Rogue's Romance

Summary: A stoic orphan scrounging to make ends meet bullies a cocky prep for money. What happens when the fate of these two enemies intertwines when booze becomes an object of interest? Why, clich romance of course.

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A Rogue's Romance

Prologue

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"Mama! Mama, stop! Don't do this, please!" Brandon pleaded relentlessly. He could have easily shoved the old woman aside, easily have grabbed her by her wrists and flung her away from him. He could demanded she leave him be, to stop pushing him, stop beating at his chest, to stop doing what she was doing.

"Just leave! Leave this house! Go away! Forever! Go! Go!" She screamed, pushing and shoving at the tall boy, her eyes dripping tears, small rivers to travel the wrinkles of her dark cheeks. It damn near broke his heart, to see his mother so upset. He had never seen her so. Had never seen the fear in her brown eyes, had never seen such, such hate before.

"Mama, please. We can talk about this," he tried reasoning. His mother was always so understanding.

"You're the devil, and I won't have you in my house--" her voice broke and she bit her fist before pushing the boy further, backing him against the door.

Brandon felt the cold glass of the window, the detailed wood of the door, the metal of the latch. "Mama..." Tears stung his eyes. Any other day, any other time, any other circumstance, Brandon would never have cried. The tears hurt. They hurt him so bad and they stung more when he watched her fingers, dry and clammy, grip the latch and pull it down. The wind bit into his skin and the snow wetted the edge of his pants legs when she pushed him out. "Please."

A video camera, given to him as a birthday present was thrown into his chest and he caught it quickly, gazing over the silver exterior and remembering seeing it elsewhere. He understood his mother's concerns, he truly did. But she had no clue what had happened to him. She was only worried about the girl in the video. A girl she didn't even know.

"I'm not your Mama," she said sadly, shutting the door and when Brandon heard the lock he threw himself against its surface, banging and pleading to the woman behind it.

"Do you know what they did to me? Hah? They made me, Mama! If I didn't, if I didn't do it-"

"What you did...you're a monster--" her sobs cut her off again and she ran from the door, locking all other entrances to the house, turning off all lights, and barricading herself in the upstairs bathroom.

"Mama!"

"I'm not your mama!"

"MAMA!"

"I'M NOT YOUR MAMA!"

The tears fell from his eyes, brilliant blue pools drowning in warm salty waters that froze to his lashes in seconds from the winter air. He threw himself against the door and slammed his fists into the wood, over and over and over again until he broke his skin and the warm sensation of blood coated his fingers, pale flesh wrapped in crimson ribbon. He leaned his forehead against the door, clenching his teeth before sighing, shivering, and pulling the hair from his eyes. He felt for the memories, for the feelings left in this house. He felt for the emotions riding through the holidays and he felt for the love expressed from family member to family member.

"You're one of us too," his father had said. "No matter what anyone tells you."

"Fuck," he whispered, shivering again and placing his hands on the door.

I just want to take it with me.

Take what?

All of it.

Brandon tried his hardest, tried to absorb the warmth and love that had been shared in this house for generations.

It's not yours to take.

Shut up!

The tears still stung, and now his knuckles bled onto the front porch and his jeans and he sighed brokenly. He ceased in his endeavor to relinquish all happy memories of his from the home and took to the streets. The wind was sharp, the snow was deep, and the air was frozen. Brandon hugged his camera to his chest within his hooded sweatshirt and braved the chill to allow his hand to search the confines of his sweater and jeans pockets. He had enough money for either a bus ride to a friend's, or a call to someone else. In the dark and eerie coldness of the dead city, quieted with a Sunday night, a bus seemed a miracle to ask for, and in this weather. A call to someone else it was.

His hands shook, his stomach churned, and his legs were still sore. His wrists burned and showed a lovely pink color against the snow-white skin as he hastily deposited a few coins into the phone kiosk and waited for the line to pick up.

Fuck me, he thought heatedly. Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me...fuck my life, fuck everything in it, fuck it all, fuck this world, fuck people, fuck those motherfuckers who did this to me, fuck it all man! He punched the kiosk, the poor unsuspecting inanimate object receiving quite the nice little dent.

"Come on, fuckin' pick up man. Pick up!"

As if on queue, a voice sounded from the other side, low and groggy. "Who the hell is it?"

Thank fucking God. "Leo?" A gust of wind sent a shiver through his body and he huddled up against the kiosk, wishing pitifully for a warmer coat.

"Brandon?" The voice sounded more alert, surprised. "Is that you?"

"Fuck, God," he said with relief. "You said I could come to you if there was ever anything I needed right?"

"Brandon it is 2:30 in the morning--"

"Right?" Brandon repeated eagerly. "You said--"

"Yes, yes, okay, yes. What is it you need Brandon? Did you get into any trouble? What is it?"

"I--I--" Brandon licked his lips, scraped off the frozen tears, and sighed dejectedly. Does he tell Leo of the horrific month he'd been having? Does he tell this revered man every horrible, sickening, deplorable thing that he had witnessed and even partook in in these past three weeks? Does he tell him about his father's death, his mother's accusations, his brother's involvement in illicit gang activity?

"Come on Brandon, it's the middle of the night. What do you want?" The man demanded, voice rising from annoyance.

"A ride," he blurted, swallowing down the memories and sticking them into the back of his mind for the mean time. "A...a place to stay...just for tonight." He hesitated before adding a quick 'please' to the end of his speech.

There was a sigh, one of agitation, a slight annoyance, but there came a reassuring answer. "Where are you?"

Brandon's heart skipped a beat and he was thankful he would not be spending this night on the streets.

An hour found Brandon in the passenger seat of his head master's rather expensive vehicle. A Porsche, to be precise. Sleek, black, and sexy and smelled of the driver's just as spendy cologne. Brandon admired the man's economical status, his ability to just fling money wherever he wanted, to purchase anything he wanted; what Brandon wouldn't give to live the high life like Leo.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?" Leo's gruff voice pulled Brandon from his thoughts and he sighed, a total of three times since entering the vehicle, and drew a design into the fog he produced on the window with his breath. "Don't do that," Leo ordered, smacking the boy on the shoulder. "You'll smear the window. Now tell me what happened that I have to get out of bed at 2:30 in the fucking morning and retrieve your narrow behind. Don't you have friends?"

"My friends don't have cars," Brandon muttered, chewing on the inside of his cheek, remembering he had one friend with a car, but said friend was completely unreliable and usually intoxicated a majority of the time. "I'm 15, remember?"

"15 and already getting kicked out of your house. And for what? I'm not asking again."

"I don't know!" Brandon yelled abruptly, throwing his arms in the air. "She just...threw me out. Like...I don't know why."

You know exactly why.

Christ, just shut the fuck up. For five minutes.

What's the magic word?

"Was there anything you said or did?" Leo asked curiously as they stopped at a flashing yellow light. It had begun to snow again and Brandon secretly admired the white flakes bouncing by under the street lamps.

"I told her three weeks ago I was part gay. I guess that could be the reason," he lied.

"Part gay? Is that what they're calling it these days?" Leo said with a humorous 'hmph'.

"I still like girls," Brandon said defensively, crossing his arms. "I just like boys too." He took to staring out the window, at the passers-by left in the cold due to work, closing bars, and homelessness. They looked like zombies, just walking in the cold like that. Like they were dead, yet still felt the need to find purpose, to keep going.

"And you think that's why your mother threw you out? Strange. She seemed like such an understanding woman..."

"Yeah well, goes to show you who can blindside you in the end." Every foul word he uttered of the woman who had taken him in as her own was like sticking a nail through his heart, and he felt it rip apart within his chest.

Silence grew in the darkened interior of the Porsche, and Brandon tried to retain his thoughts. They flew from him, unbound and free to roam as he repressed memories of the people he had come to call his family, his mother, his father, his sister his...his brother. It was all his fucking fault. It was all Deshaun's fault. Deshaun did it. It was his fault their father was dead, his fault Brandon was taken away, all his fault.

"I fucked up," Brandon said, eyes gluing themselves to the automatic window button. "I fucked up real bad."

"What do you plan to do? Run away?"

"No," Brandon said with another sigh. "I guess I'll just have to find my own way."

Leo nodded, flipping on his blinker though there was hardly a soul to care for the warning of his turn. "How? The law doesn't think too kindly of children living on their own."

"I'm not a child!"

"You're not an adult either," Leo countered, taking his eyes from the road a moment so as to meet Brandon, failing to make eye contact until he ordered the boy to raise his head. "If she doesn't want you, then she's going to have to report you to the county and give up all her rights. You'll be a ward of the state again--"

"I don't want that! I don't want to go to another family, or a fucking group home. I just wanna...I wanna..."

"What do you want to do, Brandon?" Leo asked expectantly and the boy sighed a thousandth sigh.

"There's gotta be a way, Leo. You could talk to them--"

"Me?"

"You're an important figure. Please, I just wanna be on my own. I hear you can live on your own if you can support yourself and still go to school. I got a friend, says he can get me a job at the factory and--"

"And where would you stay until you got this job. On the streets?"

"I can find a place..."

"And school? How do you suppose you would continue attending if your mother, in cutting off ties to you, halted your tuition? I don't suppose you have $40,000 just laying around do you?"

An agitated sigh. Leo was right. Brandon would have to switch schools if he wanted to live on his own. Luke's father would no doubt offer him a place to stay permanently but Brandon had a sense of pride, dammit, and he'd be damned if he let his friend take care of him. It was his problem.

Ah but the money was a thing. Acquiring the job he stated was a snowball's chance in hell. The factory wanted full grown full time employees, not kids who needed to continue their schooling. His friend would need to use a silver tongue to get him in at part time. Brandon had a backup plan though in case the application process failed. A physical interview would be required but he was certain that upon seeing him, the employer would consider him more seriously. Brandon was, after all, quite tall for his age. At 15 he was already nearly six feet tall and he spent a fairly decent time staying active resulting in a notable strength for a teenager. He could work shipping in the factory and make two bucks more than the pussies on the line and all he would have to do was load boxes into trailers. Easy peasy.

"I can change schools. I'm not worried about school, as long as I graduate I don't care where I go."

"So you've got this planned out then?"

"Pretty much. I just...I just need something to help me out along the way..." Brandon's demeanor was slowly changing, and Leo noticed. He noticed the boy's broad shoulders slump, long fingers fiddle together, and tongue reach out to lick his upper lip, grazing lightly over the growing whiskers. He had matured quickly for his age, both physically and mentally, and Leo, honestly, had no doubt in his mind that Brandon could make it on his own. But he knew of the 'help' the teenager was asking for. He secretly relished the request.

"What do you need, Brandon?" Leo asked, a subtle coolness to his words that Brandon, in his excited predicament, unfortunately did not catch.

"Money," the boy said at length, turning near half his body towards the older man with the chilly blue eyes, and those chilly blue eyes nearly laughed themselves at the sight of Brandon's need. "Just a little bit. And I can pay it back. All of it. I can get the job, I'm sure--"

"Money? And just how much money are we talking about?"

"A couple...a couple grand. But that's it. And I can pay it back. I mean, I can give you payments every month, you know, like a bill, and then--"

"It's not a bill, Brandon," Leo interrupted, a smirk playing with the seriousness of the conversation. "It's a debt. And a big one." Brandon grumbled angrily and Leo rolled his eyes. "You are willing to do this? To work, go to school, try to maintain something of a normal teenage life, for the next three years?"

"Actually only like two and a half. There's only three months left of school. And I could work full time in the summer, so I could do double payments that season."

Leo pulled the car into the driveway, through the garage door, and into the darkness of his vehicle's holding. Turning the key he allowed the silence and dark to envelop them within the Porsche, letting the eerie cold night seep through his passenger's bones. Brandon was on edge, but he was not scared. Worried. But not scared. He didn't fear Leo though he remained prepared for anything that the man might do, say like, backhand him.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"For being a man about it," Leo said with a smile and exited the vehicle, waiting for the teenager to do the same before locking it. "Now let's get inside. It's fucking freezing out here."

Brandon followed suit, removing himself from the vehicle and eying the man hopefully. "So...does that mean--"

"I'll think about it. Don't get your hopes up . Like I said, you're 15, and the state might not feel as approving as I am. But, if you can convince a judge that you can be on your own and keep up your schooling, I'll consider giving you a loan. After all, I'm sure this upcoming millennium will prove quite...fruitful, hm?"

Brandon's heart leaped into his throat and the pain in his limbs became a distant memory the moment that glimmer of hope shined before him. Convince? Why, Brandon could convince a blind man to read Harry Potter, and he didn't even like the book himself. Of course, perhaps Brandon had been putting, well, a little too much faith into his plan. Had he taken into consideration just how much it cost to live on one's own, and just how much he, a teenager, would be making in a factory job, and just how much time he would need to take out for school, homework, sleep, and a social life?

At the moment, Brandon could only focus on one thing. Money and getting it.

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Well? What'd you think of the sorta prologue-y bit? Of Brandon, or what you know of now. The flow of the story, the description, lemme know what ya'll think of anything man. Review, follow, favorite, message, and all that other fun stuffs por favor :)