Author's Note: You can consider 'WarGames' another movie that Penance and I disagree on, critically-speaking. Damn fine film in every respect, and with such a tranquil, catchy theme song, too...
watch?v=9bufUJkLTQg
Maybe Penance doesn't like the movie because the lesson he needs to learn is the opposite of Joshua's...
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"Simple Things and Peaceful Days"
Levittown, Pennsylvania – 1984
The wind picked up at his back, bringing the tangy scent of fresh-cut grass to his nose. He sat at the long picnic table, surrounded by an empty moat of park lawn. He was compact, curled up with his chin on his knees and arms tucked tightly in, as if he were sharing the table with a crowd.
Naturally he was alone. Alone with his thoughts, at least. And that made more than enough company for him.
At the moment Penance didn't even notice the scent of grass, or feel the late morning sun beating down on his naked kneecaps, piercing a small slat in the awning above the picnic table. He wasn't thinking about where he was— some little park called 'Elderberry', in some random little neighborhood far north of the cold metro blight, where the fetid-sweet scent of fresh fertilizer on well-trimmed lawns replaced the truly rotten stink of alleyway dumpsters. All his attention was focused on the table before him, where his tartan backpack lay open. Just inside, glinting like some great treasure buried in a cave, was a very special glass tube.
And inside that tube was a 'very special' mixture.
He held Ikey Boggs' gold cigarette lighter in one hand, playing with the starter. A metal spoon rested on the seat beside him, its underside blackened with a fresh scorch mark.
As for where he got the spoon, syringe, and that 'special' mixture?
It wasn't important. Suffice to say, and contrary to his mantra, sometimes Penance could be a thief.
When it came to things that were 'special', anyway.
He'd been sitting there nearly half an hour now, unmoving, like a dumb stone. If he thought about the muscles in his arms and legs he might've felt the numbing cramps seizing them, tingling over his skin like living static. But he wasn't thinking about his muscles.
Right now every vein in his body was screaming— no, that wasn't it. Singing. Joyously. Raucously. In delirious anticipation. Yes, it was singing, not really screaming. But it was still very ugly, delirious, almost the same thing as a scream. That all started long before he worked the old muscle memory, burning the spoon and pulling the molten fluid into the syringe.
His body damn-well knew what he was doing, and it was begging him to finish the deed.
His veins were singing.
Penance wagged his head, glaring down at the syringe with angry eyes. No: that still wasn't it. It wasn't 'his body' or 'his veins'. That was all bullshit: a cop-out. It wasn't his 'veins' begging for a fix, or any other individual part of his anatomy. It was just him.
He touched the syringe with hesitant fingers, rolling it about in the folds of the backpack and watching the fluid inside churn. The syringe plunger bumped up against the metal spines of the carlanca collar he'd taken from Boggs' office. At the time he thought it might make for good protection, but it couldn't protect him against this.
And just what would happen when he used, again? He knew, to a reasonable certainty. For one thing that dull icepick ache in his forehead— the one that demanded he go north— would be drowned out by his cravings, at least for the foreseeable future. He'd plunge back down into Philly like a rat diving into a nest, and he'd scour the muck of urban blight looking for his next fix, and then the one after that. And then the one after that. He'd want nothing but that euphoric, comforting haze blanketing his brain.
And then he would die in Philadelphia, no question.
Black Hat's 'catch and release' program was finished. Penance was reasonably certain of that. Their confrontation at Martha's funeral had changed that. Everything else was changing along with it. He'd crossed paths with too many immortals recently, and he knew enough to understand that it had something to do with that aching drive to move north.
Something was happening.
Something big.
If he fell back into his old addiction now, leaving himself vulnerable in that heroin-induced haze, he had no doubt that either Black Hat or some other immortal would wind up making quick work of him. That wasn't the worst part, truth be told.
The worst part was the fact that, at this point, Penance didn't know if he even cared.
He was sharing this table right now, empty as it looked. He shared it with ghosts, and he could feel their faces, their eyes, staring at him. All this stupid remembering of the past— reopening old wounds— had taken its toll on him. The faces staring back at him were no comfort: the ones he killed, the ones he'd lost...
...the ones he allowed to die.
For a moment Penance wished the table were filled with more than ghosts; he wished there was someone he could talk to that wasn't a stuffed fox head.
He wished Whip were here.
He gripped the syringe, his fist keeping it away from him as much as holding it close. Penance didn't know which sentiment would win out, until he remembered Black Hat tousling his hair... holding his shoulders...kissing his forehead...
That dirty electricity welled-up in his body once again, and at that moment he wanted it gone more than anything. He knew how to make it gone, too. Temporarily, at least.
Until the next fix.
He stared down at the syringe in his shaking hand, and he knew there was nothing for it: he couldn't resist it any more than a siren's call. At that moment he squeezed his eyes shut and he begged. He didn't know to whom, or what, but still he begged.
He felt as if he were on the edge of the world, and one simple shot of a syringe would send him careening over. Simple gravity.
The faces stared at him.
That dirty electricity wound over him.
Suddenly he felt Black Hat's hands disappear from his shoulders, but the replacement was perhaps even less of a comfort. Penance felt the touch of that menacing woman in the white mantilla. He could feel her gaze even at the back of his head, staring at him with her crescent-moon eyebrows ineffable, and her sandy-saltwater eyes burning with that strange fire. He felt her fireflies settling atop his ears and head. He could feel them dancing around her white vestments, erratic.
The woman's 'fire' made Penance even more fearful than Black Hat's 'electricity'; he felt it was a fear even a syringe couldn't shake.
Still... it was worth a shot, wasn't it?
In that moment Penance realized he might be losing more than his sobriety. He might be losing his mind.
And he had nowhere to turn.
He wouldn't beg to Him. Couldn't. He burned that bridge years ago, even before his little tantrum in the Achnacarry mausoleum. He knew that.
Penance's fist trembled; he could feel the bulging blue vein in his opposite arm burning.
He could feel it singing.
Even as he felt his mind slipping.
He couldn't fight this alone.
Couldn't ask Him, either.
But for the first time in nearly 150 years he did pray, as much he could, anymore. And he prayed to the only person he could think of at the moment. The words halted on his lips and he stuttered, fumbling, before finally falling into a soft cadence:
"...never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercession, was left unaided..."
He began drawing his hand out of the backpack, syringe still clutched in his fist. Prayer wouldn't fix this; an unholy little urchin like himself really should've thought better than to beg. But in the end Penance wasn't above a little begging.
Even as he stopped off the edge of the world with his own two feet he wasn't above begging with all his heart, or what was left of it.
Even when he could feel the futility of it in his bones...
...and his veins...
"Hey."
He caught his breath, reflexively pushing the syringe back into the folds of his pack. His predatory reflexes, dimmed by that all-consuming junkie's desire, suddenly sprang back to life.
The voice behind him was young: a boy his age, or not much older. There were others with him— at least two, from the sound of shoes tromping in the grass. Not heavy bodies, perhaps about the same age as the speaker. They had Penance flanked on either side.
Was he on their 'turf'?
Were they just looking for someone to mess with?
Did they want to rob him?
In the back of his head Penance almost hoped that was the case. He could use a good scrape right now.
He swung around on his seat, his hand moving to the waistband of his paint-splattered shorts, ready to pull his little knife out. His teeth were bared to the hilt, almost ready to crack apart under the pressure.
That pressure bled out when he looked up at the sandy-haired boy before him, idly tossing a beat-up football between his hands. One look at him and his two compatriots told Penance all he needed to know, while also slugging him with a bit of melancholic nostalgia.
They had faces he knew. He'd last known them in Baltimore: Johnny and all the other friends from school. They were the ones he played basketball with, had sleepovers with, and occasionally got into trouble with. He'd gotten into trouble with such faces many lifetimes ago in Philly, playing with that damned Liberty Bell.
Yes: he knew their soft, innocent faces very well, and they were nothing like him. Nothing like what he'd become, at least.
They were real boys.
Penance might not have thought himself one, but anyone who saw the sudden change in his face— the quick loss of all aggression, followed by a shy, unsure curl of his lips and the hesitant 'who, me?' tilt of his eyebrows—just might've been fooled.
Because in that brief moment of unexpected vulnerability Penance looked very much like something he certainly wasn't. In that moment he looked considerably younger than he was, awkward, and even cute.
Very like a real boy.
Which he wasn't.
Of course.
After a brief look at the trio Penance returned his gaze to the lead boy.
"Um... yeah?"
"You play?" The hazel-eyed boy spoke his words through a set of front teeth whose jaw was wholly unable to accommodate them, leaving a sizeable gap.
Penance took a moment to come to the kid's meaning, looking first at the football and then back at the boy.
"I... uh, it's not really my game."
Much as Penance wanted to be left alone at the moment that was actually true. He really didn't like football.
It was too violent for him.
"C'mon!" The boy implored. "You can catch a little, can't you? Or run, at least?" He motioned to his two friends. "We're down a guy. We need four to play, you know."
"You can be running back if you can't catch," one of the other boys suggested. He motioned to the lead boy with his chin. "Sam's usually QB for his side, same as Ryan. Me, I'm wide receiver; I can catch really good." The boy scratched at his dark amber hair, styled in a fresh bowl-cut, then he motioned to himself an afterthought. "Oh, I'm Jason."
Penance had the wherewithal to thumb through the rolodex of his mind to find a proper name.
"Uh, my name's Penley," he said.
"That's a weird name," Ryan, the heretofore silent boy, said.
"I'm a weird kid." Penance let a joyless smirk grace his lips.
The lead boy— Sam— tossed the ball to Penance without warning. He caught it, taking the ball at the laces and looking back up at the boys with a skeptical frown.
"C'mon," Sam said. "You got nothing better to do, right?"
Penance squeezed the pigskin between his hands, feeling the tight leather squish between his fingers.
It wasn't his game.
Really.
But, all the same, the ball felt real enough in his hands.
And while he had many better things to do at the moment, at least messing around with something real beat sitting at a table packed with ghosts.
X
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X
Sam had to give up his usual vaunted position at QB, because for the life of him Penance absolutely sucked at running or receiving. Jason dragged him down for a loss on most running attempts, and he wouldn't even try breaking the boy's tackles. On passing plays it was more often Ryan or Jason who came down with the football. Whenever one of the other boys jumped up for it Penance held back.
"You're scared," Sam guessed, critiquing Penance's style in one of their 'huddles' before a play. "You shouldn't be, you know..."
"I kinda think I should," the boy muttered.
Sam acknowledged what he thought Penance's concern was: Penance was kinda shrimpy, after all, and maybe he'd do better at quarterback. The buck-toothed boy was reluctant to hand over his position to Penance, reminding him how good his throws were, but to his credit he willingly ceded the duty at his own suggestion, not once berating Penance for his 'shrimpiness' or lack of skill.
Penance didn't particularly like Sam so much on first impression. Given that 'first impression' involved Sam interrupting Penance's drug habit that was understandable. And with Penance's overall mood right now he was content to 'not like' practically everything around him.
But then Sam had to go and do a thing like that.
That made it difficult.
Penance rewarded the other boy's charitability with a few exceptionally tight and accurate spirals. The revelation that Penance could at least throw (and pretty deep, at that) helped him save a bit of face before the other boys. Dodging a defender and making simple throws downfield was more up Penance's alley, 'violence-wise', and while it's absolutely true that football wasn't his game that didn't mean he hadn't practiced his fair share of throws.
As far as he can remember the forward pass became a legal play sometime around the turn of the century, after all. That was a lot of time to practice, even intermittently.
The boys took a break near midday, lounging on the grass near the edge of the park in the shade. Penance gnawed at a stick of Juicy Fruit, graciously supplied by one of the other boys, and he savored the ineffable flavor.
"They say it's fruit," Sam said, "but what kinda fruit are they talking about, do you think?"
Penance smiled at the idle question. It was no longer an entirely joyless smile, either.
"What do you think?"
Sam tilted his head in the grass, shrugging.
"I think they're full of shit," he surmised.
"That you could probably taste."
The witty combination of vulgarity and disgusting subject-matter brought up a small giggle-fit between the boys. Now, of course, he was tired and distracted, so it's important to remember that if Penance had the wherewithal to remember himself he certainly would have abstained from that.
Because that's the kind of thing only real boys do, after all.
The quartet were soon joined by Sam's younger sister, much to the other boys' chagrin. Cynthia was about half her brother's age with about twice the hair, curly and golden. It almost looked ready to catch fire in the sunlight. She spent her time darting and weaving between them all during and in between plays, toting her oversized Rainbow Brite doll, occasionally stopping to re-button her overalls.
Eventually Sam had enough of it and ordered her away, making the girl storm off in an angry huff. Unfortunately Cynthia stormed off with all the grace and poise of an average upset 6-year-old and ended up tripping over a rock hiding in the grass. She took the fall well-enough, but her Rainbow Brite doll took the brunt of another stone sticking up from the grass, this one sharp enough to cut a gash right into the face of the vapid, creepy-looking thing.
This didn't improve the girl's mood.
Cynthia's resulting wailing fit drained the color from Sam's cheeks, not so much out of concern for the girl's doll but the fact that if he couldn't get her tantrum under control he'd have to bring her back home where, regardless of the facts, as 'responsible older brother' he'd be certain to at least get an earful.
Penance, however, saw a way around this; with the help of another stick of Juicy Fruit he went to work. He sat cross-legged in the grass near the girl, quickly chewing the gum up, and he motioned to the girl with one bent finger. Penance had a way with little kids that was almost as neat and pretty as his spirals, and Cynthia at least stopped her sobbing long enough to walk up to him.
When he reached for her doll the girl initially shied back, but he only smiled at her, showing off his teeth with something other than a snarl, for a change.
"I'm not gonna hurt her," he said. "Can you let me help?"
The girl cocked her head at this, eventually relenting and handing the doll over.
Penance inspected the 'wound' as he chewed the gum. Eventually he forced the gum to his front teeth and delicately pulled a fat tendril of it from his mouth, balling it up between his two fingers. When Cynthia looked at his skeptically he motioned to the gum.
"Medicine," he said.
He smeared the gum along the seam, filling in the crack in the doll's face and then smoothing out his handiwork. The result was actually relatively seamless, and the blanched gum a reasonable approximation of the waxy doll's skin color.
He handed the doll back over to the still-skeptical girl, who didn't take kindly to Penance smearing his used gum on her doll. Surveying the result, however, even she was impressed.
"It'll be fine until you can get a bandage on her," Penance explained. "Your mom can help you do that, later."
Cynthia returned his gaze, and she did it with a toothy smile. When she went bounding back home it was in a contented skip, and not with a fire-engine wail.
"You just saved my butt!" Sam confessed after she left. "How'd you learn to do something like that?"
Penance watched the girl skip off, his eyes distant and distracted.
"It's, uh... they call it Kintsugi..."
Sam furrowed his brow at this. It took an uncomfortable pause for Penance to register his bewilderment. He looked up at the other boy, his mind back in the here-and-now.
"It's a Japanese thing; they use it on pottery and stuff like that."
Sam scoffed.
"Riiight," he chuckled. "You really are a weird kid, Pen."
"Thanks," Penance smirked back up at the boy.
Sam cocked his head back at Jason.
"Hey, so we're all gonna head over to Jason's house 'n get something to eat..."
Penance's smirk fell. For the past couple hours he'd been too busy unleashing spirals, debating gum flavorings and performing emergency doll surgery to even remember his time on the picnic bench and that 'special' mixture still waiting for him in his backpack.
For the past couple hours, at least, he forgot how much he needed it.
But now, with 'pretend time' over, Penance's heart again started to sink into that bleak little melancholic well. It wasn't as bad as it had been, but it would only be a matter of time. He'd feel those hands on his shoulders again; he'd feel that dark electricity.
And then his veins would sing...
He hid the emotion from his face best he could, pretending to lace up one of his ratty Reeboks as he answered Sam.
"Oh, okay," he mumbled. "That's cool. I'll, uh, see you arou—"
"It's just around the block," Sam motioned down the street with one hand. "Not too far. You live close, don't you? So you can get back home before dark, right?"
Penance looked up at the other boy, another of those vulnerable 'who, me?' tilts in his eyebrows. He dismissed it best he could, giving a small nod of his head.
"Yeah," he said. "I think I can make it home before dark..."
X
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X
Jason's family lived in a modest ranch-style house just around the corner from the park. A big and pretty bay window greeted the boys as they circled around to the front door. Penance's heart skipped a beat when he looked through it and spied the contents of a sealed Tupperware container resting on the kitchen table. His mouth practically foamed and he had to fight a rude urge to 'suggest' the possibility of cracking the container open.
His last 'decent' meal, after all, seemed to have been very long ago— Bennigan's with Father Kenaz; the trip to Chuck E. Cheese with Whip didn't remotely count as 'decent'.
He needn't have worried; that Tupperware container— and its treasure of home-baked tollhouse cookies— happened to be the pack's quarry. Minutes later Penance was wolfing down his share of chocolate-chip bliss and guzzling it down with ice-cold milk.
Penance's unrestrained appetite drew the amusement of Jason and Ryan, the latter of whom playfully ribbed the boy.
"When's the last time you ate, Pen? The Cenozoic?"
Jason had a good laugh at this, but then he naturally had to ask Ryan what the hell he meant.
"Dinosaur times," Ryan haughtily proclaimed. "But that's a fancy word for it; my older brother taught me that one."
Penance returned the boys' smiles, trying to hide the sudden flush in his cheeks. He set the half cookie he was about to devour back on his plate, instead pulling off a modest piece.
"They're just really good cookies, is all..."
The boys' discussion soon turned to other things, but at that point Penance noticed a small change in Sam's demeanor. Neither of the other boys took note of that certain 'dirtiness' about Penance— the telltale signs of rough living he endured. But his wrinkly, borrowed, poorly-washed shirt and shorts, along with his falling apart sneakers plus a certain level of griminess that was a bit too much even for an adventurous neighborhood boy, belied his little charade, as did his ravenous appetite.
He was embarrassed only by the latter, and he couldn't wholly hide that embarrassment. Sam seemed more perceptive than his friends— there's a reason 'leaders' become leaders, after all— and he clearly noted both Penance's discomfort as well as the fact that he spent the rest of their snack time mousily plucking small chunks from the cookie on his plate, not daring to take another from the container.
Later Penance used the restroom and then wandered over to the wood-paneled den to take a look at Jason's father's LP collection. To his amusement he found the old man had a few from the Police. Not Synchronicity, unfortunately, but he did have Reggatta de Blanc.
"Too peppy," Penance mused, setting the records back in order.
The quartet ended up settling around the TV and they caught the tail-end of the afternoon movie. It was that one from last year about a talking computer that got so angry that it couldn't learn tic-tac-toe that it decided to set off all the world's nuclear weapons.
Or something like that. It wasn't Penance's kind of movie; he didn't really go for films with all that 'techy' jazz. Besides, the very idea of a computer that can hold a conversation with someone was laughable; people would probably have to wait until the year 2000 to see something like that. And maybe those computers would end up controlling people's hover cars, but certainly not nuclear weapons.
At one point the boys somehow segued into trying to fool each other with magic tricks, and Penance was recovered enough from his earlier embarrassment to have a little cheeky fun. He asked Jason for a knitting needle and a bottle of red food dye, which were both easy enough to come by. Sitting at the kitchen table Penance made like he was fidgeting with the bottle of food dye, hands clasped clandestinely around it. Just as the other boys started getting impatient he made his move.
"Come on!" Ryan said. "It can't be that complicated..."
Penance met the other boy's gaze with a small, polite smile. He slammed one hand down on the table, holding the knitting needle tip up in a steady fist.
"Nah," he said. "Pretty simple..."
He then raised his other palm and slammed it down on the needle, ramming it through his flesh. He immediately threaded the whole thing through his hand and then set the needle to his lips, licking off all the blood.
As soon as his hand hit the needle Jason bolted from his chair, stumbling backwards. Ryan looked like he might pass out, and then he put a hand to his own mouth as Penance licked the blood from the needle. Penance's smile only widened as he finished licking the blood off.
"Just food coloring," he showed the boys his bloody hand, then licked it clean (front and back) and showed off his un-punctured skin. He noted Ryan's deathly-pale face and pointed the needle at him. "You don't look so good. When's the last time you ate? The Mesozoic?"
The trick was, naturally, a showstopper. Jason hopped around the table like an excited parakeet, begging to know the secret. Ryan, for his part, demanded Penance's palm and made a thorough inspection of his skin.
His parents should've named him 'Thomas', Penance thought.
Sam's reaction, on the other hand, was a more worrisome thing. The boy's initial shock and amazement fell back to that brooding, pensive gaze he'd shown Penance earlier. He held one lip in his teeth for quite a time, and that oversized gap between his front teeth betrayed a flabby nub of lip as he mulled Penance's little 'trick'.
Sam was a very observant boy. He was like Whip.
He was a 'sour patch'.
Not that it mattered; Penance damn-well knew he had to get going. It was foolish to spend as much time here as he had. If Galabeg were in a speaking mood she'd damn-well be chewing his ears off. While Ryan and Jason inspected every single millimeter of the knitting needle at the table Penance went into the hall and took up his backpack, cinching it on his shoulders.
Sam met him at the door.
The boy still wore that pensive look on his face; his hazel eyes blinked uncertainly as he motioned to Penance's backpack.
"You, uh, leaving?"
Penance nodded, not meeting the boy's gaze.
"Yeah. Gotta get home, you know?"
Penance saw all the questions in Sam's eyes, and he secretly cursed himself for being so damn cavalier.
"Jason's got Monopoly," Sam said. "I was thinking... maybe we could play a little..."
Penance sighed through his nose, clearly signaling his imminent refusal, but then Sam sweetened the pot.
"There's leftover pizza in the fridge; we had it here last night. I was thinking I might have a few slices. You want some?"
For the third time that day Penance's brow ticked with that same vulnerable expression. Before he could respond Sam made his position very clear.
"I'll match you slice-for-slice; they won't make fun of me, so..."
Penance caught a lump in his throat and stared down at Sam's shoes. He didn't know what to say to this. He didn't know what he could say.
So he merely nodded.
Sam arranged for his compatriots to set up the game while Penance helped him unwrap and nuke the leftover pizza. The four of them settled in for the game and Penance's stunning little magic trick was soon forgotten, lost in the haze of casual conversation and haphazard tangents that any meeting of four boys was apt to go.
And for a while Penance and Sam both forgot their unease. They talked, they boasted, they giggled at the taboo vulgarities that arose (as they do in almost any conversation at that age) and they played the game.
And for a time everything was just that simple.
Jason's mom arrived home as the late afternoon sun burned away. She greeted her son and his friends warmly, but she gave Penance a far more critical look. He could practically read her thoughts. Kids the age of Sam and his friends didn't care nearly as much about appearances and they gave even less thought to how someone 'fit in' with the scene around them (they'd start to develop those skills in their teenage years, naturally). But adults were a different story. And everything from Penance's unkempt, dirty hair down to his ratty Reeboks certainly screamed 'woebegone waif'. It took Sam hours to put all that together; Jason's mom saw through it in seconds.
And Jason had welcomed him into their home with open arms, not even thinking to do otherwise. His mother, on the other hand, would likely spend most of the evening accounting for their valuables.
Penance was polite to the woman and she was likewise coldly cordial, but she showed obvious relief when Penance explained that he had to leave. He said goodbye to Jason and Ryan, who barely regarded him as they were currently working up to a fist-fight with each other over the rules of placing houses on railroad tracks, with Ryan adamantly arguing that 'the train drivers have to have somewhere to sleep'.
He ducked out the front door on tiptoes, moving for the driveway. The door creaked open behind him, however, and Sam stepped out into the growing dark.
"Heading out?" He asked.
"Yes," Penance's voice was curt and cold; he was unwilling to prolong his goodbye. "I'll see you around."
"Your knees aren't scraped up."
Penance stopped in his tracks; he turned around and faced Sam.
"All of us got a little something, today," Sam explained. "At least just a little grass burn. Your knees are dirty, but they're not scraped..."
Again Penance stared at the other boy's shoes; he said nothing.
"You're... you're 'special', huh?"
"'Special'? I don't think so. Not really." Penance shook his head.
"Different?"
"I don't know." He looked up at Sam. "Do I seem different?"
"Not really, no."
Penance nodded. He couldn't quite hold back a rueful little smile, which Sam reciprocated.
"Thank you," Penance said. "For everything."
"Will we see you around?"
Penance shook his head.
Sam's rueful little smile disappeared, but the boy nodded gently. He held out a sheaf of paper kitchen napkins, all wrapped up around a small bundle. Penance took them and gently pulled back the napkins: inside were a heaping handful of those tollhouse cookies.
He didn't try to hide the tears in his eyes; the harsh outdoor floodlights made it impossible anyway. Instead he simply looked up at Sam and gave the boy another nod.
Jason and Ryan called for Sam, crowing about some new endeavor they wanted to engage in, and if Sam could call his parents to see if he could spend the night, since Jason's mom says it's okay.
It distracted Sam long enough that when he looked back at the driveway Penance was already tromping out into the street, disappearing from the house lights and merging into the darkness.
X
X
X
He found a decent enough 'camp' for the evening. He wedged himself beneath a dumpster set behind a neighborhood hardware store, relatively cozy and out of sight. The smell was not optimal, but he kept that balled up bundle of chocolate chip cookies beside him, near his nose, and the sweet scent was enough to placate him.
He slept with his head on his backpack, so close to that syringe of 'special' stuff, but at least for the moment he'd forgotten all about it. Who could think of something like that now, after all? His day had been full, and now his muscles were tired.
And he didn't even give a thought to what his veins might be thinking.
Besides, he was curled up and ready for bed, his belly packed with cookies, milk and pizza— the combination of champions— and there was only one thing he craved now: sleep.
His stomach, after all, was singing.
And it sang a lullaby soft enough to knock him out within a minute.
He was afraid he'd leave the house in a bad mood, but he hadn't. This day had done him a world of good— maybe more than he could know— and the best blessing for the night was that Penance drifted to sleep not with any sorrow for having to leave, but happiness for getting to be a part of it at all.
It's just as well that he should remember that blessed day of carefree boyhood amongst his 'peers' without regret.
Because for the rest of his life Penance would never get another one.
.
.
Author's Note: I wanted Penance to use the name 'Peniel' at first ("Face of God", from the biblical passage "I saw God face to face") as an Easter Egg about his prayer actually being answered, but then I realized that an actual group of tweens would have a field-day with the word's similarity to a certain anatomical feature. Sometimes it's kinda hard to be deep and clever when you're also writing for 12-year-old characters...
