I won't leave you (Mal!Flynn, Ardal!Quinn, Susanna, Dermot) [Backstory]

[myeyesarehollow.livejournal.com]

Ardal was missing.

Malachy was sitting in the history class they happened to share, his leg jiggling unconsciously as he waited for Ardal to show. Every minute the clock ticked closer and closer to 8:30, the gaping pit of worry Mal felt in his stomach grew exponentially. And by 8:35 Mal knew there was something terribly wrong. Ardal didn't miss school. Mal remembered a day back when they were both twelve and Ardal was just the silly, dorky kid that Mal didn't have fuzzy feelings for. Ardal had come to school wearing makeup because he was trying to cover up the fact that he had chicken pox, he wanted to be in school so badly. Learning was his favourite thing. If it was taken away, Ardal felt he had nothing. If he wasn't in school, he was in trouble.

At 8:42, Malachy had had enough. He hadn't heard a word the teacher had said for the last twelve minutes, nor would he hear a word until he knew if Ardal was alright. And despite his newfound respect for history, he stood and collected his things, shoving them roughly into his bag.

"Malachy O'Reilly, what in God's name are you doing?!" Miss McLynn demanded.

"I'm leavin'." Mal explained, wondering if Miss McLynn really were so daft that she had to ask.

"Sit back down!" She demanded, but Malachy zipped his bag and he shouldered it, heading towards the door. "Malachy O'Reilly, I want you to return to your seat at once!"

"Eat me." Mal hissed back at her, and he left the classroom as quickly as he could.

Malachy didn't realise he was running. Autumn was now raging through Whitehead in full force, and dried leaves crunched under his feet as they moved with urgency, and his mind went along with it, hardly in a state to argue. He was preoccupied by terrible thoughts of all the things that could have befallen Ardal. And the absolute worst, was that he had somehow fallen victim to Rage's jealousy. If she took offence to Ardal's relationship with Mal, she could very easily take that out on Ardal. And Mal knew just how terrifying and unmerciful Rage could be. Rage had killed her own father. Ardal could be dead.

No.

Mal wouldn't let himself believe it. But his breath hitched in his throat anyway, and his feet propelled his body forward with yet more urgency. He didn't feel the cramp in his side. His burning lungs. His tired legs. He pushed ahead because nothing mattered but getting to Ardal.

Arriving at Ardal's home, he found the entire place dark and devoid of life. That was normal for this time of day when Mr and Mrs Quinn were at work, but Ardal would have been at school and he wasn't, and if he wasn't here either, that was a dire sign. Mal crested the porch and made short work of the front door, as there was hardly a lock in the world that could keep Malachy O'Reilly out. And he slipped cat-like into the house.

The Quinn household was not ostentatious in its set up, but it wasn't as haphazardly thrown together as Mal's own. There was a kind of demanding serenity about the place. As if the deeply ingrained lower-middle class desperation to crawl upwards through the ranks towards the aristocracy kept any of the chaos from the streets of Whitehead outside the walls of the house by nothing other than sheer willpower. Inside, everything was order. Too organised. A place for everything and everything in it's place, and that included the people who lived here, at least in the minds of Mr and Mrs Quinn. There was no mess. No clutter. Which made the simple note resting in the middle of the kitchen bench all the more obvious. And Mal made a beeline for it, grabbing it up in desperate hands.

Dermot,

Ardal's in Whiteabbey hospital and I can't reach you. When you get home from work, please meet me there. He's been badly injured.

-S

Not enough information. No details. The note was written in the scrawled handwriting of a woman who had clearly been panicking. Malachy felt as if he would never breathe again. Reading the words on the page confirmed his worst fears. His Ardal was hurt. Mal's throat constricted and threatened not to loosen again as he re-read the note, trembling with his hands as it was.

-badly injured.

"How badly!?" Mal screamed at the piece of paper, and when it neither answered nor seemed ashamed that it couldn't, Mal crumpled it and threw it as harshly as he could. The damn thing had the audacity to sail through the air leisurely anyway, as it had very little weight to it. By the time it had settled itself placidly on the floor in the corner of the kitchen, Malachy was heading for the door. Whiteabbey Hospital. Fuck.

Whiteabbey hospital was not closeby. It was about a half hour's drive out of Whitehead in the little village of Newtownabbey. On foot, it would take even longer. Not that this was about to stop Malachy. He was getting to Ardal, no matter what.

Malachy's own house was only a ten minute walk from the Quinn's. And because he ran, he made it in six. Once there, he was pleased to see his father's car in the driveway, and he knew there was a spare key hiding behind the number plate. He didn't bother to check under the car for bombs like his father always did. He was in far too much of a hurry. Malachy reached for the numberplate and he fished the key out quickly so he could jump into the car and before he was even settled, he twisted the key in the ignition. The car started up with a humble roar and Malachy had pulled out onto the open road before Angus O'Reilly realised from inside the house, that it was his car he heard, fading into the distance.

Malachy O'Reilly did not have a driver's license, but that didn't stop him from tearing down Belfast Road, past Whiteabbey and into Newtownabbey. No one stopped him and there would have been hell to pay if anyone had. Malachy was a man on a mission.

His parking job was sad, the car rolling to an abrupt stop, crookedly, somehow crossing the boundaries of the lines on both sides of the space. Malachy didn't notice or care. He leapt from the vehicle, not bothering to lock it. He jammed the key into his pocket while running, and when he caught sight of the front desk, he leaned forward onto it, breathing heavily even though he had recovered from his run. It wasn't about the run, it was about Ardal. "Ardal Quinn!" he demanded shortly.

"I'm sorry, Young Man?" The receptionist asked him. Her white hair was pulled into a tight bun and her nose was beak-like which gave her a look of disapproval even when she had a pleasant expression on her face. And she certainly was not displaying one of those at the moment. She had one eyebrow arched in the air, awaiting an explanation for his rudeness.

"I want to see Ardal Quinn, where is he?!"

"There is no need to shout." The receptionist said primly. She turned to her computer and keyed a few things in. She didn't look like she was in much of a rush about it, and after a few moments of her humming quietly to herself, Malachy was convinced she was playing computer solitare on her screen instead of looking to see what room Ardal was in.

"Where the fuck is he!?" Malachy hissed, slamming his hand down on the front counter. He wasn't leaning anymore. His expression was dark and dangerous.

"I'm looking." The woman replied. She was no more afraid of this sixteen-year-old upstart, than she was afraid of the goldfish that swam aimlessly around the large tank that stretched across the expanse of the wall behind her. "Ardal Quinn is in room 212, but at the request of his family, only they can-"

"I'm family." Malachy replied darkly, already heading towards an elevator which could take him to the second floor.

Ardal was lying in his room, feeling blissfully numb thanks to the mixture of painkillers he had been fed since being discovered in the alleyway by a passing bum. He wasn't about to judge that. The man who had found him had gone to a nearby bar and called for an ambulance at once, which was more than most people would have done. They probably assumed Ardal was some troubled youth, or a drugged out loser, not a good kid who just happened to fall in love with someone who had once run with a bad crowd. His odd abscence of pain now, was overshadowed by the fact that he had been stuck in that alley for over ten hours, unable to move and, by the end, scream for help. The memory of pain hung over everything, and when he added that to the fact that his parents were now expressly forbidding him to see Malachy O'Reilly again, feeling numb wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

When Mal's face appeared in the window of the door to his room, Ardal's face split into a smile that would have caused him a great deal of pain, if it weren't for the opiates that cut off those signals to his brain. Mal felt such relief at seeing Ardal smile, and he pushed through the door, trying to take in the extent of Ardal's injuries. Mal had seen enough violence to know the bruises blooming purple and black on Ardal's face had to come from a beating. But who in the world would have done such a thing?

The second Mal entered the room, Dermot and Susanna Quinn were on their feet, protesting his presence. "You can't be here, O'Reilly." Dermot growled at him.

"The fuck I can't!" Mal protested. "I came to see Ardal. Ardal, what happened?"

Ardal opened his mouth to speak, but Susanna was faster. "Look what happened to my boy because of you!"

"Me!" Mal was incredulous. He would never hurt Ardal. He would break his own fingers before he did so. "I didn't do this! I didn't know about it until this morning!"

Ardal gave Flynn a sympathetic look. "Mal, I-"

Once again, Ardal was cut off. "Your sadistic friends found him and beat him." Dermot glared daggers at Mal. "Because of you."

"My friends?" Mal was quieter now, his anger diminishing in the wake of the idea that this could have been his fault.

"Your devil of a brother, Frances!" Susanna screeched. "You stay the hell away from my son!" Both Ardal and Mal when pale at her barked order, and Ardal looked like he had something he wanted to say, but he wasn't assertive enough to yell over his arguing parents.

"Frankie!? But I-"

"Get out!" Dermot yelled. "If you ever come near him again, I'll shoot you."

Mal raised his eyebrows. "If you honestly think that's going to work, you're off the fuckin' biff, Mate."

"We'll call the police!" Susanna added. "You have a record with them, don't you?"

"No. I don't!" He had been questioned, but never charged, thank you very much.

"Get out!" Dermot yelled again. And at that, Mal had had enough.

"That's it. I'm fuckin' through with this shit." He grabbed Dermot and Susanna's arms and he dragged them into the hall. They were surprised by how strong he was, and they didn't have time to object. Mal pushed them hard, and then he slammed the door, shoving a chair underneath the handle so that they couldn't get in. Then, to drive it home, he flipped the the bird at their shocked faces through the window, before turning to Ardal. "Oh, Ardal..." He climbed onto the bed, completely unashamed. "What happened."

Ardal was still staring at Mal, frozen in shock. "Did you just lock my parents in the hallway?"

"They were pissing me off. They wouldn't let you talk and I want to see you! Ardal, come on. What happened?" Mal looked down at Ardal earnestly. He reached out for Ardal's hand. "Jesus, someone put you through the wars."

"Frankie." Ardal said then, frowning at the memory. "Said I wasn't supposed to come near you again. And my parents seem to agree-"

"Well they can, all of them, go fuck themselves, or goats, or whatever the shit gets them off so that they'll leave us alone." Malachy hissed, his face dark.

"Goats?" Ardal whispered.

"I knew a guy." Mal shrugged. "Ardal...Frankie said this was because of me."

"I'm poisoning your mind."

"That's bull! You make me want to be a better person." Mal sighed. "Frankie doesn't want me to be one. Ardal, I am so sorry..." Ardal was lying in a bed, broken, because of what Mal's brother had done to him. Because Ardal had shown Mal what friendship actually meant. Because Ardal had given Malachy the courage to change. "We'll have to find a way to get around them."

"Get around them?" Knowing that Mal wasn't giving up on them...that he still wanted to be with Ardal even though there were clearly going to be roadblocks...that gave Ardal hope. And some of the pain from the memories of his ordeal lessened. "You want to get around them?"

"'Course." Mal whispered. And then he leaned down and, very carefully, he pressed his lips up against Ardal's forehead in a gentle kiss. "I'm not staying away from you." He hadn't said he loved Ardal yet. It felt weird to say it to a boy. He knew that he felt more strongly for Ardal than he had for Rage, and he had said it to her lots of times. As far as he knew what love was at sixteen, he knew he felt it for Ardal. He hoped that his words and actions got that across until he felt comfortable enough to say it. All of this was new to him.

"I don't want you to." Ardal said, his voice small. And then out of nowhere, because he could, he let himself feel vulnerable and scared. "I thought they were going to kill me. Mal, they said they will if I go near you again."

"They won't." Mal said, his teeth clenched. "Ardal, they won't lay a finger on you." Mal would see to that. He had been trained with them, after all. He knew how to defend himself, and he could certainly defend Ardal too. "They won't get a bloody chance."

"You'll protect me?" Ardal was half-joking, half-serious.

"Too right, I will."

"Mal...just don't...don't do anything stupid."

"I ain't stupid!" Mal protested, actually managing to sound like he rather was. "I won't do a thing to them unless they make it necessary. We'll just be careful. Keep things to ourselves." Mal kissed Ardal again.

"Okay." Ardal nodded. "We can do that."

Mal opened his mouth and he was about to ask Ardal just how hurt he really was, but the Quinns reappeared outside the hospital room and they had brought security with them. "Oh shit!" He hissed.

"Go!" Ardal whispered earnestly. "I'll call you, okay. I can go home tomorrow." Mal nodded and then he ran for the window as the security guard barked orders at him that he didn't bother to hear. "Mal, don't go that way!!"

"Why not?" Mal opened the window and he glanced outside. Perfect.

"Because we're on the bloody second floor!" Ardal protested, his heart in his throat.

Mal flashed him a grin, his expression cheeky. "Yeah, but I'm awesome." And he blew Ardal a kiss, and flipped the Quinn's off again before ducking his thin body out of the window and onto the ledge that ran around the building. There were people outside who pointed up at him, and he wiggled his fingers at them as they stared at him in awe.

Mal wasn't afraid of heights, and it was easy enough to scale along the ledge until he reached a tree that was close enough to grab on to, when he didn't fear falling. Once he reached the tree, Malachy jumped the small distance between the ledge and a thick limb, and then he swung himself down to the ground easily. He had done it all without a scratch.

Upon reaching his father's car, Mal climbed inside. His drive home was much slower and less insistent than his race to the hospital. He had a lot to think about. His Ardal had been hurt by Frankie and Mal didn't know what to do about that. He lived with Frankie. And Ardal had seemed alright, but he had looked so bad... And Mal knew Frankie enough to know that the injuries would not be contained to Ardal's face. Not at all. As Mal drove, he felt himself becoming more and more upset and by the time he arrived at home, he was nearly overcome with emotion.

Once he reached his room, Malachy locked the door and he collapsed on his bed. He didn't cry, but he still grieved that Ardal was feeling pain. And, when he had spent hours in a state of constant worry, fear and anguish, he reached for his guitar. And as the sun set on Whitehead, Malachy played and found solace in music.