#armisolving

Armisolving—(18) broken windows, waist high grasses, and lit matches.

A fat crimson droplet blooms over the pale skin of his thumb where the glass has sunk in. Sol drops it reflexively, hears it fall into the deep grass in a low murmur.

“Ah, fuck,” he tsks in between clenched teeth before he puts the finger into his mouth.

This year spring has caught up to them too. The grass is overgrown in the back of the house, the path that leads from the yard to the forest barely suggesting where one should tread, engulfed by the weeds and wildflowers that John had so carefully put him to trim in the front weeks ago. No wonder a fox can sneak into the henhouse unseen. No wonder they have already lost three of the girls to the red devil.

Sol pities the poor thing, knows that in a day or two the grass will be lower, the undergrowth visible, and that John will have him or Tommy out with a shotgun at dusk the moment they go out for a smoke or a piss. Sol has never been good at not pitying the underdog.

The match he lights sparks dangerously close to the dry grass, the fag he’s holding between his teeth suddenly a stupid sacrifice to make for a scorched backyard. Nothing happens, though. The cigarette ignites. The match dies. John Irving’s grounds remain unscathed.

“Gonna get into trouble if you keep that up.”

Sol treats the lad with a wolf whistle, followed by an appraising look to disguise that he had not heard Tommy coming. He is wearing that long blue dress John had rescued from a half-hidden cupboard in his London estate, a crooked little bow tying his black curls back while keeping some ringlets astray to frame his pale face. Tommy looks nice like this, very nice.

“Going to town? Can’t imagine a lass like you would do herself this pretty jus’ for me.”

The compliment makes Tommy blush, her hands fisting the hem of the skirt as he protests with a low. “Sol… stop that.”

“Just speaking things as they are, no harm in calling my favourite lass pretty, is there?”

“I’m gonna tell him you called me your favourite.”

The threat makes Sol laugh, his hands coming up to encircle Tommy’s waist as if he were cinching her stays, pressing just enough to make the lad gasp.