A Work in Progress [2]

To say that the afternoons in Demora City were hot would be a vast understatement. Ninety degrees was hot; this was nearly unbearable. The sun glared down relentlessly and actively sought every square inch that wasn’t protected in one way or another. The fifteen-minute walk from the local high school to Viserys’ house was more akin to a torture session than anything else.
A shout behind him caught his attention; he turned just in time to hear Alex yell again. “Hey! Yo, Viserys, wait up, man!” The taller brown-haired teen seemed unaffected by the heat, even though he wore jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt.
Or maybe he did notice. Said shirt was unbuttoned halfway down his chest, revealing tanned skin stretched tightly over muscles any athlete would be proud of.
“Slow down, man,” he said, coming to a halt near Viserys. “You tore out of there like the principal himself was after you! What’s up, anyway?”
“Just…wanted to beat the crowds out,” Viserys lied. “You know I don’t like fighting through all those people.” I’m going in-fucking-sane, that’s what! Daydreaming in class and waking up with a gash in my arm, and pulling out a two-hundred year old splinter, that’s what! He forced himself to push those thoughts aside. Plenty of time to turn himself in to the loony bin later.
Alex slung a friendly arm around his shoulders, and said, “You, my friend, just don’t like people in general. You really need to come out of your room more often.”
“What, so I can have people like you dragging me around to go watch movies all day?” he replied dryly. “I’ll pass, thank you very much.”
The brunette put on a feigned look of hurt. “I’m not sure what exactly you meant by that, Viserys, but I don’t think it was nice, whatever it was.”
The shorter teen rolled his eyes and shrugged out from under Alex’s arm. “The scary part is, you probably meant that.”
A tanned arm swung around and hit him upside the head; he retaliated with an elbow in Alex’s gut before tearing off down the sidewalk, feet pounding in an endless rhythm until his breath came in short gasps. The backpack hanging from his shoulders wasn’t helping.
“And you say…you don’t…exercise,” he panted when Alex caught up. The brunette was hadn’t even broken a sweat.
Alex shrugged helplessly. “Not my fault that I’m in better shape than you. Maybe if you didn’t spend all your time studying and came out once in a while…” It was his turn to get hit in the head. “Ow! Fine, fine, consider the subject dropped.” Viserys had always been a little touchy about his seeming inability to improve himself physically in any way. He’d done everything from running in the morning to spending hours at the gym; nothing had worked. Finally he’d resigned himself to the fact that he was, and always would be, scrawny.
“So, what’d you think about old Coaltin’s lecture today?” Alex continued. “Man, was that Nelson guy bizarre.”
“I don’t know,” Viserys replied. “I mean, he took the smaller British fleet against the Combined Fleet and came out on top... That couldn’t have been easy.”
Alex just laughed. “But still. Think about it – this little short skinny dude, with one arm and an eyepatch, standing in the middle of this ship yelling orders. It had to be a hilarious sight to see. And then later, when he asked that one dude to kiss him? The man was out there, Viserys, and that’s all there is to it.”
Viserys tossed a pleading glance at the sky, saying, “Oh ye gods, if ye be near, spare me from this ceaseless drivel…”
“Hey!”
Still looking skywards, Viserys frowned. That was strange… There were two distinct lines of clouds, coming closer and closer together, and it looked almost as if little tufts were drifting from one line to the other at regular intervals. Almost like smoke, he thought. Almost like the battle lines, and bloody smo –
- ke and gunpowder and blood assaulted his nostrils, making him want to gag; he didn’t. As strong as they were, he’d smelt worse before. Sailing in Her Majesty’s fleet had provided some…interesting experiences in the past, to say the absolute least.
His mind snapped back to the task at hand as another black ball – what weight, he wasn’t sure, but with luck the Victory’s gun crews would be able to snag it and throw it right back at the Frenchies – sliced through the rigging near his hand. He ignored it. He had to finish splicing this brace before he could worry about a halyard; under normal circumstances it would have been left alone until after the battle, but the Combined Fleet was fighting hard and the Victory had already lost too many spars. If the mainmast went, they’d be sitting ducks.
Deft, sure-footed sailors wove in and out of the rigging around him, running from place to place to pull on this line and loosen that one. He spared half an eye to watch them even as his fingers twisted and tugged at the frayed ends in front of him. There was one down, musketball through the neck; another skewered by what had once been part of the railing; a squeaker, limping already, caught in the back by a cannonball and tossed bodily over the side. Later it would bother him, he knew. Later he would allow himself to realize that the dead man below him was on his watch, that the squeaker had been his uncle’s friend’s boy, that the screams from the rigging above him were his own brother’s. Later. Right now he was busy.
Splice completed, he grasped a nearby cable and lowered himself hand-over-hand to the deck, less than four yards away. He could have jumped and wasted less time, he realized belatedly. Oh well; too late to fix it now. There, just ahead – another cable parting. No; Smith from the forenoon watch had it covered. He turned, casting about for a dropped weapon – he was a fairly good shot, even if he was just a landsman – empty deck all around, but there was another line to splice and he ran –
- pain! Painpainpainpain oh it hurt god it hurt the pain the pain the pain would it never end the pain cannonball, he dimly realized, cannonball in my stomach oh god it hurt it hurt make it go away would someone please just make it go away… Coherent thought ended as the icy water closed over his head.
Shaking, Viserys stumbled; only Alex’s quick reflexes kept him from landing on the sidewalk.
“Hey, man, you all right?” the brunette asked.
Viserys could only shake his head slightly. The all-encompassing agony emanating from the pit of his stomach made the world spin and split into three. A sudden lurch brought up his lunch. And, he noticed fuzzily, something red and coppery-tasting…oh. Blood. That made sense. If he was going to die – which he was, judging by the feeling in his abdomen – there would be blood.
“Oh, God!” Alex cried, staring in shock at the crimson puddle. He bent and picked Viserys off the ground, ignoring the way the scarlet liquid spattered against his shirt, and more than half-carried him to the nearest doorway. He raised his hand to knock, remembering only after his sister opened the door and fell into a dead faint that that was his house.
If he concentrated, Viserys could almost feel himself being lifted off the hot cement and dragged, then set carefully on something soft. It took a moment to realize that he was lying on a couch. A moment longer to understand that the faintly familiar blur leaning over him was Alex. And then nothing more; everything faded.