Amongst the Rock (Summer, Part One)
OOC Notice: The PG-ness is not strong with this one. Read on at your own risk.
If there were water we should stop and drink Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think - T.S. Eliot
Chapter One: The Beginning
The party was entirely lit by fairy lights, and somehow, this was not the thing John found most revolting about the occasion. Not that he was completely sure which bit claimed the honor instead of the lights – it changed from moment to moment, depending on what he was looking at – but he did know his sister’s dress claimed a spot above the multicolored lights which fluttered beneath the domes of the lamps on each of the garden tables and within the bulbs suspended overhead.
The Dress was peach-colored, technically – or so Julian said. John’s brain registered pink. And frilly. Even her jewelry was frilly, some kind of pearl...thing - a gift, John had heard, from her future grandfather-in-law - which fell down her chest even though she had doubled it twice around her neck and which had a tassel of smaller pearls attached to it. She also a pair of large, less white, pearls, each set with a single diamond, in her ears (when had Julian even gotten her ears pierced?). Her dark hair was set in rigid, obviously not-quite-natural curls to her shoulders, held back from her face on each side with a narrow clip set with what at least looked an awful lot like diamonds. She looked like a china doll, and that was the problem.
How did we get here? wondered John, raising his fancy little glass and taking a drink of the contents.
William smiled at him beatifically. John moved his lips outward briefly but fake-enthusiastically.
“So,” said William genially. He had teeth an American Muggle would have killed for. John supposed he charmed them to keep them that straight. This supposition did not help with the almost irresistible temptation John felt to punch him in the face every time William looked at him for too long. He had finally accepted that William was probably not out to get him, but that didn’t, it turned out, make him any fonder of the other wizard. “How was your term, John?”
John shrugged. “Fair enough,” he said.
“Fair enough my…goodness,” said Julian, clearly editing something more frank, as she leaned over and clasped John’s arm affectionately. Her cheeks were flushed and John did not think it was entirely with either blusher or love. It did not taste like Communion wine, but he was pretty sure the glass Julian had handed him contained actual wine and was pretty sure his mother did not know this. If she had, he was also pretty sure Mom would have taken it away from him and would have had Words with his sister. Since she did not seem to know it, though, John drank from the silly little crystal thing and sat casually on a tiny, spindly little chair at a stupid little table which had been covered with a white cloth even though it was outside, wearing his good jacket and only tie with his hair neatly brushed to one side and his Sunday shoes freshly polished, and felt like a stranger in his own body. “Don’t sell yourself short, John. You make Advanced classes look like a cakewalk.”
“People overstate their difficulty,” said John, having another drink.
“You understate your skills,” said William. “You’ll want to stop doing that before the end of next year!”
John raised an eyebrow. “And why would that be?” he asked, biting back a nastier comment about how he was frankly proud that he was not an over-groomed braggart and frankly wished William would reign it in a bit.
“Modesty won’t get you too far in a career,” said William. “Or do me any favors – it won’t reflect well on me if I make introductions and you contradict everything I say!”
Ending two sentences in two minutes with exclamation points one could hear had to be a sign of a diseased mind, thought John grumpily. Instead of commenting on this, he faked another smile. “That’s very kind of you, William,” he said.
“He’s the best,” said Julian warmly, and John was now certain she was a bit tipsy.
“Nonsense, darling,” said William. He kissed her cheek and she giggled. “You’re the best one – you’ve given me everything.” John had been looking at a point above his future brother-in-law's head. His eyes actually came to rest for one moment on William’s face. He could not believe anyone could actually be that over-the-top, but Julian was still smiling, apparently loving it. “I could give John my own job and it wouldn’t be enough to repay you.”
“You’re welcome to keep it,” said John dryly.
“Yes,” said Julian. “I think we have more use for it than John does right now, don’t you?” They all laughed. Julian was the only one John thought did so sincerely.
“Yes, you could have a point, sweetheart,” said William. He conjured up a tray and began putting glasses on it as he rose. “I’ll get us all a top-up,” he said.
Julian beamed at John. “I’m so happy,” she said.
“I’m glad you are,” said John quietly.
Julian was evidently not as drunk as John had thought she was, because she frowned slightly. “Why are you not?” she asked.
John looked down at the crisp white tablecloth. “I’m just tired, Julian,” he said, and tried to stand up, but his sister grabbed his wrist.
“For goodness’ sake,” said Julian. “I thought we had got past all this. What’s wrong?”
“Julian,” he said irritably, warningly, but she didn’t let go of his wrist.
“No!” she said, a trifle too loudly, and a few elegant society matrons at the next table looked over at them. John gestured for her to turn the volume down. She didn’t seem to notice the gesture, though she did drop down to a more natural party-speaking voice. “Just for once, John – “
John sat down hard and pulled away from her. He rubbed his eyes and then looked around at the party, all the twinkling lights and tinkling harp music and fabulous hats, the mansion rising up above it all. He saw a lighted window and wondered if it was the library and if Lenore was reading there. “I’m glad that William was reconciled to the church,” he said. “It’s wonderful whenever anyone is. But this….” John paused, trying to think how to say it. “He still belongs to all this,” he said, encompassing the party with a single sweeping gesture.
Julian’s eyebrows lowered dangerously, but there was still puzzlement in the expression along with annoyance. “And what’s wrong with all this?” she asked.
Words. There were good words. John was sure there were good words. They were not, however, the words that came out of John’s mouth. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Julian,” said John. “You grew up in Calgary Northwest. You didn’t grow up – keeping all this money, wasting all this money, with these people – these people – putting people at different tables like this - " he gestured toward the tables where her tenants and their families sat, well away from the fabulous hats. "We don't belong here,” he said.
Even in the dim light, John could see there were tears gathering in his sister’s eyes. Julian rose from her chair. The diamonds in her hair bounced as she rose, sparkling even in the lamplight. “I can’t believe this,” she said tearily. “I can’t believe you’re doing this at my engagement party. I thought we had gotten past all this – ”
John started to stand, too, to follow her and fight it out since she wanted to lay everything on the table, but a hand caught his arm from behind. “Leave it alone for now,” a voice said.
John turned around and found himself looking down at Lenore Crowley. Her dark eyes were barely a glint in her face in the gloom. She was wearing yellow; it suited her. “I thought you were in the library,” said John stupidly, unable to think of anything else to say.
“Let’s go there now,” said Lenore. He shook his head and Lenore’s grip on his elbow tightened. “John,” she said, and this startled him enough that he stopped and listened to her. He could never remember her calling him ‘John’ before. “You can talk to Julian later. It won’t do any good right now.”
He looked down at her for another long moment, then back over his shoulder. Julian was standing at a table of guests, speaking to them; he saw her laugh as though she hadn’t a care in the world. His shoulders slumped a little and his arm relaxed beneath her hand. “Let’s go,” he agreed.
It was dark in the library, and John was not inclined to turn any lights on. He slumped into their desk chair without thinking, and Lenore Summoned another for herself, much as Julian had that long-ago day over the summer. The similarities ended abruptly, though, when Lenore bent down and put her hand beneath the desk.
“There are still some secrets in this room you don’t know,” she said, and a moment later, his confusion abated as Lenore emerged with a bottle in her hand.
“Do you know the secret of where glasses are?” he asked sarcastically.
“Yes,” said Lenore coolly. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
The contents of the bottle burned in his throat, but John found it strangely unobjectionable in taste. He had not expected that, somehow. Later, he remembered more about that surprise than about the conversation – something about the seemingly arbitrary nature of Portuguese and French derivatives in basic charm incantations – which occurred before, suddenly, Lenore was very close to him.
“You know,” she said, “for whatever it’s worth, I didn’t really plan this.”
“What?” asked John, dimly aware this did not quite make sense. He didn’t think about it for long, though, as he was quickly distracted by Lenore joining him on the chair, winding her hands between the collar of his jacket and his shirt, and pressing her lips against his.
* * * * * * * *
The first thing John became aware of was a burning, searing pain in his temples, which quickly spread across his forehead and down to the back of his skull. The second thing John became aware of was that he was cold. The third thing John became aware of was that this was probably because he didn't have a shirt. The fourth thing John became aware of was that he was not in his own bed or bedroom. The fourth thing John became aware of was that he was not alone in whoever’s bedroom he was in.
This last one was a matter of some concern, not least because he thought he should have noticed it first. He always knew whether or not he was alone. Also of concern was the fact he was not in his own bed. Where was he? He tried to sit up, but the headache stabbed horribly behind his eyes and put him flat on his back as quickly as he had come up, trying not to retch and moaning involuntarily between his teeth as his head struck the pillow he’d been propped on.
“Take a swig out of that bottle,” said a voice. A familiar voice. It took John a moment to move between recognizing the voice as familiar and recognizing the voice as Lenore’s.
“Lenore?” he whispered. Her voice had made his head thrum like a series of guitar strings, so raising his own did not seem wise.
“Of course,” said Lenore.
Confusion almost drowned out pain for a moment. Why was Lenore offering him a drink? What drink was she offering? Why was Lenore here? Where was here? He couldn’t….
Blurry images swam up through his mind. The library. Stumbling into a wall, vaguely sure he was doing something wrong. Lenore’s hair between his fingers one moment, then trailing its ends over his shoulders, which for some reason had had neither jacket nor shirt over them, in another. A fascination with her collarbone, of all things….
John suddenly felt even sicker, if that was possible. Squeezing his eyes shut, he made a Herculean effort to raise his right hand and make the sign of the Cross. “Miserere mei Deus secundum magnam misericordiam tuam,” he moaned.
“You’re being a little dramatic,” said Lenore, who was casually leafing through a book at the desk in the room. John finally recognized the room he’d stayed in that week the family had stayed in over the summer, and felt a surge of panic before he realized the book couldn’t possibly be something Lenore shouldn’t see – he’d left all that with Joanie for safekeeping when he was here. The gold stars embroidered into the blue fabric covering the walls glittered and sent fresh needles of pain through his eyeballs. “Take a swallow of the hangover cure and you’ll feel much better.”
John thought about this, to the extent he was capable of coherent thought at the moment. Would remaining in pain work as a self-imposed penance, or at least the beginning of penance, for the things he was now pretty sure he had done? He couldn’t think. He picked up the bottle and took a drink.
“There,” said Lenore, standing up, as John finally gained the ability to open his eyes properly. She was wearing a bathrobe; he had no idea where she had procured it. He envied her that bathrobe, as he was currently in possession of a sheet. He thought he saw the cuff of his shirt sticking out from beneath a pillow, but did not yet feel up to trying to retrieve it and keep the sheet in place at the same time. She looked him over almost dismissively. “Remind me never to sleep with you when you’re drunk again,” she added. “You weren’t very good. You’d almost think you had never….” She trailed off, and John realized he had begun to glare at her.
“Oh,” she said finally, now in a small voice. Her hands rose to clutch the top of her bathrobe as though she did not quite trust the tie at her waist to hold it shut at the moment. John absently thought that this concern was misplaced, as it was her legs that it was not doing much to conceal.
“Exactly who the hell did you think had married me?” inquired John, focusing on a more important issue.
Lenore frowned for a moment, as though waiting for the punchline of a joke, and then began to laugh without one. “Seriously?” she asked between giggles.
“Shut up,” snapped John. “It – that was a mortal sin,” he explained.
Lenore returned to the bed and lay down carelessly beside him, propping her head up on one hand. “You really do believe all that,” she said, bemused.
“It’s holy doctrine,” said John, sliding further away from her. “Of course I believe it. I have to find a priest….”
Lenore looked shocked. “You really do believe all that,” she said, this time wondering. “Why?”
John frowned, forgetting his attempt to flee as he wondered yet again at how stupid and immoral all these people were and wondered again how his sister had gotten so entangled with them. “Because it’s the Rules,” he said.
“But why?”
John tried to remember the formal arguments. It had never been a subject of much interest to him. “Sex is intended for procreation within a recognized marriage,” he said. Screwtape’s voice drifted through his head: whether they like it or not, a transcendental relation is set up between them which must be eternally enjoyed or eternally endured. He shoved that thought aside with haste, unwilling to examine its implications right now. “Any other use is a perversion.”
“Hm.” Lenore began trailing her fingernails along his arm. “Sounds like an attempt to make marriages necessary to me. Didn’t you tell me you were against that this summer?”
“I’m opposed to treating women – or anyone – like property,” said John, brushing her hand aside. “Not to self-control. If you can’t or if you won’t marry, then keep it in your pants.”
“Then it’s masochism you’re into,” said Lenore, ignoring his efforts to make her stop touching him. “Or something like that. This is what I don’t understand about your philosophy,” she exclaimed, sounding close to laughter again all of a sudden. “This...self-induced suffering you won’t even admit you get off on. It sounds like those people who pretend to be ill for attention.”
John scowled. “It’s nothing like that,” he insisted. “Asceticism is - well, during some of the formal fasts, it’s one thing - but it’s more than that. Asceticism proves you’re human.” Lenore arched an eyebrow. “A dog will try to copulate with a shoe,” he explained. “All it thinks about - is what it wants - what feels good. We’re - above that,” he concluded.
“That view is inconsistent with what you’ve written to me before,” said Lenore, now trying to twirl some of his hair around one of her fingers. He raised a hand to push her away, but she caught it and kissed his wrist instead. The very tip of her tongue touched the place where the vein was closest to the skin and John shuddered as she moved closer still. He could feel her breath against the skin just below his ear as she resumed her argument. “You’re a proponent of universality,” she said before pressing her lips to his jaw for a moment. “Not the theory of Vanishing Space.” She put one hand on his shoulder and pushed herself up so she was looking down at him, dark eyes bright and amused, black hair falling down around most of both their faces like a pair of curtains. “In universality we’re all made of the same stuff, so why make such a point of being human?”
John was finding it hard to breathe again. “Because - “ he said hoarsely, trying to get enough conscious control over his hands to make them move where he wanted them to and push her away. “Because of intentionality - if you don’t exert - exert some control over your worst...impulses, that opens the door to the Dark...to..."
* * * * * * * *
Chapter Two: Fate and Chance
When John finally stumbled into his house, his first thought was that he was an idiot. He had forgotten to use a pressing charm on his clothes and therefore looked as rumpled and out of sorts as he felt as he entered the kitchen. His parents both stared at him in obvious consternation for a long moment before his mother abruptly crossed herself and darted around the table to embrace him.
“Thank God,” she gasped.
John was not sure what was going on, but that was the least of his troubles. He was much more occupied with the thought that it was deeply wrong for him to touch her in any way before he went to confession.
Over her shoulder, he saw his father sink into a kitchen chair, looking very pale. “Where the hell have you been?” he asked.
Oh. That.
“I – uh – I went to Joanie's,” he said. He was already damned for fornication, wrath, drunkenness, and God knew what else that he had forgotten, so why not add one more lie to the many others he’d already told? “We were working on - our summer project, and I just meant to close my eyes for a minute and - fell asleep on her couch, I guess. Sorry.”
“We were terrified,” his mother scolded him, and he felt simultaneously better having someone chastise him and worse knowing that he had hurt her. He never wanted to hurt his mother…just as he’d never wanted to hurt Julian, or Joanie, or Joe, or even Aislinn. It seemed, in his unsettled state of mind, that he was somehow incapable of interacting with anyone without making anything worse. Clark was the only person he could think of offhand who he had yet to somehow disappoint…. “Everyone was – Paul and Joe have been beside themselves, Julian hasn’t been able to stop crying, and it’s the day after her engagement party, John – “
“I know,” muttered John, and that seemed to irritate his father.
“Then why did you do this?” he demanded. “Just once, why couldn’t you – “
“I know!”
John did not mean to say the words aloud at all. He certainly did not mean to shout them. For a moment, as the three of them all stood in silence, he was as startled as his parents by his tone. Then his father stood up.
“You’re of age now,” said Dad levelly. “So if you want to shout at us, we can’t stop you. But as long as you’re living in this house, you’ll speak to your mother and me with some respect.”
For one moment, John thought Dad was throwing him out of the house. Then what was left of his right mind caught up with him and he nodded shakily. “I – I know. I’m sorry. I’m – sorry.” He had meant to do…something, he thought, something to do with his clothes, but it no longer seemed important. He had to go to church. “I have to go to church,” he said.
“John,” said Mom, but John pulled away from her.
“I have to go to church,” he repeated.
In the church, he was safe. Whatever he had done, whatever was wrong with him – it was all right. Or it could be. There, he was small and insignificant and whatever he had done could be swept away like dust. He genuflected so quickly as he entered the adoration chapel that he almost fell and he was not much steadier as he entered the pews and knelt.
He could not bring himself to look toward the monstrance and instead found himself looking at the statue of Lady Mary. O Virgin of Virgins, my mother, despise not my petitions, but in your mercy hear me and answer me.
When he was composed enough to do so, he went in search of the priest to schedule confession and almost lost his composure all over again when the next slot was the next day. Outside, he stood, not quite sure what to do, until he saw a payphone and made a beeline for it. To his surprise, it actually still worked. He hadn’t been sure that it still would. He punched in the number by memory, not thinking it might have changed over the years, and was relieved when he recognized the voice tentatively saying ‘hello’ on the other end.
“Can you hear me?” he asked.
“John?” asked Joanie. “I thought it had to be you, but….What the hell?”
“Don’t talk like that,” muttered John.
“I can’t hear you now.”
“Don’t worry about it. Can you come to Timmy’s?”
There was a long pause, and then John was relatively sure she nodded before she said, “Yeah, see you in fifteen.”
* * * * * * * *
John had always had his…quirks, but there were some things even he could not say and just get a smile and a nod, or if Joanie was in a good mood a sarcastic remark, in response to. One of these things was ”we’re all going to Hell”, at least not when his tone was one of quite sincere-sounding fear and the question had been ”what’s going on?” Joanie had taken two swallows of the coffee she’d ordered at Timmy’s before suggesting they go for a walk.
John had not said anything else for three hours. Admittedly, two and a half of those hours had been spent in the cinema, but Joanie didn’t think he had noted a single moment of the film. That was probably for the best, as Joanie had only a vague idea what it had been about herself – she was pretty sure it would have been a dreadful movie anyway, but she really had not had her mind on deciphering a plot which, from the bits of it she had caught in between obsessing about what was going on, seemed to twist back on itself like kudzu. Rather like her thoughts and, she assumed, John’s….
John stopped walking abruptly in front of what looked like it might have once been a bookshop, probably a victim of the last economic crash. “Do you ever wish we weren’t here?” he asked.
“I wish we weren’t where we are right now,” said Joanie before she thought. They had, now that she looked around her, wandered outside their usual streets, and she could not say she was really comfortable with her surroundings right now. “Physically, I mean. What do you mean?”
“Do you ever wish I hadn’t told you the truth when we were kids?”
Joanie couldn’t say she had expected that. John had, more than once, expressed some confusion over the concept of regret. She decided to take the question seriously. “I don’t know for sure,” she said honestly. “But I don’t think so.”
John looked at her. “You said you thought about killing a guy in church because of me,” he said. “And before that, you went and learned kung fu or something because I made you afraid of everything.”
“Eh,” said Joanie, shrugging. “From everything you’ve told me about William, I would have probably wanted to kill him even if you hadn’t made me think he was going to brainwash me.”
Even John had to chuckle at how odd that sentence was. “Seriously,” said Joanie, figuring that meant things were steady enough to venture that word. “It all – this thing of ours,” she said, then wondered, off-task, if John had ever heard that phrase used to refer to the Mafia and what he thought of her using it now if he had. “It has its downsides, but life would be a lot less interesting without it. And I wouldn’t want that.”
John almost smiled. “You know, the bit of probably out-of-context trivia everyone knows is that it’s a curse to wish someone to live in interesting times.”
“Only if you take it that way,” said Joanie with a shrug, and she would have said more, but she heard several footsteps behind her approach and then stop. She turned around and almost immediately saw a gleam of metal.
“That’s the right way to look at life,” said the guy – maybe five years older than her – who held the metal…item and stood at the front of the group of three. His tone was approving. “Still, though – I don’t see why we should have to have an interesting time tonight. Phones, your jewelry, Miss – and your wallet, kid….”
John glanced at Joanie, who had already begun silently slipping off the ring she was wearing, glad it was just silver and not something she was all that attached to. “What are you doing?” he asked.
Another guy laughed. “You some kind of retard?” he asked John.
John pinched the bridge of his nose, ignoring Joanie putting a hand on his arm and widening her eyes pointedly. “No,” he said. “Go away.”
“Or what?” asked the second thug. He grabbed Joanie’s arm. “Hey, baby, you can do better than this guy – “
John, you idiot, thought Joanie, already pivoting to take advantage of the opportunity she had while he was still talking. Thug Two screamed as the heel of her slightly cupped palm struck his ear and let her go, which allowed Joanie to then apply a similar technique to his nose and send him to the ground. As he hit the ground and she automatically kicked him in the groin to be sure he was down, she heard a scuffle behind her and looked up just in time to see John tangling, ineptly, with one who had been about to try to hit her from behind. She looked for the third guy, thinking to take him down, too, when suddenly there was a noise so loud that her ears rang and she thought for one moment that the third guy must also know a bit of krav maga and that he had just hit her the same way she had hit his friend. A second later, however, she saw John staggering back toward the abandoned shopfront and realized what had actually happened.
“Oh, hell,” said the first one, the previously almost polite one.
“Shut up,” said the other guy, and before Joanie could react further, he turned and pointed the gun at her.