The study was cramped, musty smelling, and was poorly lit, but it was his Grandfather’s safe haven and so Wes had spent many a nights in here, sitting opposite his grandpa at the desk and working on models with the older man while he waited for his parents to get off work.

Like always, his grandpa was sitting behind his desk, working on a model ship and wearing his favorite t shirt with the picture of his grandkids printed on the front. When his grandpa saw him, he eyed the joint in Wes's mouth before he reached into his desk drawer to throw him a lighter.

Wes caught it effortlessly, carrying it over to where his leather chair was positioned in front of the small window. He flopped down into the chair and opened the window as he lit up his joint, taking a long, slow drag.

“Get someone pregnant?” His grandpa teased as he focused on his current model. 

Wes scoffed. Apparently his grandpa hadn't heard him. “No,” Wes said with a long exhale of smoke, “Some Lock is low key stalking me, only not really low key.” Wes said before he took another drag. “Seems really eager about me being his Key.”

His Grandfather suddenly looked interested. “You going to do it?”

“Fuck no.” Wes scowled. “You know how I feel about that kind of stuff. So anyway, I was wondering if you could come stay the week with me and shoot him if he comes up to my apartment again. I’m starting to think he’s going to kidnap me or something.”

“That bad, huh?” His grandpa said, looking over the top of his glasses at Wes to see his grandson nodding slowly. His grandpa nodded as well. “What’s his name? I might have a contact that can call his supervisor at whatever base he stationed at and put him in line. Sometimes Locks need to be reminded that they can’t just go around doing whatever they want...that’s why they have to serve mandatory time in the military, you know. Keep them in line. Teach them control.”

Wes patted down his jacket before he pulled out the flier to see the Locks name there. “Hawthorne.” He read, frowning at it before he stuck it back into his coat.

“Hawthorne?” His grandpa said in a funny tone.

“Yeah.” Wes said around a yawn, tilting back in his seat to reach over and open the window to let the smoke out.

“Hawthorne?” His Grandfather asked again, suddenly sitting back in his seat, his attention now solely on Wes.

“Yeah?” Wes replied again, frowning at what sounded like recognition in his grandfather’s tone.

His grandfather stood then and wobbled over to the bookshelf beside the widow, pulling out a beaten leather bound book to turn it over in his hands, opening it to stare at the first page. He slowly withdrew a beaten and dog eared photograph from it to stare at it. He then gave it to Wes, trading the joint for it.

Wes frowned as he looked down at the picture of two men dressed in military uniforms, similar blank looks on faces that seemed to have seen too much, a pair of thousand-yard stares staring up at him. 

“Who?” He asked, his eyes looking between the two men that stood side by side, slightly turned to face each other, the one on the left a few inches shorter than the man on the right.

“My Father, your great grandfather.” His grandfather said, pointing to the man on the left. “Jackson Castor.”

Wes made a noise of acknowledgment, seeing now that the man had his grandfather’s narrowed, suspicious gaze, Wes personally having the soldier's razor-sharp cheekbones.

“My Father was a Key, you remember.” His grandfather said, tapping the top of Wes’s head with a boney fingertip.

“Oh yeah. I vaguely remember you telling me that.” Wes said dryly.

His grandfather, in fact, always found a way to shoehorn the fact that his father was the Key to the top general in their country’s army into every family gathering. It was the one exciting thing that was attributed to their otherwise simple, lower class family. They might be poor white trash, but everyone in town knew that in the last world war, the reason why their country came out on top was because Wes’s great grandfather was the Key to the most impressive Lock in the war that brought them victory.

It was actually a very boring story.

His greatgrandfather and his Lock were assigned to be partners at basic training. They fought in a war, blah, blah, blah, they won. Lots of medals. Happy ever after for everyone. His great grandpa married his high school sweetheart, had some kids, and now all his direct descendants lived in the same trailer park together - save for Wes, who had moved to the city a few years back.

So yeah.

Kinda boring.

“So if that’s your Dad...then that means that’s his Lock.” Wes said with a smile, pointing to the second man, with his softer gaze and high brow, his posture stiff and perfect as opposed to the informal posture of his own great grandfather’s.

“That’s right,” His grandfather said. “General Wes Hawthorne.”

Wes jerked his head to the side and screwed his eyes shut at that, crying out a weak “Noooooo!” as his grandfather patted him roughly on the shoulder.

“That’s right, you little bottomfeeder. Wes Hawthorne. Your namesake.” His grandfather said as he took a noisy drag from the joint, exhaling the smoke at Wes and his overly upset look. “General Wes Hawthrone, the Lock to Jackson Castor, your great grandpa.”

“Nooo!!” Wes cried out dramatically, “Oh, God - I think that guy’s name was Jackson!!” He cried, burying his face in his hands.

His grandpa’s look brightened. “Jackson Hawthrone and Wes Castor! Isn’t that funny!” He said gleefully.

“No!” Wes snapped. “That’s not fucking funny!”

“I wonder if that’s really our Hawthorne's great grandchild.” His grandfather said in awe. “My Daddy and Uncle Wes were famous enough that he might just have been named for them, but who knows! They have the same last name!”

Wes curled his legs up to start pounding his forehead against his knees. This couldn’t be happening to him. “He looks a bit like the man in that picture,” Wes said to his knees, “With my luck, he probably is his great grandson.”

His grandfather grunted and nudged Wes, handing him his joint before he went to where he kept his expensive whiskey to pour himself a drink, taking a sip before he carried it back to his own seat behind his desk.

Wes sighed as he rolled his forehead against his knees. Fuck! He swallowed hard and lifted his gaze to look back down at the photo, staring at the pair of men that stare right back at him with empty gazes.

“What happened to them? After the war, I mean...”

His grandfather sighed deeply and sat back, sipping at his drink. “War ended, Dad married his high school sweetheart, my lovely mother. You know.”

Wes lifted his head then. “Yeah, yeah, but I mean - what happened to the two of them? Their partnership and shit...Locks and Keys...are stuck together for the rest of their lives. I mean, did Hawthrone fuck off while your Dad settled down here in the swamp, or?”

“In this lovely meadow, you mean?” His grandfather seemed to mull that over before he tilted his head this way and that. “Momma and Daddy had planned to move back here to their hometown, and Uncle Wes was supposed to return to the city where he grew up to finish schooling, but the war messed Uncle Wes up pretty bad. He needed to be taken care of for a while - he got injured real bad during the war, not just his body but the rest of him as well. He drank. A lot. So Daddy and Mama stayed with him at his own family home just outside that big ol’ city to take care of him. A few months turned into years and I came around, and we all just stayed there together. My earliest memory is sitting on the couch with Uncle Wes, waving goodbye to my parents as they left for a date night...Wes was like a second father to me. We did everything together...he was a lot more fatherly than my Papa, just came more naturally to Wes. After I came around he eventually sobered up and got married.”

“And then he returned to the city and your parents came here?” Wes asked as he took another drag, eyeing Wes Hawthorne's blank expression.

“Nah. Uncle Wes moved his wife there with all of us in his family home. Wes’s wife didn’t like how cramped it was at their house - which had five rooms, mind you - so there was a lot of fighting between her and Momma and then we finally moved out. Moved back here into this very house...” He smiled to himself and looked around at the cramped study, patting the desk before rubbing it fondly. “Wes came down with his wife and daughter every weekend, made that grueling ten hour train ride. I didn’t get along too well with his kid - Jackie. She was beautiful, but what a bitch.” He said, his eyes widening as he shook his head a little.

Wes snorted, looking to his grandpa then.

“She was a darker haired version of her mother, only with a taste for danger. She was an only child, spoiled. I think Wes and Dad were hoping the two of us would hit it off and get married, but Jackie hooked up with someone from her school and she disappeared into the big city after a fight with Uncle Wes….but I guess she turned out alright, if she’s got a grandson.” He frowned. “The stress from her running off drove her parents apart. They divorced. Uncle Wes moved in with us here at the house. I was married by then, still living with mom and dad because, uh - the economy.” His grandfather said lamely.

‘The economy’ was the excuse everyone in his family gave for being poor. The actual reason was that they were bad with money and were incredibly lazy. Plus, they just liked living close together, which is why they all lived in trailers crammed together at the end of a very narrowed cul de sack in the field they had inherited from an ancestor. 

It was ‘The Land’, the only thing that they had to pass down through the generations.

And Goddammit, the older Wes got the nicer the idea was of having his own trailer right behind his grandpa’s house...and that made him feel so gross, because that was why he got the fuck out of their little town of Molehill and moved closer to the city...and yet...he was itching to come home, settle down in his own fucking trailer, sit in his own lawn chair and enjoy fishing in the same freaking river his family had been fishing at for nearly twelve generations.

Ugh.

He felt gross just admitting that to himself.

This was why he didn’t get high.

It made him sentimental.

“So,” His Grandfather continued, “Here we were in this very house - Mom, Dad, Me. My lovely wife, my babies - your mother and Aunty Jean and Uncle Walter. And then my Uncle Wes!” He said with an easy grin.

“Where the fuck did everyone sleep? This place has two rooms.” Wes frowned, looking around with a bewildered gaze.

“Mom and Dad had one room, My family had the other. Uncle Wes slept on a pull out in the living room. When the kids got bigger, you know, we got our own house, but, you know, back then they were tiny and just slept with us in our double sized bed, so it worked. Your grandma and I got kicked a lot by three pairs of tiny feet, but it was nice at the time. It worked.” He sat back down behind his desk. “Dad died a few days before your Mama’s fifth birthday, had a heart attack. It was sudden. Very, very sudden. Uncle Wes - that wasn’t so sudden. Without Dad...it was like his brain was slowly eating itself. He became deranged...Mom moved into my trailer with my wife and our new little girl, your Aunty Mallory, and I went and stayed with Wes here at Dad’s house to take care of him….I stayed with him that whole week...it was the worst week of my life, seeing a man that was like my second father, the man I admired so damn much, going absolutely crazy. Finally, he had a stroke and...that was it. The end of Wes Hawthorne. The man who I loved the most in the world...meeting a horrible, sad and terribly agonizing end. Buried him out back next to Daddy and Momma. Ya’ll used to camp on top of him in the summers.”

“What a wonderful story, Grandpa.” Ws commented dryly. “Thanks for ruining my high.” He said, flicking the end of his joint on the windowsill to lose the ash.

“Great man.” His grandfather went on, ignoring him completely. “When your Mama handed you to me and said - ‘Here, we used all the good names on the first five and he isn’t the girl we wanted, so you get to name this one.’ I knew exactly what name was meant for you.” He gave him a big smile and Wes sighed dramatically, his eyelids fluttering as he rolled his eyes hard. “Wes. For my second father, Wes Hawthorne.” His smile grew until his eyes crinkled. “And this boy’s name is Jackson, for my own Father. If that’s not just fate.” He said with a grin.

“I’m not bonding with him.” Wes said to the ceiling in an agitated voice.

“I’m not saying you have to...but, just so you know...I was so disappointed when I wasn’t a Key.” His grandfather said with a pointed look at Wes. “I had always wanted that for myself, to have a bond with some like my Uncle Wes, to be someone that could help someone like my Wes. That was why I was so excited when we realized you were a key back in the first grade. Another Key in the family!”

“The only one in the family after your Dad...” Wes said fondly. It had served him well in his youth - he had been carried around on his grandfather’s shoulders his entire childhood, bragged on by everyone. He had been quite round as a child due to all the candy and sweets that had been shoved toward him, the spoiled youngest in the family who famously almost never had his feet touch the ground from all the carrying around.

Fuck.

Wes sighed hard and reached up to rub his forefinger and thumb against his temples before he took an irritable puff of his joint, turning his head to look out the window at his nieces and nephews jumping through the sprinklers, eyeing where Wes Hawthorn was apparently buried under the willow tree he and his brothers used to set their tents up during the summer. Now that he really looked at it, there were three patches of grass slightly different than the rest.

Ugh. 

Fucking Grandpa.

“I’m just so blown away - The fact that Wes’s great grandchild, named Jackson, is a Lock!? And you’re the only one who can Key him?!” His grandfather said excitedly.

“Don’t say it like that - 'Key him'. It sounds weird.” Wes said to the sight of the children scurrying toward where his only sister, his only younger sibling, was coming around one of the trailers, carrying a trayful of watermelon slices.

“It’s destiny!” His grandfather cried, ignoring him again.

“Oh my God.” Wes muttered under his breath. “I shouldn’t have come here.” He sighed hard and licked his fingers before he killed his joint, sticking it behind his ear for later. “Well, alright Grandpa- you’ve given me a lot to think about.” Wes said as he stood from his chair. “I’m just going to go and-”

“There’s something I never told anyone else...another part to the story.” His Grandfather said then darkly. "Something about Wes and Jackson I've kept to myself all these years."