Story! part 2

Travis was awakened by the sound of Lenny whimpering like a lost dog.

"Lenny full. Cake. Travis help." Lenny had noticed Travis entering the room. Still surprised to hear Lenny looking him in the eye and speaking to him, Travis rubbed his eyes and slapped himself twice, once on each cheek. The pain was real, so he was not dreaming. Eager to not disappoint his brother and hoping to draw a conversation out of him, Travis hurried to the kitchen to get a slice of chocolate cake and a cup of water.

Lenny wolfed the cake down and asked for more (Less! Less!), but there was no more cake in the kitchen. Remembering the new advertisements made by 7-eleven, which had started selling cakes recently, Travis exclaimed "CAKE!" in glee and he sounded uncannily like Lenny. Not good. Travis then pulled the covers off Lenny and told him to follow.

"Cake here, Len. Come, follow."
"Come, follow." Lenny replied with a blank expression.
"Follow me to get cake, Len. Cake, me. Walk, cake."

In Lennyland, apparently, the opposite of walk was crawl. Lenny dropped to his knees and waited at Travis' foot. He'd forgotten.

"Stand!"

Lenny stood up and did a handstand, which surprised Travis so much that he nearly fell over with shock. Lenny's definition of words changed on a regular basis, and coherence was certainly not a way of life in Lennyland.

"Sit! Crawl!"

Lenny performed a flip with the gracefulness of a ballerina, landed firmly on his feet and started walking. If Lenny was one thing, he was highly obedient to his brother when he was responsive. Wordplay tackled, Travis started out of the house and towards 7-eleven, coaxing Lenny to follow him with mutters of "Crawl slow get cake".

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Tracy was still thinking about why things went all haywire on stage.

Finding no answer and suddenly reminded by the growling in her stomach that she had not eaten dinner due to the fear of regurgitating on stage, Tracy felt hungrier than ever. A quick search of the kitchen, however, revealed that the house was having a severe shortage of snacks.

7-eleven seemed like the only place in which she could satiate her hunger at this hour.

"Damn, I could eat a cow. Wish I could have some barbecued meat from that fat woman with the evil laugh in the third row though."

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Travis entered the 7-eleven, which was unusually crowded at 3 a.m. in the morning. There were two men shifting through the beer collection, an elderly woman walking aimlessly around the store, and an attractive but glum-looking young woman with blonde hair who was evidently starving, as she was carrying large boxes of crackers and a box of cake to the counter.

"Cake." Lenny drooled.
"Cake. Wait here. Stay. I mean, go!" Lenny stood motionless in response to this command, staring into the shelves.

The young woman was curiously staring at him. Travis nodded at her curtly, which drew a brilliant smile from her.

"Sorry if we're bothering you Miss, but my brother's autistic. He's largely incoherent most of the time." Travis said in a mild, apologetic tone.

Much to his surprise (and dismay), Lenny repeated after him.

"Sorry if we're bothering you Miss, but my brother's autistic. He's largely incoherent most of the time."

This unexpected response from Lenny drew much laughter in the store. Everyone had been listening in on their conversation. The mirth, although soothing the dreary winter night, did not last long. The two men drew revolvers from their coat pockets and shouted wildly, gesturing at the cashier to empty the register into a bag.

"SHUT UP AND NO TRYING TO CALL THE POLICE!" The thug shouted.
"SHUT UP!" Lenny shouted in response. Big trouble.
"Who do you think you are, kid? Shut the hell up!" Apparently the thug thought the 'autistic' part was just a joke, or that he did not have any consideration for people with mental differences. He was probably both of the cases listed above.
"SHUT THE HELL UP!" Lenny echoed.
"I'm gonna rip yer guts out if you don't shut up!"
"SHUT UP!"

Travis watched with horror as the thug aimed a kick at Lenny, who was standing at the doorway, blocking the exit of the thugs.

"SIT, LENNY. SIT!" Travis shouted, remembering what the command had done just moments ago.

"Sit." Lenny said as he wheeled into the air like a seasoned acrobat, booting the thug in the face as he did so. The thug immediately fell, groaning in pain and cursing like a sailor, holding his face in his hands. Travis swore that if Lenny had learnt this colourful language and used it even once, he would rip the guts out of this thug which had corrupted Lenny vocabulary with those profanities.

"Wow." The old lady gaped at Lenny in awe.

Then Travis noticed the other thug, gun raised, ready to dispose of the autistic acrobat. Everything seemed to slow down at that moment, and Travis saw the thug pulling the trigger even as he jumped in front of Lenny to shield him from the deadly bullet. He saw the expression of fear and frustration on the gunman's face. He saw the shocked expressions of the old lady and the young woman. He saw the bullet twist and turn. He saw the bullet going into his chest, creating a bloody hole. Feeling no pain but knocked over by the impact, his vision blurred. The last thing he saw was Lenny's face, blurred, but he swore he could see tears falling from Lenny's eyes.

I love you, buddy.

He blacked out.

*end of part 2*