There was a completely different aura to the city at night. Instead of bright sunlight shining down on all of the citizens, the moon's soft glow and the faint twinkling of the stars bathed the isolated streets. Instead of the buzz of conversations, there was nothing but the gentle ocean waves as they lapped against the docks and piers. Instead of the lively yet grim vibe of daytime New Orleans, there was an exotic, unconventional taste to the nighttime air, and Brendon found himself falling in love almost instantly.
Not a single soul roamed the streets. The market vendors had gone home for the evening. The store clerks had locked up their shops, only planning to return when the sun rose again. Even the animals had seemed to retreat into their dens and homes, for the night in New Orleans was full of peace and solitude.
It was almost as if they had the entire city all to themselves.
Brendon silently followed in Ryan's footsteps, for he had no idea where the night owl was taking him. Were they going to visit the docks? Maybe watch the moon rise over the never-ending ocean? Were they simply going to explore what the city had to offer after the sun set? He wasn't sure, but he couldn't hide the excitement tingling in his veins. This was an adventure to him, and he couldn't wait to see what other secrets this city held.
It was rather unnerving to him that Ryan didn't speak, though. The silence of the city hummed in his ears, and he longed for the comfort of another human's voice. Sure, the city was absolutely gorgeous at night, but he couldn't help but feel perturbed. Despite the beauty, he still didn't know what could've been lurking in the shadows. He and Ryan were two young men, roaming the streets of New Orleans after hours. Who knew what kinds of people could've been out there?
So instead of waiting around for him to speak, Brendon did it for him.
"Where are we going?" he asked, his voice seeming to boom in the silence of the streets.
Ryan didn't even turn around to answer his question. "Places," he replied. His footsteps were as soft as a mouse's, and Brendon almost felt stupid for all the noise his shoes were making. "You'll see when we get there."
Brendon couldn't mask a scoff now. "You're real big on bein' obscure, ain't ya?"
"It's my specialty." Ryan flashed him a lopsided smirk over his shoulder, his face almost entirely shadowed by the dark sky above. Even the faint glow of the stars couldn't brighten his pale skin.
The two of them continued their trek through the silent city, not a single word exchanged between them. There was nothing to discuss, in Brendon's opinion. They didn't know each other. They had only met today. Surely that was why Ryan wanted to do this, though. To get to know one another. Brendon would like that. He needed a friend, even if the way Ryan welcomed people to New Orleans was a bit odd. As long as they had a chance to get acquainted, he didn't care how it happened.
A dog barked from within the depths of the city. The harshness of its echo made Brendon jump, but Ryan only laughed. He was completely unfazed.
"Come on, ya scaredy-cat," he teased, his eyes shimmering with amusement. "That dog ain't gonna hurt ya. He's probably chained up, anyway. Family's got him on lockdown. Nothin' to be worried about."
"Unless it's a goon's dog," Brendon argued. He hadn't noticed his arms were wrapped around his torso until he felt a shiver run down his spine. It was chilly outside. That, and aside from his initial excitement to explore, the anxiety was beginning to settle in.
He was in uncharted territory.
Ryan only scoffed as he continued to lead the way down the street. He didn't seem bothered by the eerie nighttime at all. "You're funny, Brendon," he said. "I'm gonna have to keep you around."
"Is that a compliment, or....?"
"You can take it in whatever way you want to, pal. Doesn't matter to me."
Brendon ran out of responses to use; he merely stayed silent until there was a change in conversation.
Now he was really beginning to wonder where Ryan was taking him. They'd been walking for quite some time, marching down the twists and turns of the abandoned streets. Nothing was open at this time of night, so where was Ryan going? Unless there was some kind of secret underground club that Brendon wasn't aware of, he couldn't even begin to imagine where this night owl was leading him.
"Just through here," Ryan said, more to himself than Brendon, as he approached an old plank resting against the back wall of a building. He pulled it away to reveal a small hole in the bricks, but definitely large enough to crawl through. This wasn't sketchy at all.
"You want me to crawl through that?" Brendon questioned. He was starting to think that following Ryan out here wasn't a smart idea after all. This guy was nuts.
But Ryan only shrugged, seeming unbothered by the fact that he wanted Brendon to fit through a hidden hole in the wall of a building. This was a normal thing for him, apparently. "Unless you wanna walk all the way back home by yourself. In the dark. Alone. In New Orleans. At night."
Sly bastard.
"I get it, I get it." Brendon rolled his eyes, crouching down to crawl through the hole in the wall. "I swear to God, Ross, if you're trying to get me murdered...."
"Oh, that's definitely my plan," Ryan shot back without a moment's hesitation. So he was witty, too. Brendon just couldn't find a reason to dislike him, no matter how hard he tried.
After Ryan followed suit and pulled the wooden plank back over the entrance, Brendon stood and brushed the dust off his slacks. He wasn't prepared to see the sight that flooded his vision once he glanced up.
A small dock jutted out from the sand underneath their feet and into the shoreline of the sparkling ocean. Waves delicately lapped against the wood, and the water that didn't reach the dock brushed up against the sand in gentle, ebbing tides. The moon loomed overhead, appearing much larger than it did in the streets, and it looked absolutely divine. Bright and white and casting a magnificent glow down upon them, it made the ocean glimmer. It illuminated the dock and the sand, and it made their skin shine like diamonds. The area was bijou, but it screamed serenity. Brendon was in love.
"Nice place, isn't it?" Ryan remarked, his voice soft as he stood at Brendon's side.
Brendon, on the other hand, could only nod in agreement, all his words having abandoned him. He was too in awe, too amazed at this wonderful little place to fabricate a proper sentence. Now he understood why Ryan was so eager to bring him here. It was absolutely breathtaking.
Ryan ambled toward the dock's edge, taking a seat and letting his legs dangle over the side. His feet were in danger of touching the water, but he didn't seem to care. He merely patted the spot next to him, and Brendon didn't hesitate to join him.
"Pop used to bring me here all the time when I was younger," Ryan said, his gaze locked on the never-ending ocean ahead of them. It looked gorgeous under the moonlight, and the gentle lapping of the waves was beginning to lull Brendon to sleep. "It was sort of our thing, I guess. Whenever he had the time, he'd bring me here, and we'd just talk. We'd sit and talk and eat and watch the ocean and talk about our dreams. Lame, I know, but it was the coolest thing when I was a kid." He turned his gaze to Brendon now, his eyes suddenly warm and subdued. "Did you ever do anything like that with your folks?"
Brendon shook his head. He couldn't think straight anymore. The ocean waves and the beauty of this little cove were almost overwhelming him. "Not really. My pop was workin' all the time, and my mama was too busy takin' care of my siblings. I just kinda had to fend for myself. I did have a good friend, though. His name was Kenny. Man, we did everything together." Despite his newfound love for the city, Brendon couldn't hide the pang in his chest at the mention of his old friend. He missed home. He missed it dearly.
"Childhood friends are something you can never quite replace," Ryan remarked. His gaze was piercing, and it almost made Brendon uncomfortable. "But at least you have some memories to look back on. Good memories, right?"
Brendon nodded.
"That's nice." Ryan shifted his attention back to the ocean, back to the horizon miles and miles away. "See, I grew up here. Lived here with Pop all my life. I don't know nothin' else. New Orleans is in my blood, and I'm not sure if I like it, ya know? You have your childhood memories of home and this Kenny guy. My childhood memories are of The Spotted Cat when folks actually came to the damn place. Not very good memories for a child to have, huh?"
"But they could be a lot worse," Brendon pointed out. "Your memories could be of war stories and horrible times. At least they're of your pop and the boomin' days of The Spotted Cat, right?"
Ryan fell silent, his solemn gaze cast down at the water beneath their toes. "I suppose," he murmured. Brendon could barely hear him. "I just wish I could have those days back sometimes." He heaved a sigh, fishing something out of his back pocket. A cigarette, by the looks of it, and a small lighter. "You want one?"
Brendon frowned. He'd never smoked a cigarette in his life, let alone even seen one this close. His mama would've killed him if she saw him smoking. "Nah, I'm okay."
An amused smile curled its way onto Ryan's lips. "You've never smoked a snipe before, have you?" he questioned. The tone in his voice made Brendon want to shrink down into his shirt. He was being judged by the city boy. "Never? Not once in your whole life?"
"Mama was strict," Brendon muttered, more to himself than anything.
"Well, allow me to let you in on a little secret, wheat." Ryan inched closer, so close that their shoulders bumped when either of them moved. "Your mama ain't here. You can smoke all you want. She can't tell ya what to do now."
"But isn't it bad for you?"
Ryan scoffed, the cigarette loosely hanging from his mouth as he went to light it. "Haven't ya seen all those advertisements? Snipes help ya lose weight. Doctors are praisin' them. Folks do it all the time. Where in the hell did ya hear that it was bad? Your mama?"
"Mama said she used to smoke, and it didn't do her any good," Brendon explained. He still felt like an idiot, an inexperienced wheat, sitting next to this city boy. He definitely had a lot to learn.
Taking a drag of his cigarette, the dark smoke billowing into the nighttime air around them, Ryan fished out another one and offered it to Brendon. "Here. Try it. Can't hurt ya if ya don't even give it a shot."
Brendon hesitated, cautiously eyeing the cigarette in Ryan's hand, as if it was going to come to life and attack him on the spot. He trusted his mama, and when his mama told him something, he listened to her. He didn't want to go against her no smoking rules, but he didn't want to turn down Ryan's offer, either, especially since he was still trying to make a good impression. Maybe he was going to have to make an exception this one time.
He took the cigarette.
"Thatta boy," Ryan said with a smile. The flame from his lighter was already flickering, waiting to light the cigarette between Brendon's lips. He was terrified to do this, but he wanted to make a good impression. He had to make a good impression if he wanted to last a week in New Orleans. He already managed to score an apartment from the hoity-toity French man. Now he just had to smoke a cigarette and, hopefully, make a friend out of it.
Following Ryan's lead, Brendon sucked in a breath, took a long drag of the cigarette--and instantly fell into a coughing fit.
Tears welled up in his eyes. His lungs burned as he coughed and hacked, smoke puffing out from his mouth with every breath. Ryan, on the other hand, couldn't stop laughing at the scene before him.
"Got a bit of a kick to it, right?" he said, his smile wicked. "Don't worry. You'll get used to it. You look like me when I had my first."
"How did you not die?" Brendon wheezed in between violent coughs. He could barely see because of all the tears. Ryan was nothing but a blurry silhouette, dimly lit by the moon above them. He could have sworn his lungs were on fire inside his chest, burning to a crisp as he spoke. He didn't like this.
"Not sure," Ryan replied. His smile began to fade then, his stoic expression returning as he watched the stars twinkle in the inky black sky. "Listen, you don't have to finish that snipe if you don't want to. I just wanted to ask you something."
For a fleeting moment, Brendon thought his heart had leaped up to join the fire in his lungs. He absolutely despised hearing that sentence. What did Ryan want to ask him? That was usually never a good sign. He had heard that sentence one too many times in his life, and often, things took a sharp turn for the worse. He wanted nothing more than to slip off the dock and hide underneath the ocean waves in that very moment.
But he remained polite, just like he was always taught. "Sure. What is it?"
Ryan paused, flicking the ashes from his cigarette into the water below. He looked ghostly under the moonlight, the gentle breeze coming off the ocean parting his hair and ruffling his old clothes. With his gaze cast down, and his face sullen, he didn't look like the young boy he was. He looked well beyond his years. He looked....exhausted. Were his eyes always that dark?
"My pop's not doin' so hot," he finally murmured, tracing patterns with his finger along the edge of the dock. "Not sure if you noticed, but with business bein' as slow as it is, I'm not sure how long he's gonna be able to keep it up. He ain't even that old, but....The Spotted Cat is really kinda bringin' him down. Suckin' his life, if you know what I mean. It's like the whole damn place is just drainin' his energy away."
Brendon nodded. He didn't want to disrupt Ryan's story, so he merely stayed silent and let him speak.
"Anyway, you probably don't care too much about the details." Ryan heaved a sigh. "I just wanted to know if you could, I don't know....help me keep an eye on my old man. He always tells me he's fine and that I don't need to worry about him, but I still do. He's my pop. He's watched over me my entire life, and I wanna do the same for him. I just can't do it by myself." He turned his solemn gaze back to Brendon, that playful glimmer having vanished long ago. "Can you promise me that, Brendon? Will you help me take care of my pop?"
Brendon didn't know what to say. His mind seemed to shut down, his mouth agape, because he was at a loss for words. He had only met Ryan earlier in the day, and he wanted Brendon's help with taking care of his father? Although he was shocked, he couldn't help but feel honored at the same time. Was he really that trustworthy?
"He needs us," Ryan went on. "The Spotted Cat needs us. I know we're still kids, but that doesn't mean we can't change somethin', right? Maybe we can bring The Spotted Cat back to life. Me with my sax. I can teach you to play, too. We could draw all these folks back in and give my pop somethin' to work for. Whaddaya say, Brendon? Ya with me?"
Brendon met Ryan's eyes, his mind racing a thousand miles a second. Despite his exhaustion, Ryan still managed to look like an eager puppy at the thought of revamping The Spotted Cat and giving it a new purpose. It was clear how much he loved his father, and Brendon didn't dare stomp on his dreams.
But he couldn't ignore the warm feeling swelling in his chest. They barely knew each other, yet Ryan trusted Brendon enough to ask him this favor. He was honored. He didn't know what to say. If that wasn't a sign that they had met one another for a reason, he didn't know what was.
So he put on a smile, because he just knew that his life in New Orleans was about to get a whole lot better.
"I'm with ya."
~~~~~
Pro tip: Don't listen to The Ghost Of You while writing a World War II Frerard AU (and yes, that will be coming soon too *wink wink*)
So the other day I sat down and blasted the entirety of Danger Days because I haven't listened to the whole thing in a while, and damn, what a bop. Seriously. Destroya flows through my veins and makes me wanna blow shit up. That and Save Yourself, I'll Hold Them Back are probably my top two off that album. What are your guys' favorites from Danger Days? I know it's hard to pick but gimme some of your favorite bops. I like knowing other people's favorite songs
Love y'all! Remember to vote/comment/share with your pals! <3