The Christmas Throwaway (7 page)

"I'm not saying it isn't," she began, "but like Ben said, it has been four years..."

Zach didn't push for more, just lowered his eyes and concentrated again on the food on his plate, happy when the chattering around him started up again. He glanced up 71

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under his long hair and met Ben's eyes, blushing furiously.

Ben was excused from cleaning up as he was still in his uniform, and Zach was refused entry into the kitchen on the grounds that he was clumsy and pathetic, still not that far from being unconscious on a bench and all. Zach didn't even argue that he had been asleep, not unconscious, and drifted back into the front room where Ben stood holding Jamie's eldest in his arms. Ella, he remembered she was called. He helped her reach the star on top of the tree, whispering to her and making her giggle as he tickled her under the arms whenever she tried to reach up. Jamie's son was lying on the floor playing with a handheld game of some sort, a PSP, Zach thought, hopelessly out of the loop with the home schooling and friends-blocking. He kneeled down next to him, feeling like he should be saying something.

"Hey, Daniel."

"Hi," Daniel replied, his tongue poking out between the gaps in his teeth as he concentrated hard on the screen.

"What's that?" Zach asked, not really aware of game-etiquette but nonetheless deciding his curiosity needed to be satisfied.

"Ben 10: Alien Force." Daniel didn't need to put the duh on the end. Zach could hear it in his head and, 72

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disappointed at himself and his chosen social interaction, he slumped back against the sofa and decided to wait out the time until everyone else came back into the sitting room. He was surprised when Daniel stopped his game and relocated to sit next to him, his Christmas shirt all crinkly and smelling of detergent, his hair spiked, and his face an open book. Handing Zach the game, he frowned as Zach held it gingerly in his hands.

"Haven't you ever played on a PSP before?" he asked Zach, his voice lisping with the missing teeth, shaking his head when Zach said a simple no. "S'upside down," Daniel pointed out, watching as Zach turned it around in his hands, and then proceeding to point out the different controls. Controls seemingly too small for Zach's large, uncoordinated hand. Instructions such as
push here
,
pull there
,
tilt the PSP that way— no that way
, followed as Daniel took pity on the Christmas guest. Zach was pathetically grateful that this small boy was handing over his precious gift, and he tried his hardest, he really did, ridiculously happy with his score, until Daniel decimated it in the space of twenty seconds, sending a cheeky grin Zach's way.

Zach knew his upbringing had been unconventional, and he didn't just mean since he had been virtually 73

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imprisoned in his own home, but before that. He was the first born child of one of the only families without a working TV, one of the only families that had absolutely nothing remotely resembling a game machine or a

computer in their home. He had rolled with it, his height always giving him the advantage of not generally being picked on for what he didn't have in his life.

Still, he was made to try out for all the school teams

— it was his dad's rule. Competition was the route to good health and happiness. That is, if you listened to Samuel Weston, it went alongside no television, no money, and fatigues instead of jeans. He shifted as he watched Daniel with the controls. Never let it be said he wasn't a fast learner, and he could see what was happening on the screen as Daniel moved each control.

"Beat that," Daniel said, handing back the PSP and smirking at his new high score. Zach took the gadget gingerly, put his fingers in the same position as Daniel had and pressed start, managing to multiply his last score by ten before it all became too fast. He could feel Daniel pressed into his side, chuckling like a little demon. He could sense Ben's eyes on him, and he sent him a quick shy smile even as his character nose-dived off of a cliff to be smashed to his apparent doom on the rocks below, or something 74

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equally dramatic considering all the noises emanating from the handheld in his grasp.

The rest of the day was more of the same. Jamie and his wife and kids left at around ten, both kids droopy and tired in their parents' arms. When they had gone, the house seemed quieter. Ellie made her excuses; the current boyfriend of choice was on IM. Then Donna decided to retire with new bubble bath, a good book, and a glass of wine. Ben had disappeared a while earlier to check at the station, but everything was quiet, and he had arrived back just in time to wave goodbye to his brother and family. It was now just Zach and Ben sitting on the sofa in front of the fire. The night pulled in around them, and the only illumination was from the lights on the tree.

"I realized I don't know the name of your town,"

Zach said carefully, not wanting to open the whole
how the
fuck did you get here then
debate, but needing to know what kind of town held families as impossibly perfect as the Hamilton family, or this other guy's family, the apparently really tall guy who had donated his clothes, where people gave presents and rooms to a boy like Zach.

"Hill Valley," Ben replied, with a grin.

"Hill Valley." Zach rolled the name on his tongue; it sounded strange. "Kinda sounds made up." Zach added the 75

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afterthought before he even realized what he was saying, and then immediately regretted it. A person doesn't go around insulting his host's town name for God's sake.

Carefully he looked at Ben who, with his head laid back on the sofa, had an honest to goodness laugh on his lips. "It does." Ben sniggered. "I always said it should be called Flatville, 'cause we sure as hell don't have big hills round here." He kept chuckling every so often as Zach searched for another subject to talk about, but Ben beat him to it.

"What were you gonna do? That is, when you woke up Christmas Day, where were you gonna go?" Ben sounded curious, but not official, and Zach wasn't sure what to say.

Zach shrugged. What was he going to say? That he

had kind of given up, that he had no money left?

"Winchester," he finally offered. "I was heading north, thought maybe I could pick up work there."

"Winchester is a fine place," Ben said in response.

"But you don't have to go to another city and find work, you know." Ben sounded thoughtful. "What about college?" Zach smiled softly into his hot chocolate. College was just pipe dream.

"I didn't even graduate, and I don't have the money 76

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for college."

"You don't strike me as stupid, Zach. You could get your equivalency, get a degree, make a life for yourself."

Pain speared Zach. Everything seemed so damn simple when Ben said it like that, and irrationally, he started to feel angry.

"We don't all have apple pie lives," Zach spat, not sad, but angry, hostile, and feeling trapped. He pushed himself to stand, stumbling slightly and sloshing hot liquid over his hand and onto the carpet. Ben stood just as fast, grabbing Zach's arm.

"Zach, sit down," Ben said in a calm voice, instantly gentling the passion Zach felt and encouraging him to sit back on the sofa. "There is nothing about our lives here that you could remotely call apple pie perfect. We may not have a lot of crime, but we have poverty in pockets like you have never seen. Yes, we have a town that pulls together to help each other out, but we have crops that fail, cattle that die, and stores that close. We don't have a big college; it's desperately under-funded, but we have community

learning. If you took a step back, wait 'til after Christmas maybe and then approached them for a place? This town may not have a lot of material things, but what we do have is a place you could be safe, somewhere to grow, maybe go 77

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to the college…"

Zach interrupted with a disbelieving snort. "Where in this would you see me living?"

"We'd find somewhere. You could work for your keep, live with me possibly. I have my own house, admittedly a small one, but it has two bedrooms. You could stay with me, stay here in Hill Valley." Ben sounded pathetically hopeful and entirely convinced he had an option Zach should entertain.

"What about money?" Zach snapped in return.

"It's a poor community generally, but some of the farms need laborers. There's at least one store looking for a clerk. I don't know, but we'd find somewhere." Ben was clearly on a roll.

"Why would you do that? You want me to be

grateful? Maybe bend over for you, pay you back that way?" Zach's chest was tight with anger.

"No— god no." Ben finally managed to answer, shaking his head, and his face flushing scarlet. "I just have— I mean, no. Do you…"

"Ben—"

"Shit, I really didn't know how to word this, please.

I'm a cop, I'm trained to help, and god knows… I mean, Zach, you need to stop running. You're eighteen in two 78

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days. Make a stand, draw a line. Just stop."

Zach unconsciously drew his knees up on the sofa, wrapping hands around them, his usual pose of self-protection. "I can't think," he finally said. "I just can't think." His voice was broken. "Can we just leave this?"

Ben made a decision, flicking through the TV

channels with the remote. "You ever seen
Die Hard
?" he asked. "It's starting in five minutes, you wanna watch?"

Zach had heard of
Die Hard.
Being in mainstream school until thirteen he had a feel for popular culture as much as any person who nobody actually talked to. "Yeah, I've not really seen many movies at all," he replied, almost shyly. At least that would stop him having to think. Ben fiddled with a control, the television showing the news, the main topic of conversation being the snow that had blanketed the town, which then segued into the start of the film. Ben settled back, his hand resting along the back of the sofa, and Zach shifted away a little, wincing at the pain in his back and hoping Ben didn't see. Ben was so damn warm, soft, welcoming, and supportive, and before he knew it, his head was resting on Ben's shoulder, his long legs relaxing and stretching out in front of him. Zach tried to settle to watch the film, deciding it was going to be nigh on impossible with Ben so close, and then in the space of ten 79

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minutes, he was totally engrossed in what was happening on the screen.

"I have so many movies to introduce you to," Ben said enthusiastically as
Die Hard
came to an end.

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All too soon the movie was finished, and Ben

realized it was actually the twenty-sixth now, Zach's last day of being seventeen. He turned his face to cuddle against him, loving the simple affection this hug was giving him. He knew he shouldn't notice but Zach smelled like Christmas, a warm mix of the different aftershaves and colognes that he had received as presents. Ben sighed as he turned off the TV, sliding even farther down and back, pulling Zach with him until they lay side by side on the sofa, no mean feat given Zach topped six foot and Ben wasn't far behind. It was really only possible because they clung tight to each other. They just lay there talking about the film, about college, about things Zach had only ever dreamed about before.

Zach smiled. That innocent smile married with the puppy dog eyes, so intriguing, so damn sexy. "Why do you make it so that everything I want in this world seems possible?" Zach asked softly, pressing his head against one of Ben's hands, half closing his eyes.

"Because when you turn eighteen, anything is possible, Zach, if you want it enough."

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The twenty-sixth passed in a slow, caramel soft,

warm lazy river kind of way. Ben didn't have to go on duty until six a.m. the next day and so, in best middle child tradition, was simply hanging around his momma's house with the intent to relax and enjoy his family.

Mark and Melanie came over just after lunch, the

kids running off for Christmas cookies in the kitchen. The two of them sat with Ben and Zach in the front room. Mark had smirked when he saw Zach in this year's fugly sweater, and Melanie had poked him hard enough for him to whine.

Zach was a little worried by the banter, but still smiled when Melanie mentioned Mark was lucky to have gotten away with not receiving the brilliantly green sweater for Christmas himself. After a while Mark left the room, Ben following, muttering something about beer. Zach wasn't really listening, but was suddenly aware he was on his own in the front room with this woman who looked at him as if he were a bug under a microscope.

"So," she began carefully, "I don't know if Ben mentioned it, but I'm a doctor."

"No, he didn't mention it. Only that your husband was a lawyer and was way tall."

She continued carefully, "You know, as a doctor, I 82

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can be here if you need anything."

"Anything?" Zach was doubtful that she could supply anything.

"Anything medical."

"Oh," he responded, and then subsided into silence.

Apparently there was no way Melanie was going to let it rest.

"Ben said he found you asleep on the church bench, in the snow. How are you feeling after that?"

Zach blinked. "Fine, warm. I feel warm now, and I don't have like a cold or anything…"

"Is there anything you want to talk to me about?

Whatever you told me, you know it wouldn't go any further than us."