Annnnnnnd...Spencer being heartbroken/protective/adorable/angsty/etc about Ryan :P And Ryan making me want to hide him away and never let anyone near him again. Ryyyyyyan...
Going to have to split it in two, too long. Here goes...
***
The afternoon it happened was not a particularly significant afternoon. There was nothing to suggest that this would be the afternoon things might change; there was nothing, in fact, to suggest that it would ever be the afternoon things might change. Not that Spencer wasn’t interested. God knows, Spencer’s body, at least, was very interested. Just…it wasn’t like that. It couldn’t be like that. Spencer didn’t want to want it. And Ryan—Spencer was getting better at reading Ryan, but that didn’t change…anything.
Every evening he would sit in the dark behind his window and pray that that man—because he wasn’t his father, Spencer would not give him that title—was tired, or busy, or something, anything. His prayers rarely seemed to reach far. Almost every evening he would watch out the window as a figure he tried not to think of as more than the shadow he could see at this distance followed the path to what wasn’t really Ryan’s cottage, because Ryan would rather be dead than inside. And every evening he would stay awake to watch the figure walk back, sometimes not half an hour later, sometimes hours, hours of keeping himself in his chair because standing up and leaving this room would probably mean killing someone.
Eventually, though, the door of the little cottage would always open, lamps casting a sickly glow out into the night, and the shadow would appear against them, and cross back under the moon, and reenter the house. Every evening Spencer would wait fifteen crawling, second-by-second minutes. Fifteen minutes was enough time for him to be retired, out of the corridors, away from back windows. And fifteen minutes was enough time for Ryan to…do things. Drag himself from wherever he’d been left. Dress. Clean himself, because however Spencer hated waiting, he just didn’t have the stomach to see Ryan…like that. And Ryan, there were many things Ryan didn’t want him to see. Not just the…mess. There were the bruises he hid beneath his clothes and the ones he couldn’t hide, that told Spencer the rest were there. There was the day Spencer knocked on the door and Ryan was still holding a wet cloth to his lip, split and swelled and still bleeding, where the bastard had hit him for no reason either of them could figure out. Ryan had spent a full five minutes swearing through sobs that he hadn’t done anything before Spencer had managed to get through his skull that he didn’t give a crap whether he’d done anything, he wouldn’t care if Ryan had killed the worthless bastard. And there was the day he’d opened the door and heard Ryan sobbing through choked-back gasps in the bathroom, frantically jerking himself off over the toilet. Ryan had turned white when he’d come out to find Spencer there, doing a hopeless of job of looking out the window and pretending he’d heard nothing. “I wasn’t—” Ryan had choked out. “I don’t care, Ry.” “I don’t—I…I can’t help…” And he was sobbing again, and Spencer had taken a deep breath, and made himself turn around. “It’s okay,” Spencer had whispered, knowing full well it wasn’t, wasn’t at all, and Ryan had crumpled right there in front of the bathroom door, clung to the floor and refused to look up, and hadn’t let Spencer near him for the rest of the night.
no subject
Going to have to split it in two, too long. Here goes...
***
The afternoon it happened was not a particularly significant afternoon. There was nothing to suggest that this would be the afternoon things might change; there was nothing, in fact, to suggest that it would ever be the afternoon things might change. Not that Spencer wasn’t interested. God knows, Spencer’s body, at least, was very interested. Just…it wasn’t like that. It couldn’t be like that. Spencer didn’t want to want it. And Ryan—Spencer was getting better at reading Ryan, but that didn’t change…anything.
Every evening he would sit in the dark behind his window and pray that that man—because he wasn’t his father, Spencer would not give him that title—was tired, or busy, or something, anything. His prayers rarely seemed to reach far. Almost every evening he would watch out the window as a figure he tried not to think of as more than the shadow he could see at this distance followed the path to what wasn’t really Ryan’s cottage, because Ryan would rather be dead than inside. And every evening he would stay awake to watch the figure walk back, sometimes not half an hour later, sometimes hours, hours of keeping himself in his chair because standing up and leaving this room would probably mean killing someone.
Eventually, though, the door of the little cottage would always open, lamps casting a sickly glow out into the night, and the shadow would appear against them, and cross back under the moon, and reenter the house. Every evening Spencer would wait fifteen crawling, second-by-second minutes. Fifteen minutes was enough time for him to be retired, out of the corridors, away from back windows. And fifteen minutes was enough time for Ryan to…do things. Drag himself from wherever he’d been left. Dress. Clean himself, because however Spencer hated waiting, he just didn’t have the stomach to see Ryan…like that. And Ryan, there were many things Ryan didn’t want him to see. Not just the…mess. There were the bruises he hid beneath his clothes and the ones he couldn’t hide, that told Spencer the rest were there. There was the day Spencer knocked on the door and Ryan was still holding a wet cloth to his lip, split and swelled and still bleeding, where the bastard had hit him for no reason either of them could figure out. Ryan had spent a full five minutes swearing through sobs that he hadn’t done anything before Spencer had managed to get through his skull that he didn’t give a crap whether he’d done anything, he wouldn’t care if Ryan had killed the worthless bastard. And there was the day he’d opened the door and heard Ryan sobbing through choked-back gasps in the bathroom, frantically jerking himself off over the toilet. Ryan had turned white when he’d come out to find Spencer there, doing a hopeless of job of looking out the window and pretending he’d heard nothing.
“I wasn’t—” Ryan had choked out.
“I don’t care, Ry.”
“I don’t—I…I can’t help…”
And he was sobbing again, and Spencer had taken a deep breath, and made himself turn around. “It’s okay,” Spencer had whispered, knowing full well it wasn’t, wasn’t at all, and Ryan had crumpled right there in front of the bathroom door, clung to the floor and refused to look up, and hadn’t let Spencer near him for the rest of the night.
(cont. next comment...)