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Autumn Damp by Ashura [Reviews - 0] 
i. It is autumn, the time when the nights are just beginning to lengthen and the air smells consistently like wet leaves, bonfires and the threat of rain. The sky is grey and heavy, and the clouds in the distance look a bit like smoke. Fire on the mountain, Will thinks, with that twist in his stomach that always accompanies such thoughts. He had a purpose then, there was something grand and wonderful about the world, and he had lived as though he were a character out of an adventure book. He remembers it fondly but with sadness, the way one does with childhood, and if he did not know it were real, he would wonder. It all seems so far away, and his family always tells him—were quite fond of telling him, really—how odd he'd been as a child, how there were times when he was so much older than his age, when reality did not quite touch. Will knows it was Bran, really, that reality didn't touch. His stomach twists again, and there are soggy leaves stuck to the bottoms of his boots. ii. There is a box outside the shop when he gets there, an early delivery, and he pushes it inside with his foot as he opens the door. Inside it smells of knowledge and spiced tea and old books; the tea is imported and addictive and bought at the market down the road for more than it was worth, the books have musty pages and never seem to stay properly organised even when Will lectures them. The box is the only post today, and it tempts Will as he hangs up his anorak and scuffs the mud off his boots. It's not as though it's a strange thing to get parcels delivered at a bookshop, it's how inventory comes in a lot of the time, but this one had the telltale return address of Tywyn, Wales, and that piques Will's curiosity. Maybe he doesn't even need tea, yet. Will looks at the box, sitting innocently, patiently on the front counter. Tea can definitely wait. iii. A simple phone call has never been so nerve-wracking. Will twines the spiral cord around his fingers, chews on his lower lip, taps the end of his pen against the desk. And for all this he manages to sound casual and warm and all the ways one ought to sound when talking to an old friend out of the blue. Of course he'd like to see Bran, and no, he isn't doing anything important. He'll be off work at seven, anytime after that. No, he hasn't got anyone he needs to go home to, and his fingers clench as he says it and the cap flies off his pen. He spends the rest of the day waiting for the bells on the door to sound. iv. Bran says he once read in a guidebook that visitors to Oxford who weren't used to cider had been known to wake up the next morning in an alley wondering why on earth they weren't wearing trousers. He says this after his third pint, and Will's brain, fuzzy with alcohol, wonders if he can read something into this. The street is wet as they stagger out of the pub toward Bran's hotel, and smells like wet pavement. The moon is nearly full but mostly obscured by clouds, and Will makes a big thing out of pointing at it when it peeks out from behind them. Bran laughs and says yes, he knows, he can see it, and they stumble to an awkward halt at the door of the hotel. 'Well,' says Will, heavily, because Bran is looking at him with those unnerving gold eyes. 'Want to come up, then?' he asks. |
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