18. The Stairs

Her hands shake as she gets the ice out of the tray. Fury, not fear. How dare they come into her house, that limping weasel Dickie Bennett- Goddamn him -and the dumb-ass rabid dog of a brother. She should have shot them, both of them, not just whatever the hell it was had been in the duffel bag. She had the right, protecting herself and Boyd against two men who had invaded her home. She would have been - she grimaces, hating the word - justified.

After they had gone she knelt beside him. Bruises already flowering across his cheek and jawbone, the split lip oozing. God knows what other damage there was that she couldn't see. Then she had felt fear and when he raised a hand, groping blindly, she had taken it, holding on tight as much for her sake as for his. His fingers, warm and calloused, had closed around hers.

She had tried to help him up but he shrugged her off, feebly, with the same laboured breathing and the waxy whiteness to his face she remembered from that night when she'd first brought him here. She left him on the floor and every caught breath and faint grunt of pain seemed to echo, unnaturally loud.

The ice sticks in the tray and she twists the piece of plastic savagely until the frozen cubes pop out, clattering against the metal draining board. And she is suddenly, unreasonably, furious at the unfairness of the fact that going straight will most likely get him killed. Knowing him, he'll probably say that this is irony.

She scoops up handfuls of ice, the coldness a shock, sticking to her skin, and wraps them in a cloth.

When she goes back out he has peeled himself off the floor and made it as far as the stairs. And just like that night all those months ago he seems smaller somehow, despite his height, his frame doesn't looks so much lean as fragile. Her hands don't shake when she presses the ice-pack to his face but maybe there is still anger in her face, maybe that is what he sees because he apologises and then he apologises again.

Or maybe he just assumes that she's mad and that if she is it will be with him.

If she hears him say that he's sorry, she thinks, just one more time, over anything, she is going to scream.

The bones of his face are hard, fine, defined, and his breath is warm against her fingers. There are tiny flecks in his eyes, slivers of gold, and she thinks of sunlight filtering through trees as summer turns to fall.

They talk a little about what's happened, about what's happening and then suddenly it hangs in the air, that word.

Us.

Such a small thing. Two letters, one syllable. But it is full and heavy and heady. She repeats it, the shape of it lingering in her mouth

He doesn't apologise, not this time, but she can see it in his face, along with a certain helplessness because to him there has always been an us and lately he's been trying to hide it, just when she-

She goes back into the kitchen and retrieves the bottle of bourbon from the the back of the cupboard. One glass. Her hands are shaking again and she takes a few moments, stands at the sink and gazes sightlessly out of the window. It's all black until the edge of the mountains silhouette themselves against the only-slightly paler sky. Ragged strips of cloud drag, weary, across the night. It's a new moon and the shadows are as deep and dark as ink. She shivers, pulls the curtains across and goes back, again, to where he's still sitting.

She sits on the next stair down from his, pours some liquor into a glass and sets the bottle between them.

'Here.' He looks at her, at the glass, at her. 'Take it,' she says, a bite of impatience in her voice.

He takes the glass, takes some of the bourbon and frowns slightly. 'I think you may have got to the heart of the matter, Ava.'

She's fairly certain that he isn't talking about the delights of Wild Turkey; she raises her chin and her eyebrows inquisitively.

'Mags,' he clarifies, rolling the glass between his hands. The ice in the make-shift pack is slowly melting, leaking out onto the wood where he's left it. He folds back the cloth, picks up a few cubes and drops them into the bourbon. Takes a sip. He rests his head against the wall and blinks, slowly. 'Buying up them properties to keep the creeks and the hollers safe... I can't see her being that altruistic.'

'Being what?'

He lifts his head, still frowning, then smiles slightly. He gives her the glass and she takes a sip.

'Altruistic' -he lingers over the word- 'it means doing something for someone else without wanting anything in return.'

'Oh.' She laughs, sort of, wryly, takes another sip and hands the glass over. 'That don't sound like Mags.'

The stairs are hard and the edge bites into her thigh. She shifts, uncomfortable, the wood squeaking under her and she thinks that it's becoming a habit, their sitting like this, and they really should find somewhere better for the late-night confessional.

But there is something intimate about it, something comforting despite the physical discomfort, something that is theirs.

They. Them. Theirs.

Us.

There's no getting away from those words and maybe that's why he hadn't apologised this time. Maybe he'd seen the acceptance of it in her face, understands that she's thought it long before he had ever said it.

'What are you going to do?' she asks. About what? she thinks.

'I don't know.'

You're not the only one.

He rests the back of his head against the wall again, his eyes closing.

'You should get some sleep,' she says. Those beatings will take it out of you, she knows but doesn't say it because she doesn't want that cycle of self-recrimination starting up once more.

A corner of his mouth turns up and then his eyes open. 'I guess.' He starts to move and winces, his face tightening.

'You could have broken ribs.'

'I'm fine.'

'Just let me see-'

It happens fast. Her hand flat, fingers splayed against his ribcage and he sucks in a breath and grabs her wrist and-

'Ava.' Eyes suddenly wide and wild.

Ava, stop? Or: Ava, don't stop?

His grip is hard and almost painful but not quite and they stare at each other.

She has never been afraid of him, not really. It isn't fear that's making the blood pound through her ears.

It isn't pain that's made him stop her from touching him, except she is still touching him, her hand still feeling the ridges of bone and the heat from his skin through his shirt.

His lips would hold the salty tang of blood and be sweet and smoky from the bourbon.

He pulls her hand away, peels his fingers from her wrist one by one. 'I'm fine,' he says again, soft, while fire banks down behind his eyes.

She nods, dumb, bites the inside of her lower lip, tosses the hair away from her face. 'Well, good-night then.'

He pulls himself up and his tread on the stairs is heavier than usual. She collects the glass, drains it, scoops up the bottle and the sodden cloth with its mess of soft ice and takes it through to the kitchen, dumps it all in the sink.

She opens the curtains again. The night is still black as tar but the cloud has lifted and the sky is prickled with stars. After all of these years they have become friends but she knows, with the same certainty that she knows the moon will wax fat and wane and wax again, that they won't stay at just that.