Children Of Deurom

Chapter 8| Aidan Kessler’s Day Off

        Aidan started his morning as usual; he went for his run with Arminius, they practiced at the factory where Aidan mentions that he was taking off of school for the day and surprisingly met no resistance. He agreed they would they spend extra time in the morning at the factory and Arminius let it go. Even agreed to vacate the apartment for the day. The exercise was exactly as before, Arminius would swing at Aidan and then Aidan would try and defend. And just as before, Aidan had to resort to moving his body.

            “You gotta start using the fire.” Arminius scolds. Exhausted, Aidan nods his head. Arminius continues to swing but this time he begins to get serious. He swings and actually ends up nicking Aidan’s arm. With no time to process the pain, Aidan continues to move, blood drops land as his body moves. He throws his arm up and a burst of fire shoots up from it, recoiling the sword back in Arminius’ hand. “Good, Aidan. Let’s keep going.” Aidan had got with the program, continuing to recoil the sword backward until the flame was so strong it knocked the sword out of his hands. Arminius sits back against the wall, as Aidan starts pacing around the factory trying to catch his breath. The blood from the wound on his arm trickles down to his fingers and begins to drip onto the floor. It didn’t take long for Arminius to notice the blood. “Go sit down.” Aidan goes over to an old chair and sits down. Arminius grabs a first aid kit he had stashed and begins to patch Aidan up. Aidan winces as Arminius pours the alcohol on the wound. “Oh, don’t be a baby.” Arminius mocks him as he begins to stitch up the wound.

            “How’d you learn to do this?” Aidan asks. “Stitching up wounds and stuff.” Arminius finishes off the stitching process and begins to tie off the strands before he answers, almost as if he was stalling for time so he could remember.

            “Started learning about certain medical practices about 50 years after my death,” Arminius replies. “Over the years the science of it got more advanced. I merely kept up with the times.” Of course, this was a lie. Arminius couldn’t remember where he had learned what little he knew about medicine. Try as he might, he could only smell vanilla whenever he tried to remember. Mentor and mentee walk out of the factory and begin heading back to the apartment.

            “I’ll still be there for training tonight,” Aidan tells him. “I’ll try and be on time but no promises.”

            “Be on time.” Arminius snaps. “This isn’t some game or a party where you can show up at your leisure.” Aidan begrudgingly looks away at the road.

What does it matter if I’m late? Not like I have a real shot at winning anyway. Aidan thought. The two begin to walk down the road, the tension between them hotter then the fire either man produced. However, it doesn’t wound Aidan as it does Arminius. For some reason, he had felt guilty for snapping at Aidan, a response that he hadn’t felt before with any of his fighters.

 “So…” Arminius begins to start, trying to move past the tension as well as hoping that polite conversation was the cure to his guilt. “Do you and your brother have any plans?” Aidan turns his gaze to Arminius, realizing that he was trying to cut the tension.

            “Not sure,” Aidan replied. “He just said he was gonna pick me up at the house.” Arminius nods and the two continue to walk a few more feet in silent. “Did you have siblings?” Aidan asks. Arminius is a bit taken aback by the question, not having thought of his brother in many years. The two would see each other in Nirvana from time to time, but he had never sat with him as Aidan would do with his brother.

            “I had a brother, Flavus who was born after me.” Arminius replies in the middle of his reflection,

            “Were you two close?” Aidan asks, wondering if Arminius and he had something in common in the form of their bond with their brother. But, Arminius shook his head.

            “Our father gave us to the Roman army.” Arminius began. “He was the leader of a Germanic tribe and the Romans were pushing through, so they saw this as a type of peace agreement. My brother and I were raised to fight for the Roman army. Over time, I had grown to despise the Romans. I got all the barbaric tribes together, and rebeled against them.” Aidan listened with intrigue, he had read up about Arminius a bit before going back to school, but it was completely different to hear his firsthand accounts. 

            “So you led your tribe against the Romans?” Aidan asks. “Did your brother help you?” Arminius took a deep breath before continuing his story.

            “I got all the tribes together, when fighting the Roman army you would need more than just a tribe. That combined force would eventually become Germany.” Aidan stopped in his tracks and stared, it took Arminius a bit to realize Aidan wasn’t beside him. He stopped and turned around to face Aidan.

            “So you’re telling me…you formed Germany?” Aidan asks.

            “Inadvertently, yes,” Arminius replies. “Now come on, you don’t wanna be late.” Aidan begins to walk with Arminius again as he continues to tell his story. “Anyway, while I fought for the Barbarians, my brother stayed with the Romans.” There was sadness in his voice, just a hint but Aidan caught it quickly.

            “There was this one battle, in a forest in Lower Saxony. I was training under Alexander at the time, so I had a lightning ability. I told the guys to make these giant balls of hay, and we positioned them onto the hills. I knew the Romans were going to march through there. So we waited. And eventually, they did. I used the lightning to light the balls on fire, and we pushed them down the hill.” Aidan looked on, mesmerized at his mentor’s stories of battle.

I guess that’s why I have the gift of fire. Aidan wonders.  “Was he there?” Aidan asks. “Your brother?”

            “No,” Arminius replies. “But he had heard of it. And that was bad enough.” Arminius’ look went from nostalgic to saddened almost as soon as he said it. Aidan decided it was probably best not to ask any more questions, and the two continued to walk back to the house in silence. Arminius walks off into the living room as Aidan quickly gets ready. He grabs a shower, gets dressed and decides to wait outside for his brother. Before he left, Aidan peeked his head into the darkness of the living room, Arminius was sitting on the couch with his head laying backward on the top of the sofa. He looked to be asleep, so Aidan didn’t feel the need to wake him up. He waited outside for his brother, the afternoon sun beat down on him dragging out the time. Adonis pulled up a few minutes later, still driving the black muscle car, he rolled down the window. The sun beamed off the black sunglasses he was wearing and almost blinded Aidan.

            “Hop in.” He calls out. Aidan hops into the passenger seat, the cool air conditioning almost freezing his skin. Aidan turns to his brother, who begins to drive away from the complex.

            “So what’s the game plan?” Aidan asks, curious to see what kind of event his brother had planned for the day.

            “Well.” Adonis starts off. “First things first. I need some breakfast.” He chuckles. Aidan shakes his head and leans back in the car seat. The leather interior sucking him into the seat and hugging him, until Adonis pulls into a diner and Aidan is forced to pry himself out of the seat. The brothers walk into the diner and grab a seat by the window. They ordered their drinks, Adonis a black coffee and Aidan some orange juice. When the waitress returned, Adonis ordered a bunch of food for himself and started flirting with their waitress while Aidan decided on what to order. Aidan glances up from the menu and observed his brother. Tall, redhead, petite. Aidan smirked, realizing his brother certainly had a type. Aidan orders some eggs and the waitress leaves to put the order in. The brothers make some small talk, Adonis goes into how he had busy last night doing some last minute coordination for his auction and how he would probably have to do it again tonight. Which of course Aidan was fine with, easy way to make to training later. His brother’s timing almost makes it seem like he was in on what was going on like he was a responsible guardian who had to make sure he was at soccer practice on time. With all the talk of the auction triggered Aidan’s memory.

            “Hey, so I know you invited me to your auction but is it ok if I… bring someone?” Aidan asks. A proud grin blew up on the face of Adonis.

            “Of course.” He tells him. “Yeah, I’ll leave the tickets for you at the front door. Who are you bringing?” Adonis inquires, as he takes a sip of his coffee.

            “A friend of mine. She’s big into history and stuff like that. Artifacts.” Aidan replies. The grin on Adonis’ face grows bigger.

            “Oh…she is, is she?” He asks. Aidan shakes his head at his brother.

            “It’s not like that.” Aidan chuckles, Adonis merely shrugs his shoulder.

            “Whatever you say bud. Whatever you say. Honestly, I thought you were gonna invite…what’s his name?” Adonis starts snapping his fingers, trying to remember the name. “Mom’s friend’s kid that you always hung out. Skinny, dweebish?”

            “Ian,” Aidan replies. Adonis lets out a final snap and shakes his finger to his brother.

            “Yeah! Ian. How are they doing anyway?” Adonis asks. As soon as he had asked, Aidan had remembered Ian’s mother’s offer of him going to live with him. He thought about telling Adonis, but he couldn’t. This might be one of the last times he gets to see his brother, and it’s been a while since they’ve hung out like this. No need to ruin it.

            “They’re doing well,” Aidan replies. “I hang out with him a lot, and I see his parents pretty often.” Adonis nods his head.

            “Good. It’s always good to keep those types of relationships.” Adonis praises. “Hell, I might pop by and see them before I head out.”

            “I’m sure they’d like that,” Aidan tells him. The waitress brings them their food and the brothers begin to dig in. They eat and reminisce of their childhood, laughing when appropriate. After they were finished, Adonis pays the bill and leaves his business card with the waitress, giving her a wink as he puts his sunglasses on.

I wish I had that type of confidence. Aidan thought. They walk outside but Adonis stands in front of the car, clutching the keys. The car was locked, so Aidan was forced to wait outside. “You gonna unlock the car?” Aidan asks. His brother looks up at him.

            “You have your license, right?” Adonis asks.

            “Yeah,” Aidan replies. “I mean I can drive the car legally if that’s what you’re asking, I only have the provisionary—” Aidan’s speech is cut off with an almost blinding glare smacking him in the face. He reaches out and plucks the car keys out of thin air.

            “Well then, let's take this bad boy out for a spin,” Adonis tells him. Aidan was almost frozen with excitement. He runs around the car and pulls on the handle to the driver side door, but it won’t open. “Bud... did you forget it’s locked?” Adonis asks. Aidan unlocks the car and the two head off. Aidan started to speed off and to his surprise, Adonis made no attempt to slow him down.

            “So where are we going?” Aidan asks as he makes a random right turn.

            “Remember Mr. Garber’s?” Adonis asks. Aidan nods in response. He remembered Mr. Garber’s property. Whenever Adonis briefly visited when Aidan was younger, he wound sneak him onto the property where there was a big quarry that they would go swimming at in the summer.  Mr. Garber never directly caught them, however, he would tend to chase whoever was in the property off of it. Aidan remembers a few times Adonis had to just grab him up as a child and book it out of the woods. Aidan pulls up onto the street and follows Adonis’ direction of where to park. Aidan pulls off into the woods and parks the car. Adonis reaches in the back and grabs a black duffle bag. “Let’s go.” He tells Aidan. They hop the fence and run off into the woods, now that Aidan was older he thought he might be able to keep pace with his big brother, but even after eating all of that food, Adonis still managed to outrun him to the quarry. The Quarry was just as Aidan remembered, the crystal blue water covered the foot of a large cliff with a clearing sitting upon it. The whole area was surrounded by trees, it was quite the sight. Adonis opens the black duffle bag and tosses Aidan a swimsuit.

            “You wanna go swimming?” Aidan asks. Adonis chuckles.

            “Hell yeah.” He replies grabbing another suit from the duffle bag and walking off into the woods. Aidan gets dressed into the swimsuit and walks over to edge of the cliff and looks down at the water, debating on whether or not he was going to just jump off into the water. But as he mauled it over, Adonis races past him and jumps off into the water. The splash echoes throughout the quarry. Aidan looks over and waits to make sure his brother resurfaces, which he quickly does.  “Come on in!” Adonis yells up. “The waters perfect!” Aidan backs away from the edge of the cliff.

 If he can do it. I can do it. Aidan tries to internally psych himself up. Just run and jump at the last second. Aidan runs but fear cripples him at the last second, preventing him jumping. Adonis watches as Aidan runs off the cliff and lands in the shallow part of the quarry. Aidan hits the water with a loud thud, having flipped over to his back just before landing. Adonis swiftly swims over to Aidan to make sure he’s ok. Aidan manages to straighten himself out and stands in the shallow part of the quarry.

“Are you alright?” Adonis asks with concern swallowing his earlier, playful tone. He swims over to Aidan and looks at his now dark red back and cringes. “That’s gotta hurt.”

            “Yeah, mistakes were made.” Aidan chuckles painfully. But it was during this that Adonis noticed the recently stitched up wound on Aidan’s arm. He grabs Aidan’s arm and begins to examine it.

            “When’d this happen?” Adonis asks, showering a look of concern over Aidan. The question took Aidan by surprise. Aidan was too wrapped up in his excitement that he forgot to wrap his wound. He had to quickly make up some kind of lie.

            “I was walking to the corner store and some asshole almost hit me.” Aidan started. “I fell and cut myself on some broken beer bottle.” Adonis stared at his brother, unconvinced at the lie. But his brother was an adult, if he didn’t want to tell him something, he would respect that.

            “So you got it all checked out? Looks stitched up, pretty well. You go to the hospital?” Adonis asks, releasing Aidan’s arm.

            “Yeah, I just Ubered there,” Aidan replied. “I knew you were busy with your auction so I didn’t wanna bother you.” Adonis reaches around Aidan’s head and brings it close to him.

            “Don’t do that again,” Adonis tells him. “I’m your brother. I’m here for you. Night or day, down the road or across the country. You tell me you need me, I’ll be there in a flash.” Aidan nods and playfully pushes Adonis’ arm off of him and dives down into the quarry. Aidan and Adonis relaxed in the quarry for quite some time, lying on their backs and enjoying the cool serene of the scenery. Almost as if the moment had put up a shield around them, protecting them from the worries of what was going on their respected lives. The two just started chatting about whatever had come to mind. Mainly about the future; what Aidan wanted to do after he graduated, where Adonis was going to go next. And it was at that point, while Adonis was talking to him about going back to Greece, Aidan asked him something that had been on his mind for some time.

            “Do you think you’re ever gonna… settle down?” Aidan asks. Adonis looks over at and gives him a reassuring look.

            “I plan on it.” He says. “Don’t get me wrong, I love traveling. But I know, one day is gonna come where I don’t need to work anymore.”

            “Still gonna travel?” Aidan asks.

            “Oh defiantly.” Adonis chuckles. “But more on a vocational status than all the time.” Aidan looked up at the sky and imagined what his life would be like if he traveled like Adonis. Sure he would see some amazing things, but he would miss his friends.

            “Does it ever get lonely?” Aidan asks. Adonis sits in silence and thinks about it for a minute.

            “Sometimes.” He replies. “I did travel with someone for a little while.” Aidan glances over at Adonis, intrigued, this being the first he had heard of this.

            “Really?” Aidan asks.

            “Yeah,” Adonis replies. “I met her a few years ago. She was….” Adonis takes a deep breath before continuing. “You would have liked her.” He says, smiling at Aidan. “She was smart, funny, sarcastic as all hell… very independent too, and not to mention she could even kick my ass from the time to time.” Aidan looks at his brother, a bit worried about him fighting a woman. Adonis notices the look and chuckles. “She used to box, so we would work from time to time.” Aidan lets out a sigh of understanding and goes back to listening to his brother. “And she was just…my god she was so beautiful.” This was new to Aidan. When he was in his teens his brother had a lot of ‘girlfriends’ but he never talked about any of them like this. “She had long black hair that just…swallowed you, and her eyes…” Adonis pats the water playfully. “Probably bluer than this water. I would just…drown in them.” Of all the women Aidan has seen his brother with, none of them had black hair. He was curious as to why Adonis had never mentioned her before.

            “You seemed to really like her,” Aidan says. “How come you don’t travel with her anymore?” Adonis’ cheerful reminiscence quickly became buried with a powerful feeling of grief. He tried hard to hide it from Aidan, but the feeling was too overwhelming.

            “She died.” Adonis chokes out. Aidan felt terrible, of course, there was no way of knowing that before he had asked. But this clearly wasn’t something Adonis wanted to discuss. But Aidan cared about his brother too much, not to ask.

            “Do you wanna…talk about it?” Aidan asks. Adonis gets off his back and begins to start floating in the water.

            “Another time.” He replies. He gestures his head towards shore. “Come back to land real quick. Something I wanna do before we head out of here.” Adonis begins to swim to the shore and Aidan follows soon behind him. Adonis reaches the shore first and opens up the duffle bag, as soon as Aidan landed on shore, he tossed him a towel. Aidan and Adonis dried off quickly before Adonis reached into the duffle bag again and tossed Aidan a mouthpiece. Aidan chuckles as he catches the mouthpiece which was followed by Adonis tossing him a pair of boxing gloves.

            “Really?” Aidan chuckles. “Here?” Adonis begins to put on one of the gloves.

            “Yeah, it’s been awhile.” He replies putting in a mouth guard of his own. And Adonis was right. It had been years since Aidan had sparred with his brother, it was Adonis after all that had taught Aidan how to box.

            “I don’t know,” Aidan replies jokingly. “I think you’re a bit too outa shape old man.” Adonis laughs.

            “Who you calling old man?” He chuckles back as he puts on the last glove. Aidan was excited but a bit nervous. He hadn’t boxed since the night he had fought Alejandro. He had to try and focus so that he didn’t burn Adonis. Adonis tilts his head up, seeing if Aidan was ready to which Aidan nods. The two touch gloves and get into their stances. Aidan starts heavy, eager to prove his improvement to his brother. He starts with jabbing trying to get a shot in at his face, but Adonis was quick, slipping every punch.

            He hasn’t missed a beat. Aidan thought. He fakes a right hand and leans in to get a body shot in. But Adonis is no fool. He blocks the shot and hooks Aidan in the face, sending him stumbling backward.

            “You good?” Adonis asks, staying in his stance. Aidan nods and comes back at his brother. Jabs, hooks, body shots. Nothing landed, he had dodged all of them, as if he could see where Aidan was going to swing next. Adonis fires back, hitting Aidan with a body hook. He then counters up with a few jabs before hitting Aidan right in the diaphragm. Aidan kneels over, trying to catch his breath. He holds a glove up to let his brother know he’s alright and just needs a minute. Aidan was growing frustrated. It was one thing if it was some random competitor but against Adonis… he had something to prove. He stands up and nods at Adonis, letting him know he was ready to go again. Adonis swung with a right which Aidan managed to roll out of. He comes up and uppercuts Adonis, managing to actually land the punch.

            Finally! Aidan cheers internally. He follows it up; left hook, right hook, jab, jab, right hook to the body, and another uppercut. Adonis was reeling, not expecting his baby brother to be so technical. Aidan goes for another jab, but Adonis smacks the hand away and delivers a hard right hook to Aidan’s face, which sends him reeling to the ground.

            “s**t,” Adonis swears, spitting out the mouth guard and undoing his gloves. Rushing over to see if he had badly hurt Aidan. “Are you ok? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to swing that hard.” Adonis apologizes. Aidan sits up and spits out his mouth guard which by now, had some blood on it. He looks up to see Adonis’ concerned face and laughs, giving him two thumbs up under his glove. Adonis lets out a sigh of relief and helps Aidan to his feet. He takes off his gloves and then takes off Aidan’s and puts them back into duffle bag. “Are you sure you’re ok?” Adonis asks again.

            “Positive,” Aidan reassures. “Kessler temper?” Aidan asks a hint of pride in his voice. He may not have technically won, but for the first time, he was able to pressure his brother. Adonis laughs and nods his head gently.

            “That damn Kessler temper,” Adonis replies a hint of pride in his voice as well. Aidan had turned into quite the athlete. “Let’s get outa here,” Adonis says, grabbing his clothes and wandering back into the woods. The two get dressed and walk out of the quarry and back to the car.

            “Can we make one more stop?” Aidan asks as he hops into the driver’s seat.

            “Sure,” Adonis replies. “Your call.” Aidan starts the car and begins to drive leisurely, no longer interested in going fast. They had burnt a lot of time at the quarry and there wasn’t a ton left before school let out and he had to meet with Arminius. They drove for about 15 minutes before Adonis realized where they were going. “Been a while since I’ve been here too.” He tells Aidan.

            “Me too,” Aidan replies. They park the car at their destination and begin walking until they reach the spot. The headstone was well done, flowers had been placed there, presuming by the cemetery workers. It read: Here lies Marie Kessler; cherished friend and beloved mother. March 15, 1955- January 23, 2018. Aidan and Adonis’ eyes were locked onto the headstone, this being the first time either had seen it.

            “They really did a nice job with it.” Adonis complements. Aidan admires the headstone work as well, he didn’t know exactly what made a good looking headstone but agrees it doesn’t look bad.

            “Yeah, they did.” Aidan agrees. The two continue to admire the headstone until Adonis breaks the silence with a light chuckle.

            “Remember that time Mom took us to work on one of the night shifts, you were probably about 4 or 5 at the time. And I put you on one of those rolling hospital carts.” Adonis begins to laugh. “And I started rolling you around the hospital.” He finishes his sentence through his laughter. Aidan laughs but doesn’t recall this memory.

            “Nah, I don’t,” Aidan confesses. Adonis is still laughing.

            “The supervisor came up and lost it. He made mom stay on nights as punishment. Not because we were running around the floor, but because she was laughing too hard and didn’t stop us.” Aidan begins to laugh, trying to dig into the recesses of his mind for the memory, but he must have been too young to recall it.

            “Remember when I was 8, this was like, right before you first left for an expedition.” Aidan started. “And you, mom, Ian, Mrs. Matthews and I went to the zoo and you kept telling mom you were gonna toss us into the tiger exhibit? Remember what she told you?” Aidan asks, Adonis traces his memory and then begins to laugh.

            “Yeah, she said ‘your boxing better be enough to knock out a tiger because I’m sending you in after them.’” Adonis laughs and shakes his head. “You never really forget all the little stuff either. I remember she’d sit down with me Saturday mornings with a bowl of cereal and watch cartoons with me.” Adonis recalls. This was a memory Aidan could relate too, as his mother had done the same with him.

     The two laugh, memories of their mother filling their minds. Adonis wraps his arm around Aidan’s shoulder and pulls him in tight. “Nice choice, squirt.” Aidan had no words and merely nodded, his eyes fixated on his mother’s resting place. The two brother’s continued to reminisce as the sun shined bright in the background, as if their mother herself, was watching how her boys turned out and let out a prideful smile.