Chapter Twenty-Two: Spirit
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
I’m surprised to find the house so quiet when I walk back up the path through the falling dusk. Completely silent, actually.
When Aiden, Ralph, and Noah are together, noise usually ensues. Add Noah to any equation and noise ensues, actually, so it’s more than a little baffling to find myself all the way through unlocking the door without hearing a single sound. Did they leave? But Ralph’s car is still parked outside. Maybe they walked to go get food, or something?
I step into the house with a gust of gentle twilight breeze, shut the door behind me, then stop where I am, staring in surprise and confusion at the sight before me.
The fireplace is lit, and one or two of the lamps are on, but it looks like a room where darkness fell without anyone noticing. The low, buttery light falls softly onto everyone. Noah, curled up asleep in our armchair with his hair in a loose bun, his cheek resting on his folded arm. Aiden, sprawled out on the deep, cozy rug by the fireplace with one foot up on the armrest of the armchair, his muscled arms flung up over his head.
And Ralph, passed out on his stomach on the couch, with his blonde hair tumbling forward into his eyes and a blissful, exhausted smile on his sleeping face.
Tycho is curled into a small white and silver ball near his feet, her chin resting on his ankle. Luna has fit herself in what little space remains in that area, so that she looks like a zigzagging stripe of grey fur sandwiched between Tycho, Ralph, and the cushions of the couch.
Aside from the animals, it looks like everyone just dropped where they were standing.
“Um,” I whisper softly, biting back a laugh. “What…?”
No response from Noah or Ralph, but Aiden stirs on the rug, then rubs his eyes. I think he heard my note, not my words, because he sits up on his elbows and gazes around the room, searching for me.
He breaks into a cute little sleepy smile and gives me a cute little sleepy wave before he gets to his feet. I stare at him in total confusion and immense affection, opening my arms for him when he gets close.
“Hi,” he murmurs, bending to brush a kiss on my mouth. “Mmmmissed you, Keane.”
“Hi, I missed you too,” I laugh quietly, winding my arms around his waist, then glancing at the others. “So… how did it go with Ralph and the memory?”
Aiden breathes out a soft huff of laughter through his nose. “Good, I think.”
“Jesus, babe, you look exhausted. Are you even awake right now?”
Aiden closes his eyes, swaying a little, but smiling. “Yes.”
“Oh, yeah? Let’s see. You need three points to pass. Question one: what time is it?”
“Afternoon?” Aiden glances at the falling darkness beyond the windows, then hesitates. “Nope, hang on, it’s - dusk? Almost night. Night, pretty much.”
“Yep, that’s one point. Question two: how many fingers am I holding up?”
“What? How many freckles?” Aiden gazes right over the fingers I’m holding up, a troubled knit drawing up his eyebrows as he peers at my face. “Too many to count, I think. That’s a trap. Trick question.”
“Wow, okay. Let’s try something a little easier. Who are they, behind you?”
“Ralph. Noosh.”
“That’s two points, now. And who am I?”
Aiden smiles sleepily, then drops his head to nuzzle his nose into my neck.
“My whole universe,” he mumbles, his words slurring together a little bit. “Linden. Flower shop - crush boy. Cute. So cute. Wanna - take his clothes off.”
My cheeks instantly start to burn, and I close my eyes helplessly. “Oh my god, Aiden.”
“What?” Aiden rests his forehead against my shoulder heavily, breathing out an exhausted sigh. “Did I do it wrong? Did I pass?”
“You - did, sort of,” I answer, biting down hard on my smile. “But I’m gonna go ahead and do this anyways.”
I spread my hand on the back of Aiden’s neck, open the connection, and pour some of my energy into him. Not enough to knock me flat, but enough that after a moment he straightens up and stands steadily on his feet, the sleep clearing from his striking blue eyes. He still looks deeply tired, but now he looks awake, too.
“Mmm…” He takes a big breath, gives himself a shake, and ruffles my hair. “Thanks, Keane. Needed that. What was I saying?”
I fan my face with my hand, trying to calm the heat in my cheeks, then bend over to unlace my Converse, but really to hide my face. “Nothing! Forget it.”
I have a feeling he’d be embarrassed if he knew, and besides, that’s not what I want to talk about. I know my Companion Plant isn’t exactly what you’d call a chatterbox, but I want to hear a bit more about how things went with Ralph than good.
Aiden won’t tell me most of what he, Noah, and Ralph talked about on the night he told them the truth, but he did fill me in on one or two things after he went on a long run to process everything. He told me he’d looked into the future for Noah - so casually that he seemed caught by surprise to see me gaping at him in amazement - and that he’d heard Nik, safe and well. I can tell from the way he talked about it - so carefully and slowly, choosing every word with extreme precision - that he’s heard more than that. But he won’t tell me anything else about it.
I don’t want to get anybody’s hopes up, Jamie. The future can change at any time.
So you saw something good? That’s what that means, right? It was something that would come as good news? At least tell me that.
Aiden only shot me a swift little glance in answer, but his eyes said yes in a way that’s left me wondering ever since.
The only other thing Aiden told me about is what happened to Ralph’s dad. It sounds like this piece of Ralph’s history isn’t exactly a secret, just something Ralph really prefers not to talk about. And Aiden wanted to know what I thought, after he came up with the memory idea.
I told Aiden I thought he should make the offer, and Noah seconded that, so I knew I’d be coming home to the aftermath. I just didn’t expect the aftermath to be - this. Whatever this is.
“What’s going on?” I reach up to smooth Aiden’s sleep-tousled hair back from his face. “Why were all three of you knocked out?”
“Ah…” Aiden shrugs his shoulders, turning back to the guys, running a hand over his stubble. “Emotions are hard. Tiring. We’re not good at it.”
“Okay?” I laugh quietly, when he stops there. “So, um…?”
“So, what happened is, Ralph decided to take me up on my offer.”
I clasp my hands in delight, and Aiden nods at me, his blue eyes full of warmth.
“But why’d you guys end up like this?”
“Ralph…” Aiden shakes his head, suddenly looking a little dazed. “He, um - he cried until he was so worn out that he fell asleep? It really wrecked me and Noah. Kinda decimated us, to tell you the truth. So Noah chiefed a joint to calm down after Ralph passed out, and that knocked him out, too. I didn’t smoke, or - or cry, or anything like that-”
I arch a skeptical eyebrow, taking in the signs of recent tears all over his face. Right down to the unusually light, tropical color of his blue eyes.
“-but the memory drew on more of my magic than I expected,” Aiden forges on, determinedly pretending he didn’t notice. “Ralph did something that I wasn’t bargaining for. It was a whole thing. Suffice it to say, turns out Ralph refuses to just do what the fuck he’s told even when he’s in a magically-induced trance state. Man’s got anarchy in his blood, I swear.”
I run a dazed hand through my hair, then spread both of them at Aiden. “Wait, hang on a sec - Ralph cried until…? Ralph did?”
“Yeah.” Aiden looks just as stunned as I am, even though he’s had much more time to process. “On the bench in the garden, he… for a long time. Then he kind of stopped, so we came back inside and sat down in here. Everything was as normal as it could be for a few minutes, and then he started again, until he looked too tired to keep going, and he just kinda folded on the couch.”
I stare at Aiden in blank disbelief, then turn to Ralph again. He’s still got that giant, peaceful smile turning up the corners of his mouth, but now that I’m looking closer I’m noticing that his eyes are a little puffy, his eyelashes clinging together, his cheeks roughened with dry tears.
“What the hell kind of magic thing happened that you didn’t bargain for?” I manage, turning back to Aiden.
“I don’t know. It was over before I could feel it out, and Ralph wouldn’t say anything about it. He wouldn’t say anything about what happened in there, except that he’s okay. Must’ve been something he wanted bad, though. His emotions were powerful enough that they overrode mine and gave him control of my magic for a few seconds. It was fucking wild. I’ve never had anything happen like that before.”
I stare at Aiden in blank silence, staggered by the information I’m hearing. Aiden glances at Ralph and Noah, then gently takes me by my arm and pulls me into the kitchen. I’m guessing he wants to talk where we’re not at risk of waking them up. But we don’t go further than the kitchen doorway, where Aiden leans a shoulder against the frame tiredly, blue eyes lingering on his brothers.
“It’s been a strange day,” he murmurs, rubbing his elbow.
I can’t help but let out a quiet, affectionate laugh, spreading my hand on his lower back. “They all are, with you.”
He makes a face at me, but then smiles a little, hooking an arm around my shoulders. “Nah, I don’t mean like that.”
He falls quiet, choosing his words. I wrap myself up in that comfortable warm silence for a minute, then slip into the kitchen to set down my bag and put some water on to boil. I’m already pulling down mugs and placing a teabag in each one before Aiden speaks again.
“It’s just…” He turns around in the doorway, watching me as I pour out some honey. “I don’t know. It’s weird to think about how things were when I first came back to Ketterbridge, now.”
I stop and lean my hands against the counter, gazing at Aiden, waiting. I know he’s got more to say, even if it’s a moment in coming.
“I mean, I expected Ralph and Noah to be different when I came back,” Aiden rumbles softly, eventually. “Eight years gone, that’s a lot of time. But it was so fucked up when I went over to Ralph’s house for the first time, and it was - it was like I couldn’t even recognize either of them. I didn’t expect that.”
Aiden winces, like the memory of that first day back with them is painful.
“Shit, they were so different that I didn’t even know what to think. I didn’t even want them as friends. The type of shit Ralph was saying and doing, the way Noah was behaving - they didn’t even recognize each other, anymore. Ralph thought Noah was only sticking around because he forced him to. Then he had Noah running scared, thinking he didn’t have Ralph after him, thinking he had the Warlord after him. And I was starting to wonder if Ralph had ever even really seen Noah as a friend, or anything more than a pawn for his business, much less brothers. You remember what we all thought he’d turned into.”
I nod in understanding as Aiden trails off. He flinched a little over the last few words, and he takes a moment to get his breath back before he keeps going.
“I was seriously starting to wonder if I had imagined things being the way they were before, between us three. Or if those versions of Ralph and Noah were just - gone. Just not in there anymore. But then we got Noah back, and he found his way back to his old self. And then Ralph would do things like - like giving all of Noah’s stuff back to him, or leaving the bottle of hot sauce outside of my place on my birthday, and I’d think… maybe he’s still in there, somewhere.”
My eyes flit to the hot sauce bottle tucked away on one of the kitchen shelves. It’s not the one that Ralph left outside of Aiden’s apartment, not anymore. The three of them finished that bottle off together a while ago. But Aiden keeps the new bottle in the same place where we kept the old one.
Aiden looks over at it, too.
“I’m just glad that he was still in there somewhere,” he murmurs, turning back to gaze into the living room again. “I’m glad that things were the way I remembered them. I’m glad that Ralph and Noah were both still in there, I’m glad that…”
“That they’re both back?” I offer gently, after silence falls.
Aiden looks at me over his shoulder, smiling tiredly. “Better than back. We never would’ve had a day like this before. Never. But yeah, the same spirit I remember from before is back. In both of them. Must’ve always been in there, deep down. Everything got so broken, but - not that, I guess.”
I come over to stand with Aiden again, looking at Noah and Ralph. Noah with his head tipped back and his long black hair spilling around his face to tumble off of the armchair, his fingers wound around his wedding band. Ralph with that peaceful smile still on his face, even in his sleep, even with his face puffy from tears.
“I know we’re damaged goods,” Aiden tells me, keeping his deep voice to a soft murmur. “All three of us. Maybe nothing can change that, and maybe - maybe that’s okay. But at least we didn’t lose… at least not forever, we didn’t lose…”
He trails off, but I think I know what he means.
“Especially considering what Ralph’s already lost,” he goes on, much more quietly. “If today was any indication of how much his dad meant to him, then I can see why losing him made him so angry, for so long. I just wish he’d told me forever ago. Wouldn’t have been a free pass for him to get away with any bullshit, but it would’ve - helped me understand. But I guess I’m the last one who gets to play that card, aren’t I?”
I twine my arms around Aiden’s waist, then rock up on my toes to kiss his jaw.
“You have both of your brothers back, now,” I remind him. “As soon as you felt settled in that fact, you told them the truth. And gave them a magical present. I don’t hear anyone complaining.”
This is true, although both of them are so knocked out that they can’t do any kind of complaining. Aiden huffs out a quiet laugh, which rumbles through me with my body resting against his. He drops his head to rest it tiredly against the top of mine.
“What the fuck, Jamie?” he murmurs. “It’s your birthday week, and here I am giving everyone else gifts.”
“Oh, yeah,” I answer brightly, realizing all at once. “Thanks, babe.”
“What-?” Aiden huffs out another sleepy laugh, nuzzling his nose into my hair, stroking my tattoo with his fingertips. “That wasn’t actually - well, yeah, now that I think about it, that sounds like something you’d want for your birthday week.”
“It’s been perfect,” I sigh happily, giving him a squeeze. “I don’t get why you kept sneaking off to work on it alone, though. Pretending to go on so many jogs.”
“Wh-? Keane, this isn’t your actual present,” Aiden laughs, his warm breath breaking into my hair. “I have a present for you, too. And how the fuck have you figured out that I wasn’t really-? God fucking damnit. Ralph is right, you’re a sharpshooter, you know that?”
“Oops, um - I mean - I have no idea what’s going on with all those really long runs you’ve been going on, no idea, I haven’t even noticed-”
“Don’t try to lie,” Aiden groans softly, then breathes out another laugh. “Embarrassing for everyone.”
His deep voice is growing rough with sleep again. The energy I gave him must be burning up fast.
“Go lay down,” I tell him gently, letting him go.
He kind of listens, heading for the kitchen door, but then circles back and tries to help me put away the groceries I had in my bag. He goes to put the dish soap away in one of the higher cabinets. He has to pick up a bottle of whiskey to make room for it - an old bottle from my old place - and he hesitates for a second.
I catch sight of his hand trembling when he closes his fingers around the bottle. I quickly drop the stuff in my hands and cross the kitchen to him.
“Hey, it’s alright. I’ve got it, I’ll move it.”
“That’s - that’s so fucking annoying,” Aiden says quietly, staring down at his shaking fingers around the whiskey bottle. “I don’t even want it. Barely even think about it anymore, most days. Know I’m not gonna drink it. But still, I - I end up shaking like this, sometimes? And I can’t help it.”
I gently take the bottle from Aiden’s hands. He drops his head, an embarrassed, frustrated blush coloring his cheeks.
He closes his eyes and rubs his hands together, trying to stop the trembling. “Damaged goods.”
I set the bottle aside and wind my arms around him again, pressing my cheek to his chest.
“Like you said, it’s okay,” I tell him quietly, snuggling my face into the warmth of him. “Think of how much you love Noah and Ralph, and they’re the same thing, aren’t they?”
Aiden takes a deeper breath, buries his trembling hands in my hair. I smile against his chest in relief as I feel the shivers gradually fade away.
“You’ve done more than enough for one day, Sugar Maple.” I lift my head to press another kiss onto his jawline. “Go rest. I’m here, I’m home. Take a nap. I’ll tell you about my day later.”
Aiden gives me a small, grateful smile. He stamps my forehead with a kiss before he turns and slips out of the kitchen.
I watch him go, then finish putting together all the mugs of tea. Warm, fragrant steam rises from my hands as I carry them out into the living room.
I pause in the doorway, caught by surprise. I thought Aiden would probably go up to our bed, but instead he went and laid back down on the rug, near his brothers. I think he’s already asleep again.
In the soft half-light of the living room, I walk around placing the mugs of tea. Two on the end table between Noah and Ralph, two on the coffee table by Aiden. When that’s done, I cross to one of the cabinets and pull out some extra blankets. It’s a cold, breezy night, and Aiden is clearly too tired to keep everyone warm.
Aiden doesn’t move when I spread a blanket over him, and Noah’s only response is to curl up a little more, tugging the blanket closer to himself.
Ralph, on the other hand, seems to somehow sense my shadow falling over him. He’s a very light sleeper, it turns out, even when he’s as knockout tired as this. Probably because of what line of work he’s in.
He doesn’t seem to wake all the way up, but he also seems to know that someone is standing there, facing him. Without opening his eyes, he automatically drops the serene smile that had been on his face. His body tenses up, like he’s poised to leap to his feet.
“Get along, if you know what’s fuckin’ good for you,” he growls, his voice picking up a truly scary, sharp edge even in its half-asleep form.
I flinch a little, but go ahead and press the blanket into his hands, then gently brace his shoulder before I step back. “It’s just me, Ralph.”
Ralph hesitates, his eyes still closed. After a minute he slowly turns onto his side, dragging the blanket up over himself, snuggling deeper beneath it.
I drop to sit on the rug in front of him, making room for myself around Aiden. Ralph is clearly aware that I didn’t get away from him like he told me to, but he doesn’t say anything. Even though I can feel his grey-green eyes on me, watching. Even when I gently draw Aiden’s head onto my lap, which is a pretty good indication that I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.
I set the volume on the TV very quiet, turn on the Xbox, then glance back at Ralph as I settle the controller into my hands.
“How are you feeling, man?”
Ralph shrugs slowly, the barest movement beneath the blanket.
“Damn good,” he murmurs, around a sleepy laugh. “It’s - it’s kinda weird.”
It takes some effort to not turn around to look at the expression that must have been on his face when he said that. I doubt it’s one I’ve seen on Ralph before.
His voice sounds worn out, raw and rough around the edges, but happy.
“Good,” I answer softly, dropping a hand to twist my fingers into Aiden’s hair. “I’m glad.”
I want to ask Ralph more about it, see if he wants to talk - but he sounds thoroughly exhausted. I think he’s done enough for today, too. Maybe he just needs some time to be cozy and warm and still.
I focus on the list of options in the game library of my Xbox, skipping past the fighter pilot game I was playing before. After what Aiden told me, I get why Ralph doesn’t like that type of game, and I know he’s still awake. I think I just heard him take a sip of the tea I put on the coffee table for him.
Silence falls as I load up a different fighting game. The fire snaps softly as a log gives out, dissolving into toasty sparks. Tycho sighs softly near Ralph’s feet. Night deepens and darkens beyond the windows, making the golden light in the living room richer and warmer.
I’m just starting to think that Ralph might have fallen back asleep when his hoarse voice moves through the quiet room again.
“Come at it from the other way, Keane. Go around. Use a grenade to blow the second floor down.”
I was busy cringing at the disastrous results of my attempted ambush, but now I cast a quick look at Ralph, my eyebrows furrowed. “That’s gonna make a ton of noise, dude, attract all the enemies-”
Ralph shakes his head, looking too tired to do anything else. “It’ll be worth it to take out the first wave of enemies. Clear out your sightlines, too. You’ll get a better shot on everyone else. Put someone on overwatch for the turn change, you’ll get the first strike on the second wave.”
I glance at Ralph doubtfully, but when my characters respawn, I navigate them around the far side of where I’d attempted an ambush before, then start by throwing a grenade. Everything goes much better this time. The percentage chance of an overwatch hit skyrockets with the second floor of the building out of the way, and my sniper lands two neat hits into the approaching second wave of enemies.
I twist to stare at Ralph in surprise. He smiles a little, watching from half beneath the blanket.
“Helpful having the Warlord around,” I laugh softly, turning back to the TV. “Even when you think you’re waking up Ralph and you get him instead.”
Ralph breathes out a quiet laugh, too.
There’s a pause, and then he murmurs - “Hey, man. Sorry if I, um - I didn’t mean to. Wasn’t really awake yet.”
“Don’t worry about that.” I smile to myself, keeping my eyes on the TV. “It’s okay.”
No matter how frightening he can make himself, I know better now than to be scared of Ralph. Even when he slips up.
Just like Aiden, I know who Ralph is. The true spirit he had inside, all along.
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