He's twelve years old and on the bus coming home from school when he realises that the story about the dragon isn't actually true. He feels a bit stupid for not figuring that out earlier, really. It's not like he's only just learned that dragons don't exist, but he never made the leap and put two and two together. It strikes him that if it wasn't a dragon, then it must have been something else. Something hurt him in the real world, and it must have been something terrible.
In pictures from when they're little, Ross' face is much redder, more fiery. There's a picture in the backroom of the pub that Johnny loves. It was taken at some picnic or other, Ross is standing with no top on, Moses under one arm and Johnny under the other. All three of them are laughing. Him and Moz are about three in the picture he thinks, maybe a little older. And Ross' face is definitely redder than it is now. Something must have happened to him around that time.
He considers asking his parents about it. Ma's his best bet. Mum might tell him, but she's the one who still thinks they're little kids. She cried on Moses' last birthday about how fast they're both growing up. Ma had rolled her eyes and hugged her and called her a silly mare, but Johnny hadn't missed the sheen that had come over her eyes an' all.
"What's up with your face?"
He glances at Moses, sprawled in the seat behind him, legs dangling into the aisle. He wonders if Moses knows what happened to his dad or if, like Johnny, he'd just accepted the story about the dragon and never thought about it again.
"Nothing."
Moses shrugs and goes back to trying to chat up some girl three years above them. Johnny sometimes wishes he could be more like Moses. Moses never really lets things bother him. He's always telling Johnny to forget about things, let things go. Like now, Moses would probably tell him not to bother asking about Ross. And maybe he'd be right. The bus stops and they all trudge off, pushing and shoving.
"Hey!" They both look over the road at the sound of their mother's voice. She's standing by her car in the vets' drive, grinning. "Great timing. Moira just rang. Wanna come and help me deliver a calf?"
"Yes!" Moses thrusts his bag into Johnny's arms and jogs over to the car, opening the passenger door.
"Let your Ma know he's with me, yeah?" Vanessa tilts her head. "Good day at school, love?"
He shrugs. "Yeah, it was okay."
"Mum! Come on," Moses whines, bouncing in his seat. Vanessa rolls her eyes affectionately and gives Johnny a smile.
"Better go. See you later."
"Yeah. See you." He hikes Moses' backpack onto his free shoulder and heads over to the pub, waving when the car passes. Moses gives him the finger and gets a clip round the ear for his trouble. Johnny smiles, but it fades as his thoughts turn back to Ross. He enters the bar to find it's still quiet. Ma's leaning on the bar, reading a magazine. She looks up when he enters and smiles.
"Hey babes." She glances over his shoulder. "Where's the other one? Not got detention again, has he?"
"Nah. He's gone up to Butler's with Mum. Calf."
"Course he has." She shakes her head, returning to her magazine as he passes behind her, going into the hall to dump their schoolbags and hang up his jacket. He can smell food coming from the kitchen and his stomach rumbles at the thought of one of Marlon's burgers. But he's got this thought in his head now and he needs to get it out. He walks back through to the bar.
"Ma?" He begins, sidling up to her. He leans his elbows on the bar beside her, his arm pressed against hers.
She doesn't look up to reply. "That's your buttering up voice. Is it money you're after or do you want to do something your mother is going to say no to?"
"No, it's...I mean, it's not that. It's not either of them."
She looks up now, narrowing her eyes at him, as if that'll help see into his brain. Sometimes he think she can see into his brain.
"Hmmm." She looks him up and down. "So, if it's not money and it's not me having to break something gently to your mother, then what is it?"
"I've been thinking-"
"Always dangerous." She winks. "Don't teach your brothers how to do that, will you?"
He laughs and bumps her shoulder with his own. "Ma." He knows that she knows that both Noah and Moses are clever.
"Go on then," Charity says, closing her magazine. "You best tell me what this 'thinking' has been about."
He picks up a pen that's lying on the bar and pulls the magazine closer, doodling in the spaces of the lettering. He shrugs. "I was thinking about Uncle Ross and how he used to tell us that story about, you know, fighting a dragon." He glances over at her and sees understanding gather in her eyes. She nods for him to continue. "And...and that's not what happened. So I was just wondering what did happen."
She sighs, reaching over to brush something off his shirt. "Right. Go and grab yourself a bag of crisps, eh? I'll pour you a drink and then we'll talk."
Oh God. It must be bad. She always softens bad news with sweets or fizzy drinks. It drives his Mum mad. He grabs her arm before she heads off to the font. "Ma. Just tell me."
She nods and nudges him towards the stools at the bar. He climbs up on one and she does the same. Her eyes are on the bar and she scrapes at a smudge of something with her nail. "It's not very nice, what happened. I just want you-"
"I'm not a baby. I can take it."
She looks up at him now and smiles, tilting her head to the side. "You're right. You're not." She leans in and lowers her voice. "But don't tell your Mum that, eh? I'm trying to introduce her to that idea slowly. Don't want her keeling over with shock when one of you needs to start shaving."
He knows stalling when he sees it, so he raises his eyebrows at her. "Ma. Uncle Ross?"
"Right." She nods, pressing her lips together. "Well, the long and short of it is that...he got out of his car one night and...and, look, there's no nice way to say this-" She covers his hand where it lies on the bar, squeezing. "They threw acid in his face."
His free hand flies to his mouth. He's not really sure what he'd been picturing, but it wasn't that. He'd expected it to have been an accident; something going wrong with a car, or someone spilling something. Maybe even a firework mishap. But not that.
"Who would...why would anyone do that?"
"It was a mistake. It wasn't meant for him. He got out of the car and it was dark and...they thought he was someone else." She shakes her head. "Wrong place at the wrong time, babes."
"Oh my God." He can't quite decide if that's better or worse. It wasn't meant for him, so he wasn't targeted by someone who hated him enough to do that to him. But to have that happen purely by chance, by bad luck...it's awful however you look at it. He feels a bit sick even thinking about it.
His Ma lifts her hand off his and starts to rub his back. "Hey, listen." He looks up at her, needing her to say something comforting right now. "Nothing has changed, right? He's still your annoying Uncle Ross. Still Moz's Dad. You've just learned about something that happened a long time ago. And yeah, it's horrible and it's hard to hear about...but he's here. He got through it and he's doing alright." She smiles. "He's got a good thing going up at Butler's, yeah? He's managed to land himself a hot bird. He's got Moses….and you."
Johnny shakes his head. "I...I'm not-"
She speaks over his protests. "Do you know what? I think it was maybe that story about the dragon that helped him turn a corner back then."
He frowns, trying to figure out if she's just trying to make him feel better. "How's that?"
"I think-" She meets his eyes, her hand sliding to rest on the back of his neck, thumb rubbing over the newly shaved area at the base of his skull. "I think you seeing him as this big, brave knight who'd been through this terrible ordeal and come out the other side a hero...well, I think that made him look at things a little differently. That his scars maybe showed he was a fighter. A survivor." She shrugs. "That's what I think, anyroad."
He considers this for a moment. He has a lot of memories of Ross telling him that story about the dragon. He was always animated and proud, embellishing his bravery a little more with each retelling. He really hopes his Ma is right, and that it helped him, even just a bit, to come to terms with what had happened to him.
He nods, looking up at her. "I hope so."
She rolls her eyes, sliding off her stool and wrapping an arm around his shoulders, leaning in to kiss his temple. "Remember what I said, yeah? Nothing's changed. He's just Ross. He wouldn't want you thinking of him any differently." He nods and she squeezes him once and steps away, moving back around behind the bar. "Now, how about a burger, eh?"
He wrinkles his nose and shakes his head. His stomach still feels a bit dodgy. "Maybe in a bit."
She tilts her head at him, obviously doing her mind reading thing again. She nods. "Okay babes. You just give Marlon a yell when you want something."
She moves off to serve someone who's probably been waiting ages. His phone buzzes in his pocket and he pulls it out. It's a picture sent from Moses of him and their Mum grinning and holding a newly born calf between them. It's covered in goop and the whole thing is just Johnny's idea of an absolute nightmare.
"What's that?" He holds his phone up to let her see the picture, seeing his own disgust mirrored on her face, although it quickly dissolves into that affection she can never seem to disguise around his Mum. "Well, the pair of them are gonna reek. Brilliant."
He turns the phone around again and looks at his brother's face. "Does Moses know? About his dad?"
Leaning her arms on the bar across from him, his Ma sighs. "I don't actually know, sweetheart. He's never brought it up with me and I don't know if he's talked about it with Ross." She shrugs. "You know what he's like. Doesn't think about things as deeply as you do. Maybe it's never occurred to him."
"Yeah, maybe." He's prevented from offering any further opinion when the pub door opens and the topic of their conversation walks in. Johnny sits up on his stool, back ramrod straight. Charity widens her eyes and shakes her head subtly. He nods and leans his elbow on the bar, resting his head in it, attempting to look casual. His Ma rolls her eyes.
"Alright, squire?" Ross punches his shoulder and takes the stool next to his. "Keeping out of trouble?"
"Yeah, 'course."
"Glad to hear it." He winks and then shifts his attention to the other side of the bar. "Pint please, Charity."
Johnny's eyes are drawn to the faded scarring as Ross talks to his Ma. He's never really looked closely at it, because that's just his Uncle Ross and that's what he looks like. But now, knowing what he does, he traces the contours of the raised, shiny skin, imagining the agony he must have felt as acid ate into his face. He blinks back tears.
"Where's Moses?" Ross asks, setting his pint down after taking a long drink. "I said I'd get him in here."
"Where d'you think? He's with his favourite parent. You know, the one who lets him shove his hand up animals?" She rolls her eyes. "How are we ever supposed to compete with that?"
"If that kid ends up going to vet school, you're paying for it." Ross shakes his head, pretending to scowl. "It's your missus' fault. I'm not supporting him till he's twenty-five so he can go off and cuddle bunny rabbits."
"Oh, shut up," Charity says. "If he goes to vet school, you'll be as proud as punch and you know it. Same as I will."
He's barely listening to them, just standing thinking about how bad it must have been to go through what his Uncle Ross had to. And before he knows it, he's launched himself at Ross, arms wrapped around his neck like some stupid kid who's grazed his knee and needs a hug.
"Hey." Ross' arm wraps around his shoulders, squeezing. "What's all this, then?"
"That's the Woodfield in him. I've tried everything I can to get rid of it but no matter what I do, he's still this soppy." There's a pause and he hears his mother clearing her throat. "Our Johnny figured out today that...that you didn't fight a dragon. Bit slow he is, sometimes. So I told him what really happened."
"Oh." Ross' hand lands on the back of his neck, rubbing it. "Hey." Johnny doesn't move and Ross squeezes his neck. "Hey, look at me." He slowly lifts his head, wiping his sleeve across his eyes. Ross smiles. "That's me rumbled then, eh?" He winks and leans in close. "Sorry I'm not a brave knight like you thought, mate."
"No! It's not-" He shakes his head. "That's not what I think. I think you're even braver. 'Cause this was real. It's not some story. This happened in the real world." He shakes his head. "I think you're the bravest person ever."
Ross looks at him for a moment, then he blinks, then he blinks again. Johnny starts to panic. Oh shit, I've made him cry. But then he's being pulled back into a tight, one-armed hug. "What are you like, eh?" Ross murmurs. "Don't ever change, soft lad."
Somehow, when his Uncle Ross calls him that, it doesn't hurt the way it does when some of the boys at school say it. He squeezes him tight and releases him, slamming his hand on the bar.
"Charity, get this man a pint."
She raises an eyebrow. "He's twelve."
"A pint of Coke, then. Whatever. Me and him are having a drink together."
Johnny hops back up on his stool, unable to stop his chest from puffing out. His Ma slides a pint glass of Coke across the bar to him.
"Proper Coke. Not diet," she tells him. "Not a word to your mother, right?"
He grins and nods, lifting the glass and taking a long drink. Ross does likewise with his beer and they set them down at the same time, wiping over their mouths with their arms. Charity rolls her eyes at the pair of them.
"Oh, one thing I was just thinking," Johnny says, turning to face Ross as he takes another swallow from his glass. "And then I'll shut up about it, I promise. But...if that scar on your shoulder wasn't a dragon claw. What was that, then?"
Ross chokes on his beer and Charity cackles in delight. She winks at him while Ross is recovering. "Ask your Mum about that one, babes. That's quite a story even without the flamin' dragon."