the remarkable misfortunes of ryan ross

Chapter 1 - A Story About Monsters

"Listen to me you little shit!" The ruby red look on the king's robust cheeks as he shouted down toward his son would have terrified anyone who wasn't named Brendon Urie.

It didn't scare Brendon though because he had been raised by that face; he had seen that face at its weakest points, and he knew that face loved him. Sadly, the naked boy the king had grasped by the wrists did not share such comforts. Tears streaked his gingerbread skin and wet the long shaggy tips of his sandy blonde hair.

The king thrust his finger at the trembling boy's loins. "What is that?" he roared towards his son. "Is that a vagina? Is that a cunt?"

Brendon sighed, "No father, it certainly is not. If you were to turn him around however --

"Then what, pray tell, was he doing in your bed?" the king interrupted, lurching his entire body into the sentence. The boy at the end of the king's arm whimpered as the large man crushed down on his wrist.

"I think you're hurting him," Brendon stated, his voice stoic and matter of fact. "If you break his hand, he won't be able to clean the ashes from our hearths and haul them to the forest paths. Seeing as that is his only job, with a broken hand he won't be much use to you at all anymore. So I would advise that you loosen your grip. He has done nothing wrong. He isn't of my persuasion. He was merely in my bed doing things that I had asked him to do. He is a good and loyal servant, and his family has worked in this palace for several DECADES."

Brendon prayed his calm, methodical reasoning would spare the boy. He had always gotten along with him, and in Brendon's mind this was all senseless. He was not attracted to women; his father had known that since he was 14 and yet feigned shock each time it was pointed out.

It was harder for Brendon because he was constantly being compared to his brother Brent. He hated Brent, and sometimes felt bad for that. He shouldn't hate his own brother, let alone his twin brother.

At least they looked nothing alike. He thanked heaven everyday that they had been born fraternal twins and not identical because he would have been scarred for life if he had to look at Brent's face each time he used a mirror.

"Then again," Brent drolled, leaning up against the doorway of the room smirking at his brother's frustration, "If you were to break the boy's wrist, it would prevent him from ever using that hand in the future to, uh, 'pervert' my brother... so to speak."

The boy in the king's grasp whipped his head to stare at the drawling voice in horror. Brent snorted under his breath, and snaked his hand to his own mouth to blow the boy a kiss. If sarcasm could kill the servant would have died on the spot.

Yes, Brendon was always compared to Brent, and he hated Brent. If the word hate were written on every grain of sand in the Arabian desert it would STILL not equal the amount of pure, unadulterated loathing he had for the venomous creature standing in his doorway.

He had realized he hated Brent when they were both 8 years old. He had wandered out into the forest which was a place neither of them were allowed to go but still seemed to spend half of their childhoods there.

Everything was so beautiful that day; the pigments were so saturated with color that the grass literally shimmered in the sunlight. It was perfect except for the horrid stench that filled his nostrils.

He hadn't been able to find his brother all day, and that was never a good thing. This stench wasn't a good thing either, and he worried that the two were connected. It smelled like rotting copper, if metal could rot. He choked a little but kept going until he found the same spot he and his brother always went to when in the forest.

It was a beautiful clearing with a single awkward tree in the center. Awkward because, halfway through growing, the tree had taken a sharp twist to the side before finishing its ascent. It looked like a crooked elbow in the middle of the trunk.

Best of all, even better than the crooked trunk, the bottom of the tree's base was hollow and Brendon was able to sneak inside and hide there. The opening was small and usually covered in shrubs. Not even Brent knew about the base of the tree, and if Brendon could help it... he never would.

But that day, NOTHING about the tree was beautiful, because it was decorated with dozens of dead animal bodies. Brendon's heart stopped for a second, skipping a beat as though his whole person had slammed against a wall.

There were at least 24 animals, strung in the branches of the tree, and several more dead on the ground. Some had decayed entirely, and some were still bleeding.

Brendon recognized several animals from the palace, and a few had obviously come from the forest.

Then, out of sheer devastation, his knees started to go weak when he recognized Nina, his cat, strung by her left hind paw. She had been crushed in the middle and her innards hung dully from her mouth.

Tears welled in his eyes, but he was too terrified to make a sound, too afraid that he too could be strung up on the tree by whatever monster did this.

Brent was bent over, never aware of Brendon; he held a rabbit in his hands and was scooping out the animal's eye with the tip of an archery arrow. The rabbit was still alive.

That day was the last time Brendon ever ate meat, and it was the first time he had ever truly HATED his brother.

"P-p-please your majesty," the servant boy's voice snapped Brendon back to the present, "I'll never touch him again. I'll say no when he asks if that is your wish. Please, have mercy."

Brendon started to glare in Brent's direction, but then quailed at the look on his face. It was the same look he had when scooping out the eyes of that rabbit eight years ago. Brent was enjoying this.

"Oh, I believe you," the words dripped from Brent's lips. "My father, however, might want to make sure. Right father? It's better to be certain than to leave ANYTHING to chance. You always taught me that. A real king does what has to be done, regardless of how he personally feels."

The snapping sound made Brendon sick to his stomach. It was quick, more of a popping really, but Brendon felt something odd that he hadn't felt in a long while when thinking of the servants.

He felt pity. He felt deep, searing guilt as he watched the boy take his damaged wrist into his hand. It was broken right below the hand, severed clean and was held to the boy's body only by skin. The limb would never work right again.

The boy stared at his life altering injury, as though trying to actually take in that it had just happened to HIM. He wasn't screaming in pain yet, and Brendon figured this was because his body hadn't had the needed time to react.

"You're fired," the king stated in a very matter of fact manner. "Zack," the king turned to Brendon's personal manservant, a brute of a man in his mid 30's, "Take this former employee to the dungeons. He will be charged with treason."

"No," the boy looked at Brendon, pleading with watery blue eyes, "Brendon, please, don't let them do this to me."

Brendon's heart might have broke had it not already been hardened to such scenes. His father had always been prone to histrionics. But, whatever he felt, Brendon didn't let it show. If he did, he knew it would only be worse for the boy. Instead he turned away and tried to find something interesting in the rippled window panes of his bedroom. He heard the sick thud of the king's foot shove itself against the former servant's ribcage.

"Don't you dare address my son so informally," the king snapped, and then the boy was dragged from the room.

Brendon watched in silence, noting that the boy's eyes were locked firmly against his, and noting the snapped hand as it dangled and flopped like a fish.

Even Zack seemed to cringe at the mutilated body part, but then again, it was always hard to tell with Zack. He was a very stoic fellow and, as an employee of the crown, he always tried to keep his emotions more or less on the inside.

"Don't you have business to tend to?" the King glowered in Brent's direction. "You begged to be granted hiring responsibilities and those responsibilities have been granted to you. Go hire a guard or something, but I do not wish to see your face for a while."

"Yes, father." One of Brent's best friends, Bruiser, was a member of the royal guard, and Brent had begged to be allowed to oversee the hiring process as a favor to his friend. On his 16th birthday he had managed to convince his father to allow him to occasionally accompany the men on their local scouting and vetting ventures.

Brent cut a cold smile and left to follow alongside Zack. The only people left in the room were Brendon and his father.

It was silent for awhile until Brendon finally cut into the silence with his voice, still not turning away from the window.

"When I was little," he kept his voice as steady as possible, "I was afraid of monsters, and you tried to comfort me, telling me that they weren't real."

"I --" His father stopped himself because he didn't really know what to say.

"But you lied to me. There are monsters; they just don't live under beds." Brendon turned to burrow his eyes into his father. He wanted the man to realize exactly what he had done. The king's face never changed, and Brendon sighed. Maybe it was useless.

He had used the word 'monster' as a defense tactic against his father since he was a small child, because it had always seemed to be the one word that broke through the man's dense exterior... maybe it was losing its effectiveness. It would all depend on what his father said next.

"Brendon," his father's voice was calm but sad, "Maybe I've been too hard on you." The king walked over to Brendon's bed and sat next to him, looking out the window as well, trying to find the spot that Brendon found so interesting.

"I don't think I'm the one you were being hard on." Brendon swallowed something that wasn't actually there and lowered his head toward his lap.

"You're still young. Maybe – maybe you should be allowed to get some of this out of your system. I'm – I don't want you to think of me as a monster. I love you." The king placed his arm around Brendon's shoulder. The boy neither fought it off nor accepted it, and something inside his father cringed. Maybe it was guilt, or maybe it was the use of the word 'monster', but he felt like he had something to prove to his son, and he would do so.

"Let's make a deal," the king whispered into the boy's ear. "I'm going to give you and Brent an early birthday present. How does that sound?"

"Material things aren't going to give anyone back the use of their hand." Brendon spoke sharply and clearly, making sure that the words prodded at his father.

"Well, how about this. I'll compromise, because I'm NOT a monster; I am a rational human being. I'll give you one year to get this out of your system. In fact, I will find you a person for the specific purpose of getting this out of your system. How does that sound?"

Brendon remained silent, though he honestly wanted to scream out how ridiculous and cynical he thought the idea was. Still, he bit his tongue, outbursts wouldn't make things any better.

"A, um, plaything so to speak." His father continued, "After one year, I'll get rid of that person. But – But do try to stick to this one person, and no one else. Certainly not the other servants because goodness knows I can't get rid of the whole staff."

Brendon rolled his eyes but still remained silent.

"In exchange, you and your brother keep this silly obsession of yours a secret. I don't want anyone outside the castle to know what is going on. Period. If the Warwicks, or especially the French found out about this, it -- it would be considered a great weakness."

"I hate always hearing about the French in every single conversation."

"Well, if our negotiations turn out, your marriage will probably serve to solidify our alliance with them... whether you hate it or not."

"And that is pretty much the reason I hate hearing about the French."

"Why do you have to be so harsh when I am in the process of offering you a present!"

"People aren't things. You don't give them for presents." Brendon's voice was cold, but not as cold as he personally thought it should be.

"Well, that is your option," His father withdrew his arm from around the boy's neck. "Take that option or start having sex with women."

"I'd rather be celibate."

"Then be celibate, but that is your only other choice. If I catch you again, I will have to take something you hold dear to get my point across... and I don't want to drag Zack's life into this." The king started to stand, but Brendon shot out a hand to hold onto the hem of the man's sleeve.

"Wait," Brendon hated himself for saying this, but he really did not want to be celibate for the next year, and Zack was about the only friend he had in the palace. "I want approval on what he looks like. Okay?"

"We'll see," the king frowned. "Hopefully someone who could ease your way into girls? perhaps?"

Brendon didn't respond, possibly not even aware that the last sentence was supposed to be a question.

The king bent down and kissed his son on the top of his head before turning and leaving Brendon to continue staring out of the window. It was starting to drizzle. 'What a kingdom' Brendon thought to himself, 'doesn't look all that valuable a holding tonight.'

Brendon watched as people scurried along the streets trying to find shelter from the coming storm. He couldn't quite see the beautiful boy with the mouse brown hair struggling to keep up behind them as he frantically pattered away from a house that was smaller in its entire size than one chamber of Brendon's bedroom. He couldn't quite see him in the distance, but he would soon.