I am turning in revolution (Zoe, Cai, Rachel)

[lightningseed.insanejournal.com]

Danny’s disappearance had bonded them all together, not like glue but like kids terrified that if they let each other out of their sights one of them would vanish. All of them had lost any sense of object permanence, so they spent the holidays while he was missing close together, and nights apart, full of anxiety and instant messaging.

Sometimes during that time Zoe was able to convince Rachel to stay at her place for the night. She never asked Cai, but she did know that Cai had slept on Rachel’s couch once after giving her a ride home and she knew that Rachel had been put up in one of the beds at Cai’s more than once. Rachel had said to her once, about Cai, “D’you know he’s the first friend who’s a boy I’ve ever had? He’s so nice to me.”

She looked sad, pale and sick. That was two days before the rescue.

Zoe had tried to sleep at Danny’s hospital, post rescue, on several occasions, but they always kicked her out. Liz dragged her home; empathetically, but firmly.

On the days Danny couldn’t handle anyone but his mother, the three chose a house and stayed there instead. Usually it was Cai’s - it was closer to the hospital than Zoe’s place, and there was more space for them than at Rachel’s, and it subdued Cai’s constant anxiety that something would happen to Dom while he was away.

But nothing happened to Dom and things continued to happen to Danny.

He decided not to go to uni.

His father pressed charges.

Infection set in.

Rachel called Cai sometimes and cried. More than once he took the car and picked her up and they drove around London wasting petrol, listening to music, and talking about life.

Cai had nightmares most nights. He was tired all the time, and hardly ever hungry.

He attended church and prayed harder than he’d ever prayed in his life. Sometimes Rachel went with him. He didn’t need to ask what she prayed for, or if she considered what she did praying at all. Once Faye told him that she heard Rachel throwing up in the toilets while Faye was trying to pee. Cai didn’t know what to do about that, but when he dropped her off at home he got out of the car and hugged her tight, and neither of them said anything for ages and ages and Cai hoped not saying anything was the right thing to do.

Cai didn’t ask Zoe if she wanted to come to church with him; he had to be told to give Danny some space, but giving Zoe space was instinctive. Painful, but instinctive.

Or maybe he just thought Zoe was more likely to hit him if he got too close.

But God, he wanted to get too close.

Then came the night when Zoe called Cai after midnight, hung up, and the next day he heard from Rachel that she’d run six or seventeen miles to get to Rachel’s house, and he knew suddenly he’d given her too much space, and needed to start closing the distance between them soon or he’d lose her.

Especially now the distance between Zoe and Rachel seemed to be growing violently fast.

Cai called her over on Friday. He just said “can you come over?” and he said “please?” and Zoe did. She didn’t run this time, and she didn’t ask her family for a ride because she didn’t want to sit in a car with them for almost an hour in Friday evening traffic. She sat in the back of a taxi with her headphones in, arms folded, staring out the window.

Her body still ached from her run three days ago, though moving wasn’t as painful as it had been yesterday, and nothing at all compared to the day she woke up in Rachel’s bed and could barely move. Her muscles ached so much she wanted to cry, and Rachel kept making digs at her – it’s your own fault, you’re an idiot – that Zoe had taken as making fun of her at the time but now, after Rachel’s behaviour didn’t change, suspected that Rachel had meant those digs to hurt.

Danny’s disappearance had bound them all together but somehow his return seemed to be breaking them apart.

When she arrived at the pink house on the corner, she and Cai gravitated to the woodshed.

Gravity seemed to play a bigger role in their lives than normal. Zoe felt pulled, wherever she went. Pulled toward protecting Danny, pulled toward the hospital, pulled back home. Pulled toward the woodshed, where they’d spent so much of the time together while Danny had disappeared and none at all since he’d returned.

The woodshed where she’d taken Cai’s hands and given him the most hopeful vision she had been able to think of; their day at the Heart of the Cross. Then kissed him.

That woodshed.

One of the foster boys had broken something and Cai set about cleaning it up, trying not to show that he minded. Zoe wanted to ask what it had been but didn’t, and Cai didn’t offer because he didn’t mind. The foster boys were gone now, Jamie and Sasha, back to their parents. There were worse things in the world to worry about than a mess in the woodshed, so Cai wasn’t mad. Zoe could see on his face though, he wasn’t happy either.

Well, who would be?

“You’re quiet,” Cai commented, leaning against his broom.

Zoe blinked at him. Yes well, she thought. She was always quiet when she had things to think about and she always had things to think about. She didn’t understand why Rachel was acting like this. What was going on there? She couldn’t fathom Rachel’s enigmatic self some days. Or rather, she probably could, but she didn’t have the energy. She’d talk to Rachel soon. Or later. But not now. If Rachel was going to be weird about Zoe then Zoe was going to be weird about Rachel. It crossed her mind once than she should perhaps talk to Rachel about it, but it felt like it would be a stupid conversation and Zoe didn’t want to have a stupid conversation.

“What’s up, Zoro?” Cai asked. He did a little back and forth dance with his broom, his own feet still on the floor, broom swaying out from one side to the other like a pendulum.

“Nothing’s up,” said Zoe. “Sit down, you’re making me dizzy.”

He sat down on the bench beside her. He and Dom had made that bench when Cai was twelve, and it sat under the long dusty single window of the shed. Clouds kept passing over the dying sun so the light was turning from golden-dust-shower finger-of-god sunbeams to grey. Cai sat down all sunbeams in his hair, a puff of fine sawdust shifted where he sat. Zoe tried not to look, he was too bright. Where was her grey? She liked London when everything was grey and nothing was particularly beautiful. Beauty was difficult. Cai’s mother’s little silver cross glinted in the sunlight where it lay at his golden throat.

Cai’s Catholic guilt had really kicked in recently. Not simply because he kept thinking about Zoe but because he kept thinking about her when he should have been thinking about more important things. Danny. Dom. Mostly Danny.

Yet when he wasn’t doing anything; waiting in line at the supermarket, driving home with Nonnie, washing dishes, lying in bed, his mind swung like a compass needle back to her. Sometimes not even to her but just to the pressure of her leaning against his shoulder on the porch swing at her house, or the way her mouth had felt against his, or how it might feel again. How her hands felt laced in his, even through gloves, and how they might feel in his hair, down his back – but Cai always stopped the thoughts before they went any further. He wouldn’t be able to look her in the eye.

Plus he should be worrying about Danny. Or Dom. Mostly Danny.

He should be sorting out his feelings for his father.

He should be organising himself for the first of September, because he’d finally promised Dom he would go back to school. “Thank you,” Dom had said. “I know it’s just because you think I’m going to kick the bucket, but it’s the best thing for you, whatever state I’m in.”

“It’s not because I think – because of you. I want to go back to school,” Cai had said, trying to sound earnest.

Dom had squeezed his shoulder. Cai thought he probably knew he was lying, but he didn’t challenge him, and they didn’t talk about it again, and Cai went back to driving himself crazy by thinking about Zoe any idle moment of the day.

This was how it had been with Alex, except he’d never been afraid of making a move with Alex and he’d never felt guilty about thinking about her. He was definitely afraid of making a move on Zoe.

She’d kissed him first, sure, but then she’d avoided looking at him for days, and when their eyes did meet (he kept his eyes on her an uncommon amount of time) he couldn’t read her expression. Was she pretending nothing had happened, and was that what she wanted him to do too? Was it really that easy for her? Or was it all just eclipsed by rescuing Danny?

He hoped the latter. He didn’t want to forget. He wished things were simple, but that was too much to ask for.

He tried not to doubt his faith that everyone would be alright in the end.

Cai reached up and touched his cross, briefly. Zoe’s eyes flicked away. “Are you and Rachel not talking?” Cai asked, watching Zoe as she closed her eyes, saw the tension evident on her face. He turned away and looked out the window, in case his attention was making it harder for her to talk.

Zoe leaned over and kissed him on the throat, near where his hand had been a moment before. Her lips stayed there a few moments (not long enough, Cai’s brain has kicked into high gear and wasn’t giving him time to take it in, not long enough to memorise what it felt like in case it never happened again, not long enough).

Then she pulled back, and looked out the window at the fading light instead of looking at him, like she was just going to ignore it again, just going to get up and walk away, on with life, never looking back. So he stopped her before she had the chance, by pressing his lips against her neck, right above her pulse, and he had caught up with his mind enough to take in what that felt like, enough that her sharp intake of breath was seared into his memory – and the feeling of her hand just briefly as it touched the back of his head, af if to hold him there.

He lingered, a little longer than she had, feeling brave enough – or maybe his mind just moving too fast that thoughts of consequences couldn’t keep up – or maybe he was not brave he just knew he needed wanted had to find a way to get rid of this distance and wasn’t able to think of any other way.

Though he could feel the speed of her pulse racing under her skin he had no idea how terrified Zoe was of herself, she was so good at hiding it. And though she was not afraid of Cai in the least, she was afraid – a blank and kind of wild terror, totally nameless – but it wasn’t bravery that made her fight it. More, it was annoyance at her own mind for being afraid of something without specifics or reason, without logic.

And maybe she felt the distance stretching between her and Rachel

between her and Danny

between her and Cai

and craved an antidote to the distance.

So she turned her body to face Cai, her hands laid gentle on his neck, fingertips just at his hairline, and kissed his mouth, and felt something that made her want to crumble and cry.

It wasn’t like any fear she’d felt before. Not fear for her life or for friends, not fear of evil – could a person by afraid of good, was that a thing? – her heart was hammering, anyway, and she only knew how to take that as a warning, as an indicator of fear.

When he pulled back, Cai barely looked like Cai, or more like Cai than ever, or like a whole new Cai altogether. Was it the fear that felt like the verge of panic that made her grip her hands into his hair?

He made a noise of surprise that, although it was only a grunt-growl and shouldn’t have logically sounded like anything more – totally sounded like more. She'd never heard a sound that made her feel so -

Then he kissed her and she could feel the vibrations of the leftover grunt-growl in his throat and it made her clutch at his hair even harder which made him kiss her even harder.

One of them knocked over the broom propped against the bench and the bang of it falling was enough to make Zoe tense, and the tension was enough to break the spell.

"I should-" Zoe said, beginning to pull back.

Cai held her arms though, his grip a suggestion only; don't leave? "Don't," he said, and his face was so close she could feel his breath, his face so close it felt like it was keeping the rest of the world at arms length. "Don't go, it's okay."

"Don't," she said as well, though Zoe's voice, as always, was harsher. "Don't use that word to me, ever."

"Okay?"

"That one," she breathed. "Stop saying it."

His mouth went to move into an okay shape again but he stopped himself and kissed her instead. He felt bold and, for the moment, unafraid.

Then Zoe's phone buzzed, and a moment later, they both buzzed and beeped simultaneously.

And Cai completely lost all desire to use the word okay at all.