My One and Lonely || Brallon/Ryden

Chapter 5: Rejection

Brendon's fingers were worming their way through his hair and began to dig into his scalp. All be longer for was pain. Ryan didn't come in last night and Brendon was worried.

He considered bringing it up with Dr Johnsten though he was afraid of what the response might be. His bedsheets were tightly wrapped around his figure and dark circles found themselves around his eyes. He couldn't bring himself to fall asleep without Ryan by his side.

He was destroyed without Ryan. He'd lost his breath countless times, in fact, he was losing his breath right now. Between the loss of breath and fear, Brendon didn't realise his nails had dug into his skin and had drawn blood. His tears soaked into the mattress.

Brendon had never felt so helpless. Randy was softly groaning in his bunk, which just made Brendon more uncomfortable.

Dr Johnsten however, was on his office, once again looking through Brendon's old journals to try and find a way to help him. He was completely oblivious to what was going on, in fact, he through all the patients were still asleep. He had arrived early to work on this case.

None of the old journals were a help to him, it seemed. They all spoke of happy times with Ryan. Brendon had never had issues with Ryan before. Ryan was his rock, his constant. And now his support was gone, Brendon was crumbling, and Dr Johnsten was scrambling to try and collect the pieces.

Something had happened, and obviously that altered the delusions, but Brendon hadn't written about it at all. There was nothing that could've seemed to lead to this.

The doctor ran his hand through his thinning hair in frustration, before standing up and walking to the nurse's station. "I need help."

"With?" One of them asked.

"Brendon."

The nurse groaned. "No one can help with Brendon."

Dr Johnsten opened his notebook. "Look, he's gotten quite worse in a very short period of time, and I need you to tell me if you've seen anything that could have caused that."

"I don't know. He doesn't talk about Ryan as much. Usually I get to hear all about him."

"Ryan and Brendon are having a bit of a fight..."

One of the nurses gasped. "No way!"

"They are..."

"That's crazy!" She was honestly astounded. "Haven't they been like, 10 years without a fight?!"

"That's the issue."

"Right." She nodded. Some people would call it weird how involved the staff were in Brendon's imaginary relationship. But when you work in a mental ward, you take gossip where you can get it.

"Have you asked him?" One of them asked.

"We've had a few conversations, but he's quite a wreck at the moment."

The doctor heard a small whimper from behind him.

He quickly spun around.

Brendon had pools of tears in his eyes, still dressed in his pyjamas. He'd come for help, but instead walked into a conversation where he'd assumed that they were making fun of him. Like so many others before them.

He whimpered again before racing off.

"Brendon!" Dr Johnsten found himself chasing after him.

Brendon was back in his bunk room, curled up into a ball with no awareness as to what was going on around him.

"Brendon, let's talk." The doctor sighed. "I'm sorry you had to witness that."

Brendon didn't take any notice to the doctor.