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Jan. 19th, 2005 05:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sign_seekerWill clatters down the stairs, and is settled at the table with his textbooks by the time James comes clumping in from the barn, for once too preoccupied to complain about the cold and the division of chores. He sends a meaningful look at Will, who returns it levelly and then bends to his homework. James soon drops into a chair and opens his own books. Will concentrates hard on his revising, in order to ignore the looks James sends him every few minutes. Subtlety is not one of his brother's strong points.
They both look up, though, when Paul comes in, red-faced with cold, flute case tucked under one arm. James sends him a grin that says "We have a secret!", and greets him a little too exuberently; Will just smiles, and says "Hullo, Paul."
Paul smiles distractedly, and greets their parents quietly, setting the flute case carefully on the table. His face goes distant again as he looks at Will, with that same faint dreadful remoteness and confusion, as if he's seeing his youngest brother for the first time. After only a few moments he announces that he's going for a walk, and slips out the door. He picks up the flute case again on his way out.
"Don't go far," Mrs Stanton calls after him, frowning in bewildered concern. James's expression mirrors hers, confusion and faint worry.
"I won't," Paul assures her, with a quick smile, and shuts the door.
Will looks at the door for a moment, and then bends again to his homework, steadfastly ignoring both James's looks (now meaningful and silently questioning, by turns) and the ache deep inside him, which is stronger than ever.
James manages to corner him when they're cleaning their teeth before bed. "Will--" he starts.
"Not now," Will says, quietly but firmly enough that James actually listens, and goes quiet. Will rinses, and smiles apologetically at his brother. "It was real," he says more gently. "Just... not now, all right?"
He slips out the door before James can regroup and decide it's his brotherly duty to pester, and hurries up the stairs. In his bedroom he changes into pyjamas, switches off the light, and slides into bed.
And then he lies in the darkness, staring up at the ceiling. There is a hot tight knot like tears in his chest, though he breathes evenly, deliberately, and his eyes are dry. Part of his mind is distant and calculating, intent on the White Rider, at Milliways now in her old laughing guise. Another part of it refuses to focus on that, but slides away to other thoughts, ones without such clear answers. He tries not to think of Paul's face tonight, and does not succeed. In his thoughts, too, is Paul's face years ago, in the small parish church, twisted and helpless as his mind fought against the lowering might of the Dark, and afterwards suffused with that unbearable mixture of fear and awe and bewilderment, until it had gone blank and untroubled with forgetting. He remembers another day, a year and more later, on a riverbank in lazy summer with Stephen, and the worse expression on his eldest brother's face then, incomprehension shading into alarm and fear.
No answers come to him. He lies there and breathes, and the dots behind his eyes swirl against the black ceiling, a sparkling cloud of white motes like a field of white flowers in a high wind, or a cloud of tiny feathery moths.
They both look up, though, when Paul comes in, red-faced with cold, flute case tucked under one arm. James sends him a grin that says "We have a secret!", and greets him a little too exuberently; Will just smiles, and says "Hullo, Paul."
Paul smiles distractedly, and greets their parents quietly, setting the flute case carefully on the table. His face goes distant again as he looks at Will, with that same faint dreadful remoteness and confusion, as if he's seeing his youngest brother for the first time. After only a few moments he announces that he's going for a walk, and slips out the door. He picks up the flute case again on his way out.
"Don't go far," Mrs Stanton calls after him, frowning in bewildered concern. James's expression mirrors hers, confusion and faint worry.
"I won't," Paul assures her, with a quick smile, and shuts the door.
Will looks at the door for a moment, and then bends again to his homework, steadfastly ignoring both James's looks (now meaningful and silently questioning, by turns) and the ache deep inside him, which is stronger than ever.
James manages to corner him when they're cleaning their teeth before bed. "Will--" he starts.
"Not now," Will says, quietly but firmly enough that James actually listens, and goes quiet. Will rinses, and smiles apologetically at his brother. "It was real," he says more gently. "Just... not now, all right?"
He slips out the door before James can regroup and decide it's his brotherly duty to pester, and hurries up the stairs. In his bedroom he changes into pyjamas, switches off the light, and slides into bed.
And then he lies in the darkness, staring up at the ceiling. There is a hot tight knot like tears in his chest, though he breathes evenly, deliberately, and his eyes are dry. Part of his mind is distant and calculating, intent on the White Rider, at Milliways now in her old laughing guise. Another part of it refuses to focus on that, but slides away to other thoughts, ones without such clear answers. He tries not to think of Paul's face tonight, and does not succeed. In his thoughts, too, is Paul's face years ago, in the small parish church, twisted and helpless as his mind fought against the lowering might of the Dark, and afterwards suffused with that unbearable mixture of fear and awe and bewilderment, until it had gone blank and untroubled with forgetting. He remembers another day, a year and more later, on a riverbank in lazy summer with Stephen, and the worse expression on his eldest brother's face then, incomprehension shading into alarm and fear.
No answers come to him. He lies there and breathes, and the dots behind his eyes swirl against the black ceiling, a sparkling cloud of white motes like a field of white flowers in a high wind, or a cloud of tiny feathery moths.
