Then
*
Another day, another wasted day, that's all. As long as I tell myself that, it'll all make sense, right?
Right.
Let's go with that.
She hasn't called in a month.
... Do you know how much it hurts to realize she hasn't called at all? Not since that five minute not quite conversation when she asked if I was settled in.
Wisdom, you're pathetic. Just have another drink, and be a pathetic drunk, instead of pathetic all around.
The window is throwing back the glint of the cig at me. Gonna be finished soon, and I can't really remember if I have any more. The sound of rain on the glass, after all the scotch I've gotten in me already, just makes me want to go and find the loo.
Not drunk yet, not even tipsy. Damn X fator. Never could understand why the hell making little torches outta my fingernails should bother me body's handle on alchohol...
It'll come.
I know why I'm here, really. I could get drunk in my room, in peace, behind a locked door. No Frost to go by and drop some coolish comment, no Sean to glower at me for spreading my alchohol-and-smoke filled bad influence through the house. I can't believe what they've done to the man.
No children to... well, not too many children, anyway. Supposedly. It's hours past bedtime. But if last week is any indicaton...
And that's just why I'm sitting here, see? Not because he'll suddenly show up. Too many nights when he might've been here when I wasn't, and I'm a little too old to hope for a chance meeting, and a little too tired to look to closely at my motives.
Lately, in my head, motives have been making themselves a little more felt. Which is-- well, it's happening, innit? And that's all there is to it. And I'm coping with it okay, so long as it's just in my head.
Don't have all that many motives, anyway, and none of them are worth looking for. So -- if you're here, Em... piss off.
No. I'm down here tonight because six days ago, and an hour and a half later, I sat here on this same sofa and listened to the same rain and watched one of Sean's kids smoke in a much sexier way than a fucking seventeen year old is supposed to know how to.
And he didn't even realize it. Jesus.
I've been turned on by young ones before, I'll admit. Not quite that young in almost five years, not until Kitty, but there's no denying that on terms of pure beauty -- of pure sex -- youth has something to offer us old worn out ones never could. I've seen some personification-of-sex youngsters before, trying out something they wouldn't know what to do with as if it was some new toy. I've seen the tired ones, too, in the streets of big cities, the girls and boys who learned to works it up for anyone in sight who seemed to have more than ten bucks ever since they were eleven years fucking old.
I've seen them, and my mind choked on them, and then I toughened up, because if you let everything be a flesh wound you'll bleed yourself dry in no time.
Fine, so comparing him to some girl in a corner -- or a boy, for that matter -- painting themselves up too much like it was camouflage and dressing and acting the way they were led to believe was considered 'sexy'... that doesn't exactly prove anything. That's not fair, I could almost say, whatever that means. Of course he'll come out on top. Angelo Espinosa is stronger, in this respect. He'd been on the streets, and when the exit door found him, he was one of those holding the big guns.
Jesus. I'm waxing philosophic here. Maybe I'm more drunk than I thought.
Well, good.
Drunk is a step in the right direction.
Doesn't matter, anyway. I'm getting pulled off on tangents. The point is --
Yes, I did have a point, damnit.
The point is that I've seen them all. High society girls out to entertain the Black Air guest or sneak off with the scruffy outsider, guys in leather coats grinning at me as though I was part of their little bike club, teenagers on streets corners and in malls decked out in as little cloth as they could get away with. Sometimes the ones in the malls managed less than the ones on the street.
What I'm trying to say is that I've seen skin, and I've seen glitter, and I've seen sensual and sexy and breathtaking and every other shade of the appealing. A few, very few, even got my heart. But, goddamn it, not many of them can reach into my insides and twist the way this kid does.
And he's not even aware of doing it. Be horrified if he did, I'll bet. He's still in the chickenshit stage.
So I'm here now because it's much too easy to focus on that fact. And tonight, for once, I need something else to focus on besides a battle and a cig. Something to ward off smiling phantoms with pixie face and clear all-American skin and long limbs going through walls.
I'm seeing instead a phantom that's a bit dangerous to me right now, but not even in the vicinity of the other one. This phantom is lying on the sofa to my left, limbs everywhere, and inhales smoke like he's trying to make love to the cigarette with his mouth alone.
Ah, Jesus. That's not such a good idea, of course. But desperate measures...
I'm just hoping Em isn't anywhere near my head right now. I'm just hoping if she is, she's not eating popcorn and watching my thought on the big screen inside her fucking white mind and laughing her pretty white ass off.
"I don't think the rest of them get it."
I turn to the bastard, sitting there, and drown in the sight of his cig.
How many minutes ago did apparition turn into reality? Just fucking when did he show up? It's been a long day, what with me not exactly being used to dealing with teenagers yet, what with Jubilee having one of what Sean cheerfully refers to as her Rebel Without A Cause days. Me, not being as much of a bloody romantic as Cassidy tends to be, I just go with I Miss Daddy.
But hell, I've been through worse shit. I've been through pain and death and buerocracy, and the sights I've seen in Black Air, the things I did, how I felt at the end of the day, not even Jubilee on a sugar high can top.
Not by much, anyway.
So how come my instincts are so shot to hell? This is good scotch, sure, better than my usual stuff -- a given, since I nicked it off of Emma. But not even that can explain how I could close my eyes and just forget myself so much that I wouldn't hear an eighteen-year-old someone with no high-level training walk into the room. Not less than half a bottle in. No way.
Don't let it happen again, Wisdom.
I'm gruff, to the point. "Get what?"
He passes it to me, and I take it in trembling fingers. He answers quietly, "Just the whole thing. I dunno."
I snort. "That's not vague."
I hope that Em's not poking around tonight. I really do. There's only so much smirking at breakfast one can take... and I know I should be able to take it all in stride by now, so long as she doesn't actually say something definite. But the way she gloats gets to me.
A lot.
Ange shrugs, and I watch his shoulders. Up and down, and wriggling into the couch across from me, and I turn back to the weather outside. It hasn't missed my notice that he's not sitting beside me. I admit it. I even left him enough room, with a comfort zone of space and everything.
Hell, it's probably best that he chose the other couch. The space between us is--
It's space.
And way too much of it.
Yeah, there you go, old man. This way lies madness, or at least aching rocks and women in corsets giving you amused looks.
It's not like I'd actually do anything. I'm doing a favor to Sean, not corrupting his students. Or he's doing a favor to me. Not very clear anymore. Anyhow, getting back to London now with some shoc-*king* gossip on my hills would be a bleedin' headache.
Well, shite, but wouldn't you just know it that he chooses now to start on that fag again?
I watch in a kind of fascination for a few seconds, then get my act together before he opens his eyes. "So what you talkin' about, mate?"
He stretches back a little more, stares up at the ceiling. Stretches an absent arm to hand me the cig again. Neat trick, that.
"Just..." A no less absent hand rises from his side to wave around, encompassing him, me, the cig, the room, and supposedly all of Snow Valley. Then it falls back down, and he shrugs again. Doesn't look like he's gonna give in and expand, or tell me what the others 'don't get'. I have to assume that I'm one of the others, because I'm drawing one hell of a blank myself.
I'm shutting up, letting him cook up a bit, letting his thoughts perlocate enough that they might actually make a coherent sentence. Or maybe mine will, and one that's actually fit for the kiddies, because god knows strange things do happen.
I should be fit for the kiddies. Really. There's no reason I'd want to not be fit for the kiddies.
And I'm sure somewhere in my head, there's a response suitable for this kid. Except for the fact that I'm Pete Wisdom, and me, myself, and I haven't been *suitable* since I was five.
He shuffles around, and opens his mouth. I wait for the revelation. He says, "I don't think *I* get all of it."
I wait some more.
And then he shakes his head and grins, something full of wry mouth and gray eyes and things pushed away into the small, small lines on his face, where mutated skin is maybe too tired to remember it's too young to have lines. "The one thing I'm still trying to figure out is, how do any of you manage to find time for getting laid?"
That... was unexpected.
I turn my head to look at Espinosa. And, you know, it's a pretty fucking stupid thing to do, to expect a teenager of all people to maintain a PG rating. And I usually don't do fucking stupid. Or, well, I do and plenty, but not at reading people. Not at such a normal, *basic* level.
But I'm done with my fucking stupid quota for the day, so I'm not gonna ask 'What did you say?'
"What exactly is it that you think takes up so much o' my time? And who's 'any of you'?"
He keeps on like he didn't hear me, staring at the ceiling with this completely serious expression. The cig is in his hand again, and I pause a second to wonder just when it got there. "I mean, I've got most of it figured out, you know. Brits brood. Comes with the accent. Brits brood fucking all day long. And, well, I'm not knockin' it, you guys seem to be having fun --"
That's just too ridiculous for me not to take on my village idiot face again. "*Wot*?"
"Well, face the facts, hermano," he says. He has turned his face to look at me, and now that he actually allows himself to grin, I can see the something lurking behind the bloody strange humor. Some strain around the eyes. "You have a few more fancy accessories like that cheap scotch and the smokes, but you know, you're not the first English guy to fall into this little hole in the ground. I can recognize patterns. Brood, brood, don't talk, be grumpy, be quiet, be grumpy again, be *really* grumpy, brood, be quiet, get a fucking weird talky mood, get grumpy again. Brood."
He shakes his head at me, eyes a little more alive with laughter, but the lines around his eyes are still too pronounced for my more-than-half-sober vision not to pick up on. "Now, Jono I *know* has been getting no action in years, but you seem like a guy who's been around. Seen some chicks, maybe even got some of them drunk enough to hit the sack with you. So tell me, how the hell do you find the time?"
And at this point his voice gets brittle, and the weird humor gives way to something else. Dunno what, dunno why. Rampaging lust it isn't.
Laying things out clearly might not be my favorite style, but it's worth a shot. "What's on your mind, kid?"
He shrugs. "O, nothin'. Just wondering about the mating habits of you crazy foreigners. There's nothing good on Discovery Channel."
Of course he doesn't go for it. That's funny, he gives such a -- straight forward first impression. But this kid plays far more games than I'd expect from someone his age. It's important to remember, of course, that even though I've *seen* a lot of them, I haven't actually had that many conversations with teenagers in the last years. The Massachussetts Academy, a fucking fresh experience.
I just shake my head and try to get the tail of *this* conversation, at least. Looks like it's gonna last me a whole year, if not more. "Maybe we've got something worth brooding on, mate."
Y'know, I *could* argue with him, tell him I don't brood. Only, see, alchohol lowers the inhibitions, and I wouldn't want to start laughing in the middle of saying it.
"Everyone's got something worth brooding on, hombre," says the darkness, with a voice that is as perfectly eighteen years old as it is perfectly eons-old tired.
"That's very philosophical," I tell him.
He makes a little sound, somewhere between a snort and a... let's call it a sigh. "Yeah, well. Mating habits. Brooding habits. Discovery Channel, care of England."
For a minute, I'm tempted to make some cutting remark, to keep up this four-in-the-morning banter. But I don't think it's the right thing to say. Not if I want to know what Ange is really getting at, anyway. I settle for a slow nod.
There's something expectant about the air around us, about the way he's looking at the ceiling again. Crushes the cig. Lights another.
Inhales.
Finally, as though my silence had thrown him off balance, he exhales -- a short thing, not making a production out of it, not even noticing it probably --and says, curtly, "Brits just brood too much, is all."
Right. That's all you mean, Ange. Sure.
I somehow don't think it's the way Jono acts that's worrying him. Just the... openness of it, probably. Asking me as though I could help him, as though I could solve everything. I don't know.
I'm trying to decide what to say.
I have no idea how a teenager thinks, beyond the vaguest notion. It's all just instinct, and I don't really feel like trusting instinct right now. With every other kid, I'd just allow myself to say the right thing and walk away...
I don't know why I don't with this one, either, really. Sexy or not, it's not his mind I'm interested in, right?
Whatever, Wisdom, you idiot.
Shit, I dunno what I'd want to hear if I was him. I don't know what I'd say. He's probably expecting some advice or some magic bloody charm. Well, he's in for a surprise. I say, gruffy, "What, kid?"
He tries to look uncaring, shrugs. I try and give him something, something that he can distract himself with-- something *I* can distract us both with. I wrack my brains, trying to think of a story that might touch on him, bring home the truth of these British sulks. And then I get it.
I don't know why I want to share it, but sometimes things just happen.
"Had a mate once," I say, since this is the only relevant thing I can think of. Hell, actually I had about six or so ended up like this, and that's just counting Black Air time. What we did there... it wasn't pretty for anyone.
"Like what?" He says. There's the tiniest tone of defensiveness in his voice.
I just shrugged. We wouldn't want to put names on any Brits. Wouldn't want to use *clinical* tags. "Wouldn't talk to me. Either of us. Hardly ate. Wouldn't go shower, at some points. Slept all day."
He was on time off when it started, after one mission broke off all the dams he had closed up as carefully as any of us. But when it was over, and he wouldn't go on duty...
There was time for shrinks too. But first they just treated him like any renegade agent trying to get some shut-eye on their watch. It wasn't anymore pleasant to watch one of your mates get marked and bruised than it was to cause those bruises on strangers yourself.
He's quiet now, in a way I've never seen him be before. I think he's gathering his thoughts. I don't react, just look at him, and his voice gets a tiny bit louder. A little steadier. Still not enough to pierce the darkness, to carry anywhere.
"You *do* brood too much." His voice is full of bemusement. I wonder if I should feel oddly honored that he's talking to me about this, or just... worried. Because I'm talking back.
"I probably do, Ange. But I'm a far cry away from guns."
It surprises me, coming from my mouth. I hadn't meant to say anything, since I didn't have much helpful to say. Probably doesn't mean much, after all; the realm of probable things isn't somewhere I want to dwell tonight.
He grins a little, but is still far too quiet with his answer. I'm forced to wonder, as his eyes are locked with mine, who, exactly, he's worrying about when he says, "Probably."
What a fucking nasty word.
I don't review what's probable and what's not; my glass is empty and my mind is full, and that's all wrong right there. "Hand me my trusty bottle, mate."
He grabs it, and puts it to his mouth before handing it off to me. Oh god, he's actually drinking from it.
The thoughts--
That's it. I'm a bastard.
I tear my eyes away from him being sexy as usual, and listen to his questioning about my buddy. "In the end, weren't nothing we could do, really."
Ange was silent for a long time, and I thought he'd fallen asleep on me. Well, not on me literally -- that would be too much to handle. But he spoke up finally. "What did you do for him?"
It didn't sound like a patent Angelo smartass question, so I kept my patented bitter answer to myself. "Nothing."
He hesitates. Finally asks, "D'you tell anyone?"
I consider this. The meaning of this, to this street boy sitting in front of me with eyes strangely pained for a man, that he never knew, and a question laden with the innocence of a small child.
Espinosa lives in a world where talking to adults - talking to *authority figures* - about something like this is somewhere around the third most horrible sin. The highest moral is protecting a friend, the worst thing that could happen to you is getting found out.
I know this world. I lived in it, once, very long ago. Tried to take it with me when I moved off to bigger and better things. But I found out the hard way that it's not the kind of thing that transports easy.
In the end, whoever buys you is the one you belong to, and you'll always end up somehow bought. But that's not something I want to tell this kid.
Not tonight.
"Yeah," I say, and don't add any whys or whens. "Sometimes there's just nothing to be done."
He flipps over to stare at me, and I get more uncomfortable when he asks me what happened to him. This was the part of the story I really didn't want to tell... but he deserved it from me. At least, I think he did.
Fuck it -- why am I worrying about what I tell some teenager?
I tell him gruffly, "He ended up killing himself with a revolver."
I guess it wasn't the answer he was looking for. My revolver, at that. But that was none of his fucking business.
He actually flinches -- need to work on those defences better, kid. Aren't you supposed to be some tough street gangbanger? Yeah. Like I haven't seen enough of those -- up close and down far, stubbornly silent or scared shitless in custody, selling information on the street -- to know the score.
Just kids.
When he says, "You Brits," I almost want to flinch right back. The raw something there has no place in a voice this young. He's obviously been worried, and I wonder who he's been thinking about. My face should be soft, sad...
But I have better defences, 'hombre'. I've spent years perfecting them, polishing them, sharpening the edges on the booby traps. They're better than Kitty's computer security by now.
Funny how she could always hack in, isn't it?
That one gives me just the right jolt. I look at the bottle, realize it's well on its way to being as empty as my glass, and put it aside. Well out of his reach -- well, not really. But the illusion settles me a bit.
"I don't even know what I'm talking about, mate," I tell him. And it's true.
"I--," he says. I turn to look at him again and his eyes are on me, quiet and intense, and I believe him. "I just -- sucking a gun, that's not..." He gives a small sound that's almost a laugh. "A friend of mine did that once."
I wish he hadn't laughed. "We've got something else in common then."
"Yeah." He reaches an abnormally long arm to snag my bottle, flops back on his back. "Isn't that wonderful? Now we can relate."
Bloody cynical teenagers. Is that what he wants to call it? Whatever, as long as I get a piece.
Wisdom, you incredible pillar of sensitivity and touchy-feeliness, you.
But the alchohol is finally starting to send trailing fingers into my head. And I'm beginning to feel touchy-feely in one way, at least, even if I never could manage the other with a straight face.
I try to think of the white witch holding a 'DOWN, BOY!' picket sign. But all that comes to mind is wisp of white lingerie, which doesn't really help.
"Is that what we're doing?" I wonder aloud, staring wistfully at my scotch. Damn that oral fixation, anyway. "I thought we were just bonding. Or doing that quality time gig."
He takes a pull off the bottle, not giving me enough time to dwell on lips tightening around glass, and turns a funny little grin at the ceiling. "Oh. Is that what they call it now?"
Damn the kid. He's not a telepath, so he couldn't have heard me thinking about those lips, and that bottle, and--
God.
I don't know what to say to him. "Ange, have you ever tried being anything but cynical?"
As soon as I say it, I regret it. He does the wounded flinch again -- I'm getting quite familiar with it, by now -- and takes another drink. A long one. He's gulping the sweet stuff down like it's nectar from the gods.
I don't think at all about how he looks swallowing.
As quiet and as he can get, he says, "I learn from the best, amigo."
He stretches out his arm, and touches my shoulder with cold glass. I stare out the window, watching it mist over and get lighter little by little. Another sleepless night for the two of us.
I take the bottle, and stare into the bottom. Hello, old friend. You burn, all the way down. Let's give him honesty.
"I don't want to teach anyone."
I think I surprised him with that one. I know I surprised me with that one. We're just two startled blokes, staring at each other and wondering where my honesty came from.
We're wishing there was more Scotch, too, but that's secondary.
He doesn't laugh, either; instead, I get me a grim smile. "So you're not gonna lecture me on my future career choice, hombre?"
I snort. "Not unless you want to try espinonage."
"Really?" He makes a show out of looking scandalized. "Not even the advantages and disadvantages of not wearing underwear under spandex? I'm impressed."
I'm still thinking up a reply for *that* one when he says, probably realizing he's pushed it outside *his* comfort zone for once, "Or, I dunno, at least tell me about how important it is to stand for The Dream, and how *of course* I should do whatever will make me happy, but being a superhero is still the most wondeful thing on god's green earth and the only acceptable choice for someone who got all the advantages I did. Go on, say it. You're weirding me out here."
He's looking completely serious; the overwhelming sarcasm in the words is just an undercurrent in his voice, biting and hissing. I wonder where Emma's influence is on this.
I shake my head, actually finding enough of my face muscles awake for a wry grin. "Haven't exactly got yourself the right person for that one, mate. Sorry."
A snort, a shrug. "Fine, then. What do *you* think I should do with my life?"
Beside the sarcasm, there's the teenage assuredness in his voice of one who has yet to meet even one adult without an opinion on the matter. All I can do is shake my head at him. This's a great hour to feel tired. "Don't ask me for advice, mate... I can't be your teacher, Ange. I don't know what to say to the *rest* of'em to 'make it all better'." I sighed. "You're twice as difficult, cause how can you teach someone who sees all the words comin' outta your mouth as bullshit?"
He just looks at me. For a minute I'm aware, crystal clear vision, of him saying something like, "Only ninety percent." But when I look at him, he doesn't seem sarcastic.
He just looks angry.
His body moves to sit back on the couch, instead of being on the edge and prepeared to stand up. He brings his knees up, wraps his arms around them. Glares at me. I don't get it, really.
"Well," he says, and his voice is radiating just as much pissiness as the rest of him, "Why don't you try to give me one line that actually sticks?"
I probably looking a little incredulous, but that's just because I *feel* a little incredulous. "What do you want me to say?"
Where the hell did this come from? And why the bloody hell do I care?
He shakes his head, and there's still anger in the motion, tired and confused. "Just... something real, Pete."
I'm not sure if he's ever called me my first name before. No, I'm pretty sure he had. But he somehow makes it sound... eye-level and private and, somehow, like he's giving me some odd sort of trust.
How he could be sounding trusting when he's just as good as accused me of bullshitting, I dunno. Score one, Angelo.
"You want something real from me?"
He nods, a wary look on his face. I want to throw this stupid bottle out the window just to watch it smash into little pieces. Then I could scatter them outside Em's doorway, and--
"Can you even *do* real, amigo?"
"Someone thought I could. One time." Her face, fainter than before, surfaces, then sinks deep, to the bottom of my mind.
There's a more substantial ghost before me.
The dawn is getting brighter in front of us. He asks me the obvious. "Who?"
Who indeed. I snort, and yawn. "No one, really. They just wanted to think I could."
"So do I," he says quietly, and doesn't seem to find anything absurd about this, or far too open.
Maybe it's the alcohol. But the alcohol doesn't stop *me* from realizing that sitting down here, sprawling really, with this kid I know for maybe two months, and even that not very well, this kid who's putting out almost constant vibes as though they were pheromones, and hearing him say something like that...
Well, that's just fucking out there.
"I wanna think you do," he says, and hugging his knees to himself like that he looks about five years old. A bloody sexy five years old. I just love the image of myself as a dirty old man.
I just shake my head at him, because there doesn't seem anything else to do. "Why?"
"So I can, too? I dunno, man." He shrugs at me, puts his chin on his knees, looking at some far off spot just beside my head. "I just want."
I can identify with that. I want a lot of things.
I sigh, lay my head back a little more securely. I wish there ws some more scotch to make things look real. "Lord, I do too, kid."
I'm not sure I meant to say that. But I'm also not sure I didn't.
He gives me an unhappy smile. "So what happens when we get past the bullshit?"
In my case? You find loads and loads of crap. I'm not making any bets about you, though.
I shrug at him. "You don't."
He gives me a long, hard look, then stands up to leave. Just before he disappears out the door, he turns around. "I don't believe you."
This day is starting off well. The sun is just about up. What a bloody perfect day--
But then he's gone.