A bit of relationship building. Enjoy it while it lasts. o__o

Chapter Twelve

The next day, James was pleased to see that there was no sign of Sparrow in Oakfield and while the lack of offensive gypsy helped him relax a little, the constant nagging thought that he couldn't get home yet buzzed in the back of his mind, like a particularly persistent wasp. As hard as he tried, he simply couldn't find anything to occupy his thoughts and distract him from his worries. By the time the afternoon had rolled around he finally gave in to the urge to find out where Sparrow was, but some unskilful spying on his house determined that he wasn't home.

After returning to the inn, not feeling in the slightest bit disappointed that Sparrow didn't seem to be in town, he bumped into Barnum again, to the side of the stairs on the way back to his room. After a short, flustered conversation with the peculiar little man, James managed to garner a tiny sliver of information from the nonsensical words tumbling out of the other man's mouth.

"You know Sparrow?" he asked, stopping his attempts to skitter past Barnum to frown at him in confusion. Barnum nodded.

"Oh yes. I've known him since he was a just a bairn. I must say, he hasn't half grown. Hoo! Anyway, why do you ask?"

The idea of Sparrow as a child threw James for a loop, but he recovered quickly. "Oh, no reason in particular. I was just... he sort escorted me here, after a fashion. I was just wondering where he is today."

Barnum seemed to perk up for no reason that James could discern at that. "Why, I believe I do know where he's gone. You remember the persnickety little detail of my bridge being blown to smithereens, yes?" James nodded warily. "Well, it can't be repaired until the bandits in Rookridge are shooed away, so he's gone to contendify with the problem. He should be back tomorrow night or the day after, if you wanted to speak with him about something."

Quickly shaking his head, James took a step back from Barnum. "No, no, I was just wondering. It was nice talking to you again," he added, hoping Barnum would get the hint and let him go about his business. It seemed that he did and he stepped to the side to allow James past.

"It was superberous to see you again too, young James." Barnum replied as James scuttled by to his room.

- - -

The day after that was much the same. James didn't leave his room other than to buy something to eat and drink occasionally, instead spending most of the day reading the unimpressive selection of books in his room. His was worried about his parents, lonely and bored to boot.

As evening set in, the street lamps being lit outside and casting a soft, warm light through the window of his room, James was just about ready to nod off. He wasn't tired, just exceptionally bored, and the only decent thing left to do was sleep as far as he was concerned. Just as he was begin to drift, however, a familiar voice caught his attention and dragged him reluctantly back to consciousness.

Somewhere, under the faint drone of voices in the tavern, James could hear Sparrow talking. He lifted his head and peered at the door curiously, thinking about going out to investigate. He had no desire to speak to Sparrow, oh no, but he was curious as to whether the bandits had been cleared out of Rookridge. Or at least that was what he was telling himself as he climbed off his bed, still dressed in his normal clothing as he wasn't about to strip in a room with no door, and went out into the tavern to look for Sparrow.

At first he couldn't spot the gypsy adventurer anywhere, but then the sound of Barnum's voice, just as distinctive as Sparrow's, made him look up. Sure enough, on the small balcony to the left of the stairs stood Sparrow, talking to Barnum in a self satisfied, content tone of voice. James folded his arms across his chest and watched, waiting for the conversation to be done, mostly so he could avoid talking to Barnum again, who seemed to be extremely pleased about something. There were a few brief words of thanks exchanged before Barnum handed over two things to Sparrow. James couldn't see what they were, but as Sparrow looked at the first of them his eyebrow arched slightly with his usual wry amusement.

However, his demeanour changed completely when he shifted his attention to the second thing. The smile slipped from his face to be replaced with an almost pained look. Barnum seemed to be completely unaware of this and after thanking Sparrow one more time, he edged passed him and made his way to the upstairs bar. Sparrow, however, didn't move, just stared at the thing in his hand for a good long while. James frowned, wondering what it was that could have possibly bothered Sparrow so much, and was debating approaching him when the older boy suddenly snapped out of his trance like state with a little shake of his head.

James ducked back out of sight as Sparrow stomped down the stairs and eyed him warily as he stalked out of the building and into the night. He hovered where he was for a long moment, wondering whether to follow or not. It seemed like a bad idea since he generally didn't like Sparrow at the best of times and stalking him when he was in a foul mood didn't seem like the smartest move. However, his curiosity was piqued and after the frankly awful two days he'd just had with absolutely nothing to occupy him, following Sparrow seemed like a wonderful idea.

So he did.

As he'd been expecting, Sparrow had headed across the bridge towards his home, but instead of following the path like any normal person would have, he'd hopped over the fence and was halfway across one of the barley fields by the time James had spotted him. Wincing at the muddy ground, James considered going back, before deciding his shoes were ruined enough anyway. He padded over to the stile and climbed over, creeping after Sparrow, mostly so as not to fall, rather than to be quiet. His feet squelched softly, but Sparrow seemed to be too far ahead to hear it.

The worn path through the field seemed to be a short cut to Sparrow's house, but instead of continuing straight through, he turned to the right and climbed over a gap in the stone wall. James ducked down behind the tall barley so as not to be seen. He decided to spy from there and watched Sparrow make his way up to a small hill on which the stump of a tree stood. Once he was there he just stopped and folded his arms across his chest, staring out over the ocean.

James crouched there uncertainly for a while. The curiosity as to what was bothering Sparrow so was getting to him again, and as much as his mind nagged that it was time to go back and that he was pushing his luck, he still found himself straightening up and following Sparrow.

After carefully stepping over the odd, thorny bush that was growing in the gap in the wall, he padded up along the path and up onto the hill, making a point of still trying to be quiet. He paused behind the tree stump – not hiding, you understand – and tentatively said, "Sparrow?"

Sparrow didn't turn to look at him straight away. "Yer not very good at stalkin', James," he finally said after a long moment of silence. His voice was devoid of its usual mocking tone and James was displeased to find that he was concerned by that.

"Yes, well, I've never had much use for that particular skill," he replied, aiming to sound haughty and failing spectacularly. He waited to see if Sparrow had anything to say to that, and when he didn't he continued. "Is something wrong with you? You seem less agreeable than usual, if such a thing is even possible."

That seemed to get a small reaction out of Sparrow. He lowered his head slightly and his shoulders jerked once. For a horrible moment James thought the other man might actually have been crying, but was relieved to see when Sparrow turned to him that he was just laughing at him quietly. "Careful, pretty boy. Yeh gonna start soundin' like yer worried about me."

"Pretty boy?" James replied disbelievingly, stepping out from behind his tree stump a little. "That's new."

Sparrow gave a half-hearted shrug with an equally weak smile, "Well, I was sick of yeh whinin' about bein' called Pumpkin. And I can't call yeh James too much. That'd be givin' yeh what yeh want." He turned back to the ocean – James hadn't noticed before, but it was really quite beautiful – and sat down cross-legged on the ground. "Yeh gonna stand over there all night, or are yeh gonna join me?"

James startled at the offer, and was about to say that he would do neither, but the invitation was too tempting to turn down if it meant he might find out what had fazed Sparrow. After the customary pause as he didn't want to seem too eager, he crossed the last bit of space between them and settled down on the grass, about a foot away from Sparrow.

Neither of them said anything for a while, instead choosing to just watch the water rippling under the moonlight and lapping against the beach below. Eventually though, this became dull to James and he said, "Well, at least my new nickname is more suitable. It hardly seems right to name someone you're so determined to molest after your dog."

Sparrow laughed again, a little more genuinely this time. "Yeah, I suppose so." There was another shorter pause before Sparrow spoke again. "So why did yeh follow me?"

Shrugging slightly, James fixed his gaze on the moon as he replied. It was far larger than he was used to it being. "I was wondering what Barnum had given you that had bothered you so much." He glanced at Sparrow out of the corner of his eye. "Is it rude of me to pry? You might be an absolute bastard, but..." Suddenly looking embarrassed, James averted his gaze, "Well, I don't- I just... I'm not completely heartless." He spat it out all in a rush, looking flustered and mortified to be admitting, albeit in a roundabout kind of way, that he actually cared about Sparrow's feelings to some very tiny degree.

"It's fine," Sparrow replied, shaking his head a little as though to dispel James' worries. "It's nothin' really, just... old memories." He fell back into a melancholy kind of silence and when he showed no signs of talking again, James decided to prompt him.

"Old memories?"

Sparrow blinked, snapping his gaze away from the view. "What? Oh. Right." He shoved a hand into his shirt to retrieve something. James noted that it looked an awful lot like bandit attire and left a wide strip of Sparrow's chest bare. He tried not to look and was thankful that the dark was mostly hiding his blush. "Here," Sparrow finally said, finding what he was looking for. He brandished a small piece of paper at James, who after a moment's hesitation plucked it out of his fingers deftly.

It was difficult to see what was on the paper in the dark, but after a few moments of tilting it around he managed to catch the glow from the streetlight by Sparrow's house. It seemed to be a picture of a young girl and a boy, posing in front of a village scene. James cocked his head in confusion and glanced at Sparrow. "Is this a painting? It's very small."

"Not a paintin'. Barnum made it with a... a-" he paused, clicking his fingers as he tried to grasp at the words he was looking for, "-a picture box or somethin' like that."

James turned back to the picture, more curious now than he had been. He wished it was lighter so he could study it more closely. "So, why did this upset you?"

For a long while, Sparrow didn't reply, and James tore his gaze away from trying to examine the picture to look at him. He was staring down at the docks again, thoughtfully. There was a kind of tightness in his expression that James had seen many times on the young dockworkers in Bowerstone when they'd hurt themselves badly and were trying not to cry. Sparrow, however, wasn't bothering to try and cover it up with an awkward laugh. He was just... quiet. Unconsciously, James found himself shuffling closer to Sparrow, only to be embarrassed when he realised what he'd done.

Shrugging it off, he held the picture out to the other boy. "Sparrow?"

Sparrow lifted his hand to take it back and gazed down at it for a while, some unreadable emotion flickering across his face. James was just about ready to give up on an answer when he finally said, very quietly, "That's my sister and me, the day before she died."

A chill crawled right through James, from the top of his head to the ends of his fingertips. They were only children in that picture. Sparrow couldn't have been more than seven or eight and as for his sister... she only look at most, five years older than him. James didn't even want to think about the circumstances of her death, especially since she looked so healthy in the picture.

They didn't say much to each other after that, just sat together, watching the moon rise slowly above them. Every now and again a jagged black shape on the horizon would catch James attention, and when he glanced at it a feeling of fearful apprehension crept over him. Instead of getting up and leaving, however, he simply lay down on his back and watched the stars. After a few minutes, Sparrow lay back too, folding his arms under his head.

"So, did yeh sort out yer business here?" he asked casually.

James bit his lip, not really wanting to discuss it with Sparrow. The little insight into Sparrow's past, however, made him feel like he was being stingy, so he reluctantly said, "Yes. It didn't go the way I'd been hoping..." He swallowed awkwardly and tilted his head back as far as he could, watching a few stray clouds floating by, since his eyesight wasn't good enough to focus on the stars. "I think I just want to go home now."

"The way through Rookridge is open again," Sparrow said. "The other way, I mean. I'm headed through there tomorrow, if yeh want an escort back."

James snapped his gaze to Sparrow abruptly, frowning. "Well, that's very nice of you, but I refuse to make soup for you again as payment."

Sniggering softly, Sparrow's mood seemed to have lifted. "A kiss should do it?"

"Don't push your luck," James shot back, with a mild warning glare.

"Fine," Sparrow replied, trying to sound put out, but now that his usual smug tone was returning, it didn't really work. "Yeh'll just have to owe me a drink."

After a long, hard think about any possible loopholes in that sentence, James very reluctantly decided it was worth the risk. "As long as we don't have to go through the bloody cave again, then fine."

The silence returned for what felt like the dozenth time, but this time, James was almost startled to find it was companionable of all things. He spent a few moments mulling this over and reminding himself that he was not friends with Sparrow, not in the slightest. Sometime while he was doing that, the cool breeze and the lazy clouds above him soothed his nerves enough that he drifted off to sleep, right there on the cliff top.

At least they're getting on better now, right?