Chapter Three:
This chapter is dedicated to my darling dear gecko Marceliene, who died two weeks ago at 1 and a-half years old.
He remains still on his bed of thinning rugs and waits for night to fall, eyes clear and searching the sooty ceiling while his hand clenches the cloth to his steadily thumping chest. And fall the night does; with an unusual clatter about the roof that's too light for his grandmother to hear over her own strident snores. With nothing better to do, the boy rises and draws his cloak about him before slipping outside and lifting his face to the darkness. The sight of his roof brings an instant twitch to his lip, though, not out of fear. Vultures. Three of them strutting awkwardly on the shingles, bobbing their heads on rawboned necks and flapping feathered wings like a villain tapping his fingers. Following their pointed beaks he cranes his own slim neck, trying to steal a glance at the poor dead animal he knows they want to devour. But an animal is not what he finds slathered in blood across the snow.
Shoeless, he strides towards what he believes is an injured man and kneels at the other's side in curiosity. The child has never been frightened by dead things, and that alone allows him to lean in to inspect the corpse. Closer now, Alois rolls the tall human onto its back, turning the blood-encrusted face away from stained snow. Matted black strands obscure the pale skin around closed eyes and a parted mouth, but Alois can tell - after running his eyes shamelessly across the body - that it's definitely a man that has died. He lifts a finger to brush the hair away, lingering longer than he should by the angular jaw as his eyes widen zestfully. It then occurs to him to test for breath. His hand darts under the bloody nostrils and he feels faint warmth tickle his skin before the cycle of chilling inhale and heated exhale resumes. A small smirk accompanies a fluttering heartbeat. Tiny fingers hesitate before skimming over the reddened cloth on the man's sides; eventually, he finds what he's looking for.
With the quickest of glances and the lightest of touches Alois moves the pads of his digits over the knife that's wedged within the man's left side – but only after he's sure he is alone with the man. It's carefully crafted, a simple spiral pattern etched into the wood of the handle. The sick and persistent push of curiosity catches his thoughts in a tightly woven web; Alois' hand cannot be stopped as it moves to rest on the handle. One more look at the man's face satisfies him as he sees that both eyes remain shut. The boy's heart races in anticipation and with a capricious jerk of his wrist, Alois pulls the blade out.
Then, in the width of time it takes the younger one to notice a fresh river of blood spilling from the incision, the man's wide palm springs up from the ground, crushing and cutting into feeble flesh - his ferocious and febrile eyes enlarging with rage until the weapon tumbles from Alois' throbbing fingers.
The child shivers as his wrist is released and the man's eyes roll back into his head from exhaustion. Around him the world is silent; the vultures have departed and it's as if nothing has happened, spare the fresh dark pool in the snow. Yet, the dull pulsating pain seeping into each finger serves as a reminder that the man had in fact woken up...but what about those eyes?
There was no mistaking the lucid gold color; or maybe that part had been imagined.
Knees raw and red with cold, Alois rises on trembling legs to cover the spilled blood with a layer of snow. Something spins inside his mind; a thought so troubling and obscure that it overwhelms him with unnatural desire, and his little eyes barely have time to blink before the stranger's ankles are being held tightly in his palms - the unconscious male weighs just enough that the distance from the front of the hut to the shed in back won't be too strenuous.
~3~
He watches the man sleep from his spot on the shed floor, jolting slightly every time the stranger's eyes flicker under pale lids.
Getting the bandages and bucket of water from his grandmother had been easy; he'd claimed to need them for a wounded deer and the old woman had shoved him off, mumbling something about a feminine grandson ruining her image with the council. It was the actual bandaging that had been hard, not knowing what to do once he had lifted the stained shirt from the stranger's chest, trying to ease it over his arms and ripping the thin fabric irreparably in the process. And, once that injured torso was fully exposed, hardened muscles unconsciously clenching against the cold, Alois tied the bandages into a sloppy and inexperienced knot that couldn't have been more useless.
Now he sits cross-legged, analyzing the patched wound with a deep and enveloping curiosity, wondering what in the world could have happened.
"I see they haven't gotten you yet."
Thousands of prickling chills course through the boy's spine, sending his mind into a reeling and maddening stupor at the sound of the stranger's voice, smooth and dark like liquid hemlock. "E-excuse me…?" He despises the way his own words sound, devastatingly polite and a tad frightened as they crackle timidly from his throat. "Who are…they?"
The man's fully alert eyes meet the ones of the younger, capturing his breath yet again. "Not that it matters."
"What may I call you?" The question spills as quickly as a knocked-over glass, and Alois wishes he could wipe his words away. Suddenly he finds the poorly tied cloth around wound extremely interesting.
The stranger hesitates. "Claude" he says, and in that instant he sits up cautiously, gripping his side as the bandages fall away from his bare chest.
Alois swallows thickly, allowing his eyes to lift towards Claude's. "So then, Claude…is there anything I can get for you?" He restrains himself, keeping his stare directed at the other's face and only his face.
"No." The older replies stoically, shifting onto shaking legs before standing. Alois stands too, instantly throwing his arms out in support. But he is not needed. "I will ask one thing of you, though." With that, he leans in, close enough in proximity to the boy's face for the younger to catch the faintest scent of the woods on his skin. "What is your wish?"
Alois wavers, trying to define and dissect the man's words. "My…wish?" He contemplates everything, struggling to find something he wants – anything – something to make Claude stay. But his detested village is wiped out, all of the people he hated so, gone. There is nothing else, he concludes with a clouded mind, nothing else he could possibly ask for as of now.
In the boy's silence, Claude straightens. "Very well then," the man is collected and calm as he whispers against blushing lips; it's as if the large wound in his side is nonexistent. "Come and find me when you have a wish." And with that, he is gone, already disappearing into the thick and snowy forest without a single square of cloth to shield his chest.
"A wish…" The child exhales, staring after Claude's footsteps from the same spot he had been in when the male was so close to him.
He collects the now useless medical supplies, once he collects himself, and brings everything back into the house as he wonders what to wish for.
As he notices his gaunt fingers wrestling with uncooked meat and feels the cool blood of an unidentified animal trickling down his chin at dinner, he thinks about wishing for real food. As his grandmother continually degrades him, he thinks about wishing for her death. But no thought strikes him forcefully enough, not until he catches the old woman that night – when she thinks he's asleep – padding into his room and stealing the little sliver of red, stitched cloth from inside his hood.
Something is amiss, he knows, and in this moment, he realizes his wish.
End A/N: Sorry it was so late! And OOC. And MOTHER OF GOD, I suppose I just SUCK at writing long chapters….sorry….I prrroooommiiissseee, the next one will be a bit longer. I barely had time because I almost burned my frickin dorm building down. METAL DOES NOT MICROWAVE, EVERYONE. I was too busy becoming a social pariah. Plus...ya know, midterms and 5 hours a day of cheer practice and getting run over by a car on my way to math class and such. This one wasn't as fancy as the others...sorry about that too. I wish y'all would follow me on tumblr or Facebook so I could tell you when I'm close to updating/not updating for 2 days ect, and you won't think I'm dead or that I've quitting writing. Haha ;pp there's only like what, two of u anyways? So it's .com and...if you don't like Yaoi, don't scroll through my posts. Lolol I mean...this could easily be rated M for "violence and shit"...but it could also be rated M for...other...things. Oh my gawd i feel like a dirty old man. But TELL ME what you want and you shall get it. Eventually. Luv u guyzzzzzz.
Huge thank you to Nataliemichaelis. You rock. For just being awesome.
