.averyfunstory:
The days that had passed since New Year’s Eve had been a blur to Flynn. Nothing had felt good. He’d screwed up and thrown away any chances at being with Rae that night, and all he’d done since was drink himself into a stupor. He was a mess, and the more time he spent dwelling on it, the more time he had to realise just how worthless he truly was, and how he’d never stand a shot with a girl like that in a million lifetimes.
He’d finally managed to venture out of his dingy apartment, though. Not to see Anya, nor Rae – he was fairly sure the latter wouldn’t want anything to do with him, and he couldn’t quite face the former just yet – but to make his way to the store and stock up. He was out of beer, and he’d not seen Alan for a while (who the hell wanted to come back to a crummy apartment with nothing but a drunk nobody for a roommate), so asking him to go on a beer-run was out of the question.
Flynn barely made it down the street when he was ambushed, though. Had he not been staggering, still riding of the remnants of his drunken state from the night before, and actually had his wits about him, he might even have been aware of the obvious footsteps that trailed him. He might have noticed the looming shadows before they were on him. As it were, though, he didn’t, and the second he caught on to the fact that he was being followed, two giant thugs were lunging at him, dragging him down an alleyway kicking and screaming, for the most part.
Flynn writhed and struggled, kicked and shouted, and did everything in his power to get away. He’d been attacked before, sure, and he’d gotten a few swings in, but this time it was out of his control. He couldn’t even get a swing in if he tried. Before he knew it, one guy was holding his arms back, and the other one’s knee was colliding with his ribs. Flynn’s body jolted forward from the sheer pain of it, but the second he fell into a slump, he was being pulled back up and flung against a nearby wall. His back slammed against the shoddy brickwork, his hair sticking to his face as he panted. The two men loomed over him once more, biding their time as they readied themselves to have another go at him. He knew now was his only chance. He had to do something, he couldn’t just stand there and let them throw him around the place like some kind of ragdoll.
Gasping for air as pain seared through his chest and lungs, Flynn pulled himself into an upright position and lunged forward, hoping that his speed and his size might give him an upper hand.
He’d been wrong.
Aiming for the middle of the larger man, his arm’s wrapped around the thug’s torso, only to feel a fist come crashing into his side, knocking him to the ground. He wheezed and scrambled forward, his hands clasping at the concrete below, desperate to find something to grip onto to pull him back onto his feet. It was no use, though, and soon enough he was being grabbed by the collar by one man, while the other planted his fist squarely across his jaw.
Flynn took hit after hit after hit, eventually realising there was no use fighting back. He had no idea who these men were, nor why they’d come for him, but they made it pretty clear soon enough; Rae.
“Stay away from Rae Gothel,” the first man told him, towering over Flynn’s feeble figure as he laid there on the ground, unmoving.
It was obvious that the two of them were brothers; their red hair, sideburns, and gnarled, crooked teeth were only the start of the resemblance. It was almost uncanny, only for the eyepatch that the second man sported. Even with half his vision, he’d still had the upper hand on Flynn. The other man, with a scar that covered half of his jaw, seemed to be doing all of the talking. While Flynn had no clue why he had to stay away from Rae, or what it had to do with either of them, he didn’t utter a word in response. He merely waited for what was to come next.
“You even think about going to see Rae again, and Rowenna will have your neck,” eyepatch snarled at him, his rotting, yellow teeth on display for Flynn.
Though he’d struggle to ever admit it, Flynn cowered from their sneers and their glares, awaiting the next punch or kick. They never came, only bitter, threatening words, and Flynn lay there as he waited for them to disappear, reeling from the beating, but somehow even more pained with the realisation of why they’d come after him in the first place.
It all lead back to Rae.
He should have known, really. But surely it was crazy, wasn’t it? To think that an innocent, well meaning crush on a gorgeous girl could lead to him bloody and broken in some cherry grove back alley? What the hell did her mother care? God. She really was a monster. Flynn didn’t know the first of it, and he was starting to realise just how dangerous the older Gothel really was. There was a part of him that wondered, now, if he should warn Rae; but to what avail? Surely it would only end badly for the both of them – and if her mother was so ruthless as to come after him, a total stranger, he had no idea what she’d do to Rae.
It was no use thinking about it now, though, as he laid there on the grimey cobbles, his shirt soaked through from a mixture of the rainwater beneath him, and his own blood that spilled down his front. He had no idea how long he’d been laying there for before he decided to try and move – it could have been five minutes, or it could have been five hours. All Flynn knew was that the agony that seared through him the second he rose to his feet was unparalleled, and he only managed to stagger just a few feet before he came crashing to his knees again. His arm shot out, gripping onto the first thing that he could get a hold on; a street lamp, he soon realised.
With his head bowed, his other hand gripping onto his side as he wheezed and choked on the taste of his own blood, Flynn realised too late that a figure was approaching. His eyes swelled from the beaten he’d taken, obscuring his vision as he squinted, staring down at the approaching figure as they called out. Everything was foggy and blurry, and his ears rang as he tried to focus on the stranger’s – were they a stranger? Maybe they weren’t, he couldn’t be sure. – voice.
It was just then that he caught a brief glimpse of a scar, angled across the man’s face, curving across his jaw, and he curled in upon himself – a cowardly attempt to shy away from another inevitable beating. They’d come back for him, clearly.
“Back for round two, huh?” Flynn breathed, ducking his head as he angled himself away from the man looming over him now. He spat, then, blood spattering the sidewalk in the process.
The blood and cuts were fresh and Gilbert looked around anxiously just in case whoever had one-upped this guy was still waiting around. But the night was still, quiet bar the noisy, laboured breathing of the guy crouching down in front of him. Gilbert didn’t know what he could even do to help the guy, but he knew that he had to do something. Maybe he could drag him back to his place and fix him up with the first aid kit he’d used to clean up all his old wounds. But he’d also made a pact with himself that he wouldn’t drag trouble through his doorway again, not if he wanted to gain custody of his siblings.
But he couldn’t leave the guy here. He wasn’t even sure if he could stand.
“What?” He narrowed his eyes when the other man spoke, not sure if he’d heard right. The words had been muffled given the way the guy was curled in on himself, flinching when Gilbert dared to move a step closer. So he hung back, puzzling over what this guy meant.
“What d’you mean ‘round two’?” he asked. “Wait – do you think I had something to do with this?”
A cold trickle of realisation seeped through his skin and chilled him to the bone. Had his father had something to do with this? As far as he knew, George Waters was skulking the streets of another town, keeping his head low and trying to maintain a distance from Gilbert like the court had told him to do. But that didn’t mean that Gil’s father’s tenuous friendship with logic didn’t begin to fray when he began knocking back cheap beer. He could very well have come back, angling for a fight and finding none with his own son, choosing instead to pick one with a guy of a similar age. The thought made Gilbert feel sick.
“Hey…” He crouched down in front of the other boy, trying to catch his eye although it would be a miracle if he managed to see through the puffy and purple bruises swelling up on his face. Something gave a painful twinge in Gil’s chest but, so used to shrugging off the sympathy of others, he pushed it away. Emotions could be the most damn hypocritical things of all and he didn’t want to let them cloud his judgment.
“My name’s Gilbert,” he started slowly. “I just came from work and I saw you. I – do you know who did this to you?”
The man spat out blood, nasty red clots of it slapping noisily against the sidewalk. Gilbert tried his best not to jerk backwards and make his aversion obvious. But his heart was hammering and he knew there was no way he could leave some poor, beaten up guy lying in the street like this. Especially when he seemed to think Gilbert had somehow had a hand in it.
“Can you stand?” he asked then hesitantly reached out with his hand, figuring the guy could clutch onto his arm and use it for leverage to pull himself up if he wanted to. “I can help you home, or we can get you to – I dunno – a hospital or something? Whatever you want.”
Gil had never wanted hospitals, but maybe that’s exactly where this guy wanted to go.
