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Author: Guede Mazaka
Rating: PG. Ref. to character death.
Pairing: James/Alec
Feedback: Good lines, bad ones, whatever.
Notes: Poem found at here.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Blame Fleming and his posse.
Summary: After the last battle, James revisits a few old places.
***
Rooted to your black look, the play turned tragic:
Which such blight wrought on our bankrupt estate,
What ceremony of words can patch the havoc?
--From "Conversation Among the Ruins," Sylvia Plath
***
Neither of them had ever known the other, and they'd both known each other too well. It was a paradox of grandly tragic proportions. James hated paradoxes.
The world was gray, and decisions were black-and-white. It was one or the other, because to see both, to think both, meant that action hesitated and failed. James hated failure, too, so he had made his choice long ago.
He wondered when Alec had made his. Had it really been decided for all his friend's life? Had there ever been a time when he'd known the real Trevelyan, and not just the placeholder for the vengeful Cossack? Had-James bit down on his wistfulness-had there ever been a chance of Alec staying with him?
And even if there had been, would he have noticed it?
So many questions, so many possible answers that it hurt him to think of them all. James angrily kicked at the grass and the dirt, narrowly missing the iron gate. It wouldn't do to disturb the next generation of orphans, after all. They might be distracted and lose their ways, never to find them again.
All James wanted to know was whether Alec had loved him. Ever. Hell-whether Janus had loved him, as it seemed that Janus had been just as much of their childhood as summer kisses and schoolyard pranks, as nighttime capers and daytime struggles. As England.
England.
James looked down at the few perfect blooms he'd brought with him, feeling the scratch of their stems and remembering the smooth way the leather boot had deliberately fallen from his hand. "Well, we're even, Alec. Betrayal to betrayal, death to death. Because I did die for you."
He put down the flowers by the corner of the gate and walked off into the fog.
***