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Title: Take What You Need
Rating: PG
Pairing: Brendon/Ryan + pick-your-own-AU
POV: Third
Summary: Outside the window, the world is ending. Or what exists of Ryan's world, anyway.
Disclaimer: Never happened. Title and theme from The Hush Sound's "Lighthouse"
Author's Notes: If you've never heard the song Lighthouse, you NEED to. It's beautiful and haunting and slightly morbid and... god, I love it. Go to Rhapsody or something and listen to it while you read.
Years back, years and years, before the lighthouse on the coast stopped working, there was a beautiful boy, the son of the lighthouse-keeper who loved a sailor, a tamer of the sea. This sailor, he wasn't big, not tall or muscular, but he handled the sails with grace, like a waltz with the wind. He never met an ocean he couldn't subdue, a storm he couldn't handle with the utmost poise. Invincible he was, unconquerable. He would live forever.
---
Outside the window, the world is ending. Or what exists of Ryan's world, anyway. The city in flames, and where is Nero with his fiddle? This scene could use some music, to which Ryan could dance his final hour or minute or whatever is left. Inside the window, across the room from Ryan, Brendon is packing what he can. Matches, food, water bottles, clothes. It's futile, Ryan knows. They will be consumed, eaten away by the heat, reduced to ashes. The structure of another building, a little closer but still far enough away, it crumbles, sending the upper floors plummeting to the ground, and Ryan watches it through the window, grinning. He lets out a small chuckle, and Brendon shoots him a worried glance. People really need to lighten up these days.
---
The boy, he hated the days his sailor was gone. Missed the rich, deep voice whispering love in his ear when they met secretly, longed for warm, strong arms that wrapped around him at night, needed his legs to be tangled together with his love's. But his sailor had to leave, too often for the boy's liking, and the boy always worried. Worried about whether his beloved would return or sink to the depths. Whether a storm would hit. Whether the sailor would lose his way. The sailor always reassured him the nights before he would leave, whispering that he would never leave the boy, that he would live forever for his love. Forever.
---
They're walking along the beach now, and this is sort of like summer vacation, the soles of Ryan's shoes slipping along in the sand and the sound of waves lapping at the beach. Shushing them, because Brendon's starting to freak out, now, talking to Ryan about how everything's falling apart, they've got to get to the lighthouse, it's their only chance. The waves don't know that in the city nearby, another wave, this of flame and plague and endings, it's rolling slowly, so slowly, over the buildings from east to west. Everyone is dying. The world is ending. Why Brendon thinks the lighthouse will be spared, Ryan doesn't know. He just lets Brendon hold onto his wrist as he blindly follows. He doesn't see anything anymore, not really.
---
One night, the very night before the sailor's departure on his longest voyage yet, he and the boy lay in the dark, wrapped around each other beneath the sheets of his bed. The boy's head rested on the sailor's chest, rising and falling with his love's breaths, listening to the gentle beats of his heart. You don't have to go, do you? the boy asked, and was met with but a soft chuckle. I'll bring you back beautiful jewels and silks, the sailor promised, And sweets that you've never heard of and clothes that no one this side of the ocean has ever seen and gold, pounds of gold, and we'll buy a castle and live there forever, you and I. And you'll be my prince. And even more tales of their future he told, until the boy's breaths were the slow, deep ones of sleep, and that was when the sailor began to weep.
---
Ryan knows everyone's scared of him. How much he's changed. He's cracked, they say. The pressure was too much. It's not quite true. He just laughs more, at things that weren't funny before. And he doesn't talk anymore. Just laughs. When he feels like crying, he laughs. When he wants to punch someone, to tackle them, even, to rip off their limbs and hair and gouge out their eyes, he laughs. They always said he didn't smile enough before. The lighthouse is closer now, and so is the fire. He can hear screams, now, if he listens closely enough. Maybe that's just his head. Once they get to the lighthouse, Brendon says, they'll be safe. Ryan doesn't know why Brendon talks anymore. He knows Ryan won't answer. Maybe he's cracked, too.
---
The sailor had brought the boy a beautiful organ from one of his previous journeys, and the boy learned to play it, composing waltzes and gavottes and other beautiful music. It seemed to pour out of his fingers when he sat down at the organ, which was at the top of the lighthouse at the coast, the one his father kept. At night, if ever the boy grew lonely, he would go up to the top of that tall tower, making sure the door never locked behind him, for it locked from the outside, and play, imagining he was dancing with his sailor, twirling around the floor. And when his love would return, he would play whatever he wrote and then they would get up and dance, holding each other close as they swayed to the music only they could hear. That was where the boy waited, on the day his sailor was supposed to return from his long journey. He waited all night, and the sailor never came. That door locked from the outside that night, and, the boy's father being away on a trip to the city, he was locked in that lighthouse. They found him too late.
---
The lighthouse door is heavy and cool, and the inside of the tower is dark but for the few beams of sunlight shining in through the filthy windows placed along the staircase. Spiders and little bugs have made this their home, and Ryan is careful not to step on them, because they might have children they have to take care of, and turning anything into an orphan is terribly cruel. Brendon keeps muttering to Ryan about how this is safe, they'll be okay, and why won't Ryan talk anymore? Ryan just laughs as they start up the stairs. Sagging and creaky, the stairs are, and they curve up and up. Up to the top, where the old light is, what used to be the lifeline for those sailors long ago. Now they're out of luck, Ryan guesses. At the top, Brendon drops the duffel bag he's been toting like a security blanket, and spins. It's pretty impressive for an old place. There's an organ up here, for God knows what reason. And some threadbare blankets in a corner, eaten away by moths. A look up, and it's cobwebs and beams, with the shingles coming off in places. It's not dark up here, thanks to the windows the light used to shine through, and now Ryan can see a boy.
---
The boy, after he discovered himself to be a ghost, sat and cried for days and nights, still waiting for his sailor to come. No news. He saw a funeral procession one day, for himself, and then another a day later, but for whom he did not know. Maybe it was for his sailor. The boy's only conclusion was that the sailor must have drowned. Maybe his boat was too heavy with the jewels and gold he was bringing back. Maybe a storm hit. He did not know, but could not bear to think that the sailor could have abandoned him. No, no, a shipwreck was the only answer. After a while - the boy had lost track of time after he stopped waiting - he began singing. Singing the melodies he had written, and melodies he hadn't, folk songs of his childhood and mournful pleas for his sailor. He sang and played the organ through the years. Until the beautiful ships with sails were replaced with ugly, smoke-spewing steamships. Until the lighthouse stopped being needed and the lamp stopped being lit. Until his family's house was vacated altogether. Until the boards creaked and the mice scuttled and the spiders spun their webs. And then the wave of fire came. He first saw it in the distance, far away, just a gleam. Slowly moving towards the city, once his village, his beloved birthplace. And then that, too, was consumed. It was then that the two other boys, his age, came.
---
Ryan's not sure if the shimmering in the air, materializing more with each second, is a ghost or his imagination. He wishes Brendon would notice, but he's been drawn to the organ and is playing songs. Their band's songs. As if it could bring their fame back from the dead. Last year, last year this would have been a giant stage. Dwarfing them. Bright lights in their faces and screams so loud they had to wear earpieces to hear their own music. Now they're playing to a ghost or a mirage, Ryan's not sure which, until the organ's key cover slams down and Brendon cries out. Until their duffel bag, full of useless provisions, is kicked down the stairs. Until Ryan decides to speak for the first time in months. "******** this," he says, and wants to leave. Heads for the door. But then he hears the crackling of flames overhead and ducks for cover.
---
The boy and Brendon and Ryan, they're still not sure why the lighthouse was spared that day. Of all things. The whole world, decimated, and the lighthouse still stands. The door locked from the outside, of course. They didn't know better, didn't turn the lock so it wouldn't click into place and trap them. Those first few nights in the lighthouse, Ryan and Brendon shared the blanket, Ryan curled cat-like into Brendon's warm arms. The boy did whatever ghosts do. The food lasted a couple days. Ryan didn't know what hunger felt like until the third day without food. Hunger so painful he couldn't move, just huddled under the blankets with Brendon, holding each other close. Hunger so painful that eventually he just went numb, fell asleep, the deepest sleep he had ever slept, and when he woke up, he wasn't there. Brendon lasted a little longer, but eventually there remained no one. The last two people in the world, presumably, are long gone. The human race has disappeared from the face of the earth, and all that remains are the phantoms. Just three ghosts in a lighthouse.
Rating: PG
Pairing: Brendon/Ryan + pick-your-own-AU
POV: Third
Summary: Outside the window, the world is ending. Or what exists of Ryan's world, anyway.
Disclaimer: Never happened. Title and theme from The Hush Sound's "Lighthouse"
Author's Notes: If you've never heard the song Lighthouse, you NEED to. It's beautiful and haunting and slightly morbid and... god, I love it. Go to Rhapsody or something and listen to it while you read.
Years back, years and years, before the lighthouse on the coast stopped working, there was a beautiful boy, the son of the lighthouse-keeper who loved a sailor, a tamer of the sea. This sailor, he wasn't big, not tall or muscular, but he handled the sails with grace, like a waltz with the wind. He never met an ocean he couldn't subdue, a storm he couldn't handle with the utmost poise. Invincible he was, unconquerable. He would live forever.
---
Outside the window, the world is ending. Or what exists of Ryan's world, anyway. The city in flames, and where is Nero with his fiddle? This scene could use some music, to which Ryan could dance his final hour or minute or whatever is left. Inside the window, across the room from Ryan, Brendon is packing what he can. Matches, food, water bottles, clothes. It's futile, Ryan knows. They will be consumed, eaten away by the heat, reduced to ashes. The structure of another building, a little closer but still far enough away, it crumbles, sending the upper floors plummeting to the ground, and Ryan watches it through the window, grinning. He lets out a small chuckle, and Brendon shoots him a worried glance. People really need to lighten up these days.
---
The boy, he hated the days his sailor was gone. Missed the rich, deep voice whispering love in his ear when they met secretly, longed for warm, strong arms that wrapped around him at night, needed his legs to be tangled together with his love's. But his sailor had to leave, too often for the boy's liking, and the boy always worried. Worried about whether his beloved would return or sink to the depths. Whether a storm would hit. Whether the sailor would lose his way. The sailor always reassured him the nights before he would leave, whispering that he would never leave the boy, that he would live forever for his love. Forever.
---
They're walking along the beach now, and this is sort of like summer vacation, the soles of Ryan's shoes slipping along in the sand and the sound of waves lapping at the beach. Shushing them, because Brendon's starting to freak out, now, talking to Ryan about how everything's falling apart, they've got to get to the lighthouse, it's their only chance. The waves don't know that in the city nearby, another wave, this of flame and plague and endings, it's rolling slowly, so slowly, over the buildings from east to west. Everyone is dying. The world is ending. Why Brendon thinks the lighthouse will be spared, Ryan doesn't know. He just lets Brendon hold onto his wrist as he blindly follows. He doesn't see anything anymore, not really.
---
One night, the very night before the sailor's departure on his longest voyage yet, he and the boy lay in the dark, wrapped around each other beneath the sheets of his bed. The boy's head rested on the sailor's chest, rising and falling with his love's breaths, listening to the gentle beats of his heart. You don't have to go, do you? the boy asked, and was met with but a soft chuckle. I'll bring you back beautiful jewels and silks, the sailor promised, And sweets that you've never heard of and clothes that no one this side of the ocean has ever seen and gold, pounds of gold, and we'll buy a castle and live there forever, you and I. And you'll be my prince. And even more tales of their future he told, until the boy's breaths were the slow, deep ones of sleep, and that was when the sailor began to weep.
---
Ryan knows everyone's scared of him. How much he's changed. He's cracked, they say. The pressure was too much. It's not quite true. He just laughs more, at things that weren't funny before. And he doesn't talk anymore. Just laughs. When he feels like crying, he laughs. When he wants to punch someone, to tackle them, even, to rip off their limbs and hair and gouge out their eyes, he laughs. They always said he didn't smile enough before. The lighthouse is closer now, and so is the fire. He can hear screams, now, if he listens closely enough. Maybe that's just his head. Once they get to the lighthouse, Brendon says, they'll be safe. Ryan doesn't know why Brendon talks anymore. He knows Ryan won't answer. Maybe he's cracked, too.
---
The sailor had brought the boy a beautiful organ from one of his previous journeys, and the boy learned to play it, composing waltzes and gavottes and other beautiful music. It seemed to pour out of his fingers when he sat down at the organ, which was at the top of the lighthouse at the coast, the one his father kept. At night, if ever the boy grew lonely, he would go up to the top of that tall tower, making sure the door never locked behind him, for it locked from the outside, and play, imagining he was dancing with his sailor, twirling around the floor. And when his love would return, he would play whatever he wrote and then they would get up and dance, holding each other close as they swayed to the music only they could hear. That was where the boy waited, on the day his sailor was supposed to return from his long journey. He waited all night, and the sailor never came. That door locked from the outside that night, and, the boy's father being away on a trip to the city, he was locked in that lighthouse. They found him too late.
---
The lighthouse door is heavy and cool, and the inside of the tower is dark but for the few beams of sunlight shining in through the filthy windows placed along the staircase. Spiders and little bugs have made this their home, and Ryan is careful not to step on them, because they might have children they have to take care of, and turning anything into an orphan is terribly cruel. Brendon keeps muttering to Ryan about how this is safe, they'll be okay, and why won't Ryan talk anymore? Ryan just laughs as they start up the stairs. Sagging and creaky, the stairs are, and they curve up and up. Up to the top, where the old light is, what used to be the lifeline for those sailors long ago. Now they're out of luck, Ryan guesses. At the top, Brendon drops the duffel bag he's been toting like a security blanket, and spins. It's pretty impressive for an old place. There's an organ up here, for God knows what reason. And some threadbare blankets in a corner, eaten away by moths. A look up, and it's cobwebs and beams, with the shingles coming off in places. It's not dark up here, thanks to the windows the light used to shine through, and now Ryan can see a boy.
---
The boy, after he discovered himself to be a ghost, sat and cried for days and nights, still waiting for his sailor to come. No news. He saw a funeral procession one day, for himself, and then another a day later, but for whom he did not know. Maybe it was for his sailor. The boy's only conclusion was that the sailor must have drowned. Maybe his boat was too heavy with the jewels and gold he was bringing back. Maybe a storm hit. He did not know, but could not bear to think that the sailor could have abandoned him. No, no, a shipwreck was the only answer. After a while - the boy had lost track of time after he stopped waiting - he began singing. Singing the melodies he had written, and melodies he hadn't, folk songs of his childhood and mournful pleas for his sailor. He sang and played the organ through the years. Until the beautiful ships with sails were replaced with ugly, smoke-spewing steamships. Until the lighthouse stopped being needed and the lamp stopped being lit. Until his family's house was vacated altogether. Until the boards creaked and the mice scuttled and the spiders spun their webs. And then the wave of fire came. He first saw it in the distance, far away, just a gleam. Slowly moving towards the city, once his village, his beloved birthplace. And then that, too, was consumed. It was then that the two other boys, his age, came.
---
Ryan's not sure if the shimmering in the air, materializing more with each second, is a ghost or his imagination. He wishes Brendon would notice, but he's been drawn to the organ and is playing songs. Their band's songs. As if it could bring their fame back from the dead. Last year, last year this would have been a giant stage. Dwarfing them. Bright lights in their faces and screams so loud they had to wear earpieces to hear their own music. Now they're playing to a ghost or a mirage, Ryan's not sure which, until the organ's key cover slams down and Brendon cries out. Until their duffel bag, full of useless provisions, is kicked down the stairs. Until Ryan decides to speak for the first time in months. "******** this," he says, and wants to leave. Heads for the door. But then he hears the crackling of flames overhead and ducks for cover.
---
The boy and Brendon and Ryan, they're still not sure why the lighthouse was spared that day. Of all things. The whole world, decimated, and the lighthouse still stands. The door locked from the outside, of course. They didn't know better, didn't turn the lock so it wouldn't click into place and trap them. Those first few nights in the lighthouse, Ryan and Brendon shared the blanket, Ryan curled cat-like into Brendon's warm arms. The boy did whatever ghosts do. The food lasted a couple days. Ryan didn't know what hunger felt like until the third day without food. Hunger so painful he couldn't move, just huddled under the blankets with Brendon, holding each other close. Hunger so painful that eventually he just went numb, fell asleep, the deepest sleep he had ever slept, and when he woke up, he wasn't there. Brendon lasted a little longer, but eventually there remained no one. The last two people in the world, presumably, are long gone. The human race has disappeared from the face of the earth, and all that remains are the phantoms. Just three ghosts in a lighthouse.
