A/N: I actually really like the writing of this fic. Every so often I'll start writing like this. By which I mean it's happened a total of four times in my life. Probably an isolated incident. I'm not sure. Anyway, putting my life's story aside for the moment, this is meant to be multi-chaptered. It has a really good plot, I think. It's also AU, in case you failed to notice that. It will ultimately be BL, if it ever makes it past chapter one. At the moment that looks highly unlikely, so it's platonic. It's also depressing. I hope you enjoy it.
Alone
Chapter One: Fences
James had gotten very good at passing the ball. The other boys always wanted him on their team because he had this magical thing where the scuffed-up red ball always seemed to fly just where he wanted it to, always soared into the basket, and slipped right out of the opposing team's hands. He was their champion player and everyone was always throwing the ball to him…
Actually he kind of sucked. He couldn't make a basket to save his life and the only times he ever got to play was when Mr. Ross was outside and made them include him in their games. He hated it almost as much as the other put-upon children because all he wanted to do was sit and think quietly to himself. He didn't want to play with them. They didn't like him and he didn't like them—but the monitors were in charge and they didn't like James sitting by himself and not saying anything. Before he had been a pretty active child and with plenty of friends, but now…
Well, now he was standing rooted to the spot on the basketball court and passing off every ball that came his way. The sun stuck itself firmly in his eyes and he could feel sweat going down the side of his face. He wouldn't burn, though. He'd developed a really nice tan that would have guaranteed him some measure of popularity had he not been in the middle of a growth spurt that involved all his limbs fitting not quite right and no amount of combing ever making his hair presentable. It didn't help that he didn't talk anymore.
Here comes the ball again, he noted, annoyed. It never failed. The less he wanted to see it, the more it came flying at his head. He considered ducking and letting it go where it willed, but Mr. Ross was watching him, so he raised his hand to knock it down and to a more manageable altitude. A flash of movement just beyond caught his eye, and he missed his chance to not be a complete dork, because he was focused on the shadow at the fence. Whatever it was, it had been big, and whatever it had been doing was done when he saw it, because it had vanished into the alleyway between buildings with jackrabbit speed. As for the ball, that sailed past his faltering hands and hit him in the head with enough force to send him toppling back with a cry.
He was mobbed moments later, not because he might have hurt himself, but because the ball was right next to him. He covered his head until they were gone, taking their shouting and jostling with them, and then when he opened his eyes, there was Mr. Ross.
"Hurt yourself, have you?" He asked, looking sympathetic, but he didn't offer James a hand back up. He believed in tough love, James supposed. It wasn't as though his place in life exactly generated the warm fuzzies. James stood, scraping grit out of his palms and onto his jeans under the man's gaze. "Why didn't you catch that?"
James shrugged, now poking at his head, looking for the goose egg he could feel developing. "Forgot."
Mr. Ross got frustrated with him then, leaning back. "You forgot to catch the ball?" James shrugged, which Mr. Ross took as a yes, and so he sent him inside to wash up. Going in early was supposed to be a punishment. It kind of was and it kind of wasn't. At least right now it would get him out of the basketball game.
He tromped inside, pulling off his shoes and leaving them in the entry way—he hoped he'd get better ones tomorrow; these had been too tight—and headed up to the bedroom, maneuvering through the crowded bunks and to his own, crammed in the corner and a little neater than the rest of the rumpled beddings. He'd learned not to make it anymore, because if he did the other boy's figured he was a kiss up and everyone knew what happened to those, but he couldn't help but straighten it out just a little bit. Just… because.
He picked up a change of clothes and was heading to the showers when he thought of that big, darting shadow again, and threw open a foggy window to stick his head out. He scanned the fenced-in perimeter until he was sure nothing was there. Only as soon as he was pulling the window back down, he saw it, and was surprised because it was nothing like he'd thought. It was a person, which was slightly disappointing, and he wasn't moving anymore. He was standing stock still, a little in the shadows and watching. James couldn't see him too well, and wondered what he was doing. He thought of telling Mr. Ross because he didn't think you were supposed to watch people like that, but the more he looked at the stranger the less he felt that he wanted to tell on him.
He hated to be told on, after all. The man wasn't even doing anything wrong. He was just being quiet.
The thought made James angry and he slammed the window down, stomping off to the showers to scour off the layer of sweat he'd acquired and stare at the stall door, because at least he could do that without anyone getting onto him.
James got up early and wheedled some extra chores out of Lloyd, a man not much younger than Mr. Ross, but one who was still determined to be on first name basis with a bunch of boys decades younger than he was. James suspected that Lloyd had been one of those people without a lot of friends growing up and that he had been one of the ones who actually thought that was a disadvantage. Anyway, James wasn't really supposed to leave the building before ten, but Lloyd let him go in spite of that. It was the weekend so there weren't classes and it wasn't like chores waited until ten o'clock precisely. Trash bags in hand, James set out for the dumpsters, doing his best to ignore the world, and paying for it when he managed to trip over absolutely nothing.
He also managed to hit his head in the exact same place as yesterday. Twice probably wasn't a record-breaking moment, but it felt like one. A moment's pause of lying against the dumpster in a heap and he realized that wet feeling in his pants was yesterday's milk soaking into them. His eyes opened and he was completely covered in garbage, from head to toe. He groaned and stood, hand against his abused head as he shook potato peels and plastic wrappers off of himself and edged gingerly out of the mess. It looked like a tornado had hit it and there was zero chance of just leaving it as it was. Sighing, he started scooping handfuls of the stuff he figured he could actually pick up without contracting a rare bacterial disease, and stuffing it into the dumpster. When he'd gotten the last of something that felt—but looked ABSOLUTELY nothing like—jello into the compartments he turned and there was the stranger from yesterday, leaning against the wall and watching him.
James blinked once, and then tucked his head down. He wasn't good with strangers, wasn't good with people in general, and especially wasn't good at cool-looking older guys who'd seen him fall flat on his face and cover himself in really disgusting milk. Not to mention he was eighty percent sure this was the guy from before, the guy who had been standing so still by the fence. James kind of wanted to know how long, exactly, he'd been standing there, but then again, he really didn't.
Lloyd didn't deal too well with mornings and completely failed to notice that James now smelled pestilent, before handing him two more trash bags. James took them because it was better than going inside and getting laughed at by people slightly more alert, and shuffled back out to the dumpster, shaking his arm off at least five times on the way, because something sticky and slimy kept dripping down his elbow from an unknown source. He probably should have learned his lesson already, but he wasn't paying attention to where he was going again, and nearly walked into the man from before. As it was by the grace of God he just barely managed to do this incredibly girly pirouette to the side and smack his shoulder into a wall, still all but standing on top of the guy. But not touching him, which would have been far worse.
The older guys James lived with didn't tend to bother with his age group very much. They didn't have much of an opportunity for harassment because the monitors kept a very sharp eye out and because everything was done in shifts and if you managed to toe that line, conceivably, you might never know about the other wing of the housing where boys older than fifteen got sent to until you wound up there yourself. All the ones James seen hadn't been anything like this one. Everything, from his skuzzy leather jacket to his way of leaning against the wall like he just felt like sticking a shoulder out and the wall had leapt to catch it because even his shoulder was that awesome, to his narrow, icy blue eyes was the kind of cool that boys young enough to believe in people and old enough to be into badass worshipped. He looked like someone from the TV, except he just seemed to happen without any effort involved. And he was staring right at James, cool as you please.
James swallowed.
Don't say anything, he willed. Don't say a damned thing and don't spend the next hour berating yourself for looking like such a loser. Cause you are a loser and it's not worth berating anyone about. Except maybe your parents but that's hardly relevant and seriously DO NOT OPEN YOUR MOUTH—
"Sorry," he choked out, finally dragging his eyes away from the man standing before him. The man didn't say anything as a reply, something a little disappointing but mostly something for which James was endlessly thankful. James scurried quickly over to throw the rest of the trash away, splashing in a puddle of something miscellaneous that immediately soaked into perhaps the only patch of his clothing not contaminated by anthrax. He took a moment to stare miserably at this, wondering if his clothes would need to be burned, and really hoping that the stranger would tire of his blundering and magically be gone when he turned around.
No such luck, as it turned out, and although James wasn't able to muster up the courage to look up at him again, he just knew the guy was staring at him. Laughing at him and thinking to himself just what a weirdo James was. James couldn't blame him for that at all, because that was what everyone thought—and they were right. He felt disappointed anyway, in a little bit of everything. Most of all, now that the initial mortification was past, he was disappointed that the stranger couldn't be bothered to say anything to him at all.
He edged by to return to Lloyd and whatever remaining chores were waiting for him, and tried to think of that. He made it about three steps before he risked a little glance back, which didn't communicate to his feet well or the can lying innocently on the pavement in front of him. His legs flew out from under him again, he shouted in surprise, and yanked his head away from the pavement just in time. He then dropped it back down again, which hurt almost as much, and really had no intention of getting back up for a long time because if he was just going to wind up on his back again, it wasn't worth the effort.
A moment of staring listlessly into the gray of the sky and his line of vision was interrupted by Mr. Cool himself, peering down at James with a strange expression that made James think that maybe he had offended this person with his idiocy and might prepare to die. Instead of kicking him or thwarting the world's dastardly plans and offering some kind of help, the head cocked slightly to one side and asked, in a voice sounded like an angry engine motor, "Can you seriously be that clumsy?"
James's mouth fell open and nothing came out. The guy snickered at him, shaking his head, and James sat up with a growl. "Oh yes, silly me, I fell on my butt on purpose!" He snapped thoughtlessly and the snickering stopped, which was gratifying until James realized he was probably going to get knocked around—the other boys had never been big fans of his sarcasm. He risked a glance at Mr. Cool, and found him giving James another strange expression. But it wasn't an expression that screamed, Prepare to die, peon, so James figured he was lucky. He stood up quickly, making a big show of dusting himself off and grumbling to himself just to keep from having to talk, but that didn't work at all.
"Hey," said Mr. Cool, and James was forced to stop and hunch his shoulders around himself, anticipating some kind of blow. Eventually he realized he was supposed to turn around and face whatever he was going to get, but all he found was that Mr. Cool had taken to leaning against a wall again, watching him. He said nothing further and James figured he was supposed to talk too, and cursed quietly. He'd never been very good at that either.
"Sorry," he mumbled, even though he wasn't. Mr. Cool didn't say anything, and when James looked up again, he had his eyes on the wall to James's right and actually did look more annoyed than before. Rolling his eyes and deciding it must be something that cool kids did, James turned and went back to where he lived. Lloyd was asleep in his chair; four other boys looking for an early breakfast, sadly, were not. Mouths dropped open at James's appearance and then quickly snapped shut at the smell.
"Going dumpster diving already?" Eddie asked, once he'd recovered from the shock. "There's plenty of time for that later, when they throw you out of here for being so lame."
James glared at him, but said nothing and forced his way through, ignoring the shouts behind him.
"Maybe he's just sucking up to Lloyd, huh?"
"No, no, Matt, he just likes his food nice and ripe!"
And then, worst of all, before James could tune them out entirely:
"You kiss your mother with that mouth?"
Blood rushed to his ears. He ran the rest of the way up the stairs.
The boys weren't really allowed to take more than one shower in a day, but the monitors would have choked on their ties before allowing James to spend the day in the state that he was. So he was made to shower that morning and told not to go outside for the rest of the day—he couldn't be given special privileges, after all. The other boys his age were out in the courtyard and James was told to stay in the bedroom and be quiet. It was probably the nicest thing that had happened to him all week, locked in the silent rooms alone, staring at the city beyond the window. He watched the other boys too, finding Eddie, Matthew, and Dean easily and unable to quench a rush of hatred towards them. He wished for something horrible to happen to them without meaning to, and then couldn't stop wishing for it, worse and worse scenarios coming to mind until he was sick to his stomach and finally looked away.
And there was Mr. Cool, behind the fence and in the shadows, watching the boys play. James could tell it was him now, because he could see the gleam of his jacket in the dark, and knew the height well enough to just know. He wasn't still this time, but tapping a foot impatiently against the pavement as he watched. James watched him, wondering what he was doing there and why he wasn't leaving until finally he did turn to go, and melted back into the shadows without speaking or letting anyone know he was there at all.
Except James.
It was a little bit cool.
It was Monday and James decided to walk home instead of taking the bus. There weren't really rules about taking the bus, but it was kind of a given that they were supposed to take it, because the day that they started school they were herded to the bus stop, left there, and expected to figure it out. James evidently figured it out a little too well, because in two weeks he knew the way home on foot—never once did he have to call a monitor to pick him up because he missed the bus—and a week later he knew two shortcuts that actually cut the time spent on the bus in half. Amazingly enough no one called him out on it (there was something of a rule about going outside the place where he lived unchaperoned), probably because no one noticed he was gone. Invisibility had its benefits.
James wanted to walk today for no other reason than too long spent crammed into a gum encrusted desk with an indecipherable textbook in front of him that was either about math or ancient Greece; he wasn't really sure. He was bubbling with restless, uncomfortable energy, so he ran with his backpack weighing him down and the pavement sending shocks up to his knees that would probably hurt like the Dickens later. He ran anyway, until he didn't think he'd ever catch his breath again, and certainly not with his books compressing his lungs the way they were, so he took off his backpack and held it in his hands until he saw the housing building, whereupon he threw it into the fence, whistling at the clang it made.
He surprised himself then, by instead of stopping to breathe, rushing up to the fence and clambering up it as though he'd done it a hundred times when he'd actually never thought to do it once. It struck him as a pitiful safety measure, because no one with bad intentions would ever, for a heartbeat, let this lame an obstruction stop them, until he tumbled off the other end and had the wind painfully knocked out of him. For whatever reason—he didn't seem to be running on all cylinders this afternoon—that made him laugh in short, wheezing gasps, and then he was up again, and running the length of the makeshift basketball court, back and forth, around and around, a rat on its wheel, running circles in its cage until he really did have to stop and was breathing so hard that his eyes were watering, mixing into the sweat dripping off of him.
He laughed again, and made an even more hysterical sound with it, wanting badly to shut up and not really sure he'd be able to. He felt like falling onto the ground and having a seizure. He'd never had one before, but he knew a girl in his class who once had, and he thought he might like to try it, falling on the ground and shaking himself apart. His eyes finally rose up from his knees, and there was, he realized, Mr. Cool. He froze as though he'd just been shoved into an ice floe.
Mr. Cool was very still again, but only for a moment, because then he was walking up to the fence, not sauntering as James had expected, but walking in orderly steps, almost marching.
James had been to a zoo once, and he remembered looking at the tiger exhibit where this big, beautiful cat was lounging, not doing anything, but just sitting there, sleeping with its eyes open. The children around him shouted with excitement, but James had been overwhelmed not with awe, but with a sense of sorrow more strong and noble than anything he'd felt in his seven year-old life. The tiger's imprisonment befuddled him, as did its beauty, because it didn't fit where it was, it didn't belong in this kind of cage. It belonged with George of the Jungle with the gorillas and the lions and the monkeys—seeing it so out of place and trapped there had been the saddest thing James had ever seen.
That was how Mr. Cool was looking at him now, standing only a little apart from the fence with a tight frown on his face and his shoulders a little too tense. James glared back, still frozen, and just kept on glaring until his face hurt from it, until Mr. Cool reached out slowly, and looped his fingers through the fence. There was something astonishing about that, because even though James would never consider biting another human being so long as he lived, it felt like the stranger was putting his hand into the tiger's cage and saying… What was it? Doesn't this look tasty? I'm not afraid of you? …I'm sorry?
James stared at that hand for a long while, and at some point he was able to move again. He turned sharply, without a word, and went straight back inside, leaving his backpack to its fate, and not throwing a backward glance towards the man at the fence.
The hand stayed imprisoned in his mind's eye, and that night, he dreamed of tigers prowling outside of the recreation area's fence. It was the first dream he'd had in a long while, and it woke him up in the middle of the night to a room of snores and shadows. He decided to go to the bathroom so that at least he'd have had a purpose in waking up, and on his way back, stopped at the window. At least he thought he did; it might have been another dream. But when he looked outside for the constancy of the moon, he instead looked down at the fence, and there was someone there. It was too dark to tell who, but James could see a hand pressed against the fence.
He walked home again the next day, and was disappointed to see no one there. There wasn't any faltering in that feeling—he was sorely disappointed. For the first time since his arrival he found himself wanting to see another human being, and he wasn't there. Wasn't that just perfect? He scowled a little bit, then went inside to do his homework. The other boys arrived from the bus and together they all shared a long Kodak moment of peaceable indifference. Eventually the bell rang to call them to dinner and they shuffled in. It was more crowded than usual or it seemed that way, and the minute James had a plate of food he snuck outside and away from the elbows and shouts of his comrades.
Outside was blissfully quiet and cool and he immediately took his perch on the water heater, legs folded under him with a mouthful of dry chicken on his fork. He watched the sunset wreaking havoc on the smog-filled skyline until footsteps told him that someone had come out to look for him. He started guiltily, but it was someone outside the fence. At once he recognized the unusual gait and instantly deserted his dinner (it hadn't been any good anyway) to trot over to the fence and peer at Mr. Cool, who looked straight back at him, but didn't seem to notice him. He stopped just beyond the fence and said nothing. James knew it was up to him, and barely hesitated before blurting out, "I'm James."
Mr. Cool gave no indication that he'd heard anything, and James went on with barely a pause, "James Wilson. I live here."
"Yeah," Mr. Cool finally said. The tone was dry as could possibly be, a serious contender for the title with his chicken, and it was still the best thing James had heard all day. "I kind of figured."
"Tell me who you are," James demanded unthinkingly. "It's only fair." The stranger's facial expression changed, but James couldn't read it any better than the last one. He looked back down the way he'd come and for a long, horrible moment James thought he'd somehow stuck his foot even further into his mouth than usual and that the man was going to leave. Instead he shrugged a little bit, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
"I really shouldn't be here," he said softly, and James paused, wondering. Does he have work to do? Does he have bad memories from here? Is he one of those pedophiles the monitors are always warning us about? Questions swam in James's head, and he swatted them all down methodically until only the important one was left. He couldn't figure out how he could ask it, and so he just sort of forced it out, every bit as awkward when spoken as in his mind.
"Are you a… bad person?" He asked, voice in a monotone in spite of the fact that somehow, his entire world had come to rest on that question. Are you bad, he wanted to know, if you're quiet and you don't make sense and you feel sorry for the animals in the zoo? And it meant a lot more than that too; it meant all of the things that he'd been told he'd become if he didn't shape up, and all of the things he was scared of becoming, and just the way that everything always felt so wrong no matter what he tried. His eyes went down, so he didn't see what Mr. Cool did, but he did hear his voice, sharp and clear as ice.
"No, I'm not."
James's eyes snapped up and the face before him was just as resolute as his tone. His eyes went down again, and he found out that he was still breathing and the world was still turning. But he did feel a little different than before, and without even meaning to, his fingers wound themselves into the wires of the fence, poking through to the other side. "Yeah," he agreed. "Yeah. You're not."
He heard the shift of fabric and thought that now Mr. Cool was going away, which made him sad although there was no longer some desperate compulsion to make him stop, but instead he found that he was leaning against the fence, back to James, head tilted skyward. "Greg," he said, a name which didn't suit him at all for whatever reason. "I'm Greg."
"Why do you keep coming back here?" James asked, other hand joining the first, head falling against the fence in an attempt to catch a little more of Mr. Cool—Greg—but all he got was a view of his ear. It was a little misshapen, and that seemed pretty badass too.
"Dunno," Greg said, sounding ever-so-slightly displeased about it, and whether this was towards the question or his response, James had no idea. He sighed as well, and the way he sighed wasn't as cool as James had expected, like a blast of car exhaust or something, but like a tired old man turning over in his sleep. Maybe it was projecting, but he sounded a little tired when he next spoke. "I have no idea…"
Then they were perfectly quiet and still, James copying the stillness, but feeling so very at peace with a quiet where nothing needed saying or doing or explaining and it wasn't like a few more minutes of staring into space was going to turn him into a mass-murdering psychopath. Sounds of laughter drifted over from the place where James lived and the last of the sunlight fell on their faces.
"You don't talk much, do you?" James asked as the silence wore on, and Greg's head angled back to him to give him a hard look.
"Neither do you."
That was true, and James really didn't know why he'd asked in the first place. He hadn't minded the silence, and he was pretty sure that Greg somehow had divined that, but they gave each other an assessing look for a moment before sinking back down against the chain-link fence. It was quiet again until James heard a door bang open and a head thrust out to call his name into the dark. He disentangled himself from the fence, throwing Greg what he hoped was an apologetic look and not the miserable one that was threatening to spread over him like a cloud at the prospect of life going on. They didn't say anything, but Greg nodded to him before turning and going back the way he came, and James went to the door to find Lloyd scowling at him.
James went to bed hungry, knowing that his dinner would be attracting flies, and still felt fuller than he had in a very long time. He was pretty sure he could keep going on the memory of fifteen minutes of tranquility for a long time.
Greg didn't come back for three days.
It was nothing to get depressed over—fifteen minutes was the usual amount of time it took people to get sick of James. He wasn't really depressed about it either; he'd stopped putting faith in people around the time he'd run out of people to put faith in. No, the depression was more a result of it being Saturday, almost a full week from the first day that he'd seen the man called Greg. James hated Saturday.
The boys were lined up, dressed in their finest (or at least cleanest) clothes, and the monitors inspected them one by one, demanding a change of footwear here or a straightening of the jacket there. James had his fingernails inspected because he had a bad habit of scratching absently at the rust on the heater while lost in thought, and was told to go wash them again. James, who had spent the last five minutes scratching desperately at the dust under the windowsill in hopes of getting just those orders, was happy to comply and took his time scrubbing the grime away and dreading what would be waiting for him.
Saturday was the day that the visitors came. The monitors felt it wouldn't be fair to distract the boys from their schoolwork on the weekdays and Sunday was a day of rest for them all, so that left Saturday for the people to flock in. It was rather like being in a zoo. The boys were prodded, examined, socialized, and combated against one another to win the coveted position that they all, even the ones who insisted that they didn't, wanted badly enough to scream. It was the day friends turned on each other only to make shame-faced amends the next day. Saturday was the day any pretense of equality was completely abandoned, and the day that never failed to get James's hopes up.
So he really hated Saturday.
Mr. Gabriel came looking for him eventually and guided him into the center of it all, introducing him to a smiling man and woman that, even with his eyes firmly on the floor and mind firmly on all the disappointments of the past, still made James think of that place he used to call home.
"How old are you, sweetie?" The woman asked, and all James could think of was, Too old for you to want me. Too old to fall for this, but I'm falling for it again.
"I turned twelve last month," he told them, and tried to look anywhere but at the smiling people before him. Soon they lost interest, but then there was another one. James knew it was the monitors' doing; they worried about him because he seemed to have so many problems. He never spoke, after all, and he never smiled, and he didn't make any friends at all. There was something a little bit wrong with that boy who just wanted to sit on the water heater all day, he needed a little bit of extra attention, he needed peace and stability in his life or else he'd grow up to be just like everyone said he would and wouldn't that be a shame because he was really such a handsome, polite young man.
Except, James thought in a whisper, even in his own head (although this was better than not being able to think of anything at all to defend himself with), I'm not a bad person and I'm not wrong. I'm just me. I just…
"How old are you, sweetheart?" Asked a kindly smiling grandmother, and all he had to do was see that gentle, warm look in her eyes for his heart to hurt like his arm had the time Eddie Myers had broken it. His eyes snapped away, and he bit his lip.
I hate this.
One by one they all wandered away, displeased with his standoffishness, his complete lack of little boy cute, and James found a corner to crawl into while the other boys fought each other with sickly sweet smiles and strategically-placed elbows. James caught a few scowls from the monitors, frustrated with his rebuffs of their do-gooding attempts, but James could have cared less. There wasn't anyone else they could throw at him and it was almost time for these people to go. Once they were gone he could—it didn't matter. Just the phrase echoing in his head. Once they're gone. Once they're gone.
Someone stepped into his line of vision then, and his heart seemed to stop. It was another lady—he always seemed to attract those—and he hadn't seen this one come in. As it was, seeing her almost made him cry out because as she crouched down in front of him with her brown eyes soft and hair pulled back in a ponytail, she looked just like his mother. The competition seemed to come crashing down all around him, and his heart fluttered into his throat. He leaned forward, mouth opening to say something to make her stay and keep talking to him.
"You're so pretty," he'd said to his mother once, and she'd given this wonderful laugh and hugged him tight, so now he said it to this woman, voice unsure, and she blushed and laughed almost the same way, ruffling his hair out of the order the monitors had just barely achieved.
"My, you're a charming one," she exclaimed, and instead of asking his age she asked, "What's your name?"
"James—" he almost added 'Wilson' to that, but he caught himself just in time. He didn't want it to seem like he was taken, like she couldn't have him. He'd never say the word 'Wilson' again if she could just laugh his mother's laugh a second time, if maybe she would be the one to do the thing he couldn't bear to hope for, but hoped for all the same. He tried to remember to smile. He knew it would help. "Just James."
"What are you doing all the way over here, Just James?" She asked. "You look lonely."
He blinked up at her, hands pulling nervously on his shirt hem. "I just… I didn't know…" His eyes dropped and honesty came out because even though he knew it wasn't her, she looked so much like his mother and he could never lie to her. He didn't want to even try; he wanted to crawl into her lap and tell her everything from start to finish, and somehow figure out the way to smile because he wanted to smile at her. "I don't know what to say to them," he finished quietly, and her hands—colder than he expected, but he didn't mind—tilt his head back up to look her in the eye.
When she was sure she had his attention—and she did; James couldn't have looked away if he'd wanted to—she said gently, "Of course you do, James. You're wonderful at talking to people. What you said to me—that was the loveliest thing I've heard all day!"
He loved the fact that she said the word 'loveliest' and the way she smiled until he thought he could return it. He tilted his head, trying to make it look like he was smiling, because for whatever reason, he couldn't get his face to work right. "It's true," he promised earnestly, fingers crossed behind him. "You're the prettiest lady I've ever seen."
That was a little bit of a lie. His mother was the prettiest. But he couldn't say that. Even he wasn't that stupid. And he was hoping so much that this was a moment when being stupid mattered.
As the lady laughed again a man approached, and James at once knew it was her husband. He stared up at him with wide eyes, trying to see if he had a kind face, and more clandestinely trying to see if it matched his father's face in any way. His smile was very kind, but he didn't look anything like James's father. James liked him anyway, because when she was him, he made his wife laugh again.
"Darling," she called, getting back to her feet, and James scrambled to rise as well. She gestured at him. "Come meet James!"
He did come meet James, and although he was nice, he wasn't as nice as his wife. James's heart fluttered from its residency in his throat. The wanting of it all was choking him. He knew he didn't have a shot, but he still felt that Maybe, Almost, If kind of feeling in the bottom of his stomach and he thought frantically of how he might sell the husband that he was the charming, wonderful child his wife believed. He shook the man's hand, he asked after something trivial, he even tried to crack a joke (they both laughed, but he couldn't tell if they meant it or not). He could feel the man warming up to him, but he could still feel a barrier and that meant certain death.
Smile, he willed himself as the man told a joke of his own. Smile, when the lady patted his shoulder. Smile, he all but begged, recognizing their impending departure as each conversational venue began to close. Just smile!
His face was frozen. "It was nice meeting you James." The lady ruffled his hair again, and then fell into place beside her husband.
"Likewise," said her husband, and shook his hand again. James lips twitched a little bit, but nothing useful was produced.
Smile! Please, damn you, you've done it before, why not just this once—
"Good luck," one of them said, James wasn't sure which, and they were gone. More than his face seemed frozen now. All of his insides were stuck in place, and his eyes were glued to the pair of them as they made their way across the floor and began to speak with the monitor. James's heart started to beat again, each pulse infused with pain and wishes, and dread, because he hadn't smiled. All the other boys could smile, all the other boy were better, and he knew he hadn't done that right. He knew all of this and still took the half step forward when the woman turned back to the crowd of boys and smiled straight at him, beautiful as the sunshine on a cloudy day. Her lips parted, he could feel his face melting, could feel it changing, knew he was about to remember.
"Eddie Myers," the woman with his mother's face called, and James's heart stopped again. The whole room stopped, frozen in that moment like a broken tape. It spun a little bit, but all of the figures were rooted where they were without blinking or breathing, and James began to feel at home there before Eddie shouldered him out of the way and he fell back against the wall without a sound. The woman didn't even look at him. She held out her arms to Eddie, who gladly fell into her embrace. The boys clapped for the chosen one, shier couples began to approach the monitors to make their own selections, and there was James, a little piece of silence in the corner. A pocket of everything in the world that no one wanted.
He stood up carefully, and brushed himself off. He walked towards the exit and now the woman seemed to notice him, and smiled his way, but he ignored her and simply walked out the door and into the kitchen. No one followed him. It might have been pity or it might have been just the general acceptance of the fact that he had nowhere else to go. Mostly, he knew, it was just that no one really minded where he went, and they'd tell themselves anything as long as it wasn't anywhere near them. He went to the fruit bowl, got an apple, took a prerequisite bite, and then went out the door and into the recreation area, finding his way to the water heater and curling up on top of it. It hummed beneath him, steady and relaxing, and when his shaking hands crushed holes into the fruit and juice began to fall, it still just hummed and hummed and never noticed him at all.
He could hear Eddie's voice and knew that they, the lady, her husband, and the boy, were leaving. He didn't move. He could hear other people streaming out, taking boys with them. No one noticed him and he lay still, juice slipping down his wrists, fizzing when it hit the fan below. It felt like an earthquake beneath him and he was so incredibly still until finally there was some quiet around him. He supposed the visitors had been sent away. He supposed he should go inside before anyone noticed he was missing. He supposed, a little reluctantly, that he should feel like his heart was breaking because he finally had… Had been a part of something, if for a very short period of time.
He didn't feel anything at all, except glad that Saturday was over.
And that Eddie was gone.
Eddie made him think of her smile, and the embrace not for him, and all of the things Eddie had ever said about his mother, and before he knew what he was doing, James was shooting back to life, springing off of the heater, and hurling his mutilated apple like a World League baseball player, straight in front of him. It smashed into the fence with a deafening crash, little pieces of apple, loosened by his fingers, flying over the field and into the dirt. James was left standing where he had thrown it, panting like he'd done something hard, sticky hands gripping at his arms.
Then somehow there was Greg, taking long, intimidating strides at the fence and slamming into it like he was trying to break his way through, clash of metal even louder than that of the apple's impact. James's eyes snapped to his and found a look on his face almost like a glare, but beneath the look of hatred there was a rainbow of emotions, bitter, painful emotions. Frustration and sorrow and rage and something so desperate and pleading that James's façade crumbled into pieces and he felt himself convulse with a sob, hands flying to bottle it in.
It wasn't fair that he had to be the way he was and then cry about it. It wasn't right and he couldn't take that at all, and now instead of just wanting to tear something apart, he wanted to tear himself apart. His hands sealed against his mouth, choking back a sob that rose like a scream, but doing nothing against the tears that spilled out of his eyes unprovoked and undeserved when he knew and always knew what the outcomes would be.
In almost four years since he'd come, James hadn't cried a single tear. Not when the other boys would pick on him, or the first time he'd been turned down on visitor's day, or when he'd thought he'd had a friend and been completely wrong about it. Not when Greg hadn't come for three days and it felt like his heart was breaking because of it, because of the fact that if Greg had ever come to a Saturday's visitation, James would have grabbed him and never let go until he was torn away. He'd never smiled, but he never cried either, so he couldn't be that miserable.
Now didn't have any excuse. He folded in on himself, trying to hide the tears behind anything handy because he didn't want Greg to have to deal with this, and more importantly, he didn't want Greg to leave again. The sobs refused to be swallowed and the fence trembled again, singing against the night.
"James," Greg called, voice low and demanding, and James was compelled to stumble forward, even as he scrubbed at his face and tried in vain to stop tears that just kept coming and coming, howling sobs reduced to breathless gasps. He met the fence somehow and there was Greg and his fingers slipped through the fence to dig into the sides of James's face hard enough to hurt, enough to show the power within them. It felt like Greg could tear his head clean off if he wanted to, but he was warm, so incredibly warm, that James couldn't even think to protest. His hands weren't cold at all. They were warm and here, and it was Greg, whispering his name between them until darting eyes finally held against his own in spite of the tears, and James hands dropped back to his sides.
"I'm sorry," he croaked through the fence, shrugging helplessly. "But I don't think I'm a good person."
Greg's glare darkened, black as hell, and the emotions held just under the surface, obscured but not invisible, roiled and threatened to burst free and out of those eyes. They'd eat holes straight through James if they did; they'd maybe tear the entire building behind him apart. His fingers tightened, caging James's face eye-to-eye with his, threatening to break it in two. James's heartbeat picked up for only a second, and then he found his eyes falling closed, tears still squeezing out of the corners. Let it happen, he thought, too tired to worry about what this was going to cost him. Greg was probably going to destroy him one way or another. Might as well let him choose.
"Look at me," Greg said, and James's eyes reluctantly opened again. Unlike the woman, he didn't wait to see if he had James's attention, but knew he commanded it. Greg's eyes danced, aflame and feverish. "I can take you away from here," he hissed through the fence. "I can make sure you never see any of these people, this place, this color dirt ever again. I can take you to where they can't hurt you, can't find you. I can take you far enough away that no one on this Goddamn planet can ever bring you back here again."
His words sunk in, and James didn't know what to feel. His head spun with confusion and there was a lump in his throat cutting off his air supply. Greg's hands burned.
"I'll chain you up in the Tower of London if I have to," Greg growled, and a shiver of unadulterated terror ran through James, even though he had no idea what the Tower of London was, twisting into the rest of the confusion within him, "But I will NEVER let them take you back!"
It was silent again after that, James's tears having stuttered to a halt, only the breathing between them making any sound. James listened to it and stared into the wildness of Greg's eyes. "I can take you away," Greg repeated, softer, but still too intense to be anything but terrifying. "I can protect you."
He didn't ask if James wanted to come or tell him to come, but rather, just said softer than ever, barely a whisper;
"James… Please."
Somewhere, James could feel a world coming apart, unraveling at the edges. Maybe it was that he'd never expected for a minute to hear this kind of entreaty or maybe he was sensing that this would change his life forever, or that the look in this strange man's eye, the words he'd spoken, happened just once in a lifetime and James was witnessing something he'd never forget. Fear poured adrenaline into his bloodstream, sharpened every sense, and he was all too aware of the hands gripping his face and the nails pressing into his skin. James's mouth parted, and even though he wasn't sure he knew how to breathe around the lump in his throat, he managed to say in a voice that sounded nothing like his, because it actually knew what it was saying;
"Yes."
The world pulled apart entirely, threads snapping out in a blast of wind around them. Greg let out a huge, shuddering sigh into the gust, and although the electricity lingered in his eyes, the glare melted away, the desperation softened. James found himself released moments later, stumbling back with a hand against his tingling cheek. They watched each other for only a minute before Greg jerked his head sharply at the place where James had lived, exposing a sinewy, strong neck. A man's neck.
"Well?" He said, firmly. "Go get your stuff."
"Now?" James stuttered, eyes darting away, but the more he saw, the more the buzzing, tingling feeling under his skin intensified. Greg didn't answer, but James was nodding to himself, eyes wide with the fear of the place that was swallowing him whole. Greg's eyes blazed.
"Please."
"Yes." James agreed with himself. "Now. It needs to be—" He sucked in air, because he couldn't seem to get enough of it, turned, and bolted back inside.
He ran through the boys milling through the common rooms, counting their losses and mending their alliances so as to survive until the next battle, through the monitors who monitored so very little in truth, over the stairs that had frightened him into paralysis the first time he saw them, and into the bedrooms. He had a suitcase there—they all did—and he loaded it with the clothes he liked best, his alarm clock, and the rubber band collection he'd been amassing (one a day purloined from his English teacher's desk). He upended his schoolbag on his bed, unsurprisingly saw nothing worth keeping, and left the contents of whatever life he had lived beyond this place strewn on the covers.
His heart pounded through his chest and onto the floor it seemed, except it was still somehow inside of him, beating against his ribs like an angry boxer. The rest of him seemed to have been struck by lightning flying out of Greg's eyes, and was alight with electricity. His mind went in a million directions. Wouldn't someone come after him? Wouldn't they notice he was gone? What if someone came in and stopped him right now? What if Greg was gone? What if someone saw them?
He threw his suitcase out the window because if he went downstairs with it, someone might ask questions. He watched it fall and then hurried back down the stairs, not bothering to clean up his mess. He was thinking that perhaps he'd never have to clean up another mess again. He went to the front hall where the shoes lay, a thousand shoes that all belonged to everyone and no one. James cast his eyes around for the perfect pair like one of the visitors that came on Saturdays, one that would become his and only his, and he found them. Black sneakers, still new, still ready to be colored with the dust of however many miles far away was. They were a little big, but if he laced them up tightly, they were comfortable enough. More importantly, they just fit.
What if Greg's a murderer? Or a pedophile? Or a kidnapper? What if he's a terrorist or a hobo or a crazy guy? What if he kills me? What if he starts to hate me too? Why am I doing this with someone I don't know at all? I can run away at any time. I can run away right now and not go with him and never need anyone to protect me, and that will probably be the safest thing to do. He's dangerous, I'd be an idiot not to think that but—
But what if he's—
And yet not a single one of these thoughts made him so much as pause in lacing up his new shoes, in stepping outside without a word to any of the people, in rushing over to where his suitcase lay and to the fence where Greg stood waiting, steady as any rock in the world. His eyes too warned James to stay back and not do this spectacularly stupid thing, but James was already throwing his suitcase over the fence. This stranger caught it in warm hands and set it down beside him, watching again. James clambered up the fence with the same ease of before, wondering what had ever stopped him.
The fall maybe, he realized, glancing down and not liking what he saw. Greg eyed him, hands in his pockets, and made no move to help. The ground looked hard and too far, and it wasn't too late to turn back yet. The metal bit into his fingers with a cold he'd never noticed before, and the wind shoved him, telling him to hurry up with his choice. James bit down on his lip briefly and then threw himself off, flailing in midair as he fell. This time when his feet were flying in the air and hadn't even been under him, Greg did catch him and he was compressed into the smell of leather and unwashed man, into solid warmth. The electricity in his body swelled to a crescendo, until he swore he could feel it in his eyelids and taste it in his ears, and then the suitcase somehow got into his hand and Greg was running like a wolf over the pavement and away, away, away.
Running like the coolest person James had ever met, and in his own clumsy steps, he followed, not sparing a glance back at the orphanage, the place where he had once lived.