Three Cheers for Sweethearts [Frerard AU]

PART III: Chapter 8

                  

CHAPTER 8 – VICTORIOUS

A/N: Find the pattern, MCRmy? ;)

If I'd ever felt any less excited to be social, I couldn't remember it. Only out of sheer curiosity, I let myself out of my room and out of my streak of concentration to see who had come to my house to keep me from being alone all day. I stepped down the steps and turned the corner. It was Ray.

"You didn't forget, did you?" he asked. I stared at him blankly. "It's the first Monday of the month, which means...?" he prompted with an open-mouth smile.

"Croquet!" I said, half-enthusiastically. He looked like he had been looking forward to it all month, and I probably sounded like I wished it was any other day. Not that I was opposed to seeing my friend, exactly, but it was cold, getting dark, and I had better things to do. If I'd ever felt less productive doing something, again, I couldn't recall. Not to mention, it was about to snow outside. Knowing he could deal with rejection, I told him exactly that.

"All the more reason to play!" Ray cheered. "You're tired, you really don't want to, and snow is God's gift to Man. Let's go." He patted my back as he headed into the living room, where we kept the croquet balls and mallets.

I wanted nothing more than to be left on my own (though I'd already gotten that wish for the past hour or so while I did homework in my room – a gift I hadn't treasured nearly enough), but still, it was hard to say no to Ray's enthusiasm.

As we were setting up the course outside, Ray spoke up. "I think we should change the rules a little bit."

"Change the rules?" I mocked a gasp. "If I ever feel confused, I blame you in advance, but I think I can deal with a little twist..."

Ray grinned so widely you'd think I told him he could buy a hundred puppies. I tapped the last wire wicket into the solid cold ground and braced myself to face Ray's creativity.

"First of all," Ray said, "We should make it so if you hit a wicket but it doesn't go through, you have to hit it away. And if you trip over one, you have to hit the other player's ball – in their favor. Also, you have to hit the ball on the stripe. If you don't, you have to hit your ball back into place on your next turn. And we'll also keep score! Each wicket is three points, minus half a point each time you don't get it through. Minus five if you trip. You get a bonus turn every time you go through a wicket."

"That's already a thing," I said with a laugh, "Say, how long have you been thinking about this?"

"To be honest," he said, "I'm getting all this off the top of my head."

Feeling a bit lost, I simply smiled and nodded.

We played for a bit, the conversation amounting to nothing above rule clarification, and we were on our second game before we started using the time together as an excuse to open up to each other, like we usually did.

Ray prompted that I talk to him first. "So do tell. Why were you so reluctant to play today?"

By this point in our friendship, I trusted Ray so much with my private thoughts that I was even beyond hesitating. It was alien to me. I told him, to the best of my abilities, everything that was bothering me. Most prominently, the play and how Hunter had reacted, though to spare his feelings I tried to tone down how much it was bothering me. I didn't want Ray to start feeling guilty again. Instead I explained how I knew he'd treat me in the coming week – how I knew he'd treat all of us. I told him I was afraid for my brother and afraid for me – my future, how minimally prepared I felt. And to be completely honest, saying it all out loud got rid of my headache very quickly. It was like scraping ice off a windshield – once I went through it, I felt significantly more at peace. The cloud of smoke and dry ice that had made it so hard to think lifted until any remnants of the fog was minimal to none. The concerns were still there, but releasing them from my brain through my throat into the air did feel better than bottling them up.