Picking Up The Pieces
Tala sat quietly in the back seat of the car, staring out of the window with wonder as to where they were going. Kai told him that they were going to go out for about two hours in the afternoon, although he wouldn't say where they were going and so this stirred up Tala's curiousness and protectiveness.
The taxi brought them up to a terrible looking stone building, both of them getting out of the car and Tala giving Kai a strange look. "I promise this won't be bad." He assured him quietly, grabbing his arm lightly.
As they walked up to the building, Tala slowed down, looking up at the sign before turning to his friend with shocked eyes, "Kai?"
"I told you, this won't be bad, just trust me."
"Kai…what… what the hell?!" He asked, pulling his arm away hurriedly once it all settled in.
Kai caught onto his arm again, "Tala, just try it, just this once."
"I don't need this." Nervousness began to tremble all through his voice.
"I just said try it this once."
Tala's nervousness was slowly being underlined with anger, anger for being brought to a place like this. He nodded a little, walking straight past Kai and whenever he looked at him, he'd glare at him with so much anger even Kai had to look away before it burnt through him. Needless to say, Kai realized his mistake in doing this but he wasn't about to go back on it.
The office's reception area was terrible and dull looking. The whole area stank like any other medical building would and there was that terrible uncomfortable silence that was usually found in any waiting rooms, with some people clearing their throats, sighing or speaking quietly between them to add some noise to the terrible room. There was some quiet music coming from somewhere, but not even he could tell from where.
"Hey." Kai murmured, startling him, "We need to wait a few minutes but we're next because we had an appointment."
'An appointment? Kai made an appointment?!' Tala lashed out in his mind, keeping his front calm as he nodded and followed Kai to some chairs and sat down. "Are you coming in with me?" he asked after a few awkward minutes, arms folded tightly across his chest and stare away from him.
"Only if you want me to."
"Good, because I don't." Tala murmured back angrily, harshly shrugging Kai's hand off his shoulder.
--After--
Tala hadn't said a single word since the two of them left the doctor's office, it unsettled Kai all the more. He had expected Tala to feel better after this, to feel like a lot of the things he's been going through off his shoulders but instead Tala seemed like he was feeling worse. He hadn't said a word since he walked straight out of the office and then waited outside for the taxi while Kai spoke to the shrink. When he asked if he was alright again when he got outside, Tala just shrugged him away and got into the taxi, by the look on the redhead's face he wouldn't be surprised if he'd told the taxi driver to leave without him.
Tala unlocked the door to the house he was sharing with his new family, stepping inside with Kai close behind. "I didn't hear you ask to come in."
Kai's eyebrows furrowed, "I didn't think I had to."
"You don't think you have to ask me about a lot of things." Tala blurted out rudely, "Like, if I want to have breakfast, if I want to go out with you and your damn friends, like if I want to go out at all, or maybe if I want to see a damn shrink." His voice rose with every single phrase and he was suddenly glad that his new family were all out of the house, especially their little girl.
"Tala, I just thought you needed someone to talk to."
"I can talk to you! I thought I could at least!"
Kai grew even more angry by now, Tala didn't even realize what he was doing wrong. "But you don't talk to me. You don't anymore at least. You start screaming at me or trying to insist that you're fine whenever I try to ask what's bothering you."
"Nothing is bothering me. I'm fine."
"Why did he give you this prescription if you're fine then?" Kai asked him, passing him the slip of paper even though he wouldn't take it, "You clearly don't eat enough, you go through more mood swings than a pregnant woman, you just go for one short walk a day and you just want to sleep the rest of the time. That's enough to say that something's wrong."
"That means nothing! I'm stressed out; what Boris did to me, then surgery once I was out of there, the slow recovery, then finding out that some old friend is bringing me into her perfect family, I can't do anything the way I used to anymore, I don't know what to do anymore, I don't know how to spend my time, and I don't know how to deal with everything at once so of course I'm tired; forgive me if all that isn't a good enough reason for you."
"Then maybe talking to the doctor will help you with all of that."
Tala kicked the wall hard, anger flaring up so fast that he could start saying things he didn't even mean but kept those words back. "I said no, what part of that don't you understand?! I don't need a doctor, I don't need pills and I don't need you deciding what's best for me! You betrayed me! You knew I hated places like those but…you took me anyway."
Kai sighed, shutting the door slowly behind him and stepping closer, "I was just trying to help. You have to understand I didn't mean to hurt you like this, much less make you feel like you can't trust me."
"But I can't! I can't trust you! You betrayed me and I don't care at all about your reasons! I would never do something like this to you or Bryan but you spared no time in dragging me to a place like that! I hate you for it!" Tears poured hard out of his eyes as all those words streamed together and poured out of his mouth faster than the tears did from his eyes, "You knew I feared people like that the most and you took me there anyway, without a word of warning or anything like that."
"Don't cry, Tal." Kai moved closer, extending an arm to touch Tala's cheek lightly but Tala rejected it and slammed back against the wall.
"Don't cry? That's what you're telling me now?" Tala asked, disbelief on his features, "The doctor said it's good to cry, you know? He said I should let my feelings out rather than keep them all bottled up like I used to, he said that it'd make me feel better if I let out my feelings." He smirked sarcastically, "Well congratulations Kai, I feel so much better!" he moved closer to Kai in a stalking manner, still smirking, "Now, if you're done 'trying to make me feel better' you can get the hell out." He pushed him backwards to the door, opening it and pushing him out hard and slamming the door shut, locking it and sitting back against it on the ground, allowing the whole day's events to sink in and him to break down.
Outside, Kai began to contemplate if what he'd just done had been all as great as it had worked out in his mind when he first thought of it. He may have just lost his best friend, someone he'd known all his life, someone who he went through a lot of his childhood with. He knocked lightly on the door again, but hearing sobbing on the other side and thinking that it was best if he just did nothing.
"What did you do wrong this time?" A voice called, heavy steps getting closer.
He turned and found Bryan on the step just below the porch, "I made a mistake and Tala locked me out but I need to talk to him."
Bryan smirked and leaned back against the front door, "I'm sure that he had a good reason for locking you out; you must've done something really wrong for him to do that though."
Kai sighed furiously. The last thing he wanted was to admit to Bryan what he had done wrong. It would've either lead to gloating or lead to a rant of how stupid he was. Really though, he wouldn't be getting anywhere if he didn't tell Bryan what he did. "Tala was stressed out, I thought he needed some help so I made him an appointment with a shrink."
"Kai!" Bryan fumed, eyes widening even at the thought, "Are you insane? Have you lost your mind or something?"
"I screwed up, I'm well-aware of that, Bryan." Kai didn't seem all that phased by Bryan's glaring but he understood where it was all coming from. "I hurt him, a lot but he did need to see a shrink, he even got a prescription and he wouldn't have gotten it if he didn't need it."
"That's not the point! You turned your back on him. You knew he hated things like that and you took him right to it? It's not helping the stress in case you haven't noticed."
Kai kicked the door lightly, frustrated completely, "Can you just open the door so I can go and apologize?"
Bryan smirked and sighed pacing in front of the door, "You still don't get it, do you?! You're doing it again. He didn't want to see a shrink and you took him there. He doesn't want to see you, which he's made clear, and you want me to take you to him! You screwed up, and now I'm not going to screw up too. This is your mistake, not mine."
"I want the chance to apologize, at least."
Bryan shook his head a bit, "I promise I will tell him that you want the chance to apologize but till he wants to see you, you're going to stay far away from him."
"I know what Tala is like…"
"No! You don't know what Tala is like! If you knew him then you'd know that he'd be crushed, betrayed and more depressed if you took him to see something like a shrink or a doctor."
"I didn't think it'd get so bad!" Kai lashed out. "I'm worried about him, he has been through a lot lately and he won't talk to anyone."
"He talks to me."
"Yeah well he didn't tell me that."
"We only really started talking much recently, after his surgery things got difficult and I got him to start talking. He's not as stressed out as he was in the beginning, still stressed but better. I spoke to him the other day about whether he wanted to see a shrink or not and we talked about it seriously for a long time. He didn't want to, that was the end of it. You don't see me dragging him to a shrink behind his back."
"I know, I made a mistake."
Bryan pulled his keys out of his jacket pocket, holding onto them tight. "I will talk to him, I will try and sort this out and I will let him know that you want to speak to him but give him time to cool off." He put the key in the lock and turning it, stepping inside hurriedly and keeping the door half-closed, even when he knelt down on the ground and picked up a slip of paper that was there. He stood up again, handing it back to Kai, "And by the way, Zilya is the one who adopted Tala and me, she's got a husband who is a shrink, and he prescribed Tala the exact same thing, he's already taking them." He sighed softly, speaking with just as much care now, "You'd know that if you learnt to ask the right questions."
He shut the door and took a look around the whole hallway, then peaking into the sitting room and finding no one in there.
Lying upstairs in his bed, Tala continued to sob and kick amidst the array of broken things he'd tossed around his whole room and had scattered all over the floor and over his bed. Frustration was the most predominant emotion going on inside of him for a long time when he was talking to Kai but once that was over it all shifted to the pain he was feeling, to the feeling of betrayal and distrust which took him apart more than anything else had in a long time. If there was anyone he trusted at all then it was Bryan and Kai but now Kai had betrayed him, who was to say that Bryan wouldn't too? It was the reason he locked his bedroom door behind him, the last thing he wanted was to see Bryan right now.
He couldn't handle those thoughts for much longer but they were the only thoughts that ran through his head ever since he got upstairs again. The tears wouldn't stop pouring out of his eyes and the nervousness in his stomach of how life would be after his harsh words would settle in. He couldn't handle being that cruel to someone, and he couldn't handle that someone was that cruel to him, let alone his old friend.
Through his own loud sobs he didn't even hear his bathroom door open, or the person walk into his bedroom quietly. The biggest fright was when he felt someone wiping broken and torn things off his bed to make room to sit. Upon sitting up, Bryan was sitting there, looking on at Tala with some degree of sadness in his own eyes.
"How the hell did you get in here?" Tala asked breathlessly, practically clawing at his eyes to get the tears right out of them.
"The door from your bathroom." Bryan murmured his reply, knowing he should answer but not wanting it to be their main topic.
Tala's eyebrows furrowed, not looking all that convinced, especially with his eyes still red, "Zilya told me that door was sealed off from the hall with wood."
"It is…" He looked a little confused at his own words, "was." He corrected himself, smiling softly in his friend's direction. He moved closer and putting a hand on the boy's shoulder, "I'm sorry about that, I got worried. I heard what happened from Kai."
"I shouldn't have gone out in the first place."
"The guy is just an idiot but the idiot is sorry and wants you to hear him out."
"I don't even want to see him. I don't want to talk to him. I want nothing to do with him. I'd be happy if I never see him again!"
Bryan got closer to Tala on the bed, lifting the boy into a sitting position, "You don't mean that. You're frustrated because of what he did and I get that but you have to try and look at things the idiot's way."
The older boy got off the bed and walked around the room, putting his hands to his head as he felt like he was losing control over his stressed emotions again. "Kai…I trusted him so much, Kai…he was just someone I could rely on, someone I could say everything to and then he goes and does something like this, the Kai I knew actually cared about me and was my best friend, decided to treat me like he was ready to have me sectioned."
"He was worried about you…"
"Then he should've done what you did! He should've talked to me about what he planned on doing first instead of luring me to some old guy who thinks he could worm his way into my brain and tell me something's wrong with me!"
Bryan stood up hurriedly, pushing Tala against the wall and pulling aside part of the boy's white jacket, "Did you know that you're bleeding?" he asked him urgently, even after Tala pushed him off of him and tugged his jacket closer to him.
"The stitches started opening a little." Tala murmured, ashamed as he sat down on the bed, not caring for any of the debris he sat on as long as he kept a good direct pressure on the incision. "I sort of scratched them during the appointment, it's a nervous habit."
Bryan knelt down, grabbing Tala's arm and trying to drag it away from his stomach, "Let me see."
"No, if you see them and it's bad then you'll want to take me to the hospital to have them re-stitched."
He sighed, closing his eyes momentarily, gripping Tala's arm carefully and trying to reason with himself that Tala was now having trust issues, "If I see them and it's bad, then you and I will talk about it and we'll come to some sort of compromise like we did last time."
"Promise me that."
He sighed again, "I know how much you hate hospitals, I know how much you hate shrinks, I know how much you hate anything of that sort. Rest assured, I will not make the same mistake that Kai made. You were good friends and he destroyed it all for you. I won't do that to you."
"You still didn't promise." Tala murmured, even though Bryan's words were enough to convince him.
"Then I promise." He tugged at the boy's arms again, "Now, can I see?" The boy's arms fell away after that. The two incisions on the boy's stomach were deep, he knew that from the first time he saw them on him in the hospital but all stitched up and trying to heal they looked terrible. Thankfully only one of them was bleeding and it was just from the ends and so not as serious. "It's not too bad, but make sure you clean it up, alright?"
"Okay."
"Now," Bryan began again, standing up, "Take some time to think, but consider talking to Kai. Just let the guy explain, or say sorry, or whatever he wants to do so hopefully he'll get over it and stop feeling guilty."
"He should feel guilty!" He watched Bryan sit back down on the ground against the wall, watching him with sadness as the he spoke through his own tears, "It did hurt, Bryan. It really did. My best friend did something I hated the most, something that I couldn't handle at all right now. This is… I hate places like that, why is it so difficult to understand that?! Did he think that it wouldn't hurt? Did he think that his good intention would make it hurt less? I can't stand the fact that he did this! He should've talked to me more! He should've asked! I know I haven't been talking a lot lately but that's no reason to give up on trying to talk to me, is it?! He gave up on me; after years of being friends with him, then years of not seeing him, when we met again I was still his friend but he gave up on trying to talk to me and just sent me away for someone else to deal with me. It's like he was fed up of me!"
The hurt was more than just evident to Bryan in the older boy's voice but at the end of Tala's rant he found himself smiling lightly, especially when the redhead tried to rub the tears right out of his eyes, "Feeling any better?" he asked softly.
Tala sniffled, staring at the sealing while taking in a long deep breath, "Surprisingly, yes."
"That's the power of a good rant and cry." Bryan informed him, picking Tala up by his arms, "Now, get yourself cleaned up." He pushed him into the direction of the bathroom, although Tala was well-capable of going there by himself. "And then work on cleaning up this room, you destroyed a lot in here."
Tala leaned against the door frame, pressing a wet washcloth to the incision on his stomach, "What are you going to do about the broken door?"
Bryan uncrossed his arms and pressed the cloth Tala was holding tighter against the stitched wound, finding Tala was still too distracted to do a good job of cleaning it up. He shrugged in response though, "What do you want me to do? I'll apologize to Zilya and if I tell her the truth behind my actions then things will be okay. I'm not scared of her or anything Tala and I got in here a lot faster than I would've if I just knocked on the door and tried to reason with you to open the door."
"Why were you in such a hurry to see me?"
"I was worried of course. I knew it'd upset you and…"
"You don't trust me and thought I'd do something stupid." Tala finished for him, some frustration evident.
"You make it sound like I have no faith in you." Bryan smirked, "It wasn't that. I just didn't want to leave you alone, you were upset about something that's important to you, you shouldn't be alone for something like that."
"Because you don't trust me." Tala finished again insistently.
Bryan sighed, tossing the cloth back into the sink and check the wound to make sure there was no more bleeding, "It's not that I don't trust you Tala, nothing like that. I just got worried about you, I thought that maybe you'd prefer some company, even though you clearly didn't want anyone in here, I didn't want you to feel like you were alone."
"Thanks for that. Believe it or not, you were right in the end."
"That actually means a lot to hear." Bryan nodded and stepped away, indicating the wound, "Have that checked out with Zilya when she gets home, alright?" he watched him nod without argument and so stepped out the door, "I'm going to clean the broken stuff on the other end; she will kill me more if Irina hurts herself on any of the wood or nails than because I broke the door."
Tala laughed quietly, nodding, "That's true." He sat down on the bed, waiting a few minutes till the pain from his wound began to ebb away. After that he began trying to clean up his room from the disastrous mess he'd caused out of his frustration and hurting. There were papers shredded all over the ground and two glass frames that had been nicely hand painted; they hadn't had any pictures in them, due to him never having any pictures of him with his friends, which was what he really wanted them for. He walked outside into the hall where less than a meter to his right, Bryan was kneeling on the ground and chucking pieces of broken wood and nails into a garbage bag. "Kai said that something's wrong with me, he always used to ask 'what's wrong with you?' Is something wrong with me?"
Bryan smiled softly, though not looking up at his best friend, "Kai doesn't know how to phrase a question so that it doesn't sound offensive, even with his friends. He's not all that compassionate sometimes."
"You didn't answer my question."
"No Tal, there's nothing wrong with you." Bryan stood up, wiping his hands in his trousers to rid his hands of dust, "You have nothing to worry about Tal; I'm not a very compassionate person so you're guaranteed that I would've knocked the sense back into you by now if something were wrong with you." He stepped over some more debris, crossing his arms as he stood strongly in front of the redhead, "You've had a bad few months and no one should expect you to take care of things so easily. Kai has had his friends for the past three or four years so he's got their support but you have me so far, and that's little enough but you're getting used to trusting the other people in this house and that's how Kai started out. Things will be fine, don't stress yourself out with something like this, you don't need something like this on your mind right now."
The redhead couldn't help but exhale heavily; he still wasn't entirely convinced about what was going on with him. Still, when Bryan started ushering him back to his bedroom, he didn't bother to fight him off. Bryan set him down on his bed, patting his shoulders lightly which stung his tender skin.
"Try to get some rest. No thanks to Kai you've been stressed out all day so get some rest till Zilya get here and she can check on you."
"I don't want to rest." Tala whined, pulling himself up to sit against the headboard.
Bryan knelt down beside the bed, looking at him disappointedly, "So what do you want to do?" Tala bit down on his lip; considering whether or not he should ask at all. He shook his head, indicating he wanted nothing. "You don't want to rest so what do you want to do?" he was desperate to know what his friend needed and usually he wouldn't try so hard to be compassionate but with the stress his friend underwent recently he was trying his best to minimize that.
"Could we just talk?"
He smirked slightly, getting up onto the bed, "Need another rant?" he asked softly.
"Yeah." Tala replied, just a little timid of that fact.
Bryan smiled, crossing his legs and sitting comfortably, "Good. Rants are very healthy."
A/N: So I realized that recently due to all my Tala and Bryan friendship oneshots, Kai got a little left out. I made Kai do some stupid things but I suppose friends are entitled to their mistakes and forgiven or not, this time its up for you to decide what Tala should do. I still wanted Tala and Bryan friendship in this, I love their friendship, so unconditional.
So please leave me a review to let me know what you thought of it. I hope that some people enjoyed this. Take care please everyone.