InsaneJournal

Prodigal son
Date: 16th January 2012
Time: 8:04pm
Location: Founder's Lane, The Irvine's House
Characters: John Irvine
Description: Happy birthday, John
Status: Private, one-shot.


"Twenty six, I still can't believe it."

"Mom..."

"You'll understand when you have kids."

"You're not having kids, are you?"

"For God's sake, Dad."

John leant back in his chair and smiled, as his mother and father chuckled. He picked up the wine glass absent-mindedly, swirling it around the basin langorously before taking a sip. Second helpings and thirds later, and it was fair to say that he might explode. Around him, the candlelight flickered, highlighting the sharp edges of the table and chairs but bathing everything else in a soft, golden ambience. It was just the three of them, for once. No friends around, no local community groups. No Katie, of course, but she'd gone back to New York after Christmas for work, the days of long college holidays behind her.

He hadn't forgotten about earlier, of course. Being hunted by someone who clearly wanted you dead tended to leave an impression. Clearly, it showed on his face.

"You okay, son?" His father asked, sat to his left. John glanced up at him and smiled, offering the same to his mother.

"Yeah, fine, Dad," he lied. "Just tired is all."

"Why don't you stay here tonight?" His mother asked, the candlelight illuminating the red in her hair as she leant forwards, her chin resting on the palm of her hand.

"You know what," he said, placing the glass back on the table. "I think I will." He had no particular desire to go back to his own apartment that night, truth be told. It wasn't just the idea that whoever attacked him earlier might decide to try again when they were isolated from one another, but his fight with Lux had left a bitter taste in his mouth. More than that, the sudden rush of magic, combat magic at that, having been so long since he'd used it in such a way, left him feeling drained. Besides, two bottles of Californian red later, he definitely couldn't drive.

"Oh, good!" His mother said, delighted in the way that only a mom can be when one of her children, having moved away, decides to stay home for a while. "I'll go make up the bed."

"Don't worry about it, Mom. I can do it," John said, holding a hand out to stop her as she began to get up. He stood up from the table, feeling the satisfying stretch of his leg muscles as he did so.

"Alright, you do that, we'll clean up," his father said, already moving to take his plate. John made his way out of the room as his parents began blowing out candles, walking through the open archway into the hall. He hadn't lived at home for nearly eight years now, but every floorboard, nook and cranny was still as familiar to him as if he'd been living here yesterday. His hands trailed on the oak bannister as he put one foot in front of the other, ascending the staircase. The moonlight filtered in through the spherical window on the half-landing ahead of him, illuminating the edges of the steps as he walked. Sometimes, he missed the old house. It would be his again one day, he knew, but there was never anything quite like your family home.

A few minutes, a hastily-gathered bundle of pillows and duvet, and much creative navigation later, he found himself in his old room. His possessions had long since been moved out to his new apartment or boxed for storage, but little tell-tale signs suffused it with him. There, a notch in the door frame where he'd careened into it while he was a kid, evading trolls with his plastic magic sword. In the bay window, a small, replaced section of glass where the baseball he'd definitely not been tossing and catching, obeying his mother's orders never to inside to the letter, had somehow leapt out of his sports bag and through it.

The book case was still full, though. Every room in the house had at least one, usually more, filled with modern books and old, family heirlooms that only seemed to grow with each generation. He finished making the bed and flicked the bedside light on, walking over as he began to scan the spines. Most seemed familiar, although he wouldn't pretend that he'd read any of them in depth. A bit advanced for a young boy, nowhere near cool enough for a teenager, and forgotten by the time that he was an adult. His fingers ran over the cracked and worn leather, eventually stopping on a shape that seemed out of place. Cocking his head to the side, slightly, he pulled it out. Long, thin and rectangular, it was clearly a photograph album, and one that hadn't been opened for years by the look of it, and the dust that kicked into a small cloud when he lifted it out of the protective embrace of the books around it.

Taking it over to the bed, he sat on the edge, laying it out on his lap and opening the first page. He promptly winced as the leather whined in protest, crackling after years of solid state into a new, unwelcome deformation as the spine groaned with effort. The first photo seemed to be of him as a child, Katie in a cradle beside him. He looked exceptionally pleased with himself, the kind of smile that, as an adult, fills someone with equal parts affection and terror when they see it on a child's face. Affection for how sweet it is, terror over wondering exactly what they've done or brought into the house to engender such personal pride. He flicked through the leaves lazily, his eyes scanning over the people and the memories in the photographs. There didn't seem to be any kind of logical rhyme or rhythm to it; photographs of him as a child were interspersed with those of his parents as teenagers. Strangely, he felt a little sad for the forgotten album and its collection of abandoned memories. The reasons why quickly became obvious, as he recognised the Steeles, the Warrens and others in the celluloid. He was about to close the old book and replace it on the shelf, when the last page turned over and his heart missed a beat.

There on the page, with his father and the Lawsons, was his attacker from earlier.