He might as well have gotten out of the car and pushed the damn thing down the road.
The Chevy Vega his stepfather had gotten him might as well have been a three-wheeled tricycle, for all the speed he'd had on his too-long trip. It had a rusty body, and the engine had overheated twice, but in a way that he could pull off the road and pop the engine and pray that it didn't turn into a full-on fire. It had put him behind his travel plan -- he'd hoped to be there at midnight, but he'd coasted up the street at about 4 am, strung out and tired and still full of go go go, because he was going to Bring Grant Home.
He was going to get home, get out, get safe, and that was the whole reason he was out there with his fresh driver's license, and his classes just barely finished and a whole summer to get Grant on track and well, and then they could start together in the Fall, and everything would be all right.
Everything would be all right and he kept that in his head as a mantra while he snuck around to the side of the house to pry up a window.
His mother couldn't know he was sneaking back, and it was going to be fine even if she had changed the code on the secret room. He could crack that if he had to, but he was betting on her being lazy and assuming that because he was meant to be at least six hours away she wouldn't need to change it.
Nerves made him a bit clumsy, but he'd remembered a crowbar and he jimmied the window open and slipped in.
It wasn't easy, but it was. With all of the frustrations and his nerves and his fears and the warning jangle in the back of his head when he pulled himself into the house, it was still... Okay. It was still all okay. Mother and his stepfather and Jeannie were safe in their beds, unaware of him as he set his feet down and carried the crow bar with him in case there were any other unforeseen barriers. There was just the living room itself, the stairwell that led upstairs, the front door, and off to the side, in the back of the room, the narrow door that led downstairs.
He could've let himself in but he wanted it to be a break-in or breakout because she'd assume that Grant got out alone and would waste time looking here, while he was running back to college.
He padded downstairs with a silence that was innate. He knew every tell-tale in the stairs, he knew how to creep down, had done for years.
Hah. Codes were the same.
That was lazy of her, that was all it was. Heinously lazy, but she thought he was still down at Northwestern, still taking tests. Still sitting exams, when he'd taken them all early as possible, ahead of schedule. She'd never guess. Never.
He crept down the stairs slowly, hand on the banister as he invaded the too familiar space. It was pitch black, but he knew where the lone light switch was.
Door was shut behind him, light on and he was in his Mother's classified home away from home and he made his way unerringly to the back corner, reaching for the bolts, discretely hidden. It was really happening, he was really doing this.
He was going to pull Grant out and they could get away from it all. They'd be safe and Grant could have the opportunities that he'd had and it would all just fit. The way it should have been from the start, all of it. He leaned into it with his shoulders, the motion familiar before the 'door' gave under his touch, quietly swinging out. It couldn't swing in, there just wasn't enough room for that in the space where the two of them had lived.
Grant wasn't immediately visible, which meant he had curled into a fetal position in one of his favored spots. Things must’ve been bad for him recently because he was cocooning himself in every bit of blanket that he had.
He crept forwards, careful to not step on anything he could see in the faint light that puddled into the room from the cellar's light itself. "Grant." There was a curl of blankets in the corner, and that was Grant, had to be. "*Grant*." He reached for it, ready to pull at blankets, shake Grant, and haul him up.
There was a twitch and then what could only be described as a flail, which was actually a good sign. Grant sometimes went unresponsive. But the fact he was whimpering a little, that meant he wasn't as bad as all that, if he stopped panicking. So Rodney leaned in close, because he knew that closeness was key, closeness could be comfort and weapon rolled into one. He pressed in, fingers digging under the covers, looking for Grant's shoulders. "Grant. It's me. It's me."
"R... Rodney?" There it was, the sudden clinging impact of his brother latching on to him. "No, no… you're not here now. Meant to be out, away. "
"Shhh. We're leaving. I'm here for you." Just for Grant, because Grant was worth travelling that far, Grant was worth driving that piece of shit car *that* far, just to rescue him. "C'mon."
"Leaving? No, no...no Rodney," Grant mumbled. "Can't. Here. Meant to be here. Have to be here. It's wrong."
He pulled Grant closer, fingers feeling at Grant's ribs, sliding over thin fabric, pushing the blankets away. "No, no, this is wrong, this is all wrong, you shouldn't be here, neither of us. We're leaving now."
He felt Grant flinch a little but he moved a little, getting up when he prompted. "Where are we going? There's, there's... I'm hungry. Things are hungry and dark here."
"We'll get you food. We're going to where I've been, we're going *out* of here." He felt shaky, too-thin, and the smell down there was horrifying, but it was like coming home, like what other people called nostalgia, and that made Rodney's stomach twist in his body. "That's it, stand up with me, Grant, I promise this is good."
"Milkshake? And chocolate. I like chocolate." Grant held on to him, looking directly at him in one of the rare moments he made eye contact with anyone, before looking away. He was getting up and moving and Rodney was pretty sure the slowness was to do with weakness now, rather than reluctance.
Rodney reached his left hand out, stroking at Grant's hair. "I know. I know, we'll get chocolate milkshakes, okay? I'll take you to get chocolate milkshakes, I'm so sorry, I should've come for you sooner. We need to go now, okay?" He could keep hands on Grant, keep him moving.
"Okay," and Grant was sidling along, blinking out into the light and he looked worse than he'd seen him for a long time. He'd never realized how much the extras he'd managed to sneak had been keeping his brother alive.
"Okay, good. We'll go get something to eat and everything's going to be better now, I promise..." He held Grant close, a hand sliding along his side, and there was some kind of cut there, it felt? A warp of skin beneath his t-shirt, and Rodney didn't have the opportunity to see what his hand was touching when he heard the whoop whoop of sirens outside.
Fuck.
"There's noise, loud and... and Rodney, this is not good. No, no, not good at all. You should go. Mom will find you, and then I'll never see you again, and I won't have anyone to bring milkshakes or, or... chocolate, or...light," Grant said in his rapid fire way. "And I wanted to tell you about the new idea, and hear about your new things, and there are sirens, yes."
"We're still leaving." Grant felt like he was stopping, but Rodney started forwards, and he heard footsteps above them, on the first floor of the house, and a door sound, something being hit, he wasn't sure, and the urge to cower back himself was high. But he pulled at Grant instead.
They were moving but not fast enough; he didn't have time to let Grant clutch at the one or two things that he could be said to actually own. His brother wasn't walking right and stumbling, but he was moving with him. They wouldn't be thinking someone breaking and entering would be going to the basement....
Unless his mother told them that was where her classified work was stored. Shit!
He started up the stairs, trying to get to the window before they got any sense out of her.
He'd gotten his feet on the second step when the door at the top of the steps swung open, the new light source blinding him.
"Put your hands up in the air! Put your *hands* up in the air!"
"I didn't break in! We just want to get out of here!" He didn't move yet, couldn't let go of Grant.
Grant looked panicked and one hand shot in the air even as he threw himself across Rodney, either in a strange way of protecting him or seeking comfort.
"You were seen breaking in through a downstairs window, so hands in the air!"
"Wait..." A new unfamiliar man's voice spoke. "Look at him, Mark. What the hell, there's blood all over that shirt. Old blood. That didn't happen in the last ten minutes. What's going on here?"
It wasn't supposed to go that way. It wasn't supposed to *happen* that way, and Rodney wrapped his right arm tight around Grant and put his left in the air, even though he was behind Grant now. It was funny what made Grant move fast sometimes. "I, I broke in. I pried up the side window, and I crawled through it, because this is my brother, and she's kept him down here, and I just came home from college to get him out. I go to Northwestern in the United States. I'm a good student. I, I just came home to get my brother out."
"Mark, C'mon, something's not right here," the other man said to the cop with the gun trained on them. "I think we've got more than breaking and entering here."
"I'm not taking any chances. Get some cuffs on them, Jeff, then we'll take a look around." He held the gun on them even as the other cop took his handcuffs and approached them to put cuffs on them both. Grant panicked the moment that "Jeff" touched him.
"Don't touch, no touching, Rodney, my, my space! In my space!"
And what was he supposed to do, do what the cops told him, or put his hands behind his back like 'Jeff' was trying to do for Grant. "No, this is Veronica and Jeff Williams' house, and their daughter Jeannie lives here, and I'm Rodney McKay and this is Grant, Jeff is m-mom's second husband, she buried our father in the corner there, in the cement, *please* don't cuff Grant."
As it turned out, Grant solved the problem by collapsing on the floor and curling up, which Rodney knew meant he must have been feeling bad, because normally he would've run to a corner before huddling. The cop was left standing there, not sure what to do. "Okay, kid. You saying there's been a murder here?"
The other cop was on the radio calling for back up. They'd come out on a straightforward breaking and entering and now it was escalating into homicide and Rodney knew it had to be obvious that they'd been abusing Grant. "What's your name, kid?"
"Rodney McKay. Meredith Rodney McKay." He stayed still, torn between trying to kneel down and get Grant to uncurl, and standing very still because the police were *looking* at him. And then he heard Jeff upstairs, and his mother's voice, the what's going on questions, the...
"That's a classified area! I keep government materials down there, all of you get out!" Except, there was nothing classified. Old boxes, a worktable, and his and Grant's room. The pot in the corner that passed for a toilet, the pitcher of drinking water Grant got.
"Ronnie? Veronica, what's... look, they've caught the burglars, I told you I was right to call," Jeff said as he headed down the stairs and paused. "Rodney? But, what are you doing here?"
His father looked like a deer in headlights. "Who the hell is that?"
"Grant. It's *Grant*, you stupid fucking bastard, either you're lying or you're *that* stupid, you had to have known, we *lived* down here, you, you..." He started up the stairs, and the policeman grabbed his arm, and slapped the cuffs on him, and it was all wrong, all of it. It wasn't supposed to go like that, he was supposed to have gotten Grant into his shitty car and they could’ve been on the *road*.
It wasn't suppose to end up with him being hustled out of the house, bright lights shining in his eyes and a cop pushing his head down to get in the car. It wasn't supposed to end with Grant being carried out by paramedics, or busy clusters of detectives descending on the house to the accompaniment of the shrill rising tones of his mother's voice, audible even from where he was sat waiting in the car.
They were meant to have a life, finally. A life away from the lie that was his family where Grant would be fine because she wasn't doing things to him any more because he was smart. Smarter in some ways than he was because otherwise would he be here in the police car with his rights being read to him, but his brother was damaged. It wasn't his fault, but that would fix itself. Grant could be at college and they'd be all the family they needed.
The holding cell was clean and white and cement brick, painted over, bright and bright and bright and his head hurt and he was tired and the handcuffs were off but he was in a new cell all on his own, and that was why he'd come there, to get Grant *out*, but they thought he, what, wanted to steal things? There wasn't anything in that house that was worth shit, except Grant and Jeannie, and the piano in the living room. And Jeannie was fine, safe, *safe*, and he wasn't, Grant wasn't, and he'd gotten Grant out, except where was Grant now?
A middle-aged detective entered the room with two cups of coffee in his hands. "Hey, I'm Detective Jerry Davies, sorry to keep you waiting. Coffee?"
"Please." He was 16, so apparently they weren't going to treat him like a child, but the waiting, the being taken away from Grant...
"Here we go." He pushed the mug over. "So. Meredith Rodney McKay. I see you didn't take the Williams surname. You've certainly thrown the department for a loop. Breaking and entering into your own home?"
Rodney wrapped his fingers tightly around the mug, looking down at it. "I was just going in to get my brother out. I don't have a key to the house. They didn't expect me to come home for another two weeks."
"Perfect time for some breaking and entering," Jerry said pleasantly. "So, tell me about your brother?"
"We're twins. Identical, but, I don't think she... she's been feeding him while I was at college. Our mother keeps him in the basement. She kept me there with him until I was seven or eight, I..." He wasn't going to look at the man, wasn't going to give him that much. He was just going to keep his eyes on the coffee, and then try taking a sip. "Got really sick, I have a food allergy to citrus and some of the food she gave us had it, and Grant's not allergic, so after she took me to the hospital, it, Jeff saw me, and suddenly I was allowed to live upstairs and he still wasn't. There's a combination lock at the top of the cellar door, and then a second room in the back, and that was our room."
"Mm, yes, we discovered that room." Detective Davies leaned back. "You're telling me that the two of you lived in that room and no one knew?"
Rodney leaned back a little, and took another sip of the coffee. "Yeah. I... that's what I'm telling you."
"So, any reason why, after you were 'let out' that you didn't say anything before? To anyone?"
That question. He'd thought about it before, and rolled it around in his mind for a moment before he shrugged tightly. "She buried our father in the cellar with us. I, I played with blocks in the first room of the cellar while she poured cement over him, and Grant still talks about the doll under the floor, and I never told him, it..." He waved a hand, and then wrapped it around the cup again because his fingers were shaking. "I'm sixteen and I'm going to *university* in the states. Free ride, paid in full, and our birthday was last month, and I'm still scared of her."
"Why did she keep you both in the room?" the detective asked."What happened all that time?"
"We were bad. We were loud. We were just like our father." He rolled his shoulders again, and twisted the mug between his hands. "A lot of the time, she left us alone. Me and Grant. We had toys and books and she fed us roughly when we needed it, and we had each other. Sometimes she hit us. A lot of... little injuries. When we, after I went upstairs, she gave me the pass code downstairs and taking care of Grant was my responsibility. And if I was bad, I couldn't, he didn't get food or company or homework to work on with me, and then I had to earn it, with her. I had to, sometimes we both had to." He could feel his face turning red, his stomach twisting, and he was being vague because he didn't want to dwell on it. "When can I see Grant? He's not used to other people. I want to see Grant."
"Are you saying your mother abused you physically...and in other ways?" Jerry asked leaning forward. "The both of you?"
What the hell. The *look* he was giving him was that he was lying, or something, and Rodney didn't know why he'd lie about that, but he wasn't. "Yes. And I wasn't breaking and entering -- I was trying to get my brother out, and I was going to take him to school with me and everything would just... stop. We'll be okay, I just want to get him away from her."
"Interesting. Your mother claims to not have a clue what you are talking about. She claims that your father disappeared with you both when you were young and dumped you on the doorstep when you were ill. She said she suspected you to be delusional." The detective looked at him. "She believes it more likely that you found your brother being abused by his father and brought him back here."
Rodney rubbed at his face. "He's never been to *school*. I only went once she let me out. No, this is crazy, you can check the cellar, she buried our father in the cement, he's been dead since we were two or three."
"Oh, believe me, we're checking all aspects of your story," Jerry said with a smile. "How old are you, Rodney? Or is it Meredith? "
"I go by Rodney. I'm not a girl. And Grant's is Grant, except his first name is Beverly. But, he's Grant." Rodney sat back in the chair again. "I turned 16 on April 18th."
"So you're in college already? And you were going to look after your brother? How were you going to do that?" Jerry asked.
"I have a scholarship." Rodney took another sip of coffee already. "He could stay in the dorms with me, and we've split food before, and I have a car. It's the Chevy Vega parked outside of the house."
"It's being looked at, at the moment." The detective exhaled. "Look, Rodney, all of this is being checked out by forensics. A little bit longer and we'll know who's telling the truth. Personally, I'm inclined to believe you, Rodney."
"I just want to get my brother away from her. He should have had the opportunities I did. He's brilliant." He finally had to look at the detective, because the tabletop was boring. "Is he okay? I felt something weird on his side when we were walking."
"He’s at the hospital. He shows evidence of physical abuse Rodney. Not all recent. I don't know all the details, but I believe he had an abscess on his side." The detective finished his coffee. "He hasn't spoken to anyone or answered any questions since he was admitted."
"Can I see him? He'll talk to me." Abscess. That, that was neglect, and why should she take *him* to the hospital but not Grant?
"When I get the word from our CSI's," Jerry answered. "The doctors have requested your presence as well."
Grant would be terrified. He was hurt, and alone and he wasn't used to people.
"So when they say, I can go see him?" He was most of the way through the cup of coffee, but he needed more. "I drove here, straight from North Western, and my car broke down a couple of times on the way up and I haven't slept since yesterday."
"Okay, we'll get you sorted out. Tell you what, I'll spring for something to eat for you. Burger?" Jerry offered magnanimously. "You might have to sleep in a cell."
"The way things have been going for me, I'm not surprised. Yeah, I'd appreciate something to eat. I was promising Grant chocolate milkshakes earlier, but they probably don't allow that at the hospital."
"We'll see what we can do about that, as well."
The part of Rodney’s mind that constantly analyzed things was reporting in that they had to be pretty sure he wasn't to blame, otherwise he wouldn't be getting this sort of consideration.
Food, and okay, sleeping in a cell, sure, but it wasn't like they had roll out beds for visitors there and they probably had rules about letting people sleep in the waiting room. "Grant'd like that. He has a sweet tooth."
"You know... if your story bears out, you're going to have to be put into care?"
"I'm going to college," Rodney pointed out. "Just finished my freshman year."
"But you're 16, the both of you," Jerry replied. "There's two years yet. You would be placed with a family for that time, college or not."
He'd finished the coffee but he wasn't going to surrender the mug yet. "And we won't have to see our mother anymore? Or Jeff? I just, he gave me my car, but he never *noticed*, so, I... prefer to not see him."
"If your accusations prove to have a basis, then you will be required to not see your mother," Jerry replied. "Look, there are people who know more about this than I do, but I've gotta say, it's not easy to place two kids together."
It was slowly getting worse and worse, Rodney decided. "He's my *twin*. We can't, I came *back* for him, I don't want to be separated again."
"Well, we'll work on that too," Davies said. "Okay, let's find you somewhere to sleep tonight, and hopefully later we'll go see your brother okay?"
Rodney stood up slowly, steadying himself on the table. He had to, just had to be with Grant again, or it was a waste for both of them because Grant *needed* him and he needed Grant, and if they thought that he and Grant were going to go to two separate homes, the police clearly hadn't heard of the term 'running away'.
But maybe it wasn't going to come to that.
It was bright here and too many people with strange smells. People were touching him and he didn't like that, no, it was wrong so he'd screamed and refused to uncurl until there had been a small sharp pain.
Then he'd woken up and he smelled different and there were different clothes that felt strange and sheets that weren't his blanket and strange monitors beeping and he was sleepy still.
He felt drifty and sleepy and weird, it was all weird in there, weird enough to make him stay quiet, except when people touched him and they weren't supposed to. He'd never had other people in his *space*, and he didn't want them there, and they kept trying and he figured that that was why he was sleepy now.
He knew he was sleepy because the numbers and patterns in his head were all dancing slow and strange rather than the flickering speed he was used to. He was focused on the weave of the thread in the pillowcase next to his eyes. There was someone else in the room and they still weren't Rodney.
He knew Rodney, by smell, by sound. He knew how Rodney moved, what he sounded like when he breathed, and that wasn't Rodney.
"How are you feeling, Grant?"
Oh, oh, it was the strange sounding man. Didn't sound like the others here, or Rodney. The voice was soft and had no hard edges. He didn't like hard edges. He risked a glance up at the man. Blue eyes. Darker than Rodney's. But blue was nice. Something tugged at his side as he shifted and he whimpered a little.
"I know you have to be in pain, Grant." His voice went up and down up and down, soft noises that he did like the sound of. "Do you want to tell me how you were hurt?"
"No," he said because he didn't. He curled a little more, tucking the covers in around him. He wanted Rodney. Rodney would hold him and make it better because he hadn't forgotten him no matter what mom had said.
She'd said he hated Grant, and that he was never coming back, and that was a lie, a horrible horrible lie, because Rodney always came back for him. And he had, he'd come one more time and... he'd come again. The numbers said so.
"If you tell me how you were hurt, I think I can get the police to bring your brother in."
"Rodney?" He hadn't wanted to react but he was promising to bring Rodney. He looked at the new man. "I, I, not allowed to tell. She won't let him see me."
"She doesn't have any say in what happens to you anymore. If you can tell me how it happened, I can tell the police, and the police will let your brother see you." He shifted, just a little closer, smiling at Grant. "I'm Doctor Beckett. Lachlan Beckett."
"Lachlan is, is a strange name," Grant said and it was something unusual enough to stop his thoughts circling. "I want Rodney. You're close to me. Nearly too close, but not quite... Mom did it. "
"Lachlan's Scottish. I'm from the other side of the ocean," the man said, and he was smiling. "I'll be back in a few moments, Grant. All right?"
The other side of the ocean. That was a long way. No one had told him how far because he would remember the numbers like he always did. Maybe he was gone now and it would be quiet, but the machine was beeping.
He didn't like the machine at first, but it seemed to sound like him. When he'd fought the people earlier, it had made wild noises, screamed and beep beep beeped frantically and Grant liked the machine now. Just because it seemed to know that he had a problem with things. With touching.
He heard the door, heard the chair again. "Grant, can you tell me what your mother used on your side?"
Dark and something glowing. "Hot thing. My brother says burns are bad ." They left behind crinkly skin and would go all oozy and horrible. "Hot and pointed. Solder."
"Solder. Do your mother solder around you a lot?" There was something that he could hear in the man's voice, but it didn't make sense. It sounded like when Rodney was going to make promises. "Does she hurt you a lot? You have a lot of scars."
"I don't like the question," Grant said backing away as far as he could in the bed. "I don't like it. I, I... I'm bad a lot."
That would answer the question.
"You're not bad." He sounded very firm about that, but he still didn't touch Grant, which was good. "I know you don't believe it now, but you're not bad. Get a little rest, Grant. Your brother will be here soon."
He drew his knees up, and would've rocked a little if he'd been able to, but it hurt and he was still sleepy and the man with the soft voice who was Scottish had left him alone again with the beep, beep, beep of the monitor.
The beep beep beep went on until he was beeping along with it, trying to get it to beep differently, holding his breath, anything to get it to beep differently.
That was when the door opened again, and he heard Rodney trip into the room. "Grant!"
He stuttered on his last beep and pushed himself up, trying to get out of the bed to get to Rodney, but there were sheets and lines and needle things and he tangled himself up because his brain wasn't working right. "R... Rodney! My, my clothes went. You went."
"I went," Rodney agreed, and Rodney was right there, moving to hug him, and he'd missed that, not weird people's hands on him. "The police took me, and now they brought me back."
Hugging was good. Hugging made things better and Rodney smelled a little different as well and he breathed in deeply. "I was scared you weren't coming. She said you were never coming back."
"She lied." Rodney's fingers slid over his back, over and over, then up to his hair. "I'm back. I'm back and I'm not going to let them keep me away, okay?"
"Okay." Okay, okay, okay. He smiled a little. "Are we leaving? Can I have a milkshake?"
"We're not leaving yet. But up, the officer here wants to talk to you, and he did bring a milkshake and some other stuff." Rodney was pulling away, looking for a chair, and that was good.
"Don't like talking," Grant grumbled as he pulled his knees up. But a milkshake was great. "Milkshake!"
"Milkshake!" the officer agreed, and Rodney was smiling as the other man presented Grant a big paper cup with a straw sticking out of it. "I'm Detective Davies. Your brother said you liked chocolate."
"I'm right, too," Rodney said from his chair, pulling it closer to the bed, until plastic edge was right against Grant's bed and Rodney crouched there.
"Rodney is always right," Grant said. "Except about application of imaginary numbers. More dimensions and they work." He took the milkshake warily and sucked at it. The taste was maybe the third best thing he had tasted after the chocolate Rodney had gotten him 157 days ago and the sweet he had had 4378 days ago. That had been the best taste ever.
He wanted another of those, but Rodney wouldn't remember what it was, and that had been 4282 after he'd had the sweet, and Grant wasn't going to hold out much hope for it. But it was an exceedingly good milkshake. Rodney reached out, just put a hand on his lower leg, and seemed to relax.
"Grant, your brother said you might answer a couple of questions for me."
He flicked a glance at the man and looked down though he could see everything about him in his memory. The mole on his hairline, the thinness of his lips, his eyes brown with a flick of black on the right iris. The number of his badge, which was a nice prime number so that meant he was a good guy. "Oh. Okay Mr. Prime."
Rodney looked at his badge too, and then seemed to relax, so he'd seen it too and sometimes Grant really wondered about his brother's observational skills to have not seen that already. "Okay, good. I need to know what happened tonight, as you saw it."
He looked at Rodney and then picked at the sheet. "I...I was trying to sleep but I hurt. So I was playing the seconds game to go to sleep. And… and it was dark, then there was light and Rodney was there. Mom had told me Rodney was never coming back for me but Rodney had promised. Rodney said we could leave and I'd have a milkshake and chocolate and be together and I was sc... scared. I'm not meant to come out."
Mr. Prime looked at him, nodding and frowning all at the same time. "Have you been out before?"
"Sometime if I have been good, mom lets me play with equations for her in her room," Grant rocked a little at that. "I… I like that. Numbers are...peaceful and exciting and they make patterns on the paper."
"I meant out of the cellar," the man prompted.
He tilted his head at him. "No. Never been out. Too bad for that." He picked at the sheet again, feeling the softness against his fingers.
"You're out now," the detective pointed out, rummaging into a paper bag. "I've got this really huge burger here, you two want to split it while we talk? I ran it past the doctor, and he said that in moderation, you should be okay."
Rodney sat up a little, and reached to take it from the detective. "It has bacon."
"Bacon is good. I had bacon on, on July 15th, 1983. It was good." He looked at Rodney. He had assumed it wasn't for him even though he had smelled it and was hungry. Most things weren't for him. He waited for Rodney to give him his share patiently and then ate it rapidly completely focused on the tastes and texture of his part of the burger.
Rodney was slower eating, lingering, and then he fished out one of the bacon pieces on the burger and held it out to Grant as an additional offering, and it was so good. The burger had bacon and lettuce and mustard, no ketchup or mayo, but something that tasted like onions in tiny crispy strings, and cheese, cheddar, and the bun was softish.
"Grant, I want you to tell me just... a rough overview of how things happened, from when you were little until now."
"That could take time. I remember everything, Mr. Prime," he said to the man around a mouthful. "Rodney and I were alone for a long time together and, and it was dark. There was a rat once. We thought it was a rat. I called it Rattie. It might've been a mouse, but I called it Rattie. I liked him."
"It bit me," Rodney murmured against his burger bun.
"It's okay, kid. I have lots of time. This is going to be an official statement to the police so we can pursue what to do next with a little more clarity."
"Rodney and I had a light and sometimes there were books and things. We taught ourselves to read and, and... sometimes the light would go out and it would take a long time for another bulb to work. Mom... put a, a big doll thing under the floor but I don't think we were meant to play with it. Mom would come sometimes and do things because we were wrong. She said it would put us right. But later she said we were never right and it was because we should've been like her."
Rodney was quiet, and it was funny that Rodney was letting Grant talk, but he seemed to be enjoying his half of the burger and his own milkshake. It was all very, very nice. "Go on. If you're comfortable doing so. What things did she do?"
Not such nice questions. "Things." he said. "We didn't like them. Hurt things. Rodney, don't like this." He looked pleadingly at his brother. He didn't like the talking now.
"Just tell him what she did, Grant. Just once. Just once, and you won't ever have to see her again and I promise she won't ever hurt you again," Rodney promised, and he did, he kept his promises.
He had promised him a chocolate milkshake and he had a chocolate milkshake. He'd promised to come back and he had. He'd brought him math so the darkness in his room in the cellar became filled with the light of his own mind making numbers dance. "She, she hit me for being bad and Rodney too. Sometimes I was bad a lot. She says I am broken." His mind was his mind. He could see he wasn't the same because people didn't see things that he saw, or know the same things and that was broken. "She said I wasn't hers, if, if, I was broken and from that man. She...would tell me to hold still and hold still while she..." His hands flailed a little trying to make shapes of broken moments in his head and he had a headache that was blinding. "Not always hurt but I didn’t like it. But she did and if she was happy she would give us food."
The detective looked over at Rodney, and Rodney shook his head, and Grant knew he was cutting the man off, telling him to stop, rewind, find a different tactic or topic or anything, and that was good because Grant couldn't *say* any more than that, didn't want to say what it was like, the view, the moment, their mother that close, close enough to make him...
And he wasn't going to think about it. "Okay. I might have other questions later, but right now, I'm going to see if I can find that social services woman, see what we can do for the two of you."
He nodded and ducked his head waving good bye to Mr. Prime who had been as good as his number and reaching out with his hand to just hold on to whatever bit of Rodney was close to him. "Is she going to find us another cellar?" he asked Rodney in a low whisper.
Rodney shook his head, and shifted closer, legs pulled up into the chair, and if he wanted to sit on the bed, Grant didn't know why he wasn't up there already. "Foster care, apparently. We're under-age. I'm not going to let them place us separately."
"Okay." He hadn't liked being on his own in the cellar. With Rodney there was always thinking about things, and the science journals mom threw in there to think about. She didn't like it when they corrected them, but they did it secretly and it was a tiny spark of rebellion. He curled there and Rodney should've been curled with him and his eyes flicked around the room. He noticed for the first time the box in the corner and pointed at it without looking at it. "What's that?" he asked.
"TV." Rodney shifted, uncurling from the chair and then standing up. "Let's see what's on." On? On, and Rodney was turning the box on, and it lit up to show them people inside. It was a little fuzzy, but Rodney fussed with the wires at the back, and stepped back and stepped in close again to fix it different until the picture stayed when he stepped back, and the sound was up loud enough to hear. "There. I think the police might make me stay in a cell again tonight, or send me somewhere tonight, but I'll be back tomorrow."
Grant was mesmerized by the moving pictures. He'd read about TV but never seen it. "I don't want you to go."
His eyes were focused on the screen though.
"I don't want to go, either." Rodney shifted, and then he was finally up sitting beside Grant on the bed, and that was better. That was much better, much easier to watch the screen because Rodney was right there beside him.
His mother was cleaning again.
It wasn't just cleaning, it was outright room rearrangement -- the last time she'd done that, they'd had a seven year old boy whose mother had cut his hand off living with them. He'd stayed for three years, and part of that last year had been going back and forth with a couple who wanted to adopt him, and who did adopt him. There were other children, ones who just stayed for a few weeks, but Carson remembered William as sharp as day, and sometimes wondered what'd happened to him. Last he'd known was that William's new family had moved out to British Columbia. He hoped he was safe and well, and it was hard to be jealous of the attention the foster children got, not when he was the youngest of seven brothers and sisters to start with. Carson supposed he could consider himself lucky he didn't have 6 more brothers and sisters who were younger than him.
But this was two rooms and she'd stripped them down -- which was a little strange -- and he'd helped her re-build the stark spaces slowly into something a little homier but not... still, not cluttered. He didn't get why. She'd put books Collin had left at home in the one room, and now she was up in the attic, scrounging for the toys Carson had had as a babe. Toy soldiers and the windup steel-bodied horse his grandfather had given him, and blocks, which left Carson stirring dinner on the stove while they waited for their father to come home.
With, Carson assumed, the newest fosters.
While she wasn't around he allowed himself a moment just to... well, not sulk, but just be a little annoyed. He had exams to finish and he wanted to do well, if he was going to college early and now he was going to be having to cope with whatever attention these ones needed. His mum was used to dealing with the difficult cases and often they came from the hospital or his dad heard about them and suggested their family. On the other hand he wasn't competing with Isobel and the twins anymore since they had left home and they didn't spend their life trying to torment their baby brother.
He didn't even know how old these two were. They could be young. Maybe they were young with the toys coming out. That wouldn't be too bad. He'd be the older brother then, and he'd be an older brother like Allan, not Collin. Like he'd been to William.
That had been just all right, all around. He could do that again, it was just that the hard thing of it was wondering what had *happened* to them. Hospital tended to mean injury, and for William it had been dealing with an injured little boy from right at the start of the injury to the point where they gave him a prosthetic, and Carson didn't suspect that there were many people in their early teens that were competent and calm about things like that. His father swore that he'd make a fantastic doctor one day.
As it was, he was doing a pretty decent job at stirring the soup.
Maybe they'd be girls. Maybe there would be someone as smart as he was because he was finding it difficult finding close friends. Every year he seemed to have less in common with his classmates, even skipping grades. He brothers and sisters never let him get full of himself and he got on with a lot of people but that wasn't the same as having a friend who understood more than football and TV.
It was all about looking on the brighter side of things. If they were closer to his own age, or even just smart younger kids, he could relate to them differently. Not just differently, but *better*.
"Carson, have you seen the legos?"
"Jamie had them," Carson replied taking a spoon to taste the soup and see if it needed seasoning. "He probably shoved it in the back room. I'm not sure what he was doing with them."
Actually he did. It was something for his photography portfolio and he had feeling that Jamie and Mairi probably weren't meant to be making soft porn models with Lego. He just hoped they had broken it down before they put it away.
Dinner was just potato soup and some bread, which Carson knew was his mother's idea of food that couldn't possibly offend any newcomer. But it needed a little more pepper, a little... something. Salt, maybe, just a bit. "Okay, I'll get it out tomorrow, then." He heard his mother coming down the stairs, and she was soon standing at the sink, washing her hands. "Your father'll be home any minute now. He said the boys are identical twins, but the social worker had placed the one at an overnight home and it was out at the other side of town."
"Twins? How old, mum?" Boys, that was good start, but twins? Dealing with twins in his family was tough enough. They had each other, they didn't need anyone else.
“Just a hair older than you. The detective says that they turned 16 back in April." She dried her hands briskly, and started to cut the bread. "They're those boys from the news the other night. That engineer they arrested."
"The kids in the basement thing?" Carson blinked a little. "Blo...wow, mum." He had to remember not to swear in front of his mum. "But, if they are older than me then why've you been getting out our old toys?"
He half-wanted her to give him the quick and easy explanation, but she was checking the butter bell. "Because they've spent years in the basement, and I need to gauge where they are developmentally. The one boy's just finished a year of college, and we don't think the other's seen daylight."
"So, one of them's smart?" he asked, automatically getting out the soup bowls. All members of the Beckett horde knew the drill. It was second nature now.
"I'm going to assume they're both smart. They've had deviant experiences, and I'm sure with time, the other boy will excel." For all she knew the other boy was a drooling mess, but she was always optimistic, and Carson wasn't going to saw his mother's optimism off at the knees.
Not when he could hear the key in the front door.
"We're home!" his father called out and he straightened up a little to turn and look at his new foster brothers.
"Just in time, Carson has nearly finished the soup," his mother said. "Come on in."
They were bloody good looking -- blond hair, blue eyes, hair short at the sides and thicker at the top, wide mouths, dimpled chins. The one who was standing up straighter had a black eye, and the other one was holding tightly to the first one's upper arm.
"Boys, this is my wife, Shona, and my youngest son, Carson. Carson and Shona, I want you to meet Rodney and Grant."
"Hello Rodney, hello Grant," Carson said politely and smiling. "Good to have you here." He was trying to work out which was which. "Um, which one of you is Rodney and which is Grant?"
The boy with the black eye put his hand up. "I'm Rodney, this is my brother Grant." Rodney seemed miserable, tense, and Grant seemed cowering and scared. They were off to a good start, then.
"All right. Rodney, Grant, do you want to go upstairs and see your rooms first or do you want dinner?"
"It doesn't matter."
"I can take them upstairs mum," Carson offered. Maybe the whole thing freaked them out. "Show them the bathrooms and stuff?"
"Thank you, Carson." His mother looked genuinely grateful, and he guessed she wanted to talk to his father. In private.
Rodney and Grant were moving closer together even while Rodney started walking towards Carson. "Lead the way."
"Okay then, this way," Carson said. "It's a bit of an oddly shaped house, and a wee bit twisty. Dad says it gives it character. Downstairs we've got the kitchen, obviously as we've just walked through it, the living room, the dining room. Dad's got a study now, though it used to be Allan's room, and we have a spare room as well now. I've kinda taken that over a wee bit. Upstairs there, mum and dad’s bedroom, the twin’s room, my room and what used to be Colin and Isobel’s rooms. Those are going to be your rooms, next door to each other. You'll like them hopefully. I'll show you the bathrooms." He led them up the stairs. "What happened to your face Rodney?"
"One of the boys at the house I stayed at last night thought I was fair game." He sounded not at all fair game to Carson, even though he was holding Grant's hand now. "We get our own rooms?"
"Mum said so." He glanced at him. "You have anything put on that at the house? Does it hurt?"
It looked like it did.
"Yeah. He got me right in the eye. Everything went blurry. About 6 am this morning. Apparently that's what I get for kicking him." Rodney pulled Grant in closer, while they started up the stairs.
"We've got some ointment and dad can take a look at it," he said and looked over at the other boy. "How are you feeling, Grant?"
"It, it's been a busy day, a busy busy day, lots of people, too many people, I just, I want to rest. Mr. Prime had more questions, I don't want, no more questions."
Rodney squeezed Grant's hand, when they stopped in the hallway. "The doctor.. your dad, I guess, said the antibiotics he's on makes Grant feel sick. He's never been on antibiotics before."
"Aye well, they can do that," Carson admitted. "But that goes away and so do the infections. Don't worry Grant, I won't ask you questions if you don't want me to. But you can ask me questions if you want and I'll do my best to answer."
He took a mental readjustment. Grant's mode of speaking reminded him a little of Andrew who had stayed a couple of weeks, who had had autism. His mum had taken pretty much everything out of the room then as well.
"Okay, the bathroom is here, with a shower and toilet and all. There another downstairs, if this is full. Mum took a lot of things out of the rooms because she didn't know what you liked so you know, you don't have to keep it like that. You can add things too when you know what you want."
"Sure." There was distrust there, and Carson could almost understand that. He still showed them the rooms, the one that was stripped down and the one that was a little *less* stripped down. "We were told that sometime the police will get Grant some of the things we had back in the house."
"Usually takes a little while," Carson replied with a nod. "I think mum was probably working on Grant having this room, and you having the other. What do you think?" Rodney was *really* good looking, and he wasn't exactly ready to deal with possible realignments of his sexuality right now.
"Sure." Rodney didn't seem to have any interest in the room that was going to be 'his' and instead he herded Grant into the room that was supposed to be Grant's. His mother really had dug up a lot of things, but all he could readily see in the room were crayons and paper and a pile of wooden blocks. "What do you think, Grant?"
Grant let go of Rodney's hand briefly and immediately spotted the items. "Paper! I can write my equations in different colors. I, I could do the non-linear ones in...in green. Green is a growing color. And I could do primes in blue. I like blue. I like primes. I have lots of different colors!"
He actually sounded animated and Carson began to revise the opinion of autism. Not the same as Andrew but with something that made him reserved.
It finally made Rodney smile with one side of his mouth. "Just remember to stay on the paper. Do you want to eat dinner downstairs with the, uh, Becketts?"
"There’s more food?" Grant looked up Rodney. "But I have had, half...half a burger and a chocolate milkshake and it was yesterday."
Carson blinked a bit. It was obvious that Grant wasn't expecting anything else. "We have mum's world famous potato soup and bread. It would be wonderful to have you join us."
"You're supposed to have at least two a day," Rodney told him, and reached his hand out for Grant. "C'mon, we can get more food and then come back here and work on equations. We'll see what I can remember from my calc III exam."
"You both like math?" Carson asked. "I struggle a wee bit with that."
Well comparatively. He was ahead but he knew his strength was not so much in pure math. His applied math where it related to chemistry and biology was actually very good.
Grant took Rodney's hand again, giving a longing look to the paper as he did so.
"I promise, we've got all the time in the world for that after food." Rodney cut his eyes away from Grant and then back to Carson, finally, starting to lead the other boy out of the room. "Well, we can help you with your homework. When's your year end?"
"I have exams soon," Carson admitted. "I want to do well..." He shrugged a little. Calc III. College, yeah, that made Rodney more than just smart. "You're both geniuses aren't you?"
"Grant's just as smart as I am." Rodney lifted his chin, seemed to puff up with pride, like he was daring Carson to say otherwise. "So, yes."
"Okay," Carson nodded. He managed not to sigh, but it was bloody well tempting. Older *and* smarter. "That's cool. You'll have to talk to Dad about getting books and things."
He wasn't even going to go there about himself. It would end up becoming a pissing contest and he didn't need that right now. "Let's go get some soup."
"There isn't any citrus in it, is there?" Rodney was peering at him as they started back down the stairs.
"In potato soup? No. You don't like citrus?" he asked as they headed back downstairs.
"I'm deathly allergic. And no, it's not a fun joke -- I stop breathing, throat swells up, everything." He waved his free hand in a flutter, still keeping Grant close to his side.
"He ate a lemon biscuit we had as a treat and, and then that's when Mom took him away from our room," Grant volunteered randomly.
"Well, there's none in the soup, I know that. I helped cook it, but you might need to tell mum and Dad about that."
"Okay." But at least they seemed willing to talk to Carson, maybe more than they were willing to talk to his parents, and that had happened before. His parents weren't above using that to their advantage in taking care of a foster.
"Carson, boys, where you are. I was just about to go looking for you," his mother declared when they entered the dining room.
"We got a little sidetracked when Grant found his room," Carson said.
"I like the crayons," Grant volunteered. "Rodney says I can use them after dinner. Is it dinner now?"
"Yes, sweetheart, it's dinner time. Here, why don't you two sit here." Side by side seats, across from where Carson sat, and his mother put big bowls of the soup down in front of their chairs. "Help yourselves to the bread, there's butter under the bell there."
Grant seemed fascinated by the bell and had great delight in exploring it, smiling as he peeked inside. Carson watched as his mum patiently showed Grant how to butter his bread, and Carson sneaked peeks at Rodney even as he waited his turn.
Rodney seemed patient with Grant, watching him and Carson's mum, more than anything else in the room, even as he fiddled with his spoon.
"How's your eye, Rodney?" His father pitched his voice gently when he asked that.
"Good. Hurts, but. I defended myself." He finally took a sip of the soup.
"I said we had some ointment Dad," Carson said as he had his soup. "And Rodney says he is allergic to citrus. Anaphylactic shock allergic. I didn't know if you knew that."
His father grimaced a little. "We're still trying to get a hold of your medical records, Rodney, so that's good to know. You might want to stay out of the fridge until I've had a chance to go through and clean it out."
"I'm not, I won't..." Rodney slipped his spoon into the soup again. "Wouldn't go into your fridge, but uh, thanks."
"Mom says we can go in the fridge whenever we want as long as we don't drink from the milk carton," Carson said with a faint smile.
"It's more a case of fighting a losing battle against my family," his mum said smiling. "I'd like to know what you like to eat as well at some point. Potato soup is good for unsettled stomachs but not exactly something you would want to live off of."
"Grant likes chocolate," Rodney offered. The butter bell was finally ceded, and Rodney quickly buttered a little bread before passing it to Carson. "I'll eat anything. We just... aren't picky."
"Well, we'll try a few Beckett family favorites out on you both and see what you prefer," Carson's mother answered. "Are there any more allergies that we should know about? Lachlan dear, we're going to need an epipen for Rodney, I think I still have one in the medicine cabinet but it might not be in date."
"No, nothing else that I know about. Grant doesn't have any we've found yet." Rodney ducked his head down, and seemed to be going to town on the soup, eating a little too fast.
"Right, well, we'll get you an epipen just in case. Always good to have those for emergencies," his father noted.
Carson guessed if he'd been locked in a cellar and abused and starved then he'd be a bit weird about food as well.
"Well, tonight you can just get comfortable and settle in a bit," his mum said. "I'm sure it's a bit overwhelming at the moment. If you want us for anything, just call us at any time, we won't mind."
Carson just knew from the glance Rodney gave him that they wouldn’t go to his parents first.
"You can take books from the study if you want," his dad said. "And Carson has the second TV in the house in the room he's taken over. I'm designating that the teenagers' den so we don't have to tear your mother away from her soaps."
"You have a TV?" Grant looked up from the piece of bread that he was clutching up near his mouth like some ravenous squirrel.
"It was Collin's. It's pretty old, but." Carson shrugged. He liked to sit in there and do his studying and watch TV and videos. "I've got some videos. We have a VCR player too. "
"Oh, oh, I want to watch videos." Grant shifted in the seat, talking while he stuffed the last of his piece of bread into his mouth. "I, I, Rodney, can we?"
Rodney gave Carson's parents a glance. "If they say we can."
"Sure you can," his mum said. "We only have a few basic rules here. Firstly, bed by 11 at the outside unless there is a reason that you've discussed with us. No one goes to bed on an argument here either, it gets talked out. If you want something you ask first and if you need to do something or are feeling upset, you talk to one of us first to see if we can help. The rest is all negotiable. Your free time is yours to do what you want with."
Study, revise for exams. Carson chewed on his lip. He could study with the noise in the background. "What sort've films do you like?"
"I, I don't know. We watched CBC, in the hospital, and there was an owl." Grant slipped the spoon into the bowl, and awkwardly took a mouthful. "And a mouse, and the, the owl was on a skateboard, and I liked it."
Rodney cleared his throat. "It's new to him," he said in that tone that implied that test patterns would be fascinating for Grant.
"Well he'll probably like some of the films I've got then, and won't tell me that I have rubbish taste," Carson said. "We'll pick something out after this. Maybe make snacks to take with us?" He pitched that question at his mum hopefully. He knew about the little and often eating routine for the malnourished kids who came in.
His mother was nodding at him, smiling in a way that Carson was going to take as praise.
"You said you, uh..." Rodney waved his spoon a little. "You're studying for finals. I can help."
"I can do that and watch at the same time," Carson said. "Dad says being able to tune out a distraction is a valuable skill."
"A wee bit of time out of the books won't harm, lovey," his mum said. "I told you that."
Yes, she *said* that, but he also knew that he was expected to be just as much of a success as the whole rest of his family, and there wasn't any room for him to fail. Carson simply knew and understood that.
Rodney was quiet again, and Grant was humming into his soup.
"So, Rodney, Grant do you have much in the way of clothes or things you need? We can go shopping tomorrow, or I can go shopping on your behalf if you don't feel like it, to get some new things for you?" his mum asked.
They had some odd clothes around the place but Rodney was pretty tall. Tall enough to maybe just about fit in his stuff, or even some of Jamie's things as Jamie had been a bit of a beanpole. But then Jamie had paint and stuff over most of the things he'd left behind so he could see an impromptu wardrobe raid coming on so they would have something to be going on with.
"I..." Rodney shifted. "I have things in my dorm room. Back in the states. I didn't think I was going to be staying in Canada."
"Well, we'll find something here. You look just a little taller than Carson here so I'm sure we can find something good enough to get out and about in long enough to buy you things for yourself," his dad put in and he finished off his soup. "I know he's got a pair of jeans that are a little tall for him, haven't you, Carson?"
He nodded. "They'd probably fit you like a glove," he said. "Or Grant."
"Grant needs them more." Rodney seemed finished with the soup with half a bowl left. "Look, I have my passport and my papers and my car, still. Can I drive back to Northwestern and get my stuff before the university does away with it, or someone breaks in and steals my textbooks?"
"I'll go with you tomorrow," his dad said and Carson was a little disappointed. His Dad had promised to go over a few things with him on his day off. The only way he was going to get that was if he tagged along and he had a feeling Grant wouldn't want to be left alone right now.
Rodney still looked reluctant. "It's only a couple of hours drive, and the Vega can't have leaked that much oil since I drove up here."
"Rodney lad, you need one of us with you at the moment for your own safety okay?" his dad replied. "Right now, until we have the all clear from the police, we need to make sure that you're not in a position where you can be found by your mother or stepfather or any other relatives."
"Right." There was a scheming look in his eyes, and god knew what the other boy was thinking. Carson wasn't sure if he could even guess at it. "Okay."
He knew he was thinking something though so he'd try and talk to him when they were watching the movie or something. Speaking of which, the bowls were empty so he automatically got up and started clearing them away to the sink.
"Thank you, Carson," his father said over his shoulder to him. He could get some snacks -- crackers, maybe some cheese and fruit -- and stuff it on a plate to take upstairs with them.
He smiled a little and he'd let them choose the video while he sorted out the snacks. "You want to go pick a movie now?" he asked Rodney and Grant.
"Sure. One of the rooms upstairs, right?" Rodney prompted, starting to stand up.
"Yeah, next to the rooms I showed you. Do you wanna go on up? I'll grab a few things," Carson promised,
"C'mon, Grant." Rodney was reaching for Grant's hand, and stopped briefly to thank Carson's mother for the soup, and then the twins were gone.
It wasn't how he'd expected to do his Getting My Stuff Back routine, but making night-time drives was getting to be a habit. Rodney was glad that he knew the road, and that his car was actually complying with him.
"My parents are going to bloody kill me," Carson said from the passenger seat. "Seriously Rodney, why couldn't you wait until morning?"
"Because I don't want to have to explain to anyone what's going on." Never mind that some of them knew, or maybe knew. Rodney didn't know, wasn't sure, and he didn't want to find out if they knew or didn't know what had happened to him. His teachers supposedly had been told by the police.
"It wasn't your fault anything happened," Carson replied. "You did more than most people would've done. Went back for your brother."
"He's my brother." Rodney shrugged his shoulders, eyes on the road, dropping every once in a while to make sure the car was still keeping up to speed. "He would have done the same for me."
"Yeah well," Carson yawned. "But Dad would've gone in for you if you didn't want to see anyone. You sure this car is safe?"
"Safe enough. My step dad gave it to me for my 16th." And then he'd apparently turned right around and driven back to Canada in it and set everything off.
"Well that was nice of him," the other teenager said. "I mean...a car. I don't think I'll be getting a car for my 16th."
"It's a junker. And 14 years old." Rodney shifted his fingers on the steering wheel. "I think he didn't want to be bothered with ever having to be involved with getting me to and from school."
"You hate them don't you?" Carson asked after a pause. "The both of them?"
"Yes." There was no reason to lie, or try to soften it, because while his step-father hadn't *done* anything to him, physically, his ignorance had been unbelievable, and there'd been so many times where Rodney had done things in the hope of being *noticed*, in the hope of having everything that was wrong would just be noticed, acknowledged.
"Not going to try and kill them are you?" Carson asked. "We had one foster who...tried that. Mum was really upset when they took him away."
"Death would be too easy. I want her to live in a small cement room for the rest of her life." And prison was just like that, with the added effect of bars on the door. "And Grant needs me. I wouldn't do that to him."
"You're very close," Carson said softly. "That's good. You think you're going to stay with us?"
"I don't know. Do Grant and I get a choice in the matter, or...? It's not like we're looking to be adopted. I want to get Grant up to speed. And then we can go to university." And live their lives, and that was all Rodney really wanted to do. He wanted to live his life. Their lives. Safe and together. "Do the kids placed with your family move often?"
"Usually when they get adopted," Carson shrugged. "Otherwise most stay. Mum gets the most amazing amount of cards and letters, even now, from kids who've been with us. You get a say, I guess, though you'd be stupid to not stay. You won't find a better parents than my mum and dad."
"Even if they aren't, I'll take the devil I know. I spent one night in that other place, and I don't want to end up somewhere like that again." Sleeping on the floor on a couple of blankets had been home-like in its familiarity, but the boy who'd punched him in the face had tried pulling his boxers down, and he'd kneed the bastard and then *he'd* had the nerve to act like Rodney had attacked him and he'd punched Rodney in self defense. Carson didn't seem likely to do that.
In fact he wasn't exactly sure what to make of the younger teenager. Grant was wearing his clothes, they'd been given permission to use all of his things. He'd studied and found time to answer Grant's questions about the movies and he'd dragged himself out of bed to come with him even though he knew it would get him in trouble because he was worried about him going alone.
"So, I uh. Think so. Grant's not used to change. One change is enough. And he has his own room. And you're willing to cross the border with me in the middle of the night, when you don't actually know me from a hole in the wall." He gestured with his chin to the glove compartment. "Can you pull my passport out, we're coming up to the crossing here."
Carson fished it out and handed it over even as they pulled to a halt. "Good, I'm glad you're staying," he said, even as he had to show his passport.
Rodney passed through the routine questions with ease -- purpose, length of stay, blah blah -- and the popping of his trunk, the man peeking around in his 'back seat' with a flashlight in hand. He wasn't going for nefarious purposes and he wasn't nervous, so it went smoothly enough. "Do you parents have a lot of fosters come through?"
"We've had a fair few," Carson replied. "My brothers and sisters are a fair bit older than I am and once they started leaving home, well.." He shrugged a little. "Some we've had for a few days, or a weeks before they are placed, there's been a few who were around for years."
“Yeah, well. We're 16 and uh... Not exactly cuddly." And while Grant was wide-eyed and hopeful, Rodney wasn't. Wide-eyed, at least. "What grade are you in right now?"
"Grade 10, thereabouts," Carson said. "I'm a wee bit ahead." He shrugged. "Not like you being at college already. "
"I'm a genius." Rodney glanced in his rearview, pleased that really, there was hardly anything that could count as traffic. Best part about driving so early. "Math, physics, any of the hard sciences. Grant is, too. What do you want to be when you go to college?"
"I'm going to be a doctor, maybe do medical research," Carson said with complete certainty. "Dad is one of the top specialists for trauma after care in the country... but I think I'd like to try and find cures for things."
"Huh." It was more scientific than trauma after care, Rodney guessed. Sounded like it was. Less 'try B if A fails to work' and more actually scientific method. "You'll probably be good at it."
Carson snorted. "You don't even really know me Rodney. I might be crap. I probably will be."
It got him to laugh. "Yeah, well. You're taking me at face value that I'm not going to dump you in a ditch in the states, and I'll assume that you're smart."
"Oh I don't think you would do that," Carson said with apparent blind faith, right up to the point where he smirked and said. "I've had six older brothers and sister with a tendency to wrestle to decide arguments. I think I could take you."
"Probably. Grant's just into hugging." Rodney checked his speed again, and started to feel relaxed and calm about his driving. He knew the around-town of school.
“Aye, well, I think mum is starting off a little as if he has autism or aspergers," Carson said. "But I don't think he has. It's something else."
This from a fifteen year old, said with the authority of someone with experience.
It got another snort out of Rodney, and he slowed down for the stoplight, blinker the loudest sound in the car. The radio had died about an hour ago. "He's not. He's just like me. Except I got out."
"Stuff still happened to you," Carson pointed out. "They'll want you to talk about it. They always do."
Stuff happened. Rodney lifted his chin, and concentrated on the driving. "Good for them. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to think about it."
"Thought as much," Carson said and looked out of the window. He appeared to make a decision. "Look, I'm not going to make you talk, not going to try. But if you want to talk about stuff at some point, I'm pretty good at listening. Call it an open offer. Otherwise you won't hear any more about it."
He drove for a while, just concentrating on where he was going, checking the highway signs. "The police kept asking me to just give a quick summary of what had happened. And it's just... not possible."
"Kinda difficult," Carson agreed. "I wouldn't know where to start. That's like trying to ...explain what math is in a short summary."
"You can try, but you're going to miss a lot." Rodney wanted to miss all of it, but he wasn't sure how he could convey to any of the 'adults' who were pursuing him for answers what had been so wrong with his life until then.
"My advice? Pick a couple of examples of key points and stick to it. Earliest memory. Something that gives an example of your's and Grant's relationship, something about your mum, something about your dad," Carson said.
A, B, C, nice and cut and dry, Rodney supposed. "Grant’s my twin. I hated being away from him. We... were we, us, for years. One entity, two bodies."
"Aye, Jamie and Mairi are like that. I guess it's more so with identical twins," Carson commented. "Mum always said they cried, even as babies, if the other was out of sight. They...don't need anyone else except each other." He shrugged a little. "Although Isobel is closest to them."
"Close in age?" It left him wondering where Jeannie was, that she was hopefully safe, too. She certainly wasn't driving to Northwest to pack up his dorm room. "I, we have a half sister. Have you heard anything about how she is?"
"Age and ...everything," Carson glanced at him. "Rodney, I didn't even know your names, ages, or even if you were male or female until you walked in the door. Sorry, I don't know anything about your sister."
"Worth a shot. No-one seems interested in keeping us in the loop." Rodney shrugged, making a lane change, slowing down a little.
"If I find out anything I'll tell you," Carson promised. "People tend not notice when I'm hanging around."
"Thanks." Rodney let silence fall for a while, still concentrating on the road, taking turns, guiding them towards the university now, coasting into the parking lot for the dorm. "C'mon, I'll just throw everything I can into the back."
Rodney could see how that happened, because Carson just followed his lead, didn't talk back as they packed up. Mind you it was in the early hours of the morning so maybe he wasn't talkative at night. It took a ridiculously short period of time to pack up his belongings and they didn't even have to make more than one trip to the car.
He'd stuffed his books into his book bag, his calculator, pens, notebooks, and the seams were bulging, but the rest of his stuff had fit in the footlocker, and a box he'd already had half-packed, and that was what. He didn't need to take the bedding, or towels. They weren't important.
"I appreciate you doing this," Rodney murmured once they were back in the car. He'd left a note on his door for the RA, just so they knew that he'd come back for his own stuff. Not that they probably gave a fuck.
"It's okay," Carson said. "Dad's going to kill me though." He sounded a little worried about that. "I probably should’ve told him.”
"Just blame me." It sounded logical enough to Rodney. "I mean it, just blame me for it. I'm the one who wanted to sneak out to pick up my stuff. I appreciate your father's offer to drive with me down here, but... I didn't want to leave Grant alone."
"Believe me, you don't get to do that in our house," Carson said wryly. "You have to take responsibility for your own actions."
"Then you followed me to make sure I was all right, and forgot to tell your father. Look, I'm the master of badly thought out plans here. You keep poking holes in them and I'll just keep coming up with new ones." Just as long as he hadn't done anything that would get him and Grant moved to another house.
"Uh... I left a note?" Carson said sheepishly. "Just a brief one!"
"Where did you leave it?" There was on the kitchen table, or on someone's head, and they were vastly different places to stick notes.
"In the kitchen. I didn't have time to scribble much," Carson said. "Otherwise mum would kill me as well."
"So much for getting away with it and hoping that I could just explain that my stuff magically appeared in the night," Rodney sighed. It wasn't that bad. Fear of being caught out didn't rate very high for him, but maybe it did for Carson. "Grant'll be happy. I took some of his things with me to college, and they're in the footlocker. I didn't want mother destroying them while I was gone."
"Look, trust me, in terms of damage control, a note goes a long way," Carson said. "I'm glad we got things for Grant."
"He'll be happy." There was Kitty, the stuffed toy that they'd had when they were tiny, that Grant had given him as a good luck talisman when he'd gone to school. And there were other things, bits of treasure that didn't seem like much except... they were.
"Good." Carson nodded a little. "Doesn't feel right that you have nothing."
"There's stuff at the house, but..." There were bad memories associated with it. Coming home over the Christmas holiday had been bad enough -- nothing said fun holiday times like orange zest in the eggnog, or gifts that his mother made him 'earn' whether he wanted to or not. "I don't want it."
Carson seemed to understand that. "You can get new things. Look, sometimes people get a bit weird about foster carers. Mum and Dad are really trying to help you guys. And they'll do everything they can. We've had some kids who thought they were trying to trick them or something."
"I don't know what to think yet. Your father was nice to Grant in the hospital. But Grant and I have fended for ourselves for a long time. Maybe we're doing it wrong. I don't know." Grant was his responsibility, before everything else, and he already had the beginnings of a new plan unfolding in his mind.
"No one is going to take Grant away from you," Carson said. "But, look the point is, you've got us to go to bat for you now, okay?"
"Okay." He didn't really believe him, but Carson seemed so adamant. "Hey, if you want to go to sleep for a while, I can wake you up when we get there."
"I might just do that," Carson said sounding grateful for that at least. "If you don't mind."
"Don't mind it at all. I don't need that much sleep, and we'll be there in a couple of hours." Plenty of time. Slip back into Carson's house, and unpack in the morning. It was only a little after 2am, less time than he'd thought it would take.
He had been tired because there were pills that tasted funny and made him tired and feeling sick, but the new bed was soft and nice and there was something fuzzy to wrap into and he was comfortable and warm like it was a special time. Grant woke up and counted fifty breaths before he opened his eyes. Nothing happened in fifty breaths so he opened his eyes knowing today would be a good day.
And immediately it was. There was the tiny stuffed cat toy that was his most precious thing in the world, and he had given to Rodney when he went away because he couldn't give him himself.
"Kitty! Kittykittykitty!"
Kitty smelled like warm detergent, clean and body-heat smell, like Rodney usually smelled, and Grant was out of bed, right foot first because Right was good, and he had Kitty in his hands, and he was warm and the air was comfortable and clean.
But the room was not what he was used to, and he needed to find Rodney, even if he had Rodney-smell.
It was difficult because it was light, and he was used to knowing his space in the dark and there were things as he looked around that caught at his attention. He remembered where Rodney should be, Rodney should be three steps to the right of this doorway and in another door.
He didn't knock, because this was Rodney and it would be like knocking to let himself into a room which might be funny come to think of it and Rodney was there.
He automatically squirmed into his brother’s bed, feeling happy as Kitty was squished between them both and lying there beaming.
It had to be the best day ever. He had Kitty and Rodney and while it wasn't dark, while that had changed, it was maybe a good change. They had beds, which were funny and squeaked in weird places and times, giving under his knees in a way that made Grant want to peel it open to see what was inside. It was maybe little mice stretched up on tippy toes, pushing up where Grant pushed down, and that would've explained the squeaks. Grant decided to try to be lighter for the mice's sake.
Rodney shifted, twisted, squirmed and then hugged him.
"Mmph, hi."
"Kitty came home!" Grant hugged him back. "And, and...it was warm and sleepy."
"Mmmhmm, it still is." Rodney's arms were loose, and his fingers splayed out, and he turned to press his face against Grant's shoulder. "So good to have you back."
"Yes." Having Rodney there made everyday a good day. Before he'd thought there could be bad days with him, but after he was taken away he realized Rodney as an addition to a day was a simple If Then principle. If Rodney Then Good.
If not Rodney, then bad. He loved his brother, and Rodney loved him, and Grant was happy. "Time 's it?"
"7.53 am," Grant said, not even having to look. There was an internal clock in his head that ticked away.
It was always right, except when they shifted hours, and that wasn't his fault, that was them playing with time, and it was wrong.
"We should get up," Rodney sighed. "Find food."
"More food? We had soup and chips yesterday. I like chips. They were crunchy. There was bread." Grant felt he was making good points.
"Yeah, more food. We're supposed to eat more than we've had," Rodney squirmed, sighing when he did that. "I missed you."
"Oh." Grant frowned a little. "I like food. Food is good. What food will there be?" Rodney's hair was long at the back. He stroked at it thoughtfully.
"Don't know. We can go find out." Rodney shifted a little, sat up to peer at grant. "I think we're safe here."
"Safe?" He wasn't sure what that was exactly. He knew the definition but that wasn't the same as understanding it. "Why are we safe?"
"Mom can't get us here." Oh, that was a big revelation. If Rodney was right...
"Oh. Oh.." Grant sat up. "She can't find me? I'm, I'm hidden. Hidden numbers and inverted equations all folded away?"
"Yeah," Rodney sat up, too, all big smiles just for Grant. "Naked to the visible eye and the closed mind."
"Best day!" Grant announced. He didn't want to be found by mom. That was bad, but it felt good, just like the things she said were good felt bad. Inverted symmetry. Logic he could understand. He got up then because he could.
Rodney pressed his face into the pillow with a sigh, and stood up, too. "You slept good last night, Grant?" He half-made the bed behind him, setting Kitty on top of the pillow.
"Yes." Grant nodded. It felt good to sleep well. "You are tired."
"Yeah. Carson and I went out and got my stuff last night. Brought back some books and clothes and Kitty here." Rodney was smiling when he stood in front of Grant, and that was nice.
Grant processed this fact. Carson helped Rodney get Kitty. "Carson is nice," he decided. "Isn't he?"
"Yeah. I think he's probably a good guy." Rodney rubbed at his own face and then reached a hand out to rub a thumb over Grant's cheekbone. "Come on. I think it's time for your antibiotics, too."
"Antibiotics are not so nice," Grant felt he should point out. "I... I don't like them much." He liked Rodney touching him.
"They'll make your side not-hurt and not-red," Rodney retaliated, and it was very logical if Rodney was working from some kind of empirical data. "And hopefully you won't need it again for a while. So, breakfast?" Rodney slid his hand down to Grant's wrist, then clasped his hand.
He nodded gripping his brother’s hand as a familiar lifeline as they headed downstairs. There were voices downstairs and not all of them sounded happy. He stopped, not wanting to go forward on a good day.
"Grant?" Rodney gave a small tug with his hand, waiting for him six steps down from the bottom, which was two steps ahead of Grant's eight steps down, which was more than a good number for turning back on.
"Not going there. They, they..." he gestured to his ear vaguely to tell Rodney he didn't like the noise of discontent. "I'll stay here."
"Are you sure? Everything's okay," Rodney told him, but, well, maybe. Maybe it was and maybe it wasn't and maybe he wanted to stay upstairs in his room for a while and just enjoy things the way they were.
"Doesn't sound okay," he said and tried to sit on the step. "Is it okay?"
Rodney let go of his fingers, and took another step. "It's okay. I can go check, if you want to stay here?"
"Y, Yes." He nodded vigorously. He didn't like people being upset or hurt. He didn't like shouting.
"Okay. Stay here and I'll go check it out." That was what Rodney did, he went ahead, he went upstairs, except upstairs was downstairs now, and negotiated and came back with food and things and that was, that was normal. That was like before Rodney had gone to college, and Grant had missed him so much.
Rodney turned and stepped off of the stairwell and then he was gone.
He tucked his feet up and tried to balance on the edge of the stair, but it was a bit thin. He tucked his head in and listened for Rodney.
He could just hear the thread of his voice somewhere and he closed his eyes to follow it further.
Other voices, not Rodney, not Rodney, that was Rodney. It was like sifting with his ears.
"Don't be angry at him. I was going, one way or another. I didn't want to leave Grant here alone today."
"Grant wouldn't've been alone, Rodney," the nice doctor voice said. "Shona would've been with him. And regardless, Carson knows better."
"I didna want Rodney to go alone and if I'd gone to wake you, he would've left without me," Carson's voice said. "I left a note! I thought you didn't want him to be alone either."
"I've lived on my own for the last year, *in* another country. I don't know why *now* I need to be not-alone so very very much. It's not like our lives magically got more fucked up once the television got a hold of it, and *now* we suddenly need protecting and supervision."
Grant shivered a bit. Rodney's loud voice.
"That's exactly why you need protecting now," Shona said.
"Look mum, I've got to go soon, anyway," Carson's voice said . "I've got school. You can chew me out tonight."
"We *will* finish discussing this later," the nice doctor voice said, a little more firmly, not as loud as Rodney's loud voice.
He could hear, quietly, Rodney muttering, "That makes no sense at all," and then he was there, at the bottom of the stairs. "Grant? Come down, please. It's okay."
"Is it okay really?" He asked peering up at him. "Safe?"
"Yeah. It's safe." Rodney held a hand up to him. "I promise."
Rodney didn't lie to him. He always told the truth. He got up and moved towards him. "Breakfast."
Rodney exhaled, a quiet sigh, and then they were in the hallway, starting towards the kitchen. And Carson was coming out.
"Carson, I'm sorry," Rodney said, and reached out with his other hand to briefly touch Carson.
The other teenager smiled a little. "Don't worry about me Rodney, this is nothing compared to the trouble Collin got into when he tried to drive dad's car. I've got to go to school though. You and Grant have a good day. "
"You, too. Thanks." Rodney let his hand drop, and watched Carson let himself out of the house, and out, Grant decided, wasn't somewhere that he wanted to go again. Things were unpredictable out there and there was enough change just them to deal with, when upstairs was downstairs and downstairs was upstairs.
He ducked his head as he went into the kitchen.
"Morning, Grant," Shona said. "I'm glad you're joining us."
"He said he slept well last night. What time should he be having his antibiotics?" Rodney moved into the room, scanning the place for Grant, and Grant liked that. They processed things differently, and if they both paid attention, they saw things no one else would.
"He should eat something first," Lachlan said . "What would you like Grant?"
"What is there? What do people eat in the morning?" Grant asked.
"Cereal. Oatmeal. Fruit, uh, bacon, muffins, juice, pancakes..." Rodney rattled that off for him, but Grant wasn't sure what was what, except he could *smell* bacon, and that was nice. "Anything."
"Why don't you try a few things Grant?" Shona suggested. "A wee bit of cereal? A pancake? Oatmeal? See what you like?"
Too many choices, and how did anyone ever decide? How was he supposed to know if he liked one type better than the other?
"Is there anything I can do to help," Rodney offered hovering. "Have a seat," Shona gestured. She glanced at Grant. "Let's try one at a time. A spoonful of cereal first, yes?" She put some in a bowl and pushed it over towards him and Grant picked a piece out and studied it closely.
It was round, and slightly irregular with a hole in the middle. Like wheels, only there was no way to secure a spoke in them. Rodney sat down beside him, watching him intently, not saying anything. "Torus." He said. "Edible torus." He hesitantly ate it, surprised when it crunched. It tasted nice and it made a fun noise and he grinned at Rodney and ate another.
"You usually eat them with milk..." Shona prompted.
"They're still crunchy, in milk," Rodney told him quietly. "But they sog up after a while, but even then they taste pretty good."
That sounded like fun. He liked milk and he liked the crunchy torus things so therefore logic would dictate he would like the both together. He poured a little and took a spoon from Rodney and tried it.
And beamed. "'s good."
Rodney sat back, smiling triumphantly. "Grant got a lot of toast, crackers, bananas, whatever I could sneak down, so..."
"Well, we'll see if we can expand that a little," Shona said. "How about a pancake?"
Pancakes, which were pleasingly disc-like, were even better especially with syrup. In fact, he squirted a bit of the syrup on the remaining cereal, he liked it so much.
Rodney didn't say anything, and took a pancake and a little bacon himself, mostly watching Grant more than his own food, and Grant was used to that close attention from Rodney.
He was also used to being alone for days on end, not seeing or speaking to anyone. Oatmeal was again better with syrup, but not his favorite. He got to have a little bacon and a nice crunchy piece of hot toast. His toast had always been cold before.
Somewhere in there, the nice Doctor said he was ducking into the office for a bit to help out, and that he'd be back before Carson was home, which meant it was just going to be them and Shona in the house, and Grant didn't know what they were going to do. But, having food was nice.
"So, Rodney, Grant what would you like to do today?" Shona asked. "We can do anything you want?"
Anything at all was a pretty wide range. Rodney was toying with a slice of pancake that looked like a rounded out isosceles triangle, which really made him think of the Sierpinski triangle. "I, uh. Don't know. Grant?"
"I, I..." Grant was looking around. On good days Rodney showed him Math and things. "Can we look at your college books? I...please?"
"Yeah. Hey, and we can help Carson with his homework later," Rodney added, and then he was touching Grant's shoulder, but not his side because his side hurt. "You can help me unpack, too. I brought home more for you than just Kitty."
"You can rearrange things in your rooms and pick out a few things," Shona said. "If you want to take a look around the garden... the yard, go ahead."
"Okay." Grant wasn't sure if they would, but Rodney nudged his leg under the table, and offered him the last of his own pancakes. "Today, Grant, is going to be a good day."
As far as Grant as concerned as he ate the last bit of pancake, it already was.
By the time he trudged back up the drive and let himself in, Carson was shattered. He also felt a little sorry for himself which he was ignoring because he recognized it for what it was - mild jealousy.
He had a headache, he was stiff from sleeping in the car, and today had been boring. He could've stayed working at home.
He could have stayed at home and just studied for himself, but soon he'd be home all summer to relax, and take part in his mother's idea of therapy for foster children. Play, and relax, and go out with his friends from school. Summer was always so relaxing, and so close he could taste it from the stress. He just needed to go home and work on problems and drill it into his head before the test.
It'd be a blessing if his parents didn’t chew him out again, or if Rodney and Grant didn't have some crisis to be handled instead of him being left to do homework.
He grabbed a drink when he got in, and disappeared upstairs without stopping, wanting to avoid the day of judgment as long as possible.
He'd been doing a relatively good thing, or so he thought, but he might as well have told Rodney no and let Rodney and his father drive down to the states and back instead of trying to be helpful. It'd gotten him just as far as if he'd let things go according to his parents' plan.
It was nice, though. At least he had peace and quiet.
He reached his room and threw down his bag, and flopped on his bed. This was it, the start of the familiar cycle. He didn't begrudge the fosters anything except...just every now and then he'd like his parents to remember him a wee bit more.
Just a little. Sure he was well and mature, and didn't need help, but he needed attention just as much as they did. It had been different with his brothers and sisters, less of an us versus them then. And he'd still been a bit of the baby. Usually he had a clearer sort of relationship with the fosters, too -- they were younger, so he could be guiding older brother. But these two were older.
And smarter, and...just everything. But that warred with the fact that he liked Rodney and Grant and that made things more difficult.
He wanted to do well in his exams, but they just expected that as if it came easily to him without work. He worked, he worked bloody hard and... it was the norm. He was expected to do that kind of work, and Carson wasn’t sure what to think of that kind of pressure. He wasn't sure if he liked it or not. He was going to keep going, though, and maybe after the summer holiday he'd feel less waffly.
And very faintly, he could hear voices through the wall that separated his room from Rodney's.
He ignored it for a bit, then sighed and got up again, going next door to see what Grant and Rodney were up to. Or had been up to.
He didn't really expect to find the strange Lego sculptures that the two of them were building, and Grant's giggling.
"No, no, hold on -- I swear, this is *supposed* to be a Scotty," Rodney insisted, back to the door.
"A Scottie dog, or a Beckett Scottie?" Carson asked pushing the door fully open as it had been ajar. "Hey."
Rodney twisted, and good lord, the thing was blue with random red bricks stuck in there as proof that they were low on colors, and it didn't look much like a dog. A table with a tail and a head, maybe. "Hey. Was school good?"
"Pretty boring actually. Could've learned more here," Carson admitted. "You found the Lego then huh?"
"Your mum did, and I uh, disassembled it." He lifted his eyebrows at Carson. "And we took showers. It's been a laid back day. You said you had finals to study for?"
"Aye, next week," Carson admitted smiling a little as Grant gave him a grin and an abrupt wave before continuing with Lego building. "I could use a laid back day."
"This is... laid back," Rodney agreed, scooting over a little, clearing space for Carson while moving closer to Grant. "This looks nothing like a dog, does it?"
"I wouldn't work on it as an anatomically correct model," Carson said sitting down with them. " Are you working from a picture?"
"No, just..." Rodney gestured to his own temple. Memory, right, that could've been part of the problem. "Grant's been having better luck."
"I could do a sketch of one...I mean, I'm not Mairi, she's a real artist, but I can manage a likeness." He hadn't sketched much for some time.
"Could you? I might be able to get the legs more... leg-like." He gave Grant a sideways smile.
"I just need to borrow a piece of paper and a crayon or pen," Carson said taking one and starting a basic sketch. He had a messy sort of style, sketchy rather than clean lines, but it came together in a way. The twins were the creative ones of the Beckett clan really, able to draw, sculpt and play. Isobel had gotten on with them better because she was a consummate singer and performer, always center stage, always having a drama. All of his siblings had a 'thing', a niche, a talent and though he was a fair artist, a talented amateur, he knew there was better.
He wasn't really sure what his thing was.
It wasn't Rodney who was watching him half as intently as Grant was, and it left Carson half aware that the 'odder' of the two of them was watching his hand motions fiercely, eyes tracking every movement like he hoped to copy it. "Huh. You're pretty good."
"Not really," Carson said. "Mairi and Jamie are really good. A lot of the pictures in the house are theirs. Most of the family is really good at something."
It was taking shape, a quick and dirty Scottie dog.
"When my professor wanted some graphs to go with a paper I submitted, I nearly had a breakdown because I'm really not an artist. You want an engineering drawing, I can -- it's straight lines. It's precise. Anything else is..."
"Sketchy?" Carson said displaying the picture. "Will that do as a model?"
Rodney made a vague gesture with one finger, drawing the lines Carson was showing him in the air. "Oh, huh. Forgot their legs did that -- yes, that should help. Thanks."
"Time to take the blocks apart," Grant told him, leaning into Rodney.
"Why are we building a dog?" Carson asked, noticing their closeness. Understandable really. "Do you like dogs?"
"Dogs, cats, mice..." Rodney shrugged a little, and added, "Squirrels. Animals. Soft fur, unconditional love in exchange for attention, food and care. Sometime, we'll get pets. As a long-term goal sort of thing." Rodney carefully split the Lego table that he'd meant to be a dog, and handed Grant half to start disassembling.
Carson noted that. Depending on how long they were going to stay, his mum didn't object to pets. "I like animals," he said. "Lots."
A cat might be good because they were less dependent.
Litter to clean, sure, but they didn't need to be walked. "I, I had mice, sometimes," Grant volunteered. "Rodney didn't like them, but they were, they were nice to me, with soft little ears. Soft." He sighed and added, "That's what's wrong with the dog."
"Legos aren't particularly soft, no. Also, I forgot the *knees*. Your pyramid looks good."
Cuddly toys. Soft cuddly toys, that was something else for Grant. "You have to imagine softness," he said. "Mm."
He helped with the legos.
It was quiet work. Sometimes, on the drive, Rodney had talked and talked, and sometimes he didn't, shuttered inward. They were both quiet while they disassembled the dog, and Rodney started to build a more oval sort of body shape that had 4 bits that stuck out low at the sides for building legs off of. Much better.
Then he heard his mother call up the stairs for him.
"Carson! Can you come downstairs?" His mum had obviously noticed his stuff.
"Coming," he called. "I'll be back in a bit."
"Okay. We might have something more like a dog going by then." Rodney glanced up at him and waved while he got to his feet.
Time for that chewing out, then.
He smiled and headed downstairs to the kitchen, looking for his mother. "I'm here."
"Good. Were you upstairs with the boys?" Where he was expected to be, sure. His father was in the living room, and that was a conversation he hoped to dodge, too.
"I went up to see them yeah," he said. "They're playing with Lego."
"Still? Well, that's good." She was bustling about, and it looked like they were having pasta. Simple foods, but simple was pretty good in Carson's experience. "It's a little like having the twins back in the house again. How do they seem?"
"They're doing okay," Carson said with a shrug. "Everything is new to Grant so I guess they are working on that."
She was stirring up the sauce, glancing into the living room. "Your father and I have decided that grounding you for what you did last night might be a bit over the top. Still, I never thought you'd go and leave the country without telling us."
"I did leave a note," Carson said a bit feebly. "Rodney... wasn't going to take no for an answer and I knew you didn't want him going alone." He paused a moment, remembering his father's number one rule. "Okay, *I* didn't want him going alone."
"Was he all right? On the trip. I was worried about you just as much for your own safety, Carson," she told him, adding a little pepper and a dash of salt to the water that was trying to boil. "And you had to have been tired today at school.
"He was fine. We talked some. Well, quite a bit actually," Carson said. "And I'm a wee bit tired, yes."
"Do you have homework or studying to do?" His mother looked at him, and then she *looked* at him, and leaned over to pull out one of the chairs at the small kitchen table. "Go on, sit down and tell me how your day was, Carson."
"I always have studying," Carson said sitting down. This was another routine. Mum making sure he wasn't feeling left out. " I'm pretty tired."
"You were up all of those hours, you should be tired." His mother sounded tense, though. These first days with new fosters were always funny. They felt... off. The house felt unsettled, until everyone got used to each other. "What do you plan on studying tonight?"
"I think Rodney and Grant want to help me so either my math or physical chemistry," Carson answered and exhaled. "Mum, Grant isn't autistic."
"I didn't think so. He's... verbal and affectionate." His mum was looking at him now, a little more open and curious. "How'd you come to that conclusion, though?"
"He's not like Andrew. He doesn't seem to have a problem recognizing emotions around him. He knows Rodney's moods down to every little hint. He recognized us arguing," Carson said. He tried to not to yawn.
"He's been deprived. Things we take for granted, he's not familiar with. Cheerios. Pancakes. Legos. We need to be careful in introducing him to these new stimulations. Now, today's Friday and tomorrow we have the weekend, so you can sleep in. Is there anything you want to do this weekend?" Study. Study like a mad fiend because Tuesday was his math final.
"Mum, I've got to revise. I'm not quite certain of a few things." As his dad said, you had to be as certain as possible in medicine because mistakes meant lives.
"You'll be fine staying home with the boys while your father and I go out to buy a few things? And I'm sure you can take enough time off tomorrow to join us for an ice-cream tasting?" His mother lifted her eyebrows at him.
"Oh, I could probably manage that. Grant likes chocolate, by the way. I think Rodney does too." Carson looked at his mum. "If you can buy Grant a soft cuddly toy from me, I'd appreciate it. He wants a pet and I think Rodney would too eventually."
"Mmm, the social worker was by earlier ,and she seemed very afraid. About the boys abusing each other or you or us or killing small animals. It's enough to make me wonder if she ever went to school or nurtured a thing in her life. We'll give it time for them to normalize a bit. Rodney's very mature, but..." But, aye, his mother had a twinge about him as much as she did about Grant, a sense that not all was right.
"They are... close, but..." Carson shrugged. "Mum, they're likely to be a wee bit wary of you and dad. For obvious reasons. Rodney feels strongly about that."
"I know, and I wish that they didn't, but we'll do what we can. Try to not overwhelm them, get us to trust them. I think you're going to have to be our aid in getting through to them, Carson. At least for a little while." His mother leaned away, putting the spaghetti into the boiling pot. "Your father had some good ideas while he was doing rounds in the hospitals, Carson, maybe you could...?"
Could what? Help? He was already doing that. "I'll help with whatever," Carson offered. "I'll have more time after my exams are done."
"I know. I was more thinking you could go talk to your father before the spaghetti's done. He's still in shock that you ran away to the States for a few hours."
Carson groaned a little. "Okay." he said getting up. "If I'm not out in half an hour, send out search parties." He headed off into the living room trying not to look as guilty as he felt.
"If you’re not out in half an hour, Grant and Rodney'll have eaten your food and your father's." She was probably heading upstairs to collect them, and he used that to keep him from looking *so* guilty.
His father *was* busy, sitting on the floor with files around him, his lockable briefcase nearby. "Carson. I didn't hear you come in."
"I was talking to mum," he said truthfully. "She said you wanted to...uh..."
Chew him out might give him ideas.
"Talk to you about what you took part in last night. Go on, sit down." He gestured for Carson to sit. "I really was going to go take Rodney on that drive today, but the two of you, uh, rendered me useless."
"Not entirely my idea, Dad. I did try and persuade him to wait," Carson said trying to pre-empt the scolding. "But I thought it was better than letting him drive alone."
"No, no, it was. I just wish you had woke us up and told me. I do appreciate the note." His father cleared his throat slightly. "What I want is that in the future, you could tell me if Rodney gets another 'plan' in his head."
Carson couldn't seem to get them to understand that Rodney moved like lightning the previous night. He'd been blurry around the edges, not sure if he'd heard something downstairs and snuck down to find Rodney hunting for his keys on his way out the door.
"If there is time, yes." he said. "This wasn't something he told me about dad. I heard a noise and found him heading out."
"Mmm. We need to get him to understand that he can't just run off." But on the other hand, Rodney gallivanted around like he was all grown up, and that was hard to put a stop to. It had been with Collin.
"Dad, Rodney... Rodney's had to be the one in charge, responsible all the way through. He doesn't understand that," Carson answered, feeling he was pointing out the obvious.
"I know. It's going to take time." His father seemed very insistent that it would eventually get through for Rodney, but by the time it did, he was likely to be out on his own again.
"So... mum said I wasn't grounded?" Carson half asked, half stated hopefully.
"Grounding you wouldn't be much different than your normal lifestyle," his father demurred. "So there's just no point. I want you to say 'Yes, I'll go' if any of your friends ask you to go to dinner or a movie or something, all right? There's a balance in studying."
"Sure." Carson agreed pretty damn sure that wasn't going to happen. "But... I don't want to screw up this exam. I need to get a good grade."
Or face humiliation from all his brothers and sisters for eternity.
"I know. But you're smart, Carson. There is a point where you can over-study for anything." His father glanced towards the kitchen, as if checking something, and then glanced back towards Carson. "Or you can help me look over these case files."
"Are those… are those Rodney and Grant's?" Carson asked sitting down next to his father.
"Yes. They, understandably, don't want to talk about their lives up until now. I'm just trying to get a feel for things we need to avoid exposing them to." His father handed him part of a folder and it made Carson straighten up. He was being trusted with a great responsibility and it was a special bond between himself and his father that he would do anything to not screw up . "It bothers me the things doctors notice and never report."
Carson could read fast, faster than people even realized. He glanced over the writing frowning deeply as the impact of the words sank in.
"Wait, they noticed marks and malnourishment during anaphylactic shock and they didn't report it?"
"There's a note that he's a picky eater," his father said, gesturing to the folder. "Two years later, he was in for a broken leg, and the doctor noted bruising, marks, and chafed genitalia. It was Flandrey, and I had a few words with him. The first one, fine, but if he'd bothered to read the last admission, he would've realized that it was possibly a pattern."
Carson thought about Rodney and tried to imagine that sort've abuse. "You only need to look at Grant to know he's been hurt."
"He'd never been to a doctor before he was admitted to the hospital for what I can only guess was a curling iron burn and malnutrition." His father gestured with a thinner folder. "This is my write-up, and the admitting physician's notes. When he was unconscious, we put him under x-rays. He's covered in hairline fractures, some healed, some new."
Carson looked at those as well, able to see where the fractures were from his dad encouraging him to be expert even from a very early age. He was, after all, the only one of the family to show an interest in following in his fathers’ footsteps. His dad didn't like to rely on anyone except his own eyes for diagnoses and had patiently shown him the minute differences that they looked for. He frowned a little. He did have an ability to visualize things which apparently was unusual. "Curled up," he said. "Where he curled up, the fractures are on forearms and ribs where you would kick from the back, and the lower legs if his knees were pulled up."
It seemed obvious in his head.
"Exactly. None of these injuries were from defending himself in an active manner. And they were exacerbated by malnutrition." His father's face was tense, and he went back to glancing at Rodney's file. "They're not violent boys, and I wish I could convince the social worker to stop asking about that."
"Tell them to ask me sometime," Carson said. "So they've got it in their heads that they might be dangerous?" He was willing to bet that was their mother’s fault.
"Yes. Three guesses where that concept came from. Why they give her any credit when in the same sentence she's... explaining how nine year olds seduced her, and chose to live in the cellar, I have no idea."
"Rodney told me about her killing his natural father. Did he tell them that?" Carson asked. Surely they had proof of that.
"Yes. That's why they didn't release her on bail, but if they hadn't -- they're still extracting the skeleton from the floor. If they hadn't come across it, I think she might actually have gotten bail. But this is abuse *and* murder now." There was a frowning, scoffing tone to his father's voice when he said that. "If--"
"Lachlan, Carson, dinner! Grant, Rodney, it's dinner time!"
"Coming mum!" he called back hastily handing the files back. He felt oddly pleased that his dad had shared that with him, had a warm burst of pride in the treating him as a mature adult. That his father trusted that he'd look at an x-ray and be able to identify it. "I'll be up once I've got those locked away."
"Okay, I'll go check on Rodney and Grant," he said heading towards the stairs to see if the brothers were coming.
He was halfway up the stairs when he could hear Rodney wheedling with Grant again. "It's dinner. Three meals a day, Grant. That's what's normal."
"What...what happens when the food runs out?" Grant asked. "Long time, no food. Finite food, Rodney. You'll be hungry and not well."
"Not-finite food," Rodney countered. "Infinite food, Grant. It doesn't run out. You eat when you're hungry."
"Hey, you guys coming?" Carson peered in at them. "Something up?"
"Three meals a day is novel. Grant's afraid the food is going to run out." Rodney was holding Grant's hand again, tugging at it gently.
"Do I look like the food is danger of running out, Grant?" Carson smiled a little. He was stocky in build, always had been. "If we get low, mum goes and buys more. Sometimes I go and help. She's going tomorrow actually, but right now there's food waiting for you on the table downstairs."
"And it's, it's not going anywhere?"
"No, it's not going anywhere," Rodney wheedled, taking another step down the stairs. "After dinner, Grant, we can draw or build more or whatever you want. Watch TV?"
"I would like that. I, I watched TV and there was a story about cat-people who had special swords and... one could run really fast, and one was very strong and there was another like a tiger...and and they saved other creatures!" Grant sounded excited by the whole deal and it made Carson grin. He never knew Thundercats was that interesting.
Maybe with new eyes watching the show, it might be.
"Okay, TV it'll be." Rodney glanced at Carson, "If that's all right?"
With any luck, he could get some help with his exams and get to know his new foster brothers a little better in the process.
Grant was making cookies.
Cookies were just step 1 of many, and he was being heavily supervised through it by Carson's mother. It was Friday, the last day of school for the year, and the day that Carson would get his grades back on his final exams. Hopefully, they'd be edible, but Rodney had a lot of hope for that since it involved measuring and measurements. Grant sort-of enjoyed brushing his teeth and bathing, now that they were a daily event for him, but not quite yet a habit. Still, his brother smelled clean and smiled brighter now, had clothes of Rodney's that hung off of him and a few things the Becketts had bought them.
The shirt was probably covered in flour by now, and Rodney wished he were in the kitchen with them. Instead he was trapped in living room with a stupid social worker who seemed convinced that Grant was some sort of psycho waiting to happen and he was one step short of building an atomic bomb in the basement.
He wished he *could* build a bomb in the basement. As it was, Rodney rubbed at his face and *looked* at her hard. "Look, I... don't know what to say. Or what you want answers for."
"Rodney, all I want to know is how you are adapting?" she said. "And whether there have been any incidents that have infuriated you or upset you."
Like they all expected him to be a ball of rage. Maybe he was, but it wasn't the Becketts fault. They'd been.... lenient with him, even though things weren't going the way he'd wanted it to go. His plan had perhaps been... a little over-reaching. He'd under-estimated how not-normal he and his brother was, and how deficit they were in things that seemed startlingly simple. "I think we're adapting well. There haven't been any incidents. Everything's been... very nice here."
"I was a little concerned to hear about your excursion in the middle of the night, Rodney." Miss Keyes leaned forward. "Tell me truthfully, were you considering running away?"
"No. I wanted to get my things back. My books, my clothes, things that Grant should have back. And I didn't want to leave Grant alone through the day." He shrugged his shoulders, trying to not let her get under his skin.
"You took the Becketts youngest son with you?" she asked in that patronizing tone. "Why did you do that?"
"He volunteered to come. I tried to leave on my own, but he said that his parents would ground him if I left on my own." He wasn't even sure what the point of the question *was*.
"Do you like him?" the social worker asked.
"Carson? He seems nice, and he treats Grant well." That was a good ruling on whether he liked someone or not.
"Do you like him... a lot?" Her tone seemed to be insinuating something.
"I don't know what you mean. I helped him study math for his finals, while we watched TV with Grant." What did they think he was going to do, kill Carson in his sleep?
She smiled a little. "Okay. Lets discuss plans for the future. You're 16, Rodney. You've indicated that you want to be responsible for your brother, rather than have him placed."
Placed, he didn't even know what they meant by that. "I don't want to be separated from him again, no."
"Your brother needs a lot of assistance," the social worker said. "He's not likely to be able to function in society on his own, Rodney."
"So? He's my brother. I want to take care of him. I want him to have the kind of life he deserves." It didn't seem hard to understand for Rodney.
"Rodney, how is that going to work at college?" The social worker pointed out.
"He can go to college with me," Rodney countered. "I can take time off, or pick up some classes locally until he's gotten his GED."
"You would consider moving college to accommodate him?" He wasn't sure why she sounded faintly surprised by this fact.
"Yes. If he can't get into Northwestern after he gets his GED, I, there's plenty of good colleges up here. Close in this area, I mean, University of Western Ontario's just here, and they have a decent engineering school to finish undergrad in." He leaned forward a little, leaning his elbows on his knees. "I'm brilliant. I'll do fine wherever I go, and it's just *undergrad*."
"We can help find you a college here, so you can have a base here," Miss Keyes said. "And Grant can have a stable base as well. The Becketts are more than happy to have you stay here."
"Okay. I want to be able to help Grant study towards his GED, so I plan to take at least the summer off. He's fine on math and sciences, but history and English..." Rodney shrugged. "I'd like that opportunity. To stay here."
"Well that's good. Why don't you look at what colleges are appropriate in the vicinity and then I'll do some paperwork for you okay?"
"University of Western Ontario," Rodney reiterated. "I looked at it back when I applied around the first time. It was my third choice, and they've already accepted me once." And he figured that it was maybe, *maybe* a fifteen minute drive to campus from where they were. Maybe 20. Not bad at all. "I preferred Northwestern down in the states at the time because I wanted to get away."
"Okay, if you are sure," she said. "I should be going now, unless there is anything else that you want to ask?"
"No, nothing I can think of." Just that he didn't like the general line of her questioning, and he didn't know what she was trying to imply with half of the questions. There was no reason for her to be surprised that he'd uproot his life for Grant. Without Grant... There wasn't a life.
As they stood, the door burst open, and Carson almost literally burst in and grabbed Rodney in a hug worthy of Grant. "Rodney, you bloody genius! 99%! 99%! That's what I got -- A+!"
"Hah! I told you you were smart enough for it!" Carson was contagious in his enthusiasm, and Rodney hugged him back, briefly, grinning. "You had those equations *down*. I knew it!"
"We need to celebrate, all of us need to celebrate!" He hadn't really seen Carson really smile since he had been there, and the effect was somehow dazzling. He then seemed to notice the social worker.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize Rodney was with someone."
"Mrs. Keyes, this is Carson, you've probably met before." Rodney pulled back a little. "She was just leaving, and Grant and your mother are baking *things* in the kitchen."
Mrs. Keyes was looking between the two of them. "Yes, well I'll have a talk with Mrs. Beckett another time. Congratulation on your grade."
"Thank you Mrs. Keyes," Carson said politely.
"Bye." Rodney was going to shadow her to the door, more than old enough to know to see someone out of the house and lock the door behind him.
She left but she was suspiciously looking over her shoulder at him all the time as she walked to her car.
"So..." Carson said. "Back to making plans."
"We were making plans? I really don't think the social worker likes me, and I'm trying to be nice to her, but..." Rodney closed the door and turned towards Carson.
"Ignore her. She thinks she knows more about you and it's all rubbish," Carson said waving a hand to dismiss her suspicions. "Celebration plans. My exams are over, school is over, and I can finally get some sleep and just relax."
"Sleep is for the weak," Rodney scoffed, half leading the way back through the living room towards the kitchen. "What kind of celebration?"
"Something. Anything?" Carson was just beaming at anything and everything as they entered the kitchen.
Rodney couldn't remember ever being that excited about his grades, even though they were that good. He held the door open for Carson, and ducked in to see Grant carefully stacking cookies on a cooling rack.
Grant glanced at them and smiled. He smiled a lot more now, that mirror of his smile, quirked on the other side. "Carson is home. I've made cookies Carson! Look. I mixed them myself and cut them and then we baked them for twenty minutes and then a little more until they were just right. I put chocolate in them! We are going to have them soon. "
"That we will, when they are a wee bit cooler." Carson's mum turned to her son and asked. "Good day, lovey? How were the results?"
"Great!" Carson said practically bouncing. "A+ all the way mum!"
It felt normal. It felt like watching TV shows of normal people's lives felt like, and Grant seemed to be settling in better than Rodney was. Rodney wandered over to Grant's side of the table, eyeing the precise spacing between each cookie, a buffer-space of what looked like 4mm. "So, what's so special about 4mm?"
"It will let me fit them on the rack," Grant said. "And… and it is nearly Pi. Pi for cookies."
Carson chuckled. "I like that. Pi for cookies - very appropriate, Grant."
If Grant could've gotten it to precise Pi, he would've. Rodney grinned, and leaned in to hug him. "You've been more productive with your day than I have."
"E... Everyone likes cookies," Grant answered. "You like cookies don't you, Rodney?"
"I definitely like cookies," Carson said. "Especially yours."
"I love cookies," Rodney affirmed, pulling away and rubbing at Grant's back a little. "And they look great."
Carson's mum smiled. "Well, we ought to celebrate tonight somehow. Carson, do you want to choose what we want for dinner?"
"Oh um.." He looked at Grant and Rodney. "What would you like?"
The shrug that Rodney gave was probably infuriating. "Anything. It's your celebration, Carson. Exams are over now, you can finally relax, etc etc?"
"Yes but I want to do that with you guys," Carson said. "Okay, pizza or roast? I can't decide on either?
"How about pizza?" Shona suggested, and Rodney nudged Grant a little.
"You remember pizza, right?"
"Pizza? I liked pizza!" Grant said. "You brought me pizza Rodney....and and it was nice cold."
"Hot pizza is better." Carson added. "Let's do that. Pizza with everything."
"No pineapples. I'm never sure if they're citrus or not." It wasn't a risk he was willing to take, because what if they flavored them with citric acid? He'd had a run-in with too much of that, and it had put him off of anything like that tang for life.
"We can have different types. " Carson promised. "We've got a takeout menu here, we can look at it."
"There were vegetables on it." Grant announced.
"Green peppers and onions," Rodney agreed, eyeing a cookie before he reached out to adjust it just perfectly.
"Vegetable pizza is good," Carson agreed going over to look at the corkboard where the Beckett family pinned everything. "Here we go. I like their spicy chicken."
"Your father's working overnight tonight, so we could get one of each and put anything that's left in the fridge for tomorrow." Shona took the sheet, and Rodney leaned into Grant, seeping into the feeling of closeness.
"Spicy chicken sounds good, too. So, how long until we can try a cookie?"
"At least another twenty minutes or so. " Shona said. "So shoo now the lot of you." She flapped her apron at them. "Go do what teenage boys do, whatever that is."
"If one of you two figure it out," Rodney declared lightly, "I'd appreciate it if someone told me." Grant was already moving for the door, though, and Rodney shadowed behind him gratefully.
They headed to what they regarded as their living room, which had a certain lived in look. Carson collapsed on the old couch with an exaggerated sigh.
"Do you all usually have that woman for a social worker?" Rodney asked, watching Grant sit down happily cross-legged on the floor.
"Mrs. Keyes?" Carson shrugged. "Not always. To be frank, I don't much like her."
Which was amazing, as Carson seemed to not have a bad word about anyone.
"She kept asking if I *liked* you. And then we talked about me changing universities, which won't be a problem because I've already been accepted into Western Ontario once before and I'm not leaving Grant any time soon." He lifted his eyebrows at his brother. "I feel like we should do something."
"What do you want to do?" Carson said. "I've got time now. I can do things, we can go places, just us three."
Rodney didn't know. He was expected to know, and Rodney just... didn't know. "What does... what do people usually do?"
"A good question," Carson said, "I am not exactly the most social person myself. But they go to the moves. Go out ...to sports, hockey, bowling, things like that. To plays, to places. Out for walks. Shopping... work on cool things."
"Work on cool things I think we can do. Grant, what do you want to do this summer?" He shifted, stretched out to flop on the floor. "Have you been in the backyard yet?"
"I, I went in the backyard for a little while, yes," Grant nodded holding on to the fluffy tiger toy Carson had given him. "It was bright and green and I saw a squirrel. Shona said the bird feeder had fallen down. I like birds."
"Did you like it back there? Outside, I mean. There's a lot of stuff to do outside, but only once it's comfortable for you." He remembered the look of terror and mixed up wonder that had clung to Grant's face the entire car ride to the house.
"There is a lot of blue. It was not too bad. Shona gave me an umbrella to start with so there was something above me," Grant said. "And showed me that the sky was full of things. I want to see the stars, Rodney, can we do that?"
"Yeah." At night it might be a little less wide and all enveloping, Rodney decided, tucking his hands behind his head. "You mind a little stargazing, Carson?"
"I think I'd enjoy that. We could start in the garden and then maybe take a trip out of town away from the lights some time," Carson said. "You know about stars?"
"Oh yeah. We know about stars," Rodney grinned, closing his eyes. "Grant hasn't seen them, but we had books and I made a correction in a few."
"Maybe in August we can watch the Perseid shooting stars," Carson suggested.
"Mmm." Rodney shifted, wiggled just enough to get the vertebrae at the lower half of his spine to crack. "Let's see, if we go out tonight... We'll at least get the big dipper and associated stars.”
"We'll make hot chocolate," Carson said and grinned.
"Hear that, Grant..." He was half aware that someone was laying down beside him, and that someone was Grant. "Hi."
"Why're we on the floor?"
"Because I've taken up the couch," Carson said ruffling at Grants hair.
Rodney watched that motion, and Grant's relative ease with Carson being in his personal space. That was good, that Grant was getting okay with other people other than Rodney. They needed wider experiences, and Grant needed all of the attention and love in the world.
He laughed, and pulled Grant closer. "Oof, well, that's a good answer."
"Just be grateful my brother Collin isn't here, he'd have you in a headlock by now," Carson said ruffling Rodney's hair,
"Why?" He liked the familiarity of Grant stretched out beside him, a mirror image at his side. It was nice to just... relax there, wondering what they were going to do with their time.
"Because that's what older brothers do. Well... Collin anyway. Allan didn't do that so much, although Isobel would," Carson said. "It was quiet for a while when they moved out."
"We don't... put each other in headlocks," Rodney shrugged. They touched, a lot, and when they were alone they did things with each other, but hurting Grant was just beyond the pale.
"Well, it's more rough and tumble," Carson answered. "At least they won't be able to tease me about grades thanks to both of your help."
Grant leaned into him and yawned. "I like cooking,"
"Yeah? I'm pretty bad at it. I did work out how to use the coffee pot in my dorm room to cook anything, but I wouldn't call it good. Your cookies looked really good, Grant." Still smelled good. Rodney opened his eyes a little more, looking at Carson upside down.
Carson grinned at him. "Gotta learn to cook in this house, even if we're getting take-out tonight as a treat."
"I like you," Grant said randomly.
It was hard to not smile. "Wide praise," he decided, waving at Carson with his free hand. "I remember, when we were little, our father had a telescope. I can't remember anything we saw through it, but I remember *it*." White, and it leaned in the corner, the front wrapped in cloth, and then it went away. Just like their father, just like a lot of things.
"We, we saw the moon and mare imbrium which was the sea of rains, and then we saw Venus and Jupiter," Grant said.
Carson paused a moment. "Rodney, how old were you then?"
"Three. Everything went to hell a couple of weeks later." He turned a little, watching Grant's face. "Now do you see why I keep saying that Grant's going to be amazing once he gets the chance? I'm right, you will, Grant."
"Yes... yes. " He smiled shyly and glanced at Rodney and then at Carson. "I remember everything I've… I've ever seen. Ever."
That had Carson's attention. "You have an eidetic memory? Do you have perfect pitch as well?"
"Perfect pitch?" Rodney moved, leaned up a little, careful to not unsettle Grant's comfortable position when he did so. "Why would he?"
"I read one of dads medical journals that said there is a strong link between the two... here, there's a piano in Isobel’s room, do you want to try?"
"You have a piano here? Just sitting here?" He hadn't been able to play the piano in well over a year, because he hadn’t been 'able' to earn the privilege over Christmas holiday. Jeannie had instead labored over it, and he'd had to listen to her complain that she hated it.
The fact that he had Grant up and on his feet in *seconds* was, of course, completely unrelated.
"Aye, I'm no good at it, but Mairi and Jamie were and Isobel. Collin went for guitar, and Aileen can play violin brilliantly. Mum plays the piano sometimes. Dad and I can just about sing, but not play an instrument," Carson explained.
"Rodney! Piano?" Grant picked up on his excitement.
"Yeah, a piano." He'd always promised that he'd teach Grant to play, with a real piano instead of keys drawn on paper and no foot pedals and only a few sheets of music to work from. "Can we?"
"You can play?" Carson asked, eyes wide. "C'mon, follow me."
It was hard to not drag Grant with him physically while they followed Carson out of the room and down the hallway, and Jesus, these people just had a piano lurking in someone's bedroom.
"Here we go. Not a grand or anything, but decent enough. At Christmas we take it downstairs for singing and carols," Carson gestured. "Help yourself Rodney."
"Gladly." It was just a little thing, a home piano, and Rodney lifted the key cover with reverence. "Oh, and I bet it needs tuning, but this is fantastic... Grant, c'mere. This is a *real* piano."
"Not paper keys," Grant said, even as Carson dragged the piano stool over for them.
"Go on, play me something," Carson said with a grin.
Rodney shoved the stool under Grant, and sat him down firmly. "Real piano, real keys. Go on, give it a try," Rodney encouraged.
Grant sat and bent right over the keys, looking at them from about six inches away from the key that he pressed and was intent on the sound. He pressed another and giggled.
Then he looked at Rodney and placed his fingers on the keys and moved them as he had on the paper keys they made.
He had a problem to start with, where he didn't depress the key, fingers dragging against the side of keys, but soon he adjusted for that, and Rodney only half-heard Mrs. Beckett come into the room. It didn't matter that it was the same three pages of music that Grant was running over and over.
She gently tapped Grant on the shoulder to stop him after the tenth repetition, but the look on Grant's face was like he'd discovered a new world. "Music!"
"I had no idea you could play, Grant... Rodney?" Shona asked.
"I showed him on paper, and I played for a while..." He glanced up at her. "I, is this all right? Using the piano?"
"Of course sweetheart," Shona said, patting his shoulder, "Can I hear you play?"
"I'd like that too," Carson said from where he had faded into the background once again.
Carson was exceptionally good at it, blending away. "Oh, uh, Grant was..." Except Grant moved over like lightning, and with room on the bench, there was no reason to not sit down and play a little.
Even when his mother belittled his playing it was a means of escaping, of getting lost in the music. He'd gone to every extra class he could after school to stay away from home the longest he could.
He wanted to play, he didn't care if he wasn't anything but technical, and he wanted it.
Fingers on the keys were familiar, and Grant at his side was new and amazing, and he liked that, the familiarity that carried with him to an old hobby. He knew Chopin well, though it started off unsteadily, and he stopped to restart, and it was just Piano Concerto No. 1, but it was *playing*.
A little while longer and the notes began to flow, flow enough he could close his eyes and feel the music like mathematics falling into water, liquid perfection of sound.
He'd missed that, losing himself in it, whether he was really any good at it or not. He wasn't a concert pianist, never would be -- too clumsy, too artless, just one more thing for his mother to grind into him. But he enjoyed it, and he had Grant by his side.
He'd been to the bathroom, unable to settle with the nights warmer than normal and he'd been sure he'd heard noise from Rodney's room, as if he cried out.
Maybe he was having a nightmare or something. Carson wasn't going to walk past if he had been crying out to him. Tentatively he pushed at the door about to say "Rodney?" when he stopped.
Stopped, and suddenly wished that he'd just stayed in his room, that he wasn't seeing a damn thing, that he'd ignored that noise, because he could see too much by the light of the window into Rodney's room. Bare skin, two bodies worth of it, and one of them on top of the other, and it was impossible to tell without hearing words, seeing expressions which one was which.
There was sleeping with your brother and *sleeping* with them.
He didn't know what to do, he stood there rooted to the spot. Sure, he knew they would be fucked up but this...this he wasn't ready to see and if Mrs. Keyes found out...
They'd be separated, and Rodney would probably be pressed with charges or something because she was that sort of woman, hard and no nonsense, except that it would ruin both of their lives and Carson had no idea what to do.
He stood there just long enough to be sure one of them had seen him and then disappeared to his room. What was he going to do? Jesus! He wasn't sure he could talk to his mum or dad. They'd have to report it or something.
And then things would fall apart, and he *liked* Rodney and Grant. He liked them, but he certainly wasn't qualified to help anyone get over an urge to fuck their own brother, or whatever they'd been doing in there. There'd been an awful lot of introducing them to the nicer things in life in the house since they'd come, but not much in dealing with the wrongs that had been done against them, and what the effects were.
And lord, he wasn't capable of handling it, at all. He was still months away from 16.
This always happened. Somewhere along the line it screwed up big time, traumas, nightmares, self harm, suicidal impulses, stealing, bullying, and acting out. He sat on the edge of his bed thinking and thinking. The only way to do this was to not let anyone know and try and fix things enough. Some problems were...okay, others like this were not.
If he'd walked in there and caught Rodney trying to cut his wrists, all would've been well. He knew what to do with self-harm or suicidal impulses. Or stealing, or acting out, or... This was new in his field of experiences. Rodney and Grant, having sex.
He was suddenly in a position to screw up their lives and, even more disturbingly there was another emotion there he didn't recognize in himself. Something hot and flickering and unknown.
Fuck. This was not okay, so very far from being okay.
He was thinking hard about going to wake his mother up despite his fears, when there was a quiet tapping at his door.
"Come in," he murmured. "Come in..." It was barely a whisper but it was audible.
The door pushed open slowly, and then closed slowly behind the other boy, and Carson guessed it was Rodney because Grant hadn't learned how to sneak yet. "I... hi."
"Rodney." Carson looked at him. "I guess…you saw me?" he asked.
"Yeah. I uh, over Grant's shoulder." He had pajama bottoms on, but no shirt, and his cheeks looked red.
"We need to talk about this Rodney," Carson said, and he didn't want to be the one talking. "What you were doing... you know? It's, it's wrong Rodney."
"We've, we've done that for years." It was all Rodney offered as he came closer into the room. "I, Grant wasn't sleeping well and we kissed and it just led to this. It's a comfort."
"I get that," and he really did. He could barely comprehend some of the things he had found out about Rodney and Grant's life before, but he could see how they only had each other and they'd been taught sex was the coinage of love as part of their abuse. He patted the bed next to him. "But...it's, it's incest Rodney and against the law, and..."
It could mean big, big trouble.
He probably needed to spell that out for Rodney, too. "Oh. It, we don't..." Rodney sat down, and ran a hand through his hair. "It's not hurting anyone."
"Oh god, Rodney, don't make me be the responsible one here," Carson said in a near groan. "Look, okay, I *know* you'd never hurt Grant, I know you love him, but you've got to understand this. I'm talking about social services, the police. They think Grant is... disabled, they’d think you were doing to him what your mother was doing to you."
Rodney's expression, carefully controlled until then, crumpled, and he looked sick. "I'm not, I *wouldn't*, it's not like that."
"I know that Rodney, but...to them we're still kids!" Carson replied. "Never mind you been through more than most adults will ever see. I… I don't want them to take either of you away, but if they find out they'll split you up."
"I... I can't talk about this. I have to get Grant out from under the bed. I, it won't happen again. It never happened at all." And then Rodney was standing up to leave.
"Rodney, please." Carson felt completely shitty about this. "Rodney...I need you to tell me about stuff okay? I won't tell mum or dad."
"I don't know what to tell you!" He hissed it, still quiet. "I have a really shitty basis for right and wrong, and something we've been doing for years is apparently comparable to what mother did to us, so I don't know anymore. I have to go calm down Grant."
"Go and calm him down," Carson said in a soft voice. "I'm... not doing this to hurt you. I'm trying to help you both."
"I..." He rubbed a hand through his hair again, and he looked sick, distressed. "No, it's, I have no idea what's right and what's wrong anymore."
"Then I'll help you, but.." Carson reached to touch him. "Look, mum and dad don't have a choice, if they find out they have to tell the authorities by law. I'm a kid, I don't have to say anything. We've gotta keep this quiet. Grant needs to know as well without tipping anyone off."
"I'll talk to him." Rodney seemed to think he could get through to Grant, and maybe he could. It was hard to imagine Grant being at all deceptive though. "And it won't happen again."
There was something in his tone though. "Rodney, we're okay aren't we? I mean, you're not going to start avoiding me or anything, are you?"
"I'm not thinking that far ahead. Look, I, I need to get Grant out from under the bed. He likes small spaces." And with that, Rodney pulled the door open.
"You need help or would that make it worse?" Carson offered feeling sick to his stomach as well.
Rodney hesitated, and then murmured, "Yeah, sure. C'mon." He supposed that if they were loud enough for their parents to inspect, he'd just say that Grant had had a nightmare. With Grant, he supposed he could get away with a naked nightmare kind of excuse, because last week the hot water heater had glitched, and spurted out cold water instead of warm, and Grant had raced naked around the house like an injured cat until Rodney had corralled him with a towel and escorted him back up to the bathroom.
He followed Rodney into the room and at first glance it seemed like there was no one in there. He would've said it wasn't possible for Grant to get under the bed but he seemed to have squeezed himself in there somewhere. But when they bent down, there was the glimmer of dim light catching on the whites of eyes.
Rodney crouched down, eyeing Grant quietly for a moment before he simply said, "Hi. You want to come out?"
"N-No," Grant replied shortly.
"We'd really like it if you did." Carson added.
Rodney held a hand out, moving slowly. "C'mon. It's more comfortable out here."
"No," Grant said again. "You, you ran away from me." The tone was accusing at Rodney.
"That was my fault, Grant," Carson put in hastily. "My fault not Rodney's okay?"
"I saw Carson in the doorway, and..." And Rodney didn't know what to say, just stayed crouched there a hand held out. "We need to talk. I wasn't running from you."
Grant seemed to think about this for a moment, then reached his hand out to Rodney even as Carson exhaled with relief.
"Don't like talking . That means bad things," Grant said as he wriggled out.
“Yeah, but it's you and me," Rodney insisted, helping Grant get out, reaching for Grant's pajama bottoms. "Carson, could you close the door?"
"Sure," Carson obeyed the suggestion, hoping that his mum hadn't picked up on them all being up. When he turned back Rodney was helping Grant put on his pajamas again.
"Why did you run away?" Grant asked. "Everything was, was fine. Did I do something wrong?"
"No, no, it was, it was good, it's just. Carson says we shouldn't do that anymore. That if the social worker or his parents knew, they'd split us up. Because they'd think it's just like what mom did to us." Rodney looked queasy, even as he handed Grant a t-shirt to wear.
Grant looked completely perplexed. "I… I don't understand." He said. "It feels good?"
"It feels good," Rodney agreed. "Except it's bad. Because we're brothers. *I* don't think it's bad, but if other people found out..."
"They wouldn't just split you up," Carson said quietly. "They would make sure you never saw Rodney again."
Grant looked stricken. "Never? Mum said never. I don't want it to be n...never."
"I don't know what they'd do with you, so we can't, we can't do that anymore. We can't. I don't want to lose you." Rodney edged in closer, like he was drawn by that stricken look, and hugged Grant.
"I can be good," Grant murmured , so softly and broken that Carson felt tears sting in his eyes at sound of it.
"We won't let them split you up," Carson put in. "I promise Grant."
"We'll both be good. We just, we can't do that anymore. That's all." Rodney hugged Grant closer, shifting towards the bed to sit down. "We'll just sleep. Not... the other, not anymore."
"But... but you don't love me anymore?" Grant asked,
Carson groaned. That was exactly the sort've thing that would trigger a bad reaction by adults.
"No, no, I do. I do love you. We just, we can't do *that* any more. If we do, they'll put me somewhere bad, okay? I still love you. You're Grant."
"But..." Grant seemed confused.
"People don't have to have...sex to love other people, Grant," Carson said aiming it at Rodney as well. "You do that outside of people in your family."
Rodney was just nodding, while he shifted and pulled Grant to sit down with him on the bed. "Not me."
"That's one of the things they think was so bad with your mum," Carson tried to explain. "For a parent to do that to their children, it's really bad."
It didn't seem to deter Rodney from rubbing fingers restlessly along Grant's back. "So, we just can't do that anymore. Or talk about ever... ever having done it. Okay?"
"Okay.” Grant acquiesced to that, soothed by the touch. "Not talk." He mimed zipping his lips and throwing away a key.
"Okay." Rodney still looked miserable, but he nodded. "Okay. Think you can go back to sleep now?"
"Yes. Yes, sleep now," Grant said after unzipping his lips again and Carson exhaled with relief.
He hadn't thought it would work, and then everything would've gone to heck, and he didn't want that. He'd just wanted to talk, no... but at least he'd been the one to see it, not his mum or his dad. It was something to be grateful for. Rodney looked at Carson and nodded.
"Night."
A dismissal then. He nodded a little and backed out of the room. He still felt sick, disturbed but he'd have to live with that.
He and Carson were going out. His confiscated car keys were duly handed over, and he and Carson were turned loose on the city, which left him hoping that Carson had a plan, because he just had a vague, wild hopes and plans and a little pocket money and no idea at all what to do with it.
"So, you have preferences?" Carson asked as they got in the car. "It's good to get out of the house."
"It is." Rodney stretched once he was in the driver's seat, looking for the brake with his foot. "No preferences. I was hoping you might have some."
"Well, I think we should do some things just for you," Carson replied smiling a little. "You do all this stuff for Grant, you need to have your own life. Believe me, with six brothers and sisters I know how that is."
"That still doesn't help me figure out what we should do," Rodney shrugged. "I, I never really had a life before, so..."
"Well I have some things booked that I thought might give you tasters of things to be interested in," Carson said. "First stop is only about fifteen minutes away but we have to be there by ten. Take a left at the end of the road and keep driving for a couple of miles."
"Okay. Tell me when to turn," Rodney prompted, starting his Vega up. It rumbled to life, tried to stall, and then caught and kept going. "Do you do much car repair?"
"Me? Not so much. We should take this one to the garage today as well, get it looked at," Carson said.
"I can show you a little car repair," Rodney offered, grinning as he started to drive it forward. "Maybe later we could try the library and see if we can find a manual?"
"Definitely need to get you all set up with access to all the books that have ever existed," Carson said as they took the route he'd indicated. "Right when we reach the second set of lights."
Rodney leaned to make sure there wasn't anyone in the other lane, and then he made that right. "Okay. So, library is definitely something for later. I really want to start Grant studying for his GED. Your mother probably thinks I'm insane."
"No, she knows Grant is smart, and he'll absorb information like a sponge. She's trying to teach him social stuff. People things." Carson glanced at him. "When Grant's explaining things he knows about he stops stuttering and… well he sounds like you."
"People things are hard." He still felt shaken from that night when Carson had caught he and Grant having sex, from being told that something he'd always accepted as normal wasn't.
"Aye." Carson waited a moment. "Stop at the house there, the one with the roses at the front, see it?"
They weren't red, but coral-ish, and Rodney carefully parked in front of the house. "Okay. I'm assuming we're here for a reason...?" He turned the car off warily once it was in park.
"Oh yes," Carson smiled. "You'll like it, I promise. We're here to see Professor Verenzo. She's had the dubious honor of teaching the Beckett family music, with varying degrees of success. I thought you might like to try a lesson with someone who could actually teach you something."
"She -- piano?" Rodney asked hopefully as he popped his door open with care. "Are we here for piano?"
"Proper piano," Carson said beaming. "She's very good and I think she will be delighted to have a talented pupil."
"I'm not talented," Rodney dismissed, even as he watched Carson open the woman's yard gate.
"You really are, Rodney," Carson answered. "I find it strange you know how good you are mentally, but can't see that musically." He rang the bell when they reached the door.
"Mom stopped paying for my lessons when I was 12. Jeannie was 4ish and wanted to start taking ballet, or she wanted her to start taking ballet. My teacher said I was mechanical anyway. That it was pointless to keep going."
Carson looked at him. "Rodney, has it ever occurred to you that she was lying? I've heard you play. You are so much better than that."
"Yes it's occurred to me that she was lying, but... I haven't had good practice in years, is all," Rodney shrugged, and then the door opened, and he was really glad it wasn't his old teacher.
"Well, Carson, you are looking well," Professor Verenzo said smiling. "This is Rodney, yes?"
"Yes, he's very good, Professor," he said.
"Come in, come in," she beckoned. "Welcome."
"Thank you. Carson, uh, said that you're going to, uh, that you taught his family instruments?” It was hard to not feel eager while he looked at her and around her living room.
"Indeed I have. I am afraid that Carson has not been one of my best pupils, as he would say himself, but he has been very high in his praise for you. This gives me hope. It is a teacher's most fulfilling dream to have a pupil that challenges them. I will see if you are that pupil." She moved steadily forward and gestured to the baby grand piano. "Come, sit. Sit. Let me hear your musical voice."
"Do you want me to just... sit down and play something?" He started towards the baby grand, and looked at it reverently.
"Yes. Play me something you like the most," she asked looking at him over the rim of her glasses. "Play something that means something to you."
He had to think about it for a minute. There were a lot of songs he knew well and enjoyed, but there were songs he knew well and didn't enjoy and then there were songs he hadn't played in a while and loved and hadn't played in a while because he loved them. "All right. I'll, uh..." He glanced at her, and then at Carson, and sat down and tried to decide.
Carson smiled encouragingly and sat down on a couch at the back of the room while the Professor took a seat near the piano and closed her eyes. "In your own time Rodney."
"It's been a while," he warned, before he found the fingerings, tested the keys for a moment before he started to warm up into the 1812 overture for piano.
She didn't interrupt him and, though he was self-conscious when he started, he soon let go of that and just slipped into the piece. It was one he remembered and enjoyed, and his fingers felt a little stiff but there it was, notes resonating, as they should be played.
He enjoyed the music, and he knew the historical background and he could wallow in something that rose up in his subconscious, just for a few minutes.
At the end of the piece, he left his fingers resting on the keys and exhaled and looked up to see Professor Verenzo watching him.
"And when did you learn that piece, Rodney?"
"I was eleven." Rodney twisted a little, still looking at her.
She pursed her lips and then rather shockingly slapped her hand down on the arm of her chair. "That such an ability should go unnutured... this is a travesty. You will be my pupil Rodney. You play with a maturity beyond your years."
He relaxed a little, and couldn't help but grin. "Oh, god, I didn't think I was any good, not after not having lessons for so long, thank you."
"You are good, Rodney, but there is a lot to learn before you are...superb," the musician replied. "And I doubt you will settle for less. Now, let us review this piece in sections. You know the notes, but your expression needs work. Your entrance needs to be bolder, decisive."
He'd forgotten a lot of it, but he wasn't going to argue with her. "All right. I can probably do that..."
He started to try it again, knowing that she was listening, and she stopped him, corrected, pointed out other choices, and they worked their way through the song like that, start to finish.
At the end of it he was exhilarated by what he discovered he could do, and Professor Verenzo was smiling. "Good. Good. You will practice, Rodney. We will go through all those pieces you can remember and then we will start on expanding your repertoire and skills."
"You might be surprised by how much I can remember." He had to be grinning ear to ear when he offered his hand to her. "Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm going to practice until the Becketts make me stop."
"Then practice what you know in light of what we have done here today, and I will see you at this time next week." She stood as she shook his hand. "Remember Rodney, living and experiencing is as important as practice to give your music depth. That, as much as anything, can be counted as practice."
"Thank you. This time next week, I'll be here promptly." There wasn't anywhere else for him to be, because he... he had a piano teacher. Again, and she escorted them outside and he waited until they were almost to the car before he mugged Carson into a brief hug. "You!"
"Was it a good idea?" Carson said, half laughing as he hugged back.
"This was a brilliant idea! I have a piano teacher again!" Even just for an hour every week, it was miraculous. He had someone to ask questions of, someone to ask for challenges.
"Well, I asked mum and I called the Professor a couple of nights ago and arranged a time," Carson said looking almost shy. "She said she would see you first. You really were amazing, Rodney."
"All right, maybe I was a little amazing, but I..." Had something to do in his copious free time.
Carson laughed at him again. "Well, I should've saved that until last. Next, we're going to go into town and see what you think of one of the arcades. They've got some pretty cool games there now which you'll either like or decide you could build a better one. What do you think?"
"Yeah. That sounds great. Just you and me and some video games." It felt decadent, and Rodney was almost shivering with anticipation of just... doing normal things. No consequences, no strings attached.
"Mum says it's good for me. She says it's not natural for someone to study as much as I do," Carson smiled a little as they walked to the car. "So I guess that goes for you as well. Plus I think she wants to gradually encourage Grant to do his own things as well."
"I'm sure he'll find his own things in time." Rodney unlocked his car, and settle back into the driver's seat. "So, when does she expect us back?"
"We have all day, Rodney. I thought we could eat out somewhere," Carson said. "I haven't spent any money for ages."
He sort-of knew that feeling, and nodded once Carson was settled into the car. "Okay -- you know any good places locally?"
"Well, a few. There’s some next to the arcade, so let's head there and see what you make of those first," Carson said. "I haven't played one for ages and Jamie said there were some good games out now. And you can get computers for the home and play them there as well. I'm hoping we might get one for Christmas or birthday."
"Really?" Right, but Carson's father was a doctor, so. So that was that, and how that was a possibility. "Wow. Okay, uh, what way am I turning?"
Carson directed him patiently through the streets to a parking lot next to the arcade. "You ever done this before?"
"Done what?" He parked, glanced around, then backed up and re-parked so he wasn't crooked.
"Go and hang out at an arcade. Try an amusement park? That sorta thing?" Carson asked.
He turned the car off, and shook his head. "No. I've had kind of a restricted..." He unbuckled his seat belt. "Life."
Carson nodded slowly. "Guess the first step is trying out things to see if you like them. We've got the summer."
"I want Grant to do these things, too, but..." He wasn't there yet. He could hardly leave the house, let alone just drive in randomly guided circles.
"He will, but he needs to have a little more exposure to the world first," Carson said. "It might be overwhelming if he does it too soon. Mum knows what she's doing. She'll get him used to doing things for himself at home. Then she'll do things like get him to go out to the park with her, and then maybe send him to post a letter at the mailbox on the corner for her. Then they'll go shopping, that sort of thing."
"Slow, right." He got out of the car, waiting for Carson to join him. On the one hand, he wished Grant were there. On the other hand, it was sort of nice to be doing something just for himself. With no worries that something horrible would happen to Grant if he did something for himself.
Carson at least knew enough to lead the way into the place, which was dark and filled with flashing lights and noise, and kids of all ages. "We'll need to get some change, then pick a game."
"Okay... Yeah." It was hard to not be overwhelmed for a moment, and Rodney turned around, twisting, and stumbling a little because it was loud and dazzling in there.
Carson was already up changing their dollars into handfuls of coins and he grinned at Rodney. "Let's see what looks good."
He had a handful of coins, and too many games with flashing lights on the top, neon and intriguing pictures on the sides. "Which ones are good?"
"I quite like Rampage," Carson gestured to one of the machines. "It's a wee bit more challenging than space invaders."
There was a King Kong on the side, and Rodney edged in closer to that one. "Okay, sure."
"Let's have a go. I'll show you my poor attempt at the game, then you have a go, then we can both play at the same time," Carson said.
He watched Carson start it up, picking a generic King Kong character after he slipped his coin in, and started to rampage his way up a small skyscraper while a military sort started to take shots at him. It was funny in a strange sort've way and Carson seemed to be focusing on it with great intent right up to the point where he said. "My brother Collin says he’s going to fly helicopters and planes like these."
"He's in the military?" There was a 'join now' option, and Rodney stepped up to join in, and got a Godzilla character to start on the skyscraper next door.
"Yeah, Airforce. I don't know if mum and dad were appalled or proud," Carson said. "Bugger!" His King Kong was in a bit of trouble.
"Here, I think you need to..." Rodney controlled his Godzilla over to stomp on the little military guys, and grinned. "See?"
Carson grinned back. "I had a feeling you'd be good at this," he said and after that it was easy to lose themselves in the games around them.
Before he knew it, most of the morning had gone one way or another, and by the time Carson laughingly called a halt on a game where Rodney was kicking his ass, he was astonished to find that he was hungry after all. Ravenous, in fact, as they went in search of food.
Burgers seemed to be the nearest options, right next door with onion luring them in.
Rodney did have food preferences -- in terms of choices, not pickiness. Presented with *that* many options, he went for the onion rings, and the burger, and the milkshake, and if they were going home right after he was going to get Grant one 'To Go'.
"So what do you want to do next?" Carson said as he sat down with his burger, picking at the fries.
"What, there's more?" He was taking his time with the food, dissecting an onion ring.
"Up to you. Could be," Carson shrugged. "I didn't know how much would be enough, you know? We could go look at the stuff in the computer shop, or music or videos if you like. You can hire out recent movies, or see what’s on at the movie theatre. Or… go to a bookshop, or we could just go home?"
He didn't want to go home yet. Rodney stretched a leg slightly, eyeing Carson instead. "No, I kind of just like this. It's nice. Relaxing. We could go by a bookstore?"
"Sure, I'd like to see if they got anything new in. Then, usually, because I'm a cheapskate, I go and order it at the library," Carson said with a smile. He took a big bite of his burger. "Mm. Did you have a cheeseburger in the end?"
"Yeah. They said they usually have bacon, but -- they listened when I said 'no mayo' which is great, so..." He shrugged, and picked it up to take another bite. "Mmhmp."
Carson snorted a little. "Don't choke, it's not running anywhere," he teased. "I think this is the first time I've seen you eat something without offering some to Grant."
"He's not here to offer it to." But he smiled when he said it because, hey, it was true. Rodney swallowed, starting to concentrate a little. "We always shared food. It's weird to not have to do that."
"Have to admit, we're not the best examples of that. Someone was always trying to swap something off of their plates while mum's back was turned." Carson smiled. "It became an art form at Sunday lunch."
"How?" He wasn't even sure how that would work, so he needed, wanted, Carson to explain it to him. It was completely unrelated to the fact that he wanted the meal to linger on.
"Well, Isobel hates cabbage, so she would swap it with Mairi for the carrots she wasn't keen on. Collin would try and steal Jamie's roast parsnips and would only get them in exchange for a roast potato. Allan and Aileen would have this battle with peas. Neither of them like them so they would keep trying to put them on each other's plates and they'd end up bouncing around the table," Carson said. "All this going on in the five seconds when mum turned her back to get the next dish."
"Wow." He laughed, and picked up another onion ring. "The dining room at home was... nothing like that. Quiet, except for Jeannie. My step-dad would wash the dishes afterward, and I'd take a half plate down to Grant as soon as I could get away with it."
"So, you weren't ever eating a full meal were you?" Carson asked. "And I've not heard you talk about Jeannie much either."
"She's nine. She's my baby half sister, and she was the apple of our mother's eye. Everything she'd ever wanted Grant and I to be." And he maybe resented her for it. "I hope she's okay."
"If your step father wasn't involved then I guess she'll be with him," Carson said. "I could ask Dad to find out for you if you want?"
"I'd appreciate that. He... As far as I *know*, he wasn't involved. He was either actively ignoring it, or he was just that stupid." It was almost enough to put a man off of his onion rings, but... fried breaded goodness was hard to give up on.
"People sometimes are...that stupid," Carson said. "Seen that happen a few times." In some ways, Carson had seen a lot of things, and in others he was very naive.
It was kind of funny, but Rodney supposed he was the same way. Sure, he knew about science and math and physics, but being *out* in the world was a hell of a different thing. "Yeah. That was... stupid. Sometimes I wanted to just grab him and shake him to get him to just... see. Except she didn't have qualms about killing."
"You'd had proof of that," Carson agreed. "I'd be terrified myself. For myself and the others."
"If what?" He took another sip of the milkshake, just letting it all filter into his senses.
"In case she did that again. To them or to you," Carson said. "I do have an over-active sense of empathy sometimes. Often leads one of my uncles to try ridiculous things to 'toughen' me up. Unsurprisingly, Collin is Uncle Moran's favorite."
Rodney grimaced around a mouthful of burger. "Because toughening people up is such a great idea. I think it's over-rated."
"Yes, well, he doesn't visit that often," Carson answered slurping at his milkshake. "Which is good. He is not one of my favorite relatives, but I have a lot of random fears due to him, like of deep water and heights."
"Tried to teach you to swim by throwing you in, did he?" Rodney lifted his eyebrows at Carson. "My step father thought that was a *fantastic* idea. And so was dragging me up stairs that had open backs, you know the ones where you think you're going to go all the way through it?"
"Oh bloody hell, yes," Carson shuddered. "But then on the other hand, Jamie and Mairi, who are fearless about that, faint at the sight of blood, whereas I've been watching dad's tapes on operations for a long time. I could do an emergency tracheotomy now if I had to."
"Is that the tube through the neck thing?" Rodney asked with a gesture to his neck.
"Yep." Carson beamed. "Dad showed me how to find the right spot. He used to do a lot of surgery before he specialized."
"Huh." Rodney took another bite of his burger, and stopped the lick cheese goo off of his fingers. "So, you're going to be a doctor some day."
"Yeah. Doctor and scientist. That's what I'd like to do, if I'm good enough. " Carson had finished his burger. "It's weird, out of all of us, I'm the only one following in Dad's footsteps. Allan works for some big bank and stock exchange. Aileen is a lawyer, Collin's in the air force, Jamie is a professional photographer and artist, but doing work for the big newspapers. Mairi works in the film industry as an artist with props and design. Isobel is a professional singer and actress, picking up small roles here and there, and I'm...well, they cast pretty big shadows in our family." Carson admitted.
"I like you," Rodney declared, never mind that it didn't mean much. "Your studying makes sense, though."
"I don't want to be the first Beckett failure," Carson said. "I'm not like you, Rodney, it doesn't come as easily as it does to you and Grant, but I'm glad you like me."
"I dream concepts, thoughts. And you keep saying that, Carson, but... I spent so long hearing her say there was something wrong with us that it catches on after a while. I wonder if maybe we'd both be young geniuses already on our way to world conquest if she just had have ignored us in a more normal way. Or potheads. With chaos theory, it's always so hard to guess like that."
Carson laughed at that. "Psychedelic fractals. Anyway, you finished? Let's go find a decent bookshop."
"Mmm, I still have onion ring dust..." Rodney dabbed it up with his fingertip, and stuck it into his mouth. "The milkshake comes with me, until we figure out where we're going. You know any good local ones?"
"Oh, one or two," Carson said with a smile.
Probably five or six. "I want to see if I can find a manual on that beast I've been driving, maybe work on making it better. You know, so we don't wonder if it's going to stall out or just explode when we come to a stoplight."
"You fill me with confidence in your car. I think we'll walk through to the book store," Carson commented. "It's close enough."
Rodney laughed a little as he stood up out of the chair. "Okay. Did I tell you that it broke down twice in my drive up here?"
"It's a bloody miracle we made it to the college and back intact," Carson said, stuffing his hands casually in his pockets. "If we find a book, can I help you work on it? Might convince Dad I know what I'm doing around a car."
"Yeah. I think I'd probably need an extra pair of hands, anyway, and I need to keep this car going for at least a few more years, so..." So, why not? And he could show Grant, because it seemed like something Grant would like, too. Mucking about with seals and hoses. He kept a good grip on the milkshake, waiting for Carson to edge towards the door with him.
Carson led the way again, chilled and relaxed in his jeans and t-shirt as they wandered down the street in search of the book shop. "You think Grant would like comics?" he asked, glancing over at him.
"Does. He does like them," Rodney corrected. "When I could get them to him. Superhero ones are the best."
"Place I'm thinking of has a section. We could go see what was new for him as well," Carson answered. "Might as well blow our allowance. How much have you got?"
"After dinner and the arcade, I've got five left." That was a couple of comics and a couple of books.
"Mum will give us an allowance a week, and usually she and Dad set up a chore list beyond our usual with price tags for each thing, like cleaning out the garage and you know, that sort've stuff. We quite often do stuff around the neighborhood as well, cut lawns and things to pay for extra. " Carson explained as they wandered up the sidewalk. "Mum and Dad say any money we make ourselves is ours to spend on whatever we want."
Rodney stuck his free hand into his pocket, and felt the couple of loose dollars and the coins in there. "How bad's the garage look, again?"
"It's pretty bad," Carson grinned. "Couple of lost civilizations in there somewhere. Mum will want to do a yard sale at some point as well. It's that time of year."
"What, summer?" He was following Carson's lead down the sideway, still working away on the last of his milkshake. "We can work on that."
"Yep, I intend to. " Carson binned his milkshake cup in the next bin.
Just one more thing to keep sort-of busy with, but Rodney was going to take it for the opportunity it was. With more to fill in their days, relaxation time started to feel like it was worth something.
The book store when they got there was massive, and everywhere he looked there were hundreds, thousands of books bright and shiny new, their spines uncracked, pages unthumbed apparently all competing for his interest. Carson was obviously as much of a book fiend as he was because he could barely force himself to walk past the shelves.
"Oh..."Carson paused by the new titles. "I've heard of this one. It's meant to be good." He picked it up. "Speaker for the Dead. It's the sequel to Ender's Game. You ever read that?"
"No. Mum called it trash." Rodney shrugged as he eyed some of the 'new' titles. He wasn't sure what he was looking for.
"I've got it at home," Carson said looking mildly horrified at the thought of one of his favorite books being described as trash. "I might have to get this... I think you'd appreciate Ender's Game. Anyway, we were looking for a book on your car?"
"Yes. And then we can get back to this," Rodney said, still staring at the covers, as if that was going to tell him more.
The section to do with cars and manuals was difficult to find partly because they were looking in a pokey corner and it was actually a prominent display, which was probably logical considering they were the reading material of a lot of men. "Here we go," Carson said. "Oh hey, science section. I'll just be here."
Rodney caught himself in the middle of a laugh when he heard Carson say that. "Okay, sure -- yeah. I'll be trying to find my car."
It was weird, browsing through all the things his mother had disdained. He kept wondering if someone was going to start shouting about how useless it all was and that he was an idiot for wanting it. Part of the problem was that his mother was smart, intelligent and completely nuts. But she was clever enough to talk convincingly around every opinion, so much so you had to have an ego of pure titanium to even hold on to your own opinion. Most people ended up nodding sagely and agreeing with her even if they had started off opposing her viewpoint.
And mostly, it had crushed a lot of things he knew he was interested in. He liked the piano, and he was going to practice as much as he could on that. He'd always liked to take things apart, and he had a car that needed some serious taking apart. He ended up selecting a semi-generic Chevy manual that had a chapter on the Vega and the quirks that were specific to it.
Carson was deeply immersed in half reading a book on new advances in medicine and barely noticed him up to the point where he right next to him, when he almost comically startled.
"Hi. Found what I was looking for. Two bucks. I've got enough to find something else." He waved it a little, pleased with the 1.99 on the back of it.
"Great, what else do you like? There are some good books around. Some we could get at the library though," Carson suggested.
"No, we're still going to the library. But, don't you ever want to own books, too?" He sort of had half a dream of someday having a whole room with nothing but all the books he liked.
"Oh yes, I just pick and choose otherwise I would be broke in a week," Carson replied with a shrug. "So I only buy the ones I definitely want. We should go look at one of the places we can get them second hand. We can get loads for a dollar at the right places. Or at yard sales."
Rodney looked down at the manual -- which he figured would be hard to come by -- and nodded. "Okay, then. Let me get this and then we'll go look for a used place."
The two of them ended up with one new book each and then as apparently used book stores worked on the principle that book lovers didn't like to walk far, it was only another couple of minutes walk to the next store. It was a small store, easy to walk past, but going inside was a little like disappearing into another dimension where walls were made of book, every surface was covered with them, some newish, some old and mold spotted, some with strange titles and esoteric interests.
"God I love this place. There's a little room upstairs too but you can hardly get up the stairs for books," Carson said in the hushed tones that seemed right to adopt in the presence of books.
"What's upstairs?" Whether it was interesting or not, Rodney was curious, and he felt less bad about fingering the spines of books that he passed, pulling one or two out to look at the covers.
"More books. I've got a feeling it's meant to be nonfiction upstairs," Carson said. "But I think the books migrate. Hmm, let's see what is in the science fiction and fantasy section."
He still had an eye for books with bright bindings, big or odd sizes, seeking those out more than the dark paper with white lettering that ran up the sides. He started to collect them at random from the shelves, things that caught his eyes -- big tall books, two that had been side by side. One of them had simply declared 'GNOMES' in black font on white binding, and another one beside it. There was a book with binding like a painting, sunset colors, and another with white and a skinny pale man holding a sword on the cover. There were more of those, funny titles, and a spear, and he finally sat down with his 'loot' to try to shuffle through what he could get and what was going to migrate back onto the shelf.
Carson came up after a while with what seemed like an armful. "What've you found? " he asked. "Is that a Michael Moorcock book?"
Rodney shuffled them into a stack. "Three of them, actually. This one looks like it has three books in it. And these have a lot of pictures, and I thought maybe I could read them to Grant. Are there prices for these books, or do you just take them up to the counter and hope?"
"It's usually written in pencil inside the cover. They don't run to stickers. I've got a whole series here for a dollar!" Carson was ecstatic about that. "David Eddings books, not tried him before. And then I got a couple of medical texts and a thriller."
"Oh..." Rodney flipped through the covers, and started to sort, organizing them from most costly -- the two big books with the pictures were 60 cents each, but he *wanted* them, and the rest of the pile came in cheap enough that he could get them all, odds and ends for 10 cents instead of 20 because the book had had coffee spilled on it and other problems. But it was the words that mattered more than how it looked, and the one that smelled like coffee might be extra appealing.
"Got enough?" Carson asked, grinning a little. "I've got a bit left if you need it."
"No, I should be all right. Tax included," Rodney decided, gathering them up into his arms again. "I like this place."
"One of my favorite places ever," Carson said. "Just don't tell Collin that, he thinks I'm enough of a nerd as it is."
Rodney snorted, still hugging books to his chest. "You're talking to a fellow book lover. Do your other siblings visit often? I'm almost scared to meet this Collin."
"Mum will give us warning, but they will be dropping in every now and then. But they usually give new arrivals time to settle some first. Whatever happens, they will be here for Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's like one long eating extravaganza."
"Huh. I'm, it'd be nice to have a normal sort of holiday." For years it had been *nothing*, and then it was that half holiday that was for Jeannie and for his stepfather, the moron, but not for him. "So you all eat from October right on through the New Year?"
"Pretty much," Carson agreed as they went to pay for their finds. "Mm, mum will cook a feast. I think she would've happy if I'd become a chef as well. We'll make everything you can possibly think of and then eat it all. We'll be drafted in. Then there will be decorating for Christmas and the lights saga. Always the lights saga. Lots of snow and usually a big snowball fight on Christmas Eve."
"The lights saga?" Rodney asked as he piled his books onto the counter and smiled at the woman at the till.
"Getting them to work properly and untangled," Carson answered. "Or a bulb will blow just when we got them on the tree."
"Ah, yeah. We did that. I'm pretty good at fixing those -- it's that they make them in a series." They'd always had a bizarrely pretty tree, from the times he could remember.
"You'll be the first person who can," Carson packed up his books carefully. "We better head back soon actually. Mum will want help with dinner."
"Library tomorrow, maybe?" The more books the better as far as Rodney was concerned, and he handed the woman his money with a grin once she'd tallied them up. Still not completely broke, either -- a whole five cents left. He pocketed it with a grin, and gathered the books up.
"Library tomorrow," Carson agreed with a nod. "I think Grant will love his stories."
"The pictures looked pretty interesting. There were mechanical bits I saw, pulleys and things, so..." Rodney gestured with his elbow. "Can you grab my keys out of my pocket?"
Carson reached over and fumbled on his pocket. "Here we go," he said as they navigated their way out of the shop. "I've got 'em."
"Thanks. Pop the hatchback and we can head home. What else did you get?" he asked and just for a moment it felt like a perfect moment on a perfect day. He had experienced music, good food, fun that was interesting, the delight of new books and old bargain books to read and most surprising of all, he realized, he had a friend who smiled at him and who wanted to be with him. If that didn’t make it a perfect day, he didn’t know what would.
It had taken a while to get used to outside because the sky went on forever and that was new, but night times were easier because dark was familiar at least and Grant liked familiar, but he was also getting a definite taste for new as well. Tonight they were doing something new, and Rodney hadn't done this either, though Carson had, and that was a nice balance of old and new right there.
"We… we have to look towards the constellation of Perseus," Grant said as they settled with their flask of hot chocolate and snacks that had been packed for them. "Then there will be meteors. Many of them. Best night."
"Who's got my blanket and sleeping bag?" Carson asked. "It's warm now, but it gets colder as the night goes on."
"Right here." Rodney was setting it down, and Grant knew that they were supposed to treat it like the sofa, not the *bed*, which was different but made sense, too. Sofas were different kinds of sleeping, and it meant clothes on, which was good if it was getting colder because clothes kept toes and arms warm. Even the short sleeved shirts.
"Best time will be in... 59 minutes," Grant offered. It was exciting. They were out away from city lights and he could count a lot more stars than he had when they had looked at the stars from the back yard. He looked, his memory swallowing the sky whole, finding the patterns of constellations and drawing pictures around them in his head. He had read all the astronomy books he could find before they came out, because then it meant he was prepared.
Then he *knew*, and he was going to see bolts of light pass through so many constellations, blowing mythology apart, and it was hard to not grin. Rodney was pouring out cups of cocoa, quick to close the thermos to keep heat in. "Here we go. This really is going to be beautiful."
"Yeah." Carson settled back. "You're not cold, Grant?"
"No, no. It's warm enough." Shona had been telling him to think more about speaking and he tried to do it the best he could. He was learning a lot at the moment which was good, but sometimes hard when it was a lot of things all at once. "I am comfortable."
They'd been doing a lot of reading and writing, and it wasn't that he couldn't read -- Rodney and him had worked on that years ago -- but that there were things in words, meanings tucked into them, implications, and it left him feeling a little out of his league, but interested. History was neat, too, and Rodney still did math and science bits with him when he wanted to work through things in his comfort zone. "Good." Rodney passed a cup over to him, then to Carson, and settled in beside him on the sleeping bag, leaning back enough to look up.
"I can see...Orion." Grant pointed up at the stars that were distinctive. "There is Rigel and Betelgeuse which is spelt strangely, and Bellatrix, Alnilam and Alniltak and they are all bits of Orion. There are others too."
“Okay, and what's beneath him?" Rodney pressed, and that was easy. That was Lepus, which made for a really big rabbit if they were all supposed to be on scale with each other.
"Oh, wait I know that one," Carson said. "Lepus, right?"
"Yes, Lepus. And there is Sirius,” Grant pointed out. "The Dog Star. I like dogs."
"I think that's a hint," Rodney mused, leaning shoulder to shoulder with Grant. It was nice. It wasn't close like they'd been before, but it was nice.
Rodney had explained quietly in the voice he used when he was very serious, in the tone he used when he was going to college. He had listened. He never wanted to lose Rodney. He knew what it felt like to be without him.
"Just a small one," Carson grinned. "Still haven't managed to tame a squirrel though, Grant."
"Lassoing it wasn't the best idea I've ever had," Rodney agreed. That had been fun, and Grant had gotten to learn all about rabies, and rabies shots, and safe interaction with wildlife. Rodney was always the first one to see squirrels now, and Grant could tell by the dirty look he gave them.
"It climbed on your head," he commented. It had made him laugh and then he had been so surprised by that he had nearly choked.
"Aye, that it did.” Carson murmured.
At that point a meteor streaked across the sky.
It startled him, and then his eyes tracked it until it faded, and he was careful to keep his eyes open now, looking for the next one. "Wow, that's really clear."
There was a nice afterburn in the sky which took 9 seconds to fade. Grant was impressed by that. It made him feel good to see it.
"When I was a lot younger, sometimes Allan would take me out to do this, or Dad if he was around," Carson said. "We used to make up names for different types of shooting stars. You get short fine ones, or short blazing ones, or ones that cross across the whole sky..." He sounded like he was smiling. Grant liked Carson, he smiled a lot and he hadn't been horrible to either of them.
"Are there 'official' names for the different types of shooting stars?" Rodney asked, an open question for anyone who had an answer.
"I haven't read anything that has a classification," Grant said. Maybe he should've done that. That was what was meant to happen. His hand crept out to find Rodney's. That was okay. It was okay to hold hands where people couldn't see, because brothers were close but just not close like that, Carson had said. He was a little confused about Carson's brothers because Carson seemed to care for them, but they seemed from a lot of the stories to not care so much for Carson. He didn't want that to ever happen with Rodney.
"It's more fun to make up our own." A thin shooting star, brief and short-lived, bisected a constellation.
"Huh, *that* one was like an arrow," Rodney decided, squeezing Grant's fingers and taking a sip of his cocoa.
"Arrow types," Grant filed that away in his head. Making something up was exciting in its own way.
"That one was like a tiny pip of a meteor," Carson said. Grant mentally wondered if it had skimmed the surface of the atmosphere or was a speck of dust. Figures and velocity calculations flowed through his head like a cooling balm and he wondered if Rodney were doing the same or calculating the orbit of stars and the distances between the suns that burned so far away.
Rodney was quiet about how his head worked, unless it was the two of them alone. He was watching the stars, and Grant looked up at the sky instead of watching Rodney more. "I wonder what else is out there. That we just don't have the ability to see yet. I was going to be taking Intro to Astrophysics this fall back at Northwestern."
"There could be people out there. Races like in the books we read. Or things we couldn't imagine," Carson said as more of the meteors streaked across the sky, bold and bright.
"The, the odds are that there are other people out there," Grant said. "But there is so much space there... only way to find them would be to..." he gestured with his hand in the air above him. "...short cut."
"We need the Enterprise. Only, with engine systems that aren't bullshit," Rodney decided, and Grant liked the sound of that. "Crystals. Seriously, *crystals* as part of any system is just..."
"Lithium doesn't make crystals. Dilithium cannot form," Grant said knowing that was true because lithium did not work that way. "Crystals are not too different to silicon chips. Silicon is quartz which can be crystalline and oscillate precisely which is how it works in computers and watches."
Carson chuckled. "I have no idea what you were saying there."
"That's okay, I look at x-rays and go cross-eyed," Rodney shrugged. "One day, though. There's so much out there. If we can even ever know about a tiny fraction..."
"What would you do? Would you travel to other worlds?" Carson asked, as more meteors streaked across the sky.
Grant wondered about that. He was visiting another world. He was facing the unknown every time he went outside. It made him feel sometimes like the people in the books he was allowed to read now. He liked them, they were all bright colors in his head.
"Once I get a feel for this one." Ah, that was good to hear. Not that he thought Rodney was going anywhere without him, but.
"I like this world," Grant said and meant it. "There are a lot of interesting things and nice things."
"Aye there is," Carson said softly and Grant thought he was looking at Rodney then. He wasn't sure why, but he felt the same, so there wasn't any reason to question it.
"Cocoa and evil squirrels and my car's oil change, and stars. Hey, look at that -- three of them." Sliding over the atmosphere, skidding at just the right angle.
"One for you, one for me and one for Carson." Grant liked that, liked the way Carson chuckled a little and reached over to give him one of his bars of chocolate. Right then, looking up at a limitless sky, chocolate in his hand, and Rodney there and happy as well, Grant wasn't sure if life could get any better than this.
He really didn't think that it could.
