Anyone who has seen the movie has come out raving about how amazing it was. I haven’t heard any bad reviews of it at all.

For me, I read the comics a year ago on a friend’s recommendation and immediately fell in love. Not only is it a comic, not only is it set in modern-day Toronto, but the characters pretty much epitomize my social circle. And like so many of the best stories, it’s like regular life only better. Brian Lee O’Malley has a knack for telling a story with heart and hilarity. I get all the jokes. I recognize the character types. On the movie screen, these look like people I could meet tomorrow at a party. And in fact most of these people I have already met. They just tend not to throw down in battles to the death at a split second’s notice.

The movie reflected the comics perfectly. Which is why it didn’t do so well at the box office.

At first I was confused. It’s so good! Everyone I know liked it! And then I realize, not for the first time, that my social circle is not a representative sample of modern culture. Even Twitter, where Scott Pilgrim was trending for days, is a really poor sample of the wider world.

Scott Pilgrim is about middle-class white slacker kids between 17-25 in Toronto. It’s a very accurate depiction of this particular social class.

People over the age of 25 or so tend not to like people who have graduated from university or college and are now working minimum wage and playing in bands and going to parties and not particularly being productive with their lives. So they’re not going to see this movie.

Kids under the age of 17 might look up to this kind of lifestyle but since this isn’t a particularly glamourous lifestyle either, probably not.

So now we’ve got a narrow age and culture limit to work within, but the market for this movie goes even smaller than that. Because essentially it’s about geeky hipsters.

Hipsters: Most people don’t like them. Scott Pilgrim and his kids are more indie than pretentious-hipster, but they (we?) are all lumped together these days.

Geeks: Still aren’t cool, no matter how much some people like to say so. Yet again, though, Scott Pilgrim and his friends don’t play Starcraft II so they’re not really that geeky they just make jokes about Super Mario Bros.

And since someone pointed this out, Brian Lee O’Malley’s art style is kind of manga-inspired, so even some comics geeks would scoff at it because they “don’t like anime” (don’t get me started).

So while to the outside world this movie is about these unwanted subcultures, each subculture on it’s own also doesn’t see itself fully represented here and isn’t interested either.

So the market for Scott Pilgrim vs the World comes down to a very narrow slice of the Venn Diagram where Hipsters and Geeks overlap, within this particular age group of white middle class kids.

I don’t want to think that this is where it ends, though, with me and my friends cherishing this cult classic into our old age. I get the feeling that when this comes out on DVD it will be easier to push on our unsuspecting friends who are on the fringes of our group, close enough to get the jokes and not feel like outsiders. The story, the romance doesn’t hinge on that. It’s a story about love and people growing up. That’s pretty universal. I’m very thankful this movie got made.

Rather than Ghost in the Shell: Innocence, which was marketed in the states as Ghost in the Shell 2, this is a partially-reanimated version of the original. As you know, I’m pretty damn obsessed with this movie, so like any true hardcore fangirl I’ll take any variation of the original just for completeness sake.

Right now I’m comparing the Kick-Ass Anime release of the 1995 DVD version and the THORAnime 720p Blu-ray release which are different in plenty of ways aside from the content. But let’s pretend you were shown these two versions of the same film in blu-ray and you can buy one, which should you go for?

First of all, this 2.0 release is from 2008, so the quality of the new digital animation is really high. Probably the thought was trying to update this film to match Innocence, which is absolutely gorgeous and seamlessly uses both digital and conventional animation.

Yet back in 1995 when GitS was first released, its animation was top-notch too. Even now, if you compare the animation and cinematography to other contemporaries, it hasn’t aged very much at all. The 90s feel is unavoidable, though. It’s in the hair styles and fashion and those aren’t things you can just re-animate away. Those character designs are iconic.

So really what you end up with is one or two newly animated scenes, including the opening scene where we are first introduced to Motoko, and the rest of the movie intact. It makes sense to update the computer screens and that sort of thing, but they don’t even update all of those. Really, it’s rather disappointing knowing the work they did on Innocence and how even more gorgeous this film could be if it was given a whole new working over. The original animation is beautiful in its own style, so sticking random CGI in once in a while is just jarring.

Now it’s hard to say whether this is the fault of the KAA release or not since THORA releases are always very good, but the audio quality on 2.0 is amazing. It definitely seems like they re-recorded a lot of the sounds. I’ve seen this movie so many times when something is missing I notice it, or if there’s something that wasn’t there before. Even the voices are slightly different although the dialogue is the same, it makes me wonder if they got the VAs back in to record all over again or just restored the old recordings.

This is especially noticeable in the case of the Puppet Master. In the original, the voice was male although since it’s a sort of AI it has no real sex. In 2.0 the voice is now female. In the original, the fact that the Puppet Master had a rather male voice was jarring because he was trapped in a very female cyborg body. It was an interesting metaphorical point, especially when you hear that voice coming out of Motoko’s body. You have to wonder why they made the change.

And of course we must talk about the subtitles. THORA’s 2.0 release is surprisingly poor. They didn’t indicate where they got the subs so I assume they’re a direct rip from the DVD. If so, it’s not giving a good name to official subs. They totally missed the as in a mirror, darkly reference which is key to the plot, and translated the lines straight up. Which is confusing, because at the end of the movie Motoko recites the next few lines to the poem. If I hadn’t seen this movie before (many, many times…) it would have made no sense. There were some scenes where even I know what the Japanese means and it was translated slightly off. Little things like when the Director calls Motoko “Major” (shousan) they translated it as Kusanagi, her last name. The fact that they call her Major is a big characterization point and I don’t think that’s just me being nitpicky.

The very last scene of 2.0 was reanimated to make the city larger and more busy, making it match Innocence’s feel. It’s a nice touch. But really that’s the only time the new animation was a positive influence rather than just seemingly tacked on.

The original stands on its own, even after fifteen years. While a remake is an excellent idea and is working well for Evangelion, in this case it was done half-assedly to a film that really requires you go all or nothing. You might as well watch the original, you will lose none of the content and the animation is still sexy as hell. Even if the two films were the same price on the rack I would go with the original just because of the fact that they remade the opening scene, which I really like the way it was.

When she comes into his office in the chuunin exam building she can see the exhaustion writ large on his face. She sets her fan down by the door and takes a seat on the rickety chair facing his desk. It squeaks a bit under her weight and the metal is cold. He doesn’t look up from his paperwork again, mechanically writing names and registration numbers in columns.

“You were supposed to meet me for lunch,” she accuses, leaning back and crossing her legs, chin raised in a challenge.

He tsks irritably and puts down his pen to pinch his nose and wrinkle his forehead. “Was that today? Sorry. I forgot.”

It’s not even his usual bored monotone, which at least sometimes shows a hint of teasing. He lack of remorse makes her slam her palm down on the table loudly, making everything on it including him jump. At least it got his attention, he glared at her, gritting his teeth in irritation. She shouldn’t be able to get to him this easily! It just made her more angry. The guilt seemed to be working, so she stayed on that track.

“When’s the last time you were home?”

He opened his mouth to retort, but it took him a few moments longer than it should have to reply and she cut in before he could speak.

“Gaara didn’t sleep properly for years and you don’t think I don’t know the signs? You think anyone can sleep properly when their little brother is likely to kill them the first second he gets bored?”

He has given up on replying and just rested his head in his hand, looking tired and unbearably tense at the same time. She pointed emphatically at the small couch pushed against the wall and glared at him meaningfully. When he just reached for his brush again and looked down at his papers, she felt her blood boil. Men! They never listened.

“Don’t make me knock you out. Anyone can do paperwork, I’ll do it while you sleep. Go, before I lose my temper. You’re no use to anyone in this state.”

They glared at each other for a very long moment, but of course she won. He let out a sigh and stood up and she stood up after him, watching him stretch out on the ugly worn fabric. His eyes closed immediately and it was only a few moments before his breathing evened out. She walked quietly around the table and sat down in his chair, stretching her arms out in front of her before giving him a final smile.

She thought she might wake him up, moving around the room to light the candles in the wall when the sun went down, but he just let out a sigh and kept sleeping. When she finally finished the tedious work she got up and walked to his side, crouching down beside him to gently touch his shoulder to wake him. Waking ninjas unexpectedly was something you always had to be careful about. His hand flashed up to grab her wrist, but his eyes were still bleary when they opened and he let out a huge yawn. It took a few blinks for him to focus and figure out who she was. This guy, sometimes he was so vulnerable it made her want to punch him.

“What time is it?”

She told him, and he sat up too quickly and was forced to hold his head for a moment until the dizziness passed.

“The paperwork is all done, you can hand it in tomorrow.”

He looked up at her and then to the table and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Thanks. I needed that, I think.”

“For a smart guy, you can be pretty stupid, you know?” she chastised, hands on her hips. He smiled sheepishly back and stood up slowly this time.

He walked her back to the apartment she kept for these trips, and as misguided the chivalry was she didn’t really try to talk him out of it. When they got to her door she opened it and then hesitated, turning back to face him.

“Shikamaru, make sure you go home tonight. I’m sure your mother is worried.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he sighed, looking down and away, a sure sign of a guilty conscience. She let out an exasperated sigh and stepped into him, close enough to just feel the brush of her chest against his, close enough to press a gentle kiss against his lips. Her fingernails scratched gently at his scalp at the back of his neck and she gave him a serious look close enough that he couldn’t escape it.

“Don’t miss an appointment with me again, got it? You can buy me lunch tomorrow and tell me what this is all about then.”

He managed a small smile then, although it barely reached his eyes. His arm around her waist tightened for a moment before letting go, though, so she released him with that promise.

She hugged herself in the doorway as he went down the stairs, shoulders hunched, hands in pockets. It made her a little angry how much she worried about him and the fact that she didn’t know why he was the way he was now. “Don’t forget, idiot,” she muttered to herself under her breath and closed the door against the cool Konoha night.

When she walked into the room behind the Chief he saw her immediately. She wasn’t expecting his reaction, but then, she probably should have. Where everyone else looked relieved, smiling and relaxing their shoulders like a burden had been lifted, he crumpled. She had been expecting him to be angry, at least. He always was, in these kinds of situations. He clenched his jaw and hands and turned away, walking out of the room and leaving everyone else looking at each other knowingly. Of course they all knew, who didn’t fall a little bit in love with the Major? And didn’t she like it like that too? But they were brothers in arms and would never bring it up in front of her, would never make it into a divisive competition for her affections. They respected him too much.

There was never any need to talk about it so perhaps she had taken it for granted that everything would go immediately back to normal. She was the one who died, shouldn’t she be the one who was upset?

Once the Chief had explained his plan to Paz, Borma, and Ishigawa there was a long pause. No one was looking at her in a way that meant they were all waiting for her to do something. She let out a quiet sigh and said, “I’ll go then,” before walking out the door.

Batou she called out on the comm links. There was a determined silence in response, but he hadn’t turned off his comm so she reached out and followed the signal. He wasn’t far. The room was dark when she went in, lit by the glow of a few monitors crunching data. In the pale glow it was hard to see his face, hunched over as he was, head in his hands over the table. She stepped into the room only far enough for the door to slide shut behind her and then waited.

No matter how much silence he had gotten used to over the years, adapted himself to, it still didn’t suit him. He wasn’t a cool and aloof loner on purpose, not like her. Perhaps she’d overestimated his ability to live that life, perhaps this was the breaking point that every person had.

“It was your real body. It was your real cyberbrain. How did you do it?”

His voice was dangerously calm. If she was too flippant now he would probably explode. That’s what he wanted her to do. To be relieved and go back to normal so he could explode in anger and violence, lash out as the only way he knew how, and then leave and hate her safely, drown everything in anger. For once in her life she almost hated that she could read him so well. This was her fault.

“I uploaded myself to the net at the last minute.”

“And for two weeks you couldn’t contact me to tell me you were alive?!”

He bit off his words as if it took an effort to keep from action. It probably did. He turned to look at her now, equal parts hurt and angry. The hand he pressed against the table was shaking slightly. She noticed at the same time he did, and he brought it up to rub at his forehead, looking down again in her silence.

“I’m sorr-”

She didn’t even get to finish her apology, because it loosened in him a torrent of words he had probably been repeating to himself since the moment that the bullet had entered her head.

“I watched you die! After all those years, after everything, I watched you die and there was nothing I could do about it! So many times before I’d been afraid of losing you but it was worse than I ever could have imagined. I was prepared to kill anyone and everyone who had contributed to your death, including the Chief, and then I would be able to die satisfied and get to see you again.”

“I’m sorry, Batou.”

It wasn’t as though she had offered herself up to the slaughter, it wasn’t as though she had intended for him to be so wounded by her death, but this was all she could offer. No matter how unfeeling she might be accused of being, this was never a suffering she had wanted to inflict on him. She stepped closer slowly, waiting to see if he would lash out, but his anger was spent for the moment and he did not resist when she rested her hand on the back of his neck and gently drew his head forward to rest on her chest. With his eyes pressing against the hollow of her shoulder, he let out a long shaky breath and reached out to wrap an arm around her waist.

“You’re alive,” he said quietly, almost a question.

I’m still here, she replied, touching his shoulder.

Then Section 9 still exists. He was sounding more like his normal self, though still tired and laboured.

Yes.

When they had me locked up all I could think about was how I never told you that I love you.

She froze for a moment, fingers that had been stroking the skin at his hairline stopping, holding in her last breath unconsciously. She felt uncomfortably warm, but snapped out of it quickly, though she couldn’t help a small sad smile from finding its way into her lips. There was nothing she could say, and hated herself a little bit for that. Maybe if she went through the same thing he had she would be forced to put into words how she felt about him, but now…

He looked up at her and gave her the same sad little smile back, and it made her heart ache. She did this to him over and over again, thoughtlessly, and he still loved her. She let him draw her down into a kiss, closer until she was on his lap, never close enough for him. She had died and remained alive. But the real miracle she could never understand was here.

After he’s broken his second punching bag he sits down against the wall, throws off his gloves, and digs his fingers into his hair. None of them were his to care for, nothing is, so he shouldn’t be so surprised when they go away. A childhood idol and idolizing children. When did he start thinking about himself as a father? He does this again and again because he doesn’t know how to live without doing it. How the days could be bearable if he didn’t feel and care and love. Yet this is the price he pays.

His eyes burn with tears that can never be shed. Artifacts of an old body, long gone. Before, he never thought he’d miss something like crying. But just because you stop the flow of tears doesn’t mean you stop the feeling.

When there is nothing he can do, when the rest all look to him to be their broad shoulders to lean on, he takes a deep breath and packs it all down into his metal box of a heart. It doesn’t fit neatly in, it’s too big and messy and tied to too many other things, but he can keep it locked in there most of the time so he doesn’t have to think about it every minute of every day.

He keeps his love in a separate section, away from the deaths, but still as dark and deep. He keeps his dreams and hopes there, every memory of happiness he has ever experienced. Kept apart and away so that he does not lose them by touching them too often. So he doesn’t have to live with this feeling like a knife in his chest at the loss and the absence. Passion and grief are luxuries for other people who aren’t soldiers in metal bodies with metal hearts.

With all these things in his metal heart locked away he can live, day to day, surviving. He can be patient and kind and gentle and understanding and strong. Until once again something that he cares for but is not his to keep is threatened or lost and a little bit more has to fit in his metal heart. He does not think about what will happen when it runs out of room.

There has never been anyone like Tachibana Akane for digging into other people’s problems and making them his own. Being friends with Tachibana forced Hiiragi to lose some of the armour he had built up over his childhood before Kouzu. He was visibly more relaxed around anyone, less the cold, holier-than-thou brat and more of a normal, shy kind of teenaged boy. Even after seeing his brother or father, a simple phone call from Tachibana was all it would take to relax his shoulders again and take the burning frustration out of his chest. He had forgotten how to smile for so long.

He had to sacrifice some of that to keep the two of them alive. All he could do in the face of Tachibana’s tragedy was try to return the hope that he had been given a year ago. What was his own happiness for a year or two compared to the chance of Tachibana stepping back onto a basketball court? It was like having his heart split in two, but Hitonari was experienced in difficult decisions by now and he would do anything. Anything. If only there was anything more he could do. He could hate life, hate fate for destroying them so quickly and effortlessly, destroying the future they had worked so fucking hard to build, rage at the gods and share in Akane’s despair, but none of that would make any of it better. He would still be running, sleepless, and Tachibana would still be lying in a hospital bed; the night moonless.

They didn’t have to see each other, to exchange letters or phone calls, to know that they were both working towards the same goal. Which wasn’t to say that there weren’t doubts, when it was late at night and practise wasn’t going well, but every day they woke up with the same mission, the same promise they had made each other over and over again.

Hitonari, of course, still followed Tachibana’s progress through his father and then his team through the news. When he saw that a Nagasaki team had made it to the tourni he knew, and it was like the first time he had ever gotten excited for a match. Excited and nervous, he drove Kouzu hard at practise the next day and the weeks after. They might have complained, but Minefuji recognized the light in his eyes and just told them to run faster.

It was inevitable, the wheel of fate had turned again, and they were standing on the same court, this time facing each other like they had the first time they had ever met. Challengers. Rivals. It didn’t matter if they were playing together or against each other. All that mattered is that they were here. That they could fight and win and go to the finals and take over the world. Anything was possible when they were together.

It had always been Tachibana who had been the strength of their team. It had always been him who had kept Hitonari from slipping into a lifeless void, rebelling against his parents and having lost his reason for being. Tachibana had given him so much, and so he had given Akane this. The only thing he had to give, the only thing Akane wanted.

After the match it was like in a dream. Kouzu, cheering, celebrating, and Hitonari could only think of one person. He had warmed up to the newbies and Harumoto did his best, but he had won and there was only one person on that court that he had been truely playing against. When he looked across the centre line Tachibana was looking right at him. It seemed like it happened in slow motion, walking to meet, standing and eyeing each other until Tachibana broke first and pointed a finger in his face emphatically.

“Just because you’ve won this time don’t think that you’ll beat me again, Hitonari!”

And Hiiragi felt a dread sickness that had been resting in him for over a year disappear and smiled even as he scowled, slapping that hand out of his face.

“Don’t point, idiot. Are you really healed or what? Is that the best you could do?”

From there followed the usual kind of argument, the referee baffled when he realized they were laughing and hugging each other rather than punching each other in the face. It was maybe just a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity before their teams intervened and tried to back up their respective captain.

Despite reservations on both sides, they went out to dinner afterwards, Tachibana bullying his team into getting along and Kouzu’s respect/love/fear for Hiiragi forcing them to comply. Hitonari was always a forceful guy, quiet and nonaggressive, but not one to back down either. More than once a slacker had quailed under his fiercely sharp eyes and knew where the Coach Hiiragi had gotten his reputation from. Never had they seen him bicker and laugh in the same sentence.

He bought Tachibana a gyudon.

Sumire was there, but though he sat beside Tachibana she left the two of them to it. They were in a kind of bubble of their own that brokered no interruption. They weren’t even talking half the time, but then with perfect syncronicity they would look and make a small movement with chopsticks and quirk a smile and mutter under their breath. A language no one else would ever understand.

When they were filing out, some staggeringly overfull, they lingered in the doorway, staring up at the night sky. The moon was just a a little shard, but a bright silver. Akane lifted an arm and wrapped it around Hitonari’s shoulder and they shifted together, private, backs closing off the rest of the world. No one else heard the whispered words that passed between them, their heads were so close their hair mingled.

Tachibana Akane always knew what to say. He may be an idiot, but his words cut to the bone.

“I’ll call Minefuji tomorrow and set up a training match. What do you say?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re not allowed to lose until I’ve beat you, don’t forget!”

“Yeah, don’t nag, bastard.”

“Who’s nagging? I mean it!”

“The same goes for you too. Make sure you graduate and get into a good university, idiot!”

“I’m doing fine, worry about yourself!”

Both grinning, both blushing, their eyes met and then drifted away. Tachibana roughly pulled his partner into a hug, patting his back uncomfortably hard until Hiiragi choked and struggled. He released him just as quickly.

“There, feel better?”

Hiiragi glared at him weakly while trying to regain his breath and straightened up suddenly, a glint in his eye, as he reached out and grabbed Akane’s shirt front, dragging the two of them together again.

“No, I don’t.”

That was when Hiiragi Hitonari kissed Tachibana Akane for the first time, fast and hard and ugly. It didn’t feel so great and was done and over very quickly. Hitonari then lifted his chin, turned smartly, and walked quickly away. Akane stood there for a few beats like an idiot and then chased after him.

“What was that, you bastard?! Sneak attacks don’t count!”

Their teams were waiting for them at the end of the road, both heading towards the train station. They might have noticed the little extra blush on their captains’ cheeks, but if they did they wouldn’t know what to make of it. Mika and Sumire might have figured it out, but if they did they didn’t say anything about it to the boys. They were awkward enough without an audience.

They trekked home from the Morris late on Boxing Day evening, boots crunching on the frost, in silence. Not touching but close, they moved at a brisk pace, breath puffing out like smoke into the dark. Edwin Digweed could tell that there was more than the usual reticence keeping his partner from speaking his mind. He always refused to have a fight outside of their little cottage. Edwin had drunk quite a bit that evening but was within his tolerance, though now that he thought back he had no idea how much Edgar Wield had drank. Even knowing him as well as he thought he did after a year and a half together it could have been the same drink in his hand all night or he could have gone through an entire bottle, there was no way to tell from his face alone. He should have paid more attention, he was already feeling guilty as they approached the door and Wield pulled out his keys and unlocked it far more roughly than his usual precise efforts.

He flung the door open in front of him and stomped in, toeing off his boots immediately. Even the way he was now, he still took the time to put them on the rack, which was at least somewhat of a good sign. Edwin got in and the door shut behind him before Wield stalked towards him and grabbed the front of his overcoat. It wasn’t hard enough to really hurt, but it was hard enough to shock, especially considering that even if he’d been angry before Edgar always kept himself physically in complete control. The fact that this was just a prelude to a crushing kiss was not a relief. It was obvious that it wasn’t drunken passion that was driving Edwin’s partner tonight. Even though he was at least an inch or two taller with his boots still on, he could still feel the aggression. Fighting with Wield could be fun, but this was showing an intensity that scared him and he immediately gave way, just in case that’s what he was looking for.

Evidently it wasn’t, because as soon as Digweed gave in to the rough kiss Wield pulled back and glowered at him. Collecting himself, Edwin managed to get out, “What’s wrong?”

Clearly that wasn’t the right thing to ask either, because Wield’s eyes flashed and Digweed was suddenly very aware of how much stronger the other man was, even if the look he was given turned to disgust rather than outright anger.

“You mean to say you don’t remember spending the entire night flirting with yon pretty young artist?”

He spat out “artist” like a priest spoke of Satan.

Edwin immediately felt like laughing but sensibly quashed it as soon as thought it. So this was how Edgar Wield showed jealousy? Nevertheless, his tone was light when he replied.

“I won’t say I didn’t pay attention to him, certainly, and the work he’s doing is quite interesting. Don’t expect me to spend all night talking only to you when you hardly open your mouth to ask for a drink. Was I flirting a little? Maybe I was! I was drunk and having a good time.”

Edgar wasn’t looking placated, but now it was Edwin’s chance to get self-righteously angry and interrupted when Wield opened his mouth to retort.

“I came home with you, didn’t I? If something’s bothering you, you have to tell me before it bothers you this much, Edgar.”

This lead to a long brooding silence and Wield relaxed his hold on Digweed’s coat, looking down frowning. Edwin had tasted a lot of whisky on his breath in that kiss, and felt more relieved than anything that his partner seemed to be letting the charge fall. He didn’t feel entirely innocent, but it hadn’t been a conscious action either. Habit. Flirting with attractive, intelligent, interesting young men had come naturally for decades, it couldn’t be expected that he’d stop just because he’d entered a committed relationship. It hadn’t been serious, but then he hadn’t been thinking of how Edgar would take it either. As usual, he was only thinking of himself.

With that supremely guilty thought, he reached out and wrapped his arms awkwardly around Edgar’s broad shoulders and drew him in close, feeling the deepest relief when he embraced him back. There was still something of the desire to dominate when they kissed, but less furious than before.

“Makes me think maybe… you don’t have as much invested as me. Mebbie I shouldn’t be takin’ this so serious either.”

His deep, low voice sounds so painful it makes Edwin’s heart ache in his chest and his stomach drop.

“Oh, Edgar,” he sighed, hugging him again as close as two winter coats would allow. “I’m sorry. Never think that. For all my years, I can’t say I’m particularly good at this co-habitation and… long-term romance business. You have to tell me what you need, but if you do I promise I will do whatever I possibly can to make it work. I promise.”

“I want you to be mine.”

They pulled away enough to look each other in the eye after this quiet but honest confession, and Edwin stroked his cheek and ran his fingers into his stiff hair looking at him. He wasn’t the prettiest man in the world, but somehow his face still set Edwin’s heart aching.

“In as much as I am the posession of anyone other than myself, I think I can safely say that a signifiant portion of me belongs to you, Edgar Wield. Don’t ask me to repeat that. I love you to a quite absurd degree you know, and I will tell you that much every day if you want me to.”

Wield’s shy little smile that he hardly ever shared broke though and they stood there being embarrassed at each other for a few minutes before they realized that they were still in their coats and Edwin still in his boots, and a warm and comfortable bed just waiting for them upstairs.

Edwin hoped desperately as he undressed that Edgar had truely forgiven him and that this wouldn’t fester over days and months into something worse, because he really had been telling the truth. He hadn’t been as in impossibly in love as this since he was a young man and everything had fallen together like a fairy tale. The thought of bollocksing it up over some stupid art student down the pub made him feel violently ill.

(Version 1)

Edgar Wield glanced up from his newspaper idly as the front door chimed open and then immediately returned to his crossword puzzle. He could hear Edwin rooting around in the back, but their visitor was the sort of middle-aged bookish gentleman that didn’t need to be shown around a rare book store so Wield left him to it. The quiet, monotonous voices of Radio 3 were on in the background to keep the silence from getting too oppressive, but it wasn’t loud enough that he couldn’t overhear their conversation. Off duty he may be, but a policeman is a policeman.

“Oh, just a moment there, you must be Remus?”

“Let me take some of those for you — Remus Lupin, a pleasure.”

The name was carefully filed away in that computer-like brain, though first it drew up a few contextual links. As an off-comer in a small town in Yorkshire, Wield was not privy to all the gossip of the neighbourhood, but news had been circulating for a while that a previously empty farmhouse was being taken up by its owner again. The farmland had long been sold off, in the traditional way to one’s neighbours, but the house stood and was looked into every once in a while but never sold. To the relief of the vast majority of the locality who considered Tourism and Development twin evils against whom the battle was never ended.

When these facts had been carefully put in their proper place it had only been a few seconds to the outside world. Lupin was soft-spoken, but not unconfident, and his voice carried well through the shelves and glass cases. When the pair re-emerged from the dusty depths of the bookshop Wield had to knock off a decade on the man’s age now that he was smiling and more relaxed. Not bad looking, but definitely underfed and his clothes look second-hand and very carefully worn. Not old money, then, perhaps he’d just come through a divorce and wanted to return to the homestead or some such. Wield wasn’t given to speculation. When the pair were in front of the shop again where he was sitting he got a second glance from Lupin, and though he knew with the certainty of God that nothing could be read from his craggy features if he did not wish it to be, the glance seemed all too assessing for a typical airy-fairy book type. Wield looked impassive as his partner subtly interrogated the new arrival on his plans for the house (restoration, some academic writing, perhaps a visit from an old friend), his history (no women, up from London), and his motives (a job). They weren’t lies, exactly, but they weren’t the whole truth either, answers carefully worded to be as vague as possible without seeming to be avoiding the question. He was really quite good, Wield thought with a connoisseur’s appreciation.

They ended the informal interview in a handshake and a promise to meet the next day. Edwin Digweed waited until his prospective employee was well away from the front of the shop before turning and raising an eyebrow at his lounging companion. Unlike Pascoe, who had been forced to practice until it stopped looking ridiculous, to Digweed it came naturally. When Wield only looked back over his paper he let out a snort and shook his head, going back to his sorting and shelving, but he was smiling a little when he did. They were different people with different lives, and living together had taken some finessing and a few ground rules, one of which was that Edgar Wield did not make commentary on the business side of Digweed’s shop.

Wield only ever spent the occasional day in the bookstore so he didn’t meet Remus Lupin again until a few weeks later, strolling in late in the evening to steal his – partner, lover, housemate? – home for dinner. This time he introduced himself, and was impressed by the firmness of the man’s grip, given his looks. As if seemingly reading his thoughts, the man’s lips spread into a small, knowing smile, and Wield felt himself wondering where that edge of bitterness came from. It was a loose thread, but he didn’t pull on it, and instead firmly but gently removed Edgar from his newest acquisitions. He was astonishingly happy in his life in the Een valley and he had become aware of a kind of overflowing of that happiness into kindnesses, generosities, and flights of fancy he never would have allowed in himself years earlier. He found himself telling Lupin that if he ever needed help with anything getting settled to just ask. Edgar gave him a look that he didn’t really know how to read on their way out the door and the usually snarky and cutting man was unusually docile for the rest of the evening.

The weeks turned into a month and then two and the new member of the community seemed to charm everyone he met and yet never seemed quite content. He looked hunted when left alone in a room and took three days off each month for unspecified business away. Wield was almost sure that he was one of Them, but never speculated out loud. After so many years of keeping that part of himself very carefully away from the public eye he wouldn’t begrudge another man’s privacy about his own affairs. Even the occasional dinner conversation never seemed to get too intimately into what he had been getting up to the past few years aside from teaching at a private school, but the look on his face when it was announced that Wield was a Sergeant for the Yorkshire police was startlingly shrewed. Wield was used to reactions ranging from fear to attraction, but this was neither. It was possible he was an ex-con, but though the gossip ran to strangeness it was universally acknowledged that he was a good farmer’s son, quiet and polite all the years that he’d been growing up in their little town. Then again, one never knew, and Edgar Wield preferred to let facts speak for themselves.

Remus was even starting to dip back into the old language with time, the thees and ayes colouring his posh public school accent into something more familiar. Wield watched and waited with a certainty that if he watched and waited long enough that something would happen, a clue would appear, and the puzzle pieces would slide into place. Where Peter Pascoe made leaps and bounds of intuition and dug in little corners that no one else had even noticed and Andy Dalziel plowed straight ahead with no regard for anything, Edgar Wield collected every detail and rearranged them until they made sense. It was not that one method worked any better than the other, but that they all worked differently at different times in different places. In this kind of case – not that it was a case, but just one of life’s small everyday mysteries – he knew that the Fat Man would have just out-and-out asked what Lupin was up to, while Pascoe would have gotten to know him so well that asking wouldn’t seem wrong at all. But Wield being Wield, he watched and waited as he always did.

The first sign was when the previously mentioned old friend came to visit. Nothing was announced, of course, but word got around as it always did that he was shopping at the grocers for two. Nevertheless, he was surprised when he answered a knock on their cottage door and Lupin was standing there with no apparent interest in seeing his employer. For a moment Wieldy wondered if he had somehow given off the impression he was interested in a little extramarital relations, but shoved that thought strongly aside. Lupin was a decent sort of chap and he knew better than to question his own actions in that regard.

He poured them both a cup of tea and, common pleasantries over, let a silence he was famous for take over until Lupin was ready to explain himself. The younger man didn’t fidget under those watchful eyes, to his credit, but he did take a deep breath and let his face go into the kind of serious expression that made him gain easily another ten years.

“Mr Wield, I am given to understand that you are both dedicated to your job and capable of keeping a secret.”

Wield merely nodded, neither confirming or denying either of these facts. Let the tale spill out as the teller had planned and then find the flaws. Lupin pushed his cup to the side and folded his hands on the kitchen table, leaning in slightly, though his eyes roamed around the room to the windows and doors as if he was afraid of being overheard.

“This isn’t easy for me to discuss, but I felt that this was a conversation worth having. The friend who is staying with me has recently left prison after twelve years. He was innocent, but this was one of those cases where it seemed clear from the beginning who was at fault. Even to me. In the interests of keeping things quiet and the past in the past he has been released cleared of all charges, but I am sure you know how even an accusation of murder can colour a person to their neighbours long after it’s been proven they are entirely innocent.”

He was watching for a reaction and Wield thoughtfully gave him none so he continued. Clearly they were getting to the secret part of the story now, because Lupins hands were very carefully still and his voice calm.

“You may have seen his name cross your desk at work. His name is Sirius Black.”

Wield’s face was often described as the Brick Wall, ugly and stoic as it was, so now when he heard that name and remembered warnings of a dangerous escaped criminal, he only said “I see” and took a long sip of his tea. It had been a curious sort of notice sent up from London, with no mention as to which prison he had escaped from or what he had been in jail for, and the picture given of the man himself had been bizarre in the extreme, but he had dutifully had it tacked up on the notice form board for a few months. He had been inclined to think funny buggers were involved, as Dalziel called all manner of spooks, but as a Sergeant and moreover a sensible man, he had not bothered to question. Now he almost wished he had, though it was obvious that the first part of this story had been a careful fiction of the first order. Or the government’s had, and stranger things have happened. Wield was not sure who he trusted more.

Because Lupin looked like bolting if Wield let the silence stretch on any longer he put his cup down in the sink and folded his arms over his barrel chest.

“So then,” he started, more a prompt than a real thought. At least enough to reassure the man he wasn’t going to be reaching for the phone just then.

“It’ll be just for a short while. He needs to get his feet on the ground somewhere quiet and peaceful, the solitary confinement was hard on him, and then he’s going to get out of the country for a while.”

He had to hand it to the man, at least he stuck by his story and slipping the bit about the solitary in there was a nice touch. There had been a time when Wield wouldn’t have even listened to this much before making a quick phone call to the local bobby. But he had changed, and ironically enough it was this place that had done it to him. He had what he had never even hoped for – a quiet place to come home to, and a man who missed him when he ran late nights. And it might have sounded like an excuse to anyone who had never been there, but Enscombe was different. Wield was more than a little hesitant to bring the police cars back into his private little dale.

Perhaps sensing weakness, Lupin added gently, “He’ll do no harm, I promise, and in a few weeks it’ll be like he was never here.”

And though he had no reason to, Wield trusted him on his word. It could cost him his job and his pension. Perhaps the entire life he had built for himself. But he did, he trusted this man for being older than he should be and good with little old ladies, his carefully darned clothes, and his dedication to his friend.

“People even in this little valley have televisions, but” he said quietly, like a low rumble of thunder on the horizon. “I’ll need to meet him”

The relief was palpable as Lupin’s shoulders fell and he stood up and came around the table. He still looked cautious and wary, but Wield could see determination and steel in the jut of his jaw. They shook hands.

“Thank you. It’s about time I had you and Edwin over for dinner some time, don’t you think?” he asked in the same casual tone he used at the bookshop, nothing awry. Yes, a man who knew how secrets were kept.

The next question was whether or not to tell Edwin. Though there had been a time when Wield had kept a very firm wall between his private life and his job, he had found more and more spilling out of him at home without even regard to confidentiality. He liked to come home and work around a problem with Edwin, it had become a part of his thought process, and now that he’d become so accustomed to openness the thought of even a relatively small secret like this coming between them was unbearable. How had he compartmentalized his life for so long? And then there was the fact that Digweed was no man’s fool and he knew how to read Wield like no one else; he would know something was up. Remus had trusted him with this confidence, and he would trust Edwin with it.

So as soon as Edwin got home he let him get settled on a couch after dinner but before he could pick up a book and disappear Wield cut in. He first told the story that Remus had told him, and then his suppositions and impressions. Edwin occasionally interrupted for a point of clarification, but otherwise seemed unnaturally content to allow Wield to talk until he ran out of words and simply [end]

###
(Version 2)

“Remus, what a pleasant surprise!”

Edgar Wield looked up from his sodoku puzzle at the unexpected exclamation and looked out the window into the carefully cultivated front yard. Eavesdropping was a skill often encouraged within the police force and like most things about his job it tended to bleed into his personal life as well. He couldn’t see the front stoop where Edwin was undoubtedly standing with the person he had greeted at the front door, but there was another man and a young boy on the track up to the cottage as well. They were eyeing his motorcycle parked beside the lane where he had left it from his morning tune-up and as he watched the dark-haired man sauntered closer and looked it over, the young boy trailing behind.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust these apparent friends of a friend of Edwin’s, he told himself, just once again a policeman’s healthy instinct for possible trouble best nipped in the bud. He put down the paper and as he walked into the front hall he just caught Edwin asking, “And you’re still settled in Surrey?”

The man in the doorway was even taller than Edwin, who was a healthy height, but stooped slightly to hide it. He had greying brown hair and a slightly scarred face, Wield noticed, with an ugly man’s appreciation for these things, but he looked healthy from the sun and even the wrinkles just gave him a beloved uncle kind of look.

“Yes, still working at Sandust,” the man replied and gave a little smile. Digweed, realizing where he was looking, turned and gave him an apologetic look.

“I’m sorry, this is Edgar Wield, we took up house a few years back. Edgar, this is Remus Lupin, a fellow bookseller I’ve known for some time.”

Though he had come out some years before to the people who mattered most, it was still a bit of an unpleasant jolt whenever it was said out loud to a stranger. Whispers behind hands in the CID he could handle, he knew where he stood there. Here he was just a man, who happened to be living in a house with another man, whom he loved rather deeply. No protection or rank or experience. But the man only smiled and extended his hand to be shaken and as Wield clasped it he saw with sudden insight that this man, too, was gay. Edwin must have picked up on some of what he had been feeling because he slipped a hand to his back and continued talking in the way that only he could to cover Edgar’s inevitable silences.

Of course, not all booksellers were gay, nor were all of Edwin’s friends, but he was sure he had seen a similar flicker of recognition on Lupin’s face, and that would explain the wandering man and child outside. Which brought him back to the original reason why he had come out in the first place.

He interrupted Edwin’s ceaseless flow of words remorselessly and asked “How about inviting them in for a cup of tea?” steering him back onto the proper track of things and getting a mild but knowing smile of thanks from the man in the doorway. It was a rather warm day outside and it looked like they’d been walking a while; Edgar led the way back into the kitchen and put a kettle on while Remus went back outside to gather up the other two who had been following behind.

“It’s just a small cottage, but it’s enough for two men to rattle around in, especially with Edgar spending most of his life at work. It’s not as though we’re planning on taking in children, after all,” Edwin said unsubtlely when they were all seated and the ritual of tea pouring had been completed. Remus seemed to take it in stride, a fact that endeared him immediately to Edgar, who had had the misfortune of falling in love with Edwin Digweed despite it. The boy himself, introduced as Harry Potter, was a quiet and polite little thing, obviously a little shy at attention from the adults, but gave Wieldly a little smile of thanks when he was offered a slice of cake.

The second man, one Sirius Black, seemed to Wield’s expert eye to be having a bit of a sulk and he could be a little sympathetic – it was quite obvious, all things considered, that Remus and Edwin were getting on like a house on fire. Edgar was well aware, in theory, that Edwin had obviously dated other men before him and had possibly been serious about some of them, but it was still unpleasant to be reminded of the fact.

He was perfectly capable of sitting in silence for the better part of an hour while Edwin rattled on, but he was also well aware what his silences could be like and there was no reason to be rude, so he groped for a solution and in a momentary lull where Edwin paused to catch breath he broke in.

“Noticed you taking a look at my bike outside. Ride, do you?”

Black perked up a bit. “That’s yours, is it? Classic, but you’ve kept her in good shape.”

“Mebbe you and little Harry would like to go out and take a look?”

So decided, they finished off the last of their tea and escaped to the warm late afternoon air. Once outside Edgar noticed little twinkling eyes looking at him from a branch and smiling inwardly he went over to collect the marmoset before he could get overprotective of his beloved saviour. Harry followed him over and stood a little ways away, somewhat awed.

“Is that a monkey?” he asked quietly and Edgar crouched down and beckoned him over.

“A marmoset. His name’s Monty and he’s a friend of mine, he’s probably come by to try and steal some tea. Hold out your hand there, no need to be afraid.”

Ignoring Black’s nervous parental hovering, familiar after being friends with Ellie and Peter for so long, Edgar focused on the boy and the monkey, who daintily accepted a piece of cookie the boy had brought out with him and then scooted over to his shoulder to eat it. Harry grinned exuberantly and tentatively stroked his fur with his fingers, readily giving up the rest of his cookie when Monty made a grab for it. Edgar smiled back fondly at the pair before standing up. Black was giving him an assessing look and it seemed like he passed whatever test he had been given because the handsome man suddenly smiled and jerked his head towards the bike.

“So, a Thunderbird, eh?”

When Edwin and Remus came out a little while later the two men were deeply involved in discussing the merits and downfalls of classic motorcycles while Harry and Monty were playing some variation on hide and seek.

###

“Not bad for a pair of southerners,” Edgar opined as the trio trooped back down towards the town.

“Remus is from just down the valley, actually. True Yorkshire tyke. Went away to some fancy boarding school and lost the accent, aside from the fact that you should know better by now than to judge.”

Edgar ignored the jibe and flipped the steaks on the frying pan. It was his night to choose dinner and it had to be something savoury and meaty to make up for all the other days of the week where Edwin forced salads and tofu and who knew what else down his throat.

“And we met at a conference, if you’re going to refuse to ask, and yes, we did sleep together for a little while, but Remus was quite hopelessly in love with that Sirius Black and it never would have worked out between us. Too much alike. Thankfully the two of them had the good sense to get together while they’re still young. He’s Harry’s godfather, Black is, I mean, and they’ve taken him in from what I understand to be completely intolerable conditions while he was in foster care. Yes, a happy ending all around.”

Wield didn’t say anything, but Edwin leaned in and kissed him on the cheek anyways before turning away to dig through the cupboards for dishes.

“But not for the cows that died so that you could fill your heart with colesterol,” he added pointedly, and Edgar sighed in reply at the familiar complaint, although he was smiling inside.

A happy ending. [end]

###
(Version 3)

As with many niche fields, rare book sellers are a rather insular group. It is always the same crowd who come to the fairs and conferences, familiar names and faces appearing and reappearing in newsletters and at estate sales. England wasn’t a very large country when you got down to it, after all, and anyone who had spent any length of time in rural England knew just how small it could be. That went double for small Yorkshire towns.

So two gay rare book sellers who grew up within a few miles of each other in rural Yorkshire having met should be no great surprise to anyone.

###

Their first meeting was, however, not in England at all, but rather France.

Edwin Digweed had been finding his worldly travels circling closer and closer to home of late, and Marseilles was the last stop before a long trip home. He’d spent the prime of his life in exile, doing off-the-books law in the back corners of Commonwealth countries and buying boxes of literature of all shapes and sizes to mail back to the family homestead in Enscombe. Now it was time for the prodigal son to return home. Not that there was anyone waiting for him, of course, but home called.

Remus Lupin travelled for different reasons, ones less easily explained, but he was more firmly tethered to home. England, after all, was where what remained of his family and his culture. Now that he had a steady job with slightly more generous than necessary pay he could save his money for these trips around the world, scrounging for clues of strange rats and snakes in the guise of an academic. Perhaps the fact that he knew it was more than likely futile was the reason why he did it, as he did so many things that the world told him was futile. Perhaps he really did believe that he would find some trace of Peter Pettigrew and hunt him down and kill him. Whether or not he held out hope depended on what side of the bed he woke up on in the morning.

Remus was, however, inclined to take academic pursuits seriously, even when they were only a cover story. A Franco-Anglo bookseller’s convention in Marseilles to be precise, the theme centred on translation and circulation of lesser known cultural relics. Not something that either man had a special interest in, but they both had their reasons for being there.

They first met properly in the bar, at the end of the first day of talks. Conceding to nostalgia, Edwin ordered a single malt scotch dry as opposed to his usual bourbon, earning a smile from the man sitting just a seat down from him at the bar who was drinking the same. The other man was not actually his type at all, tall and thin dressed in rather threadbare clothes, but there was an interesting mix of unwanted age in the largely youthful face and a cynical edge to his smile that Edwin quite liked. When the man finished his drink Edwin asked if he could buy him another and the conversation started from there.

Remus Lupin was currently based in Surrey, but originally from a small town in Yorkshire conveniently just far enough away from Enscombe for the two of them to have never met but still share landmarks. He was encouraging when Edwin confessed that he was thinking of opening up a shop. They talked about their travels and swapped stories of strange jobs they had worked. He was soft-spoken, but witty and refused to let Edwin hog the entire conversation to himself, though he listened quite well. Their eyes met over drinks quite a few times unambiguously.

When the bar was closing and they were about to part ways, Remus produced a business card with Sandust Books embossed on the front and wrote a room number in ball-point pen on the back. Remus Lupin considered himself out as much as one could be without being flamboyant about it, but he was well aware that not everyone was. Chances are they wouldn’t know each other long enough for it to matter. Edwin went up to his room first and hung up his jacket, removed his tie, and undid the top button of his shirt. He assessed himself in the mirror and ran a brush through his hair, already a startling grey that made him look at least a decade or two older than he was. It would have been an asset for a up-and-coming solicitor.

When he had judged enough time had passed for subtlety he slipped his room key into his pocket along with a few necessities and went a-wandering. Remus greeted his knock promptly with a smile and invited him in. There was very little pretense between the two of them, and as soon as the door was closed Remus was advancing with a kind of predatory look that sent a pleasing thrill down Edwin’s spine into his groin. Tall as he was, it was strange to tilt his head back for a kiss, but the clumsiness that might have come with the alcohol was soon smoothed away. Both men knew quite well what they were doing, which was a relief to both of them. There was a little bit of laughter when it came out that neither were used to leading, but they sorted themselves out soon enough and pleasure found a way.

After, sweaty and sticky, half-asleep, Remus invited him to stay until morning and so he did. There followed one of the most bewilderingly comfortable mornings-after he had ever experienced, neither man particularly fussy about showering and then parting on good terms to make their own way to breakfast. It seemed only natural to venture out of the hotel for dinner and then to drinks and back to the hotel bed. Neither was thinking far enough ahead to make anything of it other than what it was – an unexpected pleasure. Easy company. And so they travelled together all the way back to London before parting ways, a brief kiss and a promise to keep in touch relegating the weekend to fond memory.

###

Of course, it doesn’t end there, unlike so many other similar moments in their lives. Edwin found Remus’ business card while doing the washing some while later and put it into his files. He had come home to Enscombe to rent out the farmhouse he had grown up in and the adjoining land to the Guillemards in exchange for a shop with flat above in the town centre. He had moved all the boxes of books that had been piling up and threatening to gather mold for years into the new premises of the newly christened Tall Tale Bookshop and started at sorting things out. Considering his disinclination to selling popular fiction and newspapers his success would depend on his connections and building a client base upon a solid reputation for reliability and value for money. He had no doubt that he could put the work in and become successful at it; he had survived on his wits for long enough and was not lacking in self-confidence. Being a bookseller could not be more difficult than being a lawyer and not nearly so beholden to public opinion.

And to back him up and support him there was always that feeling he had had since he was a child that nothing could end poorly in Enscombe.

The Sandust Bookshop was one of many that Edwin called while attempting to establish himself as a seller of antique and rare books and upon mutual recognition with the name and voice at the end of the line they had immediately fallen back into a kind of comfortable long-distance friendship, easily picked up and easily forgotten immediately afterwards. They weren’t often on each other’s patches, but referred business back and forth or saw each other at sales or conventions. Neither sought to turn it into anything greater than it had been from the beginning and from there they were comfortable.

A long-standing casual friendship turned to trust and understanding, even if there were no heartfelt breakdowns shared or declarations of any sort. It was quite simple, really, for two men who had the basics in common and had so few other people in their lives. Everyone once in a while needs someone who will understand, but is not involved. Edwin knew that there was more to Remus Lupin than he let on, that he was deeply entangled in a long-held unrequited love, and that he could be incredibly stubborn when he wanted to be, especially about money. Remus, on the other hand, knew that Edwin didn’t mean half the things he said, deeply and fiercely loved his home town despite evidence to the contrary, and mostly just wanted someone around who would put up with him.

They settled into their respective lives as lonely booksellers dancing between frivolous attempts at romance, trying to make ends meet, and when fate came calling for the both of them only bits and pieces of the stories made their way to the other, but that’s just the kind of friendship that it was. Remus took in the son of one of his best friends which began a wild journey that was only heightened by a requiting of his unrequited love. Edwin found himself somehow written into a Bronte-esque romance in the space of a week and his entire former life swept aside in order to make room for a tall, dark, and silent policeman.

No one ever said that life had to make sense.

###

Digweed walked into the familiar shop and smiled when he saw the man behind the counter. Remus smiled back and stepped around to give him a hand with the box he was carrying.

“Are these the ones you picked up out Sheffield way?” he asked, eagerly moving into a back room and setting the box down on a vacant corner of a table already stacked with books. Edwin moved a couple stacks aside while Remus opened the flaps and dug in with obvious relish.

“Yes, I know you have a market for them and I fear our local parish priest among others would give me quite the talking to if it got out I was keeping books on black magic in my shop. I was hoping we could perhaps do a swap if you have anything that you’d like taken off your hands.”

It was mostly the shared pleasure of a booklover with which he watched Lupin unpack the box, books lovingly handled and carefully flipped through before being set out. There were only six in total, but two were as large as a folio King James Bible, bound in heavy leather and embossed. Edwin couldn’t help staring at Remus’ quite attractive long fingers carressing the title of one and their eyes met. Remus gave him a quite sly grin and he felt himself flushing a little.

“What are you doing for dinner tonight?”

But before Remus could reply there were footsteps in the doorway and they both turned, probably the picture of guilt. A dark-haired man was glowering from the doorway, arms folded over his chest.

“Remus, need you to find the books you were holding for Mrs Partridge.”

Edwin didn’t bother hiding a knowing smirk and gave Remus a sideways look with arched eyebrows that he returned with puzzlement. Perhaps he was misreading the situation, but to him it certainly looked like protective belligerance. Of course, friends were allowed to feel protective of other friends without necessarily being in love with them, so it wouldn’t do to jump to conclusions, but that wouldn’t stop him from speculating. Leaving the books behind with a fond parting look, Edwin followed Remus out to the front of the shop again and watched as he turned on the charm that had so surprised and attracted Edwin the first time they had met. You wouldn’t expect it of someone who seemed so dusty and quiet, but there was certainly a lot more to Remus Lupin than he showed.

When the middle-aged lady was ushered politely out the front door with her package in hand, they returned to the back room, their black shadow thankfully staying in a chair in the main room.

“So?” Edwin asked as soon as they were out of earshot.

“Well, I have some Brontes with dustjackets that are outside my clientele’s price range and a nice collection of old surveyors maps that is taking up quite a bit of room.” Remus replied thoughtfully.

“About dinner.”

It wasn’t until after Edwin said it that he saw the twinkle in Remus’ eye that gave his hidden laughter away. Grudgingly, never happy at having lost a competition however small, Edwin smiled back.

“No, I’m not doing anything. Where are you staying?”

“London, actually. Think your master could do without you for a night or two?”

A little retaliatory dig, though there were no barbs to their words. Remus frowned seriously for a moment and his eyes unconsciously drifted towards the doorway through which said shop owner was sitting.

“I think I might. It’s not so much a matter of him letting me out, more whether or not I can trust him to take care of things on his own.”

Edwin nodded sympathetically as someone who would never hire help for exactly that reason. Nevermind that it was Remus who was ostensibly the help.

Finally, Remus shrugged and smiled ruefully as his hands returned to the books piled carefully on the table, stroking a frayed corner of one worn fabric cover. “Why not?”

The sadness that flickered across his eyes sobered Edwin from the satisfaction he would have felt and he only nodded in reply. Remus ducked his head for a moment and Edwin let him. Just because he hadn’t ever experienced what his friend was feeling didn’t mean he was insensitive. It would be something they would have to talk about later in the evening.

###

When Edwin heard the motorcycle engine on the street his grey head automatically turned towards the window, but then, confused, he turned and looked back to the seat opposite him where Enscombe’s only motorcyclist currently sat. Edgar Wield only raised his eyebrows right back and ducked his head back down to his book. For a policeman sometimes he could be remarkably uncurious, Edwin thought, but then he had often been accused not entirely incorrectly of being worse than an old grandmother for gossip.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait long for the motorcycle to pull up in front of his doorstep, and unexpected context made him take a moment to recognize the lanky figure that unfolded itself from the back and removed its helmet. When he did he hurried out to the front step before the pair were caught by Dora Creed’s sermons.

“Remus!” he said loudly before the engine was cut off, stepping forward enthusiastically. They hugged briefly and he found himself faced with the dark haired proprietor of his friend’s book shop.

“You’ve met Sirius, of course,” Remus said politely, and they shook hands, this time with a distinctly challenging aspect to it. Sirius, because he didn’t like how friendly the two were, and Edwin because he could never step down from a challenge.

With that over with, he ushered them both in, Sirius passing through first and exchanging a nod with Wield, who had, in fact, seemed to have put away his book for a moment to watch their exchange outside. Tea had to be made, of course, and Edgar was looking like he was making for the escape before Edwin gave him a look.

“Of course, you haven’t met, how silly of me. Remus, this is Edgar Wield, he’s taken up with me in a cottage here in Enscombe. Edgar, Remus Lupin, fellow bookseller, we’ve known each other quite a few years now. And his friend, Sirius Black.”

After the introductions had gone around, the odd two out stopped glowering quite so much at each other and relaxed a bit while Edwin and Remus caught up. The first news of course being their recent attachments, which could only be discussed after Edwin not-so-subtlely encouraged Edgar to ask about Sirius’ bike like a mother trying to get two obstinate children to play together. Once they were out the door it was much easier to talk behind their backs about the whole ramp-up to relationship that had taken place for Edwin in such a short span of time. As a man who could never deal with children, it was the taking in of a foster child that attracted most of his surprise towards Remus’ news. There were the usual admonitions about his fruitless love towards the man outside with Edwin’s new partner, but as always Remus deflected them by saying he was perfectly happy the way he was. It was deeply saddening, but there was no convincing him otherwise. [end]

Draco Malfoy walked in on his son having sex with another man.

They hadn’t even had the sense to close the door behind them, and with both facing away he could back out of the solarium silently and they never knew he was there. His mind was curiously blank until he arrived in his study and carefully closed the heavy oak door behind him. It was then that he allowed the knowledge of what he had just seen possess his mind.

His son, lean, unmistakable, naked and fucking a tanned, muscled, shaggy-haired boy over the breakfast table. Hard enough to make it shake, but with their hands clasped together against the wood. He felt like laughing and then crying and then throwing up, passing his fluttering, useless hands over his face as a sudden profound exhaustion crashed over him.

It wasn’t even that his son was gay – this they had discussed simply but warmly the preceding Christmas holidays. Draco had seen the signs, knew all of them, and had told the boy to sit down in front of the fire after dinner and told him what he understood. About family, and trust, and responsibility, and most important of all, choice. A teenaged Scorpius had seemed stunned that his father, the most uptight and reserved man he’d ever known, could sit and quietly and lazily talk about sexual diseases, methods for discretion, and how to pay a prostitute. The boy was so sharp, so clever it almost scared Draco, and he had done his research, but reality was so very different from books and rumour.

Looking at him was like looking at an old photograph of himself, but with darker eyes, softer features, longer hair, subtler posture. Astoria had left her mark, but Socrpius was his father’s son, and now, standing in his exquisitely furnished study, it was his father’s chest that squeezed. He almost laughed at himself when he automatically touched his chest and drew his fingers away with a whispered charm to check to make sure it wasn’t a literal heart attack. His boy was an adult and he was an old man.

But he still walked without a cane and reading glasses only made him look delightfully distinguished over his morning paper. When he sat down in the plush but straight-backed chair behind his desk and spread his hands over the leather desk mat he looked out the window at the finches on the hedges and allowed himself to realize that the body under his son’s had been uncommonly similar to that one of one Harry Potter.

All he really had to have seen to know was the hair. No one else kept a spiky, disjointed mop like that, and Draco had spent too many years watching Harry Potter to not recognize it anywhere, even under the most stressful of conditions. He exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and allowed a small, tired smile crease his lips at the irony of fate.

He tapped what looked like a small standing woman’s vanity mirror on the corner of his desk and when it clouded opaque said quietly but clearly, “Harry Potter”.

There was a long wait as the smoke swirled in soothing patterns and Draco resisted the urge to drum his fingers, nor did his fingers go anywhere near his mouth, nor did he adjust his distinctly thin hair, but he did just briefly touch the sigil ring on his finger. He waited coolly and patiently, formulating his thoughts into succinct points that he was sure wouldn’t last more than a few seconds once he saw that face on his screen because that was what happened when he talked with Harry Potter and always had. But for the sake of his sanity, he organized and aligned his thoughts into careful compartiments as he had done his entire life and felt himself watching himself, amazed at the deep and profound calm that had been over him this entire event. In the next room, his son was fucking his former school rival’s son, a man he had hated for a significant portion of his life, and not only that, but the son of the richest, most powerful, and most influential wizard of their time. And yet, he was barely surprised, let alone angry or inclined to go demand an explanation. What had happened to the passion of youth?

He was only mildly irked when a receptionist came onto the glass in front of him and asked if he had an appointment. He said the words that he had heard his father say before him too many times to count: “Tell him it’s Draco Malfoy calling and he will wish to speak with me”. Usually those centuries of breeding were sufficient on their own, but this one was a tough little thing and looked over her glasses at him feigning disinterest. There had been a time when he would have charmed her or raged violently depending on his mood, but now he merely said, “Tell him it is regarding his youngest son.”

She looked sceptical, but he kept his frosty gaze on her in a way that brokered no argument and she became a blurred sketch for a few moments, words spoken in the background in audible. She became visible again looking chastened but not inclined to humility; Slytherin, Draco guessed idly after she told him she was transferring him in.

He opened with: “I hope in the future you will put sufficient fear of the name of Malfoy into your assistants, Potter.” This earned him a chuckle and a moment to assess. The clarity in these things was not fantastic, but Draco’s mind’s eye still saw Harry Potter as nineteen years old and the differences that age had wrought always threw him. The separation hadn’t treated him as well as Draco’s had him, but there had been a few fundamental differences in their marriages to begin with. Not something they were here to discuss now, he reminded his straying thoughts, and returned to the path he had laid out before himself.

“Something about Albus, Malfoy?” Harry prompted, not bothering to hide his concern as Draco would have. Draco himself merely wished he could pace while talking and shifted restlessly in his seat. Better to get to the point before the limits of the Gryffindor’s small attention span was reached or thought he was just getting melancholy in his old age and wanted a familiar face to talk to.

“Were you aware that our sons are buggering each other senseless?”

A slight exaggeration, perhaps, but if they were brave enough to be doing it in broad daylight where anyone could walk in they certainly had to be comfortable enough with each other. Draco savoured the looks of surprise, mingled anger and confusion, and then reluctant acceptance as he always had; catching Harry Potter off guard not being something that he could do daily as he once did. Rather than a curse and a threat he got merely a long silence and then a slow shake of the head, though he noted how Potter’s hands clenched on the desk in front of him into two fists and then unclenched and then clenched again. Twisting his ring idly he gave a slow smirk and tilted his head to the side slightly to indicate that he was being truthful here and was mutually thrown by this revelation. Potter cleared his throat and asked, “How do you know?”

“Saw them, just now,” answered Draco. He neglected to elaborate, but Potter didn’t ask for more detail, which surprised him. Potter always wanted more details, perhaps he had learnt his lesson after all these years. But not everything had changed. He was clearly still processing and nearly knocked over an inkwell fumbling around uselessly doing the opposite of tidying up in his confusion. Really, he would always be hopeless.

“What – what are you planning on doing?” he asked finally, looking hopelessly like a deer caught in headlights. Fearless leader in battle, useless child in emotions. Not that Draco himself was particularly more experienced, but simply more sophisticated. “A while ago I told him his relationships were his own business, an expirament which I am now regretting. He is well aware of our history, no doubt he believes I would castrate him before tolerating him in bed with one of your spawn,” he replied with a grimace in Harry’s direction who gave him a well-worn glare in return.

It was so easy to fall back into the old patterns. The banter, the taunts, the well-scarred old wounds. Harry twisted his wand between his fingers and some light sparks came flying out the end. He glared at it as if it had said something aloud and then turned that frustrated glare back on the Two-Way Mirror.

“Right.”

And because Draco Malfoy knew Harry Potter like the back of his hand, he summoned his most haughty glare right back and pointed a finger at the determined image in front of him.

“Listen to me, Potter. Do not confront that boy.” Salazar’s bones, listen to him, giving parenting advice to the Boy Who Lived. His life was a giant cosmic joke, of this he was certain. But he continued because he knew he was right, even if he wasn’t a perfect father either, and too few people were left in the world who would give Harry Potter a scolding. “If you do it will be all shouting and flailing and he is not a bloody Gryffindor like you to fight it out and then go back to normal. He is a Slytherin and for us, words matter. You will tell him that you love him the next time that you see him, and I will leave hints for my uncommonly clever son to pick up on and thus transfer to your surprisingly not unclever son the belief that he should speak to his father about his current relationship.”

Even as he was speaking, Draco could see Harry struggling against the words, wishing to interrupt, and it took all of his considerable knowledge of the late Professor Snape’s tactics to keep him silent until he was finished. And once he was finished, Potter had nothing to say, predictably enough, and only nodded twice, the first more uncertain than the second. “You’re right,” he said finally, quietly, and something nearing fondness reached into Draco’s eyes and tugged on a smile. How he had struggled for so many years to get those words to pass through those lips. What age and experience had done to them couldn’t have been done by anything else.

He ended the conversation with a suitably flippant Ciao and sighed in relief as the mirror went misty and then reflective once again. He was sweating and sagging more than he had any right to be, considering how well he had just handled the situation, but it had taken its emotional toll. He wondered how Dumbledore, and then Snape, would have reacted. He wondered how his father would have reacted. He turned in his seat to look at the large formal portrait of his parents hanging on the side wall over the giant fireplace and thought perhaps he could detect the tiniest of scowls marring his father’s haughty features, but he hadn’t been in the habit of conversing on subjects of this nature with his father when he had been alive and he certainly wasn’t going to start now that he was dead.

No, what he was going to do was to go upstairs, wash, change into a light suit for dinner, and tell the house-elves to prepare something with fish and alfredo and a full-bodied white wine. The two boys – whom he should have known were better than friends in hindsight – would be drawn by the scent of food after their exercise, as teenaged boys were wont to do, and Draco would divert talk to the direction of parents, expectations, and the nature of love. They would eat on the back patio, it was warm enough out with the stones charmed to radiate heat, and it would be a clear night if Draco’s Quidditch eye wasn’t wrong.

A week or two would pass and he would recieve a not unexpected floo call from an assistant to an assistant to the Great Harry Potter for a lunch meeting, and then another when Granger was brought in as another expert opinion. Finally, they had dinner all of them together, four men, two well on their way into old age and the other two just blooming into adulthood. There would be a formal announcement from the sons to their fathers because Scorpius at least knew how to do things properly and Draco Malfoy would feel a very small facet of himself cry inside to see how fiercely they looked at each other in love. Outwardly, he only reached out and touched his son’s arm as the two Potters embraced, but when they looked each other in the eye he found himself saying only, “You are my son.”

He had tried so hard to be a good father and he wished now he had the ability to express his pride and love better. His son, his past, his future, ducked his head and then it rose again with a small, shy smile, and then turned back to his partner to hold hands under the table.

Draco felt old. His oldest enemy, perhaps his oldest friend, was sitting across the table from him, talking animatedly with their grown sons about plans for after Hogwarts. It was not an unpleasant feeling. All was well.

All of them had been in situations where the lines between personal life and the job had blurred, where a sudden danger to your family or friends arose simply because they were your family or friends. For Pascoe it would always be Franny Roote. For Wield it was the Wordman. Not in the way that it had been personal for young Bowler, of course, but it had still struck far too close to home.

Edwin had been there.

Wield had known that with his shiny-new relationship there would be even more to lose than ever before. He just hadn’t understood that until that day, when the body was found and a part of him became a gibbering lunatic that had to be dragged away forcefully from where Digweed was left to stand with the other witnesses.

That part of him that was screaming at him that he never should have let him out of his sight didn’t let him see how angry his partner was until he called later that night to say he wouldn’t be home for dinner.

“Of course, your work comes first,” he’d snapped and hung up.

Wield had replaced the receiver mechanically, staring at the wall, feeling sick to his stomach. He knew how Digweed felt about police, it was one of the the first things that had come between them, and he had promised to make it work. Days off were supposed to be sacred. It wasn’t as though he’d planned for another murder to take place at an event he hadn’t even wanted to go to. But it was as much the fact that their few days off was ruined by something like this as that they wouldn’t have an opportunity to have the argument. He would get home late, eat leftovers – if Edwin deigned to leave him any – and then go to sleep. He would probably be lucky if he got a goodnight out of it.

But that didn’t stop him from shuddering when he thought about the myriad possible ways an insane killer could have chosen differently, chosen one of the five people in that room he particularly cared to see alive.

Some poor plod finally got up the courage to snap him back to consciousness and he went back to work.

When he got home he ate his dinner cold and in the dark, brushed his teeth mechanically without turning on the bathroom light, and then crept into the shared bedroom. He could hear Edwin’s deep, heavy breathing, but knew from the lack of snoring he wasn’t really asleep. Nevertheless, he was quiet as he undressed and careful when he sat down on the edge of the bed and eased himself under the covers.

There was a long silence as he settled on his back and closed his eyes, calming himself and quelling the ache in his chest. There would be time enough after this case was over to make amends.

But he’d waited so long already.

His hand felt like an anvil as he slid it under the sheet to touch Edwin’s back, felt him start a little, a sharp inhale.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered plaintively at the dark ceiling, feeling kind of useless and adolescent. Another problem in their relationship – Edwin rarely apologized for his sharp tongue, and Edgar so often just fell into silence rather than argue, stonewalling. He didn’t want to have one of those arguments now.

Edwin finally stirred and rolled onto his back, tilting his head over on the pillow to look. He let out a sigh and the back of his hand brushed against Wield’s fingers.

“Of course not, my dear boy. You couldn’t have helped it.”

Edgar Wield felt his heart leap at this, for Digweed, short speech of acceptance. He didn’t know how to express his profound gratefulness for this thing they had here, in this magical dale and cabin. He just let out a sigh and managed a small private smile between the two of them, forcing Digweed to smile back and lower his eyelids and tilt his chin in that way that invited a kiss. So he did, tasting liquer on his breath and relishing the feeling of his fingers gently sliding into his hair.

It was going to be okay. He moved himself closer to the middle of the bed and wrapped his fingers around Edwin’s hand, who drew him closer by pulling it over his chest. Pressed together, if not entirely spooning, they fell asleep, even if Edwin was prone to snoring and Edgar always slept with one eye open.

Death would take Edwin from him at some point in their lives, and it was a painful truth that Edgar would be most likely to be around to lose him. But for now… it was best to make the most of every day together.