" last night "

Chapter 24

     Even though he hadn't been able to spend as much time with Darion as he would have liked, Windham couldn't wipe the smile off of his face. He just couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that Darion loved him in the same way that he loved Darion.
To say the least, Windham was absolutely elated.
By the Void, it was impossible for him to take his mind off of how the man smiled at him and gently touched him and kissed him—
He shook himself out of his enamored daze and refocused on sharpening his throwing knives. He had already almost sliced his hand open after the knife had slipped from the whetstone.
Most people became a bit leery of him once they discovered he possessed an array of throwing knives in his coat, even fellow overseers. It made absolutely no sense to him; half of them also carried throwing knives. Sure, they didn't have nearly as many as him, but that's likely because they overestimate themselves.
Windham nearly stabbed himself in the hand when Overholt suddenly kicked open the door to the warehouse, barging in like he owned the place. Quietness was definitely not his strong suit.
     "Hey! There you are, I've been looking all over the damn place for you!" the kid called out, sprinting over to Windham.
     Windham turned and glared over at him, knife still in hand. "Are you looking to die today?" he said jokingly.
     Overholt assumed an overly wide and comical fighting stance. "Hell no! I'm a bad bitch, you can't kill me!"
     Windham couldn't help but snicker at that, setting the knife down and standing up. "Next time, please do not just ram the door down like that. I nearly cut myself, rat."
     "...Sorry, Windham."
     Well, that was one way to make him feel guilty. No matter what kind of trouble Overholt got into, it was hard for Windham to stay mad at him.
     He ruffled his hair and offered him a small smile. "Don't beat yourself up, it's fine, just be more careful. Now what's so important?"
     "Oh, right!" The trainee had almost forgotten his original purpose storming into the warehouse. "How did the talk with Darion go? Was he overly snappy? I told him that if he made you upset, I would cut off his—"
     "Outsider's eyes, kid, calm down— It was fine, everything went fine." He planned on leaving it at that, but then he began to process what Overholt had said. "Wait, what do you mean you told him that if he upset me that you would cut him? You planned out what he was going to tell me?"
     Suddenly the ceiling became very interesting to the adolescent. "Oh, huh, would you look at those skylights."
     "Overholt..."
     "They sure do let in a lot of sky...light."
     "Cameron Easa Overholt."
     Oh shit, was the only thing running through Overholt's mind, despite him not being in any form of danger. "Sir?"
     Windham visibly cringed at being called sir. "Well, first of all, knock it off with the honorifics. Second of all, when did you talk to Darion?"
     "Few days ago. Thought it would be obvious since I was the one who told you to meet with him, though," the younger overseer pointed out, crossing his arms.
     He shrugged. "Good point, I suppose. That still doesn't answer my primary question, though: did you or did you not plan out what he was going to say?"
     Overholt looked away for a second. "...Not all the way through. I did tell him that he needs to stop being a wuss and actually talk to you, but I think he had already started making the plans to do that. The guy that he asked to pass the word onto you, though, was an ass, and didn't tell either of us jack shit."
     Windham snorted, absentmindedly twirling the knife between his fingers. "Who did he talk to?"
"Probably Clarke, he told me the guy had a tin of cigars poorly hidden in his coat and wasn't doing his job."
"Yeah, that sounds like Clarke," Windham replied, rolling his eyes.
Overholt snickered. "But anyway, why didn't you stay behind with Darion? It's not like Warton needs your help tonight. You have a few hours to kill."
Windham raised an eyebrow. "Maybe, but I don't have any time available to waste tomorrow. I don't have leave until next week, if that."
Overholt tilted his head curiously. "Why would you need until tomorrow?"
He averted his gaze, unsuccessfully ignoring his physical embarrassment. "...Moving on."
"Rude," he muttered, rummaging through some of the shelves on the far end of the warehouse. He let out a small, victorious laugh upon digging something a bit large out.
Fantastic, he's going to break something, Windham thought. "What have you got there?"
"A crossbow!"
     "Put that down before you shoot yourself!"
The kid frowned, putting the crossbow back in its original place. "You're no fun. Everyone else gets to practice with them."
Windham shook his head, his tone laced with annoyance. "That's because most everyone else is at least sixteen and has less of a risk of causing detrimental harm to himself or others."
"Ugh, y'all suck. Wish I was older..."
Windham chuckled. "No, you really don't. You'll wish you could be young again as early as age fifteen," he said wistfully. In part, it was true for the general populace, but he couldn't help but let slip how much he longed for his youth. His youth was a time before religion, a time before structured violence, a time before familial obliteration—
"Why? You have so much more freedom as an adult," he protested.
"With those freedoms come responsibilities, and more often than not in the world we live in, consequences."
     "Consequences for literally just getting older?"
     "If you align yourself with the wrong sorts of people, most definitely," he said firmly.
     Overholt cringed. "By the Void, it's creepy when you get all serious."
     "Well, it has to be done at some point. I don't want to see you grow up mistreated."
     "Who the hell would mistreat me?"
     Windham almost laughed. Almost. Had his cynical nature broken through, he might've freaked the poor kid out again.
     So much for staying on topic.
     "Believe me, there's a world of people out there who live just to corrupt genuinely good souls. I'll be damned if I let anything like that happen to you."