This story is a work of fiction. Like all works of fiction it has to have some basis in reality, even if it is only that its protagonists speak the same language as the reader, but it does NOT contain any actual people. If you think you've spotted yourself, or somebody you know in here -- you haven't. Every person in this story (and dog) is my own creation. There may also be a mention of characters created by another author. Jacob Lion, in America, has kindly permitted me to include his characters in my stories. It has been impossible to avoid some mention of real places, and some organisations. The story is a story and in no way suggests that those organisations would act in the way that they do in the story. Although several of the characters in this story are gay, that is their sexual orientation and in no way suggests promiscuity. If you are looking for pornography of any sort, I can save you some time -- look elsewhere. If you wish to read a story of love in its finest form, I hope you enjoy it.
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Scotland the Brave Chapter 6 By Jonah
For a gay man to be lying in bed with an attractive naked fifteen-year old boy should have been pleasant, but it wasn't. Ok there had been plenty of skin-on-skin contact during the night, because he was freezing, and I couldn't leave him like that no matter how cross I was with him.
As he warmed up, toward morning, it was he, not I who initiated the contact, and I pushed him away. I was in no mood.
"Jonah?"
I was still in no mood. I was maintaining the distance. I could feel the soles of his feet against my calves, and that had to be deliberate, but I was NOT going to encourage him.
"Jonah, are you awake?"
"No."
"Jonah, are you still angry?"
"No Geordie. What I feel about you at this moment - I don't think angry comes anywhere near covering it."
"I really screwed up."
"Geordie, after I told you that you need to be loyal to Simon because he'll always be loyal to you - you took advantage of his loyalty. You almost got him killed. You behaved like a novice who has never seen a railway before, never mind knows how to behave on one. What you did was irresponsible, disloyal, criminally stupid, illegal, and crushingly disappointing. Now as Simon's guardian, who is not only responsible for him but also loves him and has his best interests at heart, how do you expect me to feel? Miffed? Annoyed? A little cross perhaps? How about homicidally furious?"
"Sorry."
"Is that the best you can do? Sorry?"
"What else can I do?"
I only thought about it for a couple of seconds.
"Nothing I suppose. Once you're up and dressed you'd best be out of my sight, and you're definitely going to stay out of Simon's life -- right out."
The naked boy who climbed out of the bed was beautiful, but I was immune to that right then.
"I suppose I'd better find my clothes," he muttered, making for the door.
"You can't go out there like that," I snapped. "Take a blanket."
He picked up the blanket he'd been wrapped in last night and wrapped it around himself. He opened the door only to find Fergus standing outside with a cup of tea in each hand.
"Cup of tea lads?"
He handed one to Geordie and came into the room, deliberately closing the door behind him.
"Sit down laddie," he said.
He passed me the other cup.
"Two things Jonah." He said. "Firstly, Geordie is not going anywhere until you've calmed down. You don't eject people from this house -- I do, if, and when, I see fit. Secondly, isn't there someone else whose feelings you need to consider here? Oh, I daresay you're cross with Simon too, but am I to fetch him in here so that you can explain to him why you're taking a sledge-hammer to his feelings?"
I fumed in silence. Fergus held all the aces here, and he knew it, but I had to protect my boys, and someone like Geordie Wallace, however attractive he looked, couldn't be allowed to interfere with that.
"Penny for them Jonah," said Fergus as I remained silent. "Oh, and you can speak in front of Geordie alright; after all, you're never going to see him again if you have your way."
"I thought I'd lost him," I said quietly. "There in the darkness, with the snow swirling around like a fog, I thought I'd never see Simon alive again. How do you think that feels?"
"Are you asking me if I know what it's like to lose a child?"
"I'm sorry Fergus. I never thought......"
There wasn't a dry eye in the room.
"But does HE know?" I nodded toward Geordie.
"Would ye wish that on him?"
Suddenly, Geordie found his voice.
"You can hate me Mr. Cummings. It hurts that you hate me because I'm grateful to you. Ach, I'm not grateful to you because you saved my life. I wish you hadn't, but I'm grateful that you saved Simon."
Fergus drew himself up to his full height.
"Right!" he said. "Now, both of ye get up, showered and dressed. Geordie might need to borrow some of Simon's things. All three of ye have an appointment with Rabbie Wright at the Police house at ten o' clock."
It did strike me as strange that the Police were compelling us to trespass on the railway so that we could attend to be arraigned for trespassing on the railway. I did not press the point.
PC Wright had seated us in his office while he sat looking very important, behind his big desk.
It took him less than a quarter of an hour to explain to us how stupid we were, and that he was letting us off with a caution. He explained that it meant that the Police were taking no action now, and that it was very unusual for Network Rail not to want to press charges, but, if we transgressed in the next twelve months, it would be counted as a second offence.
He asked us if we understood, which we did, so with a "we'll say no more about it" he dismissed us.
As we made our way back to the station Geordie was very apprehensive. I could understand why. I'd been mad with him earlier, and that was before he'd managed to land me with a Police caution. He must have thought I'd taken leave of my senses when I was suddenly taken with a fit of giggling.
"What's the matter," said Simon, with studied patience.
"I was just thinking what your brother will say now that he's not the only one in the family with a police record."
I tousled Geordie's thick, dark hair.
"And I suppose I shall have to put up with you now that you're my partner in crime."
We left Geordie on the platform to wait for his train, while we walked back to the cottage.
"You aren't really that annoyed with him are you?" Simon said.
"Of course, I am, " I replied. "I only have to look at him to wish I was ten years younger. It's infuriating?".
He punched me lightly in the arm.
"You know that's not what I meant," he said.
Back at the cottage we found the usual hive of industry. Fergus had directed Luke and Peter in clearing the fresh snowfall from the glass roof and, the snowman having become buried, a new one had been constructed. If anything, he looked even more splendid than the old. After all that effort, Simon and I arrived just as the work-team were breaking up for lunch.
Beans on toast and hot chocolate were passed around the board and a lively banter set up, mostly directed at the two newly convicted criminals. Howard kept out of this, no doubt keeping a low profile in the knowledge that he should have been arraigned too, but Lady was everywhere. Of course, it was possible that Howard's low profile was really due to the fact that Luke's bare feet were resting on him, under the table, and he was happy with that situation.
The mention of Luke reminds me that he doesn't often come in for mention. That doesn't reflect on his character, or even his abilities. It mostly reflects on the fact that he is seldom any trouble. So long as his sketch block is within reach, Luke can always find something to do. He had actually packed four sketch blocks for the holiday, in the belief that four would be sufficient. He would, in fact, have been proved wrong in that, had not Janet, who likes to sketch flowers, provided him with sugar paper and oil pastels -- a medium with which Luke was unfamiliar. After lunch he spent the afternoon familiarising himself. Now if you believe that Luke would have struggled a bit while learning to use an unfamiliar medium, I'm here to tell you that it just isn't so and, as a professional artist myself, I have to say, most sincerely, that it makes you sick. None-the-less, I was, and am, proud of the boy.
While Luke amused himself thus, Peter gave Fergus a good thrashing at chess (though I'm sure Fergus tactfully avoided seeing a few obvious moves) and Simon took Lady and Howard for a walk on the railway.
For my part I helped Janet in the kitchen. I took responsibility for making a large apple pie, under Janet's instruction, while she casseroled the mutton, which Simon and Geordie had brought back yesterday, with carrots, peas, leeks and diced potatoes. She put it in to bake surrounded by pie crust that I had trimmed from the apple pie. She then proceeded to crumble some dried mint, which she took from a bunch hanging upside down from the ceiling. This, she told me, not only preserved the mint so that it could be used during the Winter but, during the Summer -- when it was drying- it filled the kitchen with an aroma that makes the common housefly dizzy and persuades him to keep away and lay his eggs somewhere else.
I ventured that I was sure that it was the female housefly that laid the eggs.
"Do you know," said Janet, "I've never looked closely enough to tell."
I had to own that I had walked right into that as I watched her boil the kettle and moisten up the mint for the mint sauce.
By four o'clock the dinner was all in the oven and we had time to relax with a cup of tea. Fergus used tea-drinking as an excuse to miss a few more obvious moves. A glance at the board told me that the relative numbers of pieces that he and Peter had on the board made it look as though Fergus was in trouble, but the fact that his Queen and one of his rooks were still intact made me wonder if he wasn't lulling Peter into a false sense of security. Several sips later I proved to be right. Peter had concentrated enough playing pieces to corner Fergus' King on his home square. Instantly Fergus castled and the focus shifted to the corner of the board. Peter, cheated of his prey, reacted vengefully as he took the errant rook with his Queen, thus confining her against the edge of the board with a lot of her own pieces in her way. Fergus moved his Queen to threaten Peter's King and there wasn't a thing he could do about it. He accepted defeat graciously, as he had been brought up to do, and Fergus brought out the tin of biscuits from beneath the old sideboard. Every grandchild knows that grandparents always have a tin of biscuits beneath the sideboard.
Eventually dinner was ready to serve up, and I learned to make custard, without using custard powder. Everybody present was moved to fulsome praise of the meal. Even the pie received more praise than I deserved.
After an evening of card games, the family finally retired to their beds. Fergus and I were last, as usual.
"I bet that's the first glass of whisky you've shared with a criminal," I said ruefully.
"I've met a few criminals in my time," he replied. "I've educated their children for them, but a caution is what the police give to somebody who has broken the law but is NOT a criminal."
"That's a false distinction," I pointed out.
"In some people's eyes I suppose it is" he conceded, "but not in the mind of anybody who is capable of saying, `there, but for the grace of God, go I' and you'll not find many policemen who'd agree with you."
"I probably haven't moved in the circles that they have to," I responded.
"You probably do right to stay out of them. For some of us it hasn't always been possible. Does it seem strange to you that you, who acted on the side of law and order last night, should get a caution alongside the two `criminals' that you apprehended and returned to the straight and narrow?"
"I know the constable has to do his duty....," I began.
"Last night," he interrupted, "he told me that you were to be on the carpet too, and he told me why."
I could only listen in silence.
"He said that it wouldn't do for you to go round feeling holier than your son or the other boy. He was afraid, you see, that you'd think they had made a bad choice whereas you had no choice. There's always a choice whether to break the law, and they didn't believe they had any more choice than you had. He's convinced that cautioning you will make you a better father to Simon and a better friend to Geordie."
"I hope he's right," I murmured into my glass.
"Rabbie's a good man -- a good policeman, and a fair one," returned Fergus. "You could have fared far worse you know."
"I'm not complaining," I replied, putting down my glass, "I was sharper with Geordie this morning than I should have been. I hope he can forgive me. I've a lot to be thankful for. Goodnight Fergus!"
TO BE CONTINUED