Disclaimer- I own nothing- Damn it!
Sandy pulled into the drive of his beautiful house, his wife's beautiful house. Ryan had gone to sleep in the back, but Trey was keeping the guard up for the both of them. Everytime Trey was about to drop off he would shake the sleep away.
Sandy got out of the car and opened the door for Trey to get out. He unbuckled a sleeping Ryan and lifted him out, much to Trey's obvious horror.
"Its OK kid, come on into my house and meet my family."
As Trey turned around to get his first glimpse of the house his jaw dropped.
"Sandy, you live in a palace?"
Sandy just chuckled and led the way inside.
As he opened the door he was meet by the shrill sound of an annoyed Kirsten: he was late home, he had promised to be early tonight.
"Sandy Cohen! You promised, you promised you'd be in time for our movie night…"
At the sound of raised voices, Trey darted behind Sandy, terrified, Ryan started awake, struggling against Sandy's hold and Kirsten abruptly stopped mid-sentence when she caught sight of the motley crew in her entrance hall.
"Shh, shh," Sandy tried desperately to comfort a petrified Ryan who was panicking at being touched.
"Sandy..." Kirsten growled
"I need to have a word with you, honey," Sandy began.
"Daddy!" Suddenly, the struggling in Sandy's arms stopped as Ryan froze and looked down at a mop of hair that had attached itself around Sandy's waist.
All of a sudden, Ryan quite calmly climbed out of Sandy's arms to take a better look at this little boy. He was very tall, Ryan noticed nearly as tall as his big brother Trey. Seth seemed to have a calming influence on Ryan, and his presence, and clear lack of fright around these two grown ups seemed to be enough to make him relax slightly in the presence of these strangers.
"Seth, why don't you go and show Trey and Ryan your toys whilst me and Mummy talk."
"Cool, come on Ryan, Trey. Hey, you guys wanna be my friend? If you're my friend you can be friends with my friend Captain Oats too. So, how old are you guys? Where do you live? What's your favourite game? Do you like video games?"
Ryan smiled up at Seth, he talked a lot, he thought.
"Yeah, lets be friends, I'm 10, my brother Ryan is 7, we live in Fresno, lived in Fresno, I think." Trey tried to answer as many of Seth's many questions as he could in one statement.
"Cool, Ryan, were the same age, we can be best friends!"
The Atwood brothers followed Seth up the stairs to his bedroom, which they were taken aback by- it was posh, huge and had more toys than either had seen in their lives.
"What you wanna play?" Seth asked.
Trey shrugged, then picked up an Action Man, which he started to bounce along the side of the desk. It was soon joined by a dinosaur, which started to bite the doll.
Ryan just stood in the middle of the room, looking small and vulnerable.
"What about you, Ryan?"
Ryan looked nervously at his brother Trey, who wasn't paying attention. He didn't know what to do, so he sat down on the floor and put his arms over his head, like he used to when his dad would shout at him when Trey wasn't around, and he just wanted not to be noticed.
"Ryan, you ok? Want me to get my mummy, she's good at making you feel happy."
Ryan just blanked Seth out. His confidence had disappeared as easily as it had come, and now he was alone and terrified again, like he had been all those times when Trey wasn't around to stick up for him.
"Don't make any noise, don't make any noise, don't make them angry, don't make them angry" Was all Ryan could think. His dad had hated noises. Really, really hated them.
"Ryan, Trey, I think your brothers upset, Trey! I'm gonna get mummy, she'll know what to do!" Seth wasn't used to things like this in the Newport bubble.
Trey was on the floor with his arms around his brother as quick as a flash, as was a rather disgruntled Kirsten, who had heard Seth's racket. She had unwillingly agreed for the boys to stay for a week or so while their mum got sorted out, seeing as how she didn't really have a choice in the matter- they were already here after all.
"Ryan, sweetie, it's OK, don't cry, what's the matter?"
"Ryan's not fing scared, were not scared of you," Trey yelled, don't let them know your scared, don't let them know your scared, that's what they want, don't let them know. Was all that Trey could think.
Kirsten was completely taken aback, she could not believe what she was hearing from the mouth of a child, a child, not much older than Seth.
"SANDY!" she yelled, causing Ryan to jump and scramble beneath Seth's bed.
To make matters worse, Seth choose that moment to ask the dreaded question:
"Mummy, what does that word Trey said mean?"
This was going to be one tough week or two…
TBC- please let me know what you think.
I asterixed a certain word for the more sensitive among you. He He.