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theboondogglepub · 5 years

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A Land of Gardens Black. Part 2.

Part 2: The Catte Army that Baps, Far and Away we Travel Still...

What ho, what is this?

You’ve returned to our play? I cannot say I’m surprised I took your breath away. Very well, I can see you thirst for more of this bard! I am not wont to deny audience hunger this hard. Let me restring my lute, and twine my guitar, figure simple words out I can rhythm very far. Yes of course! It is time, and I must not disappoint. I believe our next chapter begins where roads joint. Where was I? Oh yes! It is time we took notice of Cattes. Of stalwart brave fighters who oddly take naps. It is time, I do think, to appraise the Catte army of Baps.

Stare out if you will, and do not miss a thing. Complexities abound when I get ready to sing. You and I see a town, quite the normal seen sight! Though do you share my wonder why they lack any light? Streets awash with people in clutters and slums, nary a working street lamp just rows upon rows of bums? We see here two roads in the middle of town, and two groups on said roads, all sharing in frowns. A blockade on both ends, and two blockaders at that, one group for the Botanist queen, the other sworn to Catte. Let’s look in now, stay quiet! You don’t want them to hear! Perhaps a bit of eavesdropping with make things more clear.

“I demand passage!” He cried out in the direction of a conifer tree, tapping his cane on the cobbled path as he walked into town. “I have a message for her Lady of Cattes! It is quite important!” The blindfold he wore made seeing the blockade of Her Lady of Botanist Divinity hard to see, not that it mattered as he still was aways from the road yet. “I am Aster of Chants! A monk sent by our Lady of Divine Pure White! The Botanist Queen Herself!” He bumped into a light pole, and demanded audience with it. “It is imperative she hear this right away!” While Aster chats with a light pole, let us see what else is happening.

“What do you mean I cannot cross? I have friends over there! This is absurd!” At the borderline stood stalwart a woman of impressive strength and azure hair. On her person she hefted her shield, her sword, her backpack, her friends backpacks, a water heater, a steer, a baby carriage, half of a tree (the best half, if you were wondering), exactly three uneaten pies, and a loaf of pumpernickel bread, all tied together into a fashioned backpack of sorts made of rope. Her eyes glared at the men and women that guarded the border, their pristine white uniforms opposite the enemy border watch in black uniforms that guarded the other side of the street. An enemy watch that was… exactly 10 fulms away from them, facing the other direction.

“We are sorry Lady Braum the Azure Knight, but there is nothing we can do.”The pristine white uniformed man said. “It is the Botanist Queen’s orders that no one travel beyond this street. There are rumors and more than rumors that a war is about to break out, and we must be ready. It is for your own good that no one be allowed to cross.” The white uniformed person told the azure knight of absurd encumbrance.

“Hah! You would say that you white uniformed dog! I spit on your mother’s grave and speak to your father about your crass language! HMPH! It is the Queen of Botanists that sways and grows ever dangerous!” Exactly 10 fulms away from them, a black uniformed soldier turned ever so slightly to throw his insult. It wasn’t a very good one.

“How DARE you!” The white uniformed soldier replied. “I will see you to fisticuffs on the battlefield, you Catte soldier confederate! You, you, you… MEWLING!” That last insult drew an audible gasp from everyone present. Ashe, Azure Knight of impressible mettle and bizarre encumbrance, remained at her side and waited. She would be waiting a while.

Meanwhile on the other side of the blockade, exactly 10 fulms away a small group of travelers sought passage. Most of these travelers were heavily cloaked, however one… “HURRR you cannot do this to me! Do you know who I am?” A beefy shirtless man stood staring down his side of the blockade, blond beard bristling. “I am the second greatest Dragoneer, second greatest lover, second greatest puncher, wine-taster, dead-lifter of weights, and skipper of stones and coins. Why, were I not a peaceful and negotiable man just trying to sell people on the fine art of shirtlessness! I would show you the strength that has been passed down my family line for gene-” Just then he was interrupted.

“Heeeeeey,” A singular voice clamored accusatory, surly, feminine and quite direct. It was a voice that echoed high in the streets, demanding attention and notice. It was Z’ylarix of Fire, and she strode upon a steed/chocobo/chair/bear/owl combination. For you see, Z’ylarix of fire used everything, and rode everything, all at once. “I see you there. Don’t deny it! You will come with me this instance! There is no escape, not any more for deserters like you!” Striding forward atop a, for the sake of convenience we’ll call it a ‘mount’, from the direction leading into town, Z’ylarix of Fire pointed her sword/dagger/staff/knife/other dagger weapon (To be fair, it is quite impressive despite its odd name) down on the well-cloaked crowd. She called someone in particular out, but whom it was not yet quite known. “It is time you came with me!” One of the cloaked figures broke out from the crowd, and began making a mad dash away, only to be caught in Z’ylarix’ patented net/ropes/trap/box/assortment of trinkets that was thrown by the dark rider herself. “There is no escape! The Admiral demands it!” From there, the netted body and Z’ylarix rode away.

After a travel, large and imposing black gates open and creak, and the room beyond requires much of me to speak. It is wide in its scope, and tall in its lift, and in threw Z’ylarix the man known as the agent of Grift. Still in a bag, and the bag in a net, you’d be wise to consider his death a safe bet. The Grifter did shuffle, did sway and crawl out, only to look on at his peers with a definitive pout. He wore an eyepatch, and another on top. Another and another which all shuffled with a hop. Let us hear in and see what this meeting does bring, perhaps more revelations upon which I will sing.

“SO,” She scowled, and we shall get into who she is quite quickly, for now her face is covered in a black mask. “The MAD PATCHER! Made any eyepatches lately?! Or perhaps… CONSPIRED WITH THE ENEMY?!” She, the Admiral of Cattes and Lord of the Gardens Black, stood up and slammed her rifle onto the table, letting it lay there as an object of imposing fear. Under her black mask, the Lady of Cattes twitched her cat ears, and flicked her cat tongue, and scratched her cat nails along the table. She wore red sewn with red stitching, red fangs on her black mask, and red draped on her cloak. She wasn’t grand, but imposing, commanding the room.

The Mad Patcher replied. “Oi don't nu waaat yer are blatherin' aboyt.” He spoke an eclectic… accent? Speech pattern? He.. did he even speak? Or was it some form of grunting? “Al' oi want is for peace among de people. dat is al', perhaps we can reach a resolushun? wud yer care for an mince pie patch?” The Mad Patcher was called so for his abundance of eyepatches. He wore an eyepatch on an eyepatch, and another on top. He wore patches on his shirts, on his pants and on his boots. He wore patches on his fluffy Catte ears, and it was rumored he was once a time ago a sailing Corsair of some type. Now he was just the Mad Patcher. If there was a thing that required a patch, the Mad Patcher was there, ready to patch.

The Black masked Queen of Cattes was having none of it. The Admiral of Cattes took out another gun (this one more a derringer), and shot the Mad Patcher in the shoulder, causing him to wince and bend. She laid that gun out on the table next to her first. “WHAT SAY YOU my COUNCIL? He has chosen his side. Shall we show what happens to those who do not choose correctly?!” The Admiral of Cattes looked on her council, and waited to hear their wisdom.

To the Admiral’s left was Kai Aries, the astoundingly cute. She wore pink sweaters and frills, and pink ribbons on the frills. Pink bows on her ribbons and pink tassels on her bows. She was small, but not tall, and had big eyes but no tail. She had cat ears, and wore a pair of cat ears behind her cat ears. Kai Aries was known for her resounding style, and also her battle precision. Kicker of groins, there was not a foe downed by her that didn’t wheeze for days after. Men feared her kicks, women feared how her kicks could hurt so bad, and her allies feared naught but being dressed up in pink on a whim. To deny Kai’s proclivities of dressing people outside of the Admiral in garb meant... well, you can guess it. Yup. A kick to the groin. She gave a thumbs down. “The Patcher did not let me patch his pants pink. I say punish him.”

Past Kai Aries sat Catherina of the Lynx, and in her shadows peered out from pure darkness the eyes of 1000 cattes. Not a simple thaumaturge, she was a black mage. More than a black mage, her every shadow was pitched in darkness, and in each shadow a pair of catte eyes glowered out from. In the curves of her form fitting gowns, in the crease of her bent knee, under the brim of her hat. Catte eyes. She sat bored, reading a book laid inside another book inside yet a third book. “Oh? Him? I suppose yes. He should be punished. Go ahead.” Each word Catherina spoke was echoed by meows coming from everywhere and nowhere, and as she finished speaking she returned to her book. Disinterested.

Beyond Catherina was the Mookie of Boolie, a large buxom creature of insectoid and feline nature and elusive dangerous beauty. Not quite a wasp, nor butterfly, nor a caterpillar, not a catte, the Mookie of Boolie was at once a little of many differing insects, and sat upon a tufted mushroom of multitude vibrant colors. She smoked a pipe, blowing out idly as she observed the Admiral’s rage. Hailing from the land of Boolie, Mookie was the ruler of the distant realm on the edge of the Garden’s Black. She ruled for she was the greatest of her species, the Queen of Boolie, and all respected her and the hard earned title. Mookie slowly piped out several circles, blowing an arrow through each expertly. “Not lewd enough for my taste. I vote punish him. Humble the egotistical fool.” Her words cut through the smoke rings, an air of dominance through them all.

Lastly to the Admiral of Catte’s right sat, or more so loomed, the shadow of Aifread. I say and emphasize shadow as Aifread did not speak, did not possess shape, did not do more than loom dangerously. Her shadow cast 15 fulms high behind her, but where the shadow originated from, nothing sat. Just a spectre with flickering cat ears. Long did rumors circulate that Aifread was nothing more than a simple Catte once, much like many of the denizens of the Garden’s Black. Other gossip placed her as a pool of liquid shadow that did the dark biddings of her dark Admiral of Cattes. Still others said Aifread was once a normal though affluently wealthy Catte, yet bought herself the right to cease to exist, thus becoming a shadow of ill-intent. Whichever was true was little known, what was known however, was she was easily distracted. Sitting to the Admiral’s right, the shadow of Aifread, again merely a shadow near 15 fulms tall, noticed a mouse and pounced. The Admiral of Catte’s regarded Aifread. “Well? Which way do you sway on the matter?” With the reminder given, Aifread, again a massive cast shadow of a creature, pointed down. Her vote was given.

“VERY WELL,” The Admiral of Catte announced her decision, laying yet a third gun on the table with a slam. This one a drum magazine style tommy-gun. “You, Mad Patcher shall be punished for your impunity! I declare the punishment as… DEATH!” Having said that, the Admiral of Catte’s leveled her fourth gun drawn from her coat, this one a sniper rifle with a solid oak stock, and fired. POOSH went the bullet, and the Mad Patcher fell over in a slump, shot right between the eyes. Dead.

Minutes passed, and a conversation about changing the curtains to a shade to match the new season began. They decided on paisley. Then, “UUUUUUHHHH” The Mad Patcher inhaled sharply. “T- Tanks me queen .” He said, barely understood.

“Now, think about why I killed you next time you go and do something stupid Mad Patcher. To the dungeon with him! I demand he be killed at least 5 times before breakfasts, and 15 more before dinner for the next two sennight!” With the Admiral’s declaration, black uniformed guards stepped up to, picked up, and carried the Mad Patcher away. “And no desert for him! The delinquent!”

Now we have seen a bit more of the cast, and yet the third still waits to be shown at last. We have met Aster of Chants and Ashe the encumbered, but what of the rest who are still as of yet unnumbered? What of Locke of the Tin, or Maeze of the paths, or Kayne the pure or of Lulu of Crafts? What of Naih the quite strange, or Anhashy the bold, what of all of the clans of Blacke who hail from the cold? We’ll meet them all soon, and more I do swear, I just have to muster the desire to care. What is that you say friend, there is story to tell you must hear? Yes, I believe we’ll begin again when the tune once again finds my ear. Just time to rest, that is all I do ask, soon once again in my tale you all will bask.

#ffxiv rp #short story #BlackGarden_Mateus

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finding--cat · 7 years

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To read the previous instalment, click here.

To read Part I, click here.

Part II: The Songbird 2.2

When Olive was four, she went through a princess phase where she refused to wear anything but dresses. Pants, shorts, skirts – none would do, none would she wear without a stage four meltdown drawing knocks on the door from neighbours asking “if everything’s okay in there?”

It went on for so many months that Z eventually donated the clothing she outgrew and they bought nothing new for her without frills or bows.

Her attention shifted gradually from Disney princesses to action heroines, and then one day, she asked to wear cargo pants to school and Z and Niall came up absolutely, shit-out-of-luck empty. And though Z managed to coax her into one of her favourite dresses, it was Niall who had to hold her hand and drag her wailing, furious self into the kindergarten classroom, and it was Niall who missed a deadline for a piece he was writing because he had to spend the next two hours driving out to the city and hitting up Wal-Mart and Target and thrift shops for every pair of discount children’s jeans, leggings, and shorts he could find in her size.

This particularly sunny Monday morning, when Olive wakes with a fresh idea of wearing a summer dress to camp like her friend Willa and Z looks up from where he’s standing over the toaster with wide, fear-rimmed eyes, Niall only has to wink at him and click his tongue. He learned his lesson from last year’s fashion fiasco, and he’ll be damned if he’s not prepared. Z thought he gave away all of Olive’s old dresses, but Niall managed to save a couple when his back was turned. Just in case.

Turns out Olive’s much taller than she was last year, and Niall is a smidge embarrassed to drop her off at camp with a denim dress that now falls above her mid-thigh with straps barely able to be buttoned in the last possible hole, but Olive insists and she rules the roost. He’ll call Trisha, Z’s mother, and ask her to take Olive to shop around at Goodwill on the weekend.

But first, he might as well drop by Gram and Gramps’ place to see if Gram can do any digging for him. Gram keeps everything, from the pot roast recipe she cut out of the back pages of the Charleston Gazette in 1979 to her runaway daughter’s baby clothes. She probably has a few dresses kicking around, and so long as they’re not too outdated (not that Niall would really know), he’ll take them for Olive. Old clothes and trinkets are about all Mandy Horan’s been good for recently.

“These here are summer dresses,” Gram tells him matter-of-factly once she’s pulled an array of options out of Mandy’s old closet. She lays them over the peacock chair in the living room, making a point to separate them from the rest. “Now, the dresses with wide straps or sleeves can be worn as they are, but for these ones with thinner straps and lower necklines, I used to dress Mandy in a little t-shirt or bodysuit underneath.”

“Done.” Niall makes a move to gather them, but Gram bars him from passing by holding out her arm.

“Not yet, mister. Now, those are the summer options. You can also use some for fall, see? You’d pair ‘em with a long-sleeved tee and tights to keep her warm.”

“Think I could’ve figured that out for myself.”

“Or you could dress her in a little cardigan overtop. Do you need any of those? I’m sure I’ve got Mandy’s around here somewhere—”

“Gram!” He grabs hold of her wrist before she can escape. “It’s okay. The summer dresses are good.”

“Now, hold on.” She eyes him disapprovingly and tsks him with her tongue. “I brought out some winter dresses, too.” She gestures to another pile deposited neatly on the couch. “These ones are a bit thicker, a bit longer. See, this one here’s made of wool—”

“I’m gonna stick with just the summer dresses for now. By winter, Olive’ll probably be off dresses again and into morphsuits or something.”

“What’s a morphsuit?”

“It’s a—nevermind. Thanks for this, Gram. I should get going. I’ll say bye to Gramps on my way out.”

“He’s having a good day.” Niall gathers the dresses on their hangers in his arms as Gram grumbles behind him, “Which should make us all happy, but I think he wakes up hoping to feel lousy as a trainwreck so he gets a visit from you and your friend Ari.”

Niall laughs. “I’ll bring her ‘round any old time. She likes him, too.”

Gram lets out a sarcastic, “Ha!”, causing him to pause and slowly turn his head with a confused frown. Gram gives his shoulder a light push and, with a wry grin, elaborates, “I don’t think it’s the sickly old man she likes. Think she might have a soft spot for his grandson.”

Niall shrugs, hugging the dresses tighter to his chest. “Maybe, huh?”

“And you, Mr. I-Don’t-Date-In-Town?”

He rolls his eyes. “She’s not from town.”

“She’s in the damn thing.”

With a chuckle, he shakes his head and moves out of the room. “I don’t know. Maybe I have soft spot for her, too.”

“Mm hmm.” Gram’s hum affirms his claim with confidence. “I see you, boy. First time you’ve brought someone new ‘round these parts since you were in high school.”

“Just friends, Gram. She’s new to town, that’s all.”

“You just be careful. She’s a nice girl, but you know newbies only ever pass through here.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She leans against the doorframe as Niall slips on his shoes at the entrance. “It means,” she sighs, “don’t go givin’ her your heart, because odds are she ain’t here to stay and she’ll take it with her when she leaves.”

Niall nods robotically and then hitches the dresses over one elbow. He uses his thumb to make a cross over his chest. “Heart’s safe,” he promises, leaning forward to kiss Gram on the cheek. “Trust me. She doesn’t even want it.”

He has a piece to pull together at home about the best mobile apps to create drum sequencer tracks, but he’s driving through town and there just happens to be an empty spot across the street from Kalene’s. It takes him a couple of minutes to parallel park, and he may or may not nudge the station wagon behind him, but with the truck tucked away on the side of the road, Niall hops out, looks for traffic, and slots his keys into his pocket as he confidently crosses the street.

If he gave it more thought, he might reason that he shouldn’t feel confident at all, but that’s not his way. Gram always said his boldness would kill him – it’s certainly caused some inconveniences so far. She says he never thinks enough about how things look to other people, and that’s where he gets himself in trouble. And maybe at this point he should think about how it looks to Ari, who explicitly stated she wasn’t looking for anything with anyone in this sleepy hollow town, when he shows up at her place of work less than twelve hours after they last saw one another. Maybe he should think about how that might put her off or cause her to pull back.

The problem is that Niall’s mind has never done much of his thinking for him. His heart is his compass and he always trusts north. His brain keeps his lips shut – it controls that much – but his heart is closer to his feet, and so when he puts one foot in front of the other, it’s because his heart told them it was the right way to go.

So he doesn’t think about how it might look to Ari when he opens the door to the shop and the little garden bells jingle above his head to announce his arrival. He doesn’t think she may find him overbearing or possessive, rude to stop by uninvited or too desperate and lonely to entertain himself for a few short hours. Because he’s not any of those things. He just likes her. He’ll keep his lips from making that explicitly clear, but he figures his feet will do the talking for him.

“Now here’s a face I haven’t seen before,” comes a calm, husky voice from a table surrounded in greenery.

Niall stuffs his hands in the pockets of his jeans as he approaches the cash desk. “Enough with the BS, Kalene,” he says, faking a scornful expression. “You saw this face every day from first to sixth grade. You had my milk order memorized.”

“One percent on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, and on Wednesdays, you had chocolate,” she recites from memory.

Lips pressed together, Niall grins. “You mean Bon Jovi day.”

“What’s that?”

A beat passes in which he allows her to think it through. When she raises her brows, coming up empty, he elaborates, “Whoa, we’re halfway there?”

Kalene rounds the counter with a chuckle, arms outstretched. Niall returns the embrace, surprised to catch a whiff of fresh pine. When she was the milk lady at Tillson Elementary, just a teen herself, Niall recalls the familiar scent of vanilla to cover up sour milk stained into her apron.

“Here’s a face I haven’t seen before in my shop, is what I meant to say.” Kalene pulls back and arches an eyebrow as she takes Niall in. He can’t quite read her expression – though if he guessed, he’d colour her unimpressed – but his grin doesn’t falter under her scrutiny.

“That may be true,” he agrees, “but what’s a guy like me gonna do with flowers?”

“Plants, too, honey,” she corrects him, softly patting his cheek. “How about surprise your Gram with a thoughtful gift? Bring a plant to your Gramps when he’s in hospital? Decorate that home of yours with life and oxygen? And don’t even try to tell me you ain’t got a little girl at home who would’ve loved to wear a little corsage for her kindergarten graduation last spring.”

“Damn. All right,” he chuckles, “thanks for the guilt trip.”

“No guilt, just advice.” Kalene breezes past him to rearrange a ficus in the window, the fringes dangling from her long shawl grazing Niall’s arm and causing goosebumps. “Now tell me why you’re here today.”

“Uh…” he trails, removing one hand from his pocket to rub the back of his neck, “well, nothing against plants or anything, but I came by to say hi to a friend, that’s all.”

Lips pursed in scepticism, Kalene glances over her shoulder. “I know you don’t mean me.”

“Not that you’re not my friend,” he adds hastily. “You are, it’s just—”

“Ariana’s in the greenhouse,” Kalene interrupts, her slow smile curling towards dimples. She gestures vaguely toward the back of the shop.

“Right.” Niall gives her an awkward thumbs-up. “Okay. Thanks.”

“It’s her favourite place,” she continues as Niall wanders toward the plastic screen, too filmy with condensation to see through.

“Yeah?” he asks absently, squinting to see anything more than green beyond the plastic.

“You go in there, you make sure it stays sacred for her.”

He pauses, nearly tripping over his own feet as he comes to a halt. Refusing to look back, he says, “I’m just saying hi.”

“Not my business. All I’m saying is you keep her safe space the way it is, and not just in your mind – hers, too.”

Niall nods, though he’s sure Kalene’s still preoccupied fluffing up the leaves of her ficus. “Okay. I will.”

Pulling back the screen separating the shop from the greenhouse, he’s immediately hit with a wave of humidity. It’s like stepping off a plane in Florida summer after spending the winter in Wisconsin. Niall instantly wipes his brow, certain he’s already begun to perspire, but all in all, the room is nice. Once the screen closes behind him, the sound evaporates as if sucked out in a vaccuum. It’s like being in a bubble, able to see but unable to feel or hear what’s going on outside, only in tune with the rustle of the leaves.

If this is Ari’s favourite place, Niall might understand why. It’s a step inside her mind.

Subconsciously, Niall clears his throat. From where she stands next to a cluster of pink geraniums, Ari looks over. Though clearly taken aback by his presence, a smile crosses her face.

“Hey,” she greets him softly.

Tension steams from his shoulders at her calm tone. “Hey.”

Her hands fall away from the geraniums, snippers held blade-first. “Did you come to purchase a plant for your plant-less home?”

Niall hesitates. “Yeah,” he says with a grin. “Got any palm trees? I’m thinking Olive would like one right next to her bed, sleep under the fronds.”

“No palm trees,” Ari says, approaching him with a twinkle of humour in her eye. “No olive trees, either.”

“Damn. Guess I’ll just be on my way, then.”

“Sorry we couldn’t fulfill your needs.”

He pretends to walk away and then turns around with a laugh. “In all honesty, Z would probably kill me if I came home with anything bigger than a sprout.”

“How come?”

“Dunno.” He shrugs, slipping his hands into his pockets once again. “Plants, you know? Gotta water ‘em, make sure they’re warm, give ‘em lots of sunlight, replace the soil… it’s a lot of commitment.”

Ari waits for him to elaborate, but when silence lays between them, she raises her brows until there are creases lining her forehead. “You do remember that the two of you have successfully raised a child for five years, right?”

“Oh, yeah.” He slumps. “I guess kids require around the same level of care as plants.”

“Sort of.” She giggles. “So, if you’re not here for a leafy friend… what brings you?”

“Just, you know. In the area, so.” His demure shrug keeps her giggling.

“Mm hmm. Flower shop’s pretty irresistible when you’re already in town.”

“Exactly. I felt like submerging my entire body in the Amazon rainforest, so I thought to myself: go and check out Kalene’s greenhouse. Same effect.”

Ari grins again, taking her snippers out to continue her pruning. “The plants love it, though.”

“So do I. You kidding? Break a sweat every day, they say.”

“Yeah. Not sure this is quite what they meant.”

Unaffected, Niall leans against a wall of philodendrons and watches Ari at work. With her dark hair tied in a ponytail and her sleeves rolled to her elbows, she keeps her tongue poised at the corner of her mouth as she works, rooting through the leaves of the geraniums to shear their dead leaves.

“How was work last night?” she asks as she works, eyes on the plants.

“Good. Minimal heckling,” he replies.

“Are you usually heckled?”

“Occasionally. Depends on the crowd.”

“Like Luke’s crowd?”

She poses her question without much thought, so Niall tries not to be awkward in his response.

“Yeah. Those guys aren’t my biggest fans. Never expect tips when they show up for a few rounds.”

After snipping a few branches in succession, Ari tugs them out of the plant and casts them to a small bin beside her. “Why is there so much animosity between you?”

“Tffff.” Niall makes a sound upon an exhale that more of less reflects his loss of words. “It’s a small town. If someone pisses you off in high school, you hate ‘em forever.”

Ari pauses, looking upwards as a smile crosses her face. She gives Niall a curious glance. “What did you do to piss them off in high school?”

He’s not sure how she inferred correctly, but he can’t throw her off his scent now. So he ruffles his hand through his hair and brushes it off with, “Teenager stuff.”

“What’s teenager stuff?”

“It’s not just me,” he adds hastily. “They act the same towards Z if they see him in public. It’s a popular kids versus nerds situation. You never get over it in this town. You never outlive who you used to be. People remember forever, and they won’t let you forget, either.”

“You and Zayn weren’t nerds,” Ari says as if the idea is ridiculous.

“Sure we were. Not smart nerds – music nerds. Stoner nerds who didn’t play football and didn’t have a chance at getting laid. The nerds who sat at the back of the classroom and passed notes back and forth about how to sneak out of the house and get to the city for a concert on the weekend. The nerds who didn’t go to football games and tailgate parties on Friday nights because we were in my garage teaching ourselves shitty music at band practice.”

“So that’s worth them teasing you now – because you didn’t like sports in high school?”

Niall’s about to go along with it, to say yeah, it’s fucked up, but that’s how it is here, but he stops himself. “No. There’s more to it than that.”

She looks over, snippers held at bay.

He sighs. “Boondocks, West Virginia. You must know there’s some prejudice here. Misunderstandings. Hatred.”

“Of what?” she asks softly.

He folds his arms across his chest. “Z’s Muslim. One of two families in the whole town. People hate and fear what they don’t understand.” Ari’s eyes lower in sympathy while Niall hardens, gritting his teeth and emitting a cold chuckle. “Of all the people who dreamed of getting out of town after high school and never coming back, he deserved that reality the most. The shit he had to put up with growing up… real horror story, at times. That’s why it’s such a shame he’s still here. I know it kills him every day – of course, he’d never leave. Not now that Olive’s in school, got a life here.”

Ari nods, slow and sympathetic. Her lips form a narrow line as she searches for the right words, but there are none. Niall tried to find them when Z told him Mel was pregnant. He tried to find them when they moved back home. When she gave birth and left Z alone with a newborn at age nineteen. There were no words then just as there are none now. Sometimes there are no words – just dead air and numb silence.

“What about you?”

“Hmm?”

She licks her lips, the words tentative on her tongue. “What would they have against you?”

Niall gulps, holding her gaze. Something about the way she stares at him tells him she already knows the answer. His stare diverts to the plant, because even if it’s not something he’s ashamed of, it hurts to tell the story plainly.

“One day,” he begins slowly, “after football practice, they found me—”

A vibration in his back pocket is accompanied by a loud jingle. Niall jerks to the side, surprised by the sound of his phone.

“Jesus. Sorry,” he breathes, catching his breath as he fishes it from his pocket. Z’s name appears on the screen. He furrows his brows in apology to Ari as he answers. “What’s up?”

“Where are you?” is Z’s short reply.

“Downtown. Why?”

“You said you’d be here.”

“Where?”

“My dad’s. The lunch.”

“It’s not until noon—” Niall pulls the cell away from his face to check the time, eyes bugging out of his head. He draws it back to his ear. “Shit. That’s in two minutes. Okay, I’m coming.”

“You forgot?”

“No. I didn’t,” he promises. “Time got away from me. Just… save me a seat. Be there in ten.”

Z grumbles on the other end of the line, but Niall ends the conversation before he can say anything cutting.

“That was Z,” Niall explains, stuffing his phone into his pocket and gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb. “I was supposed to meet him. I forgot. I gotta go.”

Ari blinks. “Oh. Okay?”

“Sorry. I’m sorry,” he says with a shake of his head. “We were in the middle of something, and I just—”

“It’s okay. We’ll talk later,” she assures him with a smile.

“Yeah. Yes!” he exclaims as he begins to back up. “Can we? Talk later, I mean?”

If Ari’s put off or taken aback, it doesn’t show. “Yeah,” she chuckles. “I’m off at two.”

He hisses through his teeth. “I gotta be at Elmwood Farms at two-thirty. Pick Olive up from camp.”

“Okay.” She shrugs. “Well, maybe tomorrow we can—”

“D’you wanna come?” he blurts out. “Sorry for interrupting. I saw where you were going and I wanted to get in ahead of you.”

An explosion of laughter racks from her gut, her teeth bared in an open, carefree smile. Even though he’s in a rush and stressed, Niall can’t help grinning back – God, her smile changes the very geography inside him. He can already feel the mountains in his heart shifting to make room for it.

“Um… yes.”

Though he’s already backed up to the plastic screen, Niall freezes to raise a sceptical eyebrow. “You don’t sound sure.”

“No, I…” She throws up an arm in surrender. “I had a thing with Rosen, but we can do it later. Wedding stuff, that’s all.”

“Okay.” He’d stay and gauge her certainty and willingness, but he hasn’t got the time for it anymore. He points at her and clicks his tongue with a confidence only his heart possesses, saying, “See you at two.”

He doesn’t stick around to hear a reply. The plastic screen closes behind him, sealing Ari in her safe place and him outside of it. He hollers a goodbye at Kalene, now with a customer, as he darts around a potted bonsai and jingles the bells above upon his rapid exit of the shop.

He slams the pedal to the floor on his drive across town, texting Z his estimated time of arrival while keeping his eyes on the road. The buckles in Olive’s carseat swing and clash every time he winds around a curve.

He’s ten minutes late by the time he parks sloppily in the last available spot in the lot. He nearly forgets his keys in the ignition, but swerves around on his heel before the door has shut and grabs them with a cry of frustration. Then he sprints across the lot at the same time he tucks his shirt into his shorts, only slowing to a calm and collected walk once he’s under the sign reading Taste of Mumbai.

Niall pauses at the entrance, leaning forward on the balls of his feet as he scans the tables in the restaurant. He didn’t confirm with Z that they were meeting here, he only assumed – Mr. Malik doesn’t believe in going out for meals, but when he does, he comes here because “they serve a decent tikka masala.”

He spots the two men not because of Z, but because he recognizes Mr. Malik’s flamboyant hand gestures even from the back of his head. Z, clearly in the midst of being lectured, glances up as Niall approaches. He doesn’t acknowledge him, eyes quickly returning to his father’s face, but he scoots over on the bench as he continues to nod. It leaves enough room for Niall to slide in beside him.

“Mr. Malik – good afternoon,” he says, holding out his hand to shake.

The man drags his tongue over his front teeth with a slurp, irritated to have been interrupted. Nonetheless, he takes Niall’s hand with a small smile. “Niall,” he returns. “Zayn mentioned you might be joining us.”

“Yeah. I go nuts over these samosas. I mean, they’re nothing like Trisha’s daal—” he eyes Z with a powerful nod as he references his mother “—but for a restaurant, they’re top notch.”

Z’s father watches him carefully as he unravels the napkin containing a fork and knife and spreads it across his lap, prepared to eat. Gram would be proud – those are the manners she taught him, after all – but Mr. Malik is less impressed.

Yaser Malik is not a simple man, and that’s not something one says often in these parts. People who call Tillson City home tend to like their beer in tall boys, their cornbread fresh out of the oven, and their men simple. Then again, Yaser never intended to call Tillson City home, and perhaps that’s the source of the complexity of his character.

Yaser’s parents – Z’s Daadi and Daada – emigrated from Pakistan in the mid-1960’s. They lived in a cockroach-infested cardboard box of an apartment in Manhattan for five years while they both worked long hours doing backbreaking manual labour in factories. They were careful with their money, tracking every cent and often skipping meals and living without heat, sometimes even water in order to save up and get the hell out of there. Farmers by birth and by trade, they desired nothing more than a quiet, safe place to live where they could provide for themselves. So, once Yaser and his brothers were born, Daadi and Daada quit their jobs and bought a modest plot of land in rural Arkansas with the intention of giving their boys a better life.

In many respects, they succeeded. All of the boys grew up, went to school, and secured employment for themselves. But their lives were not easy – food was always on their plates, but poverty affected them in other ways, and they were teased in school not just because they were of a different culture but because they couldn’t afford simple things: the shoes, the clothes, the accessories all the other kids had.

Yaser ached to get out. As the youngest child, he’d never been made to work around the farm as much as his brothers, and it wasn’t in his blood. Where his brothers looked over acres of green grass and saw potential – crops, livestock, sustenance – Yaser looked at a plot of land and saw nothing. To him, it was empty space.

As soon as he was grown and educated, he said goodbye to his family and set off to his birthplace: New York City, the land of opportunity. He saw himself in crisp blazers with holographic ties, carrying his briefcase down Wall Street to make more money in a day than his family had ever had in their account at one time. He didn’t feel he was betraying his family by abandoning the farm – after all, this was what they’d wanted for their sons, wasn’t it? This was why they came to America: to be something more than what they were in a country that could provide it. If anything, he felt he was fulfilling his destiny to be a businessman in the greatest city in the world. So one day at the end of the 80’s, he packed his second-hand car bought with his own money from working at the grocer’s in town and set off to the north to become who he was supposed to be.

He never made it there. Two days into his journey, he stopped at a diner for a quick bite to eat in a town whose name he couldn’t remember and in a state too similar to his home of Arkansas to care for. His server was a young Trisha Gilbert – beautiful, funny, and warm, a native of the town for generations – and that’s where the story either begins or ends, depending on the lens through which it’s examined. Yaser was born in New York City, but he wouldn’t set foot there again until his only son, Zayn, moved into an NYU dorm with his best friend Niall for college.

Yaser is not a simple man. And Niall understands – at least, he tries to, especially when Yaser and Z butt heads. At the core of it, Yaser wants more for his son, but more is a subjective term and one he’s defined internally and only in reference to himself. He went batshit crazy when Trisha enrolled Z in voice lessons in sixth grade. In high school, Trisha would only let them have band practice at their house when Yaser was out, because his own son pissing his potential away on song and verse was too much for him to stand. And he nearly lost every goddamn marble in his collection when Z announced his intention to study music in college.

With her even temper and coaxing manner and charm, Trisha won every battle, to Yaser’s flummoxed discontent. But she lost the last one. Maybe the most important one. Z enrolled in Economics at NYU, a decision he’d made with Yaser’s support. Play your music on the side, Yaser coached him, but secure a future for yourself.

Niall thinks Economics is the reason it was so easy for Z to leave after the first year and never go back. Mel’s pregnancy helped, of course. But had he pursued music? Maybe he’d still be in the city now, signed to a record label for his killer voice and doing photo shoots for his killer looks.

Instead, he’s firmly settled where he started in podunk West Virginia with a kid attached to his hip and an insurance broker’s licensing exam to study for.

Yaser loves his son, this Niall knows. But it’s a different kind of love than the love Gram and Gramps have for him, and a different kind of love than what Z has for Olive. Yaser has vested himself in Z. If Z succeeds in Yaser’s dreams for him, then Yaser’s personal failures become worthwhile. If Z fails, then Yaser’s life counts for nothing.

While Niall is dunking his third mini samosa in tamarind sauce and Z is in the process of gulping water to dull the burn of his unexpectedly spicy pyazi, Yaser launches his operation.

“You’re too smart for this administrative nonsense,” he says, wiping his chin with his napkin and then waving it behind him in a gesture. “Don’t you get bored?”

“It’s all right,” Z says with a shrug, though his thigh tenses against Niall’s. “While I’m finishing my coursework, it’s a good way to keep my foot in the door.”

“Keep your foot in the door,” Yaser scoffs. “What you should be doing is throwing that door open, stepping inside, and saying ‘I belong here. Carve out a space for me.’”

Niall shoves the entire samosa into his mouth, blinking hard as it sears his tongue. It’s the only way to keep himself from laughing at Yaser’s instruction – Z wouldn’t slam a door or demand to be heard in a room full of unknowns if it was his last hour on earth. He goes about life quietly, like a squirrel on a roof – he’d never dream of climbing through the window for warmth or a meal so long as he can find a few acorns up there.

“They like me in the office. My boss always gives me good performance reviews; she knows I’m taking classes outside of working hours to move up in the company.” Z’s voice is mellow and practiced, a far cry from the white knuckles with which he holds his fork. “For now, with Olive still in kindergarten, it’s the perfect situation.”

“Perfect situation? What perfect situation? She gets sick and has to go to the hospital, what do you do? How do you pay for that?” Yaser demands.

“Why would she get sick like that? She’s perfectly healthy,” Z argues.

“She’s up to date on all her vaccines,” Niall chips in. “Got her vaccination card at home as proof.”

Yaser sends a bored glance Niall’s way before returning his attention to Z. “She’s a child. Children get sick. What if she falls and breaks her arm? What then? Who pays for that? What if she chips a tooth? What if she goes through a growth spurt and you have to buy her a whole new wardrobe?”

With the barrage of questions showing no sign of stopping, Niall glances timidly at Z. With eyes fixed on his father, Z does not look back – but he gulps pointedly, his rigid jaw giving way to his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. His knee jiggles rapidly under the table, his jitters transferring to Niall.

“Where I am now, I can get to her right away if there’s an emergency,” Z explains. “That’s the perfect situation. Her baba’s gonna be right by her side whenever she needs him, not an hour away at a desk in the city. Don’t you see?”

“But what can you do for her? What can you offer her when she’s sick and crying?”

Z huffs and sits back in his booth, his appetizer abandoned. “Comfort.”

Under the table, Niall grasps Z’s thigh and holds it in place, willing him to stop himself from getting worked up. Z struggles at first, his knee begging to jerk.

“Comfort.” Yaser snorts. “You gonna comfort her through seventy-two hours of a sickness when you could have a doctor cure her in two?”

Z’s eyes blacken and his cheeks flush as he struggles to answer the question and quells his rage at his father for asking it in the first place. Niall decides to take over – after all, Z wanted him here for a reason.

“We do okay for ourselves, Mr. Malik,” he says as cheerfully as he can. Almost instantly, a hand covers his own on Z’s thigh. “With the two of us working steady, we bring home enough to support Olive and give her everything she needs. Z’s working towards getting licensed, and when he is, we’ll go from there – but for now, we’re making it work. And Olive’s happy and healthy and safe.”

Z interlocks their fingers and holds on tight.

“Niall,” Yaser says, finally paying him a lick of attention, “you’ve always been a good friend to Zayn – the best friend he’s ever had. But let’s not pretend you don’t have plans of your own. A future to chase. You speak as though you and my son are husband and wife, but let’s be honest: you’re a temporary fixture. I don’t want Zayn or Olive to rely on you, especially not financially. When you leave, it will be hard enough for them.”

Z’s fingers go limp. Niall swallows the lump in his throat and says, with conviction, “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Of course you will,” Yaser replies with a scoff. “What, this is your life? To live with my son and care for his child? This is what you dreamed for yourself?”

Niall blinks away the sting and briefly glances at Z. He’s cringing, tongue travelling between his teeth, eyes trained to the table and unmoving, not even when Niall gives him a nudge with his thigh.

So Niall is the one who stands his ground. Gramps always said he’d better learn to do it himself because he couldn’t expect anyone else to do it for him.

“I love Olive. I treat her like she’s my own kid.”

“But she’s not,” Yaser reminds him, his voice melting into something soft and patient. Niall is thrown off by his change of tone. “And deep down, your attachment to her knows that. It’s not biological; it’s not paternal. You have your own life to live, and one day, you’ll go out and live it.”

“But—”

Yaser reaches across the table to take hold of Niall’s forearm, effectively silencing his argument. “It doesn’t diminish what you’ve done for Zayn and for our family. But Niall, understand that when I think of my son’s future, and the future of my sweet poti, I must factor you out of the equation.”

Niall stares into Yaser’s eyes and finds them hard as rock. He’s not budging an inch. He stands on years of his own dreams left out in the cold and rain like yesterday’s laundry on the line, and Niall knows it’s futile to attempt to change his perspective.

Some people, like Yaser, want the sky to crack open and the stars to rain down on them, the world to turn because they make it turn. Other people, like Niall, are happy enough to look at the stars from afar, because their orbit revolves around just one on Earth, and he’s enough.

Z keeps his hand protectively over Niall’s, but he does not say a word.

“You do all the pick-ups?” Ari asks, her hand tentatively stroking the long nose of a coppery quarter horse over the fence.

“Pretty much. Z works nine-to-five and I work from home, so.” Niall shrugs, allowing her to infer the rest. With his back to the fence and his elbows resting on the top rung, he crosses one ankle over the other. “Even if he had the time, though, he wouldn’t do pick-ups from camp. Horses make him nervous.”

He and Ari wait near the small parking area of Elmwood Farms with a number of mothers and fathers here to pick up their kids from day camp. Horses graze in the pasture, with one particularly friendly gelding taking a liking to Ari’s soft voice and gentle hand. (Niall can’t really blame the damn horse).

Ari scrunches her nose at the horse as though it can read her facial expressions. “Really?”

“Yeah. Girl we went to school with lived at Naughton Stables just down the road. When we were in third grade, she got kicked in the face by a pony.”

Ari gasps. “Oh my God. How?”

“Just one of those things. It was pretty bad, though. She had to get airlifted to a hospital in Morgantown and have facial reconstruction surgery. There was a chance she’d be braindead. It cost her parents everything and they ended up having to sell the barn. It freaked all of us out, but Z the most. Even more now that he has Olive.”

“Why on earth would he sign her up for horse camp, then?!”

Niall shrugs again, closing his eyes briefly as the breeze rustles his hair. “Her little best friend Willa is enrolled, and Z likes to keep them together – he thinks that’s important. Plus, he feels bad leaving her with his mom all day, every day during the summer. She can’t get anything done, can’t visit his sisters out of state, and it sucks for Olive, too – she gets lonely and bored. He thought horse camp was the lesser of two evils, but that doesn’t mean he likes it. He’ll be breathing a huge sigh of relief come Friday night when this is all over.”

“Stuff like that really bothers him still?”

He nods, using one hand as a visor over his eyes when he suspects the kids are emerging from the barn like a pack, lunchboxes in their hands. “Z doesn’t forget stuff like that. He has anxiety, you know? He worries about stuff, all the hypotheticals of life. Bothers him a lot.”

“Oh.” Ari sits with that for a moment, trailing the back of her hand down the horse’s nose one last time. Then she turns with Niall to meet the kids racing towards their parents, softly adding, “Poor Zayn.”

Niall eyes her pointedly. “Poor Olive. But I work on him – we work on him together, me and her.”

In the distance, he spots Olive and Willa hand-in-hand, Olive’s hairband askew and her black hair tangled and Willa’s frizzy curls even worse. Olive’s got a new bandage on her knee that Z will notice right away.

Willa goes to her mom, waiting next to the family van, and Niall and Ari approach the lot to meet Olive and a camp counselor, a girl in her late teens.

“How ya doin’, squidge?” Niall asks, crouching to her level. Olive smiles, her baby teeth jutting past her lower lip as she walks straight into his arms and rests her chin atop his shoulder where it fits comfortably. Niall rubs her back and presses a kiss to the side of her head before standing. Ari waves at Olive, who reaches out to take Ari’s hand.

“You’re Olive’s dad?” asks the camp counselor with thinly-veiled curiosity. Her eyes dart from Niall to Ari to Olive in utmost confusion.

“Guardian,” Niall corrects her. “Niall Horan – my name’s on Olive’s forms. I got my ID, if you want—”

“No, it’s okay.” She stops him as he reaches into his back pocket for his wallet, apologetic to have even suggested it. Niall’s not the least bit offended. On the contrary, he’s used to it. He and Olive look nothing alike and don’t share a surname. People have a right to be suspicious, he supposes. Better suspicious than apathetic. “Olive was great today. She rode a pony up to a trot – isn’t that right, Olive?”

“Yep. Her name’s Marigold,” Olive tells Ari pointedly.

“That’s pretty,” Ari replies. “Sounds like you had fun, Olive.”

“One thing, though,” the counselor says, cringing as if she regrets what she’s about to say. She leans forward, speaking only to Niall. “It’s a bit difficult for Olive to participate in all the activities when she’s wearing something so restrictive.”

“The dress?” Niall barely bats an eyelash. “I know. She insisted. We sent her off today with leggings, though – they’re in her bag.”

“No, of course. And she was happy to change into them when the time came. But there are only a few counselors, so if one of us has to go with her to change, that’s one less counselor watching a lot of kids. If she could come prepared tomorrow…” she trails off, hesitant to complete her sentence. She’s young and embarrassed, probably put up to this by her boss.

Niall can’t blame her, but he also can’t make any promises. “I’ll try,” he says with a sigh. He ruffles Olive’s hair and cradles her head against his hip, adding, “It’s not really up to me, though, is it Olive?”

Whether she’s been following the conversation or not, Olive confidently replies, “Nope!”

As Olive begins to drag Ari to the pickup, Niall gives the counselor an apologetic shrug. Then he pats himself down, finds his keys in the breast pocket of his t-shirt, and climbs into the truck, announcing, “Let’s rock and fu—let’s rock ‘n roll.”

Ari, as it turns out, has a few tricks up her sleeve when it comes to coercing Olive into eating her vegetables. Z, not a huge fan to begin with, doesn’t tend to include vegetables in his prepared meals. Niall, taking after Gram, relies on heavy doses of butter to add that warm southern heartiness. Neither are particularly healthy options for a five year-old. But as Niall pan-sears chicken and gets the rice simmering on the stove, Ari glazes cooked carrots in maple syrup and arranges the salad on Olive’s plate to resemble a bouquet of flowers, with sliced celery stalks as stems and cucumbers arranged as petals with a cherry tomato in the center.

Z and Niall can barely contain their shock as Olive sits at the dinner table and demolishes every last leaf and root on her plate, leaving only a few grains of rice in her wake.

“It’s the only way my sister ate veggies growing up, too,” Ari offers in explanation.

“What’s your sister’s name?” asks Olive, sucking the maple glaze off the tips of her index and middle fingers.

“Her name is Rosen,” Ari says with a smile. “My mom used to make her vegetable roses out of radishes or red cabbage.”

“Yuck,” says Olive.

“I’ll make one for you someday,” Ari tells her, unfazed. “They’re pretty – I think you’ll like them.”

Olive considers this for a moment before she changes her entire perspective, shrugging and saying, “Okay.”

Niall laughs, reaching over to pat her head and fix her hair band in the process.

After Z gives Olive a bath, he calls Niall upstairs for the bedtime ritual and doesn’t seem to mind that Ari trails after him and lingers in the doorway, arms folded across her chest and a patient smile on her face.

“The Mighty Jungle!” Olive exclaims as soon as she’s tucked into bed and propped up on her pillows.

Z looks to Niall, rolling his eyes. “How about the buttercup song instead? You like that one.”

“No, I want The Mighty Jungle!” Olive insists. “Please, Baba? Please, please, pleeeeease?”

Z sighs, collapsing on the end of Olive’s bed near her feet. Hunched over on his knees, he groans, “Niall, get me my keyboard.”

Niall’s happy to oblige, setting his guitar aside and squeezing past Ari in the doorway to fetch the keyboard from Z’s closet. He also takes the frame drum he stores in there for safekeeping, plastering a gleaming smile on his face as he blazes past Ari into the room.

Z huffs as he turns on the switch for his mini keyboard, warming up his fingers with a scale. Niall pulls forward the chair in the corner for Ari and, once she’s sitting, he perches against Olive’s dresser, a twinkle in his eye. He doesn’t mind repeating songs as much as Z does, even if they’re childish and annoying. After all, he makes a living out of playing the same songs over and over again. The thrill of performing to an audience is what makes every performance different, not necessarily the music itself.

“Ready?” Z asks, eyes locked on Niall’s.

Niall nods and counts down for him. “One, two, three—”

Z launches immediately into an unpretentious falsetto, clear and practiced. He doesn’t need more of a cue than that. They’ve played this song for Olive a hundred times, each time a rehearsal for the next. Niall laughs to himself when he thinks of how much it kills Z inside to know this performance is the one on which his daughter will most fondly reminisce when she’s older.

Once Z finishes the first bar, Niall comes in with his handheld drum, beating rhythmically and beginning to chant: “A-weem-a-way, a-weem-a-way, a-weem-a-way, a-weem-a-way…”

Olive sits upright in bed, a great big grin on her tiny face as she watches Niall’s movements in fascination. She mouths along with the chant, transfixed by the drum as she always is.

Until Z jumps in with the keyboard and the first verse. Then her eyes shift to him, and if he’s honest with himself, so do Niall’s. He doesn’t have to glance at Ari to know where her gaze falls – Z is spellbinding when he sings, captivating because of his transcendent calm and inner peace. There are no pinches between his brows as he reaches for high notes, no great gulps of breath to fill his lungs. To Z, and to Z alone, singing is as natural as breathing.

And it’s a beautiful thing to behold. Niall knows it, Ari knows it, and at five years old, Olive knows it, too. Niall likes the comfort of having two others in the room with him. The looks in their eyes cement what he’s known for so long: they’re in the presence of someone special, and Z is it.

Sometimes Z gets silly with the song, especially in the last verse, because Olive loves it and because he’s so mind-numbingly bored of it by now that he has to jazz it up one way or another. Niall knows he won’t dare be free with it tonight, not with Ari in the room, so Niall takes over, rolling his R’s like a cricket in the grass and slapping his thigh in replacement of the drum and harmonizing with Z’s crooning even though it’s a stretch for him to go that high. As always, Olive is delighted, clasping her hands together and falling back on her pillow to giggle. Z smiles as he holds a note, taking his fingers off the keyboard and reaching out to comb his fingers through her hair.

Niall manages to elongate the song by one chorus, which annoys Z enough that he promptly stops playing the keyboard when Niall dares to go for more. The song then ends abruptly in a laugh from Niall, applause from Ari, and an exuberant proclamation (“Again!”) from Olive.

“No way, jose,” Z denies her softly. “You’ll never get to sleep if we do it again.”

“Yes I will! I’ll close my eyes, see?” Olive squeezes her eyes shut tight. After exactly two seconds, she opens an eye for a peek.

“Uh-uh. How about I read you a story? That one you like about the mouse family living in a hole in the wall?”

Resolute, Olive shakes her head with a frown. “Noooo,” she whines, wounded by his suggestion. “Another song. Pleeeeease, Baba?”

Groaning, Z looks to Niall. Both of them are hopeless at putting their foot down when Olive pleads. The dangerous part is that Olive knows it and isn’t afraid to exploit it.

Niall shrugs and sets the drum on the dresser in favour of picking up his guitar. He ducks his head to swing the strap over his neck and then gets it comfortable in his lap. He strums a few chords before nodding at Z, who silently understands to follow Niall’s lead.

“How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?”

A smile of recognition crosses Ari’s face. Niall sees it from the corner of his eye and grins at her, satisfied that after singing the first line, Z can take the lead. He’s right – Z launches comfortably into the rest of the first verse, smoothing back Olive’s hair as he sings that the answer is blowing in the wind. Z doesn’t really care for Bob Dylan, but Niall does, and over the years Z’s picked up enough.

They know each other like that.

It’s a quiet little song, and it serves the purpose of winding Olive down after a long day. She settles back against the pillows and takes her thumbnail between her teeth, eyes on her father as he croons.

He gets stuck on the third verse, humming along to signal he’s lost, and Niall picks up where Z left off. Olive’s stare stays fixed on Z as he tucks her in tighter alongside her favourite stuffed bear, and then he joins Niall in the final chorus.

“The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,” Niall sings to Z. “The answer is blowin’ in the wind,” Z sings to Olive.

“Even I’m sleepy now,” Ari admits, stifling a yawn as the song comes to a close. She stands, waiting for Niall to bend down and peck Olive on the cheek before following him out the door. “Goodnight, Olive.”

“Goodnight, Ari!”

Z puts his finger to his lips to shush her, smiling warmly at his daughter as Niall and Ari leave the room.

With his guitar slung around his back like a knapsack, Niall trails Ari into the kitchen. She looms over the dishrack with all the clean dishes they washed just after dinner, gathering a few in her hands and humming Bob Dylan to herself as she opens a few kitchen cupboards to determine their proper place. The sight of it sets Niall’s heart on fire, stupidly. He’s embarrassed by how much it gets to him, a person he likes performing a domestic task in his own home. Because she doesn’t have to; she doesn’t live here. Maybe she just likes him.

His head tells him he shouldn’t, but his feet propel him forward until he’s crowding in behind her at the counter and she’s spinning around to face him, their chests allowing only enough space between them so that both are able to inhale. But Niall stops breathing, really, as he looks down at her – this smart, beautiful, interesting girl – and swallows a thick lump of desire in his throat when her eyes are trained to his chest. She looks down, her hair falling over her shoulders, but just when Niall’s brain finds a way to his feet and convinces them to back away, she looks up and meets his gaze, clear and bright.

She surges up to meet him before he’s ready and her lips drag up his chin before they meet in a kiss. Niall feels no instinct to recoil and instead his hands find her shoulders to steady her, letting her open up to him before he licks into her mouth and brings his palms to her cheeks. Ari’s head tips back, one of her hands locking lightly around Niall’s wrist, the other clutching the fabric of his t-shirt in a fist. She exhales steadily onto his cupid’s bow, heart not skipping so much as a beat when she pulls him closer.

Niall feels a change, though. He feels the tightness in his chest and the whirlwind in his gut and the clot in his throat, and maybe it’s because it’s been so long or he’s forgotten what to do, but he convinces himself it’s because it’s Ari, and maybe it’s not so strange that she can light a fire in someone else even if she can’t light one within herself.

Ari parts from him slowly, her eyes fluttering open before his can budge from dreamland. Her fist knocks gently against his side and his shirt loosens in her grasp. Niall follows her gaze over his shoulder, to where Z has hopped down the stairs only to freeze, wordless, on the bottom step. Niall opens his mouth to speak, but Z shakes his head quickly and murmurs an apology before he jogs back up.

Niall doesn’t know what that means.

He turns back to Ari, whose eyes are on his, peering at him while holding an anticipatory breath. He releases a breath of his own and smiles, pulling her into him again.

She stops him, a hand on his chest, and murmurs, “I don’t want to get in the middle of anything.”

“You’re not.” Z’s moody and hesitant of warming to anyone new, but he’s made it clear that there was never anything to get in the middle of.

“You sure of that?” She raises a brow, palm flattening over his heart.

He should tell her that hummingbird beat is for her, and not due to getting caught, but Niall’s never been eloquent when it comes to expressing how he feels. His actions do the talking for him, and so he nods, one hand falling to grip her hip as his thumb traces the outline of her bottom lip like it’s a soft fleece, foreign to his skin.

He presses the lightest kiss to her lips to gauge her reaction. She doesn’t startle or pull away, but instead relaxes into him, whispering, “I like it here.”

Niall smiles to himself as a warmth, like a light from within, starts in his chest and spreads down to his toes and up to the tips of his ears, flushing his cheeks like a nip in the wind.

“Then stay?”

He’s facetious with his inflection because he doesn’t mean it as a question.

“I wish,” she breathes. Her hand drags down his chest before she looks up. “Rosen’s coming to get me. I promised her I’d lend my handwriting to address save-the-date invitations tonight.”

“Well, hot damn,” Niall mumbles, taking a hold of her hand in both of his. “Why should she get all the fun to herself?”

“Exactly.” Ari grins, her teeth a perfect line of pearls that Niall thinks, very suddenly, he wouldn’t mind sinking into his neck. “I work tomorrow, but, um… I’m free Thursday? If you’re not busy.”

“Yeah.” Niall’s embarrassingly quick with his response, but he pays it no mind. “You wanna go camping?”

She blinks. “What?”

“Camping,” he repeats. “Going this weekend. Can you come?”

“Um, no,” she giggles. “I don’t even have… I don’t have a sleeping bag or a tent or—”

“I’ve got all that stuff. Gramps used to take me all the time when I was a kid. It’s,” he shakes his head and rubs the back of his neck, “sorry, I should explain. Every summer me and the gang – a few friends from high school – we go camping up north in the state park. We’re going this weekend and I just thought it’d be fun if you came.” He pauses. Unable to read her expression, he adds cheerfully, “You’d have fun. I’d make it my personal responsibility.”

“I… really?”

He nods like an eager puppy.

“Isn’t it… like… dirty?”

“Yeah!” He laughs. “Dirty and gross and hot and uncomfortable. Forget addressing wedding invitations – this is fucking fun, I’m telling ya.”

Ari’s terrible at suppressing a smile, and Niall couldn’t be happier for it. Dimples shine through her cheeks as she agrees, “Okay. You sold me on dirty and gross.”

He tips her chin up to meet her in another kiss, murmuring, “My kinda gal.”

Once he’s waved Ari off at the door barefoot, Rosen eyeing him sceptically from her Honda Civic – it’s not his fault Olive flung a teaspoon of maple glaze on his white shirt – Niall checks a voicemail he didn’t realize he had. It’s GuitarWeekly letting him know he missed a deadline at five and to please have his article in by six in the morning at the latest.

It’s not great news, considering he not only missed the deadline but forgot about it entirely and hasn’t started the piece at all. Any other day, he’d lock himself in his room and write frantically until he had to leave for the bar, but tonight he’s on a high and figures he might as well get a little higher.

So he joins Z on the front stoop, where he’s lazily fumbling to roll a spliff on his lap, and digs a lighter from the pocket of his jeans. When Z’s got the joint dangling from his lip, Niall scoots closer to light it, waiting until the ends begin to split and fizzle before pulling away.

Z takes a long, steady drag, parting his lips just a crack on the exhale and shutting his eyes to savour it. Without a word, he hands the joint to Niall. Niall pretends it’s wintertime, that the smoke billowing from his lips and nostrils is actually just his breath in the crisp evening air. If there weren’t mosquitoes nipping at his ankles and if his shirt wasn’t sticky against his back, he might believe it was true.

He passes the blunt to Z and asks, “Everything okay?”

Z doesn’t answer, instead choosing to take another drag. His legs stretch out across the steps, and he extends his neck, tilting his head back to blow upwards into the air. Niall observes the tendons in his forearms disappearing into his skin, the curve of his back and the release in his shoulders. Sometimes Z just needs a few hits to take the edge off. He’s always been that way, ever since they were twelve years old and giving weed a try for the first time. Z heard it would help with his anxiety, and Niall went along with it because Z was too scared to try it alone; too scared to go with Chase Mulder, a senior, around the back of the high school to the wooded area to take his first hit. No matter what Chase Mulder said afterward, Niall didn’t hold Z’s hand – he didn’t. Their fingertips brushed a few times, and maybe those brushes weren’t always accidental, but as far as Chase will ever know, both boys went together out of equal curiosity.

When Niall moved in to help with baby Olive, Z said he didn’t smoke anymore. He wouldn’t for Olive’s sake. It wasn’t long before he found Niall’s stash – just a small one, just for lazy Saturdays and frigid Januarys – inside his coffee mug in the cupboard, the one Gram gave him reading Best Son Ever that he never used, not even once, because he didn’t want the cursive wording to fade in the dishwasher. There was a blowout that night, with Niall on the precipice of being kicked out of the house with nowhere to go and nothing to do, having dropped out of NYU for Z and Olive. Somehow, with the two of them screaming at each other, it culminated in a big fat J, the two of them huddled near the kitchen window to blow the smoke outside rather than step out of the door into snow.

Now Niall keeps his stash nestled between War and Peace and Great Expectations on the bookshelf in the living room. He’s never read either of those books. If Z read them before Niall moved in, he certainly hasn’t re-read them since.

Niall refuses the next time Z offers him a hit, instead choosing to curl up against the pillar holding the veranda together. His head knocks against the darkwashed wood and then comes to rest there. His lips turn downward into a pout as he picks at his thumbnail.

“You given any thought to what he said today?”

“Hmm?” Z gives Niall his attention, eyes already hooded.

“Your baba. You been thinking about what he said over lunch?”

Z flicks the ash off the end of the joint and purses his lips, heaving a sigh. He stares longingly at his car in the driveway, his car that could take him anywhere he wants but instead remains faithfully here.

“Maybe he’s right,” Z concedes. “Better than working in the mines.”

“Olive needs you,” Niall says quietly, head dropping against the pillar. “You can’t get to her if you’re all the way in Charleston. Not if there’s traffic or bad weather.”

“You can,” Z points out. “But I wouldn’t put that on you.”

Niall’s eyes shift to Z, but of course he’s not looking back. “Whaddya mean?” His tongue darts out over his lips. “You don’t believe him about me, do you?”

If Z says anything at all, the crickets’ night song overpowers him.

Niall’s upper lip curls into a sneer that he has to fight to reign in. He pushes away from the pillar, gritting his teeth and clutching his knees. “I don’t run away,” he says firmly. “Not when the people I love need me. I’m not my mother. And fuck you if you think I am.”

He stays out there with Z a few minutes longer. Neither of them say a word, but Niall accepts two more hits just to give his hands something to do other than ball into fists. He shouldn’t be surprised that Z is quiet as a whisper in the wind. He hates himself for expecting something more, but he does. Reassurance that Z knows who Niall is: steadfast and reliable. A promise that Z will keep doing what’s best for Olive. Or maybe, in the closeted portions of his mind that Niall doesn’t dare visit, he expected Z to ask him to stop seeing her. Ari.

Z doesn’t ask that of him. It’s probably not even in his realm of thought.

But Niall still wonders if that thought ever passes him by, a hair’s width from his consciousness. Moreover, Niall wonders if he’d listen to Z if he asked.

#tls #my writing #1dff #niall horan fan fiction

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