Brotherhood

Late Night Visitor

            "Are you alright?" One asked. "Sorry to barge in, but you took quite a tumble, and I was concerned.

"Huh?" Blake blinked and finally made out One's offered hand in the faint light. "Oh. Thanks." He took it, allowing One to help him up. Of course. Adam had both the code to his gate, and the key to his door. That's how One had gotten in. Simple. Blake blushed in embarrassment. "You startled me, and..."

"You've been drinking."

Blake grimaced. "Yeah, I guess I'm a little drunk."

"You appear to have consumed over half of that bottle," One pointed out. "Between that, your breath, your slurring, and the way you're currently swaying, I suspect 'a little drunk' doesn't quite cover it. You're steaming pissed, mate!"

"Um..." Blake had no idea what the etiquette for this situation was. He stumbled towards the wall, fumbled around until he found the switch, and flicked it on. There was One, standing in his living room, looking with obvious disapproval at the nearly empty bottle on the table. The young Brit apparently had excellent night vision, to have seen that in the darkness. Blake moved quickly around the room, tossing clothing and take-out boxes off of one of the recliners to clear a place for his guest. "Sorry. Have a seat."

"Ta." One sat down. He was once more neatly dressed, wearing a dark gray dress shirt, black tie, and grey dress slacks with black leather shoes. He had a diamond stud earing in his left ear and a ruby ring on the ring finger of his right hand. His short chestnut hair was neatly combed, and his gray eyes seemed to be studying Blake. An oddly gaudy metal bracelet was snug around his right wrist. Blake supposed it had some sort of sentimental value, as it didn't seem to go along with the rest of his prim and proper outfit. In fact, it looked as out of place on One as One himself did in Blake's messy living room.

Silence fell. Blake stared at One, and One simply stared back. Blake squirmed. "Ok, what the fuck were you doing outside of my house at two o'clock in the morning?" Blake finally blurted out.

"Waiting for you to call me."

"You knew I'd call you?"

"I did."

"How?"

"Because I knew you wouldn't call Seven," One explained. "My brother asked for his space, and based on what he's told us about you, Mr. Shelton, I believed you would respect his wishes. But I also knew that you desperately wanted to speak with him. Since you couldn't call him, I was the logical person you would call, especially since mine is the only contact number we provided Mr. Daly. You should know, Five very much wanted to be present. He seems to think you might drink and..." His eyes flicked towards the bottle. "Well. I know you were... attached to our brother." One grimaced and looked up at Blake. "The truth is that Five was worried you might do your nut. But I ordered him to stay with Seven. I rather think he needs Five's protection tonight more than I do, don't you?"

Blake blinked slowly at One. "...What?"

One sighed. "Why don't you ask me whatever it is you wish to know?"

"Why the hell won't Adam use his own name?"

"Because he's left his old life behind him," One explained. "We all did. We had to, in order to go on. None of us can return to what we were, and lingering in the past only causes pain. What we are now, it's important that we stay together, and we can't do that if we're locked into our individual pasts. So we go on, together, and we're stronger for it." He paused. "It really is best if you stop thinking of him as Adam and start actually calling him Seven. If you forget and call him by his old name, it will only cause him pain."