Chapter 9
“Come on… we need to start walking.” Alex told Joshua, but the newest ranger just stood there. He stared down at his new sword, almost as if oblivious to the older man standing in front of him. Alex turned around and walked back over to him.
“Hey, you okay?” Alex asked him, but Joshua didn’t answer. He just stared at the sword, dripping with hemolymph from having stabbed the Ferrox and decapitated it. And unlike earth insects, it wasn’t clear, it was a deep shade of red. To the untrained eye… it was blood.
“Hey, kiddo, you still with me?” Alex asked again, snapping his fingers in the boy’s face,
“How do you do it?” Joshua finally asked him without looking up “How do you fight like this…? How can you be like this?”
His voice was breaking. His breath fast and sharp. He was on the verge of a panic attack.
“It’s hard.” Alex admitted “By my nature I’m a bit of a pacifist… I don’t like violence. But… that only works when your opponent can communicate with you… I don’t like doing what I do, but if I don’t… then what’s left? Earth getting overrun by the Ferrox? Millions, possibly billions dying. I hate what I have to do, but I do it anyway. Otherwise, it’s all over.”
Joshua began to cry. Alex put his hands on the younger ranger’s shoulders.
“It’s okay… I know it’s rough for you… trust me. I get it. I just need you to focus right now. Those things might come back soon, and we need to amscray.”
“Wha? What?”
“We need to go, come on.”
Joshua didn’t budge, so, with a sigh, Alex grabbed him by the arm and pulled. “Come on, short stuff, let’s go…”
Joshua finally got the mental memo and started walking.
“Where are we going?” Joshua finally asked after a few minutes.
“Should be an Army post nearby… if not… Fort Mariposa down in the valley. Assuming those two idiots don’t come back for us…”
“I’m sorry I got you into this mess…”Josuha said sadly as they made their way through the trees and bushes, looking for the road.
“What are you apologizing for, you didn’t take off and leave your teammates behind like Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb…”
“I don’t know… It just felt like the right thing to do…”
“You have nothing to say you’re sorry for.” Alex said as they climbed down a hill and found the road out of the park.
There was a rumble of thunder in the distance. A storm was coming.
“Just what we needed…” Alex said, with a sarcastic sigh.
“You know… When I was fighting… I felt…a rush…” Joshua said eventually after about half an hour of being quiet.
“Adrenaline, fight or flight and for the first time your chose fight…”
“No… it was, more than that. Alex, I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“I killed that Ferrox and I… I enjoyed it. The feeling of slicing into it…”
“You didn’t enjoy it… your dragon did.”
“My Dragon?”
Alex held up his Dragon Soul
“These aren’t called ‘Dragon Souls’ cause it sounds neat… You’re now bonded with the soul of an actual dragon. It’s not that bad, though we do tend to have quite the craving for red meat. Lot of steaks on the menu. But when in moments of emotional stress, the connection between us strengths and while we gain power from it, we also feel what the dragons feel. They may be on our side, but they’re still a very violent group.”
“Is that why Kelly seems angry so much?”
“Well, according to Kira she was always a bit of a hot head.”
They walked for another hour, Joshua in quiet contemplation, until they came across an the remains of an abandoned National Park Service ranger office.
The thunder rumbled again, much closer this time.
“Looks like a decent enough sport to wait out the storm.” Alex said.
He made a small fire as the rain started to fall.
“The Ferrox do not like fire for obvious reasons, so this should keep them away while we wait.”
“You know… I spent my whole life growing up,” Joshua started to say “groomed by my parents to be the prefect husband. I had all the best teachers in everything they felt a man needed to know. Making a fire without a matchstick was not one of them. Guess they didn’t care about me suriving… but then they never seemed to really care about me.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I almost never saw them. 90% of the time it was my nannies and tutors who raised me. I don’t even know how many siblings I actually have. I was kept in my little corner of the house. A little garden outside, my own bath. I rarely went anywhere.”
“That sounds almost like a prison… or worse… they raised you like livestock…”
“They kept trying to get a woman to take me as a husband, but none of them wanted me. I wasn’t pretty enough; I wasn’t smart enough; I wasn’t the right hair color…”
“People can be stupid like that…”
“It got to the point my mother basically made Mel’s job at the university contingent on marrying me…”
“I’ve never known what was like to be loved, to have people who cared about me without it being a job requirement, until I met you and the other rangers.”
“I heard what she said to you in the cave… ‘Last friends you’ll ever have’. She is an asshole…”
“That’s why… that’s why I want to stay here… with you… with the others. I don’t want to go back.”
“You got a taste of freedom and now you don’t want to give it up.”
Joshua shook his head in agreement.
“She doesn’t want me. She doesn’t love me. I’m just…”
“Her meal ticket?”
“I guess… whatever that is…”
“I don’t see why anyone would say you’re not pretty… I think…” Alex stopped himself.
“I know…” Joshua said “I know… I bet you have a hard time reminding yourself I’m not a girl…”
Alex nodded.
“And the truth is… I have a hard time remembering the same… when it comes to you…”
“Me…”
“Alex… I… I’m in love with you.”
Alex took a deep breath.
“Joshua…I’m flattered, but…”
“But what? You don’t love me because I’m a boy?”
“Joshua… you’re married.”
“Married to someone who doesn’t love me. Who uses me. Who bullies me…”
Alex decided to bite the bullet and moved closer to Joshua.
“Look, I’ll be honest… I do find you attractive… but there are reasons I don’t think I can do this… and none of them have to do with you being male, if I’m honest.
“Firstly, the fact you’re married. Secondly, our age difference. Ignoring any time travel nonsense, you’re 12 whole years younger than I am. And I’m worried you don’t have the emotional maturity you need to make these kinds of decisions. You are working on impulse now that you know how to have them.
“The last reason… is… we don’t know how this war will end and…”
Joshua slowly realized what he meant.
“But Kelly and Kira…”
“Often make those hot headed, brash decision to prioritize each other over the mission… when each can effectively take care of themselves…
“If Mel wasn’t in the picture… if you were standing on your own to feet, and if the Ferrox weren’t a thing… I’d be more than happy to build a relationship with you… But in the here and now… I don’t feel comfortable with doing that…”
“I understand…” Joshua said, truthfully. “But… may I… at least… have a kiss.”
“I think we can make that work…”
Joshua smiled as the older man leaned in, their lips meeting in the firelight as the rain splashed outside.
The two both had content looks on their faces as they backed away.
“You get some rest, I’ll keep an eye out for trouble or those two losers coming back…”
Joshua nodded and went to lie down on an old sofa inside the office.
It was looking back out towards Alex that Joshua swore he’d have him, come hell or high water. He just needed to find Alex’s weakness, the one thing he couldn’t resist… And then Alex would be his… He lay there, as he fell asleep, thinking, dreaming, about secducing Alex.
Alex, for his part, could not help but think about what a life with Joshua would be like, but he swore to himself he would not take advantage of the boy. Eventually the rain passed and the night sky shone bright, the stars twinkling above.
Still no sign of those two dumbasses coming back for them.