JAWS (Complete)

Chapter 19

           *Home and Porkchop?*

It’s Galliard’s first time on a plane, and he can’t say he recommends the experience.

He knows he should be grateful, that this is a much easier and faster way to get back down to Liberio, but when the plane had lifted off the ground and started its ascent, he’d been suddenly, pathetically glad that Reiner was sitting in the window seat, and that he didn’t mind having his arm clutched at and squeezed so hard that Galliard might have left bruises. He’d only glanced out the window once, to see them banking over Trost and all the buildings downtown at an unnatural, tilted angle, before reaching across Reiner and dragging the window cover closed.

That makes it better. That makes it like riding in a car, and Galliard can handle that.

Reiner, an obvious old pro at flying, shifts around in his window seat, getting comfortable, and smiles reassuringly at Galliard. “Don’t worry, it’s a short flight. We’ll be on the ground in a couple of hours.”

That is entirely two hours too long, as far as Galliard is concerned, but he just nods tightly and makes sure his grip on Reiner’s arm hasn’t faltered at all.

He doesn’t know how he would have survived the last week without Reiner.

Reiner had sat with him, after Sarge passed; had held Galliard in his arms as Sarge’s body had grown cold and stiff, and not said a word until Galliard had sat up on his own. It was Reiner who had called the vet, and Reiner who had wrapped Sarge’s body in a sheet he’d found on the futon. Reiner had only hesitated once, when his search for Sarge’s winding shroud had unearthed a ragged, threadbare stuffed rhino and pig, caught between the futon’s mattress and frame. He’d carefully pulled them out and arranged them on Galliard’s pillow, then taken care of the dog.

When the vet arrived, it had been Reiner who had talked to her, speaking in low, hushed tones, like Galliard would interrupt him or disagree with what he was saying. Galliard wouldn’t have, even if he had been listening; he’d been numb, sitting on the floor with Sarge’s wrapped body in his arms, feeling the unyielding, dead weight of it, and trying to process everything that had happened. Sarge was dead; his last piece of Marcel was gone. Reiner knew Galliard is basically only one step above a streetwalker turning tricks on a corner; Reiner was still here. That had been the thing he kept repeating to himself, the thing that had kept him going: Reiner was still there. Reiner didn’t hate him; Reiner wasn’t disgusted by him. Reiner had held him, and kissed him, and was even then talking to the vet and making arrangements for Sarge’s body.

Reiner was still there.

Reiner had knelt beside Galliard after talking to the vet, and quietly gone over the options with him. He could bury Sarge in the city, an option that was immediately turned down. He could have Sarge cremated and his ashes thrown away, a suggestion which Reiner knew would be denied, and was, with extreme prejudice. Galliard couldn’t just throw Sarge away, that simply wasn’t going to happen. The final choice was to have Sarge cremated and his ashes returned to them in a few days. Galliard had heard enough of Reiner and the vet’s conversation to know that turn-around time like that is unusual, costly, but he had known that was what he wanted. Still, he had waffled a little, finally lifting his eyes to meet Reiner’s.

“I don’t want him to be alone for longer than he has to.” It was stupid, he knew Sarge wasn’t there, that Sarge was gone, but the thought of Sarge’s body in a refrigerator somewhere, cold and frozen and abandoned, had been too terrible to contemplate.