fic; the oak tree chapter 4: you don't know anything
Title The Oak Tree: You don't know anything
Author brightedelweiss
Words 4,244
Rating PG-13 (language)
Summary In which Emrys Grey and Wyatt Crawford argue, relax, argue, relax and are generally argumentative. Mutual astonishment of literary taste included. Emrys corresponds to M----- and Wyatt corresponds to A-----.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 5
You don’t know anything
Emrys left Wolf and Eagle with his old shoes (which clearly need to be burned) in a box and his new Merrells on his feet. The shoes were a mahogany red deep enough to be brown, were a bit too clean for his liking, but were most of all quite stiff. Barnaby had given him a wicked grin after he told him that it wasn’t a simple 'buy shoes and everything was going to be alright' situation. Oh no, he had to break them in. And apparently buy some sort of product called moleskin. Whatever that was.
He sighed and grimaced slightly as he took the first few steps out of the store, and then made his way to a quiet but cozy looking bookshop named Chapter XVII. Even though he hated to admit it, Emrys judged things. He judged them based on how they looked, how they felt, how they sounded. Names and appearances were, after all, an initial way to become accustomed or acquainted with something. Emrys didn’t get much of a sense of the store from the outside looking in, but the name was nice and that made him more comfortable. Anything with Roman numerals automatically made him feel a bit more relaxed or comfortable. They were smart and clever and though it was a bit elitist to like them because of this, he did. Chapter XVII also had a ring to it, and not one of those cheesy jingles. Emrys hated jingles.
Still, the name aside, Emrys didn’t know that he was apprehensive about going into the store until relief flooded over him at the sigh of a stack of brand new Ayn Rand books on a table. Talk about being judgmental.
His first instinct upon adjusting to the inside of a bookstore - cozy, smart, and filled with that new book smell - was to go find Wyatt. But he decided that a direct plan of action wasn’t quite bookstore etiquette and so instead Emrys silently picked up a copy of Atlas Shrugged and began flipping through the pages slowly as he moved through the bookstore.
He found Wyatt completely absorbed in a book - of what he couldn’t tell - and paused for a minute before making his presence known. He truly wanted to pass the man off as a complete and utter ass but found that no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t. He wanted to pass off the man’s fitness and very clean-almost-fluffy blonde hair as chauvinistic and arrogant but found that it was difficult. He wanted to do nothing but scowl at the fact that the man had smirked at his pain (and, yes, temporary stupidity) for getting blisters and not knowing what the hell to do about them, but found that he could also not do this either. Perhaps part of it was being in a bookstore, or maybe it was something else entirely, either way Emrys found himself intrigued and then annoyed that he was even perplexed at all. Emrys liked being able to pass a quick judgment.
“Hello.” He said awkwardly, coughing afterwards as Wyatt’s head shot up.
“You made a decision then.”
“Ah yeah, Merrell Phaser something. The tech specs looked good and they feel decent with the present circumstances.” Emrys looked down at his shoes and felt proud and foolish all at once.
“Pretty sure the present circumstances are your fault.” Wyatt shot back and smirked, sticking a finger in the book to mark his spot.
Emrys glared, sighed and then stood awkwardly in the aisle of the store. He was quite sure the both of them wanted to get the entire medic thing over and done with but didn’t think that there was any real smooth way to get that ball rolling. After all, any question involving someone else touching ones feet was by nature awkward.
“Find anything good?” Emrys asked, finally settling on something that seemed neutral and appropriate enough. Fuck, even getting the go ahead from Woodrum and Eades had been easier.
Wyatt held up the book he had been reading and Emrys caught ‘T.S. Eliot’ displayed across the front. “It’s good but I already have it. There’s a certain mood for book shopping and now isn’t quite one of them.”
“Same.” Emrys held up the book for the blond to see.
“You would read Atlas Shrugged.” Wyatt said, the smirk shining through. Again.
“Bit of a backhanded compliment isn’t it?” Emrys said immediately, raising his voice about a little too much to be appropriate for a bookstore. They both realized it and shot wary glances towards the front of the shop. No one came or shot a glance at them, so they were safe.
“Just an honest observation. You seem like the sort of person who would read an Ayn Rand novel. Well, someone that would read one and possibly consider buying another copy.” Wyatt’s smirk widened and he broke out into a little chuckle.
“Yes, well, can’t say you strike me as a dead ringer for T.S. Eliot but then today’s been full of lots of surprises.”
Wyatt scoffed, glared and then adopted an expression of alarm and insult.
“What exactly is that supposed to mean?”
“Just that it doesn’t actually seem to suit you. I don’t usually associate people of the prattish persuasion with good poetry.”
“So far I’ve figured out that you’re not very good with assumptions.”
“Just an honest observation.” Emrys echoed. He almost smirked too, but caught himself in horror and ended up looking quite uncomfortable. “Sorry.”
They stared at each other for a moment and Emrys felt the urge to not back down from Wyatt’s gaze but the same sensation to turn away.
“Better get down to business then, shouldn’t we?” said Wyatt finally, putting down his copy of T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland and Other Poems. Awkwardly Emrys took his own finger out of Atlas Shrugged and placed it on the shelf closest to him.
“Right yeah. Get this over with so we can be out of each others way.” Emrys stated and then briskly cut through the aisles of the store before exiting Chapter XVII. “Ah, where are we doing this again?” He asked as soon as Wyatt made his own leisurely way out of the shop.
Emrys couldn’t say why, mostly because he didn’t know, but for some reason he was nervous. There was a general air of ‘what-next’ and Emrys knew that there was something in the atmosphere that said that today was important. Something seemed to be hinged on the moments of silence, the pauses in speech and the general stillness of the both of them. He couldn’t help but think that the outcome of this blisters and medic situation was imperative to something else. What this something happened to be? Emrys had no fucking clue.
“Yours would be best. I’m guessing - don’t shoot me for making assumptions - you’re staying at an Inn somewhere near here? Regardless of the fact that clearly you’ll be better once I’ve bandaged you up and what not, you probably shouldn’t go wandering afterwards.” Wyatt gave Emrys an amused but still withering look and Emrys, tired of glaring, avoided it sheepishly. “So which way is it?”
“Which way is - oh right, the Inn. Um that way - North of West I think, not that that really matters.” Emrys answered, turning to his right and waving his hand in the direction that he believed the White Sunrise Cottage to be, hardly noticing his choice way of giving out directions.
“You are peculiar, has anyone ever told you that?” Wyatt squinted and the look he sported screwed up his face in just this particular way that Emrys had to bite back the urge to laugh.
“Well, you’re the first to tell it to my face.” Emrys answered and then paused. “How exactly am I peculiar?” He added as they began to walk in the direction he had pointed in.
“Usually when people ask for directions they don’t expect or really need an actual compass rose direction.” Wyatt rolled his eyes.
“Usually?”
“Well there is the exception of geo-caching and military types but you’ll have to forgive me for assuming that you’re not either of them.” Emrys turned to look at the blonde haired man who he couldn’t help but think, based on fitness and body type alone would be quite right for the military.
“Big fan of assumptions aren’t you?”
“I’ve been told I’m a good judge of character.” Wyatt said proudly.
“Guess that doesn’t extend to being liked by said characters.” Emrys responded. The words came out as a joke, but the expression he saw didn’t quite radiate the same amusement. “I didn’t - I - sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, I’m sure you’re a wonderful judge of character, but I guess there has to be exceptions to those you get along with.” He gulped guiltily.
“What is that supposed to mean?” The words came out stiffly and Emrys felt a wave of regret wash over him. He shot a sneaky glance at Wyatt and noticed that somehow or another Wyatt seemed more upright - guarded almost.
It was true though, at least he thought so. The two had not gotten off on a particularly good foot. When he wasn’t glaring, and Wyatt wasn’t smirking they had traded half-joking, half-serious comments with one another. Wyatt seemed to think he was the superior being and Emrys, well, Emrys by nature couldn’t take that sitting down. He couldn’t see any viable thread of similarity between the two of them and yet for some reason he felt guilty at the words that had been said and those that had yet to come.
“Well you don’t like me very much and -” Emrys began to trail off. “I’m not exactly your number one fan.”
They stopped and looked at each other then, Emrys felt like bacteria under a microscope. The feeling of the importance of the situation rose and Emrys was astonished to realize that he had forgotten all about the feeling in the first place.
“You don’t know anything about me.” Wyatt said plainly after a moment.
“No, no I don’t.” Emrys answered warily and with grudging honesty.
“We met about, what, a fucking hour and a half ago? And yet you - you - for some strange reason that I really don’t understand - you have this sort of grudge against me.” Wyatt waved his hands around clearly confused and frustrated. Emrys stiffened, his back somehow and inexplicably straighter than it had been before and felt the urge to be violent.
“I have a grudge against you?! Oh that’s rich. I’m not the one who before even introducing myself decided to lecture about shoes and…and blisters! You think you know everything and that for some reason it entitles you!” Emrys shot back poking fingers and stumbling over the words as if he had trouble holding them back and simultaneously getting them out.
“I was saving you! You were going to try on a pair of shoes with massive blisters on your heels. Believe me it would have been beyond painful!”
“I don’t care how much more you know about shoes than me, you’re an absolute arse when it comes to giving directions and advice.”
“Oh really? Oh REALLY?!” Wyatt firmly grasped Emrys’ arm and whipped him around the corner out of sight. People had started watching and it wasn’t because of a brilliant intellectual discussion. “You’re an ungrateful whining shit who doesn’t know when to take advice and who to take it from.” Wyatt whispered fiercely.
“Why should I take advice from someone who’s such a bastard? You waved a knife in my fucking face!” Emrys whispered back, poking his finger into Wyatt’s chest.
“Yes! To pop your fucking blisters!” Wyatt shot back and came very close to punching Emrys in the face or smacking the back of his head in utter frustration and anger. They stood that way, almost poised on the precipice of violence for minutes before Emrys finally broke.
“You don’t know anything about me.” He said tiredly, stepping backwards and running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know any fucking thing about you. All right?”
Wyatt looked angry for a brief moment and then something softened. “All right.” There was tension for a few more moments and then suddenly it crumbled, Wyatt broke out into a grin - not some smirk - and Emrys was sighing with relief and then laughing with the same emotion.
Wyatt held out a hand and Emrys brought his to meet it. “Emrys Grey.” He said with a wry smile.
“Wyatt Crawford.”
“So, you’re going to fix my heels aren’t you? Because you’re right, even in these shiny new boots they still hurt like hell.” Emrys grimaced, tapped his toes against the pavement and then looked up hopefully. Wyatt snorted in response but nodded. Neither seemed particularly worried about the fact that a minute ago they had been ready to break each other’s noses and bloody each other’s knuckles.
“Yeah, I’m going to fix your heels.”
They ended up in Emrys’ room about half an hour after leaving the bookstore. Halfway to the White Sunrise Cottage, Wyatt had suddenly realized that he needed to get his first aid kit - to which Emrys had groaned and muttered, Wyatt had glared and actually hit him on the back of head, Emrys had objected to even more pain from a medic of all people, and then somehow or another they had ended up laughing. It was very strange and yet somehow it felt right. Emrys was wary for a second on how easy things seemed but decided that worrying over something that felt good was just idiotic. In the end they had run (and quasi-limped) over to where Wyatt was staying before finally heading back in the opposite direction to the Cottage.
By the time Emrys’ shoes were off, his feet were raw.
“This will hurt and sting.” Wyatt said after Emrys washed his feet and winced his way onto the bed. Wyatt opened up the red First Aid kit and began to cut gauze and sort through the various antiseptics that were hidden in the small crevices of the kit. Emrys waited not quite so patiently, leaning back on the bed and then sitting up before he received an aggravated look from Wyatt.
“Oh joy, something new.” Emrys said at the prospect of pain. “Ah! Fuck! Is this really necessary?” He added after a pause, nearly kicking Wyatt in the face in the process.
“Yes and could you please not wiggle or squirm or anything? You’re like a hyperactive puppy.”
“It…ah sorry…it tickles.”
“…so peculiar.” Wyatt muttered while Emrys belatedly gave his objections to being compared to a puppy.
Somehow Emrys managed a mangled laugh and cry of pain as Wyatt began to apply a good amount of antiseptic to his heels. Wyatt gave him another quizzical look and Emrys attempted something apologetic, but it came out much more looking like someone that was on the edge of giggling and gagging.
“So, why are you in Cornwall traipsing around like a complete idiot?” Wyatt asked as he concentrated on Emrys’ feet.
“It was either this or the first year at university and I, well ah…I dunno I just felt like I needed some time to figure some things out.” Emrys said and then felt that it came out sort of lamely and clichéd and tried to fix his words. “I suppose it’s sort of silly to say I had this feeling that I just needed to get away from things, but I did. Nothing’s every really…fit and somehow or another I managed to convince the people that matter that I needed some time to travel or think without having to compare everything back to Descartes.” Another pause. “But I suppose you think that’s a load of shit, don’t you?”
Wyatt looked up. They were sitting on the bed and Wyatt had been in the process of wrapping sports tape around the gauze. The bandaging made Emrys’ feet look like they had suffered major trauma and Emrys was content with that: he couldn’t feel anything. Emrys was grinning cheekily as if he actually wanted Wyatt to poke fun at him.
“No, no, I don’t actually.”
“Oh.”
There was another pause and in it Emrys wished once again that this Wyatt Crawford person couldn’t just be a git and had to be someone that liked T.S. Eliot.
“So, ah, why are you here, picking on poor innocent people with blisters?” Emrys asked breaking the silence - he hated the emptiness of Silence and was much inclined to like Quiet.
“Well I guess…I guess it’s the sort of the same situation for me. I’m done with school - undergrad at least - so it’s not the same in that respect, but I needed some time to think and while tourist traps aren’t the best place to be alone, they’re awfully good at providing anonymity.”
“Trying to figure out your life then?”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
“No well, maybe. I’m trying to figure out me.” They caught each other’s eyes and laughed. “That sounds awful doesn’t it?”
Wyatt nodded. “Yes. It does. Makes you sound like a girl too.” Another laugh and then a grin. “Well if you’re trying to figure out who you are, I guess our missions are a little bit different.”
“You know who you are then?”
Wyatt looked thoughtful for a minute. At first Emrys thought he was looking right at him, but then there was some sort of shift and he realized that Wyatt was staring off into the distance. “Yeah, I know who I am. I suppose that’s part of the problem.”
Emrys furrowed his brow and then raised one eyebrow. Wyatt seemed to struggle for a second, biting the inside of his lip before consigning.
“I had this internship. Six months in Geneva, Switzerland. Amazing, incredible, one of the best opportunities in the world - that sort of internship. When it was all over I was offered a job. Nothing high up - it’s the sort of place that’s based on merit, not on your parents or how much money you have, or where you got your degrees or anything - but still really…really umm, humbling. I would have taken it right away too, but I was offered something else and I - I…it’s just…it’s just really fucking difficult.” Wyatt massaged his temples in an aggravated manner and let out a heavy sigh.
Emrys didn’t say anything. There wasn’t much to say. ‘Wow that sucks’ didn’t have quite the right ring to it.
“What was the internship for?” Emrys said quietly not looking up. This whole situation was strange. This was one of the last things he expected out of wandering around England or even going to get a new pair of hiking boots and it was disconcerting, unfamiliar territory.
“It was for the UN, with ah God! - why I am I even telling you this?” Wyatt stood up and began to irritably stuff things into the First-Aid kit. “I don’t even know you. You don’t know anything about me, or the internship or my father, or, God I haven’t talked to anyone about this so I don’t know why suddenly I feel like I can tell you anything.” The last part came out as some sort of accusation and Emrys wished he could move away but knew that on the bed it really wasn’t possible. Somehow or another the significance of a United Nations internship seemed to slip away.
“Don’t look at me as if I have any clue.” He said quietly.
“It just doesn’t make any sense. I bet you come from a nice, loving family so believe me you wouldn’t even begin to understand the…the interrelations of the Crawford family.”
“I - ”
“I mean my father is worse than - I love him of course, he’s my father - but he’s almost…maniacal in the way that he deals with people. He’s never satisfied with anything and there’s one thing that matters and it isn’t me, and it wasn’t my mother or any other relations, it’s the Crawford name and the business and why am I telling you this?!”
Emrys watched Wyatt with a locked jaw and a detached, slightly annoyed expression.
“What?” Wyatt caught the steely gaze Emrys was giving him and suddenly the smirk returned. “Have I gotten everything right? I bet I have. I bet you want to say just how much I fucking cannot understand you even though I’ve gotten every little detail right. That’s it, isn’t it?! Well come on, admit it. I’m right.”
Emrys’ eyes narrowed and then a mixture of anger and sorrow shone in them. “No, no actually you’ve got that part wrong. You’re lucky that there is a Crawford family. You’re lucky that you have a father.” Wyatt’s smirk began to fade but Emrys didn’t notice. The words came out calmly but with a certain bite to them. “The only time I had a family was between the ages of one and three. I don’t even remember what my parents looked like. Sometimes I even forget their names. I’ve been alone for so long that it’s no longer a necessity but a fact of life. So yeah, I don’t understand what your father would be like because I don’t know what any father would be like.”
“You went through the foster system then?” Wyatt said quietly, almost hoarsely, looking at the ground as he awkwardly held the medical kit.
“No. I was taken care of by way of a trust fund. I’ve grown up with the…guidance of solicitors.”
“Sorry.” Wyatt looked up and their eyes met.
“What, sorry you guessed wrong for once?”
“No, I just. I’m sorry. For everything.”
“We don’t know anything about each other.” Emrys said and his lips twitched upwards just slightly even though he was still intent on being angry, misjudged and sad.
“Well, ah, we know a little bit.”
“Just a little.” Emrys said, nodding and smiling wondering how it was possible to be viciously angry with someone three times within hours of meeting them and to then feel a sense of calm afterwards. The sudden feeling of importance overwhelmed him and for a second Emrys saw double. His vision began to fade to black when Wyatt spoke.
“Look I know that I’ve never had mood swings around anyone that were this bad before, but, god - you’re going to think I’m somewhat deranged or insane for this, and really I don’t know why I’m even asking this because it doesn’t make any sense to me - ”
“Try me.” Emrys said and for a second he thought he heard a low humming.
“I - I thought I needed some time to myself but for some strange reason…right, look, I was planning on traveling around England while I figured things out, and well you’re traveling around England figuring things out - and god knows you have some mental deficiency that leads you to get such horrendous blisters - ” Wyatt stopped ran a hand through his hair. “Forget it, it’s ridiculous and strange and I know for a fact this is something no one should ever do because it’s how people wind up dead on the side of the road.”
Emrys tilted his head. “Are you trying to suggest that we travel around England together?” He asked slowly.
There was a long moment of silence in which Emrys wondered how likely it would be that Wyatt would end up cutting his throat in the middle of the night with his Swiss Army knife, and then another even longer moment in which he wondered how mentally unstable he was for even considering the proposition. Wyatt said nothing the whole time and seemed to wish he were capable of taking everything back.
“Yes. I don’t know why. It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever but I’ve just got this…”
“Feeling.” And then suddenly things moved into place. It was almost as if Emrys’ own inner compass finally fixed on due north. Inexplicably hit, of course, but hit nonetheless.
“Yeah, some sort of idiotic and deficient feeling, but yes, some sort of feeling.”
They both looked at each other with a sense of determination and questioning. Emrys searched Wyatt’s face for a sign that this was all a joke.
“My step-sister tells me I snore.” Wyatt warned, as the both of them seemed to settle on the idea.
Emrys laughed, really laughed and then fell back onto the bed. “I think I talk in my sleep.”
Chapter 5