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"I can't even believe you're still here!" Ian explodes.
Time stops to listen. Seconds freeze in shock.
"I am done. I am done with this shit. Someone needs to teach you how to be a normal human being, and it is not going to be me. I'm finished with trying to put up with you," he yells, jabbing a finger into Warner's chest. "We all are." His voice drops menacingly. "You know, sometimes everyone has that little wish that Anderson would just come back and teach you a lesson."
Warner flinches like he's been slapped across the face. For just a blink, his eyes look so deep, so dark. His tough skin is ripped apart, the raw boy inside so wounded it's painful to look at, a star shining far too bright.
My stomach drops into the soles of my boots.
It takes me a second to bite back the insults I'd love to hurl at Ian. Castle would likely admonish me for a century if he could see some of the thoughts in my head right now.
Warner's wide eyes flick rapidly between Ian's, as if he might find something to ground him there, to stop his hands from shaking. I think he's reading him.
Adam is on his feet and in Ian's face in a blink.
"That is way too far," he seethes, stepping in front of his brother. His voice is dangerously low and sets off all kinds of alarm bells in my head Ian doesn't seem to share.
Ian scoffs and tries to move past, but Adam keeps his gaze locked in place. "Don't think you'll get away with that bullshit, man."
Warner has slipped away. He's soon out of the tent door and greeting the night, momentarily breaking through the crazy tension. I follow him, Adam's angry tones lost to the wild sounds around us. A cricket or what could be ten chirp loudly next to me.
"Warner," I call out, jogging after his briskly retreating figure.
To my surprise, he stops. Turns to face me, blonde hair streaked in nearby lamplight. His face is blank. Carefully unreadable.
"That's bullshit," I tell him. "The bullest of shit. Nobody thinks that."
Warner studies a point in the distance. "He believes the opposite."
"He was angry. If he actually thinks that - and he would be the only one - then I will put scorpions in his bloody noodles and-"
"I don't need you to pity me, Kenji," Warner interrupts. He walks off again. I sigh. I can tell he's hurt. Can see it in the forced calm of his strides and hear it in the sharpness of his voice. I feel a pang of guilt as I remember all the times I ignored those signs.
"I'll come by tonight," I finally shout into the dark. "If you don't answer the door, I will proudly use my spare key."
Warner doesn't answer the door.
The spare key gets stuck at least five times and I'm about to climb to the window when it finally turns all the way.
I push inside and drop the bags of dinner I picked up in the hall, cluttered with coats and umbrellas, before kicking off my boots.
I wonder between rooms, searching for him. Eventually the bedroom is the last place to check.
I knock softly on the door. Crack it open. There's only one lamp on, casting an orange warmth over the rumpled bedsheets and up the recently painted wall.
Warner is curled on his side on the bed, head pillowed on his right arm. His left hugs tightly to his torso. His light hair is mussed. He's wearing grey sweatpants and soft socks, very un-Warner like clothes, and a black hoodie with sleeves that look too long for him. In fact, it looks a lot like one of-
"Is that my hoodie?" I say accusingly.
Warner says nothing. He's staring blankly out at nothing. He does nothing except subconsciously stroke gentle circles between Dog's floppy ears, the pup snoozing on the pillow by his head. He looks, for the very first time, like a normal twenty-year-old might. Not that I know what normal twenty-year-olds are supposed to look like. I'm still getting used to the idea of 'normal life'.
I step inside without invitation and sit on the edge of the mattress by him.
"I brought some food, but I'm guessing you don't want to eat right now."
Silence.
I don't push him. Instead I reach out my hand to Dog. He perks up and starts toward me, wet nose sniffing my scent, but then Warner sits up and scoops the animal into his arms, drawing him back. Dog squirms against Warner's chest and licks his chin before settling in the fabric of his - my - hoodie.
"How are you, man?" I ask carefully.
Warner hugs Dog closer. "Fine."
We both know he's lying. He doesn't need to say it.
Warner's still staring at something, and it's only then that I notice he isn't wearing the ring. The jade ring that he always has on his left pinkie, the one J told me he never takes off. Not to sleep, not to shower, never.
It's off, and sitting on the bedside table, and he keeps staring at it.
"It's really nice," I blurt. Warner sends me a sidelong glance. "The ring," I explain. "It matches your eyes."
Warner shifts slightly, tangles his bare fingers in Dog's fur. "I've been thinking of getting rid of it."
It's the first proper thing he's said, and it was not what I was expecting. "Seriously?" I ask, surprised. Warner nods. "Why?"
Warner shrugs. "It reminds me of things."
"Things you want to forget?"
Warner nods again. His eyes are bleak. "I think I might, you know. Sometimes I think I will forget. But then..." He takes a shaky breath. "I remember."
I look at my feet. Swing them slightly. If he wants to tell me more, he can.
"Where would you get them from?" He says at last.
I frown. "What?"
"The scorpions. Where would you get them from?"
I blow out a breath, lean back on my hands. "I don't know. Wherever the most catchable scorpions come from."
Warner almost smiles. Dog whines for attention.
His smile fades.
"Tell me it's not true," he whispers. He meets my eyes and his are shining, doing little to hide his fear. "Tell me you don't wish he was back."
I straighten my shoulders and look him square in the eye. "Warner. I do not and will never wish that Anderson would rise from the dead. I do not wish for you to be hurt. I do wish that Anderson died the worth of a thousand deaths for what he did to you. I do wish that Ian would think before he says whatever comes into his tiny mind."
Warner stares at me for a few seconds, reading me like he did Ian. I see the moment he's sure it's the truth. I see the relief that softens the hard line of his mouth.
It almost breaks him.
I hold out my arms. "Hug?"
Normal Warner would look at me like I was an insect threatening to sting him. Normal Warner would hate the mere notion of a hug.
This Warner, this empty shell, this shade of his true, human self?
He needs it.
He nods, tears flooding fast to his eyes.
Warner shifts to sit on the edge of the bed. I wrap my arms around him, cradling his head with one hand. His face burrows into the crook of my neck, one arm around my waist. He's trying so hard not to fall apart, but it's like I can feel the memories reverberating through him, relentless tremors, aftershocks from the catastrophic earthquake of his childhood.
"You can cry, you know. It's okay," I say gently.
"No," he whispers.
"No one is going to hurt you," I tell him. It's more like a vow.
Warner shakes his head against my shoulder. "You don't understand."
And he's right. I don't understand. I had the happiest relationship with my parents. There was so much love between the three of us it hurts to remember. I don't know what it would be like to grow up without any love in your life. Castle filled the void my parents left almost to the top. Almost.
The chasm left in Warner's life will take longer to sew up.
The problem is, people don't know. Everyone knows what a sick man Anderson was. Everyone has guessed that Warner was subjected to his abuse. What they don't know is how brutally Anderson forced his son into his mould. The things he made him do that shaped him into the callous person he is today.
I didn't either, not really. But then a few weeks ago I had heard gunshots outside of our tent, before we'd moved in next door - Warner was shooting trees at the edge of the clearing, at about six in the morning too, and on purpose I'd bet. I'd walked up to tell him off, but thought better when he'd shot the third tree directly through its knot of bark. To spite him, I'd started messing with his guns, which were all laid out on a chopped trunk nearby. Five right handed pistols, and one left handed.
"Hey, didn't daddy tell you about the importance of a 'well-rounded student?'"
A shot echoed, smoke pluming in the air with his breath. This one he'd missed, just by a fraction. He'd shot me a bullet of his own, a sharp look as he reloaded. I had distracted him. "What?"
"What about Mr Left over here?" I picked up the gun and waved it toward him. He snatched it back mid swing.
"Don't touch that."
"I'm just saying," I grumbled. "Lefties represent!"
"You're right handed," he'd pointed out flatly, lining up the barrel of his right-handed gun.
"I'm an ally."
He sighed, sounding for all the crumbling world like he was satisfying the curiousity of one of the nagging kids at Yara's preschool. He met my eyes as he held the left-handed pistol up. I watched as, after a few seconds, his arm began to twitch. It was turned at a slightly odd angle, and he seemed to be struggling to put it back in place. He fired, and the bullet whizzed past the tree and buried itself in it's neighbour, cowering behind.
He let his arm drop. Started aiming with his right again.
"What happened?" I couldn't help asking.
"Broke it."
I frowned.
"It didn't heal properly," he said slowly, insufferably.
"I know that. But what about the Reestablishment's fancy-pants hosptial wings and shit?"
He said nothing.
Bang.
"Didn't your dad, like, summon up a stretcher and fly you on a magic carpet into an operating theatre?" I push.
"He might have, if he wasn't the one who broke it."
The already silent morning grew quieter still.
Bang.
"He broke your arm?"
Bang.
Warner adjusted his grip. Didn't look at me, not once. "Twice."
"Twi-"
Bang.
Warner rolled one shoulder. It was clear he didn't like my prying.
I'd sat down heavily on the trunk, unlaced boots nestling into the leaves on the forest floor, and stopped.
We haven't talked about it.
Just like we've never talked about the awful, rugged scars on his back, or the straight cut ones I've seen behind each of his ears. Just like he's never addressed the nightmares I listen to him screaming awake from, or the simulation that I saw when I went back to 45 to address the army, my old comrades. People who hated him. People who didn't realise he didn't choose his life. They judge him for reflexes and ways of thinking beaten into him as a little boy. They don't look far enough past their frustration to glimpse the person behind his defence mechanisms.
And so, the wound in his soul is unconsciously ripped further open with every snide remark, every insult he appears to brush off.
Sometimes they hang on.
I relate to him in that sense. Except, while I'm constantly expected to make jokes, he's expected to take them, even if they go too far.
Warner? He's just cranky because he doesn't have anyone to shoot around here.
Yeah, he was born messed up.
Hey dickhead, what does happiness mean? Oh, wait, that word isn't in your programming, is it?
I close my eyes against the thought that I could've stepped in and helped him but instead laughed along. Hell, I probably started those jokes.
I want to apologise. But I don't know what I'd say.
So I just hold him. We stay like that, side by side, until the tears run dry and the tremors recede. Warner pulls away, looking embarrassed. He wipes at the tear stains on his face, unable to meet my eyes.
I think for a moment, staring at the boxy television set up at the end of the bed. Then I stand up and go out the door without a word.
It doesn't take me long to find everything I need. Blankets, two wheat bags, popcorn and an old DVD. When I reappear at his door, Warner is playing with Dog on his lap. He looks up, surprised to see me.
I unearth the DVD from the bundle of things I dump on the quilted mattress cover. Warner frowns, watches me as I cross to the television and fiddle with the DVD player. Finally the disc holder pops out. "What are you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing?" The shiny disc seems to be in reasonable condition with only minor scratches. I push the tray closed before grabbing the remote and falling back on the bed next to Warner. I hand him the DVD case as the screen begins to load.
"Tangled?" Warner says skeptically.
"Yep." I throw a piece of popcorn up and catch it in my mouth. "You told me you've never watched a movie. That's got to change now that we live next to eachother. You will be coming to every movie night."
I pull the blankets up around me and drape one over him. "Movies used to help me take my mind off of things."
The Disney castle glitters into view. A wave of nostalgia, memories of my parents, washes over me. I go to switch off the lamp.
"Wait," Warner blurts.
I turn to face him. He's staring at the screen, colours and frames flashing across his eyes. "Can we leave the light on?"
I smile. "Of course."
I stretch, a yawn taking over me as the credits take over the screen. But it's there, underlying my weariness, just as it was when I was seven years old. That childish buzz, the hum of inspiration, the one that makes you throw out your wrist to see if perhaps you have super spider webs, the one that sends you into the backyard to attack an invisible enemy after watching karate kid do the same.
I laugh at myself, shaking my head at the ornate ceiling. Twenty-one years old. Or am I?
I turn to Warner to gauge his no doubt unenthusiastic reaction to my life and joy, only to find he's asleep, which I can't decide is better or worse than hearing his opinion. I want to wake him up and scold him for falling asleep during a cinematic masterpiece before I realise I've never actually seen him sleep before. And it takes a good long second of me staring to figure out that I'm beginning to see soft lines of James in him. In his eyes, even closed - the light of his eyelashes, the slope of his nose. Brothers seperated, united halfway through ones childhood and whole way through the others.
I look away.
I don't like thinking of it; that if Warner is the older version of James then James is the younger version of Warner. Because then I start to imagine James's innocent, clumsy self growing up the way I'm sure Warner did. I begin to wonder whether Warner used to have the sparkle that James has in his eye, whether he used to ask too many questions and demand too many answers, before he was told that he should only speak when spoken to. Before he was told to grow up, to keep his chin up, to pay attention. To watch and remember and do and be perfect. To stop crying. To never make mistakes. To listen to his father. To bring grace to his name. To stop screaming.
Little James.
I reach my fingers out, James's face still in my head, to brush the hair back from his eyes. His forehead is smooth, unburdened by frowns and the things that cause them. Dog is curled next to his head, tail flopped in the edge of his hood, furry back rising and falling steadily in time with Warner's breaths. Sleep has lifted his worries and in their place left temporary serenity Warner won't even get to experience. He's only half given in to it, to peace. His arms are wrapped around a pillow pressed tight to his chest, hands fisted in the thin fabric covering. White knuckles, as if all his stress has been channeled into his fingers.
And I suddenly realise that I will watch every movie on the planet with him until that stress is gone. That I will re-learn all of Flynn Rider's lines and all the lyrics to 'I See The Light' until he knows that I won't ever stop.
I won't ever stop helping.
Castle used to scold me for rescuing stray animals. I thought I'd learnt from then.
I smile to myself as Warner sighs in his sleep.
I guess I haven't learnt a thing.