fly | madderton

ONE

It was Taron's turn to fool Richard.

He was on his fifth train of the day, and was starting to pack up his bags ready to get off at the next station. It had been a lengthy journey, and he was more than glad that it was finally over. His day had begun when his first alarm sounded just before five AM, and it wasn't long before his stepdad was driving him to the station and waving him off on his first train. Almost seven hours later, he'd finally made it to Scotland.

Now, all he had to do was find Richard's mum and pray they'd not eaten yet.

The train was yet to pull to a complete stop, so Taron sat back down with his suitcase and rucksack between his legs and pulled his phone out of his (Richard's) jacket pocket. He told her the train was just approaching the station, and asked where she'd be waiting. There was no time for him to wait around for an answer, so he pushed the device back into his pocket in a hurry and stood back up with his bags, making a beeline for the door in front of the other passengers. His text tone sounded from his pocket just as he stepped foot on the platform, but he had no choice but to hurry down the platform with the heavy flow of people driving him along. Eventually he managed to wriggle his way out of the crowd with a mind full of prayers that he hadn't missed her and wouldn't need to go back.

Luckily, the text read that she was waiting at the station's main entrance, and that he was to meet her there. That seemed to be where the flow was headed, so he found a way back into the crowd and blindly followed them to the building's entrance. It was bizarre to him that the station was so busy, considering Richard's description of his new hometown, but soon figured out how this worked once he'd escaped the crowds and made it to the car, following Richard's mother. She'd seemed happy enough to see him, smiling and asking how he'd been, how things were going with college, how his parents were. It was a nice conversation, and one Taron found it easy to contribute to. At least, for the first ten to fifteen minutes of their being together. For the next half an hour or so the drive was void of conversation, with the only sound being the quiet hum of Classic FM from the car's speakers. It was awkward, to say the very least. He'd never spent a lot of time with Richard's parents, not like Richard had his. He'd never really gone over to their house, it had always been Richard visiting his. None of Taron's family minded, because he was a very respectful and well-mannered young boy. In fact, it had never really occurred to him how unbalanced the childcare was. He was a little surprised that his mum had never gotten annoyed about Richard coming over all of the time, and the favour never being returned.

Or, maybe she just wasn't telling her very young son about her annoyance.

Every so often, Taron would try to start up a new line of conversation, but each was met with a short, blunt answer. One which his improv teacher would hit him for. He gave up, in the end, and instead opted to look at the rolling countryside pass out of the window.

And that was only the first time he'd wondered if the trip was going to be a mistake.

Thankfully, though, the 'middle of nowhere' was just over half an hour from the train station, and soon enough Taron was pulling his suitcase out of the car boot and looking up at the quaint cottage in front of him. It was a pretty decent size, with a thatched roof, window shutters, and hanging baskets lining the wall. It was the picture-perfect definition of cosy countryside home, even down to the small cloud of smoke floating out of the chimney.

"Here, I'll let you in. He's probably in his room. Just head up the stairs, it's the first door on the right." Richard's mum stepped in front of Taron to unlock the front door, pushing it open and turning to go back to the car once she'd done so to get her own bags. 

"Um, thank you..." Taron stumbled over his words a little, suddenly feeling out of his depth as he crossed the threshold and reached the bottom of the carpeted stairs. He hadn't really thought this through very much. Although they'd made up before Richard had left, Taron almost felt as if it was a cop out, just so they wouldn't be on bad terms whilst they were apart. It didn't feel like a proper apology, and they hadn't even had the chance to talk things out. What if it was awkward? What if Richard didn't want to see him?

It was with a big, deep breath that he pushed the handle down on his suitcase and instead lifted it by the carrying handle, all the way to the top of the stairs. He turned right, and stopped once again in front of the first door he met. The moment of truth. He rapped his knuckles twice against the door, his breath caught in his throat.

"Yeah, mum?"

"Not quite." Taron pushed the door open, smiling when he saw Richard sat on his bed in the corner of the room. All the tension fled his body, and just seeing Richard there in front of him made everything feel worth it. Briefly.

A short flash of happiness seemed to overcome Richard's face, before it quickly disappeared and was replaced with something else, something far darker.

"Taron... You shouldn't be here."

welcome to part two. thoughts? opinions? theories?

sorry for the wait, I've been really ill this week both physically and mentally and I just haven't had the time or motivation to get my laptop out and write, but I'm going to try write some now to have a few more pre-writes ready for the next few days/weeks x