Chapter Title: Ryn
Series Title: Unlikely Brothers
POV: Dashen
Ages in this chapter: Tanner (11) Dashen (17)
Chapter Summary: Tanner is traumatized by the sudden suicidal death of a classmate and friend.
"I don't understand. Why didn't he ask for help? Why didn't he tell me or someone that he needed help? I would have helped him, you know I would have in a second."
"I know."
"But..."
We were here, on the main floor of Colton's big house, sitting on his big couch, having big conversation about something I'd hoped to never be forced to discuss. Mostly because it hurt like hell, but also because as close as I was to this specific topic, I certainly didn't have all the answers Tanner craved.
Tanner was an emotional mess. Maybe the worst I'd seen him since our first month together. All I could do is clutch him to me and hug him as tight as was humanly possible.
We about sank into the large, comfy couch, Tanner's small form nearly swallowed by the cushions and my arms.
"I don't know why he did it, Mouse. That may never be known. I can tell you from experience that he probably felt it was the only way out. The only way to escape whatever pain he was feeling."
I paused for a second, debating if the agony of bringing my own personal history to the surface would be beneficial. A quick glance down at the brown hair just below my chin, belonging to the kid clinging to me... Yeah, it was worth it.
"I remember when I'd decided to end my life, there was this huge part of me that suddenly felt an intense relief that it would all soon be over. Every bit of it. The pain. The heartbreak. The loneliness. The emptiness. That pit of despair inside of me that never went away and never once gave me a moment's break. I'd been broken and had gotten to the point where I couldn't face one more memory. I cried every damn day after Kossi died. I tried for a while to make a normal life again. I worked. I ate. I slept, some. Nightmares. Day terrors. The thing that finally did me in was the people that kept asking about Kossi. I didn't know them, but they knew Kossi. If not by name, they knew his wave or smile. That ability he had to make people feel good about themselves. They asked about him and I had to tell them that he'd died, and every damn time I did, it was like reliving his death. And really, these people, they didn't know me. They didn't care about me or my life. They heard the news, told me how sorry they were and as my heart was ripped from my chest time and time again, then they'd move back to their busy lives. It wasn't on purpose, they couldn't know what was going on inside of me. Even if they had, it wouldn't have mattered. I was on destructive path that had only one ending."
I caught my breaking voice before finishing.
"Your friend... maybe his story isn't the same as mine. Maybe he was sick or lost a parent or maybe he wasn't comfortable within himself. I understand his decision. I was there. I can tell you honestly that I stood in those same shoes with his same thoughts. And ironically, it's only because I truly am an idiot that I'm still here. Apparently I couldn't even kill myself correctly."
Tanner moved enough to wipe tears on my arm before he said, in my sad defense, "You're not an idiot, Dash."
"Yeah, Colton would disagree."
"You're not an idiot," he said with more force this second time. "You didn't die because you weren't supposed to die. But Ryn, there wasn't a lost Jedi kid for him to save. There wasn't anyone there to save him from this. One minute we were in the middle of a lesson, he was there alive. The next he mumbled something to me then pulled out a electro-knife and slit across... the blood... Dash... I should have been fast enough to stop him. Maybe..."
"Tanner, stop. You don't get to blame yourself for this. No blame. Not for you and not for Ryn. But there is something you will need to do. The one thing I will ask you do to. Don't you ever let his end change who he was. He was a good person. Kind, friendly. He was your friend, Tanner. That is the memory you hold on to forever. You promise me that, all right? You remember your friend as the best of him. Don't judge him by his final action. His memory is worth more than that. Promise me."
"Promise." One word. It's all that was needed. He'd heard me.
My arms wrapped tighter - as if that was even possible.
"That someone will remember him - the real him - is most important. When people talk - and they will - you stand up for your friend. Tell them who he was. They'll judge him by his death. They'll call him weak and that he took the easy way out, but they don't know. They have no idea what he may have been going through. It was something impossible. It had to be. I know. I was there. I was where Ryn was. But as my death didn't take, I actually felt that aftermath. I heard that gossip that you'll hear on Ryn's behalf."
"Those people called you names."
"They did. But they had no clue. They didn't understand my pain. They hadn't walked in my shoes. They hadn't watched their baby brother disintegrate right in front of their eyes. They judged without knowing. Without feeling. Ryn deserves better. No matter the reason for his death. He was your friend. That's enough."
"I won't let anyone hurt who he was. He was my good friend. I miss him already."
"Yeah, I know you do. You know all about loss too. This loss, this is different, but it's really the same."
"Dash, I can't go to school tomorrow."
"No one expects you to, Mouse. The school is closed the rest of the week. Miss Sanya sent some lessons home if you want, but no pressure. She's not asking anything of your class until you have had a chance to process this. But you like to get lost in learning sometimes. You've told me before, it's a stress relief. That makes you weirder than you ready are," I kidded, nudging my chin against the top of his head, "but they're loaded onto your data pad, just in case."
Silence for a time. I was grateful. A chance to pull myself together after spilling things about myself that I'd never told another living soul. I'd told Kossi, of course, many times. Spending many a night talking out loud to my dead little brother and hating myself and my life in the process. Then crying until my head hurt.
Was Tanner asleep? He'd gone so still. I rubbed his arm with the thumb of my right hand.
"Mouse?"
"Dash, m'tired."
"Well, I've got a good hold of you and I'm not letting go. You can close your eyes."
"Wake me up if I have a bad dream?"
"Promise."
Quiet again and I felt Tanner battling for consciousness. Something bothered him though as that battle forged. Bothered him so much that brought himself awake again just to say it.
"You're not an idiot, Dash. Don't ever think that. You're my brother and I love you no matter what you did or tried. You're not an idiot."
I was, really. At times. Didn't matter to Tanner. None of my faults ever did. As I'd made him promise to not judge Ryn by his final action, Tanner would never judge me by my past decisions. Nor, I suspect, my future ones either.
My words wouldn't come after that so I just held onto my little brother as he fell into a deep sleep. Restless at first, but he had the ability to use his Force magic to settle himself. That must've been it.
"You're still an idiot, but sometimes you surprise even me."
That voice belonged to another. Colton was there. He'd been there all along. Had heard my confessions. Confessions he'd never before been privileged to. Confessions I'd only ever admitted my dead baby brother.
It was out there now. Nothing I could do about it. Probably for the best anyway.
"I'll let you and Tanner fight that one out."
"I knew you were broken. Just not the extent of it. As you said, I couldn't know the worst of it. Regretting my actions at the time, it's been something I've never forgiven myself for."
His actions. He'd reached out to a kid he barely knew after my first attempt. I'd rejected the hand. I was so far lost by then. Broken didn't even begin to describe it. The failure on my part to not even achieve my wanted end, pulled me down even further. Who knew that was even possible? I hadn't wanted Colton's help. Or I had and couldn't see past my grief. He certainly had no reason to blame himself.
"Colt, you tried, I refused. No blame, no fault except my own. I only wanted Tanner to understand that part of it. Not to blame his friend. Not to think badly of him. Just remember him. No one will ever know the extent of the pain Ryn was in except Ryn himself and he took that to the grave with him."
"It's good advice." Colton said as he sat down on the opposite side of me, careful with his large frame on soft cushions to place himself so as not to wake Tanner."
"I heard some of the talk about you. After. I curtailed a bit of it. What little I could. Figured you deserved better. If nothing else, that baby brother of yours did. Took a few months, but the talk died out."
"Not sure what was worse, the talk after or being completely and utterly ignored by anyone and everyone. Not that I had friends or people who gave a crap about me, but I was numb enough by that time... nothing mattered. It's why I put every ounce of myself into my work. When you first started using me as a runner. I was a natural. Not because I was good at the job, but because I had nothing else. I'd take any job, the more danger the better. If I never came back, what did it matter, right? Who knew that running towards death was the best thing for me?"
"You were a little overly excited about accepting jobs with the highest possibly of being beaten to a pulp, so that was different. You made the other runners quite happy for a time."
"Thanks for that by the way. Giving a crap. I don't talk about it, but you probably saved my life."
"Not something I can take credit for." Colton nodded to the sleeping form in my arms. "If that kid hadn't come along, you may have found success to your suicidal ways eventually. I only prolonged your misery for a while."
"You played a role, is my point. So, thank you."
A cold bottle of ale was pulled to Colton's lips. Half the bottle gone in seconds. It's how he relaxed. Well, one of the ways. We wouldn't discuss the others in front of my sleeping kid brother here.
"My people don't know anything, in case you wonder." His people. His security. His team that had eyes and ears all over Kaolin and further. Not a peep about an eleven year old boy named Ryn who'd ended his own life in the middle of a classroom only hours ago. No rumors about the why. I hoped to never know the why. Not the best thought, no, but it wasn't anyone's business but his own. Even if knowing could help others in the future, the reasons were Ryn's secret and his alone.
"I figured you'd mention it. Just do me a favor, Colt? Don't have them dig for a reason. If they find out, they find out, but no deep digging. Let the kid be."
"I can do that. I can't stop local security from digging though."
I got that. I did. The locals investigated any death. Part of their job. I had no say there, but I did with Colton. He'd honor my wishes.
"Thanks." My eyes motioned toward the furniture were we'd taken up residence. To the couch that was normally off limits to this idiot and his brother. Colton hadn't mentioned it yet. "Hope you don't mind that we took over your beloved couch. He kinda fell apart before we could get upstairs."
"You are neither bleeding nor puking. I'll allow it."
A Colton smile was a meaningful thing. In his line of work, a smile wasn't always a positive gesture. Depending on the type, it could mean anything from 'I'm getting ready to remove your head from it's body' to 'cross that line again and we talk' to 'I've got your back'. And everything in between and beyond.
Security Chief Sydenious - who still didn't like me much - had mentioned once that a few months after Tanner and I had moved into the house and Colton's life - he'd noticed a new type of smile. One that we had brought to him. A good kind smile. It's the exact one that I got right now.
I snorted. Seventeen years old and I felt like I'd lived several lifetimes. In a a weird way, maybe I had. The happiest of times those were my first eleven years. Then with he death of my parents, I was left to raise Kossi alone. I watched him die a slow death barely two years later. My suicidal self took over at that time - my broken years. Then this Jedi kid. Finding him, nursing him back. Now this, another chance at life. A job. A place to live. A family.
Some days I felt a hell of a lot older than seventeen. Days like now when I sat here on a couch, holding my Jedi-not-really-brother-brother securely in my arms after the tragedy of the day, while one of the top two crime lords on Terra comforted me from that same couch.
My life was weird.
Tanner adjusted in my arms. Colton vanished and returned with a blanket to drape over him.
"We won't dig, Dash. And if we do find out anything, I'll have my people keep the secret tight. He'll be all right, you know that." Blue eyes glanced at Tanner. "Hell, he'll be the one helping others deal with it all. You know that too. It's just who he is. If he can make someone feel better, he'll put his own pain to the side."
"He will."
"You just make sure he doesn't neglect his own needs."
"So, let him cry in my arms for the next two weeks?"
I'd said the words in slight jest, but Colton made a curious shrug. "If it's what he needs..."
—-
We never did discover the reason for Ryn's decision. There were clues and rumors but none ever came to fruition. It took some doing, but Tanner came to terms with it all. As expected, he did push his own needs away to help his classmates and friends in school. Aiding them in studies when they got distracted by thoughts of Ryn's death. Befriending those classmates that before had only been acquaintances. According to his teacher, Miss Sanya, Tanner was the solid ground they all needed.
At home, Tanner relaxed. He spent much of his time in meditation. Doing what his Master Ayden and the Jedi had taught him, to push his anxieties into the Force. How that all happened, yeah, I'd never know. Insane boredom anyone? All I saw was a kid sitting on the floor, legs crossed, eyes closed and breathing deep. It seemed to work, so who was I to judge?
I was there when he opened his eyes. Or I tried to be. He'd attack me with a hug, or drag me to our couch for a holo-film, or just sit quietly for a meal. Stories from his day were shared. Telling me how he and his class were doing, or how he'd defended Ryn's memory from rumors that threatened to shame that memory.
The strength this kid had... the good that was inside him...
My baby brother Kossi - damn, he would have loved Tanner.
Today, I was home from my jobs before he was off from school. I'd taken the butt of a blaster to my chin and a whack to the head, so I was slightly bruised, battered and sore from the neck up. The grin on the kid's face when he walked in the door though, made all that pain go away.
"Dash! Guess what?" His sprint toward me stopped when he saw my face. "Hey, what happened to you? Are you okay? Are you hurt? Did you finish the run? Who hit you? What they did they hit you with?" The rapid fire questions, impossible to keep up.
"Tanner!" I shouted.
"What? Why are you yelling?"
"To get your attention. You asked fourteen questions in about ten seconds. I'm fine. It's all good. You came bounding in here all happy, what's going on?"
Shaking his head in confusion for a second, then he remembered. I laughed at the crooked look on his face until he recalled his reason for flying into the room at warp speed.
"Oh, right. Yeah. Our classroom. We renamed it today."
Renamed... oh, that's right. Some of the rooms at his school were named. The name appeared over the entrance to the door. Certain rooms were given memorial names.
"I suggested it to Miss Sanya last week. She got it approved. Today we renamed it. Ryn's Room. I know, it's not fancy or all that original, but I like it. It's perfect. No one can forget him now."
"Mouse," I said, reaching toward his shoulder to tug just enough to expose his veiled Jedi braid. "Somehow, that does not surprise me."
"You've gotta see it. Tomorrow. Your first run isn't until the afternoon. Give me a ride to school and I'll show you. It's so perfect." Bouncing excitedly on the balls of his feet, he only stopped when I agreed to go with him tomorrow. Then he reached up and grabbed the braid that I'd just freed from camouflage. "Master Ayden..."
Tanner wouldn't say it - he wasn't that type of person - but I had no problem saying it for him.
"Your Master Ayden would be damn proud of you, Mouse."
I'd never met the man, but it was virtually impossible to not be proud of just about anything this kid did.
We went to his school that next morning. A few minutes early so I could see the door frame. The stone walls were painted in various colors. Tanner said that Ryn told him once that green was his favorite color. Tanner being Tanner never forgot those small details people shared with him and he had made sure green was prominent on the memorial tag above the door.
We stood a few feet away, looking up. I had an arm draped around my brother. "This is perfect, Mouse. It honors him, but it remembers him too."
My thoughts flashed back. Had I been successful in my own self-destruction endeavors, there'd have been no memorial-named room. There'd have been no memorializing at all. Hell, I knew for a fact there wouldn't have been a single living soul to give me a second thought. Anyone knowing me strictly because of Kossi - probably glad that I'd been put out of my misery. Good riddance. I'd have been gone. Forgotten in a matter of moments. Just another lost kid.
Ryn... He had family. He had friends. He had an especially good friend who would never forget. A friend who would never fail to defend his memory. A friend who would take time out of every single day for the rest of his life to think of Ryn and others those lost to him.
I didn't know if Ryn was completely aware of the dedicated friend he'd had in Tanner. I honestly didn't know if anyone that comes to know Tanner realizes how lucky they are to be part of his life. Maybe if Ryn had understood better... maybe he'd still be here today. Or maybe not. It was impossible for me to know.
What wasn't impossible was to understand that something brought Tanner to me when I'd needed him.
Perhaps that same something had brought Tanner to Ryn.
...Not to save him, but to remember him.
END
