Pathos - A Duskwood Fanfiction

Chapter 1

His clothes still smelled faintly of smoke.

And not the soothing, familiar smell of wood smoke; it was an acrid, metallic scent that seemed to permeate and linger in the fabric even after several attempts to rid the clothes of it by soaking them in the motel bathtub.

The motel owner, Mrs. Walter, had offered several times during his stay to wash his clothes for him in her personal washing machine, but he had always politely refused. Telling her that he would likely be moving on shortly seemed to keep her kind offers at bay, but didn't stop her from leaving a daily tray of food at his door with a single, discrete knock.

'When was the last time that you had a home cooked meal?' she had asked him upon coming to the office counter to accept his payment for his second week of stay. Her tone had been casual, almost teasing, but the concern rendering her gaze into a deep watchfulness as she scanned his face belied a different intent.

The question had taken him aback slightly as he stared at her wordlessly for a moment, his thoughts racing as he realized that he could not remember. His gaze had dropped automatically to the counter as he swiftly counted out the bill amount in cash, extending the money towards her as he offered a half smile and a crooked shrug.

'I prefer takeout anyway,' he had said lightly, deepening his smile as much as he could muster before moving to turn away. 'Keep the change,' he had said as he backed away from the hand proffering his remit, and was about to open the door to the motel exterior when her voice made him pause in his step.

'Alex?'

He had looked over his shoulder towards her, his expression questioning. Anyone else, he would have walked away already, feigning ignorance to their call, but there was something about Mrs. Walker that made it difficult for him to be entirely aloof to her. Perhaps it was the heaviness with which premature age had carved into her face, creating deep worry lines around her eyes and on her forehead that seemed to deepen fractionally every time that he saw her.

Or perhaps it was watching her stand outside in the rain, smoking a cigarette, as her son Alfie pushed a red toy truck through the puddles on the driveway happily. The emptiness of her stare as she watched her son was palpable to Jake, even through the window that he was watching them out of, several doors away. It was a stare of fatigue, brokenness. It was a stare that Jake knew well, having caught it in his own eyes through the black gloss of his computer screen when it would power down for his scarce attempts for sleep.

'Alfie really likes you,' she had said, using a slight turn of her head to indicate the young boy that had been sitting on the floor of the office, methodically arranging small toy cars into perfect, exacting lines. 'I can't remember the last time he's said that about anyone, not even Gray.'

Jake had followed her gaze to land on Alfie, who continued in his task as though there were no-one else in his vicinity. Alfie's clothes and face had been streaked with dirt and dust from the gravel driveway that he perpetually seemed to be playing in, and his expression was blank as he slowly drove each toy car up to align with the previously placed one.

Jake had watched as Alfie painstakingly moved the car backwards and forwards by milimetres, ensuring an exact and invisible straight line that shored up their respective bumpers. Jake had known without looking any closer that if he were to take a precision ruler and measure their alignment, it would be correct down to the nanometre. Jake really respected a meticulous eye for detail, and had found something of an unspoken kinship with the boy as he had been watching him play over the last few weeks.

'Next time I come by, we can arrange them according to hue gradients,' he had replied, noting with an internal smile as Alfie's hand movements froze almost imperceptibly. As quickly as they had stopped, they resumed, but Jake knew the boy had heard him.