Jonathan Sims

Maybe Eliot should have known it wouldn’t be easy, and maybe he should have expected this kind of outcome. Still, he can’t help feeling a little disheartened that his attempt to get through to John results in the boy bursting into tears. He sighs, and wishes he could say more, but he doubts he would believe any well-meaning reassurances if he were in John’s position. If anyone had bothered to give any when he was young, anyway.

And he smiles, briefly, at the way John and Martin seek comfort in each other; it’s gratifying to know that the things that make them a good couple are still present in a different way, now. Martin has it right, he thinks. More words aren’t going to be helpful, after a certain point, and there’s tangible things Eliot can do to make the situation a little more bearable for them. So he cracks his knuckles and prepares a banishment charm, muttering the words in an old Avestan dialect so that when he flicks his hands out over Martin and John’s heads the mud and water and bits of corn husk are driven off of them, leaving them clean and dry and relatively warm.

“It’s going to be all right,” he says quietly, and pulls out a handkerchief to offer to John. “I know if doesn’t feel like it right now, but...I’ll help you however I can.”