Who Walk According to the Law :: Kaelen

"Oh, new kid. I would ask how Thirteen's treating you, but your unfortunate run-in with the shoddy textiles they have here rather speaks for itself, don't you think?"

Kaelen Dempsey, the boy with the familiar face, had said in rehearsal what Augustus had been too afraid to, only in a way that was certainly more ‘Kae.’ No, Gus had been too consumed in how other people might judge him than too defend Colt, the boy who had made a mistake that hadn’t been his fault. Gus had always fancied himself as a bit of a maytr, someone who would be happy to die for the right to believe what he believed in, but when it came to the punch, he ran away from anything that might cause pain. Perhaps it was the reason that Jesus fascinated him so- He had been willing to take everything, with no return for himself. Gus loathed the fact that so much of what he did was, in various ways, for himself, and yet it seemed to be a habit that he could not stop.

The last paper he picked off the floor was last night’s musings. He had sat in his bed, lit by a dim bulb, and as they always did, the words came to him. The words seemed to lie in his fingers, and when he wrapped his fingers around a pencil and combined that with paper, it was like a chemical reaction. His whole life was brought to the front of his chest and he knew that it was not just luck that’s given him so much and he’s grateful, he truly was. And his life rhymed in words that are fluid; liquid emotions that ignite him. It’s when he had a pencil dancing shadows onto paper that, for just a matter of moments, he knew where he was going and where he’s come from and he is anchored, stuck under a rock at the bottom of an ocean yet still able to breathe.

His eyes glanced up to the boy, sitting at the piano and making no attempt to move. It had been Kaelen more than anyone that Augustus had been bursting at the seams trying not to make judgements about. The boy didn’t seem to care, with his flippant remarks and the way that he strutted through the rabbit-warren district as if he owned the place. Cautiously, Gus chose his words, wanting to make an impression of the boy he wanted to be, not of the contradictory mess he was inside.

“Oh, um, yeah, well,” he said, not wanting to base his impression of the district that was to be the rest of his life off one shoddy piece of sewing. “I guess everything has to break at some point, right? Yeah, thirteen’s very different to home- One-“ he added, forgetting that not everyone had lived his life, “but I like it.”

It was true, to some extent. He liked having a bed- although, not a very comfy one- and food in his stomach. However, he missed the freedom of his time as a wanderer, and especially the empathy that he felt with those in his church-orientated life in One. Here, he found that people were not dedicated to living their life for God, or even did not believe in God at all.

It was something that amazed him. Everyday, he saw the beauty in people, altruism at it’s purest, and that, to him, proved the existence of God. According to chance, twice Augustus should have now died, but He had other plans for him elsewhere, and let him escape. How could people believe that it was just the slimmest chance that he had twice cheated what should have been death? How could it be chance that made bacteria evolve into humans, people who could love and be kind?

“What’s your story then, Kae? Were you born here, or…?”

His eyes flicked to Kaelen’s features. Once again, he thought that those almond eyes and that round nose seemed so familiar, but could not pull up where he knew them from. Probably looks like someone from home, he thought. Or just one of those faces.

“You know,” he said, a smile showing on his face and laughing silently to himself. “You’ve got one of those faces that I just swear I’ve seen before.”

It was one of those funny things that just caught Augustus’s mind and stuck there, tossing to and fro, answer just out of reach. He knew that, most likely, he’d never find out where he remembered the face from, but the thought that, at some point, there had been a connection between he and Kaelen captivated him. It was a ridiculous notion of course, but Gus’s mind was inventive.

It came like a brush against a hot pan, as he couldn’t feel the sting until he had already started to burn.

Augustus Asquith had always avoided confrontation. Although he liked to think that he was always one to stand up for his cause, in reality the boy was very much afraid to become involved in anything to the extent that he might, in a fit of passion, break his own morals. The only time he had let himself go, voice loud and heart ripping in protest for sportful deaths, he had only narrowly avoided death. And so, the sudden aggression showed by the other boy worried him.

"Listen, punk. I don't know how much you know or what you think you're doing, but I would highly advise that you keep your mouth shut if you value your life, understood?"

Sometimes, Gus thought that there was a devil in him. He hadn’t seen it yet, but sometimes, like now, he could see a crack in the curtains and the dark, blinding him with it’s brightness, streamed in. The monster that sat like a thousand years worth of dust in his stomach was something that some people referred to as fear but Augustus had different ideas about what it could be, ideas that scared him even futher. Just as dark is the absence of light, the heavy that sunk Augustus through the ground was the absence of faith.

He had very little experience with this sort of conflict, really. The thick words trickled like honey through his mind, only this sort wasn’t so sweet. It made his muscles shorten, and made him try to focus his mind on the fact that there was a reason for everything, and that there was a lesson to be learnt from this.

He could not, however, figure out the meaning behind Kaelen’s words. The threat seemed worthless, and yet still it sent ripples of unease through his body. He didn’t understand. Perhaps it was something to do with his protest- surely though, this boy was no so in support of the Games that he was willing to threaten Gus with murder.

The funny thing was that there was no doubt in his mind that the threat was real. Perhaps it was the clay voice that it was said with, or the narrowing of Kaelen’s eyes, or just the fact that the last and first time that Augustus had been given a death sentence he had been about to be killed.

And so, Augustus did the same thing he always did to melt the ice of the demon that he knew he should not be acquainted with. He lit a flame of prayer.

Help me, Lord. Help me to help him, and help me to follow Your light.

Long ago, Gus had worked out that his prayers were not answered in words. His mind was not a book or a blackboard, and God did not use ink or chalk. Instead, he opened his mind, took off his hat to the sun and let his thoughts marinade for just a second. The words came out right- right for him, at least. When he asked right, they always did.

“Look, Kaelen, I’m really sorry, but I don’t understand what you’re talking about. But, you know, I’ll be praying for you, and I’d be really happy to pray with you, if you wanted.”

For Augustus, prayer had always given him answers. He was quite certain, too, that the answers had been the right ones, because he was still alive, and no matter the twisting road his path had taken, the view had always been the most beautiful one. It was this view that proved the Gus the existence of a higher power, and gave him the will to keep moving on, because he already knew that there was going to be so much beauty on the way. Everyone has a reason to keep one foot dropping heavy after the other, and Gus believe that if he could get just one person to make that reason the final destination, then his life on this earth would have been worth it.

Perhaps he could help Kaelen find this. It was a judgment that the threatening was not already living for his Lord, but Gus was too engrossed in his childish excitement to scold himself for his slip up. The death threat meant little to him now, a rain shower already settled on the ground, as he thought about ways that he could break through. He wanted, more than anything (although he’d used that phrase a hundred times before) to help, to help anyone, and perhaps Kaelen Dempsey was another stray animal that Augustus could try and once again fail to patch up.