Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tallest Tree, the sign reads–a tiny placard planted into the earth right outside the twisting fall of the old European beech tree’s branches. It’s unobtrusive, something so dwarfed by the tree, that it may as well not even be there at all.

The Beech has sat at the very back of the Calanreese property for as long as Ash has been alive, and certainly much, much longer than that. The townspeople like to refer to it as ‘the first tree’ – the sort of tree that remembers the history of a place before it’s ever existed–and every now and again, someone shows up on the property just to look, and comment on the enormity of the thing.

Enormous isn’t exactly how Ash would describe it. He likes to think of it as ‘all-encompassing’, or ‘earth-swallowing.’

He likes to think of it as something that fragments time itself.

The placard says Tallest Tree, but he and Griff have deemed it Wishing Tree, and everyone knows that the naming power of small boys and their hushed voices is far greater than that of a simple placard.

The tree’s roots reach so far down into the earth that Ash is certain they clench the very core between their gnarled fingers. It’s branches spread like twisting vines, some thrust out so high they must scrape Heaven itself, while others remain reaching for a middle ground, a sort of purgatory just below the clouds.

These are Ash’s favorite. The are the ones that cast a murky, sparkling sort of shadow beneath, a swampy pattern of light and dark. Leaf and bud. Death and life.

Wishing Tree.

It’s here that Ash feels most at home.

It’s here that he feels magic.

Ash isn’t generally the sort of boy that believes in such things, but Griffin does, and so it’s a thing that he attempts to emulate, forcing his mind into curving, tangled contortions in order to accept that which is not real.

Ash is sitting underneath the tree now as he taps at his old Timex watch, wrinkling his nose in annoyance. It’s hard black leather strap rubs angrily at his skin, and once again, the second hand has slowed so much that the minutes trail the hours, and the hours are getting quite close to trailing the days. The small screw on the side has broken loose, and he no longer has any control over it. At this point, if he lets it continue, he might fall out of time all together and fade away, just like the shadows of the branches.

Which is precisely what he doesn’t want to do. Fading away is for a more ordinary sort of person, and within the branches of the Wishing Tree, Ash is anything but ordinary.

At his best guess, it’s somewhere nearing 3:30pm, and even as he thinks it, he hears the faintest sound of gravel crunching beneath rubber.

The mail is here..

He reaches a hand to the bark of the tree, brushing his fingers along the smooth surface, and murmuring his thanks. (This is a thing of practice. This is a thing of purpose. This is something Griffin always does, and if Ash doesn’t obey the laws of superstition, then something bad will come.) Then he takes off running towards the tiny yellow house at the end of the lane, as the seagulls screech their hunger to the sea.

The mail truck is idling down the drive when Ash emerges from the gravel path that winds around their house, and the mailman has just finishing pressing paper into the small box affixed to their front porch. He looks up at Ash with a smile, waving one hand in greeting.

“Afternoon, Aslan!” he says, the lid of the mailbox clanging shut as he withdraws his hand.

“Hey,” Ash says, a nod of his head, blond hair falling into his eyes. His hair has grown long in the summer–unkempt, unruly, or, as his father likes to say, ‘like a barbarian.’ Ash knows he has only a few more weeks until school starts up again and he’ll be forced into some modicum of presentable, but for now it’s delicious–this brush of hair at his neck, at his brow. Occasionally, it makes him feel almost dangerous, just like Robert Plant, just like Mick Jagger. Just like he might be seduced by these ‘horrible, noise making music bands’ that his parents hate.

For now it makes him feel like Griff, who’d rebelled and grown his hair long enough to touch his shoulders. Ash can still remember the look on his face as they sat side by side in the barber chairs a week after Christmas–Ash getting a trim for school, Griff getting his cut short in preparation for his eventual army buzz cut that they’d provide in basic. When the sandy brown locks fell at the feet of the barber chair that Ash was sitting in, his father smiled, so filled with pride. (When the sandy brown locks fell at the feet of the barber chair that Ash was sitting in, Ash bit his lip, suddenly wanting to cry.)

“You tell your parents hello now, alright Aslan?”

Ash nods, but doesn’t say anything more, hands already starting to sweat with even the idea of small talk. Instead, he just watches the man jump back into his truck, then pull a large u-turn before driving back down the road.

There’s a thick Sears catalog just bursting with things that Ash carefully lays on the kitchen table once he goes inside. There is also a utility bill, a monthly newsletter from Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic church, and two worn and beaten letters–their blue and red striped borders giving them away immediately as military.

Griff, Ash thinks, heart starting to patter against his chest in excitement. He carefully puts the one addressed to his parents with the other mail, and then, gripping the one addressed to him so tightly the paper begins to bend, Ash runs quickly to the other side of the small house and ascends the stairs two at a time. His bedroom is at the very end of the hall, and he waits until he’s closed the door to his room safely behind him before he tears into the paper.

Griffin had been drafted in November of r1972, and has been stationed at Dong Tam base camp since January, which by Ash’s count is now six months and twenty-one days too long.

In that time, the Selective Service announces that there will be no more draft calls. In that time, men stop being shipped overseas and start being allowed to breathe.

In that time Ash has received two letters. Both were grimy and beaten up and dog-eared by the time they ever got to the property, and both have been folded and unfolded so many times since that the paper is beginning to tear at each crease.

This one starts the same as the others.

Griffin’s lettering is almost too neat to be real, his cursive swirls of letter ends rise and fall with a grace that seems impossible.

(Ash tries to write his letters in cursive too, but his ends are jagged–sharp enough to cut yourself on.)

This letter is short, just like the other two he’s received. Griffin talks about his unit a bit, about a friend he’s made from California, about how hot it is on the other side of the world, and how as of yet, he hasn’t found another magical Wishing tree across the globe, but that he hasn’t lost hope.

Ash makes sure to read it just enough times that the letters no longer affix themselves to just the paper but instead become memory. Then he carefully folds it, pulls out the small shoebox under his bed that is filled with treasures, and places it on top of the other two, perfectly nestled within.

After, he stands, regarding himself in the small mirror that hangs just above his dresser.

His nose stands out a little too much. His arms are lanky, and long, and lack any sort of grace. His green eyes grow more intense with every passing day, but it’s a hard intensity–a cold intensity. Griffin’s eyes always seem so bright, but Ash’s are just like their father’s–they don’t sparkle so much as glint with the promise of violence.

He runs a hand through his hair, which is currently sticking out every which way, one side even containing the remnants of crumbled leaves.

Ash is thirteen now.

It’s only been two weeks, and he doesn’t feel any different at all, but every afternoon he studies his face in the mirror, just waiting to see the change overtake him.

Griff was 20 when he left. His nose was the perfect size, his arms were full of tight muscle rippled just right as he moved. His eyes were as blue as the ocean, and held a warmth within them that was welcoming, that made other people want to smile.

Griff was 20 when he left, and he was definitely a man.

Ash wonders how much longer it will be before he can say the same.

***

The summer heat is still at its apex when eighth grade starts, and like many of the other students, there’s sweat beading down the curve of Ash’s neck and staining the collar of his brand new, green and white striped polo shirt. He raises a hand, scratching underneath the fabric as his nose wrinkles in irritation.

They don’t have uniforms at Eastham Preparatory, like some of the other private schools on the Cape, but Ash’s parents aren’t about to let him show up looking of summer. He’s resplendent in uncomfortable khaki pants, uncomfortable starched collars, and a brand new pair of brown-suede Hush Puppies. (These are also uncomfortable, and his toes curl against the stiffness of the leather.) The students of Eastham are a clan of peacocks, each one trying to outdo the next, all rich, all haughty, all sitting through class with exquisitely proper decorum–perfect miniatures of their parents, poised to succeed Ash is dying for the comfort of his athletic shorts, but he looks the same as every other student–well off, and well dressed.

Every student but one.

There’s someone new here this year, and he’s sitting in the furthest back corner of Ash’s classroom. His bowl-cut, black hair is just long enough that it hides his eyes, his arms are crossed over his chest, and his grimy and worn black Chuck Taylor’s are easily perched up against the back of the chair in front of him, just taunting every other perfectly coiffed child with his insolence.

Ash can’t take his eyes off the new boy, even as Ms. Allen begins calling roll.

Frederick, then Mark, and Lisa. Aslan stops her up a moment, the foreign sounding name bitter on her tongue, and Ash just raises a hand quietly. Then there’s Michael, followed by Maria, then Jacob, and another Lisa.

Ash listens to her move down the entire list of names, until she gets to the very end.

\Kevin.

The new boy just grunts. Doesn’t raise a hand, doesn’t even look up.

Ms. Allen calls him again, and gets the same response. Finally she puts the list down, and moves on.

This is a familiar part of the first day of school–introductions. Each child stands at the front of the class, following verbatim the script given by Ms. Allen.

Your name.

Your age.

One interesting fact about you.

It’s the part Ash dreads every year. Standing up and speaking in front of the class is bad enough, but having to come up with some interesting part about himself that he wants to share? Excruciating.

Ms. Allen doesn’t go alphabetically this time, and instead moves down the rows of desks, calling from front to back. Ash isn’t first, but only two girls speak before he’s called to the front of the class. His hands are already sweating and he swallows nervously, trying to ignore the way his ears are starting to burn. Summer is for Ash and Griff, (even if now it’s just Ash.) Summer is bliss, and monologues delivered to whispering branches of his tree, and an easy confidence born of magic...but the ringing school bell signals the end of all of that. It’s time for change, and change is something Ash is terrified of.

“Ash. Uh, Callenreese,” he says at first, letting his eyes fuzz just enough so that he can pretend he’s not actually speaking to anyone at all. “Thirteen.”

“Aslan,” his teacher corrects, as though he’s misspoken.

Ash just nods, eyes falling to the ground. “Uh… and an interesting fact is that my brother once shot a quail with my Dad’s old shotgun at 35 yards.” This is met with silence at first, then the smallest hint of a giggle from the Lisa sitting in the front row. “Uh,” Ash continues, biting the inside of his cheek so hard it hurts. “He’s in the army now!” He allows the slightest inflection at the end, forced happiness, and makes sure to smile.

Far away, in the back row, Kevin slumps down and lays his head in his arms.

“A fact about you, Aslan,” Ms. Allen prompts, smiling gently at him. “Not your brother.” Her brown curly hair is twisted in some kind of knot on her head, and she wears gold wire frame glasses that perch at the edge of her nose. She looks almost the part of the severe librarian, except that her cheeks are too pudgy, and too rosy for such a thing.

The heat of his ears is spreading to his cheeks, and Ash chews down so hard he tastes blood. “Oh. Uh…”

Everyone is watching him, looking at him, staring.

“It’s fine,” Ms. Allen finally says, her eyes filling with pity.

There’s nothing more humiliating than pity.

. “Go ahead and sit. Maria Edmonds, you’re next.”

Ash hurries back to his seat, bringing a finger to his mouth and gnawing at the nail as hard as he can. His ears are burning, his cheeks are burning, and the rub of his shoes is driving him insane. The desperate yearning to be under his tree is suddenly so sharp inside of him that he wants to burst with it, to scream, to lash out at the closest living thing.

That violence is his first instinct only fuels his anger, but instead, he clenches his teeth tight, sits down quietly at his desk, holds his body so tense it hurts, and zones out, trying not to listen as every other member of his class successfully comes up with something impressively unique about themselves.

That is until Kevin Wong is called.

The new boy unfolds himself from his back desk like origami, every inch of his body unfurling slowly, and practiced, as though he’s been called to the front of a classroom a million and one times, and it has never once warranted any speed other than ‘sloth’.

As Kevin finally reaches the front of the classroom, the eyes of every single eighth grader fixed solidly on his lean and bony frame, Ms. Allen clears her throat once and nods at him to go ahead.

“Kevin,” the boy says, shoving his hands deep in the pockets of his denim jeans.

He looks so cool it hurts, and Ash finds himself experiencing a desperate sort of jealousy that’s almost impossible to contain. He looks comfortable and totally relaxed. He looks like he’s not completely freaked to be standing in front of the entire eighth grade class.

It’s the same sort of confidence that Griff has–easy, effortless, innate.

Ash sinks lower in his seat, the humiliation of his own introduction flaming to life within his chest.

“Friends call me Shorter though,” Kevin continues, eyebrows raising ever so slightly as though just daring the members of the class to do it. “I’m fourteen, and an interesting fact about myself is that I’m heading back to New York City next week ‘cause this town’s a shithole.”

And with that, he turns to Ms. Allen, gives her a bright smile, and bows.

So fucking cool, is all Ash can think, as his fingers drum against his knee underneath the desk.

The class has erupted in a slow building chaos. It starts with the girls in the front, whispering and gasping that someone just swore in school, and slowly spreads all the way to the back, until finally Ms. Allen has to stand up and clap two chalkboard erasers together in a resounding ‘smack’ that immediately sends up a cloud of white that reeks of chalk dust.

“Enough,” she says quietly, as the room reverts back to perfectly-bred stony attention. “You may take your seat, Mr. Wong, and you will see me after class.”

“Yup,” is all Kevin Wong utters. Then he slowly, slowly strides back to his desk, and carefully folds himself back in.

***

It’s not until the lunch hour that Ash gets the chance to talk to him.

By this point, it’s become pretty obvious that Kevin Wong is different; that Kevin Wong is an outcast. That Kevin Wong is the sort of person that no one sits next to at the lunch table.

He’s perched at one of the long tables now–sitting on the table part, rather than the seat–and his feet settle on the bench as he rests an elbow on one knee. He’s holding a small thermos in one hand, the orange and green plaid design now faded from use.

The rest of the table is empty. Students are pushing in together, closer and closer to each other, making sure that no one has to be anywhere near the new kid.

This suits Ash just fine. He runs a hand through his hair, suddenly self-conscious again, then very purposely walks over and settles himself onto the bench just shy of Kevin’s feet, and puts his brand new, Happy Days lunchbox up on the table. “Hey,” he offers. Then he pulls out a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, unwraps it, and quickly takes a bite.

Kevin looks down at him for a minute, a strange look crossing his face. Finally, he offers a quiet “hey,” then holds the thermos to his mouth, taking a long sip. “Ash, right?”

Ash has severely miscalculated the situation. He sat here precisely because he didn’t think the new kid was going to speak to him. He figured he was going to do his good deed and keep him company long enough to eat his lunch and leave relatively unscathed.

Instead, Kevin is looking at him clearly expecting conversation, and Ash’s mouth is already so full of peanut butter that he has to spend a paralyzingly long time chewing and swallowing over and over before he can speak again.

Kevin just waits though, still watching him curiously, as though not at all sure what to make of Ash.

Finally, Ash chokes down a mouthful of water from his own thermos (shiny, new, and also bearing the image of the The Fonz.) “Yeah. Ash. You’re Kevin?”

Rolling his eyes, Kevin carefully sets down his thermos, which smells a bit of something familiar (like soup), and something bitterly otherworldly (like bitter medicine.) “Shorter. I said that in class.”

“Oh.” Ash considers another bite, but instead looks back up at Shorter. “That’s a really weird name.”

As soon as he says it, his ears start to burn, but Shorter just barks a laugh.

“Says the kid who’s named after a lion.”

“I…” Yeah. Ash doesn’t have anything to offer up. “My mom was really religious,” he says lamely.

“Was?”

“Yeah. She’s dead. My step-mom is also still pretty religious I guess. They call me Aslan still. But mostly I like Ash.”

“Cool.”

This small exchange seems to temporarily create some sort of bond between them, because Shorter hops off the table, then swings his legs in easily, elbows propping up on the table, and head resting in a hand while he watches Ash pick at his lunch.

They’re quiet for a little bit. Ash generally doesn’t have much that he feels the need to vocalize, and Shorter just seems content to study the way Ash chews his sandwich. It’s comfortable though. The silence that falls between them isn’t the kind that’s filled with emptiness–instead it’s filled with possibility.

And it all crashes down when Frederick Arthur, richest kid in a school of rich kids, and unabashed asshole steps up to the other side of their table and lobs an apple at Shorter, point blank range, hitting him so hard in the shoulder that Ash can hear the thump.

“Fuck,” Shorter yelps, jumping up from the bench. “What the fuck, dude?”

Frederick just leans across the table, a slow smile spreading across his face as his eyes glint. “Go back to fucking Nam," and then he utters a word so offensive, Ash's stomach drops.

He's heard his father swear like this with pride, recounting all the deaths that Griff has likely doled out for the good of America, for the red, white, and blue.

All Ash knows is that the vile hatred behind those words fills him with a sadness so profound he can barely swallow around it.

He blinks now, noting how Shorter has gone completely white while Frederick's face begins it's quirk into a sinister sneer. There is only a moment where nothing happens, where the entire school cafeteria turns to watch their table, where Ash goes from bystander of something extremely personal to entire body burning hot with rage at Shorter’s expense.

“My parents are from China, not Nam, you racist piece of shit,” Shorter says, so frigidly cold that Ash shivers, despite the heated fury building in his chest. “And I grew up in New York.”

Then he launches himself across the table, tennis shoes squeaking against the plastic laminate bench, and he’s on Frederick before Ash can even blink. The whole cafeteria erupts into screams, and Shorter’s throwing punch after punch, but just as Ash is certain he’s got it covered, a few more of Frederick’s friends come leaping into the fray and they all end up on the ground, everyone on top of the new kid.

So Ash does what any self-righteous and earnest thirteen year old boy does when his brand new friend is threatened by movie-esque villains.

He carefully closes his lunchbox, putting it neatly next to his backpack.

He climbs on top of the lunch table, ignoring the burning, obnoxious, still-present pinch of his new shoes.

And he jumps on top of Frederick Arthur.

***

The school principal’s office isn’t a place Ash generally frequents.

Being-in-trouble is a state he tries whole-heartedly to avoid.

It’s not that Ash is good, or sweet, or kind, it’s more that he is obedient, and tired, and terrified-of-his-father.

Right now, he and Shorter are sitting on one side of the room, while Frederick, and John, and Jacob, and Mark, and Christian are sitting on the other as the secretary makes her way slowly through the rolodex, calling each parent. Even the looming threat of his Dad coming to pick him up doesn’t dispel the frenetic energy that’s thrumming through his entire body right now.

It’s not fair.

The entire thing isn’t fair.

The five boys across from them sport varying small bruises, and Frederick (most notably thanks to Ash) has an eye that’s swollen closed already. Otherwise, they look fine. Just a minor scuffle between boys.

Shorter is still holding a handkerchief to his nose that’s almost certainly broken. He’s got a sliced cheek, and bright purple and black bruises are blooming on every inch of his skin.

Ash got caught in the middle at one point and right now, breathing hurts enough that’ his teeth are clenched tight. He’s holding an arm around himself trying not to move too much, and he can still taste blood flowing from where his teeth tore into the side of his cheek.

It’s obvious that Ash and Shorter had been outnumbered and at a serious disadvantage–yet the secretary is still glaring daggers at Shorter even as she nicely thanks whichever parent is on the line.

Ash feels something uncomfortable in his stomach, something foul and toxic. He sinks lower into his chair, gnawing at his thumbnail again, and looking to Shorter.

The other boy doesn’t seem bothered. He just glares and glares and glares, his entire body tightly coiled like he’s ready to throw himself back on the other five without a care in the world for his safety.

He’s dangerous looking.

Ash has never seen someone so incredibly confident in their own skin.

Then Frederick hunches down, elbows on his knees, and holds up his hands to his mouth. “Gook,” he whispers, so slow, so careful that the single syllable is absolute frozen perfection.

Ash is out of his seat so fast he manages to get the first punch in, though Shorter isn’t far behind, screaming wildly like some sort of crazed animal.

It takes the principal and two passerby teachers to pull them all apart again, and now Ash’s nose is bleeding just as much as Shorter’s. The adults are all glaring at him right now, and he’s never been in this much trouble in his entire life.

They were obviously provoked. There’s no way the secretary didn’t hear it, but even as they are all ushered out into the hall to wait for their parents, Ash can hear her complaining to the principal about ‘that awful new Wong boy’.

Frederick just smirks.

The teachers glare and cross their arms.

Parents start arriving, and one by one, kids start to leave. Frederick’s mom wraps an arm around his shoulders and manages her own glare towards Shorter as they walk away. Mark and Christian also have mothers that hug them, and pat at their bruises, and ‘tsk tsk’ their tongues towards him.

Jacob and John leave soon after, and the teachers disperse, leaving Shorter and Ash sitting with their backs to the wall, and only the principal watching.

Eventually, he just pokes his head into the office, calling out to secretary just to confirm that the boy’s parents are on their way, and then he glares down at them, mustache brushing the bottom of his nose as he speaks.

“You two better behave out here. You’re both under suspension for three days for provoking a fight. You’ll face expulsion if it happens again. You can wait here until your parents arrive.”

Then he walks back into the office, letting the door slam shut behind him.

“Bullshit,” Ash mutters immediately, drawing his knees up to his chest.

“Whatever,” Shorter says.

He genuinely sounds like he doesn’t care at all, despite the drying blood all over his face, or the hideous bruises. Ash wipes at his own nose, and then stares at him in disbelief.

“Whad’ya mean, whatever? It’s bullshit! We didn’t provoke anything! And they just got suspended, they didn’t get threatened with that ‘expulsion’ crap. It’s not fair!”

Shorter cocks his head, one eyebrow raising in judgement. “Says the white boy.”

“What?” Ash squawks, completely indignant. “I was trying to help!”

Shorter sighs a little, then draws his knees up too, perching his chin atop them both. He smiles a little, but it looks like a sad thing, lost and misplaced. “You’re really naive,” he says quietly.

Ash starts to refute that, hackles bristling, but Shorter quiets him.

“You are.”

“You don’t know shit,” Ash mumbles, irritation growing.

“Whatever. You just...you’re new. Clean. New York would eat you up.”

Ash wants to be offended, but there’s something about Shorter’s smile that’s quirking up further, that’s offering friendship. There’s something about the new boy that Ash just...likes.

“You don’t know me. I’d be just fine,” Ash replies in some sort of an attempt at gallantry as he wipes at his nose again. It’s itchy now, as the blood starts to dry, and he doesn’t particularly want to think about what his face looks like, or what his father’s going to do when he finds out Ash has been fighting.

“Sweet,” Shorter answers, finally laying his head back against the painted brick wall and closing his eyes. “I’m gonna get the hell out of here soon and head back that way. You should come visit.”

Chapter Text

You should come visit.

They are words that seem spoken of a dream, as though Shorter doesn’t really live here on the Cape, as though he expects this to be only a brief rendezvous point before the adventure really begins.

There doesn’t seem to be a reason that he’d uttered them yet–maybe it was just in response to the barest spark of something real that he’d seen reflected in Ash’s eyes.

Still, he can’t get them out of his mind, even as he’s washing his face off in the sink behind the kitchen of the tiny restaurant his parents had opened last month. No matter how much Shorter scrubs, he fails miserably at getting all the dried blood scrubbed off of his increasingly swollen and painful nose, and he’s getting more and more irritated about it all by the second.

Chang Dai sits just off the busy US 6 interstate–a quaint little building that boasts wooden anchors and metal fish up and down the sides of it. The building (unlike the food that’s served there) is not at all Chinese. It is, in fact, the remnant of a failed seafood restaurant–the kind of which that, were you to ask Shorter, is probably in far higher demand in this town than any sort of cuisine his parents might offer.

Its flashing neon red lights buzz constantly and give Shorter a headache, the smell of broccoli seems to fill the back kitchen in a constant noxious haze, and the grease stains from cooking oil are absolutely impossible to remove from clothing, no matter how many rounds his mom goes at them with the bright orange dish soap from the sinks in the back.

It’s all a part of his Dad’s dream though. To build a successful life to pass onto his children.

Shorter knows that they’d managed well enough in New York. The restaurant they owned did wonderfully there, and though they’d left, it was currently in the care of a few cousins who’d also grown up in it’s kitchens, and had just as much invested in its success.

His father wanted more than the city though. Phrases like ‘gang activity’, and ‘violent men’, and ‘bad influence on our children’ were frequently uttered in the Wong household. Liao Wong was insistent that moving his family to an area of peace, prosperity, and general success was the only way forward.

To him, Cape Cod, Massachusetts was the embodiment of the American Dream.

Shorter wants to gag every time he thinks about it.

Nadia had no problem with the move. She’d encouraged their parents, and nodded at Shorter like he should stop his incessant whining, and smiled like everything was fine.

Everything was most certainly not fine.

In the city, Shorter had friends.

Shorter had family.

Shorter may or may not have been involved in the slightest bit of ‘gang activity’ but he was in no sense of the word a ‘violent man’ and therefore saw no problem with his... infrequent trips to the underpass in the black of night with a bag of slightly incriminating… well… drugs.

“It’s your fault anyway,” Nadia told him, the last night they were packing. “We know about… the… well. You know.”

(Drugs was apparently a word also best uttered in the black of night, when no one could identify your voice.)

And so they are here.

A place where the air smells of salt. Where the people smell of money. And where there is a definitive lack of overpasses to loiter under.

You should come visit.

There it is again, playing over in his head. That offer. Overture of friendship? Ash Lynx isn’t exactly the sort of boy that Shorter would typically choose to spend time with. He is small, and gangly, and flinches if someone calls his name when he isn’t expecting it.

He also throws a mean right hook, and has that feral glint in his green eyes that Shorter knows all too well.

Ash is coiled tight, a spring just waiting to burst free, violence ready to explode.

He is something caustic, wrapped tightly in a cold shell of glass.

Shorter isn’t sure yet whether he wants to poke at the other boy hard enough to crack it, or if he wants to whisper as quietly as possible, terrified of causing an eruption.

The only thing he knows for sure is that Ash is interesting, and that Ash leapt to his defense without a single thought for his own safety. This was reason enough for further examination.

“Kevin!” His mother yells, from the counter up front. “Kevin!” The rest of her yelling devolves into a string of Cantonese that is easily tuned out to anyone who doesn’t so happen to be Shorter Wong.

“Coming!” He yells back, in perfect, clear, English. And then he turns from the sink with a sigh.

The cash register is jammed up again.

For this particular register, the state of ‘jammed’ seems to be its preferential nature, and for some reason, Shorter seems to be the only member of the Wong family who possesses an innate ability to ‘unjam’ it and return it to functioning.

(His father likes to cite Shorter’s prolific practice in after-hours illegal activities as reason for this phenomenon. His mother likes to cite his innate brilliance. Nadia likes to roll her eyes.)

It doesn’t take him long to fix it, nor does it really seem to be a matter of pressing concern. He steps back, letting his mother in, and watches the lonely flashing of the ‘open’ sign reflect against the outside window.

No one is here.

His black polo shirt is already itching at the collar where blood has dried, and he fights the urge to swear quietly, certain his mother will hear it.

Gone are the days of comfortable, baggy t-shirts, or his leather jacket that he’d bought almost new from the second hand shop down the corner. He’s exceptionally lucky that he got away with wearing his sneakers to class today, though he’s pretty sure it’s just because his mother was busy scolding Nadia over her own clothing choices.

“Ma?” He finally asks, as she excitedly opens and closes the register as though it’s brand new. “You cool if I go out for a bit?”

“Who?” She asks, Cantonese suddenly sharp, eyes immediately narrowing.

“Ma!”

“Who are you seeing?”

Shorter sighs, and tries to look as innocent as possible. “No one. I just need to walk. Get some air.”

“You have homework?”

“Yeah, I’ll do it. 3 day suspension, remember?”

At this, her jaw clenches, anger flashing bright in her eyes.

She isn’t stupid, his mother. She knows exactly why he’s been suspended, and it’s not for provoking a fight.

It’s because he’s yellow, though she’d never utter such a disgusting term.

The weight of the war lies heavy around everyone’s shoulders, and with every newly calculated death toll on the nightly news, there comes suspicion, and anger, and fear.

It doesn’t matter how many times he says it.

To them? He’ll never be from New York.

Eventually, she gives in, and he hurries out the door, listening to the jangling of bells as it closes behind him. It’s not cold yet, but the promise of it is there, and Shorter inhales as deeply as he can.

He can smell the sea, it’s salty brilliance overwhelming even broccoli.

And he starts to walk, finding the interstate and drifting along the shoulder of it, wishing for all the world that he had a cigarette, because at least the smoke from that would coat the smell of of Cape Cod, Massachusetts enough that he could pretend he was anywhere else.

***

Ash shows up at school the next week with yellowing bruises all over his face, as is to be expected, but also a large, black shiner that has his eye red and puffy.

Shorter comments on it, but Ash just shrugs. Says he ran into a wall. Looks the other way.

Shorter’s grown up around enough kids who had it rough that he knows better than to say anything at all.

The friendship they build is a quiet one, and Shorter finds that he doesn’t really mind. Shorter’s used to loud things, things that bang, things that make an entrance.

Ash is none of these things. Ash carefully considers every question asked of him as though absolutely terrified that he might misspeak in answer. Ash listens to everyone around him, taking in the wave of constant eighth grade sound, and giving back almost nothing in return.

Ash watches.

Shorter makes it a goal then, to get him to laugh, then to get him to raise his voice, and finally, to get him to react to something with the same sort of passion in his eyes that Shorter had seen on that very first day when they fought.

This takes a few weeks, but in the end is easier than anticipated.

School has just let out, and Ash and Shorter have pushed through the doors of the classroom out onto the bright green field, starting towards home. Ash has snagged his bike from the rack–a glorious bright yellow thing that shines as though it’s been meticulously polished over and over again by hand. He just walks with it, as he always does, because Shorter doesn’t have one. (Despite his parents offer of rectifying that, he still can’t conceive of a world outside of the city where stupid, clueless children just leave their shit hanging around unlocked, like they’ve never had something stolen.)

It turns out that their homes are almost on the same route. Luck is a thing that fizzles warm inside their bellies, and both boys recognize this as its own sort of magic.

On this particular Friday afternoon, Shorter is swigging deeply from a bright green bottle of Squirt that he’d nicked from the restaurant’s stash. He’d nicked it for the specific purpose of gulping the liquid down in the refreshing manner so often seen in commercials but now that he’s in the act of drinking? He’s mostly just irritated that it’s no longer cold.

Ash is worrying at his shoes again, nose wrinkled in consternation, lips pursed as though he’s almost ready to swear.

“Those look awful,” Shorter supplies, egging on the clearly incoming rant while licking the sugary lemon stickiness from his lips.

“Shit,” Ash finally lets loose, pausing to run his finger inside the rim of his left shoe. Then he stands, smiling bright, as though nothing is wrong and his brief interruption of decorum is a secret between them.

It is, in a way. Ash presents himself as one way for the world, and another way when he’s alone, and Shorter is beginning to realize just how lucky he is to be privy to the second.

“Aren’t you a rich kid, like all the other rich kids here?” Shorter asks with a grin. “Just get your folks to buy you a new pair!”

“Tch,” Ash hisses, rolling his eyes. “Gotta look the part. Play the part. I don’t know…” he looks up for a second, nose wrinkling even further, then launches into what Shorter assumes is a well-practiced mimicry of his parents. “You look so handsome, Aslan, everyone will just stop and stare! Stand up straight! Oh you look so good. Almost just like your big brother!”

He delivers this with such a ridiculously put upon Boston twang that Shorter immediately cracks up, sucking soda up his nose, and then wheezing in pain at the bubbles that burn the lining of his nose.

Through it all, Ash just watches him solemnly, as though he hadn’t just delivered Shorter to his near death. Eventually, Ash holds out a hand and takes the bottle as Shorter hunches over, hands on his knees, wheezing as he tries to get a breath in.

“I’m not that funny,” Ash says wryly, then he takes his own gulp, waits approximately 3.67 seconds, and belches so loudly that some poor bird startles from the tree they are standing near and takes flight.

And that’s when it happens–that’s when Ash laughs.

This is a normal sort of laugh–the kind of laugh that implies mischief, or maybe even just playfulness. It was bright, and happy, and then it ends quickly, like it is something that needs to be suppressed.

“Christ,” Shorter swears, snagging the bottle back. “You gotta teach me how to do that!”

Smiling secretively, Ash nods towards the bottle. “Drink real deep,” he says, “and real fast. Hold your breath while you do it as long as you can. Then go!”

Shorter’s already holding the bottle to his lips, swigging down the rest of the soda as fast as he can. Then he looks up to the air, opens his mouth, and–

A tiny croak of sound comes out.

“You suck,” Ash grins. He starts to walk again, down the hill of the back baseball fields and towards the little country lane that led out to one of the more main streets in town.

“I just need to try it again!” Shorter groans, heart beating fast as though he’s just run a race. “I just need to–how’d you do it again?”

Ash looks back at him. “You can’t. I’m just magic.”

Jogging to catch up, Shorter rolls his eyes. “Come on.”

“No, I actually am.”

“Right.”

Ash stops. Turns to Shorter. Crosses his arms and glares with those bright, glinting green eyes.

There it is, Shorter thinks. There’s the passion.

“You don’t believe me?”

Shorter has to consider this for a moment. For one, he’s not entirely sure if Ash is speaking in a literal sense or not. For two, he doesn’t know Ash well enough yet to fully understand if he’s a normal, everyday kid, or if he’s actually a psychotic murderer-in-training. (In New York, this is a distinction that Shorter has had to make on more than one occasion.) “Ummm,” he finally decides upon, thrillingly indecise.

“I’m magic,” Ash says again, stepping closer.

A shiver runs up Shorter’s spine, just as the clouds move to cover the sun, casting them in varying shades of grey. Ash is breathing normal, but his eyes are so bright Shorter almost can’t look away. His blond hair is mussed, and pushed to the side, out of those very same eyes. And he just looks…

He just looks…

For a moment, Shorter is willing to believe it.

Then Ash laughs again.

This one is even more exciting than the first. This one goes on, and on, and on, and eventually Shorter joins in too, no longer certain if it’s unease he feels, or something painfully different.

In the end, Shorter supposes that it isn’t any sort of magical sound, like you’d expect from some fairy tale, or children’s story. It’s a bit too loud, a bit too round, a bit too boyish to be anything real.

All the same, that’s the moment that Shorter Wong feels his stomach drop to his toes, and knows with all the worldly knowledge of a fourteen-year-old boy, that he’s in love with Ash Lynx.

Chapter Text

The leaves are falling from the trees now, the winter decadently breathing air that chills lungs, and reddens cheeks, and freezes the inside of pipes.

Winter on Cape Cod is always an interesting turn for Ash. The water that so deliciously laps at sand all the other seasons of the year suddenly congeals, it’s every movement icing over further, creating a sort of shhhhhh-ing sound as the ice moves against ice, that almost might lull someone to sleep were they unaware.

To be unaware is when dangerous things happen, and so Ash makes sure that he is always listening.

Eighth grade isn’t any different from seventh grade, in his opinion, and that wasn’t any different from sixth.

The teacher speaks at the front of the room.

The children take out their books and complete their assignments.

Frederick Arthur hisses things at Ash, and throws things at Ash, and tries to steal things off Ash.

It’s all one in the same.

Shorter is new though, and Ash is still settling on how he feels about that.

It’s not as though he’s invited the boy into his life. Ash has been over to the Wong’s restaurant many times now. He’s sat politely as Mrs. Wong serves him up Americanized versions of Shorter’s favorite foods. Greasy teriyaki chicken, broccoli that’s been so steeped in brown sauce it almost doesn’t remember it’s true form.

He’s been to Shorter’s house too–an enormous Cape style house that’s right downtown, complete with a third story covered porch.

But Ash has never truly invited Shorter to his own home. There are ghosts there. Not true ones, he supposes, but there is just enough of his life that he hides, that he pretends doesn’t exist. This is enough to haunt anyone.

“Five minutes left, boys and girls,” the teacher announces, in her brittle, exam-giving voice.

Ash sighs, and looks around the classroom once again. He’s been finished for fifteen minutes now, but it’s clear that everyone else is struggling–Shorter Wong included.

Christmas is coming to the Cape, and there is a tiny nativity scene, carefully spread out on Ms. Allen’s desk. Ash studies it now, watching the way the wise men are positioned exactly right–so that their eyes are cast on the baby Jesus.

His family goes to church.

Every Sunday they drive down the lane, and turn left on the interstate, and go just two miles until they reach Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Parish. Then they spend hours kneeling, and praying, and kneeling again, and listening, and singing, and praying some more, and drinking a bit of wine, and eating a bit of bread, and then praying some more, and finally leaving.

The bread tastes like cinder in Ash’s mouth.

The wine tastes foul.

The kneeling hurts his knees, and the praying feels false.

Church hasn’t held reason for Ash since Griff left for the war.

Ash assumes the Wong family also goes to a church, though he hasn’t actually asked Shorter about. Everyone believes in God though, right?

Ash looks to Shorter again, who has finally tossed his pencil to the floor in a show of displeasure, and has thrown his head down into his arms.

He appears to be sleeping.

Moments later, he lets out a loud snore, which confirms this fact.

Ash just grins.

There’s something that’s been uncurling within him when it comes to Shorter Wong. He doesn’t want to trust the boy with everything, but he’s starting to believe that there is just enough of something...special...that he might want to give.

And with that, Ms. Allen stands, collects their tests, firmly reminds them that they will all need to be in attendance for tomorrow’s half-day for the school-wide Christmas play, and then the subsequent vigil for soldiers in Vietnam.

Even this, Ash is bitter about. Griff was drafted last year, and this is a fact everyone knows. This is the reason everyone watches Ash, everyone worries over Ash.

There is no one else from the Cape who’s been drafted, and no one else who will. 

So watching everyone mourn, and cry, and pretend as though they have any feelings at all? It just makes him want to scream.

Instead he smiles as the entire class leaves, even as Ms. Allen pats him lovingly on the arm with a sad, sad smile, as though she understands how it feels to be truly alone.

Shorter tackles him to the ground as soon as they are out of the school, and Ash yelps in surprise, kicking out on reflex and hitting something soft. It’s not until he pushes himself off the frozen ground and see’s Shorter gagging, that he realizes he’s caught him right in the gut.

“Okay, but seriously,” Ash groans loudly. “Why?”

Even gagging, Shorter manages a smile. “Why’d you kick me?”

“Cause I didn’t know you were the one on top of me, fuck–”

“Aslan Calanreese!”

Ash and Shorter both look up to see Ms. Allen standing above them, eyes flashing anger, mouth pinched tight. She looks like she’s so frustrated that it’s Ash she’s had to call out. That she’d thought so much better of him, that she’d expected so much more. “What did you just say?”

Ash can feel the groan start internally, desperate to escape his mouth, but he’s very good at closing off, and so he does, allowing only a small, painfully apologetic smile appear. “Ms. Allen,” he says with a bow of his head in deference. “I am so sorry, I didn’t mean that at all. I really, truly apologize–”

“Not again,” she cuts him off, crossing her arms. “I give you plenty of leeway because of your brother. Don’t make me regret that.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” he says.

Somewhere, deep inside of himself, the mention of Griff rumbles, and tosses, and turns, and threatens to explode. It’s painfully caustic, a wound that’s been cauterized and left with no bandage. And electric wire that’s frayed, and wild.

He’s ready to explode with it now, but he just breathes.

Eventually she leaves.

Eventually, Shorter grabs him by the arm and pulls him up.

“Sorry, man,” he says, looking woefully pathetic. “Really. Didn’t meant to–”

“Whatever,” Ash shrugs. “It’s fine.”

That thing that wants to be heard? That thing that’s uncurling and wild, and maybe slightly dangerous? It’s buzzing within him again and he’s almost vibrating with sudden urgency. “Hey,” he asks, forcing the words out before his brain can catch up. “Wanna come with me? I...I have to show you something.”

“Sure!” Shorter says, face lighting up.

Somewhere around them is a gang of Frederick Arthur’s cronies yelling racist epitipths and throwing rocks, but Ash can’t hear any of it through the burgeoning excitement that’s burning within him.

***

The Wishing Tree.

Ash stands just outside the branches, feeling the call of it. The wind is so gentle, it only whispers against his skin, but the leaves of the branches rustle together so loud that it seems the behemoth stands in an entirely different sort of weather pattern.

“This thing is huge,” Shorter comments.

His voice holds none of the reverential awe that Ash likes to reserve for his tree, but this is alright. He’s learning. He’ll see soon enough.

“The town records estimate that it’s about 150 years old,” Ash says, reaching out just enough so that a few leaves brush against his fingers.

“That’s really old.”

“I think it’s older.”

Shorter crosses his arms and turns to look at Ash, eyebrows raised and mouth quirked. He looks completely out of place here–his hard confidence impossible to render against the softness of the Beech. “So you hang out here?” he finally asks, like he feels he’s supposed to speak.

Ash lets the silence envelope them for a while longer though–just listening, waiting. Finally, after the seagulls begin to call louder, and the wind begins to whip at his hair, pushing the blond strands from his eyes with an icy chill so hard it hurts, Ash nods. “We can go in,” he says with confidence. Blinking, he looks back at Shorter, pushing down the momentary madness that comes with being so close to magic you can taste it, but be unable to swallow.

“Sure?” Shorter offers up, still clearly confused.

Ash grabs his hand, fingers interlaced with Shorter’s own–their sweaty palms pressed tight together. “This way,” he orders, then they move, weaving through the outer branches, and emerging on the other side.

The inside of the Beech is a space entirely built by canopied branches and weeping leaves. They form a room that is easily 70 feet across, with a cathedral ceiling that reaches higher than Ash can even comprehend. Right now, the leaves are whispering softly–the sudden burst of the outside wind only a memory here. The sunlight shines through the leaves and spills all over the floor, muddy earth stained by muted color.

It’s warmer here too–hot, like standing directly underneath the August sun. These branches have soaked in summer so long that they no longer remember what it is to change.

“Wow,” Shorter says, speaking first. “This is...this is fucking far out.”

His voice is too loud, his words are too sharp. Ash flinches, his heart beating fast against his chest, and he tries to breathe.

“Sorry,” Shorter amends, quieter this time, clearly noticing Ash’s discomfort. “I just…” He pauses, voice fading to nothing, as he looks back up into the tangled weave of wood above them. “It’s hot,” he murmurs. “Why is it so hot?” He’s unzipping his winter coat as he asks, throwing it to the ground, along with mittens and his hat.

Ash does the same, finally beginning to smile. His shoulders relax a bit as he lets out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, and as if in response, the tree relaxes too in the sort of way that can only be felt by someone who believes. A darkly wooden fragrance fills the air, and Ash watches as Shorter inhales deeply.

“Smells like fairies,” Ash grins, finally walking forward and splaying his hand against the tree’s bark. He hasn’t dropped Shorter’s hand in the process, has managed to drag the other boy with him, and Shorter tries to emulate him, pushing his hand too hard against the craggy surface, wiggling a little too much.

“It’s…” Shorter starts, then stops again, forehead wrinkling. “It’s weird.”

“Yeah.”

“It feels weird,” Shorter attempts to clarify.

Ash just laughs. “Yeah. It’s magic. I mean...that's what Griff always said.”

“You don’t think it is?” Shorter pulls his hand out from Ash’s hand and places it next to his other, feeling against the smooth bark, letting his fingers trace around it. The trunk of the tree is so wide across that it takes him a long time before they started to curve.

Shrugging, Ash backs away and follows Shorter around the diameter of the tree. He bends at one point to pick up a fallen branch, then drags it behind himself as they slowly walk, a crinkled and twisted thin line appearing behind him. “I don’t think I believe in magic.”

His words sound hollow–hanging in the air just too long to be real. For just a moment, the scent of the tree dissipates completely around him, and Ash breathes in, he smells nothing but the char of wood burning.

He pauses, a shiver running down his spine, but then he breathes in once more and everything is normal again.

“Mmmm,” Shorter answers.

He’s gotten further ahead of Ash now, and his voice is almost so quiet it disappears. He’s captivated, he’s caught in the throes of it.

And Ash smiles, knowing he’s made the right choice in bringing him here. They spend a while in silence, just circling the tree. Eventually, their feet find the dirt they’d started at, and they go around once more, carefully to follow the worn tread of footprints first left there.

It’s hot enough that Ash starts to sweat, and he leans down at one point to roll up the cuffs of his school khakis all the way to his knees. Shorter does the same, copying him exactly and sighing out against the heat.

“Feels like summer,” he says, unlacing his Chuck Taylors and easily kicking them off. He does the same with his socks, throwing them haphazardly towards the discarded shoes.

Ash watches as they land nowhere near.

“Just make yourself at home,” he snarks, nudging into Shorter with his shoulder just enough to push the other boy off balance.

“I will, thanks,” Shorter replies, then sticks out his tongue. They’ve worn the trail around the trunk of the Beech enough now that it dips slightly below the other dirt, and this seems as good a time as any to finally sink down, backs rubbing against the bark, knees pulled up, arms so close to touching that everything feels electric.

Ash works at his own shoes, thrilled to be free of school at last, and then he works his bare toes into the soft dirt, spreading his toes as though the more area he takes, the more he can soak in.

Then he leans his head back, closes his eyes, and sighs in contentment.

“Cool place,” Shorter says, a short while later.

Ash cracks an eye.

The other boy isn’t looking at him, is instead looking straight up at the canopy of green and brown above them. The wind doesn’t blow beneath the tree like it does on the outside, but still the branches move and sway gracefully, creating a kaleidoscope of constant motion.

“It’s special,” Ash answers. He pulls his stick back towards himself, and starts rubbing it against the dirt, making sharp edges, and grooves between the knobbled roots of the tree. “Magic,” he says quieter, trying the word out on his tongue.

It still doesn’t taste quite right, but he’s determined to believe.

“Yeah,” Shorter agrees, no questions asked. “Yeah, I mean...it’s fucking far out. Summer and all. Doesn’t make sense. I guess the fall of the branches probably traps in some heat for a bit but...this is too much.”

Ash quirks an eyebrow and turns to look at him. “Awfully scientific for a guy who fell asleep during the final.”

“Pshh,” Shorter grins. “Most the stuff they teach you in school isn’t worth knowing. Just cause I fail a test, doesn’t make me stupid.”

Ash agrees with this assessment, but he’s also hit with a sudden burn of jealousy and irritation. He doesn’t know Shorter’s family all that well yet, but even he can see that they’re supportive, no matter what trouble Shorter gets into.

Ash doesn’t quite have that. Ash has to be perfect all of the time or…

Well.

He forces it all down with a swallow, and focuses on what’s right in front of him. “It’s just always been like this,” Ash explains. “The tree doesn’t change, no matter what time or season it is. It’s always summer here, underneath the fall of the branches, it’s always summer coursing through the veins of the leaves.”

“Cool,” Shorter says, with a shrug. He reaches across Ash’s body and snags the stick, whipping it through the air and stabbing it against the dirt. There’s a small pillbug crawling there, and Shorter stabs again, and again.

He’s always missing though–never quite predicting exactly where it will go. Ash watches it crawl around and around, having no sense at all for the imminent danger that it’s in.

“My big brother calls it the Wishing Tree,” Ash says softly. It’s strange, letting this piece of himself fall free to the air around them. It’s not as though it’s the sort of secret that he needs to hold on to, it’s just that he’s never had anyone to tell before.

“You don’t?” Shorter asks.

Now he’s just pushing the bug around, watching it roll up in fright, waiting for it to decide everything is safe, then starting all over again.

“I don’t know,” Ash says. “Griff says that if you whisper a wish to the tree enough times, it will come true.”

“Have you tried it?” Shorter asks.

This is a secret, and Ash has no intention of letting it fall free. He whispers to the tree every single day. It hasn’t worked yet, probably because he doesn’t believe in it quite enough. So it’s a thing he circles back to, over and over again–a guilt that he’s not trying hard enough.

“Hasn’t worked yet,” is what he does answer. He reaches over to the tiny bug and picks it up between his fingers. There’s a heat growing within him that’s all too familiar, and before he can stop himself, he crushes it–the fragile body emitting the tiniest crackling as the shell breaks apart.

Then he wipes his hands on the side of his pants, trying not to look at the small smear of black he leaves.

“Guess it seems like kind of a lot,” Shorter says.

This doesn’t fit with any sort of conversation they’ve been having, even as Ash tries to parse his meaning. “Huh?” he finally asks. His fingers are grubby with dirt and bug, but he still brings his thumb to his mouth, chewing at the nail bed.

“Don’t do that,” Shorter snaps, and smacks Ash’s hand from his mouth.

“Dude!” Ash yelps. “What the hell?”

“Don’t do that,” Shorter just repeats. “Dirty. Gross. And I just mean that it seems kind of a lot for a tree to have to manifest summer all the time and also grant wishes. Like, that kind of sucks for the tree.”

Ash is so taken aback by this that he just stares for a long moment, watching Shorter push at the dirt with the stick again, trying to unearth another bug. “What?” he finally asks, voice suddenly way too loud for the space.

Shorter doesn’t look at him–he’s particularly invested in the small worm that he’s coaxed from the dirt. “Don’t you think? What are you giving the tree to deserve so much?”

“I...I…” Ash stutters to a stop, thinking on it. “I guess...yeah?”

Grinning, Shorter tosses the stick aside and lets the worm wriggle free. “Yup.” Then he stands, stretching his arms over his head and groaning loudly.

Ash watches the way his t-shirt rises just above the waistband of his jeans, where a tiny sliver of perfectly copper colored skin is showing. He looks away before Shorter sees, but there’s another familiar twinge of something in his stomach, tight fluttering that makes him nervous, and excited all at once.

“You gotta ball around here?” Shorter asks, finally walking away from the trunk of the tree.

And Ash stands and follows, leading his friend out from under the branches and back to the yard where they shrug back into their thick winter coats and play catch for a long while, and wrestle just the right amount, and run around the snow-covered yard, screaming and shrieking like boys of summer so often do.

***

Home is quiet that night.

They sit as they always do on the sagging, plaid sofa that rests against the wall of the living room. Ash’s Dad is on one side sprawled back against the cushions, Ash is in the middle, worrying at the thumbnail that Shorter wouldn’t let him chew, and Jennifer is as she always is–stick straight, willowy and wispy, as though a character dreamed, rather than a human born.

Their tv trays sit in front of them, and Ash pushes his meatloaf around his plate just enough so that it looks as though it’s been eaten, not as though it’s been left.

This is their nightly routine. They all sit in front of the 1970 Zenith that Ash’s dad proudly purchased a few years back, and watch the news broadcast live from NBC. It’s in color now, which Jim Callenreese manages to bring up at least three times over the course of their dinner, and because of this, everything seems more real.

They watch the report on Vietnam. They watch photos, and footage from across the ocean, where the sound of gunfire is so normalized that the men watching the cameras don’t even flinch.

It makes Ash sick to his stomach, a nausea that’s impossible to ignore, and he swallows thickly night after night after night, just trying not to cry.

(Crying is one thing that will inevitably set Jim Callenreese off, and so it is something Ash strives very hard not to do.)

Tonight is easy though. Ash manages a few bites, eyes locked to the screen, while his Dad swallows enormous forkfuls of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and gravy while delivering his nightly commentary.

“What good men,” he likes to say, watching the boys of ‘Nam in their helmets and their fatigues, as they duck down in ravines, as they smile and wave. “What good men.”

The NBC news reports show nothing of death, only of camaraderie. It’s exciting for just a moment, until they begin to show the death tolls again, and then Ash wants to close his eyes, press his fingers into his ears, and try as hard as he can not to imagine Griff face down in the mud of a country he’d never wanted to go to.

Jim manages to speak during this as well, extolling the virtues of American men, and the hideous, conniving nature of those ‘fucking chinks’ and how he can’t wait to see Griffin back on good American soil where they’ll hug (not long, just enough to show a fatherly bond of course,) and go for drinks, and commiserate about the unfortunate yellow-skinned vermin of the world.

Ash doesn’t blame his father, exactly. Jim Callenreese served in the Korean War as part of the 189th Field Artillery Regiment, and as such, he has personal investment in the matter.

Ash has never seen a battlefield. Ash has never killed a human. He figures that in the end, it isn’t so different from shooting deer, or birds, out on the back of their property. All animals bleed the same, all animals have eyes that slowly fade to a hazy grey as they die on the ground.

All the same, watching his father compare himself to Griffin leaves a sour taste in his mouth.

Griffin is soft, and kind, and the sort of man that Ash desperately hopes he can mold himself into.

“Aslan,” his dad says, looking over to Ash’s table. “You haven’t eaten anything.”

Looking over to Jennifer for just a moment, Ash’s face falls, and he quickly takes a bit that tastes of nothing at all. She is still sitting stick straight, watching the television, the reflection of Tom Brokaw thick in her eyes.

“You’re ungrateful,” Jim continues, no longer looking at Ash, eyes back on the screen.

There’s a tension in the air now, but it’s one that Ash is comfortable with. Violence is still far away, right now it is just the sting of words.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, pushing another lump of dry potatoes onto his fork.

“You think your brother gets food like this? You think he’s comfortable out there, on the front lines? Let me tell you, Aslan, life isn’t easy like this everywhere. You’ve been given a gift. You have everything. You live in America, and–”

And just like that, he’s back on his tangent again, and Ash breathes a sigh of relief, chewing at the potatoes as much as he can, before attempting to swallow them.

It’s a quiet night, and he’s grateful.

He’d never tell Shorter this, but every day he wishes for the tree to bring Griffin home safe.

He’d never tell Shorter this, but every day, he wishes for his father not to notice him.

He’d never tell Shorter this, but Ash is drowning under the weight of expectation, and he’s not sure he has the strength to keep swimming.

Brokaw’s voice continues, dry and reverential, describing the atrocities of the war.

Jennifer sits in silence, her fork moving to her mouth robotically, as though she’s not human at all.

Jim goes to the kitchen for another beer, then comes back, already slurping down most of it in one gulp.

Ash raises his thumb quietly to his mouth, and continues to gnaw at the nail.

Eventually, the evening’s news coverage moves to the section where they show soldiers coming home–families hugging, children crying. These are more and more frequent these days, now that the draft has officially ended and the US has officially pulled out of Vietnam.

This is television Ash pays attention to. He watches every moment, every single crook of a smile as it forms, every time someone’s eyes begin to tighten. There are faces crinkled with age, and faces so smooth with youth that they can’t even understand what is happening.

One thing is always the same though: there is an intense, desperate happiness in touching someone who’s been gone so long.

Ash commits all of this to memory. Later, he will practice in front of his mirror–quirking his mouth in a smile, letting his eyes grow tense around the edges as though preparing to cry. He wants to be perfect with Griff comes home, he wants to show Griff just how much he’s been missed.

Later, he will crawl into bed, pull the covers around himself tight, and imagine exactly what it will be like when Griff knocks on their door. There are television cameras all around in Ash’s mind, and they flicker and flash as the door carefully opens, catching every single reaction.

Jennifer will smile, and Dad will grab Griff tight and smack him hard on the back in a supportive, proud sort of way. Ash will wait quietly until his turn, when he can finally throw his arms around Griff, show him just how tall he’s grown, and whisper in his ear that the Wishing Tree is real, it’s really real–and Ash will never doubt it again.

Chapter Text

Shorter Wong is vexed.

This is a word they’ve discussed just this week in 3rd hour English class with Mr. Patterson at the head of the room, smacking his yardstick against the green chalkboard again, and again, and again, as though the harder he hits, the more the tiresome children in front of him will choose to retain.

Ash isn’t in this class, and Shorter isn’t quite sure if maybe this is why the particular word in question has imparted its meaning on his consciousness.

It’s a quote from Julius Cesar to be precise–one, which now that he’s considered it a good while, seems to resonate with his entire being.

Vexed I am

Of late with passions of some difference,

Conceptions only proper to myself,

Which gives some soil, perhaps, to my behaviors.

Vexed.

Vexed.

It’s January now, and the soft snow of December has turned to vicious ice, carrying a creeping suspicion that spring may never be unearthed again. And Shorter is still here. Still living on the Cape. Still going to school during the days, and helping his parents with the restaurant that no one wants to go to during the night.

And hanging out with Ash Lynx.

This is the part he feels particularly vexed about–just as one of the boring, dreary, heroines of the stupid Jane Austin novel they’d read in English class last month.

Ash Lynx is interesting, Ash Lynx has a magical tree in his backyard, and Ash Lynx is someone who has begun appearing in Shorter’s dreams more and more frequently.

These are the sort of dreams that Shorter wakes from with a gnawing hunger that eats at him until he wants to scream.

To summarize, (or highlight the main points as Mr. Patterson is so fond of saying), Shorter is vexed because he is stuck in this shithole of a town, and he is vexed because he might be, (might be, might be, might be, he repeats as though this has a chance at all of changing) in love with his best friend.

Currently, he is also vexed because he’s sitting on a stool in the downstairs bathroom, his hair is hanging completely over his eyes, and his mother is standing behind him with the kitchen shears in her pocket, and an oversized tupperware bowl in her hands.

“I want a mohawk,” he complains loudly, as though this something she would seriously consider.

“Your hair is so thick,” she chides, Cantonese sharp and clear. “It is so nice. Not like your father’s. You need to love this hair right now because soon you will grow old and it will thin, and it will disappear, and you will have so many regrets.”

“And I’m sure Dad’s biggest regret in life is his comb-over.”

His mother smacks him in the back of the head with the tupperware bowl, and Shorter winces, then lets out a suitably dramatic groan. He tries to reach up to his head, but she smacks his hands back down too, then promptly drops the bowl over his head, pushing down and studying the curve of it around his brow.

“Pretty sure they call it a bowl cut because it looks like a bowl. Not because you actually use a bowl,” Shorter snarks, frowning at himself in the bathroom mirror.

“Ungrateful,” she responds, finally setting the shears to his hair.

It doesn’t take her long to go around his head, and he watches in the mirror as the straight, thick hair falls, catching all over his Stones shirt. The boy looking back at him looks: A. Ridiculous

and

B. ...sad. Young. Too young.

Shorter wrinkles his nose and bares his teeth, trying to look tough again, like he’s back in New York and things make sense.

“Stop,” his mother chides, tapping the top of the bowl with her sheers. “You will make it uneven.”

His hair being uneven isn’t exactly the biggest concern he’s got right now, but he lets it slide and waits for her to finish, a fragment of an idea unfurling within his chest.

Eventually, she stops, removing the bowl and studying her handiwork. “Good,” she proclaims. “Now go. Do your homework.”

She leans down and kisses Shorter on the cheek, and he moans, and groans, and makes a big show of wiping it off, because he’s 14 and he’s not supposed to like such things.

It’s not until he’s up in his bedroom and opening his ALGEBRA I textbook, that he presses his finger to his face, right where her lips had been, and thinks for a moment how nice it is to be loved.

***

“You want me to do what?”

Ash is bending over next to his locker, trying to yank the zipper of his backpack closed, but the bag seems to have other ideas and is currently spilling 4 classes worth of textbooks and a myriad of paper all over the floor.

“You need some help there, kiddo?” Shorter chimes in, leaning against the lockers hard and causing the door of Ash’s to bang closed.

“Don’t call me that,” Ash grumbles, pushing the hair out of his eyes and trying again. He fails, and this time a stack of line paper filled with scribbled handwriting falls out, spreading across the hallway in a predictably avalanche style.

At this, Ash finally gives up, hauls his open backpack up, and chucks it across the hall as hard as he can, where it manages to dent a locker, before falling back to the ground with a very loud and very resounding thud.

“Wow there, kiddo,” Shorter says, driving home the annoying epithet before crossing his arms and watching with intense amusement. There’s a rather frazzled looking woman from the office who has poked her head out, and is now heading towards them both with her lips pressed together so tight they’re almost white, and Shorter just can’t wait to see what happens next.

“Excuse me, young man,” she bursts out, wagging a finger right in Ash’s with a tenacious intensity that Shorter admittedly has to give her some credit for. “That behavior is entirely unbecoming of a young man, and I think you need a trip to the principal’s office to calm down!”

Somewhat surprisingly, given his sudden burst of violence, Ash seems to completely soften, his entire body relaxing, and his eyes flickering down at her feet. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Walker,” he says quietly. “I got frustrated and I lost control. I promise it won’t happen again. I’m so sorry, I really am.”

Shorter’s pretty sure his eyebrows are raised above his hairline at this point. He’s been hanging out with Ash for a few months now, and so he’s not completely oblivious to the way the kid can switch from anger, to meekness, but this seems a little much even for Ash.

It looks like he’s ready to get down on one knee and start crying.

Apparently Ms. Walker is equally afraid of this happening, because she steps back, brushes her hands at her skirt for a moment as though smoothing out any lines, and then smiles down at Ash. “I understand your frustration. I would really like to let this go, but you’ve damaged school property. At the very least, I’ll need to call your father in.”

There’s no missing the sudden snap of tension in Ash’s shoulders at this. “I can pay for it,” he offers. “You don’t need to call my parents, I can pay for everything. I’m really sorry, I truly am.”

It would be absolutely pathetic if it were anyone else, but Shorter’s seen just enough of the way Ash reacts around his parents that he’s suddenly very nervous.

“Don’t you worry about it, sweetheart,” she says, patting Ash on the head as though he’s three and not thirteen. “You run along. I’ll file an incident report later, but your parents will understand. It was an accident.”

It wasn’t really an accident, but Shorter supposes that isn’t the issue at stake right now. Ash is nodding at her, offering the smallest flicker of a smile, and it’s so fake it hurts.

Finally she leaves, heels clicking down the hall again, and Shorter moves to grab Ash’s backpack, shoving everything back inside quickly and zipping it without any problem at all.

“Fuck,” Ash whispers, just quiet enough so as not to attract the attention of anyone else. He sighs, then turns to Shorter. “Come on,” he says, like he’s lost an entire war and still has to keep on living. “My parents won’t be home until dinner time. We can do it in the upstairs bathroom.

Shorter still feels bad, but just like that, his energy is back again. “Serious? You’re serious, you’ll help me out?”

“Pshh. I’ll probably fuck up your head and then I’ll have your parents after me too.”

They finally burst free of the confines of the school, and Ash immediately reaches into his pocket for his thick leather gloves, yanking them on as fast as he can as the air condenses around his breath. “You’re gonna look really dumb.”

“I’m gonna look far out, man,” Shorter answers, kicking at the snow with his tennis shoes. His mom’s been nagging at him for a month now to wear his winter boots, but he’s got style and a little bit of cold discomfort is abso-fucking-lutely worth it.

Ash bends down, then snaps a snowball forward, hitting Shorter right in the back of the neck.

“Hey!” he yelps, trying to wipe the wetness away before it all falls down the back of his coat.

“You realize that people want hair right now, right? That long hair is kind of the goal?” Ash asks, looking entirely too innocent for someone who just smacked a snowball at his best friend at point blank range.

“I’m not people,” Shorter answers. “I’m Shorter Wong.”

And that answers fucking that.

***

Ash’s house sits down a lane that’s so long, you can almost imagine yourself stuck in a sort of unending path, the likes of which has as much chance of leading you to your chosen destination, as it does leading you into a fairy realm where you’ll spend two minutes laughing in the long grasses as everyone else you’ve ever known dies from old age.

The entire path blooms with hyacinth in the springtime, and Shorter has no reason to know this, other than that the memory of them hangs above them, so light and flowery that you can’t help but close your eyes and see blue.

They’ve come up here more than a few times since Ash introduced Shorter to his tree, but Ash has never actually invited him inside the cheerily yellow cottage that sits on top of the hill.

Now, he’s almost furtive about it, walking slower, quieter, looking around as though he expects to see someone pop out.

“You sure this is cool?” Shorter asks, running his hand over his thick head of hair that is soon to be completely demolished.

“It’s fine,” Ash says curtly, looking over his shoulder again.

“No, I mean, we can head back to my place. Figure out a time my folks aren’t around, shouldn’t be to hard. Nadia’s a pain in the ass, but I’ll blackmail her. Or something.”

“It’s fine,” Ash repeats.

He’s distracted though, not listening to Shorter’s litany of phrases, perfectly tailored to draw a laugh from the other boy. “Ash…”

Ash looks around one last time, then nods, a smile blooming on his face. “Fine!” He says again, though this time he sounds happy about it. “Jennifer’s down at the restaurant, helping my Dad.”

It’s not really a restaurant, so much as Cape Cod’s best performing Bed and Breakfast–something leagues above the shitty place Shorter’s parents are trying to make work. Shorter’s never actually been inside the place, though he’s walked by it enough times, watching Ash roll his bike up to the front porch and wave goodbye on days when he has to help out. This isn’t like Shorter either. Shorter helps at Chang Dai because he’s family and that’s what family does. Ash helps at the front desk of the Bed and Breakfast because it’s a job that he’s planning on putting on his resume to get into college. His father pays him $2 an hour, and Shorter presumes that Ash puts the money towards something incredibly sensible–like socks. Or underwear.

(Definitley not something like Shorter’s far out leather jacket from the second hand store down the corner that’s got the nice, soft fur all down the lining of it and makes him look fuckin’ Ace.)

He still can’t hold any of this against Ash though, because you don’t choose family, family chooses you, and Ash is fighting his own monsters inside the walls of the cheery, yellow cottage.

“Coming?”

Shorter looks up, realizes that he’s been sitting there like an airhead staring at the dirt, and jogs up the painted grey front steps of the cottage to catch up to Ash. “How do you know Jennifer’s down there?” he asks. It can’t be as simple as a car in the driveway, or Ash wouldn’t have been so damn cagey the entire walk up.

Ash just shrugs though. “Didn’t feel her here.”

Like that explains everything.

Shorter’s willing to let it slide this time though, being that Ash is about to do him a huge favor.

They step into the cottage, shucking off their coats and hanging them in the closet by the front door, and the first thing Shorter notices is how insanely clean it is. His parents are clean freaks–he and Nadia have been helping with housework since they were old enough to crawl, and he’s personally seen his mother have a massive meltdown over a dustbunny found on their ceiling fan.

It’s nothing like Ash’s house though.

Ash’s house is like walking into a museum–if there were a museum that housed peculiarly out-of-date furniture, and exceptionally creepy art on the walls.

The kitchen space has an olive green laminate countertop that generally jives with Shorter’s view of the world, but in the living room there is single television set, with a horrid, eggplant purple couch facing it. There’s just enough room between the couch and the tv to walk, single file, before turning to sit down.

There’s absolutely nothing else in the room, besides at least twenty paintings that are each hung in ornate gilded and golden frames. These house art that Shorter finds himself unable to look at for long, before a creepy, awful, feeling of being watched skitters down his spine.

They aren’t of anything necessarily. They are just...lines, and curves, and swatches of paint so black, it makes his eyes feel like they’re bleeding.

“Uh...nice art?” he says, once again feeling that urge to speak, even though no words are necessary.

Ash comes around the curve of the kitchen countertop where he’s laid out the mail for the day, in an impossibly neat spread. “They’re Jennifer’s,” he says quietly. “She likes to paint.”

They’re fucking creepy, Shorter wants to say, but that doesn’t really sound so nice being that Ash has just invited him into his house for the first time in four months of hanging out. “Nice?” he settles on, with an unfortunate upwards cadence at the end.

Shrugging, Ash walks past him without once looking at the walls. “My bedroom’s upstairs. We can use the hall bathroom.”

The stairs are also immaculate. The wooden floorboards creak with age, but there’s no sign of dust, or cobweb, or even a single smudge. Shorter finds himself holding his breath as he ascends, nervous that he might leave too much of an imprint upon the place and cause it all to come tumbling down.

The hallway upstairs is covered in thick,brown shag carpeting, and this at least is familiar. Shorter’s house has it also, and though he used to love the way it felt against his bare feet, he still remembers in vivid memory two months prior when he’d lain down to watch a television program and an enormous wolf spider skittered across his chest, completely camouflaged by the insidious shag.

Now he eyes it with equal distrust, making sure to stamp his sneakers extra hard as he walks, just in case another one is lurking somewhere near.

“You good?” Ash asks over his shoulder, eyebrows raised.

“Fuckin’ spiders are everywhere,” Shorter replies.

“Uh...probably not here,” Ash returns with wrinkle of his nose. “I mean, Jennifer kind of freaks about cleaning.”

“You don’t say.”

They’ve reached the bathroom now, and though the sink counters are that same olive green laminate, the floors are tiled in a dusky pink, and shine so much from the overhead lighting, it’s already giving Shorter a headache.

“She just likes to clean. I think she’s lonely, and it makes her feel...worthwhile I guess.” Ash pulls out drawers, looking for something, before finally sighing and walking back towards the hall. “I gotta grab some towels from the closet. And scissors...scissors...scissors–”

Shorter can hear him mumbling it as he walks the other way, but he ignores him, choosing instead to study himself in the reflection of the cleanest mirror he’s ever seen.

He’s tall. Taller than he should be, according to his parents, who both top out at 5’5. The Wong’s are perennially mediocre when it comes to height, and there has never been any variance in this fact.

Until Shorter.

He’s already an inch taller than his Mom, and shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. He’s also started trying to work out and buff up, so that when he gets back to NYC he can stand a chance against the wacko kids in the gangs.

This doesn’t seem to be as effective as he’d been hoping though. His voice has started changing, dropping lower and lower, and he’s been waking up to mortifyingly damp sheets, but the rest of his physical body doesn’t seem to want to admit it needs to bulk the fuck up because puberty is a thing.

Shorter’s still wearing his black polo shirt with the starched collar, and now he’s sporting a pair of perfectly creased khakis like every other chump in their year, but at least he’s managed to at least maintain his own brand of style. He’s still rocking the Chuck Taylors, (despite his mother’s frequent mumblings on the fact) and he picked up a sweet pair of shades from the lost and found last month that he’s got perched on his forehead, pushing up the long strands of thick, black hair out of his eyes.

He reaches up and thumbs these down now, watching the reflection change in the mirror.

Almost there. Almost at that point where nothing can touch him, nothing can hurt him, not words, not actions, not fucking Frederick Arthur, not–

“These should work.”

Shorter fumbles the glasses off and steps back as Ash throws a pile of beautifully fluffy and perfect towels on the floor in front of them both. Then he sets both a silvery metal safety razor and a pair of shears on the counter–the finger holes a bright orange, the blades shining bright.

“Those look nice,” Shorter comments, as Ash starts arranging the towels around them.

“The towels? I mean, they all look like that, it’s the only option. And I can throw them in the wash when we’re done. The scissors are Jennifer’s. Yanked ‘em from her sewing kit.”

“My mom always says that if I even so much as think of touching her sewing scissors for something besides fabric, she’ll stab them through the back of my hand.”

“Violent,” Ash murmurs, still pushing towels around their feet.

“I’m just saying, I don’t want you to get in trouble–”

“Dude.” Ash’s head snaps up, and suddenly he’s there, the Ash that Shorter spends so much time coaxing out, the one who’s full of certainty, and jagged edges, and life.

The one that Shorter’s in love with.

“You gonna trust me on this, or keep talking?”

His language even reverts when he’s like this, slang, and vernacular, and just the slightest hint of a Boston accent.

It’s suddenly extremely hot within the confines of the small bathroom, and they are standing extremely close, and Shorter closes his eyes and tries very hard to will himself to stop sweating. He realizes that Ash is still sitting there, glowering at him with those piercing jade eyes, and waiting for an answer.

“You gonna stab me with them when I’m not looking?” Shorter jokes, trying for ‘cool’ and ‘suave’ and anything but what he’s feeling.

“Maybe,” Ash says, eyes glinting even more ferocious. Shorter’s backed up against the bathroom sink now, and Ash is facing him, slowly reaching around his body.

For just a moment, Shorter thinks he’s leaning in, he’s about to put his hand on Shorter’s hip, they’re about to–

“You’re gonna have to sit on the floor,” Ash says, drawing the scissors out from behind where Shorter’s hips were leaning. “I’m not tall enough to reach the top of your head.”

“Oh,” Shorter huffs out. Suddenly, there’s not enough space for him to breathe, and his lungs feel too tight. “Yeah, yeah, sure.” He brushes past Ash, then sits himself down, crossing his legs in that child’s pose ‘criss cross applesauce,’ and smiles up at the blond boy above him, ignoring the sudden ache in his chest. “Ready!”

“You really want me to...like...all of it?” Ash asks.

Shorter can’t see his reflection in the mirror anymore, and he’s trying to sit really still while Ash is holding a pair of extremely sharp fabric scissors to the base of his neck, so he can’t look up, but Ash sounds like he does when he’s concentrating hard on something–his face scrunched up, his lower lip caught in his teeth.

“Yeah. Just get rid of as much as you can. Then we can get to the razor part.” Shorter grins but his stomach flips a little nervously at that.

His parents are going to kill him.

They are actually going to walk him outside, scream in his face, then push him off a cliff into the ocean.

Okay, they’re not going to do any of that, but his mom is going to be really upset, and this is enough to give Shorter those wiggling, nagging guilt twinges deep in his stomach.

“You’re really sure?” Ash asks again.

“Oh my god, please just do it!”

The words aren’t even out of his mouth when Ash makes the first cut, the snick of scissors only a hushed breath against Shorter’s ear.

A large hunk of hair falls to his lap, right below his knee. Shorter reaches out, picks it up between two fingers, and then rubs them together, watching strand after strand fall heavy against the white of the towels.

Ash is still cutting, fingers moving lithely over Shorter’s neck, and then his ears, and then his forehead. It’s a closeness they’ve not shared yet, and there’s a sudden tightening in Shorter’s stomach that causes his cheeks to flame red. “How’s it looking?” he asks after a moment, desperate to start some sort of conversation so that he can manage to ignore the feeling of Ash’s fingertips.

“You look like a skunk.”

“What’s that s’posed to mean?”

Ash giggles above him, and for just a moment, Shorter thinks that coaxing that sound of joy out of him alone would make this entire thing worth it. “I just mean, you look all patchy. You’ve got lots of hair still and then random spots that your skin’s showing through. Skunk isn’t a great descriptor. You look like mangy roadkill.”

Another hunk of hair falls into Shorter’s lap, and he finds himself grinning. “Perfect. That’s exactly what I was going for.”

They work like this for a long time, only pausing for Ash to switch over to the razor. This feels strange, and odd, and Shorter finds himself holding his breath–trusting Ash completely, but still afraid of being nicked. Ash is slow, and careful, and completely methodical, but eventually, though Shorter’s not counting minutes exactly, he can start to feel an edge to Ash’s movements, like he’s getting nervous again–a wild animal, let loose only when it’s owner’s aren’t around.

Finally, he steps back, and sets both the scissors and the razor on the counter. “I think I got as much as I can?”

He doesn’t sound entirely certain, but Shorter brushes off his lap, and stands. “Holy shit,” he exclaims, pushing past Ash and leaning into the mirror. “Holy mother-fucking shit.”

“You asked for it!” Ash exclaims, throwing his arms up in defense. “Don’t come cryin’ to me that it’s fucked.”

“Holy shit,” Shorter murmurs again, bringing his hand to his scalp and just letting his fingers glide across it.

There are a few patches where the hair is still there, right around his ears and at the nape of his neck, where Ash couldn’t get quite close enough. Most of it is completely gone though, just nothing–smooth skin that highlights every bump of Shorter’s skull.

He doesn’t look like the same kid.

There are edges to him now that never existed before, and he tries out a few facial expressions, pulling his mouth closed to a straight, sharp line, narrowing his eyebrows.

“Quit it,” Ash says, elbowing him in the side hard enough that Shorter groans out loud. “You look like a dumbass.”

“I look fucking dope as shit,” Shorter says, making sure each word drawls just enough to leak it’s meaning all over the bathroom sink. “Fuck.” He bends down and grabs the discarded sunglasses, pushing them back on over his ears. “Fuck!”

Ash emits a very loud sigh behind him. “You are going to be so annoying to be around now, aren’t you?”

Shorter just grins.

***

When he gets back to the restaurant that night, it’s to find the flashing lights of a single police car right outside the place. His father is standing there too, attempting to explain in mangled English why it is that the front windows of the restaurant are all bashed in.

There’s red paint splatter all over the front door of the place, and wild brush strokes do nothing to hide the message painted there.

Go back to Nam

Shorter can feel his breath getting too tight in his chest as anger threatens to burst free, but he just tears his eyes away and steps over the windowsill instead of having to touch the door.

Nadia and his mom are inside, sweeping up pieces of glass as best they can. There are rocks inside too–hundreds of them–that kind of white quartz that sparkles brilliantly when the sun shines, the kind that feel like treasure in the palm of your hand.

Apparently when thrown hard enough, even tiny pieces of treasure can crack glass.

Shorter picks a few of them up, tossing them back outside, stomach aching with nausea born of violent anger. Finally, he steps back out again, leaving the clean up behind, and attempts to translate for his father.

There are only two police officers–one leaning against the front door of the flashing car looking bored, the other frowning at Shorter’s dad and jotting the occasional note down on his pad. They don’t look concerned so much as irritated that they’ve been pulled out of the warm comfort of their patrol car to stand in the frigid, icy air that sweeps in off the ocean.

“Rocks,” Shorter tries to tell the one who’s writing. “Someone was throwing rocks hard enough to break the windows.”

The policeman doesn’t look at him once.

And no one comments on his hair.

Chapter Text

January 27,1973.

The day starts like any other–Ash showers quickly, dresses quickly, comes his hair quickly to one side, noting with a scowl of distaste that it still refuses to lie flat and instead insists on jutting out every which-way–like tufts of dandelion down.

His cheek is bruised again, but it’s that yellowing of ‘barely there’ that he hopes won’t be too noticeable. His dad smacked him good over the locker incident, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. Ash wiggles his mouth around, wincing at the pull of it, but eventually gives up, sighing a bit dramatically before flicking off the bathroom light.

He quietly walks down the stairs, careful not to wake his father who is still snoring in the downstairs bedroom loud enough to echo in the upstairs hallway.

Jennifer has left him breakfast–a bowl, a spoon, the box of Honey-Nut Cheerios that always taste like sand in Ash’s mouth, and a little slip of a note:

Have a nice day

There is never an ‘I love you’ attached, or a ‘Love Jennifer’ attached, or even an ending at all. It’s wispy, dreamlike scrawl that looks as though it were only half meant to attach itself to paper at all.

She tries, Ash supposes, when she remembers he exists at all.

He eats quickly, he leaves the house quickly, he walks into school quickly, putting his extra book inside of his locker, and slipping into Ms Allen’s first hour class.

Frederick’s there, sitting in Ash’s seat on purpose and laughing with a few of the girls. As soon as Ash enters though, he’s watching, smirking, waiting for Ash to say something, or do anything at all.

It’s an alpha male move–he’s asserting his dominance in the same way dogs do–and though Ash could care less, that nervousness about confrontation is back, and he suddenly feels too hot as his ears start to ring.

“You gotta problem, Aslan?” Frederick taunts, clearly jonesing for a fight.

There’s a part deep inside of Ash that rears up at that, choking him with it’s blackness, and he finds himself desperate to punch Frederick Arthur in the fucking face.

The rest of him though is carefully maintained, and he swallows it all down, looking to the floor instead of meeting Frederick’s eyes. “...’s fine,” he manages.

One of the girls starts giggling, and Ash can feel his cheeks heating up. He quickly turns and scans the classroom. There’s a seat in the very front left corner that no one usually occupies, and so he heads there, unzipping his backpack and grabbing out his notebooks before easing into the chair. It feels like everyone’s eyes are on him, and his ears are burning so hot he’s having trouble staying still and not reacting.

Shorter’s still not there, and Ash isn’t sure if this is a good thing, or not. He doesn’t particularly want the other boy to see him this way–nervous, on edge, humiliated in front of a fucking bully–but it would also be nice to know there was one other person in class on his side.

Doesn’t happen though.

Ms. Allen comes in, frowns a bit at the new seating arrangement, but in the way of teachers who always favor the popular kids, doesn’t say a thing.

And class goes on.

By lunchtime, Shorter still isn’t there, and Ash is starting to seriously worry. He knows that Shorter’s parents aren’t the type to murder their son over a haircut, but there’s still a thick, souring guilt in his stomach that he’s the one who’s done something horribly wrong, that the act of Shorter shaving his head is going to be enough to lose the one friend he has.

He’s just about to sit down at the end of a fairly empty table when Frederick shows up again, all his stupid cronies behind him. They’re jeering, and laughing, and clearly headed for the same section of table that Ash has spotted, so he gives up and gets the hell out of Dodge.

The library doesn’t allow food, but that’s fine by him. He’s skipped lunch before to hide out here, and he’ll do it again.

He settles in at a table that’s pushed off just next to the tall shelves, pulls The Sun Also Rises from his backpack and lets minutes tick by, growing more and more enthralled by the way Hemingway weaves his prose.

As such, it takes him a good while before he notices the chaos errupting around him.

At first, Ash is irritated. He’s not far enough into the book that a simple interruption doesn’t derail him completely so he looks up with a languid sort of stickiness that comes of having certain words imprint strongly against your brain, but no memory of any meaning leftover to give them sentience. But when he sees that one of the librarians is rushing out of the backroom, staring at him with wide eyes, the noise starts to resolve into a buzz wild conversation taking place amongst the students who were previously reshelving books.

No one actually says anything to him, so for a minute, he awkwardly sits, eyeing the commotion and trying to decide if maybe a faceoff with Frederick was a better choice.

Then, the second librarian carries out a brand new Panasonic transistor radio–the kind that Ash has been secretly eyeing in the Sears catalog for months–and turns up the volume.

It’s crackly at first, and she rolls back the dial, hushing everyone around her. It takes a minute, then two, before Ash can really hear what’s being said.

“...joining us, we are replaying the speech made by President Nixon just hours ago. We’re coming in partway through right now so…”

He’s listening intently but everyone’s eyes are still on him, like he’s a statue of particular interest in a bizarre museum

“...the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam was initialed by Dr. Henry Kissinger on behalf of the United States, and Special Adviser Le Duc Tho on behalf of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

The agreement will be formally signed by the parties participating in the Paris Conference on Vietnam on January 27, 1973, at the International Conference Center in Paris.

The cease-fire will take effect at 2400 Greenwich Mean Time, January 27, 1973. The United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam express the hope that this agreement will insure stable peace in Vietnam and contribute to the preservation of lasting peace in Indochina and Southeast Asia.”

It goes on, and on, Nixon’s voice dry and scratch through the tiny radio, but Ash can barely breathe, and his hands have started to shake.

“Are you alright?” A girl asks, suddenly right near his side, her blonde braids brushing against the table as she crouches down. “You don’t look okay?”

“Uh…” Ash swallows again, blinking black spots from his vision and trying to remember to breathe. It’s like his heart has completely stopped beating, and he’s having to manually force air back into his lungs by sheer willpower alone. “Uh…”

“Mrs. Williams?” the girl asks, standing suddenly and jarring the table enough to knock the Hemingway to the floor. “I don’t think he’s okay?”

Ash is fine though–he’s more fine than he’s been in over a year. “I’m okay,” he says quietly, offering a shy smile up to her. She’s younger than he is–he doesn’t recognizer her from the 8th grade class, but she’s looking down at him with so much concern he starts to blush anyways. “I’m fine,” he says again, blinking a few times, and trying to steady himself.

She doesn’t look convinced, because she quickly crouches again, grabbing his backpack and trying to zip it for him.

“I’m really okay,” Ash says again. Somewhere in the background, the same speech is playing again, crackly, and authoritative, and everything.

It takes him way too long, but finally he’s worked his arms into the straps of his backpack, he’s waving at the librarians who are still staring at him a little too hard, he’s assuring the younger girl again that he’s okay, and then he’s outside, free of the stacks, free of the mildewy smell that permeates the library building since they’d had a burst pipe two years ago.

It’s the kind of cold outside that freezes the inside of your nose as you breathe, but Ash doesn't care.

It’s over.

The War is over.

The draft is over.

There’s an end date that soldiers will be coming home, and Griff?

Griff is coming home again.

***

The rest of the school day is a complete haze. All of the teachers have radios out, listening to Nixon’s words over and over again, barely watching the students.

The students are captivated too–quieter than they’ve ever been before. There are so many older brothers who are of age at home, and the absolute stress of waiting, knowing that they’re days are numbered has weighed on the entire town for years.

This announcement is freedom. It’s life. It’s being able to breathe without fear of everything else crashing down at your simple movement.

Ash doesn't cry–he’s well versed in saving that particular feat for only himself–but classes pass in a sort of dream haze for him. Later, he’ll remember the announcement in school, he’ll remember the way his heart beat faster, the way moving parts of his body felt mechanical and no longer controlled by him

There are boys who try to talk to him, teachers who smile at him so big it hurts, girls who he’s never even seen who wrap their arms around him in a simple hug and get teary against his neck.

It’s over.

It’s over, it’s over, it’s over.

And now the only thought on his mind is finding Shorter.

The bell finally rings, the students rush out, the sun is actually shining and causing the icy snow to sparkle so bright it hurts eyes. It’s an absolutely perfect day and there’s nothing in the entire universe that can ruin this feeling.

He doesn’t have his bike today–there was too much ice on the street to make it worthwhile–so he’d walked to school and now is wrinkling his nose at the prospect of walking back alone. Shorter’s restaurant isn’t far from the though, and in an instant of irrationality, Ash turns that way, listening to the crunch of his boots against the snow.

It’s that silent sort of cold that surrounds him now–the kind where you can hear every inhalation, and even the crystalized branches of trees seem to sing. There’s an excitement building in his chest, warm, and fluttery, just ready to burst, and as such, it seems to take him even longer than usual to climb down the tiny ravine that separates domesticity from highway, and crawl back up again. Eventually though, he’s on the road side of things, and he can see the painted white cinder blocks of the Wong’s restaurant right in front of him.

The path from school leads him up to the backside of the restaurant, so it’s not until he rounds the corner of the building that he realizes something is horribly wrong.

Shorter’s there, sitting on a cement curb stop with his arms crossed on top of his knees and his head turned towards the parking lot. He doesn’t seem to hear Ash come up at all, but the moment Ash moves to talk, he turns, grinning wide.

“What’s up?” he asks, like nothing’s the matter at all.

The smile stretches too thin on his face though–forced, and out of place. “What happened?” Ash asks mournfully, looking at the sparkle of the shattered glass all around the front of the restaurant, then stepping over the stop and sitting down next to Shorter.

Shorter shrugs. “Dumb people.”

Ash looks behind him again, and Mrs. Wong is suddenly in the empty window, waving at him somberly. He waves back, but it seems a heavy thing, difficult to continue for too long. He lets his gloved hand fall back to his side, and looks over to his friend again. “You call the police?”

The moment the words are out of his mouth, he realizes how stupid they sound, but Shorter’s just nodding, slow–like the memory of an action. “Last night.”

“This happened last night?”

Shrugging again, Shorter leans forward and stands, stretching his arms above his head, then pulling at the woolen black cap he’s wearing, tugging it down over his ears.

There’s no evidence of his haircut now–it’s entirely hidden by the hat–but Ash can’t help thinking that he still looks harder, sharper, more intense. “It’s fine,” he says, holding a hand down to Ash and pulling him up too. “Just gotta replace the glass. We’ve got the inside mostly cleaned up now, just need to work on the outside bit and–” Shorter turns to the store, “Hey, Ma? Cool if I hang out with Ash a bit?”

She calls back something in Cantonese, and Shorter nods, saluting once almost like he’s military, but there’s not quite enough bite in the motion for believability.

“Come on,” he says. “I gotta get out of here. Let’s go to your tree.”

***

Ash doesn’t question him any more on it as they walk the couple of miles back to the yellow cottage. He figures if Shorter wants to talk, he’ll talk, and pressing him on the issue is just going to hurt both of them in the end.

Instead, he regails Shorter with tales of Frederick’s assholery, and goes over some of what they covered in class.

He’s not ready to share his own news yet–that seems like too much joy when Shorter is clearly in pain, and so he holds onto it tightly, tucked inside his chest, letting it rumble against his insides like the quiet crash of waves at the shore.

When they finally climb the hill, and march down the path, and throw a few snowballs for good measure, they shed their winter gear right outside the fall of branches as though an offering of sorts. The tree is covered in snow and ice, and as the slow wind blows, certain branches tinkle with music which passes all around them–a sound more magical and enticing than any earthbound creature has a right to be making.

“Come on,” Ash whispers, taking Shorter’s hand again and diving through the branches.

Inside, it’s warm, of course, exactly as they’ve come to expect. The tree is saved for special moments–it’s not a place they seek out every day, it’s more the sort of thing that feels as though it needs to be savored, and carefully consumed.

Ash and Griff were never like this–they sucked every bit of magic they could from beneath the ceiling of wood and leaves–but with Shorter it feels like they are on a time limit, like at any moment the bubble will burst and leave them with nothing but leaves crumbling to ash.

“Ah,” Shorter sighs out, running up and wrapping his arms around the trunk. He rubs his cheek into the even wood and sighs again, a real smiling lighting up his face.

The Wishing Tree softens Shorter, smooths him out so much that he almost looks content.

(The Wishing Tree hardens Ash, because it reminds him of everything he doesn’t have. That changes today though. Everything changes today.)

“You know any Latin?” Shorter asks suddenly, completely out of the blue.

Ash steps up next to him, running a hand down the bark and letting his fingertips hesitate on every craggy knob. “Nope.” He doesn’t question why–he knows Shorter well enough to realize that somewhere there will be a reason to explain his oddness.

It takes another five minutes of Shorter circling the tree, touching the tree, communing with the tree, before he speaks up again though. “Just seems like Latin is the sort of language a tree would know.”

Again, Ash doesn’t question. It’s nonsense, but nonsense tends to feel right here, so he nods. “We could learn it. Aquivi porem venidici–”

“You do know Latin!”

“I made that all up you idiot,” Ash laughs, and just like that , the period of reverence is over. Shorter kicks off his shoes again, per usual, and Ash follows, per usual. Then they both go on the hunt for the perfect stick to discover bugs.

Shorter finds one first, unearthed at the outer edge of the circumference, and he drags it back with a heroic smile on his face. “Got one!”

Then they proceed to crouch down between the giant roots, and dig into the earth, searching for worms.

“My brother’s coming home,” Ash says quietly, just as Shorter’s unburies a squirming beetle, wrestling with it as he tries to pull it from the dark dirt.

Shorter doesn’t hear him at first–gives a low cry of success upon finally pulling the entire bug out and laying it on his palm, but then his head turns sharply, his eyes glimmering with hope. “What?”

“You guys have the news at the restaurant?” Ash asks with a grin. “It’s been all over the radio.”

“Pff. Too much other shit going on there today. Didn’t have anything turned on.”

He doesn’t sound upset though, and Ash knows that it’s safe to finally give voice to the excitement buried in his chest. “The war is over,” he says quietly. “They signed a peace agreement. Griff is gonna come home.”

Shorter’s staring at him with those liquid brown eyes, and Ash can feel it all welling up inside him at once, this desperation, this happiness, this dire need to stay still and unnoticed so as to not knock the world ajar.

“Are you serious?” Shorter finally asks, the curve of a grin pulling at his mouth. “Are you really serious?”

Nodding, Ash tries to recite some of Nixon’s speech, but it’s all turning to dust in his mouth because those are just words, and here is something so much more. “Yeah,” he finally says, letting his own smile break free. “Yeah, they like...they signed something. They’re gonna start pulling soldiers out this month. Draft is ending too. It’s just–”

“That’s great, man,” Shorter offers–a genuine smile playing out on his face now. “That’s really great.” He lets his legs fold underneath him, sitting in the dirt now and letting his arms stretch back behind his torso. “I can’t wait to meet him.” Then he leans his head back and closes his eyes.

“Magic is real,” Ash whispers.

Shorter barely moves, but he gives the tiniest ‘huh?’ of sound.

“I wished for Griff to come home, and he’s coming home. The magic was real.”

“Yeah. Far out, man. Pretty sweet tree.”

Ash just watches as the tiny kaleidoscope patterns of light that fall between the leaves dance across Shorter’s face. First they light up his eyes, then fall to his nose–a more rounder sort of nose than Ash has but somehow perfect for Shorter’s face. Then they dance around his lips, leafy patterns playing at every curve.

Shorter’s eyes open and Ash looks away quickly, face suddenly flushing hot.

“Quit staring at me,” Shorter says, with a long drawl that’s clearly meant to be humor.

Ash chuckles, but it’s a weak thing, a forced sound. “Sorry–”

“You ever kissed a girl?”

Ash freezes, focusing his eyes on that small hole in the dirt where Shorter’s fingers had been digging just moments before. “Uh…”

“I mean, not like kindergarten when you all kissed each other just to say you did it. I mean really kissed a girl?”

Ash hadn’t even done that, but he doesn’t particularly want to let that piece of information go. “Sure,” he says, nodding his head a little to further affirm that he’s not a complete loser. “Sure, yeah. Why?” Forcing his head back up to watch Shorter’s face, he sees the other boy squint ever so slightly in judgement? Acceptance? Something else?

“Yeah?” Shorter asks. “What was it like?”

“Uh…” Ash is stuck fumbling again, awkward and ungainly, like a newborn colt barely stable on it’s long, long legs. He thinks back to what Griff told him once, in this same quiet privacy of the tree, and tries to repeat the memory verbatim. “Uh, soft I guess? A little wet. I don’t know...weird?”

Shorter lets out a laugh. “No way, man. Weird?”

“Have you ever kissed a girl? That real way?” Ash blurts, suddenly very, very ready to have the attention off of himself.

“Sure,” Shorter smiles at him, eyebrows waggling as leans a little closer. “Wasn’t really weird. Was more like…”

It happens in an instant, he pushes off from the dirt with a crazed energy and jumps on top of Ash, grinning and shrieking like a wild banshee out of hell. They roll and tumble in the dirt–Ash’s hair picking up leaves and debris, Shorter’s feet pushing at the dirt enough to keep them rolling.

At some point, Ash gets some fingers into the crook of Shorter’s ribs and he digs in, watching the way Shorter suddenly contorts and begins to laugh uncontrollably.

“Stop” he shrieks, trying to push himself off from Ash. “Stop, stop, stop–”

“Say Uncle!” Ash shouts with glee, digging one knee into the dirt and forcing Shorter back further. “Say it!”

“No you fucker,” Shorter gasps out.

Ash just digs his fingers in more and Shorter goes rigid with another peal of laughter. “Fuck it, fuck you, Uncle, uncle–”

No sooner does Ash let up, that Shorter throws himself back and pounces on Ash, pinning him down and sitting on his midsection, pushing both of Ash’s wrists into the dirt by his head. “You fucker,” he says with a smile on his face. “You…”

There’s a sudden whisper of wind around them, the branches whipping up and rustling all around them. They’re both flushed in the face, they’re both panting heavily, but suddenly Ash finds that he can’t look away from Shorter’s eyes. “I’ve never kissed a girl,” Ash whispers, rushed and frantic and at the same moment,

“Have you ever kissed a boy?”

Shorter’s voice is louder than his, almost completely drowns out Ash’s confession, and now there is even more tension between them. The wind stops, Shorter’s hands tighten and untighten on Ash’s wrist, over and over in nervous energy, and Ash suddenly can’t quite swallow.

“No…” he whispers.

And Shorter bends down.

There’s nothing particularly magic about it other than the fact that it happens underneath an enchanted tree of sorts. Their lips brush awkwardly, and it’s just like Griff said. Soft, wet, weird.

Then, almost before it even began, Shorter sits back up again and wipes the back of his hand against his mouth. “Huh,” he says. “That was…”

“Weird,” Ash says helpfully. His mouth is still tingling from the sensation, and he brings a hand there, touching the pads of his fingertips to his lips.

“Huh,” Shorter says again.

His cheeks are a little pinker than usual, but Ash isn’t sure if this is just from the roughhousing they just did or something more. “Sorry?” Ash offers, suddenly extremely uncomfortable and not entirely sure what to say.

This causes a reaction. Shorter’s entire face wrinkles up in irritation. “Why are you apologizing?”

“I don’t know, I just felt like I should say...something?”

“That’s dumb.”

Ash bucks a little, trying to throw Shorter from him, but Ash doesn’t weigh enough yet to do much of anything. “Fine,” he throws out. “Let me up.”

“Want to do it again?”

Now Shorter’s looking down at him with a questionable sort of face, and his newly bald head is shining in the splayed sunlit patterns.

Somewhere around them lie Shorter’s sunglasses, discarded for the afternoon, and Ash is surprised to find it a relief to finally be able to look him straight in the eyes.

“Kiss?” he asks, wanting to make absolutely sure that he understands the question at hand.

“Yeah. Want to try it again?”

Ash fights down that burgeoning bubble of want, and tries to be as nonchalant about the entire situation as he can. “Sure. I guess.”

Shorter bends over him again, and this time it’s longer, the press of their lips is harder, more insistent.

It’s still wet, and it’s still weird, and at one point, Shorter’s teeth knock into Ash’s teeth and that doesn’t feel so great, but the tingling excitement in Ash’s belly grows and grows all the way until when Shorter finally pulls back again and leaves them both huffing for breath.

He doesn’t wipe his mouth this time, instead he’s just staring so intently at Ash that Ash is having trouble breathing.

“You okay?” Shorter finally asks releasing Ash completely and sitting back in the dirt, his knees pulled to his chest.

He looks younger this way, like suddenly he has everything to lose.

Ash pushes himself up on his knees and brushes off a minute, running his hands through his hair and watching as bits of leaves and tiny sticks tumble down. “Yeah,” he finally answers. “Good. You?”

“We probably shouldn’t do that anywhere else.”

Shorter’s eyes are suddenly only on the dirt, and not matching Ash’s at all. It’s the most insecure Ash has ever seen him. “Probably not,” he agrees, with some amount of solemnity. Then with a sigh, he shrugs his shoulders. “Hey, where’d you put that stick?”

A tiny smile works it’s way back up Shorter’s cheek, and he takes a deep breath in before unfolding, lithe and confident, and just...Shorter Wong. He leaps up and runs back to the base of the tree, searching for only a moment before he waves it over his head. “Got it!” he exclaims.

“Rad,” Ash calls.

Then they go back to the very important business of digging up bugs.

***

Later that night, just after Shorter leaves to head back to the restaurant, and just before Ash’s parents get home from the Bed and Breakfast, Ash tiptoes back in underneath the fall of the leaves, ready to perform his nightly ritual.

Tonight is a little different though. The war is over, Griff is coming home, and magic truly exists.

He presses a palm to the bark of the Beech–eyes closed and cheeks burning hot. “I’m so sorry I doubted you. Thank you for bringing back Griffin.” Then he swallows tight, waits until the heat of the tree makes sweat trickle down his back, and whispers in a shivery, hushed sort of voice:

“I wish we could kiss again.”

Chapter Text

Three weeks later, Shorter dreams of New York.

It’s not the sort of dream that fades to blackness and leaves the taste of yearning in your mouth, nor is it the sort that ends with a bang and a shuddering inhalation of breath.

Rather, it’s an insidious cold. The sort of frost that settles over the morning grass so quietly, you don’t notice a single thing until the blades snap underfoot.

It starts innocently enough. Shorter’s in the stockroom of his parents restaurant, but it’s the one in New York, not the one in Cape Cod. He’s young–much younger than he is now–and there’s no good reason for him to know this, other than that it is a dream, and youth settles thick in his chest.

“Kevin!” his mom calls, but the Cantonese shimmers in the air, changing just enough that the name tangles and distorts until it takes the shape of a giant elk, barreling around the kitchen and knocking pots and pans to the floor with its deathly sharp antlers.

Shorter backs up, pressing himself against the wall and watching the way the muscles of the animal move beneath it’s sleek fur.

His mom is terrified. She runs from it, brandishing a mesh colander and opens her mouth in a cavernous scream of horror. This time, a baby tumbles out, bright red, mouth open in a perpetual wail of hunger.

“Stop,” Shorter tries to tell her. “Stop yelling, stop saying anything, close your mouth!” But his own voice doesn’t seem to work, only hers. He keeps trying, struggling to draw in a breath, but nothing is happening except for a sickly sound that’s barely escaping his lips. He looks down and realizes that his chest is no longer a chest, and just a large pair of bellows that is currently completely collapsed. Reaching behind himself, Shorter grabs the handle and pulls as firmly as he can, but there is still only enough air to whisper, “Mom.”

The elk is still panicking, the baby is lying on its back on the red ceramic tile, flailing, limbs bumping against the small metal table that they cut carrots and onions on top of. But now, there’s a wash of sound, throbbing in time with the beat of Shorter’s heart, and as he blinks, it all fades to sky, and sand, and ocean.

Somewhere in the distance, he can see an animal trying to swim, it’s head barely above the water.

It’s the elk, he realizes, and its antlers are liquid black in the moonlight, the same black as Jennifer’s paintings, the kind that tries so hard to swallow you whole.

The elk begins to whine in panic, realizing that there’s no hope, there’s no chance of finding solid ground beneath its hooves.

Somewhere beneath the surface of the waves, a red faced infant turns blue, lungs soaking in saltwater. He can’t see it, but he knows--just as he knows the sand beneath his bare feet, gritty, as his toes begin to wiggle, fighting for freedom.

Instead, he’s almost frozen, and all he can do is watch as the water creeps closer and closer. First it laps at his ankles, and his feet sink deeper as the sea deposits sediment all around him.

Then it’s at his knees. It’s warm, and soothing, and he closes his eyes, imagining the crust of salt that it will leave behind on his skin.

There’s the bang of a gunshot in the distance, and though he doesn’t open his eyes, he knows that the elk is now sinking to the bottom of the ocean, a bullet hole straight through his heart.

When he finally blinks again, the water is around his throat, whispering for him to open his mouth, to swallow it down, to breath with gills he no longer has.

It’s too soft a thing, for panic, and so Shorter obeys, letting the water in, letting it pour into his ears, swallow his eyes, fill him with pressure so hard he’s about to burst.

And then, when darkness remains, when the only thing that exists is nothing at all, he hears Ash’s voice:

The tree demands a wish.

***

“Kevin!”

Shorter snaps up, blinking at Nadia from across the breakfast table. There’s a box of Fruit Loops between them, as well as a box of Frosted Flakes. The orange tiger from the latter grins mercilessly at him with a hard, two dimensional smile.

“What?” Shorter groans, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes and trying to rub the residual dream from them.

“You’re asleep in your bowl of milk,” she says primly, perfectly waxed eyebrow raised just the right amount to show her irritation.

“And you care because…”

Rolling her eyes, Nadia pokes deliberately at her steaming hot congee, bursting the yolk of the egg that sits on top and letting the dark yellow seep down to the porridge underneath. She’s so perfectly steeped in China that it hurts to watch. “You shouldn’t eat that shit,” she comments, eyeing the cereal.

Now, Shorter’s eyebrows are raised. Swearing in their house is one of those things that just isn’t done. Shorter gets away with it on occasion because he’s a teenage boy and teenage boys are full of destructive tendencies (as his father likes to eloquently explain to his mother on evenings when Shorter is feeling particularly obliged to be difficult.)

Nadia usually obeys this rule with the meticulous nature that she applies to everything else–her schoolwork, her perfectly waxed eyebrows, her dedication to making Shorter’s life miserable.

“Mo-om!” Shorter calls out, high pitched, and needy.

Nadia’s look of condescension immediately turns to anger. “Oh you little brat,” she hisses, nose wrinkling, brown eyes growing dark.

What, dear? Their mom asks from the kitchen.

“Nadia said a bad word!” Shorter whines, spooning a very large amount of sugar coated fruit loops and flakes into his mouth with a grin at his sister.”

Nadia?

Nadia is positively glowering. It’s not like she’s going to be inflicted with an enormous punishment for the offense, it’s just that Shorter has always been their mother’s favorite and no matter what Nadia does, this isn’t likely to change. A small smile is starting to grow across her face though, and Shorter just knows that he’s in for it.

“I think Kevin has a secret girlfriend,” Nadia announces, switching flawlessly into Cantonese so that their mother doesn’t miss a single word.

“You…” Shorter grows, not able to follow that up with a suitable word that isn’t on the naughty list.

Meanwhile, their mother hurries in and stands over the table, hands wiping at her apron, cheeks growing red with excitement. “Is this true, Kevin?” She asks. “Oh please, bring her to meet us! What is her name? Is she in your class at school? Who are her parents, you should bring them all to the restaurant and we will meet them and it will be so perfect–”

She’s going on and on and Shorter attempts to kick Nadia underneath the table, but she’s just too damn fast at pulling away.

Soon enough though, (and really, Shorter thinks, his sister should have been smart enough to see the follow-through) Mrs. Wong turns to Nadia.

“Why don’t you ever bring nice boys home? You should be more friendly. You walk around with such a look on your face all the time, like you are smelling something dirty. No one will want to talk to you that way! You are a beautiful young girl, you should have boys lined up for miles!”

This diatribe too, goes on for much longer than is truly necessary, and by the end, Nadia’s jaw is clenched so tight, Shorter’s pretty sure she’s cracked a molar.

Nadia gives in as she always does, nodding and assuring her mother that she just hasn’t met the right boy, and eventually, Mrs. Wong hurries back into the kitchen where she continues preparing food for their lunch boxes.

Shorter’s feeling quite full of himself all the way until they bundle up to leave for school and Nadia hisses over to him, “I’m not wrong though. You do have a girlfriend.”

“Do not,” Shorter answers, a reflex after 14 years of fighting her.

Nadia opens the door, and a burst of air wind hits them, flinging flurries of snowflakes in their faces.

“Deny it all you want,” she taunts loudly, once they are safely on the sidewalk and away from the inquisitive ears of their mother. “But you’re hardly ever home, and when you have to work at the restaurant, you’re always smiling, that secretive little sort. Thought you missed New York,” she sing-songs, pulling and stretching the vowels of the city to fit her beat. “Thought you wanted to go baaaaack…”

“I do,” he says, but it’s just a little too quick.

“Whatever,” Nadia says, with a knowing smile. “Whatever.”

And Shorter has no choice but walk faster, not say a word, and ignore the burning heat that’s pulsing from his cheeks to his ears.

***

One day, the wind blows in off the sea, tumbling and turning down streets, rustling pavement stones, throwing dust and dirt in boundless energy. There’s a sudden squawking of chickens from a yard fenced in metal as Shorter walks to school, and he pauses, watching as they flutter their feathers in disgust and eye the sky with the sort of pride reserved usually for man.

He laughs, watching them. There’s one hen who manages to make it to the top of their coop with her flapping wings and scrabbling toes, and she stands there opening and closing her beak, making some sort of hissing sound to the rest of her clan.

It sounds like noise to Shorter, but the birds appear to understand it, as they all suddenly gather in a group and push towards the door.

The wind continues to whip around, coiling tight around Shorter’s exposed neck, but the hen still stands there, the claws of her toes gripping tight against the tarred roofing of the little house. She throws her neck back and forth as few times in disgust, but Shorter can feel it now too. The wind is no longer a biting cold–there’s a rub of warmth with it that leaves brushed fingerprints on his skin before blowing down the path once more.

Spring has come.

As he finally climbs the last hill up to the schoolyard, Shorter can see that he’s not the only one who’s feeling the effects. Fuck-Face Frederick (As Shorter has taken to referring to him in private) is sitting on top of one of the monkey bars, jacket cast to the ground underneath him, and the sleeves of his dark green cardigan pushed up to his elbows. He looks a bit similar to the cocky hen who’d perched on top of her coop, only his hair is far more ridiculous than the cute little tuft on the top of her head, and Shorter has to bite his lip to keep from laughing.

“Dare you,” someone taunts from below–a younger boy a class beneath them.

“Dare you,” Frederick yells back, face pulling into a sneer. Then he surges up on his arms, swinging one leg around until he’s got each leg hooked over the edge of one metal beam. Quicker than seems possible, he leans forward onto one of the horizontal bars, then pushes himself up, getting his feet underneath him on the vertical metal.

Then slowly, slowly, he rises from his crouch, reaching his arms overhead and standing up–about 20 feet from the ground.

Shorter gives them all a wide berth as he walks around the playground, in far too good of a mood from the warm air to be getting into petty classroom brawls, but he can still hear the crowd of boys ‘oo-ing’ and ‘aw-ing’ and giving Frederick all the attention in the world.

It’s irritating.

But not quite as irritating as the fact that the classroom is stiflingly hot.

The heating system is designed to continue through a certain date in the year, and obviously the district hadn’t realized that the weather might change this soon when they planned this whole thing out. Shorter shrugs off his down coat, and wishes for a moment that he’d worn a t-shirt, instead of the thick red and purple woolen sweater that his mother had knit him for Christmas.

(Okay, most of the time, Shorter is fucking cool, but even he has to admit that his mom makes really damn good sweaters.)

He’s already starting to sweat, and that’s before Ash walks in.

Contrary to Ash’s usual prompt appearance, this isn’t for another few minutes. Ash usually likes to get there plenty early enough to slide into his seat before anyone at all even notices that he’s arrived.

Today’s a little different though.

First Frederick appears.

His perfectly coifed hair from the morning is wet, and coated in mud, as is the entire back of his green sweater. He’s walking hesitantly, like every step hurts, and his breath is coming in sharp gasps.

Ms. Allen is already standing at the chalkboard, waiting with baited breath for the bell to ring so she can start drilling useless facts into their impressionable little minds, but even she puts down the chalk for a moment and gapes.

“Are you okay, Mr. Arthur?” she finally asks, her glasses raising with her eyebrows.

“Fine.” Frederick growls, pushing past the door frame and dragging his backpack behind him. He makes his way to his normal desk, where he slumps down, then proceeds to direct his burning glare at every member of the class who just so happens to be staring.

And then Ash appears.

Ash is generally trying to slip in under the radar with every fiber of his body, but this is different. His face is flushed, he’s almost bouncing with the strut of his walk, and Ash is absolutely beaming.

It’s a smile so bright, it’s impossible to look away, and Shorter can’t help but follows Ash’s path all the way to the back desk.

“Mr. Callenreese, please sit down now,” Ms. Allen announces in her shrill voice, just as the bell begins to ring.

Frederick is scowling so deep his face is about to freeze with it, but Ash doesn’t look over–just slides into his seat, and lets out a tiny giggle of a laugh. Then, quick as the flip of a switch, the smile turns to seriousness as he unzips his bag and slings his book out onto his desk with a tiny thump of noise.

It’s not till after class that Shorter can finally ask Ash what’s going on. Even then, he doesn’t get much, just another beaming smile and then,

“He fell off.”

***

Surprisingly, Spring sticks. It’s warm enough now that they’ve discarded coats, hats and mittens, and the snow has all melted, leaving the grounds saturated and filled with mucky, dark mud.

This makes sliding down the hill from the school to the sidewalks and extremely enjoyable feat that Shorter likes to perform as frequently as humanly possible–coating his jeans and black sneakers in the thick mud.

It also makes keeping clean and presentable a nearly impossible task, but Ash still manages as best he can, watching Shorter’s antics, and then carefully walking down the hill, leaping from grassy spot to grassy spot and avoiding all mention of mud.

He looks like a particularly involved grasshopper, but Shorter tries to keep this to himself as best he can.

Ash’s father and Jennifer have been spending more and more time down at the Bed and Breakfast, and this suits Shorter just fine. He and Ash have developed a well-oiled routine that works best with lack of parental supervision. Suffer through school, burst from the confines of the building at the very second the bell rings, then head up to the tree, where they walk, and talk, and throw a football back and forth, and...well...kiss.

A lot.

Which is precisely what they are engaged in at this very moment.

“Ah,” Ash yelps, breaking away and making a face. “Stop biting me!”

“It’s passion,” Shorter says with a grin. “Pure passion. Love bites.”

“Fuck off,” Ash laughs, then he surges forward again, pressing his lips to Shorter’s.

This particular activity brings with it a surge of electric adrenaline that’s born of engaging in illicit activities, and Shorter can’t get enough, no matter how hard he tries.

Under the tree, it doesn’t seem wrong, or strange at all. They tumble on the ground, kissing, and breathing, and sometimes, just sometimes, feeling just under the hem of each other’s shirts.

They don’t push past this boundary yet. Ash is scared, (though he won’t say it.) Shorter doesn’t want to desecrate the natural holiness of a magical tree. (He says this frequently.)

But the kissing is awesome, and right now? It’s really all they need.

“Hey,” Shorter murmurs against Ash’s mouth, not pushing away, not breaking the kiss at all. “I had an idea.”

Ash does push him away, though, and the brush of his lips moving against Shorter’s as he starts to speak makes something flare to life in Shorter’s stomach

“Last time you had an idea, I shaved your head, and now you look like an idiot.”

“Kissable idiot though,” Shorter remarks, though he leans back, willing to break up their frenzied teenage desperation for just a minute.

“Eh…” Ash grins. “It’s not like you’ve got that much competition.”

“Would you rather kiss me, than a girl?”

That seems to stops Ash cold. “Uh…”

This is something that Shorter’s been considering a lot recently. He’s not exactly sure what it is that he and Ash are doing right now, and making him crazy with nervous anxiety.

As far as girls go, he’d kissed Debbie Abraham under a desk in second grade on a dare from all the other students, and that didn’t do much other than earn him much needed street cred.

He’s had a girlfriend for a short time in sixth grade. They kissed a bit, hiding behind the alleyway that was just a block before school. Pushed up against the scratchy wood of the fence, it felt dangerous in a way that made everything more colorful.

So yeah, kissing girls was pretty sweet.

But Ash? Ash is something different, and Shorter isn’t exactly sure what that means yet.

Right now, Ash isn’t answering at all, just seems frozen completely, and Shorter tries to laugh it off, nervous energy thrumming sickly through his stomach. “I’m messing with you,” Shorter shoves Ash to the side, then laughs harder. “Of course I’m better than any old girl.”

“Oh. Yeah,” Ash murmurs, still pushing himself up again. “So what’s the idea?”

“You can shoot right?” Shorter asks, completely changing subject with ease. “Like, you have a gun?”

Ash still looks like the ice hasn’t thawed from the previous question, and when he answers, it’s a bit too slow, a bit too robotic. “Yeah, I guess.”

“So cool,” Shorter murmurs, closing his eyes. Somewhere, behind all the questions, behind the summer warmth of the tree, he can see an elk swimming, swimming, swimming.

“Griff could shoot,” Ash says quietly.

“Right.” Shorter snaps back to attention, pushing the murky uneasiness of the dream down as far as he can. “35 yards? A bird or something?”

“Quail,”Ash smiles. “You remember that?”

“I remember things,” Shorter says with a scoff, acting all offended at the implications.

“Everything except how to fill in a test,” Ash jokes.

Shorter pokes Ash with a stick. Ash kicks Shorter in the shin. And then they’re laughing and play fighting, and rolling around just enough to catch a few more kisses before coming up for air.

“So can you teach me?”

Ash’s eyes flicker, as though he wasn’t anticipating the question at all. “I only have a hunting rifle. I mean...my dad does. It’s not mine. We don’t have any of those cool pistols or whatever that your New York gangs carry.”

“Can’t be that different,”Shorter drawls.

Ash actually gapes at Shorter upon hearing this. “Wait, seriously? You really don’t think it’s any different? I don’t know that I should be teaching you how to shoot anything beyond my old bebe gun if–”

“I’m kidding, you tight-ass,” Shorter says, rolling his eyes. “But it doesn’t matter. I still wanna learn. Can you?”

Ash considers this for a long while, not saying a single thing at all. “I’m not very good,” he finally says.

That simple sentence takes way too long to emerge for it to be truth. “Bullshit,” Shorter swears. “You’re good at everything. You’re like a fucking genius or something. Only reason you miss shit on tests and whatever else is cause you don’t want to stand out beyond anyone else. You don’t want the attention.”

Ash freezes, eyes flicking down to his feet for a second before coming back up to meet Shorter’s–as though he’s forcing himself to maintain that tenuous contact. He looks nervous now, like one of those deer who decide that running across the highway at full sprint is a great idea until they feel the rumbling of metal beneath their hooves.

“I guess,” Ash finally admits, brushing his hair back out of his eyes. “Uh…”

Not giving him any time to feel self-conscious about it, Shorter plunges on. “So I’m willing to bet it’s the same with your hunting rifle.”

“I…”

Ash doesn’t say anything else before Shorter moves forward, grabs him, and pulls him in for another kiss. “I won’t tell anyone,” he whispers against Ash’s lips.

And that settles it.

***

They wait for one of their half-school days, when Ash knows his parents are going to be busy for a good long while. It’s not so much that the fact that he’s not allowed to use the gun when they aren’t home that he’s worried about, which he explains in detail to Shorter on the particular afternoon in question. “There’s just got to be all sorts of liability concerns attached to teaching a random kid how to shoot a gun on my parent’s property,” he states, all proper, and business-like.

“Random kid?” Shorter squawks, indignant in all the best ways.

“I just don’t feel like explaining it to my Dad,” Ash continues, crossing his arms with a cute sort of sterness to his face. “And you really need to settle down before you even think about handling a gun!”

Shorter’s just bursting with energy, running up ahead, then turning and jogging in place while As catches up, then bursting forward and doing a cartwheel into some sort of flip, and then jogging in place again. “What?” he calls from down the path, pushing for crazier and crazier stunts as Ash jogs to catch up.

Eventually, it gets just irritating enough that Ash loses patience. “Cut it out,” he yells. “I’m not teaching you anything if you keep moving around that much. You’ll end up shooting me in the head!”

“I promise to settle down, Sensai,” Shorter intones, clapping his hands together, tilting his head to the side, and laying on the awful Chinese accent so thick it’s syrup.

“Idiot,” is apparently all the retort Ash can muster.

The house is empty when they arrive–just as Ash had predicted. They still creep up the stairs as though someone might burst from one of the rooms at any moment and sound the alarm.

Jim and Jennifer’s room is big–bigger than Shorter’s parents room by a long shot. The carpeting is a musty sort of yellow shag, which Shorter approves of far more than that of the dark brown outside the door, if only for its unwillingness to house and hide giant spiders. Once inside, Ash shuts the door carefully closed behind them, making sure that nothing looks out of place on the off chance that someone comes home.

Shorter hasn’t asked Ash what the plan is if that does happen. Knowing Ash, it probably revolves between flinging themselves out the second story window and running as fast as they can back to the highway, or looking like a very sad and lost lambs, apologizing as many times as humanly possible. (There is one of these situations that Shorter will be able to pull of far better than the other and so he really hopes it doesn’t come down to either.)

Eventually, Ash deems it safe enough to approach the open closet, where he pushes aside a mountain of dreary blue and grey dresses that must belong to Jennifer.

And there it is.

The gun.

It’s bigger than Shorter had imagined, although admittedly he’s had about as much experience with hunting rifles as he’s had with fishing, which, last he checked, was zero.

Ash snags it, looping the strap of the case over his shoulder, and then ducks down even further, rustling with something.

“Here,” he says, muffled by the fabric around his face, and then he starts handing out little yellow and red striped boxes with the name Winchester printed across the front.

“Bullets,” Shorter says reverently, picking up the small stack of boxes.

“Ammo,” Ash corrects as he straightens up. “Or rounds. Bullets are the part that’s encased inside of there.” Then he quickly straightens the row of dresses, and nods for Shorter to follow him back out of the closet, grabbing back the boxes of cartridges that Shorter is holding. “I grabbed some brand new boxes,” he continues as they make their way down the stairs, the butt of the rifle smacking at his knees with every step, “so my Dad shouldn’t notice they’re missing. I left the half-empty ones on top cause he’d probably catch on if they weren’t that way or something. I guess…”

He keeps rambling for a bit, more for himself than for Shorter’s sake, and Shorter’s just happy to follow along. They make their way outside and around the back of the house where Ash grabs a garbage bag filled with clinking, glass Coke bottles.

“It’s huge,” Shorter finally says, more to insert himself back into the conversation than any other reason.

Ash turns and stares at him, eyebrows raised. “The gun?” What did you expect? I told you it wasn’t a fancy little pistol.”

“No man, I just…” Shorter shrugs, takes a step back, and manages to look suitably impressed. “It’s just bigger than I thought. Makes you look tiny.”

“Yeah, kicks like a bitch too,” Ash retorts. “And my tiny ass can handle it.”

He looks so cocky and confident standing there and Shorter starts to grin. “You want me to hold something?”

Ash shakes his head. “Naa, I’m good. Come on. We gotta go out past the tree, into the woods area.

“Woods area?” Shorter follows him back around the house, still gawking at the rifle case as it jostles against Ash while they walk. It looks so much bigger here than it did in the house, and he’s starting to feel a little bit nervous that he’s bitten off more than he can chew and he’s about to look like an idiot.

“Yeah? The woods? Like...all the trees out behind the Wishing Tree?” Turning around, he holds the bag of bottles out. “Changed my mind. Carry these.”

“Please?” Shorter mocks, but grabs the bag and follows as Ash starts to move again, walking just a bit behind him instead of running up ahead now. “Like the ones that are far away?” He asks, clanking, clanking, clanking with every step.

Ash considers this as they walk. “I guess? They aren’t really that far though?”

“They’re like in the horizon, dude!”

“It’s like a two minute walk,” Ash says. “At most. Come on.”

They’re almost at the Wishing Tree now, and it’s so big it takes up most of the what Shorter assumed was Ash’s yard. But just past, he can see the edge of a forest, the barren hickory and oak branches beginning to sprout buds. “But that’s still on your fucking property?”

Ash doesn’t pause, but Shorter can see the way he tightens a bit. “Well, yeah. We’re on about 30 acres here? But it extends into privately owned property that’s public hunting ground. We aren’t gonna to go that far though. We aren’t dressed right, and I don’t want you shooting anyone. We’re gonna go just past our tree, and I’ll teach you how to aim. Okay?”

Ash stumbles a bit on that ‘our’ and it doesn’t escape Shorter, who’s grin just keeps growing. It’s just warm enough that he’s starting to sweat, and the smell of the Wishing Tree is thick and magical all around them. “Sweet,” Shorter answers, then picks up the pace, following Ash past the tree.

***

There’s an old table set up near the woods boundary–just a few pieces of plywood stapled together, nothing fancy–but Shorter can tell it’s purpose immediately by the number of burn marks and holes in its surface.

He watches Ash shoulder off the gun and lay it carefully on the ground, dropping the cartridge boxes next to it before reaching out for the bag that Shorter’s carrying. Shorter hands it over, then watches as Ash pulls bottles out one by one, lining them up carefully. He counts seven out, then steps back, considering for a moment. He hums for a second, then steps back forward and pushes them closer together before fitting another two in.

Then he turns back to look at Shorter, who is still standing next to the gun. “Okay, first?” Ash calls over to him. “Lose the shades, Steve McQueen.”

Shorter scoffs, but pushes them up obediently to perch on top of his head, wincing at the sunlight shining down. “Better, Sensai?” he asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

“All the way off,” Ash orders. “And quit calling me that.”

With a groan, Shorter pulls the shades off his head completely, folding them with a reverence usually reserved for more sentient objects, and tucks them into the back pocket of his jeans. “Yes, Sir!” he shouts, saluting Ash.

He can tell Ash is trying hard not to, but the curve of a smile starts to work it’s way up his mouth. “Idiot,” he mumbles, just loud enough that Shorter can hear.

“What was that, Sir?” Shorter screams, even louder this time.

“Idiot!”

Their yells expand into the air, not echoing, but lasting longer than the acoustics of the open sky should allow. Ash shakes his head, turns back to study his Coke bottles one last time, then finally walks back over.

Crouching down and unzipping the rifle case, he hauls the gun up, letting the butt rest in the grass while the muzzle points to the sky. “Okay, so this is the trigger.” He brushes a finger against the silver, running his pointer finger around the curl of it.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Shorter groans. “Come on, Ash–”

“Hey. You want me to teach you? Then listen. I’m not gonna be the reason you blow your dick off, asshole.”

Shorter’s eyebrows raise, and he lets out a heavily dramatic sigh. “Fine, Sir,” he says, adding just enough of a mocking lilt to it this time that Ash rolls his eyes. “I’m listening. But given the measurements of that thing, I’m pretty sure I’d have to be inhuman to be able to aim it at my own dick and still fire.”

Ash tries to glare at him, but that smile’s just getting bigger, which suits Shorter just fine.

Giving in, Ash motions with his head.“Get over here and look.” He wraps one hand around the muzzle of the gun and points with the other. “This is the trigger,” he repeats. “And this is the safety. Safety is on right now. Safety is always on if you aren’t pointing the gun with intent to shoot. Got it?”

Shorter crouches down next to him, and reaches a finger out just to touch the tip of the black safety lever. “Got it,” he repeats.

“Okay, and this?” Ash points to the larger black piece underneath the safety. “This releases the bolt.” He sits down, crossing his legs and pulling the gun into his lap, and then presses it down, flicking the lever down and sliding out the bolt with just enough flourish that Shorter’s absolutely certain he’s doing it with added dramatic flair.

It does look pretty rad though.

Trying not to let on that he is, in fact, suitably impressed, Shorter forces himself to watch the gun, and only the gun, and focus on the mechanics of it. “So what’s a bolt?”

Ash looks only the slightest bit annoyed that his showmanship has gone for naught. “Okay, yeah. Well,” he stumbles for a moment. “Uh, it’s the part of the gun that moves back and forth so you can add ammo. It also blocks the breech of the barrel chamber if you–”

He goes on and on, and really, he should know by now that Shorter isn’t the type to sit still for a lecture, but that doesn’t appear to be enough to stop the monologue. The tree line is so close, and though they are missing their green, the trees stand just tall and still enough that Shorter can imagine them as sentries lying there in wait; watching, yearning for someone to step forth and wake the forest.

“Okay, whatever,” Ash finally mutters, knowing when to admit defeat. “Hey.”

Shorter snaps back to attention.

“You take your cartridges. Okay?” He reaches for the first box ad hands it over. “Can you open that?”

Shorter does, digging inside and passing over a few of the golden cartridges. They are so light in his hands–like holding a small stone, or a marble. Nothing of actual consequence.

Ash loads them in fast, with practiced hands, as he continues to speak. “Press them down into the magazine one after another. You’re going to stagger them as they go in, one to the left, one to the right, one–

Got it,” Shorter says, eyes intently focused. Now that the thing in front of his eyes has been transformed into an actual weapon that can kill, it only seems right to pay it the proper amount of deference.

“Alright.” Ash turns his attention to pushing rounds in.

Shorter counts–six in total.

“Alright,” Ash repeats. “So now, you push the bolt back in,” it clicks with sound as he does it, “and we’re ready to go.”

There’s a spot in the grass right next to where they’ve been sitting where the greenness has worn away so much that there is only raw, sandy colored dirt. This is where Ash stands–about 20 yards off from the table with the bottles. “Come on,” he calls to Shorter, then brings the rifle up, looking down the barrel as though he’s about to shoot.

He doesn’t though. Doesn’t even click the safety off, (which Shorter is pleased as punch at noticing.)

With a fast snap, Ash brings the gun back down, and Shorter whistles in appreciation. “Whew, you look fucking rad,” he says, grinning and sticking his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

“I look like I’m holding a gun and can shoot it,” Ash corrects. “Getch’er hands out of your pockets and get over here.”

Shorter’s smile brightens, and he steps over to the patch, letting Ash maneuver him until he’s right, smack dab in the middle of it.

“Okay,” Ash says, stepping up to Shorter’s left shoulder, and wrapping his arm around Shorter’s back.

He’s about an inch smaller than Shorter is, but somehow he still makes it work, steadying Shorter’s feet, and then posture, making sure everything is right. “Okay,” he says again, finally handing the gun over.

Shorter awkwardly takes it, trying to figure out what exactly he’s supposed to be doing. The only thing running through his head is how much heavier it is than he’d ever thought possible. He raises it up for a second, butt of the gun practically in his armpit, and tries to look through the scope.

“Safety’s still on, dumbass,” Ash says.

“Then fucking help me, teacher,” Shorter mimics in reply. His voice is steady, but there’s something rearing up inside of him–a nervous energy that he’s not at all prepared for.

He’s holding a weapon that could kill a man.

Hands sweating, Shorter drops the gun down and very hesitantly flicks the little lever over.

“Good,” Ash says in response, stepping close again. “Okay, so butt end?” He reaches across them both and taps it, trying to show what exactly he’s talking about. “Goes right in your shoulder. Kinda between shoulder and clavicle.”

“What the fuck is a clavicle?”

“Jesus” Ash groans, “don’t you pay any attention in school? We literally just did human anatomy last month!”

“Clavicle...clavicle...clavicle…nope! Nothing!” His voice is way too loud in his ears, and he’s starting to get that same sort of jittery that happens when he’s either supremely nervous, or supremely invested in something.

Ash quickly taps the muzzle of the gun. “Safety’s off–don’t wave this thing around.”

“Right,” Shorter says, immediately more subdued, trying impossibly hard not to shake.

“Okay, clavicle, collarbone, same–”

“Shoulda just said collarbone,” Shorter grumbles, but he raises the gun up again, fitting it much better against himself.

“Good. Your chin can kind of rest against it. See that groove there, right. Yep. You got it.”

Shorter’s looking down the scope again. He feels horribly stiff, but Ash isn’t saying anything so he figures this is about as good as it’s going to get.

“Okay, so aim. Keep both eyes open.”

“Easier with one,” Shorter murmurs, pushing even further towards the scope.

“No, actually, easier with two. It’s bad for your eyes if you use one.”

Shorter’s mouth tightens at that, trying really hard not to make a snarky comeback, but he obeys, opening both eyes.

“Alright, breathe. Try to be as calm as you can. And hold your breath once you pull the trigger or it can cause it to move.”

“Okay.”

“When you squeeze the trigger, do it slowly. Don’t just yank it. And then hold still after it fires for just a second. Don’t jerk up the gun too quick. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“You ready?”

“Yes, Sir!” Shorter barks, so loudly that a bunch of birds fly up from the tree line.

Then he starts laughing, and Ash starts laughing, and they have to set up everything all over.

Finally, Ash takes just a few steps back, puts his fingers in his ears, and yells, “go!”

Shorter pulls the trigger just moments later, yanking exactly the way Ash had told him not to.

It hurts.

Shorter’s swearing up a storm, hopping up and down on both feet and listening to the booming sound of the gun echoing loudly around them. Eventually, it’s his own voice that cuts through first, and Ash has to jump in and grab the rifle out of his hands, competently flicking the safety back on because Shorter (as he is now realizing) is too much of an idiot to do it himself.

“Safety!” Ash yells. “Safety! I told you, always–”

“It worked! It fucking hurt like hell, but it worked!” Shorter’s still hopping up and down, but he’s holding his right shoulder now, rubbing all around it. “Fuck, it hurt!”

“Yeah, cause you’re really stiff, and it was your first time,” Ash mutters.

“Did I hit a bottle?”

Ash checks the gun again, then looks up, eyebrows raised. “Uh...”

He doesn’t need to continue. Shorter’s already looking out and can see nine beautifully sparkling Coke bottles–all untouched. “Damn. Thought I would.”

“On your first time?” Ash grins. “Move over.”

He picks up the gun, flicks off the safety, aims carefully, then lets five shots fly with only a few seconds in between, shattering every other coke bottle and leaving four standing beautifully spaced.

“Fucking show-off,” Shorter mutters, but okay. Even he is impressed.

A lot.

“Just practice,”Ash says with a shrug, his cheeks reddening, but a cocky grin playing at the corners of his mouth. “Let’s reload. Then you can try again.”

Shorter just nods.

***

They spend all afternoon like this, reloading, trying again, reloading, trying again. They go through 5 boxes of ammo–enough that Shorter voices his concern that Ash’s dad might notice

Ash just shrugs. “ It’s worth it,” he says, just quiet enough that it’s special.

In the end, Shorter hits the plywood table twice, and an extremely unlucky squirrel once. The coke bottles remain standing, taunting him until the very end when they are scooped up by Ash again into the plastic bag. The table is still standing. The holes Shorter made just join a myriad of others that have been scorched into the wood over the years.

They carefully pick up all the broken glass and put that into another bag that Ash brings over from the house. On the off chance that his dad doesn’t realize there’s cartridges missing, Ash wants to make sure the area is a clean as possible.

Then, once everything else has been put away and accounted for, they hold a funeral for the squirrel.

Ash laughs at the suggestion when Shorter first makes it.

“Come on, Ash. We killed it. We’re the reason it died. We gotta do...fuck. Something!”

“I mean…” Ash just looks mostly confused, but at least he’s willing to go along with it. “Whatever. Sure. Let’s have a funeral!”

Shorter is positive that he doesn’t quite understand, but it’s also not the sort of thing that can be easily explained. This was probably a much cleaner death than it was going to experience later in life when it inevitably either starved, froze to death, or got run over–it’s entrails dragged out all over the road by all manner of wildlife–but it’s still something that Shorter caused, and he feels obligated to absolve himself of the murder.

He crouches down over the carcass of the thing, pushing at its little rictus body. The bullet went right through its stomach, so on second thought, death by car probably would have been a lot faster, and now Shorter feels even worse as he pokes at its little body–stretched wide, eyes wide open.

“Sorry,” Shorter whispers.

“It’s just a squirrel?” Ash asks. He’s quiet about it too, doesn’t want to interrupt, but it’s clear that he doesn’t really know what to say.

“I was responsible for taking its life,” Shorter tries to explain.

“You wanted me to teach you how to use a gun,” Ash tries to reason, “presumably because you wanted to use a gun in New York.”

Shrugging, Shorter doesn’t turn to look at him, just keeps talking in that same, terribly quiet voice. “Kind of have to, there. I don’t plan on killing anyone. But they might plan on killing me so…”

Ash stays silent a little too long, so Shorter turns to watch him. He looks incredibly conflicted, and completely out of his depth. Finally, his mouth moving slightly as he tries to find the right words, he kneels down next to Shorter. “New York doesn’t really sound much better than here,” he offers.

Shorter considers this too, watching the dark green of Ash’s eyes. “It’s not, I guess. Not now that I met you.”

Then, before he has time to consider what those words mean, he turns back to the squirrel, cups his hands, and scoops up it’s tiny little body.

“That’s gross!” Ash exclaims, backing away quick. “That thing could have rabies! That’s really not sanitary.”

“We’re taking it to the Wishing Tree, and we are giving it a proper burial,” Shorter explains, with much more eloquence than is usual.

Ash doesn’t argue, but he still stays back, face scrunched up like the thing already smells. He follows Shorter though, all the way to where branches of the Wishing Tree brush the ground.

Parting a few of them, Ash leaves a small doorway open for Shorter to enter with his arms outstretched, cold, hard, and, okay, kind of gross squirrel carcass stretched across his palms.

Shorter doesn’t have much planned beyond burying the thing, and this they do fairly quickly, both armed with sticks from the edges of the branches. Eventually, there is nothing more than a tiny little lump of dirt marking the spot, which Shorter promptly marks, firmly planting his stick at the head of the ‘grave’ and bowing his head.

The stick is big enough that outside it would probably be knocked over quickly by the elements, but here it will stand for as long as the dirt remains solid. It branches off into three separate sticks and these cast an eerie shadow over the gravesite, their willowy thinness crawling like a spider over the dirt as the sun slowly moves.

Ash is just standing quietly, watching at this point. “Can you say something?” Shorter finally asks, his many minutes of silence apparently at an end.

“Say something?” Ash squeaks.

“I don’t know. We should say something. Uh…”

“Hold on.” Ash steps forward, words beginning to form on his tongue. “Tibi gratias…” he pauses, thinking for a second. “ago tibi lignum.”

“Ash,” Shorter turns. “Come on–”

“No, no!” Ash gulps. “No, that was really Latin.”

“I thought you didn’t know any.”

“I uh…” swallowing, Ash turns all of his attention to the squirrel. “I got a book out of the library. Tried to learn some for you.”

The sadness is still there, a small tangle in his chest, but he starts to smile now. “Seriously? Are you serious? You learned Latin for me?”

“Only a few things,” Ash says hurriedly. “Nothing big.”

“Well what was that?”

“I think? It means thank you, tree. Or...as close as I could get. I’m pretty sure directly translated it means thank you, stick but…” waving his arms at the mound and the stick, Ash awkwardly laughs. “That kind of works?”

“Totally.” Shorter bends over and brushes his finger against the mound of dirt. “Sorry,” he says again, even quieter this time. Then he turns back to Ash. “What was the other thing?”

“What?”

Shorter steps closer, and Ash steps back, green eyes glinting in the tiny pools of sunlight that are scattered by the branches of their tree. Clearly the squirrel memorial has ended and now they are on to other, more consequential things. “You said you learned a few things. What else?”

“Oh. Uh…” Ash’s cheeks are turning red, and he suddenly won’t Shorter in the eyes.

Which very clearly communicates that this is information Shorter absolutely must possess. “Come on,” Shorter pleads, throwing his head back. “Come on, tree, make him tell me!”

“Animae dimidium meae.”

He says it so quietly that Shorter almost misses it completely. “What does that mean? Say it again, “ he asks, all solemnity burnt out of him with the strength of his will to know.

“Youaretheotherhalfofmyheart” Ash says, so quickly that Shorter’s pretty sure even the fluent tree is confused.

“Huh?”

“Nothing,” Ash says. He wipes his hands against the fabric of his pants, swallowing, then swallowing again.

Shorter steps closer and grabs ahold of Ash’s wrist, pulling him so that they face each other, the rise and fall of their chests almost touching. His heart beating so fast he can’t breathe, and he’s starting to sweat too–his palms are itchy with it. “Come on. Say it again.”

They’re standing like this, facing each other, Ash looking up into Shorter’s eyes, Shorter looking down at Ash, the heat of their bodies burning underneath the summer air.

“Animae dimidium meae,” Ash whispers. “You are the other half of my heart.”

Shorter considers it for a moment, not breaking eye contact, but considering everything very carefully. Finally, he nods. “That’s a super fancy way to say I love you, dude.”

Ash pulls back, eyes dropping to the dirt. “Let me go,” he murmurs, pulling hard. “It was stupid, it just sounded pretty and I saw it in a poem first and so I wanted to see what it meant and–”

“I don’t know if I know what love is?” Shorter says, interrupting him, and still trying to think through it all. “But I guess it probably feels a lot like this?”

Ash stops pulling, but he won’t look up at Shorter again. “Thrilling,” he says, voice pitched just a bit higher than normal. “That’s...fuck. It’s fine. It was stupid, it’s fine–”

Shorter bends down and their mouths meet, soft and gentle. “Animae..meae?” he asks, lips brushing against Ash’s. “Tell me again?”

His other arm folds around Ash’s shoulders holding Ash tight, and close, and safe.

“Animae dimidium meae,” Ash whispers back.

“Dimidium. Dimidium. Dimidium.”

He’s trying the word out on his tongue, the Latin feeling large, and unyielding, and incredibly terrifying. They’re in eighth grade, and yet if feels like a promise has been uttered that should never be broken.

The branches rustle to life again as an invisible breeze rifles through them, smelling of burgeoning twilight, and spring.

“Animae dimidium meae,” Shorter finally whispers back, as the crickets begin to sing.

Chapter Text

The windows are open in all the classrooms of the school now, and the the breeze rustles papers incessantly, warmth creeping in that screams of Summer.

Ash very purposely looks down at the paper he’s gripping tightly in his hands and ignores the way the bright green of newly emerged grass calls to him.

“Uh, to summarize,” Ash looks over to their history teacher, Mr. Maher, who’s leaning back in his chair, feet up on his desk, and doing an extremely poor job at feigning interest, “I think there was a deep need for advances in medicine. The new technology of the war–the guns, the cannons, everything–caused just crazy devastation? And medicine had to keep up. So the war revolutionized the medical field.”

He finally drops his arms, paper at his side, and looks back over to Mr. Maher.

Shorter’s in the front row in this class, and he’s been making faces at Ash the entire time–crossing his eyes, sticking out his tongue, making a total ass of himself.

It only tripped Ash up once during the presentation, making him choke back a giggle that he attempted to turn into a sneeze, that ended up causing him to cough so hard he had to stop to get a drink of water outside the classroom. He’s fairly impressed with himself that it only happened once, but he’s still going to smack Shorter as hard as he can the second they get out of class.

“Your report was supposed to be on amputation in World War 1, correct?” Mr. Maher asks, voice painfully bored, fingers drumming at the desk.

“Yes?” Ash confirms quietly, unable to keep the questioning lilt from his voice. His mouth is so dry from talking it tastes like sand.

“And you are arguing that war is necessary for advancement in humanity?”

Swallowing, Ash manages a small nod.

Maher glares at him, considering for a bit. “Alright,” he finally. Reasonable. Sit down.”

Breathing out a sigh of relief, Ash finally makes his way to the back corner, where he sits by one of the open windows. He’s sweating so hard that the breeze makes him shiver, and he clenches his teeth tight, trying to calm the nervous anxiety that’s thrumming through him.

He hates talking in front of the class.

Maher has already called someone else up, and Ash does his absolute best to tune it out completely.

Until something wet hits his cheek.

He doesn’t move at first, just lets his eyes flick over the classroom, turning his head almost lazily until...there. Three seats to his right. Frederick Arthur is grinning like a feral cat.

Rolling his eyes, Ash casually wipes at his cheek, then goes back to daydreaming about what he’s going to say to Griff when he comes home.

That is, until the girl next to him nudges his foot with her own, and passes over a tiny, folded note.

Ash palms it quickly, not wanting to get in trouble, and truly considers just dropping it in his backpack and forgetting all about it.

It’s just that Frederick looks so damn cocky, and Ash is feeling the pull of teenage hormones, hot and irrational, and he’s just so tired of bullshit.

He opens it.

The cursive scrawl is so sloppy it’s almost illegible, but Ash picks it out clear enough.

Faggot.

It’s a word he’s heard tossed around enough, and he knows what it means.

He also knows that Frederick has no fucking idea what the extent of Ash and Shorter’s relationship is. Nobody does except their tree, and that’s assuming the tree has sentient thought–something only Shorter believes, with a ready willingness that is absolutely unborn of science .

Even so, a shiver runs down his spine, and he has to try very hard not to flinch. Carefully, he folds it back up, puts it in a backpack pocket (because there’s no way in hell he’s going to pass it back and risk getting caught) and then he sits a little straighter, trying to drown out the buzzing in his ears by listening to Madeline Strathcoat’s incredibly boring report on the beginnings and causes of World War 1.

Frederick doesn’t stop staring at him. He keeps trying to get Ash’s attention, blowing spitballs every opportunity he can, but Ash refuses to give in.

Finally, the bell rings, and the students pack up, leaving class.

“Mr. Callenreese,” Maher says, standing from his desk and reaching an arm out to stop Ash, just as Ash has finally caught up to Shorter.

“I can wait,” Shorter says, but he really can’t. This is the last class of the day they have together so they like to at least chat on the way to the next ones, but they also only have a three minute passing period, and Ash knows as well as Shorter does that he can’t afford to be late to the next class again. “It’s cool,” Ash replies. “I’ll catch you after school.”

“Sweet,” Shorter says with a wily grin, and he ducks out quick.

“Mr. Arthur, too,” Maher says just then, pulling Frederick up next to Ash, and Ash’s stomach sinks to his toes.

The two boys stand there as their teacher sits back down. Frederick is taller than Ash, (then again, everyone is taller than Ash,) but he’s even taller than Shorter is right now. He’s got his hair long enough that it sticks out in tufts of fine dandelion down all over his head, making him look less like a rocker, and more like a kid who stuck his finger in a socket, but then again, that’s Ash’s opinion and given his general view on the other boy, probably shouldn’t be taken as word.

“Baseball tryouts are next week,” Mr. Maher says.

Frederick looks cocky and assured.

Ash is now gaping like a fish out of water, extremely, extremely confused.

“Looking forward to it, Coach,” Frederick says, smile growing wider.

“Good,” Maher nods, then turns his gaze. “And you, Ash?”

Ash doesn’t even have the wherewithal to come up with a reply other than, “Uh…”

Maher ignores him for the moment, turning back to Frederick. “You didn’t sign up on the list, so figured I’d haul you up here and make sure you were coming back. Can’t let our star pitcher off that easy!”

Laughing, Frederick shakes hands with Maher, and the two of them get just about as smarmy and gross as Ash thinks he can take. That is, until Maher turns back to him.

“Now you,” he says, looking Ash up and down like he’s calculating every attribute and every failure.

(He probably is, Ash thinks.)

“Your brother was a killer in-fielder some years back. He was also a lot bigger than you. You should be due for a growth spurt soon enough though...how’dja like to try out for the team? It’s been a while since I’ve seen Jim, and it would be great to have his help again. Hell, he should be coaching the team, he’s better at it than I am!”

It takes Ash a long while to parse through all of this information, but he eventually starts to piece it into something that almost makes sense.

He was only a baby when Griff started playing in Little League, working his way up a bit, then eventually giving it up and only playing middle school and highschool ball.

Ash vaguely remembers the way his dad was obsessed over it. The way he molded his already insanely busy schedule so that he could volunteer and help out with the teams whenever he was able.

And despite all of that history, Ash can honestly say this is an area that he’d never once considered in following in Griffin’s footsteps. His dad has never brought it up, and Ash has always been content to stay as far away from team sports as humanly possible.

Now he’s standing there, realizing that Maher is waiting for some sort of answer, so he opens his mouth and manages to squeak out, “oh...uh...maybe? I guess I hadn’t thought about it.”

Truly, he has no intention of thinking about it past this room, but now Frederick is glaring at him, and Maher is looking cheerily enthusiastic in a way most unbecoming of the man, and before Ash knows it, he’s got a stack of papers shoved into his hands with every form for the season–doctor physical, uniform requirements, rules and regulations, and more.

“Tell Jim I said hi!” Maher calls, as Frederick and Ash both leave the classroom.

The bell has already sounded for next period, and so they are alone, in a hallway that is far too quiet.

“What the fuck,” Frederick sneer at him. “You aren’t seriously coming out for baseball are you? Pretty sure they don’t take fags.”

This last word is pitched so low that all the hiss drains out of it, and it just sits between them, muddy and stagnant, and foul.

Ash doesn’t answer him. Doesn’t play into it at all. But he can’t help the way his fingers are tightening around the wad of registration papers, the way his knuckles are going white.

“What? Nothing to say when your little Chink friend isn’t around?”

“Don’t say that,” Ash says, finally incensed enough to speak. He’s used to pushing down a lot when it comes to himself, but suddenly when it’s Shorter? It’s too much.

“Don’t say what?” Frederick taunts. “Fag? Or Chink?”

They’re walking the hall, slowly enough that Ash can catch drifts of conversation coming from the classrooms they pass. There’s absolutely no one around out here though, and Frederick knows it. He knows he’s not about to get caught.

Breathing deep, Ash tries to speed up, but Frederick reaches out and snags his arm, jerking him to a stop.

“Don’t say what,” he says again, quieter this time, stressing the last syllable with a hiss of his mouth.

“Come on,” Ash says, pulling at his arm.

Fredrick drops it, but neither boy moves.

Looking up to meet Frederick’s blue eyes, Ash is shocked to see almost no emotion there. No hatred. No anger. Just cool, ocean stare. Something’s roiling underneath though, ready to explode, and this is what’s familiar. This is what his Dad looks like when he’s seconds away from violence. Ash knows all too well that he doesn’t want to be around when that happens. “Just lay off,” he says quietly, still staring into Frederick’s eyes. “I’m not joining the team or whatever. And I’m not doing anything to you by existing, so just lay off.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, just turns and walks away–forcing himself to be casual.

There’s nothing but silence at his back–Frederick never does answer–and with a shiver of unease, Ash decides that the quiet is somehow even worse.

***

Final exams are in less than a month, and as such, the Eastham Prep classrooms are reaching a tenuous balance of anxiety and terror. The end of April brings flowers and green grass, and sunshine almost warm enough to bite at your skin, but if you are in eighth grade and about to advance to highschool at the end of the term, it also brings nightmares of failure.

“Grades shouldn’t matter so much,” Shorter tells Ash one afternoon, as he watches Ash try to cram six different textbooks into his backpack. “It’s not like this in New York. It’s not like this anywhere, unless you are rich and preppy and afraid of losing your place in Daddy’s will.”

He never sounds bitter when he goes off on these tangents–just matter-of-fact and professorial. Despite the fact that he’s barely passing Math, Failing science, Health, History, and Phys. Ed (which takes some legitimate talent), he sounds like he actually does have years worth of research to back up his claims.

“Just cause you don’t care about getting into college doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t,” Ash snarks back, finally zipping the bag and then hunching to get it over his shoulders.

“I just think you’ve all got your priorities wrong,” Shorter says. “Live a little. Stress less. You know. Fuck around.” This part he whispers, eyes sparkling with trouble.

“Yeah, yeah, the secret to happiness doesn’t lie within the red pen strokes of a letter grade–I get it.”

Shorter doesn’t answer right away, so Ash looks back to see him stopped, arms reaching up, bald head glistening in the bright sunlight, the reflection of the brick school walls in his sunglasses.

“Dude. Lets go,” Ash calls.

“Just chill,” Shorter answers–extending his arms even further. “You gotta chill.”

There’s kids shoving around him now; he’s incredibly inconveniently placed right at the juncture of the two main doors leading in and out of the building and they’re all muttering, giving him snide looks as they start jam up behind.

“Shorter!” Ash yells.

Arms dropping down, Shorter pushes his glasses up just a little. “Chill,” he repeats. Then he gives a giant bow with a flourish of his hand, extremely becoming of no one at all save a member of the 12 Lords a Leaping, and steps aside, allowing the river of bodies to break through.

In the short amount of time it takes him to actually reach Ash again, he seems to have forgotten the entire exchange, and instead embarks upon telling Ash in explicit detail, the first time his mother insisted that he decapitate a chicken. The tale involves a very large bucket, a very dull knife, and a very dead chicken that younger Shorter had taken upon himself to strangle prior to the deed as this was his ‘humane’ solution to an extremely insufferable task.

Ash is laughing so hard he’s got tears forming at the corners of his eyes by the end of the tale (which somehow involves the dead chicken bursting back to life with an extremely indignant squawk and the consequent emptying of the chicken’s ‘very alive’ bowels all over the front of Shorter’s t-shirt) and it quite honestly seems like the day can’t get any better.

That is, until they pull up short at the bike rack, where Ash’s beautiful yellow ride is sitting on the metal frame–tires ballooning out underneath it.

“What the fuck,” Shorter says, just as Ash reaches out for the rubber. “What the fuck, man!” He’s looking around now, completely incensed, but the majority of the school has emptied out, and the only kids around are those headed for the locker rooms for after school sports.

Obviously, whoever committed the crime is long gone.

“Shit,” Ash murmurs quietly, crouching down to study the frame. It’s bent slightly, like someone first punctured the tires, then slammed the bike down as hard as they could.

It’s not the worst thing ever. It’s all fixable. It’ll just require a lengthy discussion with his Dad, which isn’t exactly on Ash’s bucket list this month. “It’s fine,” he sighs, while Shorter continues to fume, face growing redder and redder with every expletive he utters.

“No, we need to go into the office and report this, this is fucking nuts, man this is–”

“Shorter, it’s fine. Just leave it for now. I’ll figure it out later.”

“You wanna leave the bike here? It’s Friday! It’s the weekend!”

“Yeah, it’s cool.”

“Tch. In New York–”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. In New York, it would have been stolen for parts two seconds after I bought it in the first place. It’s not New York. It’s Wellfleet.”

Rolling his eyes, Shorter gives in. “Whatever. Come on–if we get to the restaurant quick enough, my mom’ll make us food before the dinner rush starts.”

‘Dinner Rush’ was the absolute nicest way of putting it that Ash could ever imagine, but he wasn’t going to argue. Mrs. Wong’s cooking was way better than Jennifer’s ever could be.

Normally, when Ash had his bike, they’d stick to the streets with sidewalks so he could guide it easily back to the restaurant. There’s a shortcut though–one they both enjoy taking on the rare occasions Ash doesn’t bike to school. It involves a secret little path through the back of the lot behind the school, a quick stop at a shitty little convenience store for Icees, then over a long patchwork of overgrown lots–dry, brown weeds emerging from the crumbling cement and growing taller year after year. Shorter’s parents restaurant is visible from these lots–just down a hill and across the US 6.

They’re nursing their Icees now–Shorter’s a brilliant purple that he’s waxing poetic about, and Ash’s the standard blue–when they finally realize they’ve got a problem.

There are a couple figures walking towards them; Frederick, Mark, and Christian. Ash swallows a nervous lump in his throat, and looks over to Shorter, who doesn’t appear to have a single concern in the world.

“Uh,” he says, looking at the bigger boys, then stopping. “Hey, we should–” he cuts off in the middle of turning. The rest of Frederick’s clan is behind them, walking nice and slow like they don’t have a care in the world.

They are still distant, there’s still wide open space all around them, but Ash recognizes almost instantly that they’ve really got nowhere to go..

The nearest houses from here aren’t even within shouting distance. It’s an eerie section of Wellfleet that crumbled during the depression and never really managed to find its roots again. As such, the only visible buildings are the gas station they came from–at least a quarter mile back and blocked by five of Frederick’s cronies, and Shorter’s parents restaurant.

“We gotta run,” Ash says quietly, quickly surveying the situation and coming to the only possible solution that makes sense. There’s still room to run. Room to dart out from between their reach.

Unfortunately, Shorter is a stubborn asshole. “Fuck no,” he says, giving a disgustingly loud slurp from his straw. “Fuck ‘em. We got this.”

They absolutely do not ‘got this’, and Ash tries again, keeping his eyes on the boys surrounding them but gritting out between his teeth, “Shorter. We gotta go. Now.”

“Hey boys!” Shorter announces instead, like he’s the host of American Bandstand. He’s still slurping at his damn Icee, and as he smiles big, Ash can see that his lips are stained purple.

“If it isn’t the faggot and the chink,” Frederick says with a grin, stepping up just out of Shorter’s reach. A few of his boys fan out behind him, the rest circle around, making sure they’ve got no escape.

Shorter’s grin just grows wider at the slur, but Ash can see the tension he holds in his jaw. “Fredrick,” Ash tries, bending down and putting his drink on the warm concrete. “Come on. We aren’t doing anything just–”

“Fuck off, Callenreese,” Frederick hisses.

He’s not even looking at Ash, he’s just glaring at Shorter, eyes narrowing to little slits.

“Frederick–”

“This isn’t fucking about you,” Christian says, stepping up next to Frederick. “Just shut it.”

Swallowing, Ash carefully looks around them again, watching how the other boys are standing, arms crossed, mouths angry lines, ready for a fight. They’re two against eight, and while Ash can take a beating, he doesn’t exactly enjoy it.

And these guys don’t look like they’re just here for a beating.

They look terrifying. They are boys with the faces of their fathers, angry, bitter, ready to exact revenge.

“Get your backpack off,” Shorter murmurs.

It’s directed at Ash, but everyone hears it, watches as he carefully shrugs out it. The bag is straining under the weight of the textbooks, and it makes a solid thump as he swings it down, dust blowing up around it for just a second.

“We want you out of this town,” Frederick says. He steps even closer–close enough that Shorter could touch him if he only reached out his arm.

“Oh yeah?” Shorter asks. “Who’s we?”

A flicker of doubt crosses Frederick’s face, and he looks around as though checking to make sure his guys are all still there. “Us, asshole,” he says with confidence born of a seasoned bully.

“Oh. Cool then. Here I thought the entire town hated me, but it’s just you fucks!” Laughing, Shorter raises a hand and removes his sunglasses, folding them against his shirt before handing them silently to Ash.

Ash takes them without question, putting them on top of the blue canvas backpack that’s slumped on the ground.

Frederick is just looking at Shorter like he’s sprouted another head. “You stupid, you chink motherfucker?” he asks. “It is the entire town. It’s my dad. It’s Mark’s dad. It’s your little faggot friend’s dad! We all want you gone.”

Ash stiffens at this last part, his hands gone clammy in his pants pockets. His dad is an asshole. He spouts off at the tv, he shouts at Jennifer and Ash, but he’s also friends with Frederick’s dad. Has been as long as Ash can remember. And hearing Frederick just confirm everything out loud, at the expense of his best friend feels like shit. There’s heat rising in his cheeks, and Ash’s hands form into fists at his sides.

“Tragic,” Shorter says, looking up to the sun. “And here I thought I’d run for city council.”

Frederick doesn’t seem to know what to make of that.

And then Shorter, faster than Ash can even see, flips the lid off his Icee, throws it directly into Frederick’s face, and lunges for Mark.

There’s yelling all around him. Ash can hear Frederick shrieking in rage, the smell of grape is noxious in the air, and Ash uses the chaos to just go wild. It doesn’t build within him, it just explodes everywhere, furious, lightning hot anger. He launches at Christian with everything he has, hitting, and kicking, and hissing, and biting, and he knows he gets a few hits in, he can feel it in his knuckles, but it only takes a few seconds before he’s facedown, struggling against the rocky patches of cement. Someone kicks him in the face and then grabs his right arm, pulling it out sideways and leaning on it so he can’t wiggle free. Someone else is sitting on top of his legs, and a third guy is sitting on top of his ass and forcing his left arm up his back, way past the point of Ash being able to breathe. He’s still screaming though, twisting wildly, kicking with all his might.

Somewhere near him, there’s another fight going on, but there’s too much noise around his head for him to pick out any details.

Then someone kicks him in the stomach, hard enough that he’s retching bile to mix with the dirt, muddying up his face. His arm is yanked back even further, and he finally is forced to still, not able to move anywhere without horrible, firey pain lancing through his shoulder.

“Stay still,” someone murmurs above him, then they kick him again for good measure.

His head is muzzy from being hit, and he can feel a thick wetness sliding down the side of his face, but it’s fine, He’s fine. He needs to get up, he needs to move, because–

Now he can hear Shorter.

The bigger boys are yelling, and there’s thumps of feet hitting something soft. Ash can hear little yelps of pain that squeeze out, and he tries to turn his head enough to see.

Shorter’s on the ground too–but the boys over there aren’t just holding him down. They’re laughing, and swearing at him, and kicking and he’s not moving, anymore. He’s not moving!

Ash starts trying to squirm out of their grasp again, panic thick in his chest. “Stop it,” he cries, pushing against the dirt. “You’re hurting him! Please! Stop it!”

“Just stay still,” that voice hisses in his ear again. “This isn’t about you.”

“Please,” Ash whines again. It’s Jacob on top of him–Ash can tell that now–and he sounds almost nervous. “Jacob–”

“Shut up,” Jacob says. “Just stop moving!”

There’s no point to him even saying it. Ash hurts all over, and even breathing causes his shoulder to flair in pain. They’re not fucking around. They’re holding him now, but Ash can feel the violence surrounding him. He’s not their target, but they won’t hesitate to turn on him in a second.

Knowing this doesn’t make him feel any better. He’s nauseous from guilt that’s eating away at his insides like acid on wood. Across from him, they’re slowing down–backing away from where Shorter lays. One of the boys steps back into Ash’s vision, and Ash can see dark stains on the tips of his Doc Martens. “Oh my god,” he gasps, as Jacob pushes his head back down. “Please.”

Shorter’s just a lump in front of him. Every so often, he lets out a terrifyingly slow wheeze of breath, and there’s a gasping whine that’s coming from his mouth. He doesn’t move though, doesn’t move at all.

The boys are joking, laughing, everything a little too hard, a little too sharp. They’re nervous now too, just like Jacob on Ash’s back. It’s something too adult that they’ve just done–hatred that’s just a little too real is eating at their innocence, and it’s the sort of rush that’s impossible to ignore.

Nothing can stay the same after this.

“Oy!” Frederick calls over to the boys who hold Ash down. He beats on his chest a moment, just like the king of the apes. “Let him up!”

It takes less than a second for them to release Ash, backing away quickly as though they really think he’s going to keep fighting.

He doesn’t.

It hurts to breathe, and he carefully pushes himself up on one knee, swaying slightly as the blood rushes back to his arms and legs. “Shorter,” he gasps out, throat sore from yelling.

“That’s right, fag, go get your boyfriend,” Frederick taunts.

There’s a couple of chuckles, but the rest of the boys seem frozen, the magnitude of their actions only making sense now that they see the mud that runs red at their feet.

Ash crawls over to where Shorter lies, ignoring them completely. “Shorter? Hey, Shorter?”

There’s blood caking Shorter’s face, dribbling from his nose and his mouth, and one of his eyes is so swollen shut he can’t move it. But the other slowly blinks, pupil moving lazily back and forth. He’s probably not seeing clearly yet, but he gives a low moan of sound before closing it again.

“Fuck,” Ash cries, gently laying a hand against the curve of Shorter’s back. “Oh fuck. Oh fuck,” He’s starting to panic now, fear bubbling fast within him. His lungs feel too tight, he can’t breathe enough, and then he’s all out crying, holding a fist to his mouth to stop the awful sounding sobs from escaping.

“Fucking faggots,” Frederick jeers from behind him, but no one’s laughing now, and even his voice is starting to tinge with fear.

“Shit,” one of the other boys says.

Ash can see him backing away from his periphery.

“Uh...Arthur, man...uh...what did you do to him?”

Ash is focusing all his attention on Shorter–on the way his arm is at the wrong angle, black bruising swelling around the broken bone, at the way he’s gasping in breath and wheezing in pain.

Broken ribs, Ash is certain. He’s had those. He knows how hard it is to breathe around that kind of hurt, and it’s exactly what Shorter sounds like. Ash can’t stop crying right now, and he wipes at his eyes, trying to hide the fact that he’s so jacked up on adrenaline that he’s starting to shake. Instead he just smears more dirt across his face, and his hand comes away bloody.

“Ash?” Someone asks.

Ash no words for the fucking bastards.

Eventually, even Frederick steps up, peering down at them both, nervousness leaking through all his bluster. “He’s fine,” he calls back to the other boys. “You’re fine, right?”

He doesn’t sound confident at all.

“Fuck you,” Ash spits, furious anger over taking him. Beside him, Shorter tries to push himself up with one hand, but he tumbles back to the dirt with a moan of pain. “Fuck you,” he says again, still wiping at his eyes.

Mark has walked over now, his shiny brown Doc Martens blending in with the dirt. He crouches down in front of Ash, concern and worry painting his features dark. “Hey, sorry, uh...hey you okay?” he asks, eyes on Ash, and then back to Shorter, then to Frederick, and then on Ash again.

Ash ignores him, just tries to push himself up. He’s made it up on his knees when Mark reaches out, trying to help. Ash just pushes him away, then forces his feet to move, standing slowly, swaying a bit with dizziness. “I’m fine,” he grows, a sound that should be low and dangerous in his throat, but just comes out warped and muffled.

Shorter gives another little moan then, and Ash stops trying to be tough. Stops trying to be anything at all. “Ambulance,” he sniffs, looking back at Mark. “Please.”

Arthur laughs then, tinny and nervous and not at all like the burly, bully he was just moments ago. “See? He’s fine. Come on guys.”

He’s backing away even as the words fall from his lips, and if Ash weren’t hurting so bad right now, he’d manage some witty comeback, and maybe grab a fistful of rocks to throw at his stupid face.

Unfortunately, Ash is hurting bad and his nerves are so fucked that he’s shaking hard enough that he can’t see straight. Mark’s still there, still nervously looking every direction but Ash’s face, but he holds out a hand again and Ash finally accepts, trying to breathe through his panic. He feels so cold, and his teeth are chattering so loud it’s agonizing as he wraps his other hand around his stomach, curling in on himself. “Ambulance,” he gasps again.

Shorter’s trying to move again, pushing up onto his knees and then falling back down with a moan of agony. “Ash?” he tries, and then something in broken English, consonants littered with Cantonese.

Everyone’s backing away now, true fear lighting on their faces. They are just boys, who have committed crimes of men, and the taste of that difference is poison.

Frederick breaks first, running across the lot, taking off towards where school lies.

The rest follow. All but Mark, who seems paralyzed in indecision, before finally nodding back at Ash. “I’ll call. I’ll call at the convenience store,” he babbles, eyes wide in horror. “I’ll call.”

Then he’s running too-back towards the gas station they’d come from only minutes before.

Then they’re alone. Ash sinks back down to his knees again, grabbing at his hair with both hands and pulling hard, trying to stave off the blind panic racing through his veins, trying not to hyperventilate. The smell of candy grape is still strong, and Ash realizes his knees are wet, his pants are soaking up the liquid–brownish purple that’s mixed with blood.

His blue backpack is just out of reach, swollen with schoolwork he won’t do. His own Icee stands next to it–blue raspberry, iconic, American. He could reach over, pick it up and suck up the flavored ice if only he had the will to try.

***

Ash doesn’t remember the ambulance ride.

They’d gotten there fast–blue and red lights flashing too bright against the sun–but Ash was walking by that point, moving around, trying desperately to get the paramedics to let him go.

“The restaurant,” he keeps shouting at the woman who’s trying to hold him still. She pats gauze on the spots that are bleeding, presses large fabric Band-Aids onto his head and his arms, ignoring the way he surges up in her grasp. “I’m fine!” Ash shouts, again and again. “I need to get to the restaurant!”

The truck with Shorter zooms off first, lights blaring.

“Your friend will be fine,” she says, a smile plastered on her face. “He’s just fine.”

“I need to get his mom,” Ash tries again.

“They’ve already called. His father will be there waiting. You need to give us your name, please.”

This feels familiar, like it’s ground they’ve already covered, and as she raises a penlight to his eyes, moving it left and right and left and right, he realizes that they have. She’s asked this countless times already.

“Ash,” he finally gives in, adrenaline suddenly fading so fast he wants to fall over. “Ash Callenreese. 419 Nellie Road, Wellfleet Massachusetts 02667,” he repeats from memory.

She nods, smile growing bigger. “Good boy,” she says, placating and patronizing all at once, honeyed sweet. “Phone number?”

Ash tells her as they help him up onto a stretcher, forcing him to lay back, wheeling him into the back of the truck.

“You’re fine,” they tell him, pressing on bruises, peering inside his mouth, his eyes, his ears. “You’re so lucky.”

It’s not luck. It’s hell.

His dad gets there eventually, hustled into the small patient room that Ash has been relegated to. He just watches Ash, no words at all, arms crossed. His eyes are red, and Ash wants to ask why he’s been crying, but he knows it’s better just to stare at the floor and try to swallow around the ache in his chest.

They won’t give him any information on Shorter, only the tiniest snippets of news. “Your friend will be just fine,” the nurse says as she rolls up his sleeve and gives him a shot of antibiotics. “This is just in case an infection sets in.”

“I want to see him,” Ash says, forming the syllables around a swollen mouth and a heart weighed down by the heaviness of his father’s eyes.

“He’s going to be just fine.”

They don’t release him right away. He has to talk to police officers, and then the nurse again, and then the officers once more. His dad opens up then, smiling and shaking hands with the officers. They’re friends. Everybody knows each other in a town as small as Wellfleet. Once they turn on Ash though, his dad just quietly takes a seat in the mint green plastic chair that’s pressed against the bed Ash perches on.

It’s not that he’s a snitch, more that they won’t let up until he gives them something, so finally he just shrugs his shoulders, tells them it was some boys at school that he doesn’t know, and lets them sniff out the details.

It’s 8:28 and ticking on the clock in the hospital room when he’s discharged: 5 hours or so after he and Shorter had left school, smiles bright, the scent of Spring burgeoning all around them. The hospital doesn’t smell like that. It smells like antiseptic, and sick people, and it’s nauseating.

Ash is sore, but it’s manageable. He walks behind his father, struggling to keep up, and once they are back in the lobby of the small hospital, he sees Mr. Wong pacing by the vending machines, hands in his pockets, worry lining his eyes.

Ash veers off, not waiting for his father to tell him it’s okay.

“Mr. Wong?” he asks, biting his lower lip and trying not to cry.

Shorter’s dad looks up at him. “Ash,” he says, slow, swollen with unspoken Cantonese.

“I’m so sorry,” Ash tries, blinking tears away, horrified that he’s this close to crying again.

“He is…” Mr. Wong looks up, searching for his words. “Good. He is good. Will be. Good. Thank you. Thank you.” He thanks Ash with his hands pressed together, fingers knitted within each other and still white with tension.

Ash doesn’t know anything else to say. Shorter always translates between them, and he realizes that while he’s taken it upon himself to learn Latin for their tree, he’s never even thought to ask for a single word of Cantonese.

“Ash,” his father grunts.

“I’m so sorry” Ash whispers again, then turns and follows his father out the door.

They walk in silence–the warmth of spring eaten by the cold evening that’s been brought in by the waves–and it’s not until they reach the brown Ford Pinto that’s parked in the lowest level of the parking garage that Ash’s dad finally speaks.

“Serves him right,” he mutters, low and dangerous in the orange subterranean lighting.

Ash doesn’t answer–just waits for the inevitable follow up.

“God damn filthy Gooks.”

It feels a betrayal to let it go, but Ash just quietly pulls on the handle of the door, cautiously sliding himself into the back bench and trying not to breathe. His ribs still hurt like hell. His shoulder burns. And he’s scraped up enough that blood is starting to seep through the bandaging.

On the drive home, Ash’s dad pushes a tape into the deck, and the crooning voice of Pat Boone soon fills the small space they share. Ash leans his head against the window and tries to remain just present enough that he can answer quickly if something is actually directed to him, but that he can also watch the trees whizz by, their gnarled, brown branches looking dead and still, impossibly frozen against the darkness of night.

They pull up the long driveway and Ash’s dad lets the car idle, the music still playing, the lyrics echoing around them.

April love is for the very young
Every star’s a wishing star that shines for you
April love is all…

“A Lieutenant Colonel George Goodson visited today,” Ash’s dad says.

His voice is steady, his eyes watch Ash in the rearview mirror. He sounds nostalgic, he sounds proud, he sounds sad, he sounds dead.

Ash’s head hurts, and everything he starts to think about Shorter his hands begin to shake. He tries to hold himself straight up though, steady, though his dad’s words hold no meaning.

“Ash?”

“Yes, sir,” Ash parrots back, practiced and efficient.

“Griffin is dead. They’ll have a funeral in a few weeks. Lieutenant Colonel George Goodson will be there. Seems like a nice fellow.”

There’s buzzing now, thick and sticky in Ash’s ears. “Yes, sir,” he hears himself say.

“Good.” his dad replies.

They don’t move, and Pat Boone keeps on singing a chorus that repeats and lasts for the length of a single heartbeat; a chorus that stretches across the lifetime of a boy.

Sometimes an April day will suddenly bring showers
Rain to grow the flowers for her first bouquet
But April love can slip right through your fingers
So if she’s the one, don’t let her get away

Chapter Text

The funeral for Griffin James Callenreese is held on May 1, 1973 at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church on US 6–just a few miles down from the restaurant.

Shorter knows this because it’s plastered all over the front page of the local paper for at least a week.

Local Hero to be Buried

Wellfleet’s Own Hero, Returned Home

Remembering a Local Hero

There are more, but Shorter doesn’t remember them. They are all glamorous headlines–the sort with large, chunky black letters so saturated with ink that they almost escape their edges.

Shorter is still relegated to his bed, not yet a week out of the hospital. He’s got healing ribs that were cracked in the attack, a shattered wrist that took surgery to pin back into place, a bruised kidney that’s still making him piss blood, and a face that looks more like a racoon than it does human.

“You’re so lucky,” his mom keeps saying, face crumpling up and eyes filling with tears every time she steps into his room. “Oh thank you, God,” she moans, raising her eyes to the popcorn ceiling and clasping her hands together in prayer. “Thank you, God.”

Overseas, young boys are dying–bleeding dark black into the soil of another world. They are not lucky. They cry “God, God, God,” but their tongues have forgotten the rest.

“You are in no danger,” the doctor said, in a scathingly calm voice that prickled along the edges of Shorter’s skin. “It is unfortunate. But…” he shrugs. “Boys being boys.”

He packs up equipment, nodding to one of the nurses who is on her way back in to check Shorter’s vitals. “You are due for surgery in an hour,” he says last, already half out the door, not looking back.

There’s medical jargon that Shorter desperately tries to grasp as his eyes fight the fogginess of morphine. His father doesn’t understand much, and his mother doesn’t understand at all, so he needs to be able to translate enough so that his parents can sign the treatment papers that are shoved under their noses.

“Poor boy,” the nurses say, voices melancholy with repetition, eyes tired and weary. “Poor boy, poor boy, poor boy.”

There is no write-up in the papers about the attack, but that’s because newspapers are only black and white–there is no room for yellow.

On the first day in the hospital Nadia cries. She walks in with confidence, chatting with the nurse on duty and smiling that big smile of hers–the kind that takes over her face. She hugs their mom, and then their dad, and says “took me ages on the bus, if you’d just buy me a car..” and they all smile and laugh a little bit like she’s so, so funny. She looks at Shorter and says, “Knew it wouldn’t take you long to get in trouble here, you jerk.” Then her mouth does something funny–an almost-smile, an almost frown–crooked and hesitant. She turns around and pretends to look at the sheet of paper on the little table that attaches to the hospital bed. It advertises all of Shorter’s options for lunch:

Meatloaf

Ham sandwich

Roast with carrots

Macaroni and cheese

American

American

American.

Her shoulders start to move. That’s how he knows she cries.

Griffin’s headline is strongest on the first day–angry and furious–so Shorter asks the nurses about Ash, desperate to know that he’s not hurt, desperate to know that he’s okay.

“Who?” they ask. “Ash.” he says. “Who?” they ask. “Ash Callenreese?” “Who?” they ask again. “Aslan,” he corrects. It’s wrong. It swells with pride in each syllable, and it is wrong, it is wrong, it is wrong.” “Oh! Callenreese!” they say, smiles on their faces, each woman fading into the next, each doctor glowering behind them. “Aslan was released yesterday,” they tell him. “He is fine. Poor, poor boy. Poor, poor boy.” Ash receives two where Shorter only receives one, and this makes sense. Ash was always more than the sum of Shorter’s parts.

On the third day in the hospital, Shorter writes a letter to Griffin–full of curled commas that refuse an ending, and apologies that can never be enough. The ball point pen scratches so hard into his notebook that it leaves behind imprints of all the words on the next page–emotion too big to be contained by a single sheet, too invisible to ever be understood again. He crumples it into a ball as soon as he is finished, and tosses it to the little blue trash can that sits by the bathroom door. It lands two feet away. Turns out it’s hard to aim with only one arm.

He goes home on day four. They make him ride in a wheelchair down to the lobby and Shorter uses his good hand to try and spin the wheel as fast as he can. The nurse frowns at him. He can tell she wants to say, “Be careful, young man.” Instead, she utters “Poor boy,” lips pressed into a straight line.

“Poor, poor boy,” Shorter repeats, pressing against the wheel so hard that his ribs ache. It steers them just enough off course that she has to tug hard on the handles. “Right,” she says, voice full of wanting-her-shift-to-end. “Poor boy.” He can smile again now at the irony of it, but it pulls at the bruising of his face so he chooses not too.

It’s Wednesday when he is home again. School starts, Nadia brings him homework, Ash is a ghost who tastes like the sort of memory that congeals in your heart. Shorter tries for one day to solve for x with the wrong hand, but boys like him are not meant for success, they are meant for greatness between alleyways of cities too large to remember their names and so he gives up.

It is finally May 1st on Sunday, and Griffen Callenreese is buried, and Shorter forgets because he’s tired, and pain pills do nothing, and it doesn’t really matter in the end because the town mourns all around him and that seems like it should be enough.

***

The Oyster Cove Bed and Breakfast is just off of US 6 (because everything in this fucking town is off US6) and lies down a lovely lane where you can just barely see the glimmer of sunshine reflecting off the ocean.

Shorter walks this lane now, holding his hurt arm close to his chest. The strap of the sling is starting to rub the nape of his neck raw, but it’s holding the weight of the limb just enough that it doesn’t make his ribs burn with pain. He’s fucked no matter what he does, so he grimaces, and forges on ahead.

Shorter hasn't gone back to school.

His parents put up with it for a couple of days, and then they started to get worried, but Shorter just assured them that the doctor told him to take as much time as he needed, and he wasn’t feeling well enough to sit upright at a desk for the grueling length of a school day.

(The doctor said no such thing. The doctor said that he was cleared to go back that very week. The doctor said ‘boys will be boys’ for the umpteenth time, and at that point, Shorter decided that he didn’t particularly give a shit about what the doctor said.”

Nadia narrows her eyes, but even she knows when a battle is not worth fighting.

And so the world goes on.

The Wong’s go back to the restaurant, Nadia goes back to school, and Shorter is left at home with a very large chunk of free time that he is tasked with putting to good use.

The first couple days, he jerks off. It’s something newly discovered–a power over his body that he never knew existed–and so he practices as much as he possibly can. In the shower. Sitting on the toilet. In his bed, in his bed, in his bed. It’s gross, and sticky, and he thinks about Ash kissing him way too much, but it also staves off boredom, so he figures he may as well keep going. Hand pressed against his belly, pushed under the waistband of his All-American Hanes, he grips too hard and too fast and feels something.

Eventually, even this can’t hold his attention.

     Wait.

     Stop.

     Go back to the beginning.

The Oyster Cove Bed and Breakfast is just off of US 6, and Shorter can see the slope of the roof now, his face red from exhaustion, his neck and brow and underarms starting to sweat.

Ash works directly after school on Mondays and on Fridays and sometimes on days in between. Today is a Monday, so...well.

He hears the sound of a car, and shuffles over to the side of the road, further towards the trees that line the drive. It passes him slowly, the dark black so shiny despite the fog of dirt it kicks up. Shorter watches it start to curve just in front of him, pulling into the lot.

The place isn’t enormous. Ash has told him plenty of stories of guests there, rich, and pretentious, and far too wealthy to do much of anything besides gloat, but Shorter knows that they can’t hold more than 5 families at a time during peak season.

They are in a little bubble before that now–those first few weeks of May when people are just starting to hunger for vacation. Even so, once he finally comes around the bend, he can see that the lot holds six different cars. Shorter swallows hard, hoping that he’ll be able to actually pull Ash away for a second. If he can’t, this entire journey has been for nothing, and that would…

Well it would fucking suck.

The shiny black car that had passed him on the road is empty now, and Shorter wastes a few minutes, scuffing his Chucks in the dirt, eyeing himself in the reflection.

It’s oddly warped, making his head look too small and his body look too big, and his feet don’t even exist–there are just two legs that narrow into nothingness.

The sling holding his arm is in is the biggest thing there, and Shorter wrinkles his nose, watching as the flat blue of the canvas eats him alive.

Finally, with a grunt of disgust and an obligatory kick of dust towards the car, he turns and walks to the front entrance of the building.

The steps are worn with use, but the porch wraps around the entire structure–white Adirondack rocking chairs lining it, moving with the push of the wind instead of bodies. He watches these a second, noting how they all seem to rock at the same pace–back and forth, back and forth. Then he opens the door, wincing at the tiny tinkle of bell that rings from the other side.

“Welcome to the–”

The voice cuts off quick, and Shorter forces himself forward, looking face to face with Jim Callenreese for the first time since he’s arrived in Cape Cod. “Uh…” he starts, eyeing the small foyer.

There’s a small living room to his right–a grandfather clock tick, tock, tick, tock, filling the space with time. There are also couches, a few more of those Adirondack chairs, and a giant bear’s head adorning the fireplace–jaws open, teeth sharp and glistening–an attack aborted, forever frozen.

“I’m lookin’ for Ash?” Shorter says, not turning back to the counter.

There’s silence then–the kind that’s so frigid cold your neck starts to prickle.

Shorter puts a hand on the back of the couch, feeling the softness of the fabric–red and blue flowers stitched into a white background. Patriotism hidden in gentle curves. “Ash?” he says again, finally looking back at Jim.

“He’s working,” Jim says. His mouth is set in a stern line, his forearms rest against the dark wood of the welcome desk, but his eyes are sunken–desperate, and tragic, and sad, and dark, and Shorter has to look away before he’s lost.

“I know,” he says quietly, finally walking up to the desk. The lip of it is at his shoulders–dwarfing him in a way that feels patronizing. He’s overwhelmed by the sudden urge to dash his hand across the surface, to send the pens flying, to cause destruction, to cause rage. “Could you tell him Shorter Wong is here?”

The line of Jim’s mouth draws tighter, permanently etched into his face. “He’s working,” he says again, firmer this time.

There’s a twinge of pain from his arm, and Shorter winces, reaching up to readjust the sling. “I know.” He can repeat himself too, over and over as needed. The colors here are too saturated without his sunglasses, and for just a second he thinks that’s a better lead in. “I need my glasses back,” sounds more sterile than “Is Ash here…”

Jim draws up suddenly, turns to the crook of the desk where his face is slightly hidden. He reaches for what looks like a check register–opens it and starts scribbling. “My boy killed so many of you fuckers before he died,” he says.

It’s not sharp, like Shorter would expect, but soft, and terribly, terribly sad.

I’m Chinese, Shorter thinks, wants to say, opens his mouth and lets the sentence sit for a moment. It doesn’t seem enough though. It’s never enough. “I know,” he finally says, parroting Jim’s response from before.

“Killed so many,” Jim says again.

Shorter can see the tension building up in his back, he watches the way Jim starts to tap his pencil furiously against the desk.

The bear is watching them, its eyes boring into the back of Shorter’s neck.

“Ash!” Jim calls out. Once. Not loud, but loud enough, because there’s a scuffle in the back office.

“Yes, Dad?” Ash answers, poking his head around the corner and sounding so formal it hurts.

“15 minute break starts now,” Jim says.

He doesn’t look up again, just keeps writing, pen moving furiously against the page.

Ash wipes his hands against the apron he’s wearing, and nods. “Yes sir,” he answers. Then he walks around the desk, nods at Shorter quietly, and heads for the door.

Shorter’s only too happy to follow.

It’s only been a few minutes, but the bright blue of the sky has been overtaken by clouds, swollen with rain. Ash walks stiffly to one of the rocking chairs, pressing his palms into the arm rests before sitting.

“Hey?” Shorter offers. He leans back against the rail, not certain he trusts himself to sit down and then get up again with the way his ribs are aching.

“Hey,” Ash says, so quiet it dissolves with the wind.

“I...uh...you okay?”

“Yep,” Ash answers. He’s not really looking at Shorter, he’s doing that thing where he looks just past–probably out towards the small parking lot where the shiny black Fiat stands still.

“Oh.” Shorter bites the bottom of his lip, suddenly very aware of how much distance stands between them. “I–”

“Are you okay?” Ash asks, interrupting him. His ears are pink around the edges and he’s doing that thing where his eyes flash from green to brighter green with every breath he takes. “I tried...I tried to see you once but they were only letting family in and I wasn’t family so…” he drifts off.

“Yeah,” Shorter answers. He wishes he had his sunglasses more than anything because suddenly Ash is looking right at him and it burns. “I’m okay. Are you?”

Ash blinks once and that bright green suddenly fades again. “Yep,” he says again, frighteningly small.

“Ash…” Shorter doesn’t know how to voice grief. How to tell someone that it’s going to be okay. How to impart the sort of comfort that seems incredibly necessary. His stomach is turning flips, and his mouth turns to charcoal, and he can’t think of a single word.

“I’m sorry,” Ash says, rubbing his hands against the apron tied around his waist.

He doesn’t look sorry. He doesn’t look much of anything at all but a fragmentary idea of what a human is supposed to be.

“I’m fine,” Shorter assures him. “I’m really fine. I wanted to...I guess...I didn’t know Griffin. But I–”

“Don’t,” Ash says, mouth tightening as his eyes press closed.

“Okay.”

“Sorry, I just...It’s fine. I need to go back to work?”

The watch on Ash’s wrist is turned enough and Shorter can see that it’s over 2 hours off. “Can I wait for you until you’re done? I can’t throw a football but we can hang out at the tree, or–”

Ash visibly flinches.

The clouds are dispersing again, going as though they’ve never come in the first place, and Shorter can smell the sea more than ever before–salt, and blue, and sadness. “It’s okay if you don’t. I get it.”

“No, it’s cool. I’ll be done in an hour. Dad only keeps me till four on school days.” Ash says this with a smile, so natural Shorter can almost believe it isn’t an act.

“Yeah?”

“Totally. Just…” Ash looks down at the watch, studying it for longer than seems necessary. “Give me another 45. Okay?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Cool.” Standing up so fast the rocking chair bumps it’s feet against the floor, he manages to smile at Shorter. “See you soon!”

Then he’s gone,and Shorter hasn’t moved, and “see you soon,” disappears on the wind just as quickly as everything else.

***

Shorter waits for over an hour. He wanders the parking lot, strays to the edge of the lane that leads in from the interstate, loops around pine tree after pine tree. Ash doesn’t appear, and somehow, this doesn’t come as a surprise.

Eventually, the birds start to fly in from over the sea, and they ‘caw, caw, caw’ with such ferocity that it sends shards of glass flying from the sky. Shorter ducks his head, runs underneath the branch of the nearest pine, and watches as the tiny slivers hit the dirt road with only the smallest ‘tink’ of sound. It sounds like hail, almost, but sharper and more insistent.

After a minute, it fades, and the glass melts into sand, and the sand blows away with the every breath the wind takes, and later that night, Shorter forgets it ever happened at all.

But now, Shorter walks back home. Missing something. Missing everything. Missing nothing at all.

***

“I want you to make a wish” Shorter whispers, his tongue brushing the back of his teeth, his throat barely moving.

The leaves of the tree start to move.

“I want you to make a wish,” Shorter murmurs, the lapping of waves carried in on the breeze, the sound of gulls screeching over head.

“I don’t know how,” Ash says, face contorted in some sort of desperate contemplation.

“I want you to make a wish,” the tree asks, Latin tangling in its branches, words only a distant memory.

“I wish to stay.” Shorter can taste the syllables, but they never emerges from his mouth.

I want you to make a wish, he dreams, but the elk never reappears.

***

It’s the end of May and there are sirens that scream in his sleep. School has ended, Shorter has failed, he will have to repeat the eighth grade and there is nothing tangible within himself that seems to care.

His mother watches him with sadness, his father with disappointment, but it’s Shorter, it’s KEVIN WONG - F, it’s the only ending to his story.

The sirens are still screaming, and he wonders if they are yelling at him.

Later, much later, he will wake up to his mother sobbing.

“There’s nothing we can do,” someone says on the phone.

Shorter can hear this, his mother is holding the phone far enough from her ear that it broadcasts throughout the small kitchen. “Hello? Hello?”

Shorter takes the phone from her, mind still in dream state, desperately wishing, wishing, wishing. “Hello” he murmurs, tongue thick with dream.

“Hello? Son? Is your mother home? Can you put your mother back on the phone?”

“She doesn’t speak English,” Shorter replies, blinking as his voice sucks into the receiver.

“She…” it fades, the mumbles of men not enough to be picked up by the landline.

Shorter turns to his mother who has sunk down against the wall, knees pulled to her chest, attempting to become fetal once more, become loved, become nurtured.

“Son, the building can’t be saved.”

“What?” Shorter says, words still dream, but tongue lashing out. “What are you talking about?”

“Chang Dai? Is this the Wong residence?”

The dream starts to fizzle, ends burning with need, but Shorter swallows them down. “Yes, sir. Chang Dai. This is Mr. Wong.”

“The building has burned. We need you to come to the police station. Are you able to do that, Mr. Wong?”

“Yes, sir,” Shorter repeats. His mom is crying quietly, her cheeks wet with tears. Somewhere above him, his Dad is rumbling, getting ready for a war he cannot translate. “Yes. We will be there as soon as we can.”

Nadia steps into view, her eyes red with sleep, her nightgown clinging to her straight, un-American body. “Restaurant?” she whispers, swallowing, swallowing, swallowing.

“We had it coming,” is all Shorter can think of to say.

***

They say goodbye on the steps of Ash’s parents yellow bungalow. Ash stands on the first step, Shorter stands on the dirt, and Ash is only the smallest bit taller.

He won’t go near the tree.

“Poison,” he says. “Not real,” he says. “Magic doesn’t exist,” he says.

Shorter never sees him cry, but that doesn’t surprise him. Ash has always been able to shut himself off from the world.

“I’m sorry,” Shorter says, over and over. “My parents have given up,” he tries. “New York is better,” he tries again. Nothing will ever be the same.

“New York sounds beautiful,” Ash tells him on that last day, arms wrapped around his chest, blond hair brushing across his forehead.

He reaches out for just a second, grabs Shorter and pulls him close in a hug, and for just a second, Shorter imagines he can feel damp as eyelashes flutter against his neck.

Then it’s over before it began.

“You should come visit,” Shorter says.

They are words that were murmured in the fall, at the beginning of something that was meant to die, and Ash knows this, and Shorter knows this, yet they feel obligated to speak.

“I will.”

He won’t.

“Please,” Shorter begs.

“I will.”

***

Tallest Tree, the sign reads–a tiny placard planted into the earth right outside the twisting fall of the old European beech tree’s branches. It’s unobtrusive, something so dwarfed by the tree, that it may as well not even be there at all.

Beneath the leaves, it is always summer, never changing–just hot enough that boys begin to sweat, just heavy enough that the weight of words means just a little more.

From just outside the fall of branches, a boy stands. His hair is lit gold by the Autumn sun, tousled every which way by the wind, and he tucks it incessantly behind his ears, a thing that is practiced so often, it no longer holds any meaning.

“Griff believed in you,” he says. It has momentum, the sort of sentence that begins a war.

There’s only a slight rustle of leaves in response.

“I tried to. I promise I tried. But magic isn’t real,” the boy says. His eyes glint green for just a moment, so bright they are blinding, lit by the enormity of his words.

He scuffs his feet in the dirt for a moment, kicking up dust, carving out a niche in the small space he occupies. There’s a bump of tree root here, and a worm wriggles up, nervous, and moist, quickly burrowing back into the earth to escape the burn of the sun.

The boy doesn’t see. He isn’t looking at anything but the horizon. He kicks again, sneaker hitting root, then he turns around, and walks back to the small yellow cottage that sits at the end of the lane.

Somewhere far above, a seagull begins to cry.