Waiter
Disclaimer: The Dark is Rising sequence does not belong to me. Originally posted on my livejournal under "Hemidall."
Summary: The first ten years were the worst...
The first ten years were the worst. So were the next ten years. The next ten years, things sort of slid into a pattern.
A bland pattern, not even the chintzy kind on café cups.
Saying hello, now, that should be easy. Hell, like how he's living now, and "oh", as in, "oh, is that a new haircut?" Just join them together with sticky-backed plastic, chants his childhood. Hell and "oh." Hello.
He runs it through in his head a few times. Hello, hello, hello. He feels like a jolly policeman, or the book - the Christmas edition of the jolly postman, Allan Ahlberg, Max got it for his birthday one year, it opened up and inwards and outwards with a thousand secrets to discover. It smelt like Christmas, too. All new books do, he thinks, and old ones smell of memories.
He'll lose this chance if he fidgets any longer.
His feet move forward - left, right, left, right - he watches them as if watching something foreign to him. Oh, look, they move, how quaint. And because of this distraction it takes him surprise when he looks up and his past glimpses up at him shyly, a flash of gold under pale, surprised eyelashes.
Memories smack him in the stomach; that must be why he stumbles, for Bran Davies looks at him- uncomprehending, but sympathetic. Regal, but not a prince any more. Haughty and arrogant, yet still with beauty and grace in his movements.
It's the sympathy that gets him, which rises in him. Resentful. You got to forget, and I…
"H-Hello," he says eventually, politely, a semi-blush on his face that he hides in a stammer.
Bran looks up at him, an "oh" on his face too, expectant for something that he is unsure of, waiting for something, just something, something to happen - obvious by the nerve pulsing in the cream of his neck, by the twinkle in hawk-eyes. Something was supposed to happen to me, Bran's eyes tell him clearly, and it hasn't yet. Are you that something?
He understands that question, and covers the ache of that understanding with a question, a single question: "Can I help you?"
He watches the hope die in Bran's eyes, while maintaining a bland expression.
"Oh," Bran says, covering up his awkwardness by tapping the book in one hand with his fingers. Cream clashes on the red and golden book, Celtic myths. "Um. No, thanks…" Bran stops, his eyes searching, finds the nametag, and says, "…Will."
"No problem," Will says, smiling. "If you need any more assistance, I'll be at the desk."
Will turns to go, hate on his face. He can feel Bran's eyes on his back, searching even now through him. He catches Bran's soft inhalation before Bran even knows he's going to ask a question, and he tenses as he waits for it.
"Wait," Bran says, and Will dutifully turns on his heel, subconsciously obedient to a master who has no call over him. "Do I know you?"
"I don't think so," Will says, unevenly, lands the stinger which will make Bran cool and avoid the bookstore now forever, "I think I'd remember someone like you."
Bran flinches, hunches his shoulders up tightly, and - all thumbs - quietly replaces the book on the shelf and slides stiffly out of the shop.
Will dutifully stands behind the counter, sinking against it, his attention drifting outside. Curiosity stings, and he listens too, listens past the bustling noise outside, searching, and then hears:
"Bran, you okay?"
"Yeah."
"Lying isn't going to make anyone feel better."
A sigh. "This young punk in the bookstore made a jibe about me."
"Well, they can do without our custom in the future, then, can't they…"
Will cuts off then, not wanting to listen, - curiosity killed the Old One - not wanting to acknowledge that the female voice belongs to another girl he doesn't want around to remind him of old books. Or should that be memories? He doesn't know any more.
He leans across the counter, and begins to wait again. Waiting isn't so hard. It's the punctuations that are really the bitch, after all.