So, uh, you never did tell me why you needed a bodyguard.

Timeline/World: Story – What?
Current Date: June 17, 2024

Character: Aidan Krón
Race: Human
Age: 36
Current residence: Lake Charles, Louisiana
 

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A few weeks ago, I was at a wedding as Cody’s plus one. It was for the friend of a friend that I personally had never met, and that he hadn’t seen in some years, but he’d been invited, and it was just one city over, so we went. I didn’t really know what to expect, even after Cody had given me a bit of a shortened story on the couple getting married.

The dress code was black-tie. Something that had never really been a thing for either one of us and required being fitted. It seemed as though the bride and groom both were adamant about that. The idea of going to such a formal wedding sat strangely in the pit of my stomach but I did my best to not let it show. I let Cody do most of the leading on that front and things turned out fine.

Mostly fine? I don’t really know. It’s not that things turned out badly, but there was a misunderstanding of sorts once we made it there and I was nearly not able to go in with him.

I think the misunderstanding stemmed from the fact that the couple and their families were very old-fashioned, and we were the only couple that didn’t fit within the heteronormative views of, well, everyone else present. We didn’t argue the point, we didn’t fuss, we simply introduced ourselves as childhood friends to not draw extra attention to ourselves though we still wore our rings.

After the wedding had concluded and things had settled into the reception itself, we were approached by the groom—the friend of a friend. He smiled at Cody, an amused smile that turned my stomach just slightly and asked him when he had started needing a bodyguard and stated that he was rather curious to know why he needed one as well. I’m fairly certain that the man in question knew very well that we were in more than just a work relationship, but Cody handled it just perfectly well and I let him.

Never you mind that I wanted to deck the guy because I felt as though he was making light of a situation that did not deserve it, but it wasn’t my place, we were just guests at this wedding, and I technically was just that plus-one. We didn’t stay for the meal, I was uncomfortable around so many people looking our way curiously and I was going out of my way to keep my hands to myself. I wanted to hold his hand in a bad way.

I’m not one usually for public displays of affection, but when I’m unsettled in some way, which I found myself fairly so on that front, I seek closeness to him, and that closeness usually comes in the shape of my holding onto his hand until we’re home. Then we settle somewhere, and I can seek the closeness I crave.

It never fails to make him smile a little, even if that smile is often tinged with a little bit of sadness. All of our lives, I’ve always been the one that people saw as the white knight. The one to turn to when they needed help with something. I don’t know that people ever stopped to think that yeah, sure, I have my vulnerabilities too, though I hide those better than Cody wishes I even would. He sees through me most of the time anymore, though. He knows that while I can act tough more often than not, there are things that do unsettle me and things that bother me in ways I can’t begin to explain, and, well, during those times, he’s the one I turn to.

I don’t think it’s weak of me to not want to open up my emotions to anyone other than him. At least, those emotions. He’s the one who managed to get me to open up that first time, just some years ago, and I trust him with that part of me in ways I know I can’t really trust anyone else.

We stopped on the way home for fast food. Though I don’t know that pizza counts as fast food. Normally we would have gone for burgers, but considering the dress code that had been required for the wedding and how expensive the tuxes we both wore were, we didn’t want to chance anything. We got the pizzas, we placed those in our thermal bags, got home, pizzas in the oven. We got changed and before long, we both were just boneless in the living room, flopped on the couch, carefully chowing down on pizza.

It’s rare that we eat in the living room, but when we’re both just a little on edge or emotionally drained, we go that route, we set up a movie or a show we probably already know by heart and we eat whatever it was that we got on the way in and we more or less vegetate for a few hours until we feel better.

In a way, I don’t really regret going to that wedding, it was beautiful to watch as it happened, but I think we would have likely been fine with not going either. The more I think about it, the more I’m trying to see the positive to the whole thing. If the guy wanted to think of me as a bodyguard, I’ll take it.

Final Word Count: 904

Show me some mercy and stop making puns about this. It’s too much.

 
Timeline/World: Story – What?
Characters: Aidan Krón
Race: Human
Age: 34
Current residence: Lake Charles, Louisiana
Final Word Count: 818 words
 

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For the most part, even now, I still seem to be that one person that a lot of others will turn to when they need help with something. It’s certainly nowhere near as common as it used to be when we were young and all, but it still happens. I guess that most of my friends just haven’t forgotten that I used to be that white knight everyone needed when it came to dealing with the bullies.

As adults, bullies are just another part of life. They’re still common, mind you. Most people don’t outgrow being a bully, though I guess that some do. You just sort of change the way you handle them. At this point, I have to admit, most of the time, when someone approaches me about needing my help for something, it’s during an outing or something else, a party or a gathering and someone will playfully ask me to save them from someone else who is either boring the hell out of them or annoying them to the point of frustration.

I’ve had to deal with both. Again, it’s no longer half as common as it used to be when we were growing up, but I’ve had to deal with it. People at a grilling get-together, some subject being more sensitive or other, or people arguing about the lack of vegetarian meal options when it was a bring-something-for-everyone sort of thing? Yeah, I’ve been there.

So, most of the time, I mostly find myself being the peace keeper when arguments start, more than anything else and, in the long run, I’m fine with that. Being the one person keeping the peace is enough and it’s not even that hard. I’m glad to have Cody with me most of the time as we tend to just separate the arguing parties and talk with them long enough for them to just drop what they were arguing about. I know he’s not all that comfortable with conflict, but we make a good pair.

A few weeks ago, Amary called me, complaining that I needed to come up with this very instant because she needed me. Now, this is a bit of a first. Amary has never needed me in her life. She’s always been the independent older sister who could handle things just fine her own way. That is, at least, until you add Tanya to the mix, then it’s just horror waiting to happen, but I honestly don’t think that Amary has seen her daughter in months. I’m not even getting involved in that.

When I asked her what this was all about, I ended up on speaker phone and what I heard was her boyfriend of the moment making what I can only describe as dad jokes. I’ve met the guy, up until that point, I had no idea how he put up with Amaryllis but since that call, I’ve had a fair idea. So long as these two just annoy the heck out of one another, I don’t think there’s much for me to worry about. When she walked back out of the room and into another one—I could hear the sound of his voice fading from the call while still being on what I assume was speaker phone—she resumed complaining that I had to come and help her deal with it.

I don’t know how I managed to not just tell her to grow up. She was the one dating this guy and when I’d last met them, they’d seemed happy. If she couldn’t handle his puns and jokes, she really just had to tell him. I’m not going to get involved in someone’s relationship just because you can’t take some jokes.

That’s where I sort of draw the line. I don’t mind helping people when they need it. Anymore, it’s not even about bullies and whatnot. I’ve lost count of how often someone called me for some help on moving things, or to help with building furniture or taking it apart. These things are honestly fine if you ask me. I don’t mind lending help if it’s for something easy like that but I’m really just not going to get involved in relationships.

If something’s not working out with your partner, either try to talk it out or find someone who’ll listen to you and help you work things out. I don’t have the necessary knowledge, let alone the logical mindset to be able to tell you whether you’re making the right choices or not. No one is going to be able to pay me enough to play the role of a shrink for you to spill all of your problems to.

I haven’t heard from Amary since that call, but it’s not all that unusual coming from her, so, really, I’m not even worried in the long run. I’m sure she’ll call before long about something else entirely.

I can’t believe I was ever scared of you. I mean, you’ve completely surrounded yourself in pillows and you’re drinking tea that you’ve made in a specific way; otherwise you refuse to touch the cup.

 
Timeline/World: Story – What?
Characters: Aidan Krón
Race: Human
Age: 31
Final Word Count: 728 words
 

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I used to be terrified of my sister, while I was growing. I’m aware that most people probably wouldn’t believe me if I were to tell them as much. They all used to call me the ‘Knight’ when we were growing up. In my teens and early adult years, I was the one people turned to when they needed someone safe to be around. When they needed a protector. I was the kid others came to at school because a bully was picking on them and I was the tall, reasonable one who was just so calm that I could handle just about every single situation that came up.

Cody knows, though. I used to be terrified of Amaryllis while I was growing up. She was the biggest bully around. Her behaviour is probably why I ended up as I am, everyone else’s knight in our neighbourhood. She had a mean streak a mile long and up until the day I turned twenty-one or so, she terrified me in ways I can’t even put into words. It was that bad. It really was. I put on a brave face for my parents and my surroundings but she was the one person in this whole world I couldn’t make myself face.

It wasn’t even that she’d ever beaten me up, but her sharp tongue and her lack of filter made her hard to deal with. I don’t even know how she’s managing with Tanya for the every-other-weekend she has the girl and I don’t even think it’s happening that often considering how far away from Tanya’s father she lives. Anyway.

On my twenty-first birthday, I realized that Amary was like everyone else. Just angry and unfiltered words with little to no bite to back it up. On that morning, I found her surrounded by more pillows than I thought was possible to own, she was sipping tea—something I never expected of her—that she’d prepared in a very specific way, otherwise, I learned, later on, she wouldn’t have touched the cup at all.

I think that seeing her this way just made things click into place. It didn’t erase years of terror, certainly not, but I stopped being afraid. She was living with the man who would eventually become Tanya’s father. They separated when she was five, I don’t know how he managed to stay that long with my sister but I tip my invisible hat to him, he’s something else.

I don’t think Amary is meant to be a mother, not really. I mean, she still hasn’t understood why I offered to drive Tanya upstate from her father’s home to hers when she would have just sent e-tickets for the plane and expected Tanya—at six, to be all on her own on a plane. That just… you don’t do that, you really don’t, though I’m aware that people can do that, usually, by law, the kid is assigned someone who will walk them through the airport and the flight but still, it just feels wrong to me. I’m not going to tell my sister how to raise her daughter, not for how little she sees of the girl but it’s clear that it has already left its mark on Tanya. The comments she said on the drive upstate and the complaining she did for the near full five hours of the trip were exhausting.

Between a father who spoils her rotten and a mother who isn’t much of a mother at all, I have no idea how this kid is going to manage in the world. It shouldn’t really bother me that much, she’s not my child to raise and I don’t like to spend much time around her because her behaviour is flat out exhausting, but it still worries me some because she is my niece, because she’s family and I still don’t like ignoring family who might eventually need me.

I think this is going to be just one of those things. Time will tell but I’m not very pleased with the idea of letting time take hold. Then again, considering the fact that they’ll be moving soon, back upstate and closer to where Amary lives, maybe there will be fewer travel issues. I mean, it’s the least of the issues that need to be dealt with but still.

Surprise, surprise. Not everyone likes long road trips.

 
Timeline/World: Story – What?
Characters: Aidan Krón
Race: Human
Age: 30
Final Word Count: 602 words
 

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I’m pretty sure she’d meant her words to come out as snarky but they’d come out more childishly huffy than anything else. When I looked back to her in the rear-view mirror, I could only sort of shake my head in amusement as she crossed her arms and sulked.

Cody wasn’t quite as amused by the whole situation but I couldn’t blame him. This wasn’t his family in the backseat, it was mine. Though, by extension of the rings we’d exchanged, she was as much his family as she was mine but she still was my niece more than his and he’d never been comfortable around her. She takes too much after her mother and that’s a memory best left unvisited.

Still, the girl in her booster seat in the back if six years and she’s a handful. Like her mother, her tongue is sharp but she lacks the vocabulary to really make it biting. I’m only doing my sister this favour because she owed me one and I didn’t want to see her daughter on a plane by herself. My sister would have allowed that to happen if I hadn’t told her I would be driving the girl back the long way around.

The story is long and complicated but Tanya here is supposed to spend split time between her parents’ house but I think that she’s only supposed to be with her mom—my sister—about a weekend a month except for one major holiday.

Now, my sister doesn’t seem to understand that you can’t just send a six-year-old kid a plane ticket and expect her to get on that plane and join you wherever you are. This was the first major holiday Tanya has been expected to spend with her mother and my sister hadn’t made much of an effort to be a proper mother about it.

Seeing as I lived in the area where her ex-husband—Tanya’s father—lived, I had offered my services to drive her upstate to my sister’s place and it would also give us a chance at spending at least a day or so together before Cody and I went back west for the rest of our little trip.

Tanya will likely complain during the five or so hours it’ll take for us to drive north. That or she’ll conk out and I’ll take that option first if I can have it. We’ll have to keep the radio set to a particular channel to please her grumpy little senses and just stop everywhere we can because she’ll demand it. At least, I’m sure that’s how she expects the trip to go. Her father is a good man but he spoils her rotten, he’s given her everything she’s ever wanted and it makes telling her ‘no’ pretty impossible.

Watch me though. I’m not about to let her dictate this five-hour trip. She went to the bathroom before we left, she’s got some juice, some snacks, plenty of entertainment. I don’t mind if we stop once, maybe twice as absolutely necessary but I’m not going to delay dropping her off to her mother.

I’m pretty sure her dad is supposed to pick her up back at the end of the trip so that’s going to be one less thing for us to actually worry about.

I give Cody a small shrug, a sheepish smile and a silent apology that I know he accepts without any fuss and we’re on the way. I hope there’s not too much traffic. We should have driven at night but somehow I doubt we’d have been able to.

I wish you’d stop and realize just how loud you’re being.

Timeline/World: Story: What?
Characters: Aidan Krón
Race: Human
Age: 30
Final Word Count: 569 words

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I don’t really like going out to places, not like this. This whole ‘bachelor’s party thing where you celebrate the last ‘single’ night of the guy getting married the following day, it makes no sense to me. I wouldn’t have gone if Cody hadn’t gently insisted on us going since it was for his cousin. When we’re going to tie the knot, we’ll do it in the simplest of ways, no huge celebration, just the Justice of Peace, our papers and everything else. None of this thing where the men get hammered and holler at the strippers and where I’m sure the women are ogling the strippers on their side of things too. This kind of thing makes no sense.

We don’t drink, it’s a personal choice. We’ve seen what it does to our friends and to just about anyone else we’re close to when they drink and it’s a promise we made to one another not to drink. We might have a small cup of something bubbly once in a blue moon but only on huge celebrations.

We’ve been following this group since we first met up for dinner at the restaurant. Things were quiet then, just the soft laughter of friends together but once dinner was done, we moved on to the first bar and things have just gotten louder and louder since. We’ve gone through four bars and one stripper joint, a place where we’re at right now and me along with Cody are both designated drivers and it’s going to be necessary. We’ve rented two vans; none of these guys are driving home on their own.

The guys are being seriously loud but the strippers keep on encouraging them, it seems to get the money flowing. There have been more tips placed on the edge of lacy thongs than I thought was possible but if these guys spend all of their cash, that’s their problems, we’re only there to drive them back and not babysit them. At least the groom-to-be is a little more sober than the rest of his friends but his eyes are pretty huge and locked on the girl giving him a private dance. I just hope there are no regrets tomorrow.

If this had been a gay stripper joint, it might have held some interest in both mine and Cody’s case but it’s not and we’ve never really given it much thought. I love him, the way he looks, the way he acts, everything about him is perfect to me and I don’t know that watching another man, handsome as he may be, strip, would do much of anything to me. I mean, sure, we’ve watched a small handful of porn videos but in the end, we always end up turning the screen off but keeping the sounds on, it just does something to both of us but I won’t get into that. That’s not the point.

I honestly just want this evening to be over. It would help. The loudness of everything that surrounds us is starting to do my head in and if it’s bothering me, it’s likely bothering Cody. We did step outside for a while earlier but we can’t really spend all night outside just waiting for them to be done. I hope the groom appreciates this and doesn’t have a headache the size of a watermelon tomorrow. Why do these parties even exist, really?

What? v1.0 – scene 1

The week had been unusually quiet in the neighborhood. That might have had to do with Aidan’s return however. Aidan was something of the neighborhood’s knight, when he was around, the so-called bad guys’ were normally calmer, they didn’t go out of their way to look for trouble. So when his friend had had to leave for some trip he didn’t have any details about, hell had broken loose. It wasn’t that they couldn’t defend themselves when the young man wasn’t there, it simply seemed as if the number of troublemakers doubled and there was nothing any of them could do. They were outnumbered and some could say outsmarted.

Cody was more than a little pleased that his friend had come home from his trip, the past month had been like hell and the young healer, if such a term could be used, had been stretched thin. There had been more emergencies than he had cared to think about and many had come to his door seeking his help. He never had turned anyone down and for most of the past four weeks he had slept on his couch because someone or multiple someones were sleeping on his bed, recovering from one thing or another.