He woke up with a sharp pain in his shoulder.
He tried to sit up and was- ow- unable to. He decided to survey his surroundings.
It was sometime in the morning, he knew, because sunlight shone through the thin curtains, filling the room with pink light. He was on a simple bed which was well-maintained, though it didn't feel like it was used much, much like a hotel bed. There were a fair amount of canvasses and boxes in the room, and he got the impression that this was more of a storage closet than a guest room. There was a wooden bedside drawer, and on it was what he presumed to be his shirt, folded. He looked down. He was shirtless, and there was a length of bandage covering his left shoulder. It was stained red.
He got up and shuffled, awkwardly, out of the room.
He went down the stairs, looking at the paintings on the wall as he went. They looked like abstract art, and there were title cards below every one of them. He did not bother to look at them. He knew only one person who painted like that, though he did not imagine himself meeting him again after twenty years.
Twenty years, three months, and a day, to be exact. He did not know how that came so easily to him, but he guessed it was just a mental tic of his by now.
He saw a man and a small girl at a small table, eating breakfast. They both had blonde hair, though the man's curled loosely around his head, while the girl's hair was short, and decidedly straight. The man was reading a Sunday paper through round glasses.
"Hello, Benjamin," he said, feeling the slightest bit out of place.
Benjamin looked up from his paper, and smiled softly. "Max-Ernest, good morning," he said, "Come sit with us. We're having pancakes."
Max-Ernest looked at his old friend tentatively, and simply nodded. He hobbled to the table and took a seat beside the little girl. She was, at the moment, munching noisily on a chocolate smeared pancake. His mouth began to water, and he chided himself for staring. But he knew he couldn't help it.
"Papa! All done!" the girl proclaimed, showing Benjamin her chocolate smeared plate.
Benjamin smiled. "Great job, Yvie. Go give the plate a bath now."
Yvie beamed, and ran to the kitchen to give the plate a bath.
It was just the two of them now. Benjamin had finished reading his paper, and set it down on his lap. Max-Ernest looked at him, and took a pancake from the plate in the center of the table.
"Now," Max-Ernest began, "I know for a fact that I couldn't have been visiting you, since I haven't heard from or seen you in twenty years, three months, and one day, and there has to be a reason as to why I'm wounded. Wounds don't magically appear on your flesh, and there's no such thing as magic."
He took the bottle of chocolate syrup in front of him.
"Are these pancakes chocolate chip?" he asked.
Benjamin shook his head.
Max-Ernest looked marginally disappointed. "Fine. It'll have to do. Anyway, something must have happened, and you must have been there, or else I would not be here in what appears to be your home, bandaged and slightly confused."
He was practically drowning the pancake in chocolate syrup.
Benjamin pointed to the poor pancake, and Max-Ernest stopped, not bothering to look down. "Sorry," he muttered, and put the syrup bottle back where it belonged.
Benjamin just smiled. "It's fine," he reassured him, "I was meaning to go to the grocery today anyway. Do you... remember what happened?"
The other man looked up, his mouth, nose, and beard soaked in syrup. "What? Oh, um. All I remember is that I was... I was getting something from the fridge."
He was getting something from the fridge; some Tudor Gold dark chocolate, 55% cocoa, the one with almonds. It was an ordinary day for him, really. All he planned to do that night was to blog a little, maybe catch up on some Elementary. He had always liked Sherlock Holmes, and he was enjoying the series so far, though he wasn't sure how to feel about the fact that they made Watson a woman. His cat, Cacao, was asleep on the couch, and his rabbit, Quiche, was in his hutch, nibbling on a carrot. Everything was quiet.
A gunshot went off, and knocked the bar of chocolate from his hand.
Max-Ernest scratched the back of his head. "And then a gunshot went off. I don't remember much after that, but I think I saw you- It's still pretty fuzzy in my mind."
He was still sore about the chocolate.
Benjamin nodded. "Yes, we have reason to believe someone was around that night."
Max-Ernest raised an eyebrow at "we". Benjamin, he knew, wasn't a full fledged member of the Terces Society, though he had helped them on occasion- then again, he hadn't exactly been keeping tabs with the old gang nowadays. Maybe he was. Or maybe he was a mole, like that one time when he was hypnotized by the Midnight Sun, and he was feigning hospitality. For all he knew, the chocolate syrup was poisoned, and he could be dead any minute.
Benjamin couldn't read minds anymore, but he had a good sense of what the other man was thinking. "Before you get any ideas, no, I'm not with-" he explained, looked around and found his daughter going up the stairs. "-the Midnight Sun."
"So, what, you're in Terces now? Sworn in and everything?"
Benjamin looked to the floor. "Uh. Not really sworn in, but you get the picture. Ally of sorts. I know people."
Max-Ernest narrowed his eyes, perhaps a bit more forcefully than he intended. His eyes began to hurt.
The other man gave him a furtive glance. "They wouldn't even let me in in the first place, said something about 'being too valuable' and 'the Midnight Sun might come after you again' and all that."
Max-Ernest narrowed his eyes even more.
"Plus, uh, I'm sort of famous. Benjamin Blake, award winning artist..." He trailed off, and started mumbling.
"So?" the bearded man said, "That makes both of us."
"You stopped talking to them after you graduated college."
Max-Ernest felt something prickle at the back of his neck. He instinctively grabbed it, and rubbed at it. "Not immediately. Just... a few years ago. 2007, to be precise."
It was Benjamin's turn to narrow his eyes.
"I had to. F-For their own p-p-protection," Max-Ernest said, suddenly finding it difficult to speak.
"Because of that book you wrote?"
Max-Ernest froze.
"Don't think I didn't know, old chum," Benjamin said, almost a joke. Max-Ernest did not find it funny.
"Yvie is a big fan of yours, PB."
While Max-Ernest tried to collect himself, Benjamin got up.
"Let's change that bandage of yours, shall we? I'm afraid it's looking a bit stained."
Max-Ernest interrupted him. "Could you make me some coffee, while you're at it?"
Benjamin paused from walking.
"Sure."
As Benjamin walked to the kitchen, Max-Ernest buried his face in his hand.
(AUTHOR NOTES: HEY. Hari, here. This isn't exactly my first fanfic for the Secret Series, but it's definitely the first one I'm publishing here. I'm going to try and keep this brief because I hate long author's notes, but what the heck.
Yeah! I'm planning to continue this! It's really just a small project, but I hope you enjoy. Please leave feedback and reviews! I love you all, the Terces Society, no matter how small you are. ;_;)