Ian
Elijah probably didn't know what he was getting
himself into when he asked Ian to take him camping. Much like many of
Elijah's impulses, the idea and the reality were two rather different
things. But Ian remembered the request, and inevitably plans were sorted
out in a more official capacity. The week before the trip, Ian sent
Elijah a text to let him know what he would and would not need to bring.
Beyond that, Elijah was left to his own devices until the day before
they were set to leave, when Ian fired off the following two messages:
Be ready at 6am tomorrow. I'll pick you up.
Eat breakfast. It's a long drive and I don't want food in my car.
(It was possible that Elijah was already starting to regret this trip.)
So
Saturday morning arrived, and the sky was still black when Ian's car
pulled up to Kalen's warehouse. Around them, the sleeping city was
misted over with a chill frost. Ian leaned against the side of his car
while he waited for Elijah to appear, checking the messages on his phone
and firing off a quick text to let Elijah know that he was there. The
trunk of the Audi was full of supplies and camping gear, but for the
moment Ian looked about how he always looked, apart from the fact that
his jeans were rather more sturdy-looking than usual, and probably had
not come with a $300 price tag. Most of his heavier clothes were still
packed.
Elijah
This was happening.
This was actually, really going to happen.
He
had a shopping list and disposable income and he was going to go out
and go get things and... it wasn't quite real. The entirety of it didn't
feel real, didn't seem real, didn't taste real to him until he had to
break in a pair of boots built for hiking in the snow.
It didn't feel real to him until he was standing there with a backpack full of camping equipment on a frame that was actually built for being hauled places. He was eating his third poptart of the day when Ian pulled up.
"I'm
covered in pop tart, I don't want to get in your car yet," because he'd
taken it seriously, this. That Ian didn't want to have food in his car
and he had on a fleece pullover and a pair of jeans that he actually did
wear on a somewhat regular basis. Worn and comfortable and not yet
fashionably threadbare.
He brushed the sprinkles off his shirt and finally meandered over.
Ian
Pop
tarts. Elijah's breakfast had been pop tarts. When he appeared outside,
Ian glanced up and watched him brush crumbs from the front of his
shirt. The expression on Ian's face was... somewhere between amused and
exasperated. (But not surprised.) He popped the trunk and helped Elijah
stow his things away before getting back into the driver's seat. It was
ungodly early in the morning on a Saturday and by all rights Ian should
have looked like shit. But there were no bags under his eyes. No hazy
sheen to indicated drowsiness. Was he actually used to getting up this
early, or did he just cheat?
Whatever his methods, he seemed
perfectly alert when Elijah climbed into the passenger seat beside him.
And say one thing for the Audi - the seats were fucking comfortable.
They were even heated, though Ian hadn't thought to turn that feature on
just yet (it wasn't that cold.) Of course, sports cars weren't
generally the greatest choice for mountain driving, but it was what
they had to work with. Thankfully, it'd been an unusually mild winter.
"If you want to change the music, let me know."
Otherwise,
they'd be listening to whatever Ian had in his Spotify library for the
next four and a half hours. Which, to be fair, was a pretty nice
collection - assuming one happened to like the numerous variations of
electronic, dream pop, indie folk, post punk, trip hop and hip hop that Ian
typically listened to. Either way, they were soon on the road.
After
a while the familiar city lights of Denver faded away, replaced by
rolling hills and the still, sleepy darkness of the countryside. Time
passed. Occasionally Ian's GPS informed them that they needed to make a
turn or merge onto such-and-such highway. He was quiet for most of the
drive. Meditative, the way people got on long road trips.
By
the time they arrived it was light, and morning had turned into early
afternoon. The ground had been steadily climbing in elevation for a
while now, and Elijah would probably feel the pressure change in his
head. There was more snow here. A lot more. The view out the windows was
postcard-picturesque as Ian's car wound its way along the curving
mountain road.
Eventually they arrived in a parking lot
designated for Wolf Creek Pass. A sign nearby marked the nearby hiking
trails and campgrounds. When Ian got out of the car, he seemed glad for
the fresh air, stretching his arms behind his head as he breathed in the
scent of snow and pine.
"I hate long drives," he admitted.
Elijah
Elijah
Poirot had a certain set of skills, skills that had been honed as a
child on road trips and the various excursions to church camp and
whatever else that it was that his parents drug him to when he was
little.
He knew what to do on these sorts of things and the
Audi was a comfortable car. It took Elijah, who to his credit had been
awake and ready to go by the time that Ian had gotten there, a grand
total of twenty minutes before he had fallen asleep. He was out for the
next two and a half hours. Opening his eyes and taking what was around
him in, he realized he had no idea where he was or where he was going
beyodn a place with the word Creep in the name
He opened his eyes in time to see some idyllic winding road and snow capped mountains.
Once they were actually in the parking lot, Elijah was awake enough that he could actually be decent conversation.
"Long drives kinda suck when you're in a car. Motor cycles aren't so bad," said Sleeping Beauty.
Ian
Ian
glanced at his car (which had comfortable seats, climate control and a
roof,) and when he looked at Elijah there was skepticism written into
his expression. (Not that he didn't like motorcycles, mind.)
"Seems like it'd get uncomfortable after a while."
Ian
swatted Elijah's stomach gently (playfully?) as he rounded the car to
open the trunk. The air outside was crisp and dry, with a temperature
hovering just around freezing. The sun was bright in the sky, reflecting
off of the nearby snowdrifts with sparkling clarity. It was good
weather for a hike. Ian pulled a layered hiking coat out of the trunk
and slid his arms into the sleeves. He leaned against the car while he
changed his shoes, lacing up what looked like an expensive pair of
water-resistant hiking boots.
"I figured we could hike to a good picnic spot, but if you're hungry I've got protein bars."
Elijah
"Oh ho,"
he replied, took the swat and half turned out of the way. He couldn't
quite avoid it, not like he would have wanted to if he had. The young
man looked in the trunk of the car, standing ready as though he were
prepared to potentially carry whatever was there.
Backpack on and coat bundled, he was like a much more attractive version of a collegiate pack mule.
"I'll
be okay for however long it takes to sit down and eat, you know, actual
food," he said, then he stopped, "wait, are we going to have to, like,
fish for food and forage for berries or something?"
He looked at Ian, eyes wide and surprise written on his features. He was antsy, yes, but who wouldn't be?
Ian
"Actually
I was going to take us elk hunting. Best way to do it is with a knife,
you know? Just you and the animal, staring each other down. Afterwards
I'll show you how to clean and butcher the carcass. We can smoke the
meat and make a stew with pine needles."
Ian's tone was
completely straight when he said this, pulling the rest of their gear
out of the trunk. He let Elijah hang for a few seconds while he strapped
his backpack over his shoulders and across his chest. There were gloves
and a hat in his pockets, which he left off for now. He'd pull them out
later when he started to get cold.
"Seriously Elijah, what do you think this is, Man versus Wild?"
The
fact that he was able to joke about survival probably said a lot about
how far Ian had come from his ordeal over the summer. Every day, it grew
a little less immediate in his mind. A nightmare that had happened in
another world. It didn't mean he didn't still think about it. Dream
about it. It would probably always inform his instincts.
He'd
never had to kill an elk with a knife. Not even there. But he'd had to
do a whole lot of other things he'd rather not remember.
Ian
locked the car, and they started on their hike. It was nice here.
Beautiful, even. The kind of scenery you'd expect from a movie, and very
classically Colorado. The snow was thinner on the trail than it was on
the rest of the ground, and someone (or a few someones) had left behind
footprints from their passage. It was still fairly arduous-going though.
Even on the path, the snow came up to their ankles, which meant that
walking through it took more effort. Ian was alert and in higher spirits
than usual. Maybe it was the setting. Something about the snow and the
sun and the natural landscape that seemed to bring that out in him. The
air here was thin. It made breathing harder. Even Ian noticed it, but
he'd adapted enough to the elevation that it didn't slow him down much.
Once
or twice he stopped to check a map he'd brought to make sure they were
going the right way. It took about an hour of hiking through the woods
before they came out into a clearing with a couple of snow-dusted picnic
tables. Ian dropped his pack on the ground next to one of them and
brushed off the bench with a gloved hand.
"I got us sandwiches
at this little cafe by my apartment," Ian admitted. A far cry from
berry-foraging. He pulled them out and tossed one to Elijah. It was
wrapped in plastic, something long and of suitable size to feed a hiker.
Ciabatta bread with layers of artisan meat and cheese and vegetables.
Ian took a long drink from his water bottle before producing a small
canteen that felt warm to the touch. "There's also tea if you want it."
Not coffee. Not hot chocolate. One of the perils of hiking with Ian Lai.
Elijah
He
looked at Ian like he was completely serious, bought every aching
moment of it and when he was done, all he could do was make a whimpering
noise not unlike a puppy that has been left outside for an extended
period of time. It was a noise that seemed to fit him, fit his
countenance, but at the same time one never seems to expect full grown
men to make tiny whimpery noises.
Seriously, Elijah, what do you think this is, Mann versus Wild?
"I
wasn't going to make Bear Grylls jokes because I wasn't sure how
accurate they were going to be," Elijah admitted. It was a small
admission. A genuine admission, but he plays it up.
And they hike.
---
Elijah
was taken back by how lovely all this is. He was taken back by the
majesty of nature, how the snow stayed lightly on the trails and how the
the air was thin and he'd spent the last few months below sea level so
he does trail behind, has to lag for a little bit. His mind is swimming
and sparkles dance in front of his eyes for a second before he continued
onward.
"Is it bad that..." inhale deep and take in air, kid, "I-"
Inhale.
"Oh fuck it, I'll tell you later."
And on he hiked.
----
Once
they got to the place where they could actually have a picnic, Elijah
sighed with relief, perched near a table and drew in a breath. He almost
missed the sandwich, but managed to catch it in his left hand.
He
was a good catch, with sure hands and confidence andthen young man half
slung his backpack off his shoulders and started on with packing the
sandwich away for safe keeping. If it was in his hands, he was going to
eat it. THe young man didn't know what to do with his hands while he was
hiking, truth be told. He didn't know what to do with his hands a lot
of the time if he wasn't touching something of fiddling with something
or marveling at some invisible texture.
"I think I'll be okay without tea for now," he said.
Elijah looked around at the atmosphere, at the lovely scenery and at the snow.
"It's so beautiful here."
Ian
"Elijah, it's noon. We're standing next to picnic tables. I gave you the sandwich so you could eat it."
Despite
the cold, the exertion from the hike had left Ian feeling a little
overheated. He pulled his hat and gloves off, running a hand through his
hair as he sat down. Above them, the sky was beginning to turn slightly
grey - a possible sign of more snow to come - but the weather forecast
hadn't predicted any storms. Ian didn't seem especially worried about
it.
Despite his words (and despite the fact that he was,
actually, pretty hungry) he didn't seem to be in any special hurry to
eat. Instead he sat there, silently looking at the sky; the trees; the
mountain peak that rose up above them to touch the clouds. His breath
formed small clouds of steam in the winter air.
"I should have come here a while ago."
Elijah
"Oh,"
he said, out of breath, head still fuzzy, brain still sparkling and at
that juncture with the air crisp in his lungs he was starting to regret
having ever smoked ever because at that juncture his lungs were burning
in the best possible way and he was just standing there, with motions
slow and deliberate, going through his backpack to acquire the sandwich
that he had literally just put in the pack.
"Is it the solitude that does it, or is it the interconnectedness of it all?"
Ian
Ian made a sound. Thoughtful. Quiet.
"Genetic memory. It feels like coming home."
The
bench beneath him was ice-cold. A drop of sweat dripped down his back
beneath the layers of his clothes. It brought his focus back, and he
laughed softly. "I guess if I actually had genetic memories, they'd be
from some place in China. My mom's family was from Manchuria, so, who
knows. Maybe that's why I like the cold."
He finally seemed to
remember his lunch, and unwrapped the sandwich on the table in front of
him. He took a large bite before unscrewing the cap on his thermos.
Whatever tea he'd made that morning smelled rich and dark with
undertones of chocolate.
Elijah
Genetic memory, he says. Tells Elijah that the snow and the cold and the mountains and the everything
feels like coming home- or at least that was how Elijah interpreted it.
He takes a bite of his sandwich, not quite internalizing just yet that
he was here to eat. That they had to wait, that they had to let their
bodies rest for a moment.
But there he is in the snow by a
bench, afraid to touch the bench lest he sully how pristine the snow
was, and in an instant that hesitation was gone and he pushed some of
the snow to one side, built up the edges like it was a little pyramid
and crawled to the other side to sit. Like it was just a really big,
snow-capped chair.
"Have you ever been to Manchuria?" he asks, pauses, "is my dumb white guy showing? Manchuria is a province, right?"
Ian
Ian's
response to that was a light breath of laughter. Briefly amused, though
lacking any real condescension. "Manchuria is a region in Northeast
China. Depending on who you ask, part of it may or may not extend into
Russia. There are a number of Provinces that exist within it. And no, I
actually haven't been there."
Something he ought to rectify some day.
Ian
took another bite of his food, waiting a few beats before passing the
question back in Elijah's direction. "I assume at least part of your
family is French."
Elijah
"That actually surprises me, you seem worldly, and you are, but for some reason my brain tries to make that into omnipresent," he told Ian.
Elijah
took another bite of food, taking the silence comfortably in stride
before chewing. This? This was nice. Actual conversation with people,
being out in nature, breathing in the world and exhaling... whatever was
there to exhale.
"My mom is from Quebec," he said, "and my
dad's family did come from France? But we're talking, like, four or five
generations back. We sort of got to New Orleans and planted ourselves
until nature dictated we grow somewhere else."
Ian
"Well, that settles it. I have to stop hanging out with you before you realize how ordinary I am."
(As though ordinary was a word that anyone would ever use to describe Ian. Or any of them, for that matter.)
"Have
you ever been up there? Quebec, that is. I've been to Montreal a couple
of times, but I didn't get to see much while I was there."
Ian
lifted his tea thermos up with a questioning expression, as though to
reiterate his offer. It was warm. It smelled lovely - if you happened to
like the scent of black tea. Something about his expression was
reminiscent of Sera, perpetually offering everyone drinks of whiskey or
vodka or tequila. Though Ian's tea was significantly less likely to fuck
anyone up, which made it both less risky and less interesting. Point
being: he could not quite wrap his head around the idea that someone
might not like it.
Elijah
"If you quit hanging
out with me, you realize what will happen is that I'll tell the story
of the last day I saw Ian Lai and it'll involve you riding into the
sunset and evaporating into twelve dozen starlings that take to the wind
and you'll forever be some fae creature and two generations from now
you'll be the stuff of legend," he said.
A beat.
"Jesus,
this is what happens when you live with Kalen. I didn't used to say
shit like that," he does accept the thermos at that point, but he's
lying to save himself. Well and truly. Elijah has, in fact, told someone
that they would evaporate into a gross of some small songbird. There
was a different note in the drink. Something like chocolate. Something
that he lets linger on his tongue for a moment before taking another
drink.
"I went once, my grandmother had been very insistent
about it. Long, long white hair, smelled like evergreens and she had all
of these acres of, like, trees. Little house sat right at the
front of the property, never ventured more than half an acre back. Mom
didn't want to stay over so we stayed at Fairmont Le Château Frontenac
instead," he paused, "I don't remember a lot of Quebec when I was
there."
Ian
Ian was midway through a bite of
his food when Elijah mentioned Kalen, and there was this sudden exhale
of barely-contained laughter that Ian mostly managed to cover with a
curled fist against his lips. Perhaps ordinary wasn't the right word,
but there was something humanizing about the environment. About watching
Ian do something as simple as laugh or consume a fucking sandwich (and
very nearly end up doing both at once.)
The tea did not, in
fact, have chocolate in it. But the scent, and the richness of its
flavor, were reminiscent of it. It was a Chinese black, full-bodied but
lacking the bitterness that American palettes typically associated with
black tea. It was a good choice for a hike. Warming and mildly
caffeinated while still imparting a sense of serenity.
"Starlings? Really?"
But we digress.
"That
actually sounds kind of nice." There was a slow pause, almost like
hesitance, before he added, "I never got to meet any of my extended
family."
Elijah
Starlings? Really?
He couldn't help himself, he had to laugh there.
They
digressed and he let laughter be. Let the taste stay on his senses. Let
the air warm slowly in his lungs, only to hang in the air when he
exhaled. There's the hesitation, the mention of family.
"Were
you guys kind of-like-" he knits his fingers together in front of him,
lacking the words, and clearly struggling. Tip of the tongue, "close
knit?"
It's not quite the word he wants. That much is clear.
Ian
[What word ARE you looking for?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
Elijah
[Close
is the word he's looking for, but it's not the word he's saying. he's
looking for something that conveys more of an emotional significance.
Were you a complete group? Were you a team? Was it you-versus-the-world?
Were you a family in the way that people tell us we're supposed
to have a family? Was it cracked, was it shattered, was it glued
together and held close?
Close is the word he's looking for,
but not the way that he says it. He needs a word that means more
togetherness than proximity. But the way he says it, the way that he
asks and tries to look for words, it's clear that he knows better. It's
clear that he knows he shouldn't ask about Ian's family, shouldn't ask
if they had their own traditions or if they were ups and downs and
loving when they were alive.
An odd thing to say. An odd
tendency of his to talk about the dead as though they were still living
because his world doesn't make the differentiation often enough. Because
that boundary, for Elijah, never existed in the way that it did for
other people. (there are things he doesn't say, that he wants
Ian's family to be gone for good, to be on and moving through the world
again in their own way, because people don't understand, because people
don't follow, because lingering held by passion and loose ends is no way
to be dead. Tortured by a part of yourself so vital that to sever it
would mean rending your own being into nothing.) He wants to talk
about them like they're still living, still lingering like ancestors and
guides and idealized versions of themselves that live on in lore-
Not quite family, but close.
Not the kind of close Elijah's looking to say though.
What Elijah meant to say was were you close, were you family? Does not ask if they were strangers in the same house, because he knows better.]
Ian
The
laughter between them trickled off. Briefly the wind picked up, tossing
a scattering of tiny ice crystals into the air. When it died, the
landscape around them seemed incredibly still. Ian retrieved his tea,
but he didn't make any motion to drink it. Just cupped the sides of the
thermos with both hands - as though to soak up the heat. (As though
suddenly he did feel the cold.)
It gave him something
to do. When Elijah asked that question, Ian
lifted his eyes and regarded him with sharpening focus. The impression
was of the iris of a camera lens, its aperture narrowing to a fine
point. He looked away after a moment. At the trees. At the mountain
cliffs rising in the distance.
"That's a hard question to answer."
For a long while it didn't seem as though he was going to try.
"I
lived with this foster family for a while. Afterwards." (After the
accident, he meant.) "They weren't really a family so much as... three
people inhabiting the same space. I guess if that's what we're comparing
it to." He shrugged, as though to indicate... something. Some
noncommittal affirmation, maybe. Or maybe that was more of a deflection.
The truth was, if they hadn't been close, it probably would have been easier for him to answer.
"My
parents were immigrants, if that's part of what you were wondering.
There's kind of a complicated dynamic there. Sometimes there's this
divide. Other times you get really... clannish."
There were
stories here - buried not very far beneath the surface of his words. An
entire childhood full of memories. But whatever they were, he seemed
reluctant to unearth them.
"I was close with my sister."
(Most of the time.)
Elijah
"I
wondered what the whole sibling thing was like. Jenn's got, like, four?
Four or five brothers and sisters? There's a lot of them. It always
seemed cool on TV," he admitted.
If they had talked five years
prior, the sound of his voice would have been more wistful. There would
have been something there, some longing for a confidante that wasn't
miles away in some other neighborhood. Siblings are different than
friends, though they can be friends.
Ian
Ian
didn't say anything in response to that. Maybe he couldn't. And maybe
after that, Elijah would take the hint and let the subject evolve to
something with less... pathos. If not, he'd find his attempts met with a
kind of frozen silence.
Here is the truth: it'd been his
sister that had made it all real for him, back when it happened. Somehow
that was the thing that had broken through the shock. Knowing how she'd
died. Imagining it. Picturing her broken body. Like some horrible
symbol of chaos and entropy.
They'd actually had to sedate him, after that.
Ian
let the conversation fall off. Maybe the silence felt companionable,
maybe it just felt cold. Like some widening distance. But he didn't seem
upset. Just... withdrawn. Soon enough he finished his lunch, gathering
up their things and packing them away.
"Come on. We've got a
long hike before we get to our camp. Hope you don't mind being cold and
wet for the next four hours." There was some attempt made to bring
things back to their earlier mood. This wry edge of teasing to Ian's
voice.
Elijah
You can't push for that kind of
thing. Not when you know, not when you expect that doing something as
simple as saying a name might rip open some found that wasn't done
healing. That probably wouldn't be done healing; there's some kind of
pain that you don't get over. There's some kind of pain that you should
never be expected to move past, something raw and terrible that said
that you loved. That something was dear to you, and how horrible it is
that people can be so precious.
He'd talked to Sera about
something like this, over broken pots and painting- how things don't
break. How maybe, maybe it's just a transition to becoming something
else. Still a son someone could be proud of, or at least partially, but
something else too. Something new. Different. No matter how far removed
you are, no matter how many fragments you shatter into- some part of you
is still a plate. And before firing, you were clay. And before
sculpted, formable clay, you were earth. Then stars. Then potential.
Then nothing.
He doesn't feel the silence as cold. He doesn't
see the distance as being unenjoyable, but he knows at that juncture
they were not entirely two people in a point singular, but rather, two
beings inhabiting similar space but different worlds based on perception
and experience.
And in those moments, he does think of death.
He thinks about it more than he lets on, more than he gives credit, but
it's always lurking at the back of his mind- the impermanence of it
all. Chased by the promise of a cycle, of eternity that breaks and
builds and buds and withers and kill keep doing it long after Elijah is
committed to the stars and his being exists only in rocks and trees and
dust.
He thinks that things are fleeting. He thinks about snow.
Come on,
Ian says, and it made Elijah jump. "Jesus, you took us camping on
fucking Everest," he laughed. And he hopped off the table, refreshed and
ready to go.
