Mellissa looked around as she always kept a hand on David's shoulder, never letting it stray away, afraid that if she did, something would happen, and he would disappear. He was the only family she had left; and she couldn't lose him, not like she lost everything else in her life. She always had a fear, that lay settled in the pit of her stomach, always there, always flaring when the thoughts of losing her brother, or now Danny and Ash. They were important to her, Danny was also like her little brother, and she tried to her David and Danny as much time together as possible, because she didn't David to miss out on things that she couldn't really give him.
Mellissa thought that, the two young boys, both the same age, or close to it, would have each other as they grew, teaching each other about the stuff or things that Mellissa and Ash could not. She wanted them to have each other, and for her and Ash-
She caught he self in mid thought process about Ash. She DID care for him, but she would rather love him from afar than lose Ash and keep David from losing Danny.
Mellissa thoughts again wondered to Ash, and the first time they actually met face to face.
"No! I don't want to talk!" Screeched a 10 year old David, he's face, tear stained, eyes ringed with red. The three police men and another one that had shown up were looking around finding drugs in varies places, though none of them seemed surprised at finding another body dead because of over dose. It had become so natural now, it was never something new to see to the whole police force that worked in L.A
"Nicky…" Mellissa said her face breaking as she had already cried her eyes out, that was after she had gotten of the shock of seeing her mother's pale body, touched the cold shoulder to see if she would wake, the realization that her mother was dead, and most important that her brother was standing right there, the whole time, still, pale faced, an in shock, which like herself, David had gotten over rather quickly.
Mellissa had to physically drag her baby brother away from the body that was slumped against the claw foot white bath tub.
"Don't call me that!'' David screaming and sobbed, Mellissa reached out and tried to pull her brother into her, comfort him, or more of comfort him, to comfort herself. Mellissa had managed a small tugged of this arms before he very loudly screaming 'No!' and ran as fast has he could out the open door, the police instead backing away from David as he pasted, as to not get knocked into, INSTEAD of trying to grab him, to stop him from getting away.
"David, STOP!" Mellissa screamed as she chased after him, the 10 year old getting away from her, her mother –or more of her body- this house, this life, and ran like his ass was on fire. Unlike for her brother, the cops actually tried to make a grab to catch her, but she quickly and effectively escaped there grasping hands, ducking and turning sharply at strange angles as she rounded the bends of the hallway and down the flight of stairs.
Their apartment was on the second floor, so the stair weren't really that much of a problem. Out the back door, instead of the front, and there began the chase as Mellissa ran after her baby brother.
"David please, Stop!" Mellissa's screams didn't falter the running figure that was her brother. It seemed that they had been at this for a while; and he was still a head of her, the streets giving him an advantage, the constant bending of streets, alleys, and cross roads.
Mellissa chased him around bend after bend, the streets barely lit from the dingy lamp post that hung high above them. David was getting tired, she could see it in the way he was running, she was limping because of a nearly sprained ankle. Mellissa fell over again, hitting the ground harshly as David took a hard right straight threw medal buildings. Her body was up faster than ever before, heart racing, her head hurting from the blood pumping in her ears, though the pain in her ankle long since forgotten, the adrenalin making the pain seem like a small paper cut instead of a sprain an near break. Tomorrow she would be sore as hell, but that thought couldn't get pass 'Oh no David, Please, Have to stop, David, please come back'
Mellissa opened her mouth in a futile attempt to scream at him to stop not that it would do much good, but she was tired, to out of breath, and knew that it was no use. She could barely get enough air in her lungs to breathe, much less scream. Her head was becoming fuzzy, but she couldn't stop, her mind refused, though her body was all for it.
David had run around another bend of medal buildings, completely out of her sight, and she panicked looking wildly, her eyes flying all of the place, she was gasping, throat aching, head hurting, heart hurting from pain that was both physical and emotional, lungs on fire an stomach churning with panic, a stitch of pain in her side like a constant poke of knives.
She had come to a complete stop all together, standing still and breathing trying to force air into her abused lungs, she didn't even waste time for the feeling of her lungs to explode to fade away, she opened her mouth breathed a deep breath and wailed David's name as loud as she could, went quiet an started walking, an again wailed, and again nothing. Mellissa felt like her heart drop, in this town, he could be dead by now. She started screaming a little louder, and started jogging as she rounded medal and abandon buildings, but they all started to look the same.
She had never known her father, her mother that day had left them alone in the world, her aunt Maria, died of cancer, or so Mellissa mothers said. Mellissa couldn't NOT lose her baby brother, he was the only blood of hers left, her family, her sibling, and now that her mother was gone, her life.
She looked around at the smoked and crumpling buildings and screamed his name. The only person that she cared about hearing the screams was her baby brother. The junkies, and the police, that attics, and Judah himself could hear right now and she would just kick him in the god damn nuts and start screaming again.
Mellissa cried out, cursing at the sky, tension knotted in her chest, flares of pain and panic soared through her chest and stomach. Mellissa cried out again grabbing her hair tugging at it and sobbing hopelessly. She had never felt so hopeless, the Steele armor that she had built around herself, her safe place, place hiding all the times she wanted an had to stop herself from weeping.
She remembered her baby brother asking once 'Why mommy didn't love us?', she had felt the need to weep more than ever then, but she looked him in the eyes, an told him 'She does baby boy, and I swear to you I will ALWAYS love you.' Their mother didn't love them, because if she loved them, she would have stayed and helped them.
She pulled her hand out of her hair and walked the few feet, punching the concrete wall as hard as she could, to in pain already to notice the physical sting and rapidly bruising of the broken knuckle. She backed up an her body on instinct shaking the hand, stretching it, but in reality not feeling the sting an deep burn that came with it.
"Hey!"A male voice sounded behind her. She automatically stiffened and stilled listening. She heard a foot step lightly as someone took a step towards her, but after that step, she couldn't hear anything but her breathing. Her arms had become tight to her body; her shoulder pinched and her back tight. Okay, maybe she was wrong about the whole kick in the nuts thing, but her mind was still on her MIA David.
"Hey…are you okay?" The male's voice was defiantly older, and an accent that she had never heard before, not that she got out much in the world to really hear people around her talk, or talked to someone that held this kind of accent. Her stomach didn't turn like it usually would, but that didn't tamp down the flares of panic sent straight threw her stomach and into her lower gut where it settled.
Mellissa stayed tense, cautious waiting for anything and turned towards the man that stood a little more than 15 feet away. He was tall, well taller than her at maybe 6'1 6'2, dark hair brown hair that probably reached just under his ears, though it was too dark to tell what color his eyes were. The strangers face was pinched into a look of worry, but also like hers was full of caution. She probably looked like shit, face pale with red blotchy cheeks, eyes rimmed with heavy red, and hair sticking to her face. She was covered in cuts, clothes torn slightly in places, knees of her pants dirty from falling, hand, bruised, that more than just her hand would be purple tomorrow.
"Are you okay?'' His tone this time was light; his head was tilted as he took a step forward. His eyebrow drew into a deeper line of worry. Mellissa opened her mouth to utter him to stop, but she couldn't find her voice yet.
"It's okay…I am not going to hurt you-"
"Yah, that's what they all say." Mellissa words sounded like needles even to her, but she couldn't help it. She was scared. For her brother, if he was even alive, the life they would live if she ever found him, and now herself. Worried that this strange, but beautiful man would hurt her, either that being kill or rape her, but somehow, she felt a sense of ease at his words.
He stopped walking forward and face took on a look she couldn't describe, but it almost hurt her to see him wear it. "I am...sorry, you seemed, like you needed help." She looked at him but looked around. She couldn't wait anymore; she had to find her brother! He stared at her for a minute but backed from her and started walking away, though keeping an eye on her.
"Have you…seen a boy, around here? He's ten…" She said a bit quietly. Mellissa waved her hand in a way, to almost narrate her words, but that ended in just clenching her hands to her slightly baggy pants wincing as she started to feel the pain in her knuckles. His eyes flickered over to her hand and she slipped him behind her leg, almost to hide it, she looked around, but started to cry again in frustration, her legs shaking as she shuffled on her feet.
"I have not… seen any child. I can, help you look?'' The stranger's words didn't hold anything really behind them, well nothing malice or the intent to hurt or kill her.
She opened her mouth, and looked around worried and squeezed her arms to her chest. "How do I know you won't try to…kill me or something?" That something being tortured, left for dead, or raped, Mellissa arms were tight; her heart never seemed to stop at its loud thundering. He blinked his arms moving a bit.
"My name is Ash; I am not going to hurt you. I know that…isn't very reassuring, but it's all I have. I have a son too…-"
"David isn't my son…he is my baby brother." She cut him off mid sentence with. He nodded and stepped forward a few steps, this time she didn't make away, though she was tense. "Okay…I will help you, look for your brother David. Which direction…-" She again cut him off, flinging her arms and giving a frustrated squeal. Mellissa didn't know where he was and that is what has got her so upset in the first place. Didn't he notice! Notice that she was so fucking upset because she couldn't find him!
"I don't know damnit! That's the fucking problem! I have to find him! He is all…all I have left!" The sentence ended with sobs and her body rocked with them as she heaved again tugging at her hair, trying to make the pain in her scalp override the one in her heart. Mellissa was dead set on ripping her hair out when large warm and strong hands grabbed her hands, untangling them from her burning scalp and Ash wrapped his arms around her as she flailed around trying to get away, cry alone, or more of suffer alone.
Mellissa now, after everything she ever did in the past, stayed strong through heart breaking moments and questions that David asked. The moments when Mellissa had to support David as mom again never showed up that night. Even after the broken promises, the burnt out dreams, break bones, and back, trying to support her family when her mother used their money on drugs...this was the first time, in forever, that Mellissa saw herself as weak.
All she ever was, was strong, but now, sobbing fighting against the arms of a man that only wanted to help, with cuts and bruises, heart ripping in two, missing her now dead mother, looking for her now missing brother, Mellissa was, in her mind, weak, and there wasn't a damn thing she could or would do about it.
Mellissa struggled, cried as Ash muttered soothing nothings into her hair as he wrapped his long muscled arms around her. His body radiated warmth, and that alone was soothing. All the years of hurt and pain, suffering, just bubbled up. It spilled out through her tears as she sobbed. Mellissa finally gave into the inner battle and wrapped her arms around Ash's shoulders and cried into the crook of his neck, soaking the material of his dark navy blood shirt, and sobbed, and cried her bleeding heart out.
All he did was soothe her with words that didn't even register to her over the loudness of her cries, and rubbed her back, holding her close, just as she clung to him. Ash petted her hair, as he tucked her body closer to his.
He didn't even know her, and he still comforted Mellissa a way that no one had before, or because most just don't care enough to try and comforter her. She tried to find it in her to hate him for making Mellissa feel weak, but she just kept crying.
Mellissa seemed to struggle again, more of her body's natural instinct to get fight till the end.
"No, No, No Shh, stop fighting me.'' Ash's muttered into her ear. She struggled even harder and he in return just tightened his grip, nothing that would leave a bruise in the morning, but enough to the point of which she couldn't get away, and seeming to notice this, she went limp, though her muscles stayed tense.
Mellissa's eyes had seemingly run out of tears, her face stained in them, and her breathe coming in slight hiccups of air as she shuddered laid against Ash's body, her head propped on his shoulder, his head, propped on hers, his breaths flowing into her hair, as he rubbed her back but stayed quiet.
The sound was faint, and only Ash seemed to notice it, and it took a second for her to tense when she felt the tenseness of Ash's body as he still held her. He didn't know her, she sure as hell didn't know him, but if he wanted to kill her, wouldn't he have done it by now? Would he hurt her, rather than save her from hurting herself? She didn't know.
The second or third time the noise came, she heard it, and this made her tense even more than when feeling Ash tense, but again as the noise sounded, she noticed that it sounded small and young and now David came to mind and she tried to make her escape the grasp of the man holding her but he tightened on her to the point where it would bruise, an stood up holding her close, but not in a smothering manner, and then two small faces came into view.
Mellissa couldn't recognize the first one. He was around her baby brother's age but he was maybe an inch or two taller and brown eyes and tanner skin, though that wasn't much.
Looking at the other person got her mind going a hundred miles an hour.
"David…'' His name came out breathe and stuttered. The little boy that seemed to be leading David stopped instantly at seeing her, but he looked at Ash, but didn't move. Probably something that Ash taught him.
Ash's head snapped over to look at her as she had muttered his name.
"This is your brother?'' His accented voice slipped around the voice and she looked at him, his expression almost one of confusion but Mellissa seemed to register it and nodded, and his arm slowly slipping away as she took a few step toward him, and she he shifted where he stood, not really know what was right to do.
David's hair was tussled, his clothes had some rips, the palm of his hands were ripped and he looked about as bad as she did. Hair sticking to their tear stained face, covered in dirt in some places.
When she took another step forward her brother stepped back like she was going to walk the 15 or so feet and hit him, and the boy standing in front of him stepped in front of him, like a protection wall, and she flinched letting her hand fall to her side.
"Danny!" Ash sounded behind her and she turned her head and looked at him, but he was looking at the boy.
"You know him?" She looked at him confused. He shifted to look at her and he nodded "He's my son." When he said that she whipped her head around to look at the young boy, and admitted they did look alike.
"Mel…Please..Don't hate me." David's voice was smaller, sounding smaller than it ever had before, and the first times just keep on coming it seemed. She looked at him and he had taken a step forward now, so if she scooted just a bit over, Danny and himself would be shoulder to shoulder with each other.
"David…I could never hate you baby….you are all I have left…and I…" She stopped talking, trying to regain her speech, having a hard time with the hard lump of tears in the throat and the prickles at her eyes. Mellissa breathed deep and laid a hand on her ribcage but winced at the pain and looked down reaching the uninjured hand and rubbing her eyes.
"You what?" He stepped forward again and nodded at Danny who back off. Mellissa guessed that since the meeting of those two, they formed a close bond.
"I love you Nicky…You're my baby brother. I tried to make everything…better for you, your life better…and I failed." Mellissa voice cracked, and she didn't even try to hide it, and she looked down at the ground as her feet shuffled on the ground. She lay her arms limp at her sides, breathes shuddering breathes, hiding her face between the messed and now tangled hair.
"Mel…" She glanced up just as David ran forward, and she crouch down just in time to catch him as he threw his arms around her shoulder and she wrapped her arms in a circle around his small waist, and he buried his head in her neck and started to cry.
"I-I'm so s-sorry Mellie, I d-didn't mean to. I was s-so scared!'' She just nodded and muttered into her ear, just like Ash did. She looked over at Ash, but didn't see him, and panicked but looked over at to see him hugging Danny, but seeing the frown on the young boys voice spoke volumes, or more of his father was scolding him.
"Shh Shh Shh, baby boy…its okay…I was just SO scared when I couldn't find." She let him go and grabbed his face and made him look at her. "You are that only family I have left David. WE are all we have left, and…when I thought I was going to lose you, I panicked…Just..Promise me you wont do that again." She looked him in the eyes, but all he did was staring at her and shake slightly, tears leaking out the corners of his eyes.
She shook his head slightly, not trying to hurt him, but getting his attention. "Promise me!" Her voice was firm, but she croaked slightly. He stared and then nodded going back to clinging to her.
She looked over at Ash and he stared back at her.
"Thank you…Danny." She looked over at him, and he looked confused, but she just shook her head and held her little brother.
"Would you two, like to come back for something to drink?'' Ash's voice broke the silence that settled and both David and Mellissa looked over at him. Her brow furrowed and she felt her brother look at her and she looked him in the eyes and nodded, so sure that this was a good idea.
"We aren't alone anymore Mel, we have Danny too." Mellissa cocked her head and looked at Ash making up her mind.
"We would like that."