The day felt like it had multiple days, weeks, months in it. It had started as a good day, laughing and smiling at Steven over the breakfast table before leaving for work. The shift at the bakery had been like any other day at the bakery, and just like any other day, Brandon loved working there.
Taking a nap with Fitzgerald on the couch while waiting for Steven to come home was where one day ended and another began. Getting ready for the event with Steven, yet another day. It wasn't a good or a bad day, but a good day gone bad. Breaking down on his own, after he had sent Steven to the event, wasn't a day at all. It was the darkest night of a long winter.
Brandon had loathed himself then, and there had been no end to his tears. He had wanted to tear at his arms, to rip that awful feeling off of him. It didn't matter how disappointed Steven was in him, because he could never be as disappointed as Brandon was in himself. He had wanted to go so bad, to make Steven proud of him, but no, he couldn't do even one such simple thing. It was so pathetic. Brandon had sent Steven away so that he could break down in peace, and he hadn't called Shirley. He might as well have died right there and then.
It had taken Brandon almost an hour to breathe normally, not in fast, harsh gasps, and somewhere along that hour a new day began to dawn. It was a bad day, which rocketed down to the worst day of his life when he picked up his phone and saw the picture Steven had sent him. In it, Steven was grinning and he had his arm thrown over Trey's shoulders. Trey was smiling as well, but that smile was all taunt and no joy.
In that instant, Brandon had forgotten all about his hurt. The twisting, aching pain in his chest was all dread for Steven. What if Trey did something to Steven and the last thing Brandon ever did to him was to send him away? To tell him to go fuck himself? What if he never got to tell Steven how much he already loved him?
Lying under Trey, gasping for air, spitting pills from his mouth and feeling blood drenching his shirt was another level of a shitty day. Brandon's ears were still ringing and his mouth had a bitter taste in it when the elevator doors slid open and the room filled with cops in their uniforms. The muzzle was burning hot against Brandon's stomach where it was pressed in between him and Trey.
What Brandon thought was going to be a sob was a laugh, followed by a series of hysterical cackles. Then someone was wrenching Trey's limp body off of Brandon and patting down his shirt and face. Slowly Brandon started to pick up the noises in the room, the people talking over each other, the faces staring at him, the hand wiping the pills and spit from his mouth and chin..
"Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay.." Steven was chanting, his hands still checking for injuries.
Brandon blinked his eyes back to focus, and lifted his hands to take Steven's in them. His heart clenched inside his chest, and the relief was big enough to make his breath hitch: Steven was alive. He was okay. Brandon studied the angry red lines around Steven's wrists, then brought his hands to his lips, kissing them.
"It's not mine." Brandon whispered. The area under his left eye throbbed from the blow Trey had given him and the back of his head was tender to a touch, but none of the blood belonged to him. Brandon had never gone hunting with his dad, but that didn't mean he could have avoided being taught how to shoot a gun. He had promised himself he would never use one, but there they were.
Brandon didn't fight back when Steven pulled him to sit up and into a tight embrace. Brandon clutched his arms around Steven just as desperately, burying his face on Steven's shoulder and breathing in the familiar, reassuring scent. His eyes filled with tears, but he didn't, couldn't, cry.
"I'm never letting you out of my sight again." Steven swore, squeezing Brandon tighter. He was trembling, and it took Brandon a while to realize that he himself was shaking as well. He was never letting go of Steven. "Brandon, I'm so sorry. What I said to you, and leaving like that.. I'm an idiot, and I'm so, so sorry."
"I'm sorry too." Brandon murmured, brushing his shaky hand up and down Steven's back. "And I'm not angry."
"You should be. None of this would have happened if I just.." Steven didn't finish his sentence, but just shrugged. His shoulder poked against the bruise on Brandon's cheek, but he didn't wince or tell Steven not to do it again.
"Did he hurt you?" Brandon asked. He didn't think Trey would have left them alone even if they had stuck together, but he didn't have the energy to debate about whose fault everything was. They had both made mistakes that evening, but at the end of the day Trey was the only one to blame.
"Besides the obvious, no. Was any of what he said true?" Steven whispered.
"All of it." Brandon admitted, pulling away from the hug and looking down at the marks around Steven's wrists. He wanted to explain his reasons behind his lies and how dark everything had seemed the night he took the pills, but he didn't think he could get the words out of his mouth. The stench of blood and the sight of it on his shirt made memories flash through his mind, pulling him back to the darkest of his days.
The carpet was rough against Brandon's knees when he sat on them on the floor, covering his head with his arms. The weight of Trey's hand was nothing new, neither was the throbbing, the aching. Even though Brandon had learned to numb out the hurt a long time ago, there was no getting used to the pain. He could never stop fearing for it, reacting to it.
Like always, Trey left and expected to find Brandon all patched up when he came back with apologies, but it had been months since Brandon believed in him. Brandon no longer thought that Trey was capable of changing, and no amount of love could cure the damage he had done. People only got what they wanted in fairytales, and the only way out of that hell Brandon could see was in a bodybag.
Brandon couldn't keep living that way, and he was yet to realize that didn't mean he needed to die. He was tired, used up, hurting and at the end of his road. It didn't occur to him then that there were other ways of living, that he too would have many other roads ahead of him. If Brandon had just called Shirley that night and asked for help, like he wanted to, he could have saved them both from a lot of pain.
A strident, furious shout broke Brandon free from the clutch of his memories, and he turned his head to see Shirley raging at a security guard who was more than two heads taller and twice as wide as her. When her eyes landed on Brandon, she plummeted into the room so fast no one could stop her from making her way to him. No one dared to pull her away from Brandon either, as she clutched her arms and legs around her brother and started wailing and cursing incomprehensibly.
"I called them, I called them like you told me to." Shirley managed to utter in between the curses and cries. Brandon hugged her close and let her cry against his shoulder. Brandon hadn't made the same mistake again. He had called Shirley, told her where he was about to go and how she needed to call the police if she didn't hear from him in the next ten minutes. Which gave, in retrospect, too much time for Trey to make a mess.
"You did well." Brandon murmured. The next words he whispered so quietly only Shirley could hear them: "And I love you too, slug."
Shirley bursted into tears again, and Brandon only let go of her to take the activated charcoal one of the medics gave him. He didn't think he had swallowed any of the pills, but some of them had mushed into his mouth, so it was better to be safe than sorry. It still didn't register into his brain what Trey had just tried to do to him, let alone what he had done to Trey.
The rest of the night was a blur. Shirley and Steven were both exhausted and in shock, but they refused to leave Brandon's side. First they were in the parlor, then in a hospital and then in some room where Brandon was being interrogated, all of those places feeling like they deserved their own day.
By the end of the day, which had a multitude of days, weeks and months in it, Brandon could barely stand on his two feet. He was tired to the bone, but he hadn't shed a single tear since he saw Trey again after the five not nearly long enough years. In fact, he had felt calm and collected, like the pressure had somehow molded him into a different person. The feelings would come later, they were going to flood in and drown him neck-deep in anger, fear and guilt.
Just not yet, it seemed.
That night Steven apologized to Brandon for about a hundred times more and squeezed him into a bone breaking hug, refusing to let go. Steven held him and cried until his eyes were puffy and pink. He had been tied up and held at gunpoint, so it was no wonder he was reacting to it. Brandon held Steven tight through the tears, until he fell asleep and Brandon was left alone with his thoughts.
He had stood up to himself, to Steven. He had been able to stay in the present, realizing that his father was long gone and buried, and that the man raging against him wasn't someone who loved him. No, it was a broken man at the end of his rope. A sick individual who couldn't tell the difference between love and hate, one that needed to be locked in and given professional help.
Brandon had shot Trey, he had shot an actual, breathing, thinking human being, and he felt.. relieved.
Brandon's shadows could no longer get to him. They could no longer cause more damage to him or his family. It was all in the past now and all they had to do was get through what they had been through. Despite what Steven had said to him earlier and Steven finding out what a liar he was, Brandon knew they would get through all of that and more together.