In the Fishbowl - 13. Chapter 13

A/N: Thanks to Jim for editing!

Most neighborhoods that were already rundown with potholes and too many nearby convenience stores and pawn shops didn’t tend to improve with time, at least as far as Travis knew. They’d disappear, bulldozed over to make room for shopping centers and emergency rooms. There was a time when he would have wished that very fate on the house standing in the lot at 1423 Lake Street. But, as far as the entire neighborhood was concerned, time had taken a different toll on it.

Six years before, the new police station had been built, and not long after, a new college campus, a few coffee shops, book stores, and a community center where the older residents of Lake Street and those surrounding it had set up shop for the local neighborhood watch.

Each year, the neighborhood had gone through one change or another, growing, thriving, becoming better. Lake Street was a different place. Travis could still remember walking home from school under the same shade trees that lined the sidewalks, but now his shoes didn’t get caught on so much eroded and cracked concrete, and he didn’t have to shy away from tall picket fences hiding the possibility of a defensive Doberman. They’d all been replaced by chain-links and miniature poodles.

An old man shoveling some leftover snow from his driveway waved to him as he made his way down the sidewalk; but not because he recognized Travis as the small boy who’d once hid in the long-gone bushes outside of his house one rainy day as he waited for Bill to pass out on the living room sofa, but because over time the neighborhood had become more welcoming, the people in it a little friendlier. Travis had decided that in part, this accounted for why he found it a little easier to keep coming back. But then, even the most noticeable changes were never enough to erase what had been there before, and at 1423 Lake Street, the mowed lawn, fresh paint job, new roof and shining glass windows were nothing more than a fancy makeup job hiding an ugly blemish.

Travis hated this house. And hating it made it so much easier not to fear it as he moved through the swinging gate and up a stone walkway which had appeared only last year. He paused halfway, looked to his right. Towards the end of the property line someone had made a planter out of what was left of a wide tree stump, but that’s not what he saw. He saw a tall tree with thick branches, remembering how big it all felt when he’d climbed as high as he could, feeling like he was at the top of the world as he and Allan sat awkwardly on the branches, pointing out rooftops to each other and making up stories about the people who lived beneath them.

He made his way to the door and looked down at the welcome mat at his feet. Welcome to Our Home. He could hear cartoons playing loudly inside, a dryer running. He took a deep breath, like every year, wondering if he should just turn around and disappear, as if he’d never come back at all, but then like always, he knocked.

It took a moment, but the door opened, the sound of cartoons became louder, and Travis found himself looking down when he realized that the adult he’d expected wasn’t who answered the door.

“Hi,” he said slowly to the nine-year-old girl looking up at him, not bothering to hide his confusion. She didn’t respond in words, only smiled the kind of adorably uncomfortable smile that kids pulled off perfectly when they were unsure of how to respond to something. “Shouldn’t you... be in school, or something?”

She sniffled, ran the back of her hand across her thin, upturned nose. “I’m sick today.”

Well, that made sense, Travis supposed. Her red, puffy eyes, her long wavy hair pulled up into a messy knot atop her head, the greenish tint to her cheeks... the snot she kept sucking back through her nostrils; yep, sick.

“Do you remember me?” he asked.

She smiled again, this time nodding her head. “My mom made you a cake.”

Travis’s brow arched. “She did?” Not that he was very surprised. The Pinket family had come to expect him over the last few years.

At fourteen, Travis Beltnick’s caseworker had given up on trying to find a foster family that was a good match for him. Not that there hadn’t been nice people after Sara and Bill; most of them just found his various problems too much to deal with. He’d become tired of being abandoned time and time again, each time he was passed on to someone new, so he’d developed a habit of running away, or raising as much hell as he could come up with. He’d finally ended up in a group home, and not a bad place by his standards. The meals were free, the bed was soft, and so long as he checked in by curfew and made it to school every day, they allowed him his independence. He’d been previously moved around so much that it had taken him a while to realize that he was living within walking distance to Lake Street, and on his fourteenth birthday, Travis had made it back.

Travis couldn’t remember what had provoked him to go in the first place. He supposed that he was feeling particularly alone, as he always did that time of year. His nightmares had been frequent, and sometimes getting out of bed in the morning had been more of a challenge than he cared for. But he also remembered, that after he’d broken into the house, which had been abandoned and foreclosed at the time, that something had changed in him. It was like a strange calm that made him see things in a different way, and he’d left determined to live as many happy moments as he could. Something better than what he’d had in that house, which had managed to rule his life for as long as he could remember.

When he went back to Lake Street at fifteen, is when he met the Pinkets for the first time. He could clearly see that someone was living there, but they hadn’t been home, and he hadn’t meant any harm. He’d found an open window in the back and made his way in, and remembered feeling astonished by the changes within the house, the carpet, the furniture--even some of the drywall that had been scarred with large holes from Bill’s fists had all been gone, and he’d become so focused on looking for each and every change that he hadn’t noticed the family arriving home until it was too late. Gene Pinket had tackled him in the kitchen when he’d tried to escape, which is why he’d been grateful for Rachel Pinket, who’d talked her husband out of calling the police when Travis had desperately attempted to explain why he was in their house. He’d never given them the whole truth, but they knew that he’d once lived there; knew he was staying in a group home, and that visiting the house on his birthday was something important to him.

They’d allowed him to stay that night, if not a little warily. They had three daughters. The youngest, Marcy, was the one who’d just greeted Travis at the door. He was pretty sure that the middle child would be around fourteen now, and the oldest was his own age. He’d always thought that all three were nice enough, and when he’d shown up on his sixteenth birthday they’d remembered him and let him in while their parents were out on an errand. Gene and Rachel had been surprised to see him when they made it home, but he’d been welcomed, and when he turned seventeen he showed up later in the evening to Gene Pinket telling him that he was late.

“Is your mom home?” Travis decided to ask the girl, who was still staring at him from the doorway.

She shook her head, and made a face. “She made me go to the doctor this morning. She’s getting the medicine they say I have to take. I think it’s gonna be gross.” She sneezed suddenly and Travis made a point to stand back. “And I have to do homework, too,” she finished.

“Well, that’s not very fair,” Travis commented.

She nodded her agreement. “Math. I’m not very good at it.”

Travis shrugged lightly, looking over his shoulder as he tried to determine what he wanted to do now, and then finally looked at the feverish young girl occupying the house that was the most haunted place he knew of. “Want some help?” he asked her.

She thought about it for a moment, and then nodded. “Okay.”

***

Dennis ran his hand over his face, allowing his fingers to linger and massage at his temples, wishing that he could better fight off the migraine that had been accompanying him since waking up that morning.

Sitting in the Chesleys’ living room, he contemplated whether or not he wanted to make lunch. It was far enough past noon, and he was hungry, but he was alert enough to realize that part of the pain he was feeling in his stomach was due to nausea, and the nausea insisted upon rearing its ugly head every time he looked at the picture in his hand.

It wasn’t normal. Not for someone to be walking around with the four images in his hand. Three were too disturbing, all focused on one of the two boys within the images. Dennis guessed that the golden-haired boy was in his pre-teens; his face still boyish enough to be childlike, but his features developing towards the masculine side. He had blue eyes that seemed to draw all the color in the images, but as startling as they were, there was something empty about them, not in the way that would make a person appear stupid--this boy didn’t seem to be that. There was something edgy about him, maybe angry, or exceptionally sad. And he had an uncanny resemblance to the angel tattooed beneath Travis’s right arm.

It didn’t take a lot of thinking for Dennis to figure out who the mystery boy in the picture was. And, why wouldn’t Travis have pictures of the boy he called brother? It seemed reasonable, and it might have been reasonable if these pictures taken in a photo booth somewhere didn’t look like something from a horror film. The top image wasn’t so bad: the blond was just looking at the camera, almost blankly, allowing the camera to capture a dull expression... along with a split lip; and he’d tilted his head just enough to make a bruise on half his neck the perfect size for a large, angry hand to make. The second frame was a bit harder for Dennis to understand; the boy had lifted his shirt to reveal several welts that Dennis had enough experience to know had come from a belt, but it was the look on the boy’s face that he found so jarring. It was as if he were proud about something--showing off battle wounds. In the third image, the boy’s face wasn’t visible at all. He’d turned his back and dropped his pants just enough to show that most of the damage was there covering his backside. The shades of purple and red allowed no normal skin to be showing, and one particularly bad welt on the back of his thigh looked as if it had been split open on more than one occasion.

Dennis looked away again. He found that he had to. It was difficult enough to see it, let alone try to figure out how it made him feel.Disgusted was the obvious word to use, but it also made him angry, confused... and disgusted all over again.

Sitting back on the sofa he held the strip up again, his hand covering the top three portions that he’d had enough of while he looked at the fourth image. The blond-haired boy was back to smiling in it, but this time he looked happy. His clothing was back in place, and his arm was thrown over another boy. This one, Dennis would know anywhere. He was dark-haired and pale-skinned, and all smile. A very young Travis Beltnick looked like nothing in the world could bother him, but even so, Dennis found himself wondering what that little boy was hiding beneath his thick, worn sweater and behind carefree eyes. He was so small. It was difficult to imagine him surviving anything that whatever hands had harmed his brother might have done to him, and so even this picture was terribly sad. The weak at the mercy of giants. It all brought back memories for Dennis, one in particular that often haunted him without the use of a trigger as blunt as these pictures.

He closed his eyes for a few minutes and rested his head on the back of the sofa. It would be so easy to just go back to bed. It would have been a decent way to get a day over with, and apart from a job interview later, he didn’t have much of anything planned.

He heard the sound of a car pulling up outside, the sound of the engine telling him that Reilly was home from school and Aiden had brought him home. Usually, this was when Dennis would go confine himself out of the way to avoid uncomfortable encounters with someone he didn’t care for, but today he only slipped the picture in his hand back into his pocket, and had no interest in going anywhere. It was in part due to a sudden territorial urge where Aiden was concerned. The guy had gone out of his way the day before to make Dennis feel like a complete outcast in his apartment, and Dennis suddenly found no reason not to give Aiden the same treatment.

The sound of a second vehicle pulling into the Chesleys’ driveway is what caused Dennis to open his eyes, and for a moment he sat there tensely, listening. He heard slamming doors, footsteps on the gravel, and then a moment of mixed voices before something happening and there was all-out yelling.

“Hey! Get the fuck away from him!” he heard Aiden shout, but oddly enough, it wasn’t the voice belonging to Aiden that bothered Dennis enough to provoke him off the couch and flying out the front door. He was just in time to see Aiden come between a cornered-looking Reilly and Dennis’s own brother, who was either experiencing one of the rages he’d been prone to for as long as Dennis could remember, or had completely lost his mind. Aiden wasn’t playing around with it, either, and while it was impressive that he didn’t seem intimidated by someone twice his size ready to take out anyone getting in his way, the way he put his hands on Lyle to push him back was... well, pretty damn stupid, Dennis thought.

Not taking the time to think about why this was happening, or where it was leading, Dennis rushed the five feet it took to stop his brother from knocking Aiden Knightly senseless, pushing Lyle back and placing the full stretch of his arms between his brother and himself. “Knock it off!” Dennis ordered, only to have Lyle slap his arms down; they were up a second later, though, determinedly holding him back.

“I’m gonna kick that fucker’s ass!” Lyle declared, pointing at Aiden, whose wide eyes and shocked expression suggested that Lyle hadn’t even been provoked.

“No you’re not,” Dennis informed his brother, giving him another hard shove. “Get the fuck out of here, Lyle!”

“Hell no; you’re not gonna go avoiding me anymore, asshole. We’re talking!”

“I’m calling the police,” Aiden announced.

“No,” Dennis shouted at him. “Just... go inside. Reilly, get inside!” He stopped and glared at Lyle, feeling unexpectedly furious. It was one thing for his brother to harass him in public locations, but to show up on the Chesleys’ doorstep was going too far; they were good people, and the last thing Dennis wanted them exposed to was this. But still, he couldn’t figure out if he was more upset about that or that fact that Lyle had just forced him to defend Aiden. “If you’re here to talk--act like it,” Dennis warned his brother, because honestly, while getting the authorities involved would probably make the situation worse, Dennis was half-tempted to let Aiden make that call.

Lyle’s eyes narrowed, but he started to slow down, not that that relaxed his posture anyway. Though, it was possible that he looked so tense for a reason, Dennis realized as he saw his brother sway slightly on his feet.

“Reilly, go inside,” Dennis insisted when he realized that no one had even bothered to open the door yet.

“Sorry, Dennis,” Reilly said in the breathy way he always talked when he was moments away from an asthma attack. “I told him you wouldn’t wanna see...”

“Go inside!” Dennis snapped, not knowing when Kyle would snap again, or who he would target. Reilly jumped at his tone, but at least Aiden seemed to have some sense as he guided Reilly towards the door and into the house. He paused there, though, looking out suspiciously.

“Maybe you should come in, too,” Aiden said to Dennis, surprising him.

“We’re fuckin’ go-ging to talk!” Lyle suddenly blurted, gripping Dennis’s arm hard enough to pull him down.

Jerking away, Dennis caught his balance and faced his brother, perplexed over something. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” Dennis demanded. If Lyle had looked off-balance before, he was full-on swaying now, his Adam’s apple convulsing as he swallowed and his eyes rolling back into his head.

Aiden took a cautious step back out the front door, and Dennis nearly reached out to steady his brother. He was glad he didn’t, though, when Lyle was suddenly hunched over at the waist and vomiting all over the Chesleys’ driveway. Dennis stepped back, trying not to be as surprised by the development as he was. “Fuck! Are you drunk?” he demanded. “Lyle!” He reached to shake his brother’s shoulder once he was sure Lyle was finished emptying the contents of his stomach, but Lyle suddenly came up and shoved his hand away.

“I want you to come home with me,” Lyle announced.

Dennis shook his head. “No. I’ll drive your ass home just because I’m afraid for everyone else on the road with you, but then you can fuck off, and the next time you come around here, I will let someone call the cops.”

Lyle stared at him for a long moment, making Dennis feel like he was about to be tackled by a hundred and ninety pounds of dead weight, but then Lyle suddenly wiped his hand over his chin, and laughed. “You’re such a fucking pussy.”

“Just get in your car,” Dennis ordered. “I’m driving.”

“Do you need me to follow you?” This came from Aiden, and once again, Dennis was surprised by him. But then, maybe he shouldn’t have been. The guy always struck him as a stuck-up prick, but he wasn’t without his soft spots and ability to help people he believed were in need.

“No,” Dennis told him. “I’ll walk back.”

Aiden only shrugged. “I’m gonna see if Reilly’s okay,” he said, but instead of heading back into the house, he watched for a moment, shaking his head as Dennis persuaded Lyle to get into the car he’d managed to drive there without incident.

“You’ve been hanging out with fags,” Aiden heard Lyle remark. “Real ones. You’ve got problems, man. Problems.”

***

Dennis groaned inwardly when Lyle pressed his face against the passenger window and stuck his tongue out in a vulgar way at the one car that had passed them on the road. He was irritated with his older sibling, which alone was enough to convince Dennis that he’d changed. He would have thought it was all very funny otherwise. Would have thought Lyle being drunk at noon was completely reasonable. Or maybe he’d be drunk with Lyle. In fact, Dennis almost wished that he was when Lyle released a potently disgusting burp; it would have made this entire counter easier to deal with.

“I should have made you walk,” Dennis muttered as he cracked his window.

“You couldn’t make me do fucking anything,” Lyle responded, his tone becoming sharp.

Dennis frowned, mostly because Lyle had a point, and he gritted his teeth because the fact that he was driving his brother home was like halfway to giving him what he wanted. Dennis just hadn’t seen any other alternative. If he hadn’t, Lyle could have been outside of the Chesleys’ house all day. The fact that he’d even shown up there in the first place was a problem for Dennis.

Dennis felt protective of the Chesleys. These were people who’d given him a home--support when he’d needed it the most; and all they’d known about him at the time was that he was some guy who used to bully their son. In fact, it was pure chance that he’d gotten to know them at all. When he was still with his parents and had to give up his dog to Owen, Owen had taken her to the Chesleys for safekeeping. Two weeks later, Dennis had spotted Reilly walking Valentine with Mr. Chesley, and he’d pulled off the road to see how his dog was doing. They’d invited him over, and then he’d invited himself several times after that, in part to visit his canine, and in part to get away from his house when things were particularly rough with his parents. But, apart from seeking out Mr. Chesley’s help when Dennis moved out of what was now his mother’s house, Dennis had attempted to keep the Chesleys as distant from his family as possible. And now that Lyle was displaying behavior that Dennis saw as harmful, he felt that he did have reason to be concerned.

If this incident with his brother showing up was going to become a common occurrence, Dennis couldn’t in good conscience see himself staying with the Chesleys if he was the focus for his brother’s unwanted attention. The last thing he wanted was for one of the people he cared about to get hurt, and while someone else might have told Dennis that this was nothing more than a paranoid concern, for him it was a very real threat.

Dennis stepped harder on the gas, feeling annoyed that it seemed to be taking forever to get Lyle home, silently blaming it more on the possibility that his brother’s car needed maintenance rather than dealing with the fact that he was actually becoming claustrophobic trapped in the it with Lyle.

It wasn’t like Dennis to feel happy to see the house he grew up in, but this time he made an exception, and being so eager to get out of the vehicle, he’d hardly pulled it off the street and into the driveway before he was cutting the engine and getting out. He waited two seconds for Lyle to stumble out the passenger door, and then Dennis threw the keys at him more thanto him before he turned and started to walk back to the Chesleys’.

Lyle bent to get the keys, but not without taking his eyes from his brother’s back, frowning as the distance between them became greater by the second. “Dennis!” he called. “Come inside!”

“No!” Dennis called over his shoulder, sounding incredulous that Lyle would even suggest it.

“Fine!” Lyle called back, clearly perturbed. “Then I’ll just wait ten minutes and drive back to those pansies’s house again, and I’ll keep coming back until...”

That did it. At least enough to make Dennis spin back around, glaring. “Stay the hell away from them, Lyle--stay away from me!”

Lyle crossed his arms. “I’ll see you in ten minutes.”

Dennis gritted his teeth, turned and paced a few steps, and then suddenly turned back, moving aggressively towards his brother, only to stop five feet away. “What the hell do you want from me?” he demanded. “I’m out of your lives! It’s what everyone wanted so leave it the fuck alone!”

“Hey, I never signed up to have my brother turn into a good-for-nothing bitch who doesn’t know his head from his ass!”

Maybe it was because he was officially having a bad day; or maybe Dennis Gordon had simply decided that he’d been doing his best to behave himself for two damn long--because being called a bitch was certainly nothing to snap over any other day. But for whatever reason, Lyle’s newest insult was effectively the straw that broke the camel’s back. And, if Lyle meant to provoke Dennis further by laughing when Dennis decided to charge him, it definitely worked, because a moment later dust was kicking up and Dennis had Lyle’s back to the ground, throwing out every punch he had the energy to deal out.

And it felt good. He couldn’t remember the last time that he’d actually allowed pent-up aggression out, but it felt long past time as he clobbered his brother. The only problem with it seemed to be that while it felt good, it never actually started to make him feel better. But, that was probably because even with blood running between his teeth, Lyle was still laughing, and the thought that he couldn’t actually feel any of it because he was too drunk annoyed Dennis to no end.

Out of breath, he paused above Lyle, outraged by the idiotic smile on his brother’s face, and out of pure spite, Dennis did the one thing that he’d been taught was never okay in a fight, no matter who it was against. He shifted his knee, fully intending to take the best nut-shot he could. But, Lyle noticed what Dennis was doing before he even got there, and suddenly the laughing stopped as Lyle’s eyes widened and he blocked his brother’s efforts, shaking his head. “You little shit!”

Dennis couldn’t help the gasp that escaped him when his brother’s hand shot up to shove him off, hitting his chest, just below the neck. Dennis landed on the ground, and then it was his turn to express his surprise when Lyle’s shadow fell over him, and it was a struggle to get to his feet in time to fend the larger man off; and his efforts to do so became a full-on wrestling match right there in the driveway--legs twining in their attempts to kick, slaps to one face or another, and the occasional headbutt did damage all on their own.

“I should fucking kill you!” Lyle snapped, more angry than amused now.

“Why are you such an asshole?” Dennis countered.

“You don’t care about anyone!”

“If you mean you, that’s because I stopped wasting my energy on morons a long time ago!” Dennis informed him, just before taking an elbow to the gut. He countered quickly enough, attempting to fight his brother into a headlock. But instead, he was the one who ended up trapped beneath Lyle’s arm.

“You don’t care about your family, either!” Lyle shouted.

“We never had a family!”

“We don’t anymore thanks to you--Mom’s getting married!”

“What?” Dennis replied, incredulous. “She’s not even fucking divorced yet!”

They separated suddenly, both momentarily catching their breath as Dennis decided that he’d just discovered the reason for his brother’s untimely drinking this morning, but his attention was soon turned away from that as he took in the way Lyle was covered in dust and smeared blood. Dennis stung all over, so the reasonable conclusion was that he wasn’t much better off. However, when Lyle’s nose suddenly started bleeding, Dennis couldn’t quite prevent the satisfied smirk that crawled over his face, and the look was enough to set Lyle off all over again and the two collided.

At the same exact time, Beth Gordon stepped out her front door, the only thing on her mind the romantic lunch she intended to share with the tall, thin, white-haired man just behind her. As they chatted with each other about what restaurant would have a longer wait versus better food, Beth almost didn’t notice the disturbance at the end of her driveway, and might not have until they drove right into it if it wasn’t for the long string of curses flying through the air. What she did see when this caught her attention had her jaw dropping over what she considered a ridiculous display humiliating to have playing out so close to her home. “Oh-my-god.”

“What are they doing?” her escort asked, seeming alarmed as he took notice of what Beth was seeing.

“They’re fighting!” she responded, seeming irritated that he couldn’t figure it out for himself. Her eyes widened further when Lyle decided to shove Dennis directly onto the hood of his own car, which effectively dented it, and gave Lyle an entirely new reason to wrap his hands tightly around Dennis’s neck while Dennis lifted one of his brother’s thighs in an attempt to flip him.

Frowning, Beth suddenly gave the perplexed man with her a firm shove. “Peter, do something!”

He blinked. “Oh, right,” he replied, reaching into his jacket pocket for a cell phone, which only drew a more impatient look from Beth.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“I’m calling police,” he replied, obviously believing this was the right thing to do. When Beth didn’t seem to think so, he pointed out, “That guy’s attacking your son.”

“They’re both my sons!” Beth snapped.

Peter looked at the young man he had yet to meet. “That’s Dennis?”

“Peter!”

“Okay, okay,” he replied as he started to move forward, because obviously, this was what she wanted him to do. He might have thought it was a terrible idea, but that wasn’t made immediately apparent as he moved closer and closer to the altercation, attempting to get the boys’ attention and failing at it before he finally reached out and placed his hand on the nearest shoulder. It happened to belong to the youngest of the Gordon boys.

Dennis, already busy with preventing Lyle from strangling him until he passed out, ( and Dennis knew this was exactly what Lyle intended to do because it wouldn’t be the first time) only recoiled at the hand boxing him in from behind, and was quick to defensively wave his fist back without looking to see what, or who he hit. Incidentally, it happened to be the nose of his mother’s new boyfriend. Not that he noticed. Neither did Lyle, for that matter, and they kept on while Peter held his nose behind them, protesting over the pain and not considering himself as fortunate as the brothers would have that he wasn’t bleeding.

“Stop!” Peter shouted. “Stop it! You’re both crazy!”

“Peter!” Beth called, already rushing to see if he was alright, but she’d hardly reached him before he was picking up the folded newspaper tossed up the driveway sometime this morning and approaching her sons with it, ordering them to stop as he took it upon himself to slap both of them over the head repeatedly until he became noticeable enough that Lyle and Dennis stopped, separated, and regarded him as if he’d lost his mind.

“Who are you?” Dennis asked, obviously interested enough to do so... and maybe a little grateful to do so since it was interruption enough to take a few cautious steps away from his brother.

Lyle dabbed at his bleeding nose with his thumb and waved in the direction of his mom’s boyfriend with his free hand. “He’s Pete. I told you Mom was getting married.”

Dennis couldn’t help it; he sized the guy up with one sweep of his eyes, and then reminded himself that he wasn’t supposed to care, especially when he unexpectedly made eye contact with his mother.

“Are you out of your mind?” Beth demanded, and Dennis wondered if he should be surprised or offended that it was aimed at his brother when she approached. “This is what you do when your brother finally comes home?”

“It’s actually, Peter,” Peter said as he approached Dennis with an outstretched hand. Dennis only frowned at it.

“Hey,” Lyle informed his mom, “the only reason he’s here is because of me.”

“That’s right,” Dennis suddenly snapped, and then forced himself to face his mother. “So you can imagine I don’t plan to stay.” And, instead of waiting for this to be challenged, he started walking away again, only to pause and look back. “And Lyle’s drunk.”

“What?” Beth demanded, glaring at her oldest son again. The fact that she was bothered by this didn’t surprise Dennis in the least; she’d been outraged when she’d first heard rumors of Lyle’s drug use, and she’d rarely tolerated their father giving them even the smallest sip from a beer can on the Fourth of July.

Lyle hiccuped, and rather than responding to his mother, smirked at Dennis. “Still not so drunk that I can’t kick your ass.”

Beth released an exasperated breath and turned to the man she was supposed to eventually marry. “Peter, you’re going to have to ignore them. They’re not usually like this.”

Dennis nodded his head in agreement--from what he remembered, things could be much worse. Now, he wanted to get out of there before things did get worse--and it was possible. He’d swear by it. Besides, he was sore, his skin stung, and he was crunching dirt between his teeth. If he stuck around, there was a chance that would start to upset him, and he rather liked the feeling of indifference to standing so close to his mother. Though, this could have been due to the fact that he was in too much pain to feel anything real towards the situation, and at the moment, Lyle wasn’t a threat because... well, Lyle really was drunk. Dennis knew better than to think he would have been able to match his brother any more than he had if Lyle hadn’t been clumsy on his feet.

So Dennis walked away again, this time without looking back. He figured he could be back home in ten minutes if he cut through a few backyards and across the drainage ditch hidden in the woods that separated one housing development from another. He’d probably go in through the garage; there was a straight shot to the basement stairs and the chances of someone discovering him in the condition he was in were decidedly less. It might have seemed strange for him to be thinking of this now, but it happened to be the only thing distracting him from the fact that his mother was already calling after him.

And then he heard her footsteps. Coming faster... faster again... and then he could smell the body spray she preferred over perfume.

“Dennis, hold on!”

He turned, just before she could grab his arm to stop him herself, and he took a reasonable amount of satisfaction out of the situation when the glare he turned on her sent her reeling back a step. She swallowed, frowned, and her brow creased in the way it always had when she was attempting to pretend that she wasn’t upset about something. She forced a smile that Dennis refused to return, lifted a hand, as if to touch him, and then dropped it back to her side before crossing her arms. Good choice.

“It’s good to see you,” she finally said. “I’m sorry if your brother upset you. He’s been under some stress lately.”

Lyle’s been under stress? “Lyle doesn’t have stress, hecauses it. If you’re really sorry, keep him away from me and the Chesleys... and while you’re at it, stop calling me. We have nothing to say to each other, Mom.”

“Excuse me, I have plenty to say,” Beth responded somewhat heatedly. “I haven’t seen you in months, and things around here have changed, Dennis.”

“You haven’t seen me because you didn’t want to,” Dennis pointed out. “But you shouldn’t worry, the feeling was mutual. Now please, don’t make me move cross-country just to keep avoiding you.”

“First of all,” Beth responded in the stern type of voice that made Dennis cringe, “you don’t get to avoid me because I’m your mother. Second, you don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s not my fault you chose to walk away from your obligations.”

“Obligations?” Dennis demanded.

“I’ve had enough of the silent treatment,” Beth informed him. “Lyle told you I was getting married? It’s true, and I plan for it to happen as soon as your father comes to his senses and signs the divorce papers. And I want both of my sons to be a part of it. Dennis, now that your father’s out of the picture, we can be a family again.”

Dennis was so blown away by the ludicrousness of what she was saying that he actually stuttered as he tried to figure out how to respond to it. “Now that Dad’s out of the picture?” he demanded. “So... you want what? For me and Lyle to walk you down the aisle? Should I move back in here? Become best friends with Pedro?”

“Peter, and it wouldn’t hurt for you to get to know him. He is going to be a part of this family.”

Dennis shook his head, still at a loss. “How many times to I have to say it? We’re not a family. Not one of us even knows what a family is!”

This time, she didn’t follow after him when he continued down the road, but her parting words did reach his ears, much more than he wanted to. “I will call you again because I miss you, Dennis... and I hope you’ll answer.”

He purposely picked up his pace, pretending that he hadn’t heard her at all. It would have been better if he hadn’t, in fact, because now Dennis felt... he felt pretty damn offended, that’s what.

Missed him, his ass.

***

While the house on 1423 Lake Street had gone through more changes than Travis could count, one in particular made him want to laugh out loud.

The bedroom he and Allan had once shared seemed a lot smaller to him now; smaller than his room in the apartment he shared with Ryan, in fact. And this room, which had once felt like the safest place in the world to him on nights that he and his brother had hidden beneath the covers with their flashlight, refusing to believe any monsters could reach them, was now the most frightening room in the entire house.

He’d successfully prevented himself from asking when Halloween had thrown up in there; after all, the room now belonged to the middle Pinket child, who’d graciously given it up to him for the night. It had been a shock to her parents, given that she was going through a teenage phase of locked doors and an exaggerated need for privacy that happened to include throwing out all clothing items that had any color in them and dyeing her blonde hair black--not very effectively, Travis had noticed at dinner, since her pitch-black locks still had traces of platinum. And the room, while an obvious reflection of the fourteen-year-old, struck him as a little creepy with a new coat of black paint covering the walls, posters of heavily tattooed and pierced band members covering the ceiling with their painted faces and prying eyes, and the red bulbs that had replaced all normal light within the room. If he hadn’t found it incredibly important to spend the night in this room, which was habit for him on his birthday, he might have taken up residence on the couch for the night. Not that he’d mentioned this to the Pinkets; he’d assured the middle child that her room was very cool when she’d helped him take his bags up. She’d also forced him to listen to twenty minutes of loud music that had particularly dark lyrics before running down to answer a phone call from a boyfriend her father believed her to be too young to have and now Travis felt relieved that she was gone, much more comfortable in the presence of nine-year-old Marcy, even if she had been sneezing all over him for most of the day.

He unpacked his suitcase, laying his clothes out over the twin-sized bed with the frayed-looking purplish bedspread, pretending not to notice the way that Marcy was snooping through her sister’s belongings. She’d already explained to him that she was never allowed in this room, so it seemed natural that she’d be curious enough to take a look around without her big sister telling her to get out.

“Did you like your cake?” she asked him. “I helped put the frosting on.”

Obviously, she hadn’t noticed the way he’d simply pushed the dessert around his plate with a fork, much like he’d done with the rest of the meal. “Yeah. It was very good. Thank you.”

“You already said thank you to my mom.”

Travis grinned at her. “But you helped.”

Marcy smiled, and then turned to a mirror to try on an oversized necklace the shape of a sword she’d found on her sister’s dresser. “Travis? Why do you always come here for your birthday? I wanted to have my birthday at my friend’s house one time, but Mom said you’re supposed to have it with your family.”

Travis looked in her direction again, trying not to look bothered by the question. “It’s because I like you guys,” he explained.

“Mom says it’s because you used to live here.”

“You already knew that,” he pointed out.

Marcy shrugged, lifted her hand to cover a sneeze, but didn’t quite catch it in time. “I know. But is that why you like to have your birthday here? Do you miss living here?”

“No,” Travis said, a little too quickly, and when Marcy looked at him curiously, he sighed as he began placing everything back in his bag except for what he planned to sleep in. “Do you have a best friend?” he asked her. “Someone you like to do everything with?”

Marcy nodded. “April’s my best friend. She gets to sleep over sometimes, but I can’t stay at her house because I’m allergic to her cats. I’d still go, but Mom won’t let me because she says I get too sick.”

“Ah, so she’s special, then? You wouldn’t like it if someone tried to keep you away from her.”

Marcy frowned. “Why would they do that?”

“I’m not saying they would...um... I had someone special, too, but I don’t get to see him anymore.”

“Why not?” Marcy asked.

Travis shrugged, silent for a moment. “I just can’t... but, a long time ago, he lived in this house with me. And being here makes me feel closer to him. You understand?”

“I guess to,” Marcy replied. She moved closer to him, and he pulled his t-shirt from the bed before she could sit on it. “Travis?”

“Yes?”

“Will you always come here for your birthday? I like it when you do.”

He smiled at that, though the question made him feel oddly sad. “Maybe. I’ll probably try to.”

“Even when you get married?”

Travis blinked at that. “Married?”

“People are supposed to get married when they get older,” Marcy explained.

“Oh,” Travis replied. Made perfect sense. “I don’t think you’ve gotta worry about that. Can’t think of anyone who’d marry me.”

“Marcy looked unexplainably happy about that, and then, “I’ll marry you, and then you can always have your birthday here.”

Travis’s brow arched and he momentarily lifted the back of his hand to rub at his mouth, only because he was laughing and didn’t want her to take it the wrong way--she looked way too sincere.

“That’s...” he started, but didn’t get the chance to answer when Rachel Pinket appeared in the doorway. The roll of her eyes and amused expression on her face suggested that she’d been eavesdropping.

“Come on, Marcy,” she insisted. “It’s getting late, and if you’re feeling better you can go back to school tomorrow.”

“If I’m feeling better, can I stay up with Travis for another hour?”

Travis was quick to decide that he would have liked that when he was about to be abandoned, but Rachel shook her head. “You’re going to be more trouble than both your sisters combined,” she remarked. “Now say goodnight to Travis. I’m sure he’ll want to go to sleep soon, anyway.”

Marcy released an exaggerated sigh. “Fine. Goodnight, Travis.”

“Goodnight, Marcy.” Travis turned down the bed, and moved down the hall to the bathroom where he changed into clothing more suitable for sleeping. By the time he returned to the bedroom Rachel was back to make sure he didn’t need anything. She did this during each one of his visits, and for a few short moments, Travis always felt that he was being treated as one of her own children, though she never stayed to talk. But that was okay for him, because while these people were kind enough to invite him into their home, they would never be his family, and they would never be touched by the ghosts Travis could see around every corner of their home. Besides, by now his mind was elsewhere.

It seemed so easy to wish--wish that Bill hadn’t become so angry every time he picked up a bottle, or that Allan had never found that gun. He even wished that they’d run away together; young or not, they’d been survivors. They would have found a way to be okay, he was sure of it... he wished it. Maybe they would have found people like the Pinkets, and maybe Travis would have traveled elsewhere for his birthday every year... maybe Allan could have been sitting at the table across from him.

Lots of maybes, lots of wishes, and none of them did Travis any good. He closed the door gently, becoming submerged in the red light shining from the ceiling. With his back to the room, he felt cold, and suddenly drained by the nervous energy brought on by being left alone. It wasn’t a restless energy he was experiencing, but it was familiar--the sense of dread that he’d felt as a boy, every time he’d waited for Allan to walk through the door. But as always, what it would take to relieve that feeling would never happen, because Allan would never walk through that door again.

Lifting his hand, Travis looked at the penny in his palm for a moment before wedging it between the crack in the door. He retrieved the flashlight from his backpack before putting an end to the red light, but when he returned to his bag he became troubled when one item he’d brought along with him wasn’t where he remembered placing it. He became aggravated, almost to the point of distress as he tore apart his belongings in search of a missing strip of pictures that he’d sworn he’d brought with him, his biggest concern that he’d permanently misplaced what he was looking for when the strip wasn’t in either of his bags.

When he became resigned to the fact that he wouldn’t find it tonight, he might have been able to put it out of his mind for the time being, but he didn’t grow any calmer. In fact, he grabbed his flashlight and went to bed angrily, sticking a yellow tack into the bedpost before he buried himself under the covers and tried not to feel his heartbeat in every inch of his body.

It would be a long night, and when it was over, he’d walk away from this house for another year. He wouldn’t say goodbye to the Pinkets, he never did. Goodbyes were too difficult for Travis in this place.

No surprise, since he’d been holding on to one in particular for the last nine years.