“So … do you want to check out the fireworks?” Ryan asked and gestured down the street with his bottle in hand.
Darren nodded, but didn’t really raise his head back up. “Mhm. Yeah, sure, sure, sure …”
… Alright, then.
He led the way with a long swig of his beer. There was still that hint of berry taste. Ryan had wondered if it would make it taste less bitter, but instead it reminded him of medicine. Sweet, but off.
Probably not a preference. The first had tasted the best, he thought. It helped that his dad liked it.
The sounds from the crowd outside the bathhouse fell as it grew more distant. Darren walked a step or two behind. The warm glow dimmed and then it was just the street lamps they could rely on. Blurry half circle of light to blurry half circle of light. A dim glow or stretches of shadow in-between.
Their boots scuffed on the stone and their breaths had a hint of a tremble, but otherwise they walked in silence. He glanced back and saw Darren stick his hand in his jacket. A red cloud had grown in his cheeks. Was he cold?
He wondered if there was something he should say, something they could talk about. The expression on his face, the posture of his shoulders, shift in his eyes, his lips, made him think he thought the same.
So he waited. What if he had something to say first? But the words never came and the awkwardness bloated.
He stepped into the yellow and orange glow of a street lamp above and remembered, “Hey, did you know some districts have white street lamps? They use, uh, lots of light crystals and dyes in their fire potions, I think, if people prefer the color. It’s more expensive, though.”
Micah had told him that.
Darren gave him a level look. “I know. I’m an [Alchemist].”
“Oh, right. Right, I just meant, uh—” He hadn’t meant anything, really, he was just trying to make conversation. Now, he kind of wished they could run after Finn and Billy after all.
Darren didn’t look like much of a runner. Not that he looked bad, especially not in his drummer clothes, but—
“Could you make that?” he blurted out and pointed back at the streetlamp as he stepped into the shadows, though the one he pointed at was orange.
Darren frowned at him and again, looked defensive. He’d looked it less and less as the night went on, but a hint of it popped up every now and then.
Had he said something wrong? Ryan hated how he always had to wonder. If there was something like [Basic Communication], he wanted to knew which Class he’d have to take to get it.
Darren took a step to the side and didn’t answer right away. Ryan turned away, still with his arm out, to avoid the awkwardness if he decided not to answer. He brought the bottle in to his center.
He took another swig.
“With magnesium, maybe.”
He glanced back. Darren had looked up and squinted at the next lantern. “I guess if I worked with that?”
“Like the flares?”
“Like the chemical,” he corrected him.
“Yeah, no, I knew that—”
“‘Wasn’t trying to say you didn’t. Just …”
Trying to make conversation.
Ryan nodded, but didn’t exactly have something to add. They took a left down the street next to the river, headed toward the classroom. Hints of light reflected off the water below.
“Or maybe fireflies?”
“Why fireflies?” he said a little too fast.
He joined him in the light. “They don’t produce heat. It might be something you could use to refine the output of the flames, but … not sure if that would affect the color. And where would you get that many fireflies?”
Ryan nodded. “Uh, Micah used to use fireflies, you know?”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, he had— has a whole bug-catching set. He used them to make light potions. Well, glow potions. He has this Skill that lets him see magic, so his potions always look stronger to him than they are?”
“Oh, that has to be confusing.” Darren swayed to the side, and counter-swayed a step closer.
Ryan shifted his left foot past his other heel to turn and walk backward at an angle. “Well, not anymore. He’s mostly figured it out, now. Luckily for him. Not that he uses them anymore.”
“It’s not about the moral reason, really,” Darren said, “in case you were wondering. No different from eating meat, but … Some farms that sell fireflies, but magnesium is easier to get?”
Ryan nodded again. He doubted Micah would have many moral qualms, either. He thought things were cute and cut them up anyway. But … he didn’t want to talk about him right now, did he?
“And you?” he asked instead. “How are you doing?”
What do you want to be when you grow up?
The memory made his smile fall. It was only one of many and Ryan scowled on reflex. He’d barely even spoken to the guy in years. What right did he have to try now? And what if Darren thought the same? What if that was the reason for the frowns?
He kept looking at him to be polite, waiting for an answer, but adjusted his angle as he glanced ahead and sped up his pace. The sooner they joined Finn and Billy at the—
At the bridge.
At the classroom, he’d meant. They’d walked down this street before. Run, rather, back when everyone had been a runner. He could almost feel the sun glaring down on his neck.
“I’m … doing fine,” Darren said. Half his attention snapped back. The other half was lost somewhere else. “Having fun during my apprenticeship, got two Skills from my Path so far, working on my third, so I guess I have that figured out, I mean.”
“Which Path do you have, actually? Alchemy or alchemist? Or something else in that vein?”
“Alchemist,” Darren said and gave him an appreciative look. “‘You learned about that in Social Studies already?”
Ryan nodded. “The difference is subtle, but it is there. At least, that’s what they told us.”
“Maybe that’s why I got [Worker],” he mused. “I never knew what I wanted to do, just that I wanted to do something well.” He took a sip of his own beer and stuck his hand in his pants pocket, shoulder high.
Cold, but didn’t want to look it? He wondered what his parents would say about him lending this jacket.
“And being an [Alchemist] lets you do well?”
He nodded earnestly, but ended up weighing his head a little as he admitted, “It … can get tedious at times. Everything can. I’m not exactly experimenting like a [Mad scientist]. But the routine is a lot nicer than other jobs I’ve tried and I’m passionate about the work I’m doing.”
“That sounds awesome. And other jobs? Which were those?” He was trying to get him to keep talking. It was nice to hear from him.
“A few,” he brushed him off. “And you?”
And he’d failed.
“Huh? Oh I’ve, uh— I did a part-time job as a trash collector for a month, after the changes, but—”
“Right.” He seized on the word. “You can’t go into the Tower, can you? That has to suck.”
“It does.”
It sucked a lot. He wasn’t earning money, wasn’t collecting gear, and the best training he got outside of the Tower were his sparring matches with Lisa.
Not that all the other little things were worthless, learning the fundamentals and shoring up the cracks were invaluable, but … all things in moderation. And they were far beyond moderation.
“Classes right now feel very much like band-aid solutions,” Ryan said, starting out confident. He quickly lost that confidence. “It’s like we have to, uh … keep up a suspension of disbelief in school?”
Darren looked bemused. “A what?”
“Suspension of—”
“Yeah, no, I mean, isn’t that a story thing? Like, where you assume things can happen?”
“I didn’t know a better word for it, okay?”
The other guy smiled. “Suspension of distrust? Or dissatisfaction?”
“In?”
“The teachers?”
“Ah?”
“The curriculum!” He pointed.
“Right.” He chuckled. Not that the idea was wrong, it just seemed weird to consider in that context. Should students suspend disbelief in their school? Or should they point out flaws?
“But they’re not real [Teachers], you know?” he mused. “Too high level.” Darren looked curious so he explained despite himself. Maybe he could bring the conversation back to him some other way?
“You know how there’s lots of different ways of becoming an instructor?” Ryan started out.
“No, not really.”
It broke his stride before it even began and Ryan scrambled to sort his thoughts. Right. He was a proper Westhill kid. He wouldn’t know as much about combat Classes and the sorts.
He almost felt like he would be corrupting him, explaining. “Well, uh, whichever way you go, you usually start before level thirty to get an education Class and have a sort of level shift. At worst. At best, you might have a Path as well.” He looked and saw no opposition in his expression.
Ryan smiled and raised a finger to go on, “But, our principal hired people who are level thirty and up. Not people who are doing a career change in their twenties or thirties. They already had long careers and are going into pseudo-retirement. There’s much less of a chance of them getting an education Class, let alone Skills that could mess with our advancement.”
“But …” Darren squinted. “Won’t they have no education Skills at all, then?” he asked.
“Yep.” He nodded. “But you don’t need education Skills to teach. It works for other nations. It worked for our ancestors. The plan was lots of extra practical lessons because we’re right next to the Tower. We can get our own experience without having to rely on them too much.
They follow a core curriculum; we get lots of resources, courses, and other programs to further our callings in whichever way we see fit—to see if we can find new Skills, Classes, and so on, you know?”
And some callings were also just so individual, they required a degree of freedom that was lacking in a traditional setting. Those people would have normally only done two years at a general school and struck out on their own. Here, they might do more.
“It also helps them a little, I figure, if they decided this whole teaching thing isn’t for them and want to go back; or if they only want to offer a single course in their free time or something.”
“Oh,” Darren said and shut his lips. He sounded contemplative, not convinced either way.
Ryan gave him that peace of mind. “And, that all went out the window when the Tower changed. The city and the Guild had a knee jerk reaction to ‘protect the children’.” He raised his hands up and shook them in fake fright. “And now, we can’t go inside most of the time.”
He chuckled. “Okay, yeah. I can see how that might suck. But uh, going back? Have you been furthering your Path a lot in the meantime, then? Like, how many Skills do you have from it?”
Ryan hesitated. He’d kind of been hoping they could go back to talking about him. Which Path did he even mean?
[Salamander Path]? Three.
[Explarism Path]? Technically, five. Truthfully?
“Only two.” He scratched the side of his beer bottle. “With a bit of an influence on a third.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Really? But didn’t you—” He stopped himself before he said something rude, still nice despite maybe not liking him … right? Or was it maybe the other way around?
No, that didn’t make sense. He wasn’t rude. He hadn’t been, all evening. But … his behavior reminded him a lot of what the others said about himself, like he had warmed up to them.
Was he shy?
“Yeah, I uh— I got my Path early,” Ryan said and tried to keep his voice steady. His brain kept on giving him stupid ideas, reasons for why he might be shy. He shrugged and slowly headed away from the river and familiar bridge in the distance to the other side of the street.
Darren subtly adjusted positions to walk where he had been before and glanced at the water, then back at him, waiting for an answer.
The bottle didn’t cut it. Ryan rubbed a hand over the fresh stubs at the back of his head from his new haircut. He had kept it as long as he could. “I guess I just … wasn’t that diligent in furthering it?”
He frowned. “You looked diligent. Still do. Why not?”
Because of you. Because of me. Because something went wrong and I got the wrong Path.
Instead of saying any of that, he shrugged and took another sip of beer. “I guess I was focused on other things. I have another Path, though—”
Darren actually smiled and Ryan missed a step. “I don’t even know what your first one is.”
He wasn’t letting him change topics, was he? Did he want to hear about Ryan? That wasn’t helping.
“It’s—” he started and bit his lip. He’d lied to everyone else. Why should he tell the truth, now? It wasn’t like it would make things better. If anything, it might make things worse. It would insult them, if they knew. Creep them out. Who would want to be memorialized by him?
“It’s got to do with animals,” he half-lied. It did have to do with animals, now. And it could have to do with buildings, and clouds, and trees, and bowls full of fruit, and sports, and sword-fighting, and so many other things … like people. It could be whatever he chose it to be.
It wasn’t the what, but the how that mattered.
“Animals?” Darren asked, a little surprised.
“Yeah, studying them and stuff. My second Path is about studying a specific type of monster I’m fond of.”
He scratched the beer bottle again, peeling away the logo.
“I remember you liking animals in general.” Darren didn’t ask about the monster. Of course, he wouldn’t. But he did furrow his brows and looked at him. Trails of light climbed the distance. “Did you ever get that dog you wanted?”
I asked my parents a few times if we could get one, but—
The first rockets burst. Dandelion blooms filled the sky. The dim street lit up in half a dozen different flame colors which burned away into metallic sheens reflected across the canal.
The boom reached them and drowned out any and all noises aside from the echo of his chest.
“Oh,” Darren said, staring. His voice seemed quiet now in comparison. “I guess we’re too late.”
Ryan had nothing to add to that.
Credits appeared, the names of the people and companies responsible, but they ignored them. The next salve brought with it the first moving pictures. Giants crossing the sky.
In contrast, they barely walked far below. They could have easily gotten to the classroom before it was over, he thought. Or before it really began. Instead, they surrendered themselves to the view. As if walking would mean they might miss something or … insult it. Infringe on the wonder.
The feeling wouldn’t last, he knew.
Still, in that moment they reached the bridge and Darren glanced at him. “Do you want to watch from here?”
He nodded. “Sure.” They stepped on the bridge and Ryan traced the cold stone. It felt warm, in his memories.
A hint of golden color flickered across the walls like a long-abandoned memento in a public place, just waiting to be picked up again. Oil colors and layers of lacquer flowed down the canal.
Another flash lit up half of Darren’s face, showed his smile of wonder. He stopped where they usually sat when they hung out in the summer. Had usually sat, Ryan corrected himself.
Something made his smile grow and Ryan looked up to see what it was. A knight in a suit of armor rose from a kneel. One leg, then the other. Slow and heavy. It raised its arms and they burst into towers of sparks arcing in all directions in a triumphant pose as it broke to pieces.
Usually, there was a theme or some kind of story to the fireworks. Nothing big or elaborate, but Ryan hadn’t been paying enough attention to catch even that. It still made him smile.
Far in the distance, the champions of other districts broke apart in different ways and colors.
He shook off some of the mood he was in, pushed his arms against the bridge, and looked up.
“You know, Micah was right,” Darren said.
“Huh?”
“You’re alright, Ryan.”
He needed a moment to process that, frowned, and smiled because it sounded like a compliment. Was he ‘just’ alright, though? “Uh … thank you? You’re pretty alright, too, Darren.”
His eyes shot over. “Really?” he asked it in a tone like they were joking and he might roll his eyes. Was he just ‘alright’, though? Was that the insinuation?
Ryan was unsure about … pretty much everything in life, but he went along with this. “Yeah. You are. I’m glad you came.”
His friendly expression slipped for a moment—into confusion rather than aggression. He surprised Ryan by turning to lean against the bridge, raised his legs up, and swung them around.
He sat there, instead of heading for the classroom. It looked like an invitation, so Ryan raised one leg up and pushed himself up to stand on the ledge. He swayed—the illuminated water looked so much closer than usual. The other side of the bridge as well, at the same time.
It wasn’t a sudden thing, but it was disorienting. Ryan swayed back the other way and let himself plop down with a sigh of relief. Losing his balance here, that was a first.
Darren gave him a long look before he let go of the breath he’d been holding. He shook his head and chuckled, something humorous left unspoken.
“Screw you,” Ryan said.
“What?”
“I wasn’t going to fall.”
“Okay.”
“Really. I wasn’t.”
“I believe you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Okay, I don’t. So what?”
“Screw you,” he just repeated.
“What is this?” he asked. “Is this banter?”
“Of course.” Ryan smiled, hesitated on a stupid idea, and tried. “I mean … if you want it to be?”
The implication being that it could be something else.
Darren nodded, but Ryan didn’t know which option he’d chosen. He didn’t know which option he would have wanted him to choose.
He looked at the river below, saw the fireworks reflected in rippled lines, and remembered the last time they had sat here next to each other. It had been ridiculously warm in contrast.
He remembered Finn screaming as he jumped in the cold water and laughter all around.
“It’s weird, to be doing it now,” Darren said.
“Huh? Why?”
“Because, well … you know.”
He knew? What did he know? Ryan laughed nervously. “I do?”
“Yeah. I mean, you know,” Darren said. “I wasn’t sure if I should say something, because … it’s your birthday and all that?”
His heart hammered. He was sure at this point that he had to be misunderstanding something. It wasn’t his birthday anymore, though … was it? He had missed his chance for something to happen.
Could he still act like it was happening, a few hours after? A few years after?
“It’s just, we never really spoke for the last few years in the classroom—” Darren started.
Oh. He had been misunderstanding something.
“—and we used to hang out in the classroom all the time. We were benchmates? But then … you …?”
He trailed off, making it a question, and Ryan didn’t know how to work past the guilt and shame to answer. So that was the reason for the frowns and hesitation. He knew. Did that mean all those other reasons didn’t exist?
When no answer came, Darren just said, “You stopped talking to me, from one day to the next.”
“I did.”
The guy looked at him in surprise. A look of hurt flashed across his face which quickly turned to anger.
But he was still here. And he was still giving Ryan a chance. How could he make it up to him? Or make up for it all, in general?
“Just … why, then?” came the obvious next question.
Darren sat next to him on the all-too-familiar stone and wanted to know why he was an asshole.
“Because—” Ryan started, but didn’t know how to put it into words. He still remembered the day from back then. The feeling. The canal below, he was drowning in unfinished memories.
“Hey! Hurry up!” Bennet, their team captain called. “Last one there has to do the rest of our homework!”
The market-goers rolled their eyes and shouted as they ran past the stalls and pants, but this was an almost daily occurrence, aside from the new additions. They quickly ignored them.
“What? No fair! No way we can do your homework!” came the chorus of piped replies, voices far younger than the captain and only a few years younger than the rest of Ryan’s group.
He rolled his eyes at the empty threats and called, “Do you want to see the spot or not? Then hurry!”
They were visibly trying to keep up, though some had already abandoned the chase and were catching their breath behind … If they got lost, it might mean trouble from some parents.
Well, that was Bennet and the other guys’ problem, not his. Ryan turned his back on them and jogged out of the market. If they wanted to see their super secret hang-out spot (which wasn’t really that super or secret), they would have to work for it.
He only got a few steps far when he spotted something out of the corner of his eye and stopped dead in his tracks. Someone almost barrelled him over and cursed his name for generations to come.
Lang also shoved past him and turned around to call, “What the hell, Ryan? Get a move on.”
“Ooh, cat,” he said and pointed. It was calico and fluffy and sat all on its own in the alley.
“What?” He turned to look and his expression became the same. “Ooh, cat.”
“Cat?” another guy asked. Darren, he thought. He tried to push past them and ended up standing on his toes to see. “Where?”
“There,” Lang said.
“Shh,” Ryan hissed at them and pushed them back. “Stop crowding. You’re going to scare it off.”
He glanced back, but it hadn’t noticed them yet. He gave them a warning glance until he was sure they would stay back—even with some eye-rolling—and took a few hesitant steps closer.
The cat spotted him, hunched its back, and stared. Its tail went still. That was a good sign, right? If it was waving it was ready to strike. But … it still looked ready to flee or scratch at a moment’s notice anyway.
He inched closer and closer and it didn’t go anywhere. It lowered its back and Ryan held his hand out, index finger bent to his thumb so he could test the waters with his knuckle first.
The cat stretched its head forward and—
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Finn stomped down with two feet next to him and shouted. It bounded over the wall in a flash.
“Dammit, Finn!” Ryan shoved him. The guy stumbled back and almost fell, but held onto the wall to steady himself. He was laughing, the freaking bastard.
“Oh, your face!”
Then he was off, still laughing to himself, and Ryan felt the urge to run after him and kick his ass or trip his leg out from under him.
Lang got there first, but by the ease of his movements it wasn’t out of revenge. He tripped him just because he could.
Ryan still reveled in his squeak of surprise when the guy almost fell.
“Aw,” Darren said.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I really wanted to pet it.” He stared at the spot where it had run off to.
Darren looked at him and frowned. “Wait, are you actually disappointed?”
“What? Well … yeah. I mean, uh—”
“Don’t you have a cat?”
He stood up and dusted his hands off. “No. Well, there’s the neighbor’s cat, but it’s only interested in those stupid birds.”
The comment tickled his memory and Ryan slipped his backpack around to check for something. “You?” he asked absent-mindedly.
They headed down the street. “We used to own one,” Darren said, “but it ran away to a family two houses over.”
“Ouch. Yeah, cats are heartless. I think I might be more of a dog person. I asked my parents a few times if we can get one, but they keep on insisting that our house is too small even though we could share a room. It could sleep on my bed with me, you know?” He shifted through his stuff and found what he was looking for: a small, crumbled-up pouch full of seeds.
“Dogs are cool.”
Ryan triumphantly yanked it out, an idea already forming in the back of his head. “Look!”
The guy leaned over. “What?”
He showed him. “Bird food. My parents said I could use it to get birds to not run away but that they might poop on me if I did.”
“Ew.”
“Yeah, no, but I have a better idea,” Ryan said and stared down the street with revenge in his eyes. “We can turn it around on the others. We could collect a whole bunch of birds—”
“Flock.”
“—a flock of birds. And then, when they’re eating out of our hands, we throw the rest of the seeds at Finn to get them to attack him. And then they’ll poop all over him and we’ll have our sweet revenge.”
He raised his hands to either side and cackled maniacally.
Darren gave him a wary look.
“Too much?”
“Yeah. Way too much, man.”
“Eh.”
He shrugged and put the seeds back. They wouldn’t be safe in his pocket. Another pair of tweens ran past them, one pointing ahead, This way!, and Darren tapped him on the shoulder.
“Come on. We don’t want to be the last ones there.”
Ryan could get behind that idea. He joined him in a run, off to the bridge where the older guys hung out.
The sun began to wear on his neck on the way and he heard the screams and splashes from a distance. He could feel the cold air around the canal. It almost called to him.
The moment he saw the others swimming as he ran up, Ryan dropped his backpack and leaped over the low point in the wall to dive on in.
Cold.
His clothes were soaked with water. They weighed him down. Sound warped through the racing bubbles of air and his vision blurred.
A second body crashed into the water next to him and left a pillar of bubbles in his wake—Darren, holding his knees. They burst through at almost the same time and Ryan spotted his other friends and classmates swimming around them, past the glare of the sunlight.
Summer. How he loved it.
They sat on the bridge and let the sun dry them. Its heat built wherever his skin was left uncovered if he didn’t move for too long. It threatened sunburn. But the contrast of his damp clothes soothed his mind from that threat.
He only moved his legs where they dangled over the edge and watched his friends have fun.
Finn jumped off the side and tried to do something with his elbow, hitting the water to make a splash. It didn’t work the way he’d imagined and left him sucking through his teeth against the skin burn.
Flakes of gold there around the sun’s glare at the side of the canal, and around the edges of the world in general. Maybe even an outline around the guys? Something about the day just seemed golden, to him.
A cloud drifted by and brought a patch of shade that threw a chill down his torso, but the moment it lifted, the sun glimmered brilliantly off the surface in contrast as if to make up for lost time.
Glass for that? No, something about glass on water bothered him, even if it was only in his mind. Something else?
Idle thoughts. This was a project Ryan worked on every time they were here, every time he saw this scenery. And he saw it a lot.
What would the world look like as a painting meant to rival even the greats? Just, not as one of the great epic stories. Just something he loved: seeing his friends have fun. And seeing his friends themselves, of course.
Lang was trying and failing to get his attention below. He called out, then resorted to splashes of water, aiming higher and higher. Finn soon joined him. Not to get his attention, but just because splashing water was fun.
That.
Life could never rival the scenes from the epics, Ryan knew that. But he loved these moments anyway. Simple, everyday things. Two dozen screaming children jumping into the water to cool off. A blindingly hot day. Summer in its entirety.
How to portrait the water? The way watercolor flowed? No, that wasn’t thick enough. There wasn’t enough substance to show the depth of the day, his emotions, and his memory of this moment.
And the glimmer of the sun on the surface? If not glass, then … ice? Too cold. What about ‘flakes’? When things dried, they became solids. And he wanted the sun’s light to be something solid.
Was there an oil that flaked into pure white? … Probably not. And he didn’t necessarily want it to be that kind of dry. Maybe some kind of lacquer? Or silver to match the gilding?
It didn’t matter.
Really, Ryan was just thinking out of his ass. He had no idea about paintings. Colors, materials, techniques, brushes—he was doing all this just in his mind, little by little, with little care for the rules that normally applied.
He painted memories of the things and people he liked, the things they got up to, but they had to be things he wanted to remember again and again, in the past, present, and future; the essence of what they were.
Impossible paintings for an impossible task. Oh, and what if they moved? To show an entire slice of that life he wanted to capture.
He wondered if there was a word for it. He definitely wouldn’t have been able to think of one with all that screaming going on around him.
“Ryan!” Lang called. “Ryan, come down already!” He finally found the right force and angle to get the splashes all the way up to the bridge—with the help of others.
Darren leaned back and made faces at the cold drops, but didn’t move from his spot on then bridge next to him.
And then came Finn, cannonballing into the water to send a huge splash their way. Darren laughed and leaned into Ryan’s chest to hide from it. He saw mostly hair above his smiling face as he pushed against his chest.
How to portray that hair and his smile? He would want to get it just right.
He’s cute.
Wait, no— Not cute. Guys weren’t supposed to be cute. They were supposed to be cool, and manly, and rugged, and— And as he thought about it, Ryan liked those ideas, too, but …
He suddenly worried he liked them a little too much.
He shoved Darren off him and jumped into the water—to the cheers of the others. He did it to hide. He held his breath and shook his head underwater as if he could shake off the weird thoughts.
He couldn’t. Not forever.
It was a confusing few weeks before he got his Path. He ran up into his room and slammed his door more times than he could count. And each time he did, he tried to slam doors in his head.
In the end, he got it after staring out the window at the birds in their shared garden, and the cat that always ran when he’d tried to slip out to pet it. He didn’t feel guilty imagining how to paint those.
He’d really wished he’d had a dog, though, then, someone he wouldn’t have to run from and who wouldn’t run from him when he needed a hug. Not that he knew all of that. It had taken him a while to figure his Path out.
But his first painting was of those birds instead of his friends in the summer, who would be disgusted with him if they knew, and especially if they knew he had made a Skill with them in it.
And despite that, he’d made a Skill with Micah. In part, at least. Him hugging that Honey Ant in the Tower.
And in the end, he’d ended up making a Skill from all the others, too, during the scouting trip. [Pack Aura]. Almost all the people he was closest to, because he couldn’t get too close to others.
… And a few others.
One of those others sat next to him again, now as he had all those years ago, in his halfway-undone drummer outfit. And he was trying to tell him about how he had been such an asshole, back then. And Ryan couldn’t help but think of how he was so damn handsome again.
He felt like all the others were pushing him to do it, Lang with his stupid public wristband, Finn treating him like he was no different at all, Micah and everyone else with their compliments.
Ryan wasn’t confident, but they were and … he wanted to push himself, too. He wanted more than this, more than ‘good enough’. It helped that he was on his third beer. He was probably drunk already.
He took a chance.
“Because—” he said and couldn’t find the right words so he showed him instead. Because what he really wanted, for once, was just to connect.
He kissed him.
His lips were warm and rough. It felt like a wild animal was running loose in his chest.
Darren shoved him away and asked, “What the fuck, Ryan?! Why the fuck are you doing?”
He looked at him like he had just spat in his face or kicked his dog to death. “What is this? Some kind of— of sick prank?” He wiped his mouth and glanced around, as if people would jump out from cover at any moment and laugh at him, or worse. But it was just the two of them here.
The bridge lit up beneath the glow of another round of fireworks and the silence was deafening in their wake.
He must have seen it, then. He must have seen it on his face because his expression changed.
“Wait, you—?”
Ryan didn’t know what to do. He stared at him and they both took deep breaths.
“Oh.”
The look Darren gave him shot that animal dead.
Ryan swung his legs over the side and jumped off.
The other guy caught him by his wrist and kept him from running with the strength he had given him, his first crush. Why the hell had he done that, back then?
He was stronger than this, but Ryan let Darren hold him back. He looked, but instead of giving him hope the guy said the wrong words.
“I won’t tell anyone.”
For a moment, he wanted to punch him, feel the crack of his knuckles on his face. He realized he was still holding his beer bottle and dropped it, wincing as the glass hit stone and froth shot from its neck.
Darren cursed.
Ryan wrenched his arm free and fled. It wasn’t really him he wanted to punch after all.
His breathing rose higher and higher as he ran until he made a sound of hysteria. He pumped his arms as hard he could, balled his hands into fists that almost hurt, and sprinted just to get rid of the energy.
He couldn’t.
What did he just do? What the hell had he just been doing? What kind of a fucking idiot was he?
He was two streets away when he realized where he was headed. The small house in the distance.
Home.
Only, he couldn’t go there anymore. He didn’t have a room there anymore and his parents were asleep, exhausted from raising another child. They deserved that rest. Ryan couldn’t bring his shit to their doorstep and ruin their expectations.
He couldn’t hide anymore every time he had an indecent thought about a classmate, couldn’t shove it down or meditate until it was gone because it was better than the guilt and disgust he felt after, if he didn’t.
Where could he go, instead?
He looked around and saw no options. He couldn’t even head back to the party. Not like this.
He turned and saw nothing but painful memories down the road he had come, looked another way and saw empty streets that should have seemed familiar but suddenly weren’t. He didn’t know where to go. This area should have felt like the back of his pocket, but he felt lost.
He took a step in one way, two in another, walked a circle, and ran his hands up his hair.
Strangers headed his way down the street, one walking unsteadily, another with a beer in her hand, and the third chatting. They forced his hand.
Ryan walked away from his house, crossed a bridge, and continued until he ducked down a side alley. The smell of garbage hit him and he took a step to the side to hug the wall.
He had no cologne to help him. Frustration skittered up his arms and neck. How often had he wished that he hadn’t gotten the Skill at all. How often had he wished he could control it or shut it off entirely.
Skills were supposed to help, and so often, it definitely hadn’t. Outside of the Tower, at least.
… How often he wondered what he might have gotten instead, once he understood what had gone wrong.
He walked as far away as he could to stay away from the smell, but stayed far enough from the end of the alley to avoid attention. The smell of black powder and smoke drifted down on currents of cold air.
Not horrible, but not good either. Because nothing was fucking good anymore. It was always that or barely good enough, or all shit.
He thought of Micah and Anne in that yard, him shying away from his fire, Connor shying away from him entirely, his spear against that man’s throat, his wounded ribs and bones, and the look Darren had given him, the looks Finn and Lang sometimes gave him, like they walked around on eggshells around him because he was different, not truly a part of them.
He fucking wished—
He punched the wall. To get it all out. He winced at the pain and cradled his bruised hand, took in sharp breaths through clenched teeth and then a wide, soundless mouth.
That had been stupid. But that was just the point! He was a fucking idiot. He punched the wall again, this time with his other hand. And again and again. Each time, he pulled through. He only managed a few before the pain was too much and rested his forehead against the stone.
Sharp, warm breaths pushed up the sides of his face. Blood ran down his fingers and dripped below. It probably dripped onto his good pants. The pain in his knuckles distracted him. Every time he tried to clench his fists against it, the wounds stretched and tore and it got worse.
When he moved, his left hand brushed the wall and he felt the grit inside. Lightning pain shot up his arm and made him jerk.
He turned his back on the wall and held his arms at an angle. They were shaking. He splayed his fingers lightly to keep the pain from spreading and held them as still as he could.
His lip was quivering like he was ten years younger and not just turned sixteen. It was the pain, he told himself. And it was. But it wasn’t just that. He didn’t want to, but the first tear fell.
Dammit.
Ryan had screwed up. Really, he deserved so much more than this. He hated himself so much.
----------------------------------------
A light was on in the upstairs hallway. Lang saw it in the window from outside and sighed. Dammit, Sol. Her parents were gone. Did she want to burn the whole house down?
He turned the key, shuffled his shoes off, and dropped his lanyard in the bowl, but left the jacket on. One minute, in and out. He just had to grab a few things and then he was gone. Good thing he had come back and seen it.
He went down the small list of things he needed as he headed upstairs, focussing on the number rather than the actual items. Four. If he had done less than four things when he left, he had forgotten something.
His thoughts stopped when he reached the top and saw it was his own room the light was coming from. He pushed down the brief flash of panic and put on a self-deprecating smile.
Well, that’s embarrassing. He didn’t remember leaving it on, but it was a good thing Sol wasn’t home or he would have shouted at her the moment he came through the door. She … wasn’t home, right?
“Sol?” he asked, just to check. No answer. He did hear a sniffle, though, and frowned. “Sol?”
He stepped into his room.
Ryan pulled his legs up where he sat huddled under his window and jerked his arm toward his face. He froze before he got blood on it and used his wrist to wipe his eyes and nose instead.
He had been crying. His hands were covered in blood, he was here, and he had been crying.
“What—”
“Lang,” he croaked. “Fuck, I’m sorry. You said your parents were out of town. I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Fucking creepy, man,” he said, but his heart wasn’t in it. He rushed inside. “What the hell happened? Why are you in my room?”
“I screwed up.”
He huddled together and hugged his knees, then hid his face in them. As if Lang hadn’t seen already.
“Well, that much is obvious,” he said and kept the panic at bay. “Are you in trouble? What the hell happened to your hands? Did you bash someone’s face in or what?”
“No. No.” He sounded insulted, but the effect was subdued by the muffle of him speaking into his pants.
Lang was relieved by the answer, but why was he acting like a six-year-old? If he had screwed up, he should just tell him. They had gotten into enough trouble together. Seeing him, Ryan the overachiever, Ryan who could fight off monsters, here huddled up, bleeding and crying … It almost physically pained him.
Yeah, no. Lang shook it off the feeling. First things first: They had to treat the injuries. He got closer for a better look and reached for his arm, but Ryan jerked his shoulder away.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Let me see.”
He tried again, but the guy did it again and turned away. He sighed. “C’mon, man. Don’t be an idiot.”
He mumbled something intelligible.
Lang groaned and checked from a squat instead. What the hell had happened? Had he punched a wall or something? Even so, Lang had punched walls before and he knew you didn’t get that beat up from it. You didn’t even do it more than once because it freaking hurt.
He shifted positions and spotted grit stuck in one of his knuckles. That was too much.
“Dammit, Ryan,” he cursed. “What the hell? You need to treat those.” He grabbed his wrist.
Ryan wrenched his arm away. “Don’t.”
He gave him an incredulous look. “What’s up with you?”
“I took a chance,” he mumbled. “And it blew up in my face.”
A chance? What the hell was he on about? A chance on what? Or who? Oh. Did he mean—?
“A chance?” Lang asked and shifted mental gears. He searched for a way to talk around this issue without … touching on that subject directly. It never ended well when they did it too directly.
‘I took a chance’ was pretty damn unambiguous, though. Had he tried to, uh … put the moves on someone?
“With …?” Lang asked, options running through his head. It had to be someone from the party, right?
“Darren,” he mumbled.
“Darren?”
He nodded into his knees.
Fucking why? Why him? “What? Why would you— Did you tell him or—”
“Showed.”
His voice was barely a whisper.
Showed. Like, show-show? Wait, no, this was Ryan he was thinking of. Had he tried to hold his hand or something?
And now he was here, bleeding and hugging his freaking knees because of fucking Darren. He knew he shouldn’t have let Micah invite him. What the hell did Ryan even see in him?
“Did he say something? Do something?” Lang asked. “Is— Is this something we need to worry about?”
Ryan shook his head more and more vehemently, but Lang couldn’t stop. Not until he was sure.
“Talk to me. I don’t know what that means. Are you shaking your head, ‘No, we don’t have to beat him up,’ or, ‘No, I don’t care’?”
He stopped. His back trembled as he took in a breath and mumbled, “He said he wouldn’t tell anyone.”
And how the hell was Lang supposed to trust that? He didn’t trust the guy. But Ryan didn’t seem to care, right now. He more than anyone would have gotten behind that if there was a chance.
Would he have to wait for him to calm down?
Fuck.
Lang let himself fall back against his bed. He watched Ryan, but the guy didn’t move. What the hell he was supposed to do, then? His thoughts kept on coming back to the only solution he could grasp.
“Ryan, we really need to clean those wounds,” he said. “I’m pretty sure there’s grit stuck in them.”
He didn’t respond.
“Alright?”
Still, no response. Whatever. He tried taking his arm again anyway, more gently this time.
Ryan wrenched it away. “Don’t.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“I’ve done disgusting things, thinking about you,” he mumbled. “So just don’t … please.”
Oh. And then, Lang didn’t want to, anymore. He pushed aside the distaste to focus on something else. The betrayal? He’d promised. Not directly, but he had told them, assured them he would never be interested and now—
And did it matter, right now? No. So he shoved that aside as well and focussed on his friend.
“So what?” He put on a forced smile. “It’s normal. You think I haven’t done that thinking about half the girls in my classroom? I don’t care.”
Finally, Ryan lifted his head again. He took a deep breath, tilted his face over, and gave him a weary look. It said one word, Liar.
Well, what the fuck else was he supposed to do? He was trying to help. He didn’t have options.
Lang met his face for a moment and looked away, not bothering to try and refute him. He doubted Ryan would believe anything he said right now. So he guessed he’d just have to wait.
He hated that. He hated having to worry again. This should have been over already. Or at least, been on an upward track. But now …
Dammit, Micah. It could have all been so simple. Why couldn’t you have made him happy?
The draft stopper dragged over the tiles below, the sound of the front door opening. Lang bolted upright and looked at the hallway.
“Lang?” Sol called. She closed the door and only a single pair of footsteps headed up the stairs.
He looked at Ryan. What did they do? Hide? Pretend nothing had happened? He could stick his hands in his pockets, but his face?
He looked frozen.
“Is Ryan here? Because Micah—” she said and then she was already in the doorway, knuckle poised to wrap on the frame, and there was nothing they could do about it.
She stared at Ryan. Her eyes flickered between them, searching his face and darting back to Lang as if she were afraid to linger. She put on a smile. “What the hell happened to you two?”
Ryan didn’t look like he would answer, and Lang didn’t want to go through that whole charade again. He was frustrated that he had no idea what to do and frustrated she would just barge in like this.
“Ryan got rejected,” he said. They both knew the type of person he’d get rejected by. “So he punched a wall … a lot.”
He winced.
She looked at him and this time her eyes stayed. Her expression softened. “Oh.” Sol walked inside and sat next to him. She wrapped an arm around his shoulder and said, “Come here.”
He tensed up, but didn’t shove her away like he had him, when Lang had only wanted to check his wounds. He pretended that it didn’t hurt.
She rubbed his shoulder and said nothing, just hugged him from the side. And eventually, Ryan started crying again.
He pretended that didn’t hurt, either. There was something wrong about it. Something must have gone horribly wrong for it to come to this.
Lang stood up and got the first aid kit from the bathroom. He held it out to his cousin.
“Here. Clean his wounds.” If he wasn’t allowed to do it, then she should at least get it done for him.
She grimaced when she noticed the small stones stuck in his hand, but pulled them out with the tweezers and cleaned the rest.
Ryan winced when she applied the disinfectant, but only sniffed and was quiet throughout the rest.
Eventually, he asked, “What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing,” Lang mumbled.
“I hate myself.”
“Don’t say that,” Sol scolded him.
“I do.”
He repeated the same meanings over and over again and she reassured him, sitting so close while Lang sat on his bed two feet away.
His mind kept on trying to distract him with things he could focus on. Productive questions. Were the others waiting on him or would they come looking? Would Ryan join them after this? How long would ‘this’ take?
He shoved those questions aside. There was no point in asking. Instead, he just watched.
Once upon a time, he had worried about seeing that sight in a different context. Sol and Ryan. She’d had a crush on him before, his best friend, and even asked him out despite that.
It was only because of his rejection that they’d caught on in the first place. She was awesome. Why reject her? Was it because of their friendship? No. Was there something he didn’t like about her? No. Well, was he interested in someone else then? No. Really? No. Really-really? No …
Well, yes.
The idiot hadn’t even been able to bring himself to keep up the lie. Had he wanted them to know?
So who was it, then?
They had gone through the names and guesses until eventually, there were no more names to guess and they formed their own picture. Come to think of it, had Ryan ever really had a crush on anyone before? No. He’d never leered, or made jokes, or even joined them in theirs.
About the girls, at least.
So … had he looked at anyone else? Yes. Definitely. They were rare, few and far between, but there were passing glances here and there, the scowls he gave his benchmate if he got too close, the way he would keep an eye out for the only other guy like him in the classroom.
Well, at least they had thought he was the other guy. The asshole at least could have spoken out against the nickname.
And then they’d dropped hints for him that they suspected it, small ones at first. Jokes followed by intense protest and overcompensation. Larger and larger ones along with reassurances.
They’d learned to dance around the topic until there was no more push-back, except if they were too blunt.
Seeing Ryan with his head in Sol’s lap while she stroked his hair to soothe him, it was a little weird but wasn’t worrisome.
That was, until she said, “You know, if you ever want to, you could try with me?”
The room went silent. Or maybe that was just Lang who held his breath. His voice was quiet. “What the hell, Sol?”
Ryan was still. It was he who had to ask.
She glanced at him and had the gall to ignore him. “I mean, if you wanted to go on a date, maybe—” she spoke down to Ryan’s ear.
“What the hell, Sol?!”
“What?” she asked.
Ryan curled up.
“You can’t fucking say something like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because—” He tried to find the words to explain it, realized how harsh they would sound with him there, and tried to find a way to dance around the topic instead. He gave up. “Out! Get out of my room. Now!” He got up and pointed straight at the door. He didn’t want her here anymore.
“No,” she said.
“Leave.”
“He doesn’t know. What if—”
“What if what?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I fucking don’t. Now, get out!”
He took a step closer and Ryan shied away from both of them, pulling himself up to the wall.
Sol took that as her cue to get up. She stood over him as if she were defending him. “Fine,” she started, “but—”
“No. Don’t fucking say anything.” The wrong word and Ryan would run and avoid them for days. This? “Just leave.”
He shoved her at the door.
She scowled and slapped his arm away, glancing back as if Ryan would say something. When he didn’t, that expression changed to hurt.
Lang knew she cared for him. He couldn’t believe she would try to push her other feelings on him right now. Neither of them would be happy, she had to know that. He shoved her again. The moment she was out of the door, he went to close it.
She shoved her way back in, because of course she had to get a last word in. “I’m just trying to help, okay?! He’s not happy. Look at him! So don’t blame me if— if someday, he jumps off a bridge like the rest of them! Or If he goes into the Tower on his own and doesn’t come back out.”
Lang kept on hearing about the life-threatening threats they faced. The Golems and monsters they had to dodge, the wounds they healed with potions. It seemed to him it would be so easy for him to just … not dodge, someday.
He knew that and he never wanted to think of it. So why the fuck did she have to say it out loud?
He threw her out and slammed the door hard enough to make the wall shake, then locked it before she could try again.
There was a thump and she shouted, “Fuck you!”
Lang placed the side of his fist against the wood and clenched his jaw. He took a deep breath through his nose and waited.
None of this was supposed to happen today.
When he finally calmed down enough to turn back around, Ryan sat waiting in his open window.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“What? Fuck no, wait,” Lang said and took a few steps closer. “Where the hell are you going?”
He didn’t answer right away, which meant he hadn’t known, just that he wanted to get away from here.
“Home,” he lied.
“To your parents?”
No, of course not.
Ryan hesitated. “To school?”
Was that a question?
“What about the others?” Lang asked. “The party. The— Fuck it, the sleepover?” Stupid name for it.
Ryan looked back at him with fear in his eyes. “I’m not going back there.”
“We could finish patching your hands up,” he said. “And … I don’t know, say you had an accident with a firecracker or something?”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to go back there. Not like this.”
But Lang wanted him to. He really didn’t want him to leave out of his sight right now.
“What about breakfast? And your stuff at the center? And all that shit Micah planned for us to do?”
He tried a smile, but Ryan didn’t return it.
“I don’t think I’ll want to hang out tomorrow, either. I just … I just want to be alone, Lang.”
“So you’re going back to school now? Just like that, without saying anything to the others?”
He shrugged.
Lang hesitated, then nodded. “Fine. Then we’re just going to have to hang out there. ‘You think you can sneak me into your cafeteria and get me something to eat?”
“What?”
“What, ‘what’? You think I’m going to survive spending the first day of the new year with the rest of those idiots without you?”
“Lang—”
“And if you’re not cleaning up tomorrow, I’m not doing it, either. You don’t get to skip the work just because it was your birthday.”
“Lang,” he said, finally with more force in his voice, “you don’t have to freaking dote on me. I just want to go someplace quiet and sleep.”
Horrible choice of words. “Yeah, I just want to make sure you’re okay afterward,” he said.
Ryan smiled, but it didn’t look happy. “I’m not okay. I just got fucking rejected. Again. And it sucks. Three times in one year. Of course, I got rejected. I mean—” The smile turned into something self-deprecating.
Lang opened his mouth to shut him up before he could go there, but he saw and shook his head, giving up before he could.
“But … that’s not the end of the fucking world,” he said. “It’s— It’s normal.” He seemed to seize on the word, clenching the windowsill and turned to face Lang with a proper smile.
It looked so fragile.
“Right? That happens to everybody?”
“Yeah,” Lang said. “Yeah, of course.”
He was supposed to be able to help him with this, but he suddenly found himself at a loss for words. What did he even say? That Darren was an asshole, Micah an idiot, and whoever the hell else had rejected him at school was missing out? He didn’t want to go back there. He was too used to dancing around the subject.
But Ryan was looking at him, so Lang went with, “You just need to find the right— one. So like … better luck next time?”
Ryan shook his head. “I don’t want to look for a next time. This fucking sucks, and I have better things to do.”
“Oh. Or that,” Lang started, then changed his mind. “Wait, are you saying you want to focus on your career?”
He glanced back. “Yeah? I guess. Why?”
He chuckled, but didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to jinx it and the confused look on his face was better than the rest.
Lang nodded and jerked a thumb back at the door. “Alright, then. Just let me get my shoes.”
“What? Why?”
He looked at where the guy sat in his window. “Did you just want some fresh air or what?”
He frowned. “You’re not walking me home, Lang.”
“Yeah, I am.”
“No.” His voice was firm. “I’ve ruined your evening enough. I’ve taken up enough of your time. Go back to Jana and Finn and— and, uh … Can you make an excuse to Micah for me? Like, say I went back to my parents or … I don’t know, ‘I couldn’t handle my beer and threw up’?”
Lang gave him a long look, heart racing, and then nodded. “Yeah, sure, sure. I’ll do that.”
The latter, probably.
He sighed. “Thank you.”
Then he climbed down to the garden below. Lang stepped up to the window to close it and waved him goodbye.
The moment he was out of sight, he closed the window, put on his shoes, and counted to ten before he followed him.
Sol wasn’t home anymore. He didn’t know where she had gone. He hadn’t heard her leave.
Ryan lied. He knew that. Lang had so little. His skills and Skills, the few things he’d bought from what he’d earned, the gifts he’d been given. Everything else was borrowed. His clothes, his bed, his room, shoes, his food; the water he used, the money he spent—none of it was really his.
He didn’t care what he ended up doing for a living. Not like the others. He just wanted to earn enough to create a place he could call his own, filled with everything he could ever want.
There was no fucking way he was losing him.
Ryan had a Skill for hearing, but he didn’t know how good it was for sure. He just kept his distance and wished for the best. If he noticed him and got angry, that was fine, too. But he would see him home, because there was no way he would get any sleep tonight if he didn’t.
He never would have thought that this would be how he would spend his first morning of the new year. Hopefully, the next would be better.