I'll Be Looking At The Moon
#10 of Hockey Hunk Season 3
Rory is a cunning linguist, or is he now?
Hehhey, welcome to the Hockey Hunk!
Here's another nice, beefy chapter for y'all - 5k this time, I'm so glad that I've had the inspiration and the time to write as much as I have as of recent. It's really giving the story some extra mass. *chuckle* But I suppose nobody is complaining about longer chapters!
Don't forget to comment once you've read. Comments are the best gauge of the quality of my work.
Have a fun time reading, see you on Friday!
Gruffy
*
"Uhmm...perdre..."
"Yep!" I declared cheerfully from my hunched, collapsed posture on the den couch. "How'bout...'to run', then?"
Justin was sitting on my wheelchair at the moment. His gentle face was crunched in concentration as he tried to remember the elusive verb.
"Uhm..."
I blinked heavily and stared at the rows of color-coded words on the folded page of the French book resting against my bent good knee.
"It's one of the -ir verbs, if that's any help," I offered.
Justin scratched his belly and let his tail flip between his extended footpaws.
"Dunno," he snuffled.
I frowned. This had been going on for a while now, once dad had come back home from shopping and driven Justin away from his last bastion, upstairs, which I couldn't comfortably reach, and that's where my brother had escaped from word drilling about as soon as dad's car had disappeared from the yard for the first time. Dad's return had forced Justin (And me!!!! Don't forget me!!) to withdraw into the den for a hard session of revising. It wasn't going so well, considering that Justin probably really wanted to get back to...what did he call it...Dead Space 2, I think, and the fact that the smell of happily roasting chicken was already floating throughout the house and teasing my nose and my taste buds. It was definitely more than enough to return at least part of my appetite.
I cleared my throat.
"Well, uh...think about FedEx, then," I suggested.
Justin flicked an ear at me.
"Dunno...you mean it's expressir?"
_ _
I snuffled.
"No, Justin," I scratched my jaw as I considered the failure of my savvy clue. "Well, just think about what FedEx does, then."
Justin shrugged.
"Well they deliver stuff...deliverir? Stuffir?"
Well, at least he got the maximum points for creativity.
I batted an ear at him.
"Well, you don't remember this one, obviously," I said, "so, it's actually courir, that's what I was after. You know, just like the English word courier, so the English word comes from the French."
Justin snorted.
"Well I just need to know the French word, it's not the English class or anything."
"Yeah," I signaled my defeat. "It's just kinda cool fact, isn't it?"
"Dunno."
I wondered whether I should just throw the book at him in the hopes that the words would be smacked into his head, but that probably wasn't a very scientific method to go at it. Instead, I re-gathered my wits and went on, searching the page with a claw-tipped finger to find something suitable to ask.
"Well here's an easy one...what's 'tennis' in French?"
Justin scratched his head again in an overtly thoughtful gesture.
"Uhm...'la racquette' ?"
_ _
"That's the...heheh, racket you use to play tennis, but that's not tennis itself," I advised.
"Shit," Justin snorted. "What is it then?"
"Can't you remember?"
"I already told you the wrong word, obviously I can't," Justin shrugged.
"Well it's a really easy one!" I said. "Le tennis."
_ _
Justin's brow jumped.
"Awww dude!" the lion's tail smacked the carpeted floor. "That's insane! That's just sticking the...uh...the..."
"The definite article..." I helped.
"The whatever next to English words and calling it French!" Justin exclaimed.
I chuckled.
"Well that's how it works," I explained. "You borrow the words you need. In fact, like with courier, it used to go the other way around. English used to take words from French and use them instead."
"So why don't the French just start speaking English and not just pretend?" Justin moaned.
I chuckled.
"Everyone loves their language, Justin, and the French especially so."
"Mr. Hill isn't even French," Justin snorted. "How can he even teach us properly?"
"But he's from Quebec," I said. "They speak French there, although it's a bit different from the French they speak in France."
"That's weird."
I chuckled a little, and decided to move on.
"Well how about - "
"BOOOOYS, MOM'S HOME!" dad's voice came from the great beyond of the kitchen.
I grinned at Justin.
"That also means that dinner must be almost ready," I rumbled hungrily. "Dad's usually really good at timing it for mom."
The wheelchair creaked as Justin made a move to get out of it.
I coughed.
"Ahem, Justin, you've got one more thing to do," I said.
Justin looked hurt.
"What is it then?"
"The final sentence," I said. "Tell me how you say 'I'll be looking at the moon' in French."
Justin frowned.
"Was that even in the chapter?" he looked disbelieving at this new challenge.
"It was," I nodded, with my ears flicking for emphasis. "It was near the end, where Maurice the bunny was telling Clarissa the badger that he's interested in astronomy."
Justin made a face.
"Maurice is such a geek."
"Yeah," I smiled.
"That's stupid," he grunted. "Let's go eat..."
"HEEEEEEEY EVERYONE!!" that was mom now, taking dad's place in making the whole house rattle with her voice.
"HEEEEY SWEETIE!" that was dad.
"HEY MOM!" Justin hollered.
"HEY THERE!" I added, just to be on the safe side.
Mom appeared into view soon enough, coming down the corridor between the kitchen and the utility room at the steady pace I knew to be hers so well. She was still clad in full uniform and even had her cap on, though it was threatened by the constant cheerful flicking of her ears on either side. At least she'd left her stern workface back at the station, and replaced it with the usual mom face.
"Hey!" mom planted herself onto the doorway and scanned the perimeter of the room. "How're my two favorite sons doing?"
Justin seemed to slink himself even smaller in the wheelchair.
"We were revising for Justin's word test tomorrow," I waved the French book a little for emphasis.
Mom beamed.
"Awww, that's so nice of you!" mom's tail painted number eights behind her while she observed the two of us, the inmates of the man cave. "I bet you're learning so much with the help of your brother, Justin!"
Justin didn't look like he was having much fun doing any kind of learning.
"Yeah," he snuffled.
"And we were just about ready, too," I added, smiling to mom. "One more sentence left."
Mom grinned.
"There you see, Justin, that's work ethic for you," mom smiled.
"DINNER'S READY IN FIVE, FOLKS!" dad hollered.
If it wasn't for dad sabotaging my best effort all the time with offers of food!
"Mooooom..." Justin rumbled, his eyes already jumping towards the doorway, out of which a cloud of wonderful food smell that was practically visible was oozing into the room with every single delicious hiss of that cooking meant inside the oven.
"Well you heard dad," mom smirked. "One more word for Rory and then you can go wash your paws and help your dad with the dinner."
I lifted the book up and tried to look very professional.
"Yeah, Justin, just one more left," I smiled. "How do you say it? 'I'll be looking at the moon'."
Justin cracked his knuckles and looked nonchalant.
"Je vais regarder la lune."
_ _
He was moving even before I had the time to open my muzzle to react to it, and he also managed the feat of slithering his slinky way past under mom's arm and into the corridor, and to disappear through the door into the kitchen before mom had the time to whirl over and see what the hell was going on with her young son. He practically left skid marks on the carpet in his hurry.
Mom looked at me and chuffed amusedly.
"Close enough?" she asked.
"Yeah," I chuckled as I tossed the book down to the floor and relaxed myself on the couch. "Close enough, I guess."
Mom kept on smiling and leaned against the doorframe.
"How're you doing, Rory?" she spoke.
I slung my good arm under my neck and made a relaxed face.
"I'm alright," I rumbled. "A bit tired, but Justin and dad have been keeping me busy enough."
Mom chuckled.
"That's nice," she said. "How's the leg?"
I gave a look at the offending limb, and snuffled.
"It's there," I mused.
"Bet you can't wait to get back to your paws," mom grinned.
I snuffled.
"Yeah," I said. "Have to stay off it for a little bit longer, I think."
"Well better to be safe than sorry," mom said. "You otherwise ok? Got everything you need? Did dad bring you anything from the supermarket you needed?"
I knew that the otherwise part still needed some serious work done to even start to resemble anything you could call "ok" by any practical definition of the state of being ok, but I decided that for now, it was better to be okay.
"Yeah, he keeps feeding me alright," I smiled.
Mom smiled too.
"How was work?" I asked.
"The usual top secret stuff," mom smirked. "Fighting the crime from the comfort of my desk and with my phone and my computer as my baton and my taser."
I chuckled cheerfully.
"CSI Rome, anyone?"
Mom snuffle with a crooked smile.
"It's more like Picket Fences, but I'm not sure you ever watched that."
I chuckled.
"I don't think I did," I replied.
"Well neither did I," mom said. "Too much like work, and that was before reality TV was invented."
We exchanged a few more smiles before dad broke the amiable atmosphere with yet another wall-shuddering call from the wonderland of the kitchen.
"DINNER READY IN TWO! YOU BETTER START COMING OVER RORY OR THERE'LL BE NOTHING LEFT BY THE TIME YOU GET HERE!"
I snuffled at dad's sense of humor and gave him back as much as he did.
"I'LL START LIMPING OVER DAD!"
"AAAAAAAALRIGHT!"
Mom just chuckled.
I huffed to myself and reached out for the wheelchair that Justin had kicked a couple of feet away. It was just far enough so that I had to carefully roll over onto my good hip to reach it.
"Need any help with that?" mom asked.
I shook my head a little as I hid the twinge of discomfort coming out of my sore leg.
"I'm pretty good at this by now," I replied as my fingertips made contact with the cold metal of the wheelchair. "I'll be okay."
Mom didn't appear entirely convinced as she looked at me lying in a twisted angle on the couch, with one paw clutching desperately on the armrest of a wheelchair. At least she had the good grace to simply nod.
"Well, I'll go upstairs and change, give you some space if you need it," she smiled. "See you in a little."
"See you," I said.
Oh, crap.
*
Dad had served the dinner in the dining room by the kitchen, so it took me a few extra tugs on my wheels to get me there and parked on my regular spot on the table. Justin was already sitting on his place on the opposite side, looking hungrily at the whole roasted chicken on the service platter at the center of the table. I could still see steam rising from it, and along with that, the utterly delicious scent that was forming a formidable mushroom cloud of pleasure above the dish. Just looked like he was ready to eat all of it.
"Hope you're planning to leave some for me too," I smirked, catching his eyes.
Justin rolled his eyes.
"Maybe," he leaned back on his chair and appeared decisively bored since he was not yet allowed to help himself to the food.
Dad appeared from the open doorway to the kitchen, carrying a big bowl of steaming hot rice with paws enclosed in pink oven mittens. He was rumbling happily to himself as he placed it down onto the table next to the pitcher of ice water. My maw felt even more watery for that.
"I'll just go and get the sauce, and once mom comes down, we can go ahead," dad grinned.
"Yay," I said.
"I'm starving," Justin huffed, looking longingly at the breadbasket.
Actually, it was longing enough that dad gave him a quick look, which probably was enough to stop my brother from spoiling his appetite on bread even before the first bite of chicken. Knowing that he was a growing lion, however, he could probably eat more than any one of us, and still leave room for dessert. I wondered whether dad had thought about that.
Dad disappeared into the kitchen, only to be replaced in the parental department by mom. She had gotten out of her Rome City Police Department uniform and into a comfy sweater and some pants, and she also had her reading glasses on, and was clutching her favorite bad habit, the newspaper which she always read on the dinner table.
"Did you remember to wash your paws, Justin?" she said as she settled onto her place by me.
Justin shrugged.
"Well I did shake paws with Aiden today, and they've got Ebola at home, so I don't know whether it's gonna do any good, but yeah," my brother replied.
Good job, bro.
Mom snuffled and chuckled goodheartedly.
"Well isn't that nice," she said, paws busily folding the newspaper into a size that would not intrude into my own dining space.
_ _
"Well, you know, if Osama Bin Laden uses your toilet, he's bound to try to spread bio weapons," Justin stated matter-of-factly.
Mom chuckled again.
"Well it must be quite the while since the visit," she mused. "Considering that they shot the bastard in Pakistan over a month ago."
Justin shrugged.
"Well the international terrorists get around. Can't stay too long in one place or the CIA will catch you."
"Of course," mom sounded understanding. "I did get the memo."
The door behind me rattled.
"Here's the sauce!" dad declared, a second before he and his pink paws appeared into the view, carrying a saucepan with something reddish and sweet-smelling in it.
"Hot sauce," mom smiled at the sight of dad, who smiled back.
"Hey there," dad smiled toothily as he put the saucepan down.
"Hey..." mom replied with a purr.
Dad straightened himself back up to his full height once he was done placing the saucepan onto the table, and then he turned towards mom so that he could smooch her properly. I only saw dad's back, but I heard a lot of purring and rumbling and even a giggle, I suspected, from mom, before they finally broke apart. Mom's smile had definitely grown broader.
Justin didn't look all too happy about it.
"Well now, I think we're about ready to go!" dad noted as he rounded the table, without forgetting to put his pink oven mittens to the sideboard on his way to his seat opposite to mom on the dinner table.
"Oh, you've really done it this time," mom commented. "It looks and smells delicious!"
Dad purred.
"Thank you, sweetie," dad beamed from the other side. "Besides, I got extra time to do it all now that I had a short day at work."
"Well you certainly put it into good use," mom smiled.
Justin snuffled.
"Can't we just eat?"
Dad chuckled and ruffled my brother's head furs with his knuckles.
"Sure we can, "he said.
Well, there might have been only four of us, but that still made eight paws, all of which were suddenly a flurry as they went across the table to try and hoard the juiciest bits before it was too late. After fighting dad for the right breast of the chicken, I forked it into my plate onto a bed of rice and then coated everything with the juicy sauce of dad's making. My food might have been swimming in the stuff, but it was a good sea of delicious, and I was happy for that. Considering that my appetite had pretty much sucked since...well...
...since Cobb had treated me and Victor to a gourmet meal of massive proportions, I don't think I had wanted to eat as much as I did now. Sure, the bout of IV fluids and hospital food would probably be enough to put anyone off their normal diet, but I knew that there was more to it as well. With my gloomy mood came the lack of want to eat, and that probably contributed to feeling even worse in the end. At least the abundance of food in the house made it easy to spoil the rest of my appetite with snacks. Maybe I could blame that, too, or maybe the Vicodin.
Justin ate somewhat noisily, just like dad did, savoring every mawful on their tongue. Mom ate like a pro, as usual, one-pawed, that was, while the other one held the corner of the paper up between her fingertips to highlight whatever interesting she was reading.
Everything was...normal. I liked that.
A bit different, too. Back when I was still living at home, dinner like this usually included mom trying to convince a picky Justin to eat something while secured on his high chair, and back then we also had a TV in the dining room, which was almost inevitably on and added its own backing track to our family time. There was no TV now, which meant that we were left to entertain ourselves to the best of our ability. The food was our obvious focus, of course, four famished lions could be made quite happy indeed, and it eliminated most of the small talk, too.
"You liking it alright, Rory?"
Dad almost made me jump. I wondered what had made me ask it. Was it just politeness, or was I not eating fast enough compared to them, creating doubts about my enjoyment of the meal? Weird.
I flashed a smile and waved my sticky-sauced fork a little.
"I'm loving it," I gestured over the plate and the pile of food, onto which barely a dent had been made so far by yours truly. "The chicken is very juicy, how did you make it, dad?"
Dad's eyes seemed to light up at the mention of his cooking prowess. He put down his own fork and licked his sauce-stained lips clean before he assumed a posture that I suspected was a great deal like the one he probably had behind his desk while lecturing his unruly students.
"Well, it's fairly simple, really..." he started, sounding unassuming.
Mom already chuckled under her breath.
Dad wasn't bothered.
"Well, it's not quite molecular gastronomy, sure, but I ground the spices to the skin very carefully, and I cooked it in a plastic bag, to retain the moisture," he explained. "It's nothing stranger than that, really, just a plastic bag and a cooking thermometer."
Mom grinned.
"I should have long days every day if it means I can get back home to a table like this," she grinned.
I was smiling too.
"Yeah, I do wish I could put this kind of energy into it every day," I mused. "And not just throw something to the frying pan and hope for a miracle."
Dad chuckled.
"Be careful, son, or you'll get a paunch sooner or later," dad smirked.
As if he didn't have one already.
"Well you know how they say," I replied," once you hit a certain age, you only grow sideways."
"You better remember that, Justin!" dad smirked at my brother.
Justin finished swallowing his mawful of food before he answered.
"I plan to grow five inches this year, I think I'm safe," he replied before digging back in.
"We'll need to go and buy some new clothes soon, then," mom cut in. "You'll grow right out of everything in no time!"
Justin's ears made some very interesting flips.
"Mom, one word," he said. "Internet."
Dad chuffed. Mom looked at Justin over the rim of her glasses.
"Huh?"
Justin folded his arms over his chest.
"I'm not gonna go shopping for clothes with either of you guys," my brother rumbled. "I'll get my clothes online, like everyone else does."
Mom chuckled.
"And who's gonna pay for them, Justin?" mom stated.
"Dad," Justin replied with a flinch.
Dad chuckled.
"Oh?" dad's eyes widened.
"Yeah," Justin swirled his fork in his pile of rice and sauce as he spoke almost flippantly, "he's much easier to persuade."
Dad puffed out his chest and rumbled.
"Well maybe I should be a bit tougher with you from now on," he squinted and was obviously trying to make a 'tough' face, without much success on it, I had to admit, to a degree that forced me to bite on my lip a little to stop from smiling too broadly.
"I don't need tough," Justin replied. "Just need a 100 bucks for clothes."
Dad made an outrageous face, but mom, seemingly quite well acquainted with my brother's usual antics, stayed more calm, though still smiling.
"Well maybe you could bring down some of Rory's old clothes from upstairs, and you and Rory could see if there was something you could wear," mom suggested.
I froze.
Dad stopped chewing, too.
Justin looked like someone had just told him that they'd made Twilight compulsory reading at school.
"Mom I can't believe you just said that!" his tail snapped against the tabletop from below, making my glass rattle against the plate.
"Well, why not?" mom continued. "I always had to wear your aunt Donna's old clothes to school, and it was fine."
Dad turned to look at Justin.
"The same your uncle Michael did with my old clothes," dad added his own.
Justin rolled his eyes and flattened his ears.
"Well I'm not gonna wear HIS clothes," he gave me a look, "they're all -"
"Justin!"
That was dad, grunted from the corner of his muzzle.
I tensed.
I could see dad's face darken a little, and a certain amount of tension to appear around his muzzle. Justin was still pouting and looking upset, and mom's eyes were stuck in a position above the rim of her glasses. She was staring at Justin, though her eyes kept flicking towards me, just quickly, every now and then.
Even though dad had snapped at Justin, I got the nasty feeling that I was the real target and probable reason of this sudden moment of upset. I knew what kind of clothes were up there, of course I did. Childhood clothes. Normal clothes from when I was Justin's age, and beyond. I also knew that I had a fair amount of other kinds of clothes there that probably didn't fit into their definition of normal. I knew that the majority of my other clothing was there too, and that included the flamboyant apparel from the reasonably infamous Rory Gliese's Beret Wearing Days, composed of a variety of different colored berets, waistcoats, corduroy pants and a box full of eyeglasses that had simple plastic lenses on them and had been worn only for the...ahem...style, rather than correction of eyesight. At least I had had the wits to throw away my makeup kit, though.
"You shouldn't speak to your brother like that," dad continued in his low voice.
Justin frowned.
"I wasn't saying anything!" his voice was starting to rise.
"You don't speak to your brother like that!" dad repeated.
I cleared my throat.
"Hey," I said.
Three pairs of eyes and ears jumped at me.
I felt a bit sick in my stomach.
"I'm sure Justin meant that my old clothes are old, and he doesn't to wear them because of that," I spoke carefully. "I'm sure I would be feeling the same."
I tried to smile broadly, but it didn't seem to be getting to them. Dad and mom looked guilty, and Justin still looked upset, and was staring at the ceiling more than anything else.
I chuckled hollowly.
"And I know that some of the stuff is a bit funny, too," I continued, still keeping up the matter of fact tone. "I know that the fashion was a bit funny back when I was in college, and some of that stuff is there."
They still looked embarrassed.
Fuck.
Well, sometimes it just had to come biting you in the ass out of nowhere. It couldn't be helped. It was probably universal, anyway. It just felt fucking weird when it happened. I was surprised we'd gotten this far without an incident.
I snorted.
"Right, Justin?"
Justin shrugged.
"That's what I was trying to say," my brother rumbled.
Dad scratched the side of his muzzle. Mom re-adjusted her glasses and gave a glance to the practically forgotten newspaper in front of her. An ugly feeling throbbed in my stomach.
"I know," I smiled. "And I understand."
Sometimes when they all were thinking that they were helping you, it was you yourself who had to be helping every one of them instead. That's how it always went.
Dad cleared his throat.
"Would you pass me the salad, Rory?" dad asked.
I put my fork down.
"Sure, dad!" I chimed up.
*
I could hardly believe it was midnight.
It was quiet in the house, except for the hum of the air conditioning that created a sort of a white noise to the background. My ears mostly caught up the gentle whirl of the laptop sitting on my own belly and casting a blue glow over my muzzle. My eyes squinted tiredly as I looked at the little numbers on the right corner.
00:02
Yep. It was past midnight, and I was still up, while everyone else, even Justin, were happily asleep in their comfortable, warm beds, probably dreaming of something nice. I, on the other paw, was lying on dad's couch, wrapped in a blanket, my leg propped up comfortably, and keeping up my silent vigil.
I knew that it was a slim chance to begin with. I had known that ever since I had started doing this last week, on a night when my leg was keeping me up and I couldn't sleep. The computer offered a bit of a distraction. There were Wikipedia articles to be read about movies you barely remembered watching 10 years ago, and the endless clicking linking opportunities were sure to entertain. There were news, too, and, if I turned the sound really down, I could watch YouTube clips without causing too much of a noise. It was alright. I could tire myself down doing that, and it usually helped, around 2 in the morning, so that I could just put the computer down, coil my tail, close my eyes, and simply let exhaustion take over.
I could try to sleep without thinking about everything that had been going on recently. I could try to rest and heal, and I could try to consider reasons why the real goal of me spending all that time there hadn't been fulfilled.
I Alt-Tabbed myself over to Facebook again, and checked the little box on the corner whether a Victor Holden was possible around again. My ears couldn't help but drop down when once again, not that I had hoped much, but still, the box was empty.
He was not there, like he hadn't been in any night I had spent with the slim hope that maybe he'd want to check out his Facebook account, see me online, and maybe drop by to say hello. It sounded like something he could do. Maybe he'd even go around to see whether I had made some update or something, or maybe I would even be online. We'd talked on Facebook several times, after all, especially during the lead up to our big date, back on Friday the thirteenth. Before Cobb.
Before shit.
Yeah, we had talked a lot, but now we weren't talking, but I still couldn't help but hope.
I had thought about writing him an email a few times. I almost started one, once, writing: "Hello Victor, I just wanted to " before my paws froze, and I couldn't go on. It didn't feel like I could say that kind of things in typing. It felt cowardly. I felt I needed his face, in front of my face, eye to eye, fame to face, so that I could see every single expression while we talked our minds clear. That's what I wanted, and I...I didn't know when we would be ready for that.
I yawned and squinted my eyes into a close, quickly, and wondered whether I already felt tired enough to actually go to sleep. It was past midnight, after all, and I was feeling quite cozy and nice on my couch. My leg wasn't giving me any trouble. I didn't have to go to the bathroom. I had eaten a nice snack before bed. I had told mom that Justin hadn't offended me with accidental homophobia. A hug had been had.
Everything seemed to be alright.
Except that Victor and I weren't talking.
I wondered whether I should go back to watching the clip of Blackadder I had on YouTube. Peter used to like that show, and it had been him who had shown me it on DVD, back all those years ago. It had been so long since I watched that show, and now I had watched most of season 4, over the nights of insomnia and loneliness. The canned laughter was almost comforting.
Sleeping would be nice, too, though. I yawned again. I hadn't felt this tired this early in days. Maybe it was the huge dinner finally kicking in, putting my body into a comfortable doze. Yeah, that could be it.
I yawned and opened my eyes and squinted a little at the relative brightness of the computer screen.
My paw stopped over the touchpad where my finger had been, ready to switch the web browser off.
There was a box.
Haakon Kjerulf says: Hey, dude!
_ _
*
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