Chapter Text
That night, there was a merry atmosphere at the Glass Dial.
“Hey Dom, bring here those bottles, and come join us!” said Easton cheerfully.
Ivo was sitting by the counter, leaning on Satinder and smirking playfully; she raised the glass of Porto in her hand “We've got to celebrate!”
Even Pamina looked rather relaxed, giving them a soft smile.
Dom came holding several bottles of beer, wine, liquors and other unidentified kinds of booze (Easton and Satinder always made sure that their hideout had a stockpile of booze, you just couldn’t rely on the quality of it).
Even without drinking, the tourmish boy was already feeling excited and a bit light-headed, the adrenaline rush still running in his blood after the successful escape of that evening.
It had been a real hit: their trophies (a little vial of shade and a coloured handkerchief) were sitting on a round table, casting a mix of warm orange and deep purple light over the room.
“Where is Ezra?” asked Dom, taking a seat near Ivo, who was lighting a cigarette only for the sake of looking even more elegant.
“I think he is in the back” said Satinder “He told me he had some paper-work to do. Don’t worry Dom, I’m sure he will join us as soon as he can”.
Easton sat up, with a mischievous smile on his face that promised troubles.
“You know what? I think I’ll go fetch our professor”
Dom watched him leaving.
“Maybe we should…”
“What” interrupted Ivo laughing “-try to make Lynch behave like a reasonable person? Telling him to leave Ezra alone? It would be like telling a cat to not chase a little bird.”
Satinder joined Ivo in her laughs, already starting to get tipsy.
“Ezra doesn’t need our help for this” assured him Pam “if he really needs to finish his work, he’ll just send Easton back. If he gives in, on the other hand… it would do him good. He really needs some rest from his duties.”
***
In the little room that Ezra used as his office at the Glass Dial, the desk faced the wall opposite to the door. Upon it, a dusty lamp shed just enough light to let Ezra make out what he was writing.
“So” said Easton grabbing him from behind “are you gonna join us, or do I need to carry you?”
“Easton!-” Ezra recovered quickly from his surprise, and stood up “- stop fooling around, I don’t have time for you”
Easton still had one arm over his shoulder, his fingertips fiddling with the collar of the white shirt.
“C’mon Kelly, we gotta celebrate tonight! They all worked really hard - We all worked really hard. Don’t deny us your charming company.” said the longshoreman, giving him a slick smile.
“I suppose I could join you all for a brief time” sighed Ezra “After I’m done with this, I mean.”
“Oh, no! You gotta come now, or I’ll leave you only the worst beer to drink; I’ll ask Ivo and Satinder to help me finish all the wine and whiskey.”
Ezra cracked a short laugh.
“Knowing the three of you, I can tell this is not a bluff.”
Easton fixed his eyes on Ezra’s, his voice now softer.
“So?”
Ezra seemed to consider for a moment.
Then he turned around; a look of uneasiness taking over again his face. After years, Easton was still unable to decipher it - what was it? Fear? Just sadness? Or both? He couldn’t tell.
“Easton, I truly need to finish these letters. People can’t start wondering the reason why I’ve recently been too busy to write. We need to be extra careful, especially after tonight”
“Can’t you just write something like ‘ Hi, here everything’s fine. How ‘bout you? ’ and be done?”
“Yes Easton, that is exactly the kind of response professor Balthazar is expecting from me.” Ezra replied rolling his eyes with the hint of a smile, while sorting out the papers on the desk.
“ ‘Professor Balthazar’ ? Is that a real person, or you are actually just writing to your beloved Lord Hare -”
“Oh- Stop it already!” snapped Ezra, shoving him away.
“What, so it’s true?” chuckled Easton.
Ezra was about to answer something, then seemed to reconsider. He took a deep breath.
“Listen, just- just go have fun and get as drunk as you wish, alright? I- I can’t. I have responsibilities toward the team and-”
Easton rolled his eyes.
“Oh, right, you and your responsibilities ”
“Yes, Easton, me and my responsibilities . I too wish I could join you, you know? But there are moments in which I have to do what is ought to be done, instead of what I’d like to do.”
“Yeah, it’s never you, it’s always some matter of high morality that shallow people like me cannot understand.”
“I didn’t say that” Ezra replied, irritated “but admittedly, I don’t think you conceive the concept of ‘responsibility’ the same way I do, so-”
“Ya know what, that’s actually true. I don’t get it. I don’t get why you feel like it’s your duty to feel miserable all the time. You think I’m bad for not feeling the same way?”
“That’s not what I said!” shouted Ezra.
“Oh well, you don’t need to” Easton’s grin was starting to look more like a growl “You are always feeling guilty or distressed about something, and- look at you right now! We are all celebrating, and you are here worrying over something as always.”
Ezra turned his face away.
“I don’t see how does this concern you-”
“It concerns me because I can’t- I can’t stand it! Why can’t you for once just be happy like everyone else!?”
“Yeah, well- do you think I like to be worried? Do you think I like feeling crushed under the weight of all this- the guilt, the responsibility, the fear of what might happen to us? I wish I could be like you Easton, to be always- always easy-going about everything, and to only have to care about myself, and to never feel guilty about lying or stealing or-”
Easton’s angry expression turned sour. The heat of the argument had suddenly frozen over in his eyes, leaving a glacial stare.
“-no, wait. Easton, what I meant to say is that-”
“No no Ezra, you are right. I’m not as good as you are. Everyone can see that. And you know why? Because if being good means to be like you- ” Easton’s look hardened “if it means to give up happiness - then I’d rather be bad. And I wouldn’t accept anyone - me included - who chooses otherwise.”
Ezra lowered his eyes. There was a moment of silence, the background noise of Ivo’s screams and Satinder laughters emerging like a misplaced reminder of what happiness sounded like.
“Well... right now, you don’t seem very happy to me”
Easton lowered his eyes as well. He felt a lump in his throat; he couldn’t risk to meet Ezra’s gaze.
“BOOM-YA!” shouted Ivo, bursting the door open. She made some steps forwards, already starting to lose her balance. Satinder grabbed her from behind before she could fall to the floor, then she looked at the two surprised men in the room.
“We came to check on the two of you. Easton, it was taking you sooo long, I thought he had knocked you down with a book!” she laughed, then faced Ezra “man, you lost me five bucks”
Ivo was leaning heavily on Satinder, not caring to gain her balance back.
“Well, I had bet on the two of them making out, so we are even actually” she commented, before bursting in laughs. Satinder was about to follow her lead, then she looked at them.
“Guys… is everything alright?”
Easton was the first to recover. He smiled affably.
“I think Mr. Kelly is too busy to spend the evening with the rest of us. We’d better leave our professor alone and let him do his work.”
Dom, who had in the meanwhile arrived, was standing in the doorway, being the little room already quite crowded. Ivo noticed him.
“Oh c’mon Ezra, Mr Valdes really wanted you to play the piano!”
Dom looked flustered.
“No no Mr Kelly! I don’t want to bother you to play the piano if you don’t want to- I mean, if you- if you don’t have time to play.”
Easton took Ivo and Satinder under his arms.
“C’mon ladies and gentlemens, let’s give Mr Kelly some space, and go have a proper celebration for tonight…”
They were about to leave, when Ezra stopped them.
“Wait!” he exclaimed “I… I can actually join you for a little while.”
Dom cheered up immediately with a big smile “Great!”
Easton snickered “I had forgot that Mr Kelly can’t keep himself from showing off his piano skills when asked to.”
“Oh, c’mon Easton” Ezra replied, smiling slightly as he followed Dom out of the room “you would appreciate my playing just as much as Mr Valdes, if you only weren’t so jealous of it”
“Ohhhhh, buurnnn” Ivo joked giggling, while she was almost being carried by Satinder out of the room.
“Me jealous!? Of what?” Easton cried grinning, before following them.
They found Pamina sitting by the counter, waiting for them.
“So, did you convince him?”
“Well…” Ivo said “Mr Valdes asked very nicely and…”
“That’s not what I did!” Dom interrupted “Mr Kelly said he can join us… for a bit, at least.”
Pam smiled.
“That’s good”.
Ezra was soon sitting at the piano and listening to Dom, who was humming him a melody.
“You mean… this one?” he said, starting to play a fast-paced valzer.
“Yeah, that’s the one! I like it so much, Mr Kelly!”
“I’m glad it is of your liking” Ezra replied, smiling softly. He always looked very calm when playing the piano, even when the music was not. The furious movement of his hands, jumping from an octave to another, never reached above his forearm.
Easton was drinking a beer near Pam, watching the pianist with an amused look.
“Did you hear us arguing?”
Near them, Ivo and Satinder were playing with Pam’s puppets, making imitations of each other, almost choking on their drinks.
“If by ‘you’ you mean all of us, then no. Dom was being held hostage in a tickle fight between those two.”
“You weren’t playing?”
Pam smiled.
“Of course I was. Still, I was able to listen to your quarrel.”
“So… what do you think of it?”
Pam took a drag of smoke from her cigarette.
“I think that you both argued over something stupid, because you can’t come to terms with what really bothers you. As usual.”
Easton said nothing and took another drink of beer, still watching the piano and its player.
***
That night they had a lot of fun. They all joined Ivo and Satinder in their game of imitations with Pam’s puppets. Miss Hali then had to leave about midnight, since she had to get up early the following morning. Not much later, Pamina and Dom got set to accompany the drunk Mr Keys to his lodgings. Ezra had ended up quite drunk himself, but refused to come with them.
“I- I can’t let anyone see me in this state- I’ll… I’ll just spend the night here.”
Dom wanted to spend the night there as well, to make sure that Mr Kelly was alright, but Pam persuaded him otherwise.
“When does your night-shift at the docks start?” Pamina asked Easton.
“Don’t worry, it’s not until three o’clock… and I can get there a bit late if needed. I’ll make sure that he sleeps nice and cozy.”
“You should try to get some sleep too, you know”
“Nah, I slept a lot this morning.”
Pam shook her head.
“You are really childish. You lie even when you know I won’t be fooled by it.”
“Eh, I just think it’s always worth a try.”
Pam patted his shoulder. Then she caressed Ezra’s hair.
“Take care” she said with a soft voice, before leaving with Dom and Ivo.
Easton lit a cigarette. He looked at Ezra, who was resting his head on the counter.
“Well… do you plan to sleep there, or are you waiting for me to make you a comfy bed?”
“Neither” groaned the other man “just give me the blankets in the chest, will you? I’ll sleep on the floor”
“Well, sure enough I wasn’t expecting you to sleep on the table” chuckled Easton as he got a pair of dusty rugs from the wooden chest.
“Do you really want to sleep with these? I think you’d be better off with just your jacket”
“Who-” he gave a big yawn “-who cares? It’s only… only for tonight.”
Easton was about to tease him about his work left unfinished. Then he reconsidered. He took a long drag of smoke, watching as Ezra entangled himself with the blankets on the floor.
“Do you need a hand?”
Ezra grumbled something. Eventually, he found himself unable to move, his body completely merged with the rugs. He sighed, and rested his head on the floor. He closed his eyes. Easton turned off the lights, and lit a few candles. In the dim darkness, Easton’s cigarette looked like a blazing ember.
At one point, the silence was broken by Ezra’s short, tired laugh.
“I thought you were sleeping.”
“pffahahah- no I’m… I’m not.”
Easton took another puff of smoke.
“What’s so funny?”
“I just- I just thought about how I’ve… ended up as much drunk as Mr Keys… with the difference that he did it on purpose, and I did not.”
“So you regret tonight’s fun?”
“No- ahah- I don’t regret it. I know I shouldn’t have got drunk, but I don’t regret that either…”
He sighed again.
“… I wish I could always feel like this, the way I feel right now… wouldn’t it be great, Easton? If I- pfahah- if I was always like this… maybe it would be better… maybe you’d like me better like this… or even love me… ”
He searched the darkness, looking for Easton’s face, but he couldn’t see it. He could only see his unmoving cigarette.
“ … but I can’t get drunk just to relieve the guilt…”
He cracked another short laugh.
“Can you imagine it, Easton? If I- If I were to get drunk every time I feel guilty? If I got drunk every time I think about… about Dom joining us… every damn time I think about you… every time… every time I think about that poor man… sometimes I feel like I’m just using him, you know? I can’t… I can’t even look at the mirror, when I think about that… Easton...”
There was no answer, only silence and darkness. He called again Lynch’s name.
“Yes?”
“... Easton, I think… Easton, I think I might throw up.”
***
Luckily, Easton was able to find a bucket before Ezra puked on the floor (and possibly over himself, tangled as he was in the blankets). When he switched on the lights, he found out that what had looked like a bucket under the feeble candlelight, was actually an old, big boot. But it didn’t matter.
He turned off the little spirit stove, and poured Ezra a cup of stale tea.
“I’m about to leave… is there something else you need?”
Ezra was crouched on the floor, his back against the cold wall.
“No, thank you.”
“Alright. Have a nice night, then- or what is left of it.”
He was on the first step of the stairs, when Ezra called him.
“Easton-”
“... Yes?”
“Right now, I can’t recall exactly what I said earlier, when we were arguing… but if I said something cruel or… something that hurt you, I’m sorry then.”
Easton smirked.
“Actually, I was expecting your excuses for finishing all the whiskey...”
“Well, I think it’s mostly your fault, if I drank too much this night!”
Easton kept grinning as he left the room. He stopped for a moment. Without turning, he said aloud:
“Anyway, I like you better sober.”
Then he left.