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Of Brothers
by muchtvs
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Trey
2008
Vegas is a tough town right now. The recession is suffocating the city, like a bonfire smoldering with its last gasp of buried orange embers. The homeless, once kept far away from the glittering lights by LVPD, are now begging on The Strip. Yes, they might be semi-hidden, tucked away on the pedestrian bridges or on the corners of the outskirts of the main tourists traps.
But they are still where they once didn't used to be.
It's worse in the residential areas. The desperate or despondent or disturbed, wander up to shoppers coming out of grocery stores or coffee houses or convenient marts, begging spare change.
Trey always gives them something, even if it's just a few bucks, because he remembers what it was like to be alone and hungry when he first came to this city.
Still, it's uncomfortable to be approached, so he rushes to his Ranger, head down to avoid eye contact with a woman fast coming towards him as leaves the Von's parking lot after stopping for Enfamil and diapers.
His infant son has to have soy formula, it's all his stomach can tolerate.
When the doctor told them why their baby was spitting up so much, that they had to switch formulas, Trey remembered when he was a child and his mom and dad brought Ryan home.
"Ryan had to have soy, too," he told his wife on the way home from the pediatrician. "It cost a lot more and my dad had to get an extra night job just to pay for it."
They were at a stoplight and he turned to his wife and gave her a small smile. "That was before either of my parents started drinking too much. It's kind of funny, isn't it, that I can remember that far back."
His wife reached over and ran her fingers through his hair.
"It's time to see your brother."
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2007
Trey met Tara at a night club he was bartending at. That was only two years ago, although it feels almost like a different life.
She wasn't beautiful, just average, dressed in dark blue jeans and a cropped top. But she said, "Please," and "Thank you," every time she came up to the bar and the fourth time she ordered a drink she asked him, "Do you want to go out sometime?"
Trey almost said no because he was getting a lot of quality ass back then, lots of prettier girls than the one standing in front of him. But there was something about the way she smiled and something about how lonely he was feeling that night. So he said yes and by the third date, after she told him all about her family and life and dreams, Trey told her about his.
And she still continued to see him, even after he confided in her ever single reason why his brother no longer talked to him.
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2009
Trey's little boy is walking now, or rather, precariously stumbling.
Shit, who would have ever guessed he'd be this person. This person watching his son trying to make his way over to a large plastic ball that Trey has brought to the park.
This person who's clean and sober and dressed like he belongs in this middle class neighborhood.
They have an adobe home, he and Tara, that looks just like all the other cream and white adobe houses in the planned community they live in. They aren't rich, but despite the recession, they're comfortable, and this level of comfortable, given most of the years he's been alive, is more or less to him, the same thing as being rich.
His son tumbles face first into the grass.
That's what happens when your legs are still learning how to communicate with your brain.
Sometimes, like right now, his child resembles Ryan so much that Trey has to stop looking at him, has to turn his head away in a different direction.
Who would have ever thought that Trey Atwood would turn into this person, this person who sometimes disappears into his two car garage and sits in his truck and spends a minute or two trying not to cry.
Because despite everything that he now has, it's difficult not to think about what he no longer does.
Tara pulls him into a hug one night when she meets at the side door as he's making his way back into the house.
She whispers into his ear, "Honey, please. Why are you doing this to yourself? It's been almost four years. Go see your brother."
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2010
"I bought three plane tickets to Berkeley this morning," Tara casually tells him over breakfast.
His son is throwing oatmeal onto the floor and Trey has spent the last ten minutes trying to explain to his toddler, "No."
Their dog is thrilled at the situation and is more than happy to assist in clean up.
He turns from the chaos and looks at his wife.
"What?"
"I figured I would go ahead and buy three, even though we could have saved money by putting the baby on our laps. It'll be better, having the extra room."
A clump of oatmeal sideswipes the edge of Trey's cheek, but it barely registers because his wife is talking about plane tickets and ….
"You shouldn't have done that," he tells her and although he's upset, his keeps his voice calm.
He's not the instantaneously angry person he once was.
Tara has cured him.
He's only lost his temper once with her, in their first year of marriage, and she warned him point blank that is he ever spoke to her that way again, it would be the last time he ever saw her.
"You shouldn't have done that," he repeats, standing up and gently lifting the baby out of the highchair.
"Yes, I should have, Trey," Tara tells him. "It's time to see your brother."
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He spots Ryan coming out of the apartment at eight in the morning, with a backpack slung over his shoulder in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.
His little brother is older but still younger.
His hair is shorter.
He looks like any other college kid rushing to class.
There's another guy that Trey assumes must be a roommate.
Trey follows them up the street for ten minutes until they reach Berkeley's campus. Ryan goes one way and the other guy heads off in the opposite direction. Another ten minutes pass before Ryan stops outside a large concrete building. It's different than the majority of the older, more classical buildings on campus.
Wuster Hall: College of Environmental Design
Fancy name, but then again, Ryan always was smart.
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It's sunny out but cool in the mid-morning of September. Trey wishes he would have worn a jacket.
Ryan emerges from the building still lugging his backpack but sans the coffee. Trey lingers a distance, suddenly losing every ounce of the already shaky confidence that he flew to Berkeley with.
His son squirms in his arms, wanting down.
He's two now and is discovering the power of words.
"Down, down, down, down" he mantras.
Trey capitulates, easing the toddler to the ground and taking ahold of his hand.
It would be easy to lose Ryan now, because Trey is moving at his son's pace. But his brother stops to read a flyer taped to a concrete pillar and Trey keeps walking until he's closer to Ryan than he has been since that night in Newport, when Ryan stood outside a bus while Trey sat inside it.
He starts to say Ryan's name, but the word gets stuck, stalled, and he has to clear his throat before, "Ry."
Ryan turns towards him, searching for whoever has said his nickname.
Trey's been practicing what to say into his hotel bathroom mirror, but now that the moment is here, he finds himself forgetting everything, so he lifts a hand and says to Ryan, "Hey little brother."
Ryan looks confused, then aware, then pissed, and then blank, his face assuming that unreadable expression that Trey recognizes as protection.
"Hi, Ryan."
Ryan doesn't ask Trey what he is doing here or tell him to get the hell away from him.
He just walks away.
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"He wouldn't talk to me," Trey tells his wife, shaking his head back and forth. "I told you this was a mistake."
"No, it's not," Tara assures him. She tells him he needs to do this or he's going to drive himself crazy. He needs to either heal his relationship with his brother or let it go, but whichever it is, Trey needs to make sure it's Ryan choice and he can't do that if he doesn't confront him.
"Try again," she tells him and that's why, seven hours later, Trey finds himself standing on the stoop of Ryan's apartment, ringing the doorbell.
Ryan answers it, head slightly down, silent.
Trey has brought his son with him because what are small kids for, if not the ultimate expression of,
'I come in peace.'
He licks his lips, his throat suddenly a desert.
Words.
Words have always come easy to him, words and a smart ass smile.
But he finds himself fumbling.
"This is, um, this is your nephew, Ry. His name is Kelly, but we call him Kel."
The apartment door is open and Trey spots the same guy that Ryan walked to campus with. The kid watches Trey closely, suspiciously, as he asks Ryan, "Is everything cool?"
Trey lowers his own head now, low enough so he is able to force Ryan into eye contact.
"Ry. Please. Just let me in. Just for a few minutes."
Ryan's eyes dart away, giving Trey the impression that his brother wants nothing to do with this impromptu reunion.
But Ryan quietly answers his roommate, "It's fine," before opening the door a little wider, allowing Trey and his son to enter.
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His brother stands on the other side of the room, arms wrapped around his midsection, stewing in his own Ryan Atwood juices.
It's been a while since Trey has witnessed Ryan in this mode but God, the kid still hasn't lost his ability to glare.
It's a classic, this glare, and it's always made Trey feel a little guilty whenever he was the recipient of it because if he's honest with himself, he always was…a little bit guilty.
Kel is running in circles around the center of the small living room, shouting "Blurp, blurp, blurp," with every turn he makes.
The entire situation is surreal and Trey once again can't find his words until a minute passes and he remembers what Tara told him to say if Ryan gave him a chance to do it.
"I'm sorry, Ryan."
Ryan shifts his glare, stares instead at Kel's frantic movements.
Another minute passes before Ryan answers, "Marissa's dead. It's too late for sorry."
Trey nods. He knows that, about the accident. Jess called him and he knew that Ryan was there with Marissa, when it happened. He should have gone to Newport to make sure his brother was okay. But he couldn't face the music of his sins.
Not then.
"I'm not the same person who hurt her," he says. "I'll never be that person again."
But the words sound flat and Kel is still, "blurp, blurp, blurping," and Trey realizes for sure now, no matter what his wife says, it was a mistake to come.
It's obvious.
Ryan still hates him.
Kel flops over in a dizzy heap and an amazing thing happens.
Ryan walks over to the little boy, joins him on the carpet and says, "Hey."
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Trey sits on the couch, watching his brother cut up a banana for Kel.
It will never be the same like it was.
Ryan will never love him unconditionally like he used to or try to emulate him but really, in retrospect, Trey knows those days were long over, probably even before the stolen car plowed into the concrete wall. Ryan was always different than the rest of them and no matter how much Trey and his mom and dad reform their lives, Ryan will always, in many ways, be the sole survivor.
He came to Berkeley not to find forgiveness, but just the chance to see Ryan long enough to ask for it.
"I, uh, I got my act together, Ry. I have a good job. I've been married for three years. Her name is Tara. She's an elementary school teacher."
He smiles to himself. "That's kind of funny, right? Me married to a teacher?"
Ryan doesn't acknowledge the one-sided conversation but Trey knows he's listening simply by the sheer fact that he and his son haven't been kicked to the curb.
Kel is standing next to Ryan, looking up, excited at the prospect that eventually, the banana is coming his way.
"I have a dog, and a house. Can you believe that, Ry?"
Ryan walks back into the living room, Kel on his heels.
"He's gonna make a mess with that," Trey warns. "He's gonna squish it."
"I don't care," Ryan says, placing the plate in front of the toddler.
Trey tells Ryan a little more, mostly about his sobriety, even though he's a bartender.
And he no longer uses drugs, not even weed. Tara would kill him.
"She's amazing, Ry."
Ryan still hasn't said more than ten words so Trey keeps on talking for both of them.
"She'd really like to meet you."
"I have a test tomorrow," Ryan mutters.
Trey watches Kel smush the banana pieces in his little fists, rubbing the slime on Ryan's carpet.
"Well, so maybe tomorrow night? If…you have time."
Ryan disappears down the hall and returns a minute later with a pen and a piece of paper.
He might have some time tomorrow night.
Maybe.
Trey writes down his cell number.
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Ryan has excused himself from the dinner table to make a phone call to some girl named Taylor.
Trey bets she's beautiful.
"Well, he's cuter than you," Tara teases once Ryan is out of earshot. "And he has better manners, but then again, so does Kel."
"Hey," Trey acts indignant, "Give me a break. At least now I use a napkin."
"Seriously," Tara says, her eyes sparking, "He's really sweet, Trey. Quiet, but sweet."
Trey can't look at her.
God, what his wife must be thinking about him now that she has met Ryan.
She must realize, for certain, what kind of animal Trey must have been to try and rape his own brother's girlfriend and then…and it hurts so bad remembering what happened that night…and then to almost kill him.
To almost beat his own brother to death.
And a gun.
He held a gun up to Ryan's head.
Suddenly he can't breathe, doesn't want to be here.
This was a mistake.
He looks up when Kel begins banging a spoon on the table.
Tara takes the spoon away and asks, "Are you okay?"
Trey shakes his head, 'no,' but he gets his shit together and when Ryan returns, he's back to being the new man Tara's formed him into.
Later, after dinner, after they have told Ryan goodbye and are back at the hotel, it's everything Trey can do not to slink away for a drink and eventually he builds up a sort of panic, a doubt about himself, that he can't maintain who he has become, because being with Ryan has reminded Trey about who he once was.
He punches the mirror and Tara rushes in.
"I don't understand how you can be with me," he says, staring down at the bathroom floor. "You know what I did, what I almost did to my own brother. I don't understand why you want to be with me. I don't understand how you can love me."
His hand is bleeding.
She turns on the water and he allows her to wash the blood away.
"Come to bed," she says.
And there's no more talk about it.
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Trey doesn't know if Ryan even told the Cohens he's in town.
He suspects he didn't, or Sandy would have probably been around, checking things out, making sure Ryan was safe.
It's time for them to leave for Vegas.
Real life and jobs are waiting.
Trey's ready to go back home. Seeing Ryan has been harder than he realized it would be. Five years have passed since their last disastrous reunion, but not much has been resolved, other than the fact that Ryan is at least willing to be in the same room as him.
There's a knock. Trey glances to see if Tara is going to get it, but she's busy zipping up Kel's jacket.
When he opens the hotel door, Ryan is behind it.
The two brothers stand there for a second, Trey shocked at the arrival and Ryan maybe regretting his decision to come.
It's Tara to the rescue.
"Ryan!" she says, bouncing over with a smile. "Kel, look who's here."
Kel runs over, trips, falls down, pops back up, and scoots past his father.
"Up, up, up," he commands and up he goes, into Ryan's arms and Trey continues to just stand there, watching his brother holding his son until he feels tears slipping from the corners of his eyes.
It's awkward.
"I'm sorry," he says and Ryan tells him, "I know."
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When they leave, things aren't perfect.
They probably won't ever be.
Time may heal wounds, but it can't ever make the reason for them disappear.
Trey understands this, as he sits on the plane.
Understands that any hope at all for his and Ryan's childhood friendship to return to what it once was, was lost that night on the beach, the minute Marissa said, "Stop," and Trey didn't.
If he could do one thing over in his life, just one thing, he would have stopped that night.
And that would have prevented everything else.
"Hey, what do you got?" he hears Tara say.
He glances over at his wife as she fishes a Hot Wheels car out of Kel's jacket pocket, asking her son, "Who gave you this, Kelly?"
Trey recognizes the toy instantly.
He smiles to himself and leans his head back and closes his eyes.
Trey understands that things won't ever be perfect.
But maybe this means, that despite everything, they have a chance of being better.