One

“I don't know why we have to come all the way out here for a pack of cigarettes,” sighed the brunet as he gave the car door a push, letting it swing shut on its own. “There's a convenience store right around the corner from us.”

“Yeah,” his friend said, jogging around the sleek white vehicle, “but they're more expensive. Seriously, $9.50 for a pack of twenty? That's criminal, Bastian.”

“What's criminal is Mom making me drive out here for her cigarettes. You want to talk about expenses? Check out the price of gas,” Bastian grumped under his breath, kicking at a few rocks as he made his way toward the store ahead, watching them skitter across the dirt, rousing small clouds of dust behind them.

“Oh, quit whining. You wouldn't do it if you didn't want to,” the blond said as he slung an arm around the smaller boy's shoulders. “You love your mommy too much to say no,” he grinned.

“Shut up, Ace,” Bastian rolled his eyes and playfully elbowed the other boy in the ribs, effectively freeing himself from the other's gentle hold. “Even if I said no to her, you'd drag me out here anyway.”

“Hey, Native tobacco is the best kind there is,” Ace chuckled in defense.

“Whatever you say,” Bastian replied, not having any real opinion on the matter. He didn't smoke, and that wasn't going to change any time soon.

The store's front stairs creaked as he climbed them, so did the porch, and when he opened the front door the soft jingling of a bell announced their arrival. Inside, with the door closed, the smell of tobacco was overwhelming, but nothing he wasn't used to. He went to the counter and waited for the shopkeeper to come out from the back with palms on the polished woodwork top. Ace kept busy waiting by squatting down to look at the pipes they had displayed behind the glass casing of the counter.

“Let's buy her a peace pipe,” Ace smirked up at Bastian, whom shook his head and grinned right back.

“Get real.”

“It couldn't make her any more wacky.”

“Ace!”

“Sorry to have kept you waiting,” a Native boy said as he pushed through a beaded curtain, smiling apologetically.

Bastian, straightening his posture, waved the apology away. “Don't worry about it.”

“So, what can I do for you?”

“I'd like to buy some cigarettes.”

“You smoke?” inquired the boy behind the counter, cocking an eyebrow. “Don't look like the type.”

This made Bastian fidget and Ace snickered.

“You're so transparent,” the blond laughed as he finally stood up beside his friend.

“Shut up,” Bastian muttered, then cleared his throat. “They're not for me,” he explained, confirming the stranger's assumption.

“He's Mommy's errand boy,” Ace quipped, ruffling Bastian's hair.

“Ah,” the other boy laughed. “Alright then, what does she want?”

“The package of two hundred,” the brunet was grumbling now, embarrassed.

“Sure thing,” the cashier said as he bent down to open a cabinet under the counter, taking out a plastic baggy filled with cigarettes. “Here you go,” he chucked it across the counter to Bastian, and Bastian caught it, eyebrow raised.

“Uh, thanks,” he said and tucked it under his arm. “How much?”

“Fifteen.”

Bastian fished two bills out of the pocket of his jeans, a five and a ten, and handed them over the counter. He watched as the other boy punched the price into the register then slipped the bills into their respective slots after the tray had popped out. After the register was closed again, the boy smiled warmly at him.

“Come again,” he said.

“Count on it,” Bastian replied with the slightest of smirks. His mother always had him coming out here to pick something or another up, the chances he came back to this shop to buy cigarettes was very likely. He nudged Ace, whom was looking at the pipes again, then headed for the door.

After the bell ceased its jingling, the boy behind the counter watched through the window as Ace and Bastian clambered back into the car and then drove off.

“I look forward to it.”

---

“Here you go, Mom,” Bastian said as he tossed his mother the baggy of cigarettes.

“Oh, thank you, honey,” Mrs. Carter gushed, holding the package in one hand while wrapping her arms around her son, kissing both cheeks – a habit she'd picked up from her French grandmother. When she pulled back, she squinted at Bastian and grinned. “All accounted for?”

“Sans ten,” he chuckled, and so did his mother.

“That Ace. Why doesn't he buy his own?”

“Because it's cheaper to bum yours?”

Mrs. Carter laughed, giving her son's cheek a pat before heading off to put her cigarettes away in her bedroom. Bastian followed and leaned against the door frame.

“I'm gonna take off for a bit again,” he informed her, though he knew he was beyond needing to tell his mother what he was about to do.

“Pictures?” she inquired without turning around, a knowing smile on her face.

“Yeah,” he replied, smiling a small smile all his own.

“Take some good ones.”

“Will do,” Bastian said as he turned on his heel and headed out, after retrieving his digital camera from his room.

He drove ten minutes out of one city district to another, stopping in front of a large park. The gates were closed and locked at this hour, but that didn't matter. Bastian walked around the iron fence until he found his favored spot, a place where thick tree branches hung low and reached over to the outside. With his camera secure in a pouch strapped over his shoulder, he gripped two if the metal bars in his hands and hoisted himself up, using his feet to keep himself going. Once he was high enough, he took hold of a branch and pulled himself into the tree with practiced ease. He had been doing this for a steady year and a half now, after all.

Down and out of the tree, he walked casually through the park, straying from the man made paths. The better scenery was found deeper inside, not along the pathways. He stopped in a thicket, taking the camera from the pouch and turning the power on. It whirred and beeped, then the LCD screen flashed on, ready to be used. He wasted no time in snapping shots of the trees in sharp contrast to the dark evening sky, the shrubbery that lined the gate, and a few squirrels that scampered past, too eager to get up into the safety of a tree, away from the intruding human.

Once he'd milked that part of the park for all it was worth, he moved on, searching for another place that spoke to him, that beckoned him to photograph it. He found it when he came across a rather thick piece of brush a few feet away from where he stood. He stared for a minute or so, listening to the leaves rustling in the wind, watching the bushes ahead swaying in a beautifully ominous way. He dropped to one knee, steadied himself, focused on his target and took the shot.

From the brush ahead came what sounded like a snarl. Bastian looked up from the camera in time to see the bush tremble violently as a dark, lumbering figure retreated from the temporary shelter it had found within it. Wide-eyed, he looked back down to the screen on his camera. He had to zoom in on the picture before he could believe what he was seeing.

Two gleaming eyes were staring back at him.