant at all was on the tip of Brady’s tongue, but then Asher was coming back into the room carrying a bundle of bedding, and so he held his tongue. Since Asher only addressed Edan, he decided to just stay quiet for the moment and see where things would go.
It was for the best that Brady hadn’t asked her anything else about what she was saying, because she promptly forgot whatever it was. He’d come back. Edan was left staring at him, not quite processing the bedding until well after the fact, one hand going out to him. “Asher, you’re drenched. What the hell were you doing? Aren’t you freezing?”
"First trying to see if I could break into one of the empty rooms, which wasn't doable, then I went and got bedding. If you two are stuck here, then, might as well have blankets, or something." he said, shrugging. "And I'm fine. I'm not going to melt. I actually like the rain."
It was interesting just how thoroughly Edan’s attention focused on Asher, and Brady filed the observation away for the moment. That Asher included him in his explanation was a bit of a surprise, and he found himself saying a simple, “Thanks,” in response to it, but left it at that for the time being.
“Of course you do,” Edan said about the rain, shaking her head. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do this. And I’m still not sure how you aren’t freezing. I’m cold looking at you.”
Evan merely nodded to Brady's 'thanks'. At Edan's comment, Evan gave her a skeptical look. "You're also a skinny little thing, so probably not a whole lot in the way of insulation." he pointed out. "Anyway. There. You're both covered, for the night, at least." There were the beanbag chairs in the music room, they'd be easy to turn into little makeshift beds.
The thought went through Brady’s mind that Asher really was doing a crap job at that whole being an asshole thing, so he kind of understood a bit better why Edan didn’t see it as much in the guy, and with the thought, he snorted a soft laugh, shaking his head slightly. He wasn’t about to say anything about it, though, and so he started playing the guitar, just a light sound that didn’t carry too well with the storm raging outside.
“I’m not that skinny,” Edan said making a face at Evan before reaching for the blanket on the pile and pulling it towards herself. When Brady laughed though, she looked his way, not asking, but her face clearly curious what he thought was so funny.
Evan took it as Brady finding something to laugh at, as opposed to about, and decided that it was his cue to fuck off. She could stay there with the guitar playing hero type. That would probably work out far better than anything else. "Anything else before I fuck off?" he asked.
“No one told you to fuck off,” Brady pointed out, though he definitely wasn’t asking Asher to stay. He just got the impression that Edan wouldn’t want him to go.
“What?” Edan said voice going a little higher than she meant it to. “You just got back.” Like that explained everything, and was the reason why it made no sense why he’d leave again. “Why’d you even come back if you were just leaving?”
"I know." Evan said to Brady. It was civil. Even. He wasn't blaming the guy for making him feel unwelcome, or anything else like that. It wasn't like he was leaving in a snit. He was just figuring his purpose there was spent. He looked back at Edan, with her tone catching his attention more than the words, really. "....to bring you bedding?" he suggested.
Edan’s intensity toward Asher was still sending up flags for Brady, and he just couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more going on there. He smirked at Asher’s response to Edan’s question, amused by it even if he didn’t say anything for a moment. “It’s still pretty early, and I’m getting the impression that Edan would feel better if you stuck around.” Though Brady definitely wasn’t asking him to stay. He just didn’t want Edan freaking out.
“I didn’t ask for it,” Edan said, making a face and looking at Evan. Brady’s words, cordial as they sounded, did bring her back, making her feel a little ridiculous. She pulled the blanket more towards her, getting more under it as the thunder crashed again. “It’s not like that.” Except it was like that and she hoped no one called her out on it, because she didn’t have an answer. “I just thought you’d stick around.”
Yeah, and you're here now, so why isn't she clinging to you? Evan internally wondered, though he didn't say it aloud. He looked between Brady and Edan, not quite sure how to handle the situation yet. "I know you didn't ask for it." he acknowledged. That just didn't have any bearing on what he did and didn't do. "If I stick around, what exactly are we going to do? At this point, you might as well try to get some sleep. The power's out, who knows when it'll be back, which means you and him are stuck here for however long that takes."
“I know I’m not gonna be sleeping,” Brady said with a shrug. “And what are we gonna do? Well, we could sit around and sing Kumbaya,” he suggested sarcastically, though his grin softened the words a bit. At this point, he really wasn’t sure whether or not Asher would stick around, and he wasn’t too bothered either way.
The thunder cracked again and Edan pulled the blanket around her more. “Sure. Like sleep’s gonna happen.” She looked over at Evan for a brief instant then pulled her knees up towards her chest and holding out the candle to him. “Since there’s no power in your room either.”
Evan was thinking the sarcasm wasn't terribly welcoming, and was interpreting it as a clue that he should leave. He shook his head. "Keep it. I'm good." he told her. He wasn't positive he was going back to his room straight away. He was probably going to go back out into the rain for a while, savor that for a little bit. Then maybe he'd head back to his room, and crash on the couch, since he'd given all his bedding away.