House of Scales

Chapter 14: The promise

The young man was sitting on a wooden staircase leading to the back porch of the house. Hidden from the gaze of others, he stared at the landscape with a severe look behind the dark cloth that covered his face.

"You're here," a voice said from inside the house, surprised. "I thought you were out."

The boy sighed and threw back his hood, letting the wind brush against his face. The man, seeing the gesture of relief, said nothing and sat down beside him.

"I guess it's okay," he said as he blew on the steaming cup, he was holding in his hands. "Do you want some?"

He shook his head and leaned over the railing support to look at the sky. His companion took a sip of his somewhat bitter drink and put it aside to wait for it to cool down a bit.

"How is—"

"She is fine," the young man interrupted, trying to comb through the untamed bush of brown hair on his head. "Sleeping like an angel."

"Good, glad it's like that," he sighed, visibly relieved.

"What about—"

"Better, it's beginning to be able to articulate a word or two better, but the throat's getting sore," he said, leaning back on the handrail and stretching his feet. "It's still a little way off."

The boy remained silent. Many ideas and fleeting thoughts ran through his head that didn't seem to remain the logical choice. Of all the options he could imagine, none could end well in all that: none. And yet he had been thinking for a long time about how to solve the dilemma that accompanied him every night as he lay on his old bed.

"You don't have to worry," his partner said with affection putting his hands on his arm. "It won't be long till—"

In response, the hand advanced toward his head, avoiding the contact that those hands, once warm and now cold, had made.

"It's not going to end well..."

"Aodhan, please, don't say that!" he said perplexed. "Would it hurt you to be less pessimistic?"

"From all the options I see," the young boy replied, "I don't see any good for us."

"And what would you suggest I do?" the man muttered. "This is the only thing I'm capable of. The only thing I can do".

The boy sighed, tired of repeating that conversation about the right and wrong of everything they did together. He didn't know if repeating it would change anything, though the bond between them prevented him from giving up altogether.

"What will you do once this is over?" he inquired pensively. "Go to another place and start from anew?"

His partner's gaze lit up as if he had been waiting for that question. After all, he had pondered it aloud for many days in one of the upper rooms of the house. In the dark bedroom where only his voice broke the deadly silence between metal and satin.

"Of course!" he replied with excitement. "Perhaps to Europe, we could go to Italy, or France, maybe, or the forest of Germany, you may both have freedom there. Perhaps somewhere East, get lost where no one can find us and—"

"You're too naive," he snorted, bringing his hand to the cup of tea that no longer smoked. "There are too many impediments to everything you plan."

The man saw his companion take a sip and let him do it, recalling all the ideas he had formed in his head so that everything would have a better ending.

"I can only dream, Aodhan, dear," he said, leaning back and letting his gaze wander into the sky as he played with his rough hair. "What else can I do?"