Re: The Priest's Hole: Jules & Ford
The impatient little wave of hand made one of Jules' blond brows arch in amusement. Ford reminded him of children on the island. Unsullied, and he thought cities made everyone grow up too soon. He remembered home, his da's people, before his mum came home to the crag and fish. He remembered the south as a slow thing that moved like Sundays, crawled on its belly like snakes, and they always were rather fond of grand commentary on sin. As if the Devil loved them best in their sticky heat, with their manners beneath white linen gone sweaty inside white steeples.
Home was different. Home was the lap of water, and it was no shrine to purity; bad things happened in Wales, as they did in all places. But it was different here, no matter the time, and this boy was liking gleam and glow, and he wondered if the real world was a place that might chew him up and spit him out, undone and regurgitated upon sidewalks.
He hoped the boy had someone to look out for him, and he thought perhaps this was not a bad place for a child such as this.
Arms around his shoulders, and Jules' expression remained one of ever-growing fond. "Sut mae?" Hello. "Are you this cuddly without the apple cider, cariad?" he asked, his smile a thing of sunshine through clouds, and he knew his pallor made him easier for the priests to accept. His gender ambiguity, here, was reminiscent of beatific things. It wasn't New York, where something altogether different came to mind when people looked at him.
He took the offered card, and he tried to read the words that would not be read. "I can't read it, Ford. But I do know Vegas well. I was there before." He tapped fingers to his temple, indicative of people living in the mind, and then he did the same to the boy beside him. "You?"