little miss michelle: Good to hear!

DoingItForJohnny: Ha! I'm glad to hear that! Hope you keep reading.

tomeii: Yes, Mr. Curtis is the greatest isn't he? I love his bond with Johnny too.

xxkaylakittyxo: Laugh all you like!

Chapter XXVI

S*S

The Friday evening the Allen family spent loading up the car to go to their cousins' funeral service was utterly silent, as if they were preparing their own hearse. None of Wendy's siblings had the desire to speak to each other, for fear that the strangling tension between them would snap.

Well, actually it was mostly Wendy and her brothers who were busy loading up their suitcase in the trunk. Connie had taken care of her own stuff and then proceeded to waltz into the garage, aggressively relaxing with a magazine, leaving them with the rest. Before heading into the house altogether. The shower soon turned on.

"Why does she always do that?" Sam complained as he and his twin tossed their pillows into the backseat for the car ride tonight.

Wendy was too busy counting backwards in her head to answer them immediately. When she felt she would talk without calling her sister a host of things decidedly unlady-like.

However, ever since the Prscare incident, Wendy was thoroughly done with whitewashing her image for the family.

"She's just selfish Sam," she told her brother -both her brothers, so they would know just what they were dealing with. They looked at her with startled, matching eyes at her blunt tone. Wendy couldn't really blame them for that though; this was not how she normally spoke, and some trembling part of her truly hated her sister for forcing this aspect to the surface.

"Keeping packing," she murmured softly to them, pretending not see the way the boys subtly tried to catch each other's eye. "Ignore her."

Sam and Eric looked alarmed now -like they were wondering who she was, and what had she done with their sister?

That alone would've been -should've been- the most awkward part of the day. But when Jack Prescare's yellow mustang pulled into their driveway, Wendy knew their sister had them beat like always.

"Hey, Wendy," Jack greeted her, suddenly cordial again after weeks of sour looks. Course, this had the opposite effect from what he most likely intended; Wendy was instantly on high alert, to the point where even the twins picked up on it and shuffled to stand behind her as silent shadows.

"Hello," she chipped shortly, body half-turned to double-check the bags going back to Windrixville with them, face heating up when that didn't stop him from watching the bends of her heavy wool skirt around her legs.

"Connie's inside," she said, figuring that's was the only reason for him to be here -Wendy certainly hadn't invited him. Jack shrugged, making it clear that wasn't altogether important to him.

"I could go get her-" she still tried.

Jack shook his head and jerked a finger at her brothers. "No, the shrimp can go get her. I wanna talk to ya."

Sam and Eric let out squawks of indignance, puffing up like rosters. And to be fair, Wendy was no different.

"Excuse you?" she demanded, eyes flashing with her last nerve. "Last I checked, this wasn't your house Jack Prescare! Now either I go get Connie, or you burn rubber and get out of my driveway! And take that stupid car of yours on a long drive off a short pier for all I care!"

The more she spoke, the higher she rose on her toes, a hen defending her chicks, nearly stuttering in her anger. But all her red face and furious words seem to do was amuse him as he spread his hands apart, backpedaling.

"Babe look, I know you didn't have a good time when we went out, but I promise that's not how dates normally go-"

Wendy's eye twitched. So the boy wasn't supposed to try and grope the girl, thereby making her split, and wind up kissing another guy by the end of the night?

She hadn't figured.

"But if we could try again, I'd show you a real good time-"

Wendy was already shaking her head, lowered back down to the soles of her feet with the one thing she knew would get under his skin.

Indifference.

"Not in this life, Pescare," she told him blandly, boredly. And watched as that smirk finally left his lips, his brow pinching in disbelief. "I'd sooner fly to 'Nam to have a seven o'clock with Ho Chi Minh."

There. Now that was a zinger if there ever was one. Mama herself would've been impressed if she were here.

Well if Mama been here, she would've been swinging a frying pan by this point, Wendy amended. But that was beside the point.

Jack was still staring at her in sheer incomprehension, when, praise Jesus and Mary, Connie finally decided to come sauntering out, green sweater and high heels on.

"I'm ready," she purred, strolling up to kiss the mouth that had just insulted her brothers. And tried to get with her sister. And had been God knows where recently, according to stories Marcia had shared about Bob and his friends. Sam and Eric openly gagged. And Wendy was hard-pressed not to follow suit.

But then, she'd have to care.

"Have fun you two," she droned instead, spinning on her heels and shepherding the twins back to the safety of the house without looking back.

S*S

"Your boyfriend doesn't treat you like that, right Wendy?" Sam demanded the moment after Wendy had shut and locked the door. It made her jump about a foot in air, though of course squalling of tire wheels didn't help much in that regard.

"My-" she sputtered, face turning pink for an entirely new reason. Which wasn't help by the knowing looks both the boys were giving her. "Why do think I have a boyfriend?"

Both of the twins rolled their robin-blue eyes. "C'mon Wendy, we're not like Connie or Dad. We see things."

"Like how you always talk on the phone more now," Eric noted.

"And you look in the mirror more often 'fore ya head to school," Sam added.

"And the time you were humin' "I Feel Preeetty" while you made dinner," Eric said in a high falsetto that was meant to be her.

"And how whenever there that "bird's whistle-" Here, Sam made air quotes, while Eric tried to mimic the long, sharp note Johnny did, whenever he was waiting in the backyard to see her. (He was due to come this evening, in fact.) "- you're happy like a kid on Christmas Morning."

"I haven't seen you happy like in a long time," Eric remarked quietly, worrying his lip. "But...he's nice, right? Not like Perscare?"

Wendy pressed a hand to her cheek, suddenly dizzy. She thought she had been careful to keep Johnny separate from her home life...but...maybe she was foolish to keep her feelings for him apart from the responsibility she had to the boys. The last thing she wanted was there to be any idea of a competition between them in her heart. It simply wasn't possible, the three had an iron stack in it.

"Wendy?" Eric asked nervously, the longer it took to answer. "He is nice right?"

"Cause if he's not, you can't see 'im," Sam said furiously. "I don't give a cat's ass 'bout Connie no more, but you can't date a jerk!"

"Sam, language," Wendy said immediately. Before taking a breath, and motioning them both to sit with her on the couch.

"C'mere," she coaxed them softly, like birds to a feeder. "I want to tell you a story."

The words whistled to them, out of the past from Mama's lips. When the Allens kids had questioned why they didn't have grandparents, or cousins, or Aunts and Uncles on their Mother's side, Mama had grown real quiet, before sitting them all down and telling them a story. Of an enchanted forest in a faraway land, and a princess who laughed with her brothers and people. Before a black dragon with swastikas for eyes had come and wrapped his tail around the land. And began burning it down.

According to Mama, some of the people the dragon took back to his cave as slaves, including the Princess, where they stayed for two years, until brave star-spangled knights from other lands found the Flossenbuerg cave, and killed the Dragon. Setting the Princess and other prisoners free.

But not the Princess's family. They had burned-

By that point in the story, Mama hadn't been able to continue, too choked by her tears, sobbing into her hands. And her sleeve fell down to show the numbers spew across her wrist.

Later, Dad had come in and held her till her tears dried. When they had, Wendy had timidly asked what happened to the Princess.

That had made Mama chuckled through her tears, as she leaned against Dad.

"She married the sweetest, bravest Knight she could find," Mama had hummed, closing her eyes. "And then had two princesses and princes of her own. So she vas very, very happy, chey."

Ever since that day, if there was something too big for an Allen child to say, they always told the truth in the form of a story. It was easier that way.

So that was what Wendy did, She whispers words blindly with a sibling tucked under each arm. She tells them a story of a shadow boy - both gentle and strong- that walks in the woods and in the streets of the kingdom in both day and night.

"Doesn't he hafta go home ever?" Sam asked the first question.

Wendy bit her lip. "Yes...but it's not a good home, Sam. You see, his mother and father are a witch and her familiar. And they were jealous cause their son was kinder than them. That kindness made him handsome while their meanness turned them ugly...so they beat a curse into him, that he would become a shadow until-"

"Until what?" Eric asked.

"...Until he found a family to love him," Wendy murmured. "And he did, there's...a woodcutter with three sons...and when he's with them, the spell is broken for a while. But when he leaves them, the curse comes back, and he's a shadow again."

"Isn't he scary, being a shadow?"

"Yes, but doesn't use his curse to hurt people. He never takes more than he needs from anyone. And- and- they trust him," Wendy whispered.

They were quiet for a while after that, letting the story sink in.

"...Is he real?" Sam asked skeptically. And she turned to kiss the top of his head. For once, he didn't jerk away.

"I think so," Wendy said.

"Do you think you can break his curse?" Eric inquired, watching her carefully.

Wendy couldn't meet his gaze. "I'd want to try."

S*S

They sat there together, as long shadows began to crawl across the room. And right around sunset, that tell-tell bird whistle pierced the realm of Fariee's story into reality, making all three leaped up from the couch.

Wendy looked gently at the boys, reaching out to brush their bangs.

"I got to go," she told them. And they looked at her and then each other.

Then Sam groaned. "Ah, alright," then he stuck a finger up. "But don't be playing Cinderella and stay out till midnight ya hear? You ain't Connie. And we wanna meet him someday. God knows Dad can't."

Eric nodded.

Wendy bit her cheek not to giggle as the mental picture of her ten-year-old brothers giving Johnny the run down sprang into her head. She bobbed a cursty before rushing to get her woolen red pea coat, a hand-me-down from Connie. Tugging it on and buttoning it up.

"One day you will," Wendy promised. Then the whistle came again. "Now I got to go, so get ready for bed. We're leaving first thing tomorrow."

That made the boys more somber, and as soon as they nodded, Wendy was rushing out the three-season porch.

The story she told Sam and Eric seem to have sprung to life around her, shadows more real than the whispering trees as she crosses the border from her world into another, looking left and right for the shadow kind enough to take the shape of a boy.

She shivered as she walked, hands in her pocket. "Johnny?"

Despite the fact she willingly came out here, Wendy nearly jumped out of her skin when two lanky arms materialized out of thin air; catching her around the waist, and swinging her back behind the birch tree with him. She's leaned against him, he's leaned against the tree, held securely. And the smell of cigarette smoke and earth waffling to greet the vanilla scent of her hair.

You'd think she would be used to the way Johnny formed out of shadow by now.

"Hey, Wen," he greeted her, voice soft as autumn witchcraft. Her arms were caught between their chests, between their hearts: so she couldn't wrap her arms' 'round his neck as she would like; in order to burn against his warmth. That doesn't stop her from beaming like a Hollywood ingénue when he framed her face in his hands, his thumb brushing her lower lip. Something started burning inside of her then. Something hot and bright as a sun.

"Hey, yourself," she whispered, maybe whimpered. Content, for once, to be small and delicate while being held to him. She couldn't break free of his hold, and she didn't want to anyway, as gratified in his unguessed strength as a bird in a tree.

She rose on her toes, wanting more. And he was happy to give it.

So one moment she's standing there stock-still and saucer-eyed. The next she is letting him shyly press warm, dry lips to hers, making her hands ball in the front of his jacket.

Forget mustangs and madras, forget East or Westside. All Wendy wanted was a Fairy Tale told in the dark, with a gentle-strong shadow boy made of burning coal. Some like Connie would scorn the notion, calling it an attempt to escape reality. But Wendy didn't think so. Faërie stories contained many things after all. Cheif of them was consolation in the joy of the happy ending. Or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the joyous up-turning like the Canticle in church.

That joy wasn't escapist at all. It didn't deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure. Gosh, the possibility of these was necessary to the joy of deliverance; it gave a fleeting glimpse of Joy. Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief. Yet all the stronger for hope.

Why should someone be scorned, that if he's in prison, he tried to get out and go home? Wendy thought ideally, turning rest her cheek against Johnny's shoulder, while he rested his mouth in her hair. Or if he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?

Fairy tales didn't tell children the dragons exist. They didn't have to. Children already knew that dragons exist, and came in many endless forms in the dark. No...fairy tales only told children the dragons could be killed. And that knowledge was invaluable.

After a moment Johnny leaned back, ember-black eyes flickering as he took in her face, her mood.

"You okay?" he asked her, brow furrowing as he puzzled her.

Wendy sighed. Some girls would kill to give their boyfriends the ablity to pick up on their moods, so she had no right to be annoyed with Johnny for it. But she didn't really want to bring up anything with Pescare with him. Not here. This was their place away from all that.

"Just...sad for tomorrow...for my cousins," she told him. And he nodded slowly, recognizing that was true if not the whole truth. When your boyfriend hung out with Two-Bit Matthew, he was as effective as a human lie detector.

"Yeah, I figure," he muttered, running his fingers through her hair, before suddenly halting and jerking back slightly, looking worried. "Um, we ain't...like disrespectin' their memory none right? Being out here like this 'fore their funeral n'all?"

Wendy blinked, then melted as step beside him again. She shook her head. "No Johnny. Believe me, they'd approved. They were those kinds of people. They wanted the living to have the freedom to live. Trust me, they'd approved."

Her eyes soften further and she caught his cheek in the palm of her hand. "And they'd approved of you too, ya know."

But something had crawled into Johnny now, making him jittery and jumpy as he worried his lip and looked away from her. He scoffed, hands jabbed in the jean jacket way to thin for this cold weather. "Yeah, two marines would just love their lil' cousin goin' steady with a no-good Grease. They'd be over the moon."

"They would," Wendy said firmly, holding his gaze, holding him. "They've loved the guy who calls their cousin every night to make sure she doesn't have a fit from worry. They've loved the guy that takes everything bitter that life gives him, and doesn't use it as a reason to hurt people. They've loved the guy who'd knows that when you're going through hell, the only answer is to keep going. They. Would've. Loved. You. I-"

She lost her nerve before she could end it. The way Wendy wanted desperately to end it. Because it...just might be true. Somewhere between embers for eyes, autumn for a voice, and the gentleness in his hands (that never asked or pushed greedily to take more than she could give)...something had flowered up inside her, for this shadow boy in the blue jean jacket.

Movies and books made romance and love seem like complicated things. But in practicality, it was quite simple. It was when someone else mattered to you more than yourself. Course, kowing it and saying it, even to yourself were too very different things. And Wendy didn't have the courage to face that dragon.

She wouldn't say it, wouldn't think it until she was absolutely sure.

Johnny was shaking his head in denial, grabbing his bangs. "I don't think so, Wendy. But even if they did...if anyone did...you deserve better than me. You...you're writin'...ya going places, ya know? And Where ya go, I can't follow, cause I'm tellin' ya right now, I'm never gettin' out of Tusla. You...you got lots of Soc boys chasin' after ya. Pick one of them."

Wendy straightened her spine and gave a single shake of her head. "I don't want any of them, Johnny Cade. Never did. Besides, who would I pick? Pescare?"

That snapped Johnny's head back to her, so fast, she was surprised she didn't hear a cracking sound.

"F-k no," Johnny sputtered, for once not apologizing for swearing. "I mean someone who'd be good to ya obviously."

"Johnny, that's you," Wendy pointed out gently. Then she shuffled, blushing to her raven roots. "I don't trust anyone else with me."

...She didn't know what or why, but something in that struck a chord in him. Johnny blinked and recombobulate them mercifully began to settling back into himself. And he came back to her, tumb brushing her face, tracing her cheek.

"...Me neither," he admitted. Wendy nodded and tucked herself into him once more, and he held her against the tree again.

"And for what it worth, you got my brothers' stamp of approval," Wendy lightly tossed out there. Johnny snorted into her hair.

"Gee, great," he drawled. But she could feel the shadow of his smile.

Okay, most romantic chapter yet I think. I shamelessly admit to listening to Braveheart music while writing this. And also Bambi's I Bring You a Song. Felt like it had to be there, since next is a funeral.