be your eyes

Luke let out a yawn as he made his way downtown. His camera thumped lightly against his chest as he hopped onto the sidewalk in order to avoid a group of boys speeding down the street on their skateboards.

He wondered if Killian was dashing around town somewhere on his own skateboard or doing some fancy tricks with it at that moment to try and impress bystanders like the attention-seeking idiot that he was. There was still an hour left before it was Reno’s time to perform on stage afterall, so he could only imagine what the guy was doing to kill time.

The lamps that lined the streets lit up, compensating for the sun that had disappeared over the horizon. Despite the growing darkness of the evening, the town was as lively as ever with people still walking about; their different voices as many as the stars that started to shine their lights in the neverending expanse that was the sky.

With a sudden urge to and capture the evening into tangible form, Luke lifted his camera up to his face.

However, before he could even focus his lens, someone bumped into him from behind, causing him to stumble forward a step.

“Hey, watch it!” A harsh voice reached his ears.

Luke straightened himself up before turning to fully face whoever it was that collided with him and had the nerve to make it sound like it was all his fault. Fine, so maybe he was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, but he didn’t stop abruptly or anything. Other people passed by him just fine. This guy was obviously looking for a fight. If he was, then Luke wasn’t going to back out of it either.

He glared at the man, not caring if the guy was over a head taller than he was and had three other friends along. Their arrogant poses and smug look on their faces practically yelled trouble. Luke hated it. People like these irritated him to no end.

“You better wipe that look off your damn face before I do it for you,” the man who was nearest to him growled, baring his teeth. Honestly, he almost sounded like Reno, but even Reno didn’t give off a vibe as disgustingly hostile as this and made Luke want to kick the soccer ball of that nearby kid into this guy’s face as much as this.

“Not until you apologize,” Luke said, voice hard.

“Why, you little brat,” the guy snarled, closing the space between him and Luke until they were almost touching. “You better watch that mouth of yours.”

Luke can feel the guy’s breath on his forehead. “I think you’re the one who should watch his mouth, especially since it reeks in more ways than one.”

That did it. The man’s face twisted into an angry scowl and lifted his right arm that had his hand balled into a tight fist. Luke remained unfazed and prepared to either be able to dodge it or get hit in the face with it.

However, before the punch could be delivered, the arm was stopped by another person in the group.

“Hey, enough. We’re wasting time on this midget. Look at him. This guy won’t be able to even put up a fight. Let’s hurry up to give our real target a piece of his own medicine.”

The guy hesitated for a moment before shaking his friend’s grip off with a “Tch!” He gave Luke one final death glare as he said, “You’re lucky this time, you weak little piece of trash,” before walking away and making sure to roughly collide shoulders with Luke.

Midget? Weak little piece of trash? Those guys are really asking for it!

Luke spun around to get the last word in, but stopped the instant he heard the group of guys talking amongst themselves.

“Hey, so the performance starts in an hour, right?” one asked.

“Yeah. The manager at the restaurant said that Reno Roslin’s scheduled for a performance tonight at eight,” another informed.

“Should be easy to catch him on his way there and beat him to death,” another one commented.

“Leave the death blow to me,” the person who bumped into him growled. “After what he did to me, I won’t let him crawl back out alive.”

Luke stood there, staring at the backs of the four figures in muted shock and horror. They were after Reno. Not only that but it was tonight of all nights.

“A scouting agent from a record company?” Luke repeated.

Reno nodded. “Apparently he heard the end of my jigs last night when he passed by, and since he was too busy then to sit and listen to me play again, he gave me his number and said to call him when I have another stage,” he explained, mimicking Luke’s action of snatching another handful of chips from the bag in Killian’s hand.

“Reno, Luke! It’s my favorite flavor and you guys are eating it all by yourselves” Killian whined. However, the complaint was pushed over to the side rather quickly by the complainer himself as a grin broke out. “That’s really cool though, Reno! So it’s practically like an audition!” he exclaimed excitedly. “So does that mean you’ll get to debut with your own album?”

“If he manages to impress the agent. Let’s not get our hopes up,” Luke said, popping a chip into his mouth.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Reno raised his voice, glaring at Luke. He stepped in front of his friends and pointed a chip that was held between two of his fingers at them. “I will impress him. He will accept me into his agency. You two better be there to witness it.” And in the chip went between his teeth with a loud crunch at the confident declaration.

Reno was going to be accepted into a recording company. He was going to debut. Despite his words that day, Luke had no doubt in his friend. That was why he wasn’t going to let these guys ruin it for Reno. Not on his watch he wasn’t. He knew how much Reno loved music and how hard he worked to reach his dreams. He understood that passion—a passion for something that you loved to do dearly. It was the same with him and photography. That was why he had to stop these guys before they reached his friend and hurt not only him physically but also his chance at seeing his dream become a reality.

“Stop right there,” Luke called out to the group.

The group turned around to face him.

“What do you want?” one of them asked. “We just let you go, do you want to get beaten up that badly?”

Sucking in a breath, Luke walked out in front of the group and turned back to face them—their faces a mixture of annoyed, surprised and confused. “I won’t let you go,” he said, voice firm. “I won’t let you hurt Reno.”

The men stared at each other before looking back at Luke.

“You for real?” the guy who bumped into him said, tone of voice mocking. “That guy actually has friends? What did he do, bribe you into it? Or did he threaten you into it and you can’t do anything about it since you’re so weak?

Luke bristled at the insult directed at both him and Reno, but tried his best to hide his anger from spilling over all at once. Instead, he silently stood his ground and gave the group the hardest glare he could muster.

One of the guys let out a sigh. “Looks like he’s serious.” He then stepped forward. “Look, kid, I’ll give you only until the count of three. If you don’t leave then don’t say that I didn’t warn you.”

“If you’ll even be able to say anything afterwards,” the guy who bumped into him earlier sneered. “Hey, how about we just save us time and beat him up right now? Then we’ll have a present to give Reno before we kick his arse down to hell. They can go together in a package.”

“You heard him,” the previous guy told him. “You really think Roslin’s worth protecting?”

Luke didn’t say anything and didn’t even flinched. His stance showed his determination of not moving.

“I’m going to count. One.”

He didn’t know what Reno did to make these guys hate him so much, but he didn’t care. Okay, he did care because that idiot was going to get an earful from him when they see each other. He knew that Reno had a temper and had a violent streak to him—something that got worse during Reno’s middle school days after the death of his mom. However, Reno was also his friend. A close friend to be precise. Probably the closest. He would never admit that out loud though. Despite all their fights and harsh words to each other, Luke knew that Reno would always have his back.

“Two.”

That was why, despite being the type of person who was always in his own little world and apathetic to others, he would always have the guy’s back too. He wasn't some saint who would willingly sacrifice himself for others. No, he was far from it. He had no trouble turning the other way when someone was in trouble so that he didn't need to get himself involved. But if it was his close friends; if it was Reno, then he would. That was why, if it meant getting beaten up by four guys, then so be it.

“Three.”

A punch was thrown his way. It hit the air just centimeters away from Luke’s face as he luckily managed to take a step back in time.

Only to bump into the broad chest of one of the other guys who somehow managed to make his way behind Luke.

Large, strong arms wrapped around him, locking him in place and a hand slapped onto his mouth to keep him from shouting.

“We need to take this somewhere else where there aren’t any people,” the person who had him in his hold, said.

Well, this was just great. These guys weren’t as stupid as he had hoped. It wouldn’t have been a huge problem if they openly fought here and now where there were people walking around. There might be a police nearby or someone would get help if not be a good citizen – and probably also stupid – to come stop the fight themselves. A place where there were no witnesses screamed death for him.

Luke struggled against the man’s hold, twisting this way and that with arms and legs flailing to hit the guy anywhere. He managed to kick the man hard enough on the shin to earn a yelp. Unfortunately, that was accompanied by a “Someone, make him stop moving!”

And the next thing he felt was a hard punch to the gut, knocking the wind out of him and causing him to nearly choke on his own saliva.

Darn it…

A few minutes later, Luke found himself tossed into a dark alley somewhere. He pushed himself up on his hands and knees, parts of his body aching from the rough toss.

He was about to stand up onto his feet, but got kicked hard in the abdomen, sending him sprawling on the ground again.

“You really are stupid. Should have ran home when we let you.”

Luke lifted his face up to give the person his best death glare.

The man’s face twisted into a mad scowl. “Don’t you dare look at me like that, you piece of shit!”

Another kick. This time at his face. Luke could taste the iron in his mouth as he coughed, splattering the ground below him with drops of blood.

Dang it…He was not going to die here. No way on earth was he going to die here. He hadn’t even put up a photography display and gallery of his own yet. He didn’t even get to listen to Reno’s singles yet. Heck, he didn’t even get to take Skywalker out for a walk with Killian like he had promised the guy just the other day or even get those photographs of Lacie he took to her yet.

“What’s wrong? Lost the fire you just a moment ago, eh?” the man mocked him, lifting his leg for a stomp.

But this time, Luke grabbed hold of the guy’s leg, taking the guy by surprise and causing him to trip over. He took this chance to dashed back out of the alley as the others were still too surprised to react, ducking past one person who tried to grab him.

He collided with someone when he burst out into the open.

“Whoa! Sorry there—Luke? ”

Surprised golden orbs stared into his frantic skyblue ones. “Killian—” He only managed to utter the name of his friend when hands grabbed him and roughly pulled him back to where he came from.

“Luke!”

He heard Killian call out his name as he was thrown back onto the ground.

“What do you think you guys are doing?” Killian yelled, anger seething through his words. “Let him go!”

“As if!”

Luke pushed himself back on his knees again and looked up to see Killian dodging a guy’s punch and kicking another guy in the abdomen. But then the scene was blocked by one of the men. The one who bumped into him earlier—the more openly hostile and hot tempered one of the group.

The sound of metal against concrete screeched in his ears. The man was dragging a bat at his side. Its metallic cries almost seem to mourn the fate of he who was on his knees. Luke froze in terror. Where…when? By the pile of trash over there? Curse his luck.

And cursing his luck was the only thing Luke had time to do before metal flashed before his eyes.