#jamie's not bitter about his dad's death AT ALL he is FINE

[aidanchaser]

A Game of Scars and Secrets

a story about Cedric Diggory & Christian Thelborne part of the Everyone Lives AU TW; suicide, traumatic transition

Rating: M - explicit sexual content censored to comply with Tumblr’s ToS. Find the full fic on Ao3 Word Count: 7060

You are absent of cause / Or excuse / So self-indulgent / And self-referential / No audience could ever want you - Achilles, Gang of Youths

It was a cold, wet twenty-seventh of February when Christian Thelborne and Cedric Diggory found themselves tucked between two London shops with their lips pressed against each other’s in pursuit of warmth and comfort.

They’d made several attempts to spend at least one afternoon together for Valentine’s Day, but two overworked Ministry employees had little time for themselves, let alone for each other. It didn’t help that Cedric had business for the Order on top of his Auror training, which was much less training and a lot more field experience as the days went on. Finally, they’d managed a miracle where they had a few hours with each other before Cedric was expected to report to Williamson for another dull and irritating shift at Styncon Gardon.

Cedric and Christian talked about work less and less these days. The trouble had started after their New Year’s kiss — which hadn’t taken place until the fifth of January, but they’d made sure it happened at midnight regardless — when Cedric had complained about the latest shift addition to his and Williamson’s rotation.

“I don’t understand the problem,” Christian had said. “It sounds easy; can’t imagine there’s much trouble at the Potters’ place, with all the security they have.”

“That is the trouble,” Cedric had answered. “I don’t feel like we’re there to protect them. We’re there to spy on them. And I like them a lot. Harry’s a friend, and I’ve always respected Mrs Potter. You had her for Defense, too, didn’t you?”

Christian had nodded. “I had her and Lupin for my N.E.W.T.s. She’s the one who convinced me I could be an Auror if I wanted. It just sounds to me like if you admire them so much, isn’t that another reason to protect them? I don’t buy this ‘Chosen One’ rubbish, but I wouldn’t put it past Death Eaters to hurt them regardless.”

Because for Christian, the war was Good Wizards against Death Eaters. Cedric did not know how to make him understand it wasn’t that simple, and that the Ministry didn’t always have the people’s best interest at heart.

Cedric knew it wasn’t Christian’s fault. Christian had been born into a wizarding family that held some renown, not unlike the Diggory family. Cedric’s family had served in the Ministry for generations, and Christian’s had the legacy of his great-grandfather’s service in the war against Grindelwald. They had each grown up with aspirations to follow in their fathers’ footsteps. Cedric had wanted to pursue a career with Magical Beasts; Christian had wanted to become a professional duelist. They’d both changed their path to pursue an Aurorship instead, and despite being younger, and making the more drastic career change, Cedric had gotten what Christian had not.

Christian blamed Scrimgeour for this, rightfully so, but Christian also saw Scrimgeour as an excellent leader, who had guided the Auror Department well in the years between wars, and respected Scrimgeour’s decision to make Cedric an Auror, however begrudgingly. And the promotion to Squadron Captain had helped.

What Christian did not see — and could not understand — was what Cedric had seen and experienced under Umbridge. Umbridge represented so much of the Ministry to Cedric, and even though Cedric had told Harry he didn’t mind working for the Ministry, he minded quite a lot. He simply tolerated it because it made him better equipped to face Voldemort again, and made him of better use to the Order. Christian was never going to understand why Cedric was so bitter about so many of Scrimgeour’s orders, and Cedric could not explain it. Each time he tried to explain himself, he became too anxious, too aggressive. Words didn’t seem to form in the correct order, not in a way that made sense. It was all too difficult to put together — unless Cedric could be vulnerable in a way he wasn’t entirely ready for.

Christian’s kiss moved, as it had so many times before, to Cedric’s throat, pushing past Cedric’s scarf. Cedric pulled away.

“Not today,” he whispered. “Please — I have to go to work in a few hours. And the Potters know me; they’re much harder to lie to.”

Christian’s green eyes glinted mischievously in a way that made Cedric’s heart stutter. Cedric didn’t know if it was elf-blood or just Christian, but that mischief was always irresistible. “My sister’s visiting our parents today. Our flat is empty.”

Cedric swallowed. Their kisses, as passionate as they’d been, had been nothing more for the last six months. Cedric still lived with his parents, and Christian shared a flat in London with his sister. They hadn’t had a place to go — until now.

“You didn’t think to mention this when we planned our day together?”

“I wanted to surprise you. Is it a good surprise?”

“Yeah,” Cedric tried to smile, because it was a good surprise. It was a wonderful thought that they could have a quiet space to be alone together. He was, however, very nervous as Christian took his hands and Apparated the two of them into a small London flat.

Cedric had been with partners before. He and his first girlfriend Jamie Nettles had given each other handjobs in the Quidditch changing room, but always clothed, and often little more than very aggressive makeout sessions and lots of rutting. They’d been fourteen, then, and hadn’t known much better. A year later, Cedric gave Summerby a blow job, also in the Quidditch changing room, but they’d never done anything more than that, had never even gone on a proper date. And once, Cedric had gone down on Cho Chang, but it had been awkward and they’d never tried it again. With all that limited experience, Cedric didn’t feel especially confident as Christian left their coats and scarves at the entrance and pulled Cedric past the dining-and-kitchen combination room, back to the only bedroom in his and his sister’s flat.

Cedric thought that a twin bed, at least, would be more comfortable than a Quidditch changing room, and of course there was far less anxiety about getting caught.

The two twin beds were shoved against the walls of a bedroom that was hardly bigger than Cedric’s bedroom at home. Christian and Anne had split the space in half, with a trunk each at the foot of their bed and a wardrobe on the other side of the room. They had little more space to themselves than they must’ve had in their Hogwarts’ dormitories.

The decor, at least, was different. The bedspreads on both beds were worn and faded, as if they were as old as Anne and Christian. Anne’s side of the bedroom was decorated in photographs of friends, notes in tight scribbles pinned over the bed, and books and jars of herbs stacked on her trunk. Christian’s side was sparse, orderly. There were neat stacks of parchment and envelopes on top of the trunk, and on the bedside table was a small glass bottle that Cedric recognized. He had one by his bed, and he had bought one for Harry two Christmases past: a small bottle of eucalyptus and mint oil, meant to aid with sleep.

“Your place is nice,” Cedric said, as Christian pulled him towards the bed.

Christian made a face. “I know it’s small; you don’t have to pretend. But my sister and I always shared a room at home, and one bedroom is cheaper than two. She can’t afford to live on her own just yet, so the rent’s all me.”

“Muggle landlord?”

Christian nodded. He took a seat on the bed and pulled Cedric’s hands to his hips. “So spells to make the space bigger are out of the question, unless we want to constantly worry about Obliviating her. But it’s alright. We make do. Now can we please stop talking about my flat and get back to you kissing me?”

Cedric had hoped to stall a little longer, but he obliged, and leaned forward to kiss Christian. Christian fisted his hands in Cedric’s jumper and pulled him down onto the bed. Cedric had barely caught his balance, hands landing on either side of Christian’s shoulders, when Christian tried to pull the jumper over Cedric’s head.

“Maybe you should’ve let me do this while I was on my feet,” Cedric grunted, getting his knees onto the bed so he could sit up and pull off his jumper and t-shirt.

“I wanted to see it from this angle,” Christian said with that mischievous grin.

Cedric hid his blush by pulling his jumper and shirt over his head in a single flourish, and prayed the color wouldn’t spread down his chest. He tossed the clothes onto the floor and leaned back down over Christian. “Worth it?”

“Absolutely.” Christian lifted his head to kiss him again, and began undoing the buttons on his own shirt as he did.

Cedric sat back up. “Why don’t I get a view?”

Christian made a face, not unlike the one he’d made when Cedric had complimented the apartment. “Not much here to see. Come on, you’ve got to meet Williamson, and I’m not letting you out of here until I’m satisfied.”

Cedric knew misdirection; he was an expert at it. “Christian — you invited me here. If you’re not comfortable —”

Christian grunted and rolled his eyes. “It’s fine, I just didn’t want to spoil the mood.” He wriggled back a bit, to give himself some space between him and Cedric, and sat up to pull his shirt off, revealing several scars marring his chest. They were not unlike the thin white scar that ran the length of Cedric’s forearm, except that there were many of them.

Cedric placed his hand against Christian’s chest and brushed his thumb along the line of one of the scars. “Can I ask what happened?”

“I was sixteen and I was tired of having breasts. Thought I could do it myself, but, well — Dad took me to St. Mungo’s and had a Healer fix me up as best as she could.”

“Why did you… Why didn’t you say anything to someone first?”

Christian shrugged. “I know you and I haven’t known each other a year yet, but I think we’re a bit similar in that way.”

Cedric remembered his silence about his nightmares, his hesitation to tell his parents about his decision to become an Auror. He had never once doubted their love, but he hadn’t wanted to worry them.

“I know you and I don’t like asking for help,” Cedric agreed, “but I can’t imagine trying something like this on myself — while a student —”

“You fought You-Know-Who and a dragon when you were sixteen —”

“Seventeen.”

“— so I don’t want to hear it. Can we just get back to the kissing bit?” Christian whined.

It was funny how the stubbornness Cedric had always admired in Harry was so frustrating in Christian.

“I’ll trade you one secret for another,” Cedric offered.

Christian raised an eyebrow, enticed by the offer. “Alright. I told you about my chest scar, tell me about yours.” He pressed his hand against the discolored patch of skin on Cedric’s shoulder that spread from elbow all the way to his nipple.

“That one was the dragon,” Cedric said.

Christian frowned. “That’s not a secret,” he complained, but seemed to accept he’d lost a gamble. He did not press with a different question; he surged forward for another kiss.

Christian ran his thumb over Cedric’s nipple and Cedric was surprised when his spine seemed to tingle in response. Christian did it again and Cedric barely restrained a whine. He felt Christian smile against the kiss and brush over it again, this time rolling his thumb around the sensitive patch of skin.

Christian moved his mouth to Cedric’s neck and down to his collarbone.

“Christian,” Cedric murmured, “if we stay like this much longer, I’m going to fall off.”

Cedric had his knees on the bed, but it wasn’t a very large bed, and if Christian kept pushing against him, he was going to get pushed right off.

Reluctantly, Christian pulled away. “Alright, then, lay down.”

The thought made Cedric dizzy with both excitement and anxiety. “We don’t have —”

But Christian misunderstood his hesitation. “I have condoms. It was my surprise after all. Besides, I’m not going to ride you — just let me suck you off, alright?”

Cedric had not realized just how sexy crudeness could be, but it twisted his gut into a knot of excitement and arousal as easily as Christian’s kisses did. Cedric had always tried to be polite and romantic with his partners, but with Christian, everything was so rough and unpolished. Maybe that was why Cedric’s experiences had always been so awkward. He’d been afraid to be direct. Christian did not have that hesitation, and Cedric found the confidence incredibly attractive.

Cedric unbuckled his trousers, but before he could pull them off, Christian tightened his hands around his wrist.

“Socks first,” Christian said. “Haven’t you done this before?”

“I mean — sort of. Didn’t realize there was an order to undressing.”

“It’s a very important order. But I need to know — am I about to be your first blow job?”

“I’ve given one before.”

“Merlin, you’re telling me no one’s ever sucked off Cedric Diggory, Quidditch Captain and Triwizard Champion? Don’t you get up to anything down in the Hufflepuff dormitory?”

Cedric pulled off his socks. “Apparently all the action is in Gryffindor Tower.”

“I suppose I did have the benefit of being the only boy in the girls’ dormitory, and access to the boys’ dormitory whenever I wanted.”

“You stayed in the girls’ dormitory? Even after….” But Cedric did not have the vocabulary to describe Christian’s change in gender. He was not sure how to ask his question.

Christian didn’t seem to mind. “Sure. They were my mates. It was my room. Wasn’t going to change my whole life just because I cut off my breasts and my hair. I was still me, I just wasn’t getting scolded for wearing trousers anymore.”

“And you just, what, kipped in the boys’ dormitory when you felt like it?”

“I spent a few nights in Scott Arbor’s bed, yeah.”

“But you were a prefect!”

“Yeah, Weasley gave me hell for it, too.” He shrugged. “Only made me do it more. Eventually I made a deal with Wood so I could hide in his bed if I needed to dodge Weasley, as long as I didn’t keep him up before Quidditch practice and games.” Christian grinned. “So come on,” he patted the bed, “that’s my CV, so you know your first blow’ll be excellent.”

Cedric shook his head, bewildered by the amount of mischief one person could get into. He was distracted enough that it wasn’t quite as uncomfortable as it might’ve been to drop his pants in front of a partner for the very first time.

Christian did not comment, but did nod appreciatively as Cedric laid down on top of Christian’s bed. It was compliment enough.

Christian crawled on top of Cedric for another kiss. Cedric put a hand on Christian’s hip and hooked his thumb into the belt loop of his trousers.

“What about —” He was forced to paused as Christian kissed him. “— yours?” he mumbled into Christian’s mouth.

Christian wrapped a hand around Cedric’s half-hard cock and twisted. Cedric’s breath hitched in his throat and he wondered if Christian was intentionally dodging the question or if he’d asked it too quietly. He thought he knew Christian well enough to know which it was.

Cedric broke their kiss and pressed his lips against Christian’s ear. “I don’t mind either way,” he murmured.

Christian sighed, breath falling hot and wet into the crook of Cedric’s neck. His hands undid his belt and he kicked off his trousers with a little effort. “The pants stay on,” he grunted.

“Do you think I’ll be bothered?”

Christian would not lift his head to meet Cedric’s eyes. “It’s not for you.”

“Okay.” Cedric slipped his hand into Christian’s blonde curls and pulled him into a kiss. Christian slid his hands up Cedric’s chest. His hands paused their journey to give Cedric’s nipples a firm rub. Cedric felt that mischievous smile again as he keened into Christian’s mouth. Then Christian’s hands continued upward, sliding along Cedric’s arms, pulling them over Cedric’s head, and eventually pinning Cedric’s wrists against the headboard.

Christian broke the kiss and Cedric struggled to bring those intense green eyes back into focus.

“Do I get a question now?” Christian asked.

“What?”

“You asked about the pants. Do I get a question now?”

Cedric considered. He had not thought asking Christian to remove his trousers would lead to an especially personal secret, but he supposed it had at least brushed against one. Besides, it wasn’t exactly fair that Christian’s first question had been about a scar he’d gotten in a public, international competition.

“Sure,” Cedric said.

Christian loosened his grip on Cedric’s right hand and followed the long white scar that ran from Cedric’s wrist to the crook of his elbow. “Tell me about this one.”

Cedric’s gut twisted, but there was no pleasure to war with his anxiety this time. “A Death Eater,” he said. “In the Department of Mysteries.” Cedric wondered how much detail Christian expected from him. “I was Silenced and couldn’t cast well. The Death Eaters captured me, and Pyrites tortured me to try to get Harry Potter to…” But he stopped. No one was supposed to know about the prophecy, certainly not someone so attached to the Ministry.

Christian took Cedric’s lack of words for emotional intensity and pulled his hand away. “I’m sorry.” And he really did look sorry he’d asked.

“Kiss me again?”

Christian did. His hands went back down Cedric’s hips, where one held him steady and the other slid along the length of his cock. Cedric moaned into Christian’s mouth, then whined as Christian slipped his hand over his balls and rubbed against the slender strip of skin before his ass.

Cedric had never had the opportunity to appreciate having a partner who knew what they were doing before, and he was quite grateful for it now. Christian brought his hand back over Cedric’s cock and rubbed the tip with his thumb, then wrapped his hand around it once more and rubbed, twisting his wrist as he pushed down. Cedric jerked his hips up into Christian’s hand and bit back a needy whine as Christian pulled away.

“You’re exceptionally quiet,” Christian laughed, and reached over Cedric to dig in the drawer of the bedside table.

“Sorry?”

“Just thinking that maybe I could sneak you over with Anne here.” Christian pulled out a condom and closed the drawer.

Cedric squirmed underneath Christian. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

Christian laughed as he opened up the small package. “You’re too goddamn polite.”

“My apologies.” Cedric grinned.

Christian shook his head with a snort. “I assumed you’d had a blow job before, but since you haven’t, I feel I ought to ask: have you ever put a condom on before?”

“Er — no, can’t say I have.”

“Merlin, don’t they give ‘Puffs the talk?”

“Oh, shut up, like you had McGonagall brief you on the finer points of intercourse.”

“No, thank goodness. Could you imagine?”

“Please — you only just got me hard. Don’t ask me to imagine McGonagall right now.”

Christian laughed and unrolled the condom over Cedric’s cock with a few well-practiced hand thrusts.

“Is it supposed to be that tight?” Cedric asked.

“Don’t give me that hippogriff shit.”

Cedric grinned, then winced as Christian pinched the inside of his thigh. And then all pain was forgotten as Christian licked the length of Cedric’s cock, from base to tip. It felt different than the hand, and he knew that barrier made by the condom reduced some of the sensitivity, but he wasn’t about to complain.

Then Christian put his mouth around Cedric’s cock, and the drag of his tongue and his cheeks had Cedric’s back arching. Cedric quickly put his wrist into his mouth to stifle the moan that forced its way out of his chest. His lungs were no longer working properly, or maybe he had forgotten how to breathe. Cedric had never let anyone see him this way. He had never let anyone else see him this vulnerable.

The reason he’d been the one to go down on Summerby and Cho was because Cedric was, on one hand, a giver. He gave to his partners and did not like to ask anything of them. On the other hand, Cedric did not often allow people this close. He and Christian were too similar in both those aspects. They did not like to ask of others. They did not like to let other people see them weak.

Not that Cedric felt weak, exactly, as Christian’s head bobbed over his cock. But he found himself unable to hold onto his own thoughts. He was unable to hold back whines and whimpers, and did not have the will to do much other than bite down on his wrist and let Christian work him through an orgasm. It was a hard place for someone who had spent the past year on alert for an attack.

And then, with a half-strangled moan, Cedric came. Christian hummed appreciatively, and fumbled through their clothes on the floor for his wand. He used it to safely Vanish the used condom and the mess, then curled himself next to Cedric.

“How was it?” he asked, his impish grin still plastered on his face.

“Fantastic,” Cedric breathed. “Thank you. And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“You said I’m not leaving until you’re satisfied.”

“Ah, I think I got what I came for. You’ve got to get to work. Don’t let me keep you.”

“Work can wait.” Cedric kissed Christian, and could feel Christian’s disinterest. They’d exchanged enough passionate kisses that Cedric knew when the passion was missing.

“Why won’t you let me return your favor?”

“I said the pants stay on,” Christian grunted.

“That’s alright. I’ve probably got more experience with pants on than off.”

Christian rolled his eyes. “Don’t be stupid.”

“I’m not. I mean it.”

Christian sat up and ran his hands through his hair. “Why do you have to be so good all the time, Cedric?”

Cedric sat up and pressed his lips against Christian’s shoulder in a gentle kiss. “The same reason you do. Please don’t make me leave without leaving you with something to remember me by.”

It was stupid, and cheesy, and deserved the derisive snort Christian gave it. Still, Cedric ran his hands over Christian’s hips. He did not take them any lower; he waited for permission.

“You’ve done this part before?” Christian asked.

“With hand and mouth. Which do you prefer?” Cedric rested his chin on Christian’s shoulder and watched Christian close his eyes. He seemed to be steeling himself.

Then Christian put his hand on Cedric’s, and guided him down, to Christian’s pants. He did not guide Cedric’s hand beneath the waistband, however, and Cedric did not press him to. Instead, he kissed Christian’s neck as a show of gratitude, then rubbed his hand over the front of Christian’s pants.

Cedric, for his lack of experience with himself, knew this part well. There wasn’t a terrible amount of technique in jerking off someone who was already rutting into his hand, but he gave it his best effort. He pressed with two fingers and pulled them back and forth, lazily at first, then increasing his speed. When Christian started to buck his hips, Cedric used his other hand to hold Christian still.

“Let me do this,” he murmured into Christian’s neck, and with a reluctant moan, Christian stilled and tipped his head back against Cedric’s shoulder.

Cedric rubbed Christian’s soaked pants through a full orgasm — Christian went stiff as a board for a moment, lungs and all, then let out a shuddering breath — and Cedric kept going. Christian let him for a moment, then moaned when Cedric still did not let up.

“Ced — come on —”

Cedric kissed his neck again, but did not stop until Christian shuddered and grabbed his wrist.

“Enough, please,” Christian begged, grabbing Cedric’s wrists. “You’re just being unfair now.”

Cedric buried his smile in crook of Christian’s neck. “Thank you for this surprise today,” he said. “It really was nice.”

“Next time my sister’s out, I’m stealing you away, Williamson or no.”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t mind.”

Cedric closed his eyes and allowed himself a moment of rest as Christian ran his thumb over the back of Cedric’s hand. He wondered vaguely what time it was, and how long he had until he needed to be at the Ministry, but that seemed like a distant worry. The thing he cared about most was right here, curled up in his arms. He didn’t even realize Christian was rubbing the white scars on the back of his hand until Christian stopped.

“Are these runes?” Christian asked.

Cedric’s heart skipped a beat. “Are what runes?” he asked, hoping Christian might be talking about something else entirely.

“These scars on your hand. They look like… letters maybe? I can’t make it out.”

“It’s nothing.” Cedric pulled his hands out of Christian’s grip and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “I should probably go.”

“Ced — wait.”

Cedric did not wait. He reached for his pants and trousers.

“Don’t do this — you always do this,” Christian reached for Cedric’s arm.

Cedric did pause for that. “What do you mean I always do this? This was our first time —”

“We’re having a great moment, and then you get all irritable for no reason —”

“No reason? What are you —”

“Remember our last date? End of January, I said, ‘The Ministry’s considering allowing us to use Unforgivables to help catch Death Eaters’ and you just up and left, muttering something about work. And then there was the time on Christmas Eve, when you didn’t like that I said something about a crackdown on Dark creatures, so you just made some excuse about going to your Mum and left. And now this, because I asked about some runes on your hand. I’m an expert at diversion, too. So stop giving me this hippogriff shit and ruining what should’ve been a good time. If you can't talk about something you have to at least tell me that.”

Cedric let his pants fall back to the floor and buried his face into his hands. His heart was racing against his chest, pounding so hard against his ribs he thought it might burst out of him. He wondered how Christian couldn’t hear it.

He wanted to tell Christian everything, but everything was wrapped up in too many secrets that were not his to tell. He also thought that leaving now was a softer way of ruining their good time than if he actually did take the time to be honest about all of this with Christian.

“A question for a question,” Cedric finally grunted. “What’s your first question?”

Christian did not hesitate. “What are those marks on the back of your hand?”

Cedric wished Christian had given the question a bit more consideration, but he was grateful that Christian had chosen the easiest of the three issues that had been brought up. Perhaps not the easiest for Cedric to think about, but it was the one issue not wrapped up in the secrets of others.

“They’re from Umbridge,” Cedric said into his hands. “She gave me detention for my interview with Rita Skeeter, for telling people that Voldemort had returned. Detention with her was lines, except the lines get writ into the back of your hand. It used to say ‘I must not tell lies,’ but it’s faded a bit. Harry’s is still legible.”

“Umbridge? No way. She’s all pink and bubbly. I don’t care for the woman, but I can’t picture her doing something like that to students.”

Cedric was suddenly overcome with a wave of exhaustion. He wasn’t even angry with Christian for not understanding; he had expected it. Instead, he was simply tired from taking the risk of jumping only to find there was no net to catch him. This is why he didn't jump very often. He reached for his trousers.

“You’re not going to ask me a question?”

“I’ll save it for next time.”

“That wasn’t the point of this. The point was to keep you from storming off.”

“I’m not storming off, Christian. I’m not even upset.” Cedric pulled on his trousers and fastened the belt buckle.

“Yes, you are. I get like this when I’m upset with Anne, so I know you’re upset with me. What did I do?”

“Nothing,” Cedric said, because it was the honest truth. Christian had done nothing. He had not even made an attempt to understand why the scars bothered Cedric. He was clever as they came, but stubborn as a mule.

“Don't do this.”

“What do you want?” Cedric sighed. “I let you ask a question, and you didn't like the answer. I can't give you any more than that.”

“Who said I didn't like the answer?”

“You did when you said you didn't believe me.”

“I just said it's hard to imagine. You're twisting my words.”

Cedric pulled on his jumper, wishing for all the world there was a spell to make Christian understand. There was no way to explain what it was like to have a teacher, someone who was supposed to be trustworthy, hurt you, knowing you were powerless to stop her.

“Then I've no reason to be upset.” Cedric sat down on the edge of the bed to pull his shoes and socks back on, but he knew it was a mistake as soon as he touched the mattress.

Christian wrapped his arms around Cedric’s chest and leaned against him. “You've got hours yet. Ask me a question.”

Cedric considered fighting his way out of Christian’s hold, but he knew that would only make this worse. He also considered asking the most pointed, barbed question he could think of, but that would not help, either. He settled on something he’d been wondering for a while, but had never thought it appropriate to ask. That was the spirit of the game after all, wasn’t it?

He did not lift his head or lean back against Christian, but he asked, “When did you know you wanted to be Christian?”

“What, my name? Or the whole thing?”

“The… whole thing I guess?”

Christian hummed, which Cedric took as a good sign. He was considering the question readily; it wasn’t a topic Christian wanted to avoid. Maybe they could get this over with easily and move on, and Cedric would go to the Potters and pretend it was fine, and if he was lucky, James and Lily wouldn’t say anything about how distracted he was as he turned this conversation over and over again, looking for ways it could have gone better.

“I always felt different from my sister, but it wasn’t until I was fifteen that I started being uncomfortable with even the idea of being a girl. I don’t really know when I knew, but I just knew it didn’t feel right. Kind of like robes that just didn’t fit. Not too big or too small, y’know, just too tight across the chest and sleeves too long…. I liked parts of myself, but I really hated others. That year, I bought myself a bunch of trousers over the Christmas holiday. I didn’t tell my parents what I’d done, but they got the letters when we went back to school about dress code violations. That summer I tried to do it myself, but — well, you saw the mess I made. Anne’s the one who told Mum and Dad what I was up to. Mum was kind of excited. We didn’t have a lot of money, but she helped me donate all the robes I didn’t like and buy replacements that I did. We had a meeting with Dumbledore about it and Merlin, he didn’t give two Murtlaps’ asses one way or another. Shortest meeting I’d ever sat in with a Professor. Mum and Dad said they wanted to make sure everything went smoothly, and that none of the other students would give me trouble, and Dumbledore said he agreed, suggested I keep my dorm if I was happy there, and said he would let the staff know, and if anyone gave me trouble I was to go straight to him or McGonagall and that was the end of the meeting. I’ve never looked back.”

“How did you pick the name Christian? Did you just like it?”

Christian laughed. “No, sorry, it’s my turn to ask a question.”

Cedric considered leaving. He was dressed. All he had to do was get out of Christian’s hold and get his coat. The game was even, so Christian couldn’t complain.

But before Cedric was quite committed to leaving, Christian asked, “Is Umbridge why you hate the Ministry so much?”

And Cedric couldn’t leave after that question. Because he’d never told Christian he hated the Ministry, not in such certain terms, but it was the closest he was going to get to Christian understanding him without having to share the Order’s secrets or Harry’s.

“When did I say I hated the Ministry?”

“You never had to. You know I’ve got my own irritations with them, but I know you hate them more than I do.”

“It’s not that I hate the Ministry —”

“Just Umbridge? And Scrimgeour? And Williamson?”

“I don’t hate Williamson; he’s a good mentor.”

“But?”

“I just don’t trust the Ministry the way you do, that’s all. You and I feel the same about Scrimgeour. We respect him for his accomplishments, but don’t like the way he promotes people and is so focused on an image of power, regardless of the real thing. And I get that looking strong is an important part of building morale, but you and I both know it’s not enough.”

“And I get that you hate Umbridge for being a terrible professor,” Christian said, which sent another wave of exhaustion crashing down on Cedric because it did not come close to how he felt about Umbridge, and he didn’t know why Christian couldn’t see that. “But what does all of it have to do with the Ministry?”

“That sounds like another question,” Cedric said.

“I think it’s closely related to why you don’t trust the Ministry.”

“So was how you chose your name to my question.”

Christian was incredibly stubborn, and not to be deterred. “Alright, then. Mum and Dad went through the family tree with me, and I liked my great-grandfather’s name. So what do your feelings about Umbridge have to do with the Ministry as a whole?”

“Do we have to do this?” Cedric asked.

It was like those words were the magic spell Christian had been waiting for. He released the grip he had on Cedric’s waist and leaned back against the wall. “Okay. Fine.”

And Cedric knew that “fine” was not fine at all, as well as he knew that he was truly upset, even though he said he wasn’t.

Cedric searched for the counter curse, the words that would undo whatever had suddenly wedged itself between him and Christian. He tried the ones he was familiar with first.

“I’m sorry.”

But Christian had his own counter curses ready. “What for?”

“For… being like this. For being so tired all the time.”

“I can’t be upset with you for being tired.”

“But you are.”

“No, I’m upset because you won’t talk to me.”

Cedric ran his hands through his hair and debated between explaining himself — which might put the Order at risk — and just leaving, and trying to make up with Christian another time. He settled on the more difficult path.

“Do you remember when we met, and you tried to explain about how Weasley had called you by a different name, and I told you that you didn’t have to explain anything you didn’t want to?”

“Of course I remember. That was when I fell in love with you.”

Cedric’s heart stopped. Christian had said it so casually — they hadn’t said they loved each other, not yet, and he was caught off guard. He forgot where his explanation had even been going. His lips felt numb, but he managed to say, “That’s sort of how it is between me and the Ministry. I can’t really explain it, or I don’t know if I can — at least, I’m not ready to try.”

“If we’d just met,” said Christian, “if I was just some attractive guy you’d run into on the lift, that would be fine. I get it. But we’ve been going out for six months now, and sometimes I feel like I don’t know anything about you. Anne asked me the other day what your favorite wine was. I realized I don’t even know if you drink. And if you do, I don’t know what you drink. I don’t even know your middle name. But I know I love you. And I know I’m pushy and stubborn and one-track minded. So if you need to go, go. I’ll cool off and we’ll pick this up in a month like nothing ever happened.”

Cedric reached for his socks. He did not truly want to go, but he didn’t know how to explain that he couldn’t explain it. Not yet.

He replayed the conversation, tried to pick the moment where everything had deflated, where the world had lost some of its color. It wasn’t hard to find.

No way. I can’t picture it.

Cedric was not sure what he wanted from Christian — understanding, perhaps, but the only person who could truly understand was Harry. Then Cedric, in his rapid replay, recalled what he had said when Christian had, in a stilted voice, shared about his scars.

I can’t imagine trying something like this.

Cedric froze, hands gripping the knit wool as tightly as he might grip his wand when cornered by a Death Eater. He did not understand Christian any better than Christian understood him. His mind raced, hurtling down familiar tracks of doubt and disappointment. Maybe it wasn’t worth it to keep trying at this. Maybe it was all hopeless. What was the point in seeking understanding from each other when they weren’t going to find it?

“I almost died,” Christian said quietly.

Cedric snapped back into the bedroom and abandoned his socks. He frowned, trying to recall a duel or attack from Death Eaters. “What happened — When was this?”

“When I was sixteen. That summer. Anne and I got in a fight. We’d never fought before — not really. And I just… I hated everything. I was done, and I thought if I was going to go out, I wanted to go out as much like myself as I could.”

Cedric turned around, but Christian had his eyes closed, head tipped back against the wall.

“I didn’t ask for help because I didn’t know how. I’m still…” Christian pressed his thumb into his palm, as if he could massage out this conversation. “I’m sorry. I’ve never told anyone about that. Not even Anne. She probably knows anyway, but we never…” He licked his lips and took in a slow breath. “I know you don’t understand. I know you won’t, but I —”

“No,” Cedric said softly. He lifted his hand, reaching — and hesitated. He wasn’t sure what sort of comfort Christian wanted right now, why Christian was sharing this after he had told Cedric to leave. But he did understand, better than Christian knew. He rested his hand on Christian’s leg. Christian flinched, but it was brief.

“I almost had my Prefect badge stripped,” Cedric said. “Not because of Umbridge, but because I neglected my duties. I stopped going to classes. I quit Quidditch. After facing Voldemort in the graveyard, I thought —” Cedric stopped, knowing he could not share any of Harry’s secrets. It was hard enough to make this work when he and Christian alike struggled with facing their own darkness, and it was harder when so much of Cedric’s story intertwined with Harry’s. But Christian had seen the graveyard, too. He had gone with Cedric to look, to check that it was truly the place Voldemort’s father had come from. He had seen Cedric in that place, and perhaps that moment was the reason they had ended up here, in Christian’s room, half-dressed and secrets half-spilled.

“I know what it feels like,” Cedric finally said, “to think there’s no future, none worth living through.”

Christian opened his eyes. There was no mischief in them, none of the joy nor danger that made Cedric’s heart skip, but something in Cedric’s heart reacted just the same, like something between him and Christian was suddenly pulled taut.

“I’m sorry,” Christian said. “I don’t know why I said all of that.”

“Maybe you didn’t really want me to go.”

“Maybe I wanted to push you away.”

Cedric considered the dullness in those eyes that were usually so vibrant, and wondered if this was what it was to be in love, to care and feel, even when the things that had drawn Cedric to Christian were so far gone. Christian had said I know I love you so casually, so confidently just a minute ago.

He had known the moment Cedric had given him space, and now Cedric knew, the moment Christian refused to give him that same space, the moment Christian persisted past his own level of comfort.

Cedric pushed himself back on the bed, until he was against the wall, beside Christian. He waited until Christian reached out, intertwining their fingers on the worn, sun-faded comforter. Christian’s thumb rubbed against the scars on the back of Cedric’s hand.

I must not tell lies.

“Christian?”

“Hm.”

“I… I love you, too.”

It was cold in the small flat, but a warm, dark blush spread from Christian’s check and up his neck, and even Cedric burned with warmth, embarrassment, and excitement. He leaned against Christian, turned his head, and Cedric kissed him. It was gentler than any kiss they had ever exchanged. It was soft, hesitant, nothing like Cedric knew Christian to be. But it was warm and comforting, and, for a moment, both boys forgot about their scars.

[nellie-elizabeth]

Outlander: Down the Rabbit Hole (4x07)

I'm actually quite torn... see, the problem is, I really don't like a lot of what this episode chose to focus on. But the performances and the way these scenes were written and shot were quite good, so it's like I'm looking at the best possible version of something that I disagree with at its core. Sort of. I don't know. Like I said... torn.

Cons:

Let's start with the element I'm the most clearly displeased with: Laoghaire. I don't have a problem with Bree being found by Laoghaire, and I liked the moments with her and little Joan well enough, but there are a couple of big issues here. One is that they play the "misunderstanding" and "dramatic irony" card way too heavily. Laoghaire is apparently so bitter about Jamie that she is willing to unburden herself to a random sassenach stranger. Brianna and Laoghaire discuss Jamie abandoning the family, being bewitched by another woman, all while Laoghaire doesn't know Bree is Jamie and Claire's daughter, and Bree doesn't know that she's hearing about her dad. This might have worked for a bit, but the pacing is pretty sluggish, and it takes way too long into the episode to get past this basic comprehension hurdle.

Also, Laoghaire is just... a weird character. They've never quite been able to balance her villainy with the sympathy we're clearly supposed to feel for her. I could understand Laoghaire becoming cold upon finding out that Bree is Jamie's daughter, but I thought we were going to go down a more sensible route, and have Laoghaire wordlessly usher Brianna out of her home, or even tell her the truth about Jamie and demand that she leave. That would make sense. But screaming at her, locking her up, threatening her with an accusation of witchcraft? Jeez, Laoghaire. Calm the heck down.

The other very unfortunate consequence of these scenes is that it means Brianna spends hardly any time at all at Lallybroch. I gather that scheduling conflicts made the actress who plays Jenny unavailable. That's unfortunate, but these scenes still could have been worked out in a better way. Bree should have spent most of the episode at Lallybroch. She should have spent it with her uncle Ian, with her cousins, in the space where her father grew up. In the books, these scenes are important moments for Bree to start to learn who her father is for herself, and we missed out on some valuable stuff by spending so much time on Laoghaire.

I found the scenes with Frank and Bree to be much stronger, but the same overall problem comes up here. I'm not a purist when it comes to adapting the books, far from it, but the thing about this series is that it is full of incident. A lot happens. There are tons of characters, and tons of stuff goes on, and I'm fine with cutting stuff out or rearranging it, adapting it, expanding it, reducing it, whatever. But I felt this episode resembled Season One's "The Search" a little bit, in that it takes little hints from the book and bloats them to an extent that's unsustainable. Tobias Menzies is a fantastic performer, and the scenes between Frank and Bree were genuinely touching... but they went on too long, and they took away from so many moments that would have enhanced the story and Brianna's character in a stronger way.

For example, we learned last season that Frank died in a car crash. This is in the books, although Frank is a much less sympathetic character there, at least from Claire's point of view. The fact is, Gabaldon uses "car crash" in the really contrived and cliche way that writers do when they need to kill someone off whose time in the story is over. The fact that Claire's parents died in a car crash and then so did her husband... it strains credulity. By having a scene where Bree talks to her father's tombstone and wishes she'd stayed with him instead of leaving on the night of his death, we're only drawing more attention to a silly plot contrivance. Then there are things like ghost-Frank showing up at the end to nod encouragingly to Brianna as she sets off on her quest to find Jamie. I love the emotional underpinning of that - it's Bree getting permission from the man who raised her, her father, to go and find Jamie, the father she's never met. But the actual scene read as way too cheesy, despite Skelton and Menzies' best efforts.

I said that I don't mind changes from the books, but I do question the casting of Lizzie. I get why they changed Brianna so she's not this extremely tall and striking presence, but Lizzie is supposed to be a child - a waif, a pathetic little wisp of a girl. They cast someone who's taller than Bree, and looks older than her too! That's a pretty dramatic departure.

Pros:

Wow. That's a long section of "cons." But like I said, this episode was pretty confusing for me, and I imagine pretty polarizing for a lot of fans of the show. Let's get in to some of the good stuff.

The performances. I've been a skeptic of Sophie Skelton since day one, but she was really strong in this episode, and has indeed been getting stronger all season. I liked the way she played off of the various people she encountered along the way. I like that Brianna's got this gentle, quiet way about her, but you can sense the fire underneath. Not unlike her mom. She's strongest when playing off of Frank, which is why, despite some hesitation about these scenes being included, I'm ultimately pleased that we got to spend some time with Brianna and Frank, and understand the true love and devotion that existed in that father/daughter relationship. Brianna's decision to go back in time to find Jamie and Claire makes perfect sense, but there's this little aspect of it that must feel to Bree as if she's choosing Jamie over Frank. We see that Frank was an excellent father to Brianna, and this makes Brianna a much more complex and interesting person, and rounds Frank out into a three-dimensional character as well. I might have wished for less screen-time, but I enjoyed the heck out of the performances here.

The scenery. The beginning scenes, where Bree is walking through the Scottish wilderness on her own, are, again, perhaps a bit too long. The pacing could have been shaved a bit, saving more time for Ian, or for Lizzie's introduction, or whatever. But I can't deny that it looked beautiful, all the same!

Roger's scenes with Stephen Bonnet. Early in the episode, I was almost inclined to put the Roger material in the "cons" section along with a lot of the rest of the episode. But by the end, I realized that I had been holding my breath, jaw clenched, every second that Roger and Bonnet were on screen together. Obviously as a fan of the books I know what's coming, but I honestly think even without that, I would have more than enough to hate Bonnet with a passion. There's the moment early on, when Roger is asking for passage, and Bonnet keeps saying no and trying to leave, and Roger keeps insisting, keeps pushing. It's so tense, and such a good use of dramatic irony (much better than with Laoghaire and Bree). See, we know that Stephen Bonnet is a villain. We also know that Bree isn't in the Americas yet. Roger is fighting so hard to get to Bree, but what he's really doing is throwing in with a horrible villain that will actually be taking him farther away from Brianna. It's aggravating in the extreme, and I kept wanting to yell at my screen - don't do it, Roger! Just wait for another boat! That's excellent storytelling.

I like that Outlander maintains a tone of mysticism that allows for the coincidences to feel like a part of the larger fabric of fate. It doesn't bother me that Brianna stumbles upon Laoghaire, for example, or that Roger ends up on Bonnet's ship. Similarly, it doesn't bother me that Roger happens to find, on that ship, certain MacKenzies who bear quite the significance going forward. I suppose I'll keep quiet so as not to spoil it for anyone, but keep your eyes and ears open! I liked the bits we got with Roger caring for this mother and child, and I'm excited to see more of that develop.

This review is pretty long, but I felt like I really needed to take the time to suss out my complicated feelings on this episode. As I finish writing all of this out, I'm still torn about what my final conclusion is. I didn't hate this episode. Far from it. I appreciate taking the time to flesh out Bree and Roger as their own characters, and to take a pause from Claire and Jamie's story for a week. But there were choices made here that I'm having trouble getting wholly behind.

7/10

[lwilson]

our last ride in the bread truck

I remember the rain. It was coming down in silver sheets. It was September 16th, my sister’s birthday and the day I was scheduled to report to basic training. I emerged from my bedroom in the basement with a heavy heart. The news of Ramone’s suicide hung heavy on me. It had been a few weeks since Alan and I had learned of Ramone’s death and I hadn’t slept very well since.

I walked across the kitchen to the dining room. I sat my travel bags on the floor next to the table and walk across the room to my father who was standing in the front of our open front door listening to the rain. My parent’s house was quiet as time on a monument except for the faint sounds of my mother’s sniffles coming from my parent’s bedroom.  It was early, I don’t remember exactly how early, but it was still dark and cool outside.

“ It’s coming down out there this morning,” my father said as I walked up beside him.

“It’s pouring,” I said.

“You got everything,” he asked without looking at me.

“I think so,” I said turning to look at his profile.

“Better check before you go.”

“ I will.”

My father had been in the Air Force and had fought during the Korean war. An experience he rarely spoke of. He was old school, he believed action spoke much louder than words. My father was a quiet man. Stoic, yet approachable. He was not the type of man who went around tossing out I love you’s like they were confetti, but if you were family you knew that you were loved. He was strong, smart, and the most patient person I have ever known. My father was a straight shooter, a guy who as far as I knew always walked on the right side of the line in life. When I was a kid, I wanted to be my father. In many ways I still do.

The economy in the 1980s, the Ronald Reagan era economy was garbage, and finding a decent paying job was hard to come by, but trouble, not so much. You didn’t have to look too long or too hard to find trouble. Because trouble was always lurking in the shadows, hanging out at all the popular hot spots, if you called, trouble would be more than happy to show himself in the form of drugs, alcohol, frustration, and anger before exploding from the shadows. Fuel by the newest and most devastating drug of them all, crack cocaine.

A destroyer of lives, past, present, and in some horrible cases future. The Reagan administration’s reaction, a real quippy new slogan “Just say no,” and legislation that unduly targeted minorities and destroyed families for generations. The effects of crack on the scene were immediate and devastating. As I look back now, I can see that this is where Alan and my views on social and perhaps racial issues were beginning to diverge for the first time. This change also coincides with us moving into young adulthood. Alan and I disagreed over the drug sentences being handed down to minorities as compared to their white counterparts.

Alan thought that people selling drugs should have the book thrown at them. I agreed if it were the same size book. Black and Hispanic offenders were getting harsher sentences than white offenders for almost the exact same crime. Friends of ours that we had grown up with were going down. We were seeing it first hand. Fat Rich Martinez, got caught selling dope and caught a hand full of years, his brother Jumbo went the same way, Flip and Solman went the same way and got sent up, Donny, a white kid in their crew got probation. Alan couldn’t see the glaring difference, I did.

“Donny wasn’t selling crack,” Alan said.

“Cocaine is cocaine, rather it’s rock or powder. They should have all gotten the same amount of time.”

“The sentences had nothing to do with race. Maybe Donny’s parents got him a better lawyer?”

“He had a state-appointed lawyer like the rest of them,” I said.

“Still, I just don’t believe that it had nothing to do with race.”

It’s funny how two people can look at the same thing, yet see something totally different. The differences in the Americas we both lived in was beginning to emerge.

*****

My father understood why I had to leave. He may not have liked it, but he understood it. My mother on the other hand, was hurt and angry and didn’t care to understand. My mother was in her and my dad’s bedroom. She wouldn’t come out. I had joined the Army against her wishes, and I was leaving again, and she wasn’t too happy about it. I had to go. For my own sanity, I had to go.  I had just return unceremoniously from California where I had gone to play football, but health issues,  undiagnosed asthma, put my dreams of playing in the NFL on the rack. So, back I came to Detroit, angry, dejected, and bitter at what I saw as limited options.

Alan offered to get me a job at C.Q. the laundry company he was working, but I turned him down flat. It was a dead-end job and I wanted more.

“It’s good enough for me, but not good enough for you,” Alan said bitterly after I turned him down.

“ It’s not that,” I said regretting not finding a more subtle way of turning him down.

“So what, the rackets. You saw what happened to Jumbo and those guys.”

“ I’m going into the Army,” I said. Thinking back to the shocked expression on his face still makes me smile. My girlfriend, the woman that would later become my wife had just moved to Florida, her mother’s job had been transferred to Jacksonville so nothing was keeping me in Michigan. I wanted to marry her and the Army was my way of providing us with a tangible future.

“She’ll be alright,” my dad said in his calm soothing way referring to sniffles coming from their closed bedroom door. The guilt I felt was overwhelming.

“ I have to go, ” I said with my voice quivering with emotion. He turned to me and smiled. It was a small intimate smile; one he had never given me before or since.

“ I know you do,” He put his hand on my shoulder as he spoke, “It will be good for you. Get you out of here. You go see the world.” He let his hand drop from my shoulder and stuffed it into his front pocket and turned back toward the door and looked out at the pouring rain.

“Thanks, dad.” I wasn’t sure what I was doing. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go into the Army, but what I was sure of was this, I had to go. If I wanted any chance at a decent future I had to go. As I sit here now writing this, I remember standing with him in that doorway listening to the rain slapping down on the sidewalk in front of our house on Promenade Street. I remember staring at his unflinching profile wondering what he was thinking about. I wondered if I was what he had imagined his only son would be like. Was he proud of the man that I was becoming? I wondered if he ever saw parts of himself in me. I don’t know. I’ll never know.

My father died a few years ago while I was in Florida.  We would speak on the phone, not as often as I would have liked. My dad was never much for talking on the phone. When I called my mother would always answer the phone. She would ask how I was, then ask after Carmen my wife, then our son Jamie, she would ask if I would like to speak to my father as if I would ever say no.

“Hey,” he would say. My dad had a rich baritone voice, “How’s everything?”

“Good dad, we’re all doing fine.” I would say happy to be talking to him.

“How’s the wife and baby?”

“They’re fine, Jay’s getting big.”

“ I bet he is. Is he taller than you yet?”

“Not yet, almost though, did you watched the Lion’s Sunday dad?” I’d ask referring to the Detroit Lions.

“Them old Lion’s,” he would say with a chuckle, “they have to win eventually, right? we would both laugh.

“ Alright then,” he would say still chuckling. “ I got nothing else to say, here’s your mother.”

“Alright, dad,”

“Okay then,” and he would give my mother the phone.

           My dad and I stood in the doorway watching as the headlights turned into our driveway splashing light across the front of the house and us. Dad looked at me.

           “You got any money,” he asked seriously. I nodded.

           “I do. I have a couple of hundred dollars.”

           He reached in his pocket and tried to hand me some more money.

“No, Dad. I’m good. This should be enough,” he shook his head.

“You never know,” he said, “Just take it. Put my mind at ease.” He pulled three hundred dollars out of his pocket.

“Seriously, dad, I’m good.”

“ I know that you are, but for me. Put your mother’s mind at ease.” He handed it to me. I reluctantly took the money and stuffed it into my front pocket.

“Thanks,” I looked toward the closed bedroom door. My dad put a hand on my shoulder.

“ Don’t worry about her. She’ll be alright. Go on,” he motioned toward the front door, “let your friend in.” I walked over to the front door in time to see Alan getting out of the car, hunched over running across our side lawn to the porch. I could hear the slushy sounds of his feet on the wet grass. He ran up on the porch soaking wet and breathing heavily. He looked like a soaked poodle wearing a blond helmet.

“It’s raining,” I joked.

“Funny,” he said stomping his feet and shaking off the rain. I opened the screen door and Alan entered our house. The house was dimly lit with only the light from the kitchen and a small lamp on a side table.

“Want some coffee,” I asked as I moved toward my parent’s bedroom which was just down the hall. Alan had already grabbed a cup and was pouring coffee when I asked.

“Thanks,” he lifted the cup in my direction. He knew where we kept things. He had been coming here since he was a kid. He was virtually part of the family.

“Where’s mom,” he asked. I nodded toward the bedroom and shrugged.

“Oh,” he said. There was no need for me to say more.

“I’ll be back,” I said and walked down the hall toward my parent’s bedroom.

“Thelma,” my dad called to my mother as I walked toward the bedroom door, “ Come on out now, the boys getting ready to go.”  I walked over to the bedroom door and stood next to my father.

“Mom, I’m getting ready to go now. Alan’s here.”

“So, you are going to leave after all?” The muffled disbelieving voice came through the door.

“ I have to. I’ll get in trouble if I don’t.” I stood there waiting for the door to open, but it didn’t.

“Fine then, go.” I backed away from the door heartbroken. My dad followed me back into the dining room.

           “Hey Dad,” Alan said to my dad and quickly shook his hand, “Can you believe this one,” he motioned toward me, “He’s in the Army now, god protect us all.” We all laughed as I gathered my bags and made my way toward the door. I shook my father’s hand. I wanted to hug him, but I’m not sure how he would have felt about something like that, so I shook his hand, and off Alan and I went. As we backed out of the driveway and turned onto the street, I could see my mother in the door watching us. I waved and she waved back as we pulled away.

*****

Alan and I rode in silence for a long while each lost in his own thoughts. We had been here before. Our friendship put to the test by time and distance. The first came when my family left the old neighborhood first. In the back of my mind and I believe in the back of Alan’s to we thought this might be it, but it wasn’t. Here we are again almost ten years later facing the same threat and once again we came through it. Neither of us could have imagined the threat Donald Trump would pose to our friendship almost thirty years later.

“You really going to go through with this,” Alan asked referring to my decision to join the Army.

“ I have to now. I’m already signed up.”

“Shit, instead of going to Metro (the airport) we could cross the bridge and before you know it you’re in Windsor.”

“I ain’t running to Canada,”

“Why not?”

“Because I already signed up. They’ll come looking for me.”

“Whose gonna come looking for you?”

“Uncle Sam,”

“Uncle…and who in the hell is that?”

“I don’t know, the F.B.I. or some shit,”

“Nobody’s gonna come looking for you if you don’t show up.” Alan and I rode in silence for a while then he said in a low raspy whisper.

“ I can’t believe he did that.”

“What,” I asked.

“ Ramone, I can’t believe he killed himself.”

“ Yeah,” I said looking out the window, “ It’s pretty horrible.”

“ I thought he was stronger than that,” Alan said glancing at me.

“Sometimes the weight is just too much to bear”

“We all got our problems, you be a man and deal with them, that’s how we were raised, right?” I nodded.

“You don’t take the easy way out.”

“How do you know it was the easy way out?”

Alan looked at me confused.

“You think walking into ongoing traffic was easy, I sure in the hell don’t.”

“Must have been easier than facing his problems like a man.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The atmosphere was radioactive in the car. We rode in silence for the rest of the way to the airport with our friendship teetering on the narrow head of a pin. I remember thinking,

“Ramone is gone, and I don’t know who this asshole sitting next to me is. Maybe it’s time to cut ties with everything and everyone from my past and start fresh. If I were going to do it, now was the time. Yeah, now is the time.” I sat back and looked out the window and watched as Chene street slid by us. Every now and again I would catch Alan stealing a glimpse of me from the corner of his eye.

“FMB bakery,” he said grinning as we passed an old  abandoned building, “We had some good times up on that roof.” I smiled and let my head swivel in the direction of the building as we passed. Alan was right, as kids, we had some great times there. When we were kids our friend Billy and his mother Lexie, and his sister Lucy lived over the bakery and Billy’s mother Lexie worked as a delivery driver for the bakery. Billy’s family was from Kentucky, and I remember one of the first things he told me when I met him was that his mother Lexie was a former Playboy model, she wasn’t, but at the time Alan and I believed him. She looked like she could have been one honestly.

Billy was in our 5th-grade class even though he was a year older than the rest of us, he had Mrs. Drum the year before us and failed and he had to repeat her class. Ramone and Billy never became friends, but Alan and I became good friends with him and would often spend the weekends over his house partly because he was a fun guy, and partly to ogle his super attractive mom who liked to walk around in Daisy Duke shorts or bikini bottoms and a tee-shirt on her days off.

We never had so much freedom, as we did when we spent our weekend nights over Billy’s house. His mother would buy us a case of Pepsi and pizza and basically leave us to our own devices. Our nights were spent staying up super late listening to music, our favorites in case you were wondering were “Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting, by Carl Douglas, Shadow Dancing by Andy Gibbs, and Saturday Night Fever by his brothers, The Bee Gee’s,” and talking about girls in our classroom, Franchesca, in particular. We all had it bad for Franny. A golden brown girl with dark limpid eyes, thick black hair, a small upturned nose, and pouty blushed lips. The product of a white father and a black mother Franchesca looked about as exotic as her name sounded to us all at the time. When we weren’t pining over Franchesca we were leafing through the mountains of playboy magazines that Billy’s mom’s married boyfriend Richard had gotten for him. We couldn’t believe the stack of dirty mags he had and his mother didn’t seem to mind, and we certainly didn’t.

My parents nor Alan’s parents never knew about the dirty magazines, Daisy Duke shorts, or bikini bottoms or we would have never been allowed to stay over. On those clear summer nights, when Billy’s mother went on her deliveries, his sister Lucy and her boyfriend Otis crept off to her bedroom for the night Billy would always want to go and play one of our favorite games, “Stump the Drunk”.

“Come on guys,” he would say in his easy Kentucky drawl. Alan and I would look at each other and off we would go scurrying out of Billy’s bedroom window onto his rooftop. We would duck low and move quickly past Lucy’s bedroom window and over to the edge of the building. There was a high brick wall, a rampart of sorts, it was high enough to hide us from sight, but low enough for us to see clearly out across the main road.  We would then hustle about on the rooftop gathering small rocks and pebbles to throw.

Then like clockwork starting at around 1:45 in the morning men and women would begin to wobble arm in arm out of  “Max’s Lounge”, a glorified hole in the wall on the corner of Chene and Fredrick street. Giggling women in form-fitting shimmering dresses clinging to the arms of fidgeting men of all shapes, sizes, and colors, all dressed in variations of the polyester white suit that John Travolta wore in “Saturday Night Fever.” The hunched couples would stagger across the wide blacktop to their waiting LTD’s, Lincoln continentals, and Cadillacs. As they crossed we would pop up like Jack in the boxes and start chucking our rocks at them, not to hit them, we never wanted to do that. We just wanted to freak them out, and we did do that.

They would freeze like deer paralyzed in the road by approaching high beams. Brains locked, watching as the lights grew wider and brighter until something becomes nothing but a twitching stain dying on a lonely road. For our staggering friends, it was nothing quite that dramatic. Our deer would stand swaying in the middle of the road looking around bewildered and afraid as invisible objects clunked down near them. Some would stand for a moment before the brain snapped back to life and off they would dart back across the street to the safety of the lounge, others defiantly waved their fist into the night sky cursing and daring us to show ourselves, still, others stood as still as rocks in the road half-drunk looking glassy-eyed and uncomprehending.

“ Look at them,” we would all laugh pointing and throwing rocks until we ran out of them. When the last of the rocks were thrown, high and arching invisible in the black sky before falling to earth like a tiny meteor we would turn and scurry off belly laughing until the one night we heard a scream that stopped us in our tracks. We all looked at each other our smiles fading, our eyes wide and afraid. We slowly crept back over to the wall in time to see a young woman holding her head being helped back across the street. Blood was streaming down her face. People were pouring from the bar looking up and pointing in every direction.

My heart was pounding so hard in my narrow chest I thought I might pass out. Alan was as pale as a sheet of paper, his brilliant blue eyes danced wildly back and forth between Billy and me. Billy, on the other hand, seemed as calm as if nothing had happened.

“Come on,” he said as he was slowly backing away from the wall.

“What are we going to do,” I asked.

“Nothing, they didn’t see us. They don’t know where the rocks came from.”

“Fuck you, Billy,” Alan said, “We’ve got to tell someone what happened.”

We went back and forth for several minutes before our fear of getting in trouble from our parents and our pure cowardice at the time won out and we decided to keep our secret, that is until now.

This is a recent picture of Chene street, it’s sad to see how bad it looks now. The last time I was anywhere near here was when Alan and I found out about Ramone’s death and that was about six blocks away from here. When we were growing up none of these buildings were abandoned, it was a bustling fun place to spend our weekends. It’s sad. Back to the story, the woman we hit and no one knows whose rock it was that hit her was fine. Turns out she was a young woman that worked up the block at what used to be a local drug store.

The woman was okay, we saw her a few days later working at the corner drug store at the end of the block, I forget the name of the place, but like everything else, in that area, I imagine it’s been closed for years by now.  The name tag hanging on the shirt of her bland brown and white uniform was Janice.

The three of us walked to the counter carrying out Better Made potato chips and Faygo sodas. I remembered thinking that she was really pretty up close and that she looked way too young and innocent to be hanging out in a sleazy joint like Max’s. She had a small bandage on the right side of her head near the hairline where she had to have stitches.

“ Is that it,” she asked, her voice bored and robotic. She sat her paperback down on the stool next to her. She was looking right at us, but she really didn’t see us.  We were an annoyance, like wiping down the counter or sweeping the floor, we were a chore she needed to get done as quickly as possible so that she could get back to her book, and here Billy was asking her stupid questions.

“What happened,” Billy asked pointing to the bandage on her head. Her eyes narrowed.

“None of your business, you little redneck tard.”

“Sorry,” Billy said slowly turning up the knob on his southern drawl. He gave her a sly knowing smile that suggested that he wasn’t sorry at all. She stared at him for a minute then glanced at Alan and me.

“Yeah, I bet you are… sorry.”  She said to Billy, and then rang our items up and picked up her book and began to read as if we were no longer standing there, we were dismissed. As we walked out she looked up at us and with a slight smile spreading across her thin lips and the devil dancing behind her hazel eyes.

“Bye, bye, ” she said coldly while flicking her wrist at us then went back to her book.

“Jeez, what a bitch,” Alan said as we made our way back up the block toward Billy’s house.

“Yeah, maybe she has a headache,” Billy said trying to keep from laughing.

“Next time we should throw bricks,” I said joking.

“ Yeah, smash the wicked witch of the north,” Alan chimed in. The truth be told we were glad to see Janice was okay, and although no one ever said we shouldn’t do it, we never played “Stump the Drunk,” again. If I’m being honest and I always try to be, the way Janice treated us wasn’t that out of the ordinary. Most older girls didn’t appreciate young knot heads staring at their breasts or backsides. We were a small pack of horny dogs back then and Billy’s skin magazines didn’t help.

That night we went on deliveries with Billy’s mother. It was fun we would eat cakes and cookies until we had our fill, while we visited wonderbread, Bluebird, and several other major bread company warehouses. Most of the warehouse workers were mostly men at that time of night, between eleven at night and four in the morning would always hit on Billy’s mom, women did too. His mother seemed free and open, she didn’t carry the baggage other parents seem to lug around. She was happy with the way she was and didn’t seem to mind if people didn’t like or understand it.

There would be times usually when Lexi and Richard were fighting that she would seem to stay extra long at certain stops. She would be talking to the warehouse manager off in the shadows, and then they would be gone. sometimes for up to a half an hour at least that’s how long it seemed to me at the time. She would appear out of the shadows and without a word slide into her seat and buckle in.

“You boys ready to go home,” she’d asked in that sexy southern drawl of hers and before we could answer she would be pulling out of the dock. By the end of the night, the truck would be filled with empty bread trays stacked in columns against the front wall of the truck. The truck she drove was similar to a UPS truck with open sliding side doors on both sides. On summer nights Lexi would let us keep the side doors open so that we could catch a breeze as long as we stacked our trays toward the back and away from the open doors, and we did. The ride home was usually quiet. Our stomachs were full of cookies and cakes and we were beginning to come down off our sugar highs. We would each find ourselves a stack of empty bread trays and climb in. Our butts and backs were the only parts in the tray and our legs and arms would dangle over the sides and off to dreamland we would go. It doesn’t sound like it would be comfortable, but it was. Lulled to sleep by the sweet aroma of fresh bread lingering in the summer night breeze was great. It’s one of my fondest memories from my childhood to this day.

I remember it like it was yesterday, the night I almost died. The night we went out on the route was like any other night except on this night there had been a light drizzle. Not enough for an umbrella, but enough that if you stood out in it longer than a few minutes you would be wet. We waited for Lexi’s truck to be loaded and off we went. I could tell that Lexi was in a hurry to get done because Richard was going to be there when she got home. She did her route as quickly as possible and before we knew it we were all laying in our bread trays dozing off on the way back to Billy’s house.

The highway was nearly deserted like it always was on our early morning returns, I could vaguely hear the swooshing of the tires gliding over the wet roads. Lexi was unusually quiet on this night, most nights she would play the radio softly and sing along with the songs she liked, but not tonight. I would learn later that Lexi had asked to meet with Richard that night to tell him that their relationship was over and that she was thinking about moving back to Kentucky, the bakery was closing, but that wouldn’t be for another two years. Billy told us later that when he asked her why Richard stopped coming around she told him, she wanted to get married and Richard had broken his promise to leave his wife so she was leaving him. She just wanted to be free of Richard and the harassment of his wife.

As I slept on the bread rack I noticed that the trays were beginning to sway, we had stacked them to high and they were threatening to fall over. I opened my eyes and noticed that Billy was still sleeping and Alan had already jumped down from his pile and was already removing trays from his stack.

“ Your trays are too high you better…” Alan started to say when Lexi slammed on the breaks. A driver who was starting to fall asleep had swerved into her lane. Lexi blew the horn and swerved to miss him. The other driver swerved back into his lane. All the trays in the back of the truck went flying as she swerved back into her lane. Billy fell to the floor and was slammed into the sidewall. My stack of trays slowly tilted and fell forward and I went flying toward the open door. Lexi turned and through her arm out in my direction trying to break the fall, but she couldn’t hold the steering wheel and stop my fall at the same time. I could see the wet pavement rushing toward me glimmering like black ice.

My arms pinwheeled as I grasped for anything that would stop my fall. I remember thinking that I was about to die. I closed my eyes and tried to think of one of the prayers I had heard in church on the few mornings I went, but my mind was blank. The banging and clanking from the tumbling metal and plastic bread trays were deafening. As I slid forward I opened my mouth to scream. Suddenly I was no longer falling forward. I felt a sharp tug on my right leg and looked back and saw Alan holding onto one of the nylon straps used for tying down the trays and the other holding my leg. He was on one knee, his arms were spread eagle, he reminded me of the biblical Samson pushing the pillars apart in the temple of the Philistine leaders.

He was trembling, his head twisting back and forth like a wet dog shaking the water out of its fur. His blue eyes were so light they almost looked white. His lips were pulled back into a snarl exposing his clenched teeth. The cords of muscles in his skinny arms bulged and I could see it his eyes, if I went, he was going too.

“Help him,” Lexi screamed at Billy who was just sitting there frozen. He instantly snapped to life and grab my other leg and they pulled me back into the truck.

“ I got you,” Alan said with a nervous chuckle and patted me on the leg then fell back exhausted.

“You all right,” Lexi called back to me.

“Yes ma’am, I’m alright.”

*****

As we turned off of Chene street and onto I-94 the rain had begun to slow down.  I looked at Alan’s profile remembering that night I almost died. He must have felt the weight of my stare. He turned to me wearing a slightly embarrassed expression.

“What,” he said grinning.

“Nothing,” I said.

“You looking at my pimple,” he brought a hand up to cover the red pimple on his cheek.

“ I wasn’t, but now that you mentioned it.” I laughed.

The rest of the ride was filled with reminiscing and jokes. I didn’t see Alan again for nearly four years.

[sarahsilverdog-blog-blog]

One Problem At A Time Ch.3

MURPHY'S LAW PT. 1

Murphy’s Law: Anything that can possibly go wrong, will.

They stood at the bay door, tense and on edge. Mitch pushed his glasses up on his nose for what felt like the thousandth time; fear had slicked him with a cold sweat and he shifted his feet impatiently, feeling a cold trickle run down his back as Jamie tapped at the plane's navigational tablet. "I'm setting the timer on the bay door to close five seconds after it opens," she explained, not missing his fretful agitation as she stowed the tablet in her jacket, "When we come back we don't want the plane overrun with hybrids."

"Good thinking," Mitch replied tersely, "Snakes on a Plane was bad enough, Dinos on a Plane would just be ridiculous."

The ramp started to drop, hot afternoon sun beaming through the cracks as it descended. Jamie flipped the switch on the backpack supplying her flamethrower and ignited it; as the gap opened further she lowered protective goggles over her eyes. She could see several razorbacks turning to look at the plane and when three of them broke off and came towards her, fangs dripping as they snarled, she stepped off the edge of the ramp, squeezing the trigger until a spray of liquid fire erupted from the end of her gun, engulfing the charging hybrids in flames. They fell screaming, thrashing madly in agony. Mitch was at her side, rifle ready, but most of the creatures seemed disinclined to attack, instead running through the broken down doors of the interior, where the infirmary - and Clem and the others - had been.

The last hybrid vanished through the doors, only the corpses of the three burned razorbacks remained, smoking gruesomely on the ground around the plane. The ramp had already raised itself, Jamie noted, and she sheathed the flamethrower in the rack on the canister backpack, raised her goggles up on her forehead and pulled her pistol, flicking the safety off and checking the clip. "Ugh," Mitch said as they ran toward the doors, "It's smells like someone's barbecuing gym socks. Reminds me of college."

They reached the entrance to the interior of what had been Barrier Command- just a few short hours ago they had been celebrating in there, patting themselves on the back for a victory they hadn't actually won. Jamie's voice echoed in Mitch's ear, something she had said to him months ago - years ago? He was never really sure about his own timeline anymore- but she had been talking about losing to Reiden Global again after thinking they had found the cure and saved the world and she said, bitter and angry, "I was blisteringly naive, and it won't happen again." But it had, they had let down their guard, taken too many chances drunk on their own hubris and Abigail had used their mistakes to destroy them. Frustrated fury made his hands shake as Jamie motioned for him to flank the other side of the entrance; he moved where she wanted but he was detached, robotic - darkness be damned, he was going to exact retribution from Abigail Westbrook one day. Maybe not death, death was too easy and he was a scientist - he could come up with a much more horrible fate than just death.

"Mitch!" Jamie barked sharply at him and he shook himself back to the present; she was looking at him with questioning concern as she said, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, fine, sorry," he said, swinging his rifle up and aiming it down the apparently deserted hallway. "The infirmary is down at the end, through double doors."

It was wide enough to drive a truck through and it stretched for fifty feet with offices and restrooms and storage closets every ten feet or so on both sides of the hall. At the end of the long corridor the hallway turned left in front of a set of double doors which appeared to be splattered with something dark and blood-like, making Mitch's stomach flip-flop with anxiety. Jamie sidled cautiously inside, passing a IADG golf cart with a extra long bed that was loaded with boxes of what looked like various medical supplies, a large black canvas bag and a man-sized bundle wrapped in a blue IADG infirmary blanket. Mitch peered cautiously over the edge of the bed, noted the bag and bundle and said, "This must be the cart they had loaded Sam on, because I think that blanket is my dead soldier and the bag is my new pet hybrid."

"So they weren't in the infirmary," Jamie said, "and they abandoned the cart so they couldn't have gone far with Sam, where are they? What happened here?"

Mitch shook his head. He was barely keeping his panic under control. He'd only come to terms with the fact that he was an emotional being a few months before his "death", but in that short span of time he'd been subjected to losing Jamie (and finding her), losing the cure, losing Chloe, almost losing Clementine again and a hundred other moments that plucked at his sensitive heart; and while the others had all experienced the last ten years, had felt the time pass day by day, week by week, month by month, he'd been in stasis alone, experiencing his dreams and his memories. He'd only been post-tank Mitch for a few weeks, everything that happened ten years ago for everyone else was still fresh for him, still raw and new. And suddenly he had a grown daughter, and grandchild and an alter ego and Max was dead and there was Jamie (but not-Jamie) - it was a lot for someone who just started to allow himself to feel again to process.

A door down the hall to their left opened, startling them both; they swiveled their guns up as Clem stuck her head out, sighing a great sob of relief when she saw her father and Jamie. "Dad!" she cried, looking out into the hall before running to them and letting her father grab her in a fierce hug. "We were so worried about you two!"

"Yeah," Mitch said hoarsely, reluctantly letting go of his daughter. "You had us a little worried too. What happened here? The last thing we heard was you were being attacked-"

"Come inside, more may be coming," Clem said, leading them into the room she had left and closing the door behind her. It was a nice office that had probably belonged to one of the IADG upper level staff; tasteful brown carpet and comfortable chairs around a huge mahogany desk; though at the moment Sam Parker/Connor Oz was leaking blood onto the very nice desk. He looked strained and tired and in pain but awake and lucid, which was a good sign. Jackson sat beside him, though not touching his son, and Mitch wondered vaguely if Jackson had told him the truth and then the idea struck him that he and Jackson were now grandfathers together and he choked down a snort at the thought. Tessa was by Jackson's side, eyes narrowed at Jamie as if she expected her to attack him again; she took a protective step closer to him as Jamie rolled her eyes and smirked back at her. Abe and Dariela stood by the door, smiling with relief as Jamie asked, "What happened here? Is everyone okay?"

"Yeah," Dariela said, motioning to Abe who had a large gash across his leg, "the hybrids attacked but just enough to get us out of the way. They didn't come after us once we shut ourselves up in here."

As she said it there was noise outside the door; Jamie and Mitch immediately raised their weapons but Abe stopped them, shaking his head. "They will pass in a moment," he whispered over the sound of hundreds of claws tapping on tile flooring. "This is the third group that has moved through, the first is what attacked us. I was loading Sam into the cart when they came, but only two of them came after us, the rest just padded down the hallway, past the infirmary."

"What about the blood?" Jamie asked.

"I heard Abe yell," Dariela explained, "So I came running out and one of them charged me. I shot it but it ran down the hallway and disappeared with the rest."

Abe added, "They didn't really try to come after me, it was like they were distracting me while the others fled."

Tessa spoke up. "There's an exit down that hallway," she said. "To the outside. That must be where they're going."

The unsuspecting outside world was about to be overrun with vicious, murderous hybrids because of Jackson. The unspoken accusation hung in the air like a lead balloon, and Mitch, who could sympathize with the mental miasma Jackson was dealing with did his best to let the air out but Dariela spoke first. "I'm glad everyone is okay," she said, "But we can finish the family reunion later. We have a baby to find in less than two hours, and I am pretty sure those aren't going to be the last hybrids that come through here and the next batch may not be so easy going."

Jamie exited the room first, pistol at the ready, Mitch at her back with the assault rifle. Mitch insisted that Clem stay next to him, at least until they got to the cart; Abe and Jackson were carrying Sam on a stretcher and once they got him loaded on top of the various boxes of supplies she was going to ride in the back to protect him for the short and hopefully uneventful ride to the plane. They manhandled him on the cart and Clem climbed on the back, balancing herself on the blanketed bundle as she asked, "What exactly am I sitting on?"

Abe smiled at her apologetically. "Your father wanted the soldier, Troy, who was killed by his own dog after it turned into a hybrid. I am sorry, I had nowhere else to put it. Him.”

Clem made a face but sat herself gingerly on the bundle.

Tessa clambered into the drivers seat, Jackson at her side. His eye was blackening nicely, and Tessa grinned and said, "Well, Dylan Green, I think we have had quite enough spice for a while."

Jackson smiled back, his eyes flickering to his son, who was being tended to by Clementine. "I agree. I'm ready to sit by a fireside and spin yarns to my grandson about how we survived the animal apocalypse."

Tessa leaned her forehead against his. “Do we survive?"

Jackson kissed her quickly. “Of course we do.”

They were ready to go. One hour and forty five minutes left. Jamie pulled out her tablet as Dariela said, “Jamie is going to open the bay door and as soon as it starts to move so do we," she said, "We have the flamethrower and so far the hybrids haven't been very aggressive so this shouldn’t be too difficult." She hesitated, looking at each one of them in turn. "I know it's only thirty yards and that doesn't seem like much but if anything goes wrong that ninety feet is going to feel like forever, so...be ready. Abe and I will flank the cart, and Mitch and Jackson, stay with Clementine and Sam." Jamie pulled her protective goggles back on and kicked on the flamethrower as the ramp on the plane started to descend.