by Tiger Gray
"Hey Ashrinn!" Mal's voice, calling him from the base of the stairs. "C'mere and look at this!" Mal, by contrast, sounded cheerful and excited. Raietha bared her teeth.
"Go ahead. Take him from me, too." She left as suddenly as she had come. He could hear Rosi's quiet weeping; she'd heard.
"Just a minute," he made himself croak in response to Mal. He could hear his friend's footsteps retreat, and he forced himself to walk down the hall. He detoured into the nearest bathroom and locked the door. He couldn't deal with Rosi, or Raietha, or anything. Not for a second longer.
Stop it. You're being ridiculous.
By some miracle he found the edge of the tub and sat on it, quivering. He fumbled for the flask in his jacket, dropping the garment a couple of times before he managed to get it free. He couldn't open it. He put it between his knees and dug his nails into his opposite wrist until he broke the skin and bled. He drew several heaving breaths, the pain easing his panic enough that he got the screw top on the flask to come off. Just the scent of the whiskey inside made him relax. He took a big swallow and slid to the floor, leaning back against the relative cool of the tub.
Normal. You have to look normal. You can't be like this. Not in front of Mal.
He brushed his thumb over one of the barely healed knife marks on his belly, the wound swollen enough even now that he could still feel it through the fabric of his shirt. It was just a scratch now, but it stung. She loves you. She does.
He swallowed another generous mouthful of liquor, and a more cynical thought followed the first. You can't leave now. Everyone would know, then. Big tough soldier, indeed.
Mal was waiting on him, and that made him close and stash the flask, made him get up and school his expression into an approximation of normalcy. He pulled a tin of mints from that same pocket and made himself chew a couple, even though it made him want to retch. He had trouble keeping much down these days. Much of anything that wasn't booze, anyway. He remembered now why he'd always volunteered for the most dangerous missions he could get, why he'd always signed his contract with the military again every time it came up.
Being home hurt.
Ashrinn steeled himself and walked down the hallway and through the front door, letting the sun soothe him. It had a gentle touch in comparison to the sun in the Middle East. He pulled his jacket on even so, but more for the sense of protection it gave him than for its warmth.
Mal met him in the driveway. He had a healthy flush to his cheeks and his hair stuck up in an endearing fringe. It was like he'd never been injured, thank the divine. He was also grinning his face off. "Ashrinn! I was just about to come find you."
"You look as though you've discovered the Seven Cities."
"I'm going to figure that's kind of like winning the lottery," Mal said, and Ashrinn knew he was making fun of him for being, as Mal would say, highfalutin'.
"Something like that."
"Come on. I have something to show you."
"What are you on about, Mal?" He wondered, heading into the gloomy garage.
"You'll love it!" Mal flipped on the lights, and after a dazzled minute he realized he was looking at a car, made indistinct by its veil, the same vehicle he walked by some days before. He watched as Mal approached it, as though it had all the significance of a church altar.
"You ready?" Mal asked, resting his hands on the hood. Ashrinn leaned on the doorjamb and folded his arms over his chest. His mood lifted all at once, as though he'd never had the attack. He couldn't resist Mal's enthusiasm.
"As ready as I'll ever be."
Mal gathered the sheet into his arms, revealing a rusted hunk of metal that might have looked like so much trash to anyone else. But Ashrinn had been reading car magazines since he was seven. His jaw dropped and he walked towards it. He touched it and shook his head.
"It can't be." He bent to rub the grime from the spot just behind the wheel well. GT 350. Son of a bitch.
"How in the name of all that is divine did you get this?" Certainly it wasn't anything to look at now. The body was rusted, the interior was moth eaten, the leather moldy. But oh, what it could be, with just a little work!
He peeked through one of the shattered windows. A rat, nesting in the seat cushions, fixed him with its startled, black gaze before disappearing into the upholstery once more. All right. A lot of work.
"You wouldn't believe what people have in their yards! Some redneck out in Walla Walla was selling all the shit on his lawn for damn near nothing." Mal said, as if Mal himself weren't a redneck. "Can you believe that?"
"Why haven't you done anything to it?"
"None of the kids are interested. Feels kind of silly to do it by myself." Watching Mal trying to express his feelings was always a touch endearing, if only because he was so bad at it.
"So, do I get to help?"
"Do you want to?" Mal asked, folding the cloth and setting it to the side.
"Are you mad? Divine spirit, Mal! Think about what this thing could be like!"
They stood there, the car between them, their hands pressed to the hood. He knew Mal was imagining the same thing he was, a restored 1967 Shelby Mustang, in blue if Ashrinn were any judge of his friend, cream colored interior, road worthy and more.
"Deal," Mal said, offering his hand. "We'll get this thing fixed up."
Ashrinn shook on it, sealing the pact. He was so excited as he turned away he didn't think about removing his jacket and overshirt until he did it. The sunlight made the burn scars on his inner arms stand out, and he looked over at Mal only to look away; Mal was staring. Mal didn't ask and Ashrinn thanked whatever spiritual force happened to be watching over him.
* * *
Mal watched Ashrinn strip to his undershirt, noting that even though the man had more than enough money to replace it he still treated it like it was his only shirt in the world and folded it perfect. He furrowed his brows at the scars on Ashrinn's arms. They were faded, but he could still make them out.
He said nothing, only bent to help Ashrinn push the car out into the driveway. That done, he turned back and grabbed buckets from the garage, filling them with soap and water from the hose at the side of the house until they bubbled up and over his hands in a tepid flood. For a second he saw blood instead of water.
He blinked and the reminder of the past faded. He turned to look at Ashrinn. Ashrinn stood next to the car, leaning against it as though he needed it to support himself. He had his face turned up to the sun, and Mal could see how thin he was when he was outlined in light like that.
He did his best to ignore how troubled he felt and hauled the buckets over. His friend heard him coming and went to grab rags from the garage without being asked. Their camaraderie still applied in civilian life, the understanding that had kept them alive more than once, even if the circumstances weren't nearly as serious at the moment.
"Mal?" Ashrinn said after a period of companionable silence. "Tell me how you met Raietha."
It had never come up in so many words. He'd been too busy babbling about how pretty she was to tell Ashrinn the circumstances at the time. He didn't know why Ashrinn wanted to know now, but he answered anyway.
An old bookshop in some backwater Greek village. The book of plays open before him. The one time he'd ventured out of America and this is where he'd found himself? Should have gone to Dad's funeral after all. The only two things he and Dad had ever bonded over were hunting and Shakespeare's histories. The memory of reading those plays was only a little fucked up by Dad's lectures about the ungodly parts.
The images on the illuminated page moved, he could have sworn they did, and then a hand on his.
"You have a good eye," she'd said, as he looked up at her, "This copy is very special."
For a long time he'd found himself lost in her gaze, the same color as the Aegean outside.
That was what he thought, anyway. What he said was, "In a book store."
"Since when do you read?"
"Shove it, Pinecroft." He liked to rea
d and Ashrinn knew it, but nothing made Ashrinn happier than teasing him for being a dumb cowboy.
"Come on, Mal, I'm only taking the piss," Ashrinn said as he cleaned the edges of the windows. The hell with the interior, Mal thought as water dripped on to the seats. No point in trying to salvage it.
"Do you ever speak English?"
"I think the question is, do you?" Ashrinn flashed his best rakish grin, and Mal showed his surrender by laughing.
"And you're just a fool for love, I guess," Mal said, steering them back on topic. "Always wondered why you married up, what with how much you seemed like you were enjoying the single life."
"Is that your diplomatic way of calling me a slut?"
He spluttered and tried to come up with some way to get out of the hole he'd just dug himself. Ashrinn let him twist in the wind before he said,
"Oh, don't trouble yourself. I was."
"I heard stories," He ducked to wash the wheel well on his side of the car. His face felt way too warm for comfort. He and Ashrinn had always been joined at the hip but he never let Ashrinn get him too out of control. Ashrinn had done his best partying when he hadn't been around.
"Some of them are probably even true." Ashrinn practically purred in that weird ass accent of his. Didn't even sound the least bit sorry.
"I heard some things about you and the other guys,"
"Oh, those ones are true." Ashrinn looked as smug as a house cat who'd just shredded the couch cushions.
"Really?"
"So what?"
He stood and wrung out his sponge, shaking his head. "Huh. You've got a brass pair."
"Wouldn't have made it far in the Unit if I didn't," Ashrinn pointed out, revealing the bare metal of the window frame under his rag, "I've always known and haven't much cared. I don't get all the bloody fuss."
"Being brave in combat isn't the same. Besides, you're married!"
"I like women too, you ruddy pillock, It's possible, you know. You straight men. So black and white. Or did you think I was kidding about being bisexual?"
"Then that story about the PX girl and the enlisted guy?"
"Oh, that one is definitely true. I wish that one could have been true several times over."
He exhaled noisily in disbelief. He came around to the front of the car and sat on the hood. Ashrinn joined him, the both of them soaked through from the water. What was left of the vehicle gleamed now, and that felt about as good as eating a whole bowl of vanilla soft serve. Coren and Liu came into view, home from school, and Coren waved. Mal glanced over at Ashrinn, who had a private kind of smile on his face as he watched his son.
Liu's blank expression haunted him. Not even the evergreen behind her could give her the illusion of warmth.
* * *
"It's summer, Coren. You have to have orange soda in summer. Pity it's not Irn Bru, but..."
Coren looked at him like he was talking total rubbish. He still felt raw from what had happened with Raietha a couple of days before, but he wanted to make peace with his son even so. It had been months since Randolph had shown up and seen them fight, and they hadn't really spoken as much as Ashrinn would have liked in the meantime. Seeing Rosi so ill reminded him to take time out of his increasingly frenetic work life for his own child.
They stood on the front porch of their home, and Coren, leaning against the doorjamb, had his arms folded over his chest. Ashrinn could see in his posture that his son didn't want to be placated. Still, the boy relented and took the bottle.
Boy? Holy spirit, he's seventeen.
Now there was a sobering thought.
He did his best to fold into a sitting position on the steps. Coren bent to steady him, and Ashrinn tried to feel grateful instead of helpless. Coren sat too.
"Though maybe it should have been Mountain Dew. It's closer to Irn Bru than that."
"Is that some Brit soda?"
"Yes. The only consensus on the flavor is that it tastes like, well, Irn Bru. But it looks about as unnatural as Mountain Dew."
"So how did you learn that?"
"Learn what?"
"That you have to have soda in summer?" Coren wrapped one long arm around his bony knees as he spoke, using his free hand to open the bottle and bring it to his lips, swallowing meditative swallows while watching the sky. A flock of sparrows burst from a tree across the street, wheeling with the sun on their tiny wings.
"Serwin and I always used to drink them, when we were even younger than you. Bought a bottle and a car magazine every week."
Coren grimaced and Ashrinn had to keep himself from showing his amusement, the boy's face so clearly said, I am not young. "In London?"
"Mmhm. Personally, I always liked mine with a Cadbury's Caramel. Or two." For a moment he tasted that melted chocolate-caramel mess as clearly as if he were ten years old, licking his fingers after wrangling the last dripping piece into his mouth.
Coren toyed with the now empty soda bottle. "Look, Dad. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."
Ashrinn furrowed his brows, called back from the childhood memory by his son's voice. Coren was too much like him in some ways, too sensitive and impulsive. In his case his worse traits had been ameliorated by the vigorous training he'd spent over half of his life going through, but Coren was just a child, even if Coren himself thought differently. What buffers did he have? At the same time, Ashrinn felt relief; Coren wanted them to get on.
"What are you talking about?"
"You know. When I was saying all that stuff about killing people, and us being normal."
"That's all right. I shouldn't have gotten angry at you."
Coren hesitated before he spoke. "Was it hard? Being away?"
Not what he had expected Coren to say. When he looked over his son had a thoughtful line etched into his forehead, and his gaze had a faraway quality though he pretended to watch the street out front. "Why do you ask?"
"It's just... I thought a lot about how it was hard on me that you were gone, you know? How I wanted you around for my birthday, stupid kid stuff like that. I watched too many war movies, I guess. I thought you were off being a hero while I had to sit at home with Mom." Ashrinn thought it best to stay silent. He was afraid even to move, lest he interrupt this narrative, though he wanted to assure Coren that his birthday didn't belong in the 'stupid kid stuff' category. "But it's not like that, is it? That's why you were angry at me. Because it's not like a movie."
"I didn't even want to be in the military when I joined up. I worked with some of the best men out there. The media liked to call us super soldiers, when we even got mentioned, and that was true. Every single one of those guys could do a hundred useful things, think through complex problems in only seconds, and shoot an enemy right between the eyes in the sodding dark. But if you'd told me I was going to be one of them, that I'd see combat? I would have packed up and gone home and no matter what my father would have done to me."
"Then why?" Coren said, angry in the span of one moment to the next. "You could have been home with us. Why didn't you just come back?"
"Because I was good at it!" He said, barely keeping himself from yelling. "Because it mattered. Look." He regulated his breathing, slowed his heart rate through a series of internal exercises he'd been doing since Rangers. "I didn't want to leave you. I thought about you all the time, hoped with all my heart you were safe, that you were happy, and I did what I could to be there for you. But when I joined up I decided to stop sniveling and whinging and decided to be the best, instead. Of course, when you get into the Unit you realize you're pretty damn average next to the seasoned operators beside you, but you keep trying, you keep admitting your mistakes and getting better and better because of humility and team work. I needed that, Coren. Do you understand that? To be good at something."
You left him to his mother. He turned away, praying Coren wouldn't see how he'd gone green around the gills.
"Do you think... Are some people just good at killing?"
"I did a lot more than kill peo
ple. I was an operator, not a mindless destroyer. But yes. I was good at it. I was a master at it." The feel of the garrote wire in his hands, as easily as he'd imagined that Cadbury bar. "Why do you ask?"
"Something Liucy said to me once. She asked if some people couldn't help it, like maybe some people just ruin things and they can't do anything else."
"We all have the capacity to kill. Even you. Everyone. Just accept you have a wolf inside you, and only let it out when it deserves its meal." Coren looked at him, and he couldn't help but look back. Spirit, Coren looked just like him when he was making a serious face, except for the violet eyes. The wolf comparison made Ashrinn think of Jericho and he passed his psychic hand over Coren, wondering if he'd find some magic hiding away within him, too. Still nothing. He could tell Coren anyway, of course, about magic. He'd have to, powers or not, soon. He put it off for now. They had time, a little longer where they could pretend to be an average family.
"Coren? When you were alone with your mother, what was that like?"
"It was fine, Dad. What do you mean?"
He couldn't detect a lie in his son's voice. Had he misread?
Projecting. That's what the therapists call it. Kir wasn't exactly warm towards Coren, but that didn't mean she'd been hurting him, either.
A flicker of movement at the foot of the front steps. He had his handgun halfway drawn before he realized it was only Rosi, and he re-holstered it as quickly as he'd reached for it. The youngest Tielhart child hid behind the shrubbery lining the sidewalk, but her hair didn't do much for her stealth capabilities. Coren laughed and she stepped into view; by the look on her face she knew she'd been rumbled.
It took him a minute, but he caught up to the fact that she looked healthy. She wore a pink sundress and a green ribbon in her curls, and looked for all the world like a normal girl No more bruises. She ran up the steps and flung herself into his arms. He thought, as he caught her in a hug, that he could feel some untapped magical potential within her. Something more than her Fae blood would account for. He wasn't a shadowmancer, though, and couldn't have gleaned more about what it meant even if he felt comfortable digging around in her mind.
