Sometimes I see the start of something and the end, but have no desire to write the middle bridge. Enjoy filling in the blanks for yourselves – if you come up with something interesting, use the comments to let us all have a read too

The world ran past him as usual. There was no need to rush. He could catch up if he wanted to. For now he just wanted to sit here and watch it flow by him, watch the endless stream of people hurry on whilst he rested and took it all in. That was a mistake people made about him. Just because he didn’t participate didn’t mean he wasn’t interested…

“JARED!” The bellow wrenched him from his daydreams just as the ball bounced painfully against his shins.
“Huh? Oh…” He had the grace to blush again as Bram and Dravid ran across the court toward him. “I was doing it again, wasn’t I?”
“Yes!” His brother glared whilst his friend shrugged and lit a cigarette.
“You know you were, Jare.” Bram drawled after a leisurely drag. “You just weren’t interested, so you faded.”
“Quiet!” Dravid whisper hissed and looked fugitively around the park.
“Oh calm out, Veed.” Bram responded in his laconic voice. “No one’s listening.”
“That’s right.” Jared glowered back at his elder brother and drew himself up, trying to make 14 years of growth more imposing than 25. “It’s safe here…” He looked to Bram for the conformation he felt sure to get and was shocked when he actually got sympathetic negation.
“I’m sorry Jare, but your brother does have a point. You can never be certain that an Investigator isn’t looking, or that someone won’t spot you and report you to the Bureau.”

As two sets of left fingers tapped against the base of the neck then brushed away from the body, Bram sighed and waited for the superstitions of his companions to pass. “Just try and be more careful Jare. You know the penalties you’ll incur if you are caught.” As he caught the rebellion in the boy’s eyes Bram continued. “And you know how much worse it will make things for Dravid.”

Jared looked at his brother and, as always, his love and gratitude toward him were coloured with resentment. Resentment that Dravid had been born first, so making him Second. Resentment that Veed had known his mother whilst he hadn’t. And resentment that Veed was always right. Right they had to keep moving to avoid the ever-lurking Investigators, right that they had to pretend all the time. And right that no one could never know… Beyond Bram. And there Jared’s thoughts stumbled. Bram, so strong and calm and cool. So knowledgeable, so laconic, so made for life on “the Street”. So connected. Bram their saviour; Bram his captor. Because, really, it was Bram who made them hide who he was all the time. Bram who told them that here in the Heights, Fading wasn’t permitted. Bram who had joined them six months ago, giving no option but to follow, no reason why they should. At the time, Jared had been grateful to the tall Jack Boy for saving them from their Bureau pursuers. But, since then, he had been getting more and more wary of their self-appointed guardian. Dravid was too overcome by awe – lust, Jare privately thought – to even dream of questioning the Runner. Dravid who had once promised that it would always be just them was now blinded by infatuation for this dangerous man in tight leather. Jare didn’t mind about that, or at least, he told himself, he had nothing against his beloved brother wanting other men. It was just that couldn’t he see that Bram didn’t share those feelings? That the once he had given into Veed’s advances had been a manoeuvre, calculating as all Bram’s actions were?

“Sorry?” He jerked his head up to look at Bram, trying to keep the guilt from his face. They needed him, truly they did?

~*~

Jared registered the feet in their scuffed boots a few minutes after they came into the field of his vision. He slowly raised blank eyes, taking in the ripped denim, the battered belt, and the faded T, till he met the gaze of Dravid’s pale blue eyes.
“Lo”.
“Little one”. Dravid placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Want to get out of here?”
“Can we?” Jared gulped. “I mean, the… the Investigators are letting us go?” Years of flight warred with the new knowledge, and he still whispered the name. Dravid caught the abortive gesture of the left hand to throat, found himself almost echoing it himself. The siblings ruefully grinned at each other.
“Yeah, they’re letting us go”.
“Bram?” If anything Jared whispered that name even quieter.
“Gone”.
“Oh”. Jared still wasn’t sure what he felt about that on a purely personal level, but he was sad for his brother, because he knew that despite everything, Veed had still loved the guy.

At the bottom of the steps, Jared stopped and turned, looking up at the statue above the entrance. How had it ever scared him? A little self consciously he flexed the muscles in his back, glorying at the powerful beat, smiling as the autumn leaves swirled in the downdraft of feathers.
“It’s a pity Bram never…” Jared trailed off, unsure of what he could say on the subject without causing more pain, then started again. “I miss him, I wish he could have experienced the truth of this, of us. Why did he have to change like that? What went wrong to make him… like he was?”
“I don’t know what happened ‘Red, not properly, and Bram wouldn’t even have seen what he did as evil, but I don’t doubt that it could happen to us all.”
“Even angels?”
Dravid slung his arm around Jared’s shoulder. “Even us.”