Disclaimer: I do not own High School Musical. Disney does.
My Brother, My Protector, My Hero
Chapter 1-And So It Begins…
The front door to the Evans' residence slowly creaked open as a silhouette of a figure snuck into the house. He quietly shut the door behind him. He turned on the hallway light, which revealed his wife looking as furious as ever standing in the hall with her hands on her hips. Busted.
"Where have you been? Do you have any idea what time it is?" Mrs. Evans scolded.
Mr. Evans set his briefcase down on the floor beside him. He rolled up his sleeve so that he could check the time on his watch. It was late, much later than he had anticipated. Bracing himself, Mr. Evans took a deep breath before giving his response.
"How many times do I have to tell you? I had an appointment with a client!" Mr. Evans answered.
Mrs. Evans scoffed and threw her hands up in disbelief. This wasn't the first time they had fought about this. Every night for about the past month, Mrs. Evans would catch her husband sneaking into the house late at night. Every night, he got back at around the same time, midnight. He always gave the same excuse: that he had an appointment with a client.
"You've got to be kidding me! What do you take me for a fool? Nobody has appointments with their clients this late at night! Is your so-called client a female?" Mrs. Evans shouted.
Unbeknownst to the bickering couple, all the shouting woke up their two kids, Sharpay and Ryan. They quietly exited their rooms and sat by each other at the top of the staircase so that they could hear better as well as get a better view. However, they were close enough so that they could see what was going on, yet far enough away so that nobody could see that they were watching.
"Answer my question! Is your so-called client a female?" Mrs. Evans demanded.
This question had caught Mr. Evans off guard. In the past, when he said that he had an appointment with a client, his wife never questioned whether the client was a female. That is not to say that Mrs. Evans believed that her husband did in fact have an appointment with a client, because she didn't.
"What exactly are you insinuating?" Mr. Evans shouted back.
Mrs. Evans was convinced that her husband's avoidance of her question could only mean one thing—that his so-called client was a female, and he was having an affair. They had been happily married for 17 years, ever since Sharpay and Ryan were born. It wasn't until this past month that Mrs. Evans started to notice that her husband was gradually pulling away from her.
"What am I insinuating? Gee, I don't know! Maybe that the only appointment you had was to feel up your female client!" Mrs. Evans screamed.
Mr. Evans didn't know how much more of this he could take. It had been this way for the past month. It was the same thing every night. He'd come home late at night. She would ask him where he has been. After explaining himself, she would accuse him of lying. He would get sick of their arguing and head to the bar.
"I don't have to put up with this! I'm out of here!" Mr. Evans hollered.
"Where do you think you're going?" Mrs. Evans shouted.
"To 'feel up' my client!" Mr. Evans screamed back.
Mr. Evans exited out the front door slamming the door behind him. Mrs. Evans let out a frustrated sigh before turning the hallway light off and heading back upstairs. Sharpay and Ryan scrambled off to their rooms before their mother could see that they were watching.
About three hours later, there was a loud crash downstairs. Mr. Evans had returned home from the bar drunk. Just like usual, Mrs. Evans was downstairs waiting for her husband to get home so that she could chew him out.
"It's three in the morning! Are you drunk?" Mrs. Evans yelled noticing how wobbly her husband was.
"Get off my back woman!" Mr. Evans retorted.
Mrs. Evans could detect the alcohol on his breath, which only confirmed her suspicion that her husband was drunk. Not that this particularly surprised Mrs. Evans. She knew that her husband went to the bar after they argued. This was all too obvious when about a month ago, she started noticing beer in the refrigerator. They never kept alcohol in the refrigerator since they had two underage kids. Mrs. Evans had always got rid of it by pouring it down the sink, but Mr. Evans always went out and bought more.
"You really shouldn't be drinking! What if Sharpay and Ryan see you like this? Not to mention that you keep putting beer in the refrigerator! They aren't even old enough to drink yet!" Mrs. Evans screamed.
Sharpay and Ryan did see their father drunk however. They were seated at their perch on the top of the staircase unable to sleep with all the noise going on downstairs. As a matter of fact, for the past month, Sharpay and Ryan had been unable to get much sleep at all.
Mr. Evans started laughing. "Shouldn't be drinking? Shouldn't be drinking! It's your God damn fault that I'm drinking in the first place! I have had it with your accusations of me having an affair! I'm not having a God damn affair! But do you believe me? No!" Mr. Evans yelled chucking an empty beer bottle at his wife's head.
Fortunately, Mrs. Evans was able to duck in time, and the beer bottle shattered upon the impact of crashing into the wall behind her. Mrs. Evans was suddenly frightened for her life. She and her husband had been getting into heated arguments over the past month, but things never got violent. Her husband had never hit her or his children. Only now, her husband had a look of rage in his eyes. She knew that he wanted to do nothing more than hurt somebody.
"I'm not going to sit by and let this happen. Sharpay, go to your room and lock your door. Don't come out until either mom or I come and get you or you are absolutely sure that Dad is gone." Ryan instructed his sister.
Sharpay's entire body was trembling in fear, and tears were streaming down her face. "What about you?" Sharpay asked.
"Don't worry about me. Just go!" Ryan exclaimed.
Sharpay scurried off to her room, shutting, and locking the door behind her. She sank to her knees, and buried her face in her hands and cried. She was so scared. She had never seen her father this angry before. She was afraid of what he might do to Ryan.
Mr. Evans advanced on his wife, who stood there petrified in fear. Mrs. Evans' brain was telling her to run for her life, but her body wouldn't let her. As her husband inched closer, the next thing Mrs. Evans noticed was that Ryan was standing in between her and her husband.
"Mom, run! Get out of here!" Ryan yelled.
Seeing that she still wasn't moving, Ryan gave her a little nudge to get her body moving. After that, Mrs. Evans scrambled up the stairs, and into her room. She shut the door behind her and locked it.
"You should have minded your own business, boy! This doesn't concern you!" Mr. Evans screamed.
"I won't let you hurt mom or Sharpay!" Ryan replied.
Mr. Evans let out a sinister laugh. "You won't let me? What are you going to do to stop me?" Mr. Evans asked menacingly.
The next thing Ryan knew, his father had grabbed him around the throat and backed him up until he was pinned against a wall. Mr. Evans leaned forward with all his weight as his grip around Ryan's throat tightened. Ryan desperately tried to pry his father's hand off his neck, but to no avail. He squirmed and struggled beneath his father's weight. His father outweighed him by at least one hundred pounds. His father was nearly twice his size.
"I…can't…breathe!" Ryan said in a weak voice as he gasped for air.
That only caused Mr. Evans' grip to tighten around his son's throat. The boy's squirms and struggles gradually became weaker. Ryan's world was spinning around him. He felt lightheaded. He gasped for air with greater urgency.
"What was that? Speak up! I can't hear you!" Mr. Evans yelled.
"Can't…breathe!" Ryan answered as loud as he could muster, which wasn't that loud.
Mr. Evans flung his son down. Ryan squeezed his eyes shut as he crashed face first through a glass table. The sound of glass shattering rang out through the silent house. Shards of glass dug into the skin of Ryan's face as well as most of his torso. Blood started to seep onto the carpet beneath him.
"Get up you sorry excuse for a son! I'll teach you what happens when people get in my way!" Mr. Evans shouted.
Ryan struggled to get up. His first attempt was unsuccessful though as he fell back to the ground. On his second attempt, he had managed to get on all fours. At that moment, Mr. Evans started kicking Ryan in the ribcage repeatedly. Each and every kick became more and more forceful. It was almost as though Mr. Evans was trying to kick a field goal, and his son's ribs were the football.
"Stop…stop it!" Ryan begged.
Ryan's eyes were welled up with tears. Seemingly his entire body was racked with pain. Mr. Evans had wanted to hurt his wife originally, but if his son wanted to step in for her, then he had no complaints about that.
"Louder! Say it louder! I want to hear you shout it out!" Mr. Evans screamed kicking his son in the ribs again.
Ryan collapsed to the ground. He then had a hacking cough. It wasn't long before Ryan was coughing up his own blood. Mr. Evans walked over to his son, and ripped off his pajama top, exposing his son's bare back. He then took off his leather belt, and started whipping his son's back with it. Ryan cried out in pain as his flesh was getting pulled apart by the leather strap.
"Come on you pansy! Get up! Take it like a man!" Mr. Evans hollered as he proceeded to whip his son some more.
Black and blue welts started to form on Ryan's back. In quite a few places, blood started to ooze out of the welts. Ryan could feel the sticky, red substance run down his back as his father mercilessly laid into him with his belt. Ryan's cries of agony soon became mere whimpers of pain. Ryan felt his strength leave him as everything went black. Mr. Evans, regardless, continued his assault. However, once it dawned on him that his son wasn't even whimpering in pain anymore, a hint of remorse appeared on Mr. Evans' face. He fastened his belt back around his waist, and hurried out the front door. Shortly thereafter, the sound of screeching tires was heard as Mr. Evans sped off away from the house.
A few moments later, both Sharpay and Mrs. Evans came out of their respective bedrooms. They both ran downstairs to survey the damage. They knew it wasn't going to be pretty. They had heard everything from the confines of their rooms. Nothing could prepare them for the sight they were about to witness. As they entered the living room, they saw Ryan half-naked lying face down in an ever-growing pool of blood. He looked to be lying on top of where once stood a glass table, although now you would have no idea that a glass table once stood there because all that remained of the said table was shards of glass scattered over the floor, some of which underneath Ryan's prone figure.
"Oh my God! Ryan!" Sharpay and Mrs. Evans shrieked simultaneously.
TBC
This is not only my first High School Musical fanfic, but my first fanfic period. Feedback is greatly appreciated, so please leave me a review. If you are going to criticize me though, please do so constructively as I am a rather sensitive individual. Thanks! Also, I know that this isn't an original storyline, but I really think that this storyline makes for some of the best High School Musical fics that I have read, and hopefully, my version of it is different enough. Oh, and expect updates about once a week give or take a few days. I'm sorry, but I'm a college student, and I'm usually really busy with schoolwork. So unfortunately, the weekend is pretty much the only time I'll have to sit down and write.