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Author: Guede Mazaka
Rating: PG
Pairing: Grégoire de Fronsac/Jean-François de Morangias, James Bond/Alec Trevelyan
Fandom: Brotherhood of the Wolf, Goldeneye
Feedback: Fave lines, constructive crit.-anything goes.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Art, as viewed from two different centuries. For the contrelamontre 'fine art' challenge; done in 39 minutes.
***
Mani had once told him, by the light of a funeral pyre, that the natives of the Americas believed portraits stole a part of the subject's soul. That was why before ever putting brush to hide, the artists of his tribe had always asked permission of the animal spirits. And why they had rarely ever drawn people in any more detail than sticks and balls would allow. Humans were too inconstant, too frail-they needed all of themselves in order to meet the world.
Grégoire had thought it a quaint idea, then. Now, flipping through his portfolio of sketches and watercolors, he wondered.
Especially when his fingernails caught, as they always did, on the edges of one hasty drawing, done in one secret moment and never touched afterwards. It wasn't colored in the slightest, yet the stark charcoal lines of it seemed to imbue the portrait with a…vitality…that glowed brighter than any paint.
He'd never shown it to anyone: not to Mani, and not to his dear Marianne. Nor did Grégoire intend to. What he'd captured on this delicate parchment…
chévalier
pacte des loups
…whatever it was that had placed the gleam in Jean-François' eyes, the glint of silver in his hair and the feral slant to the corners of his mouth, Grégoire needed none of it in his life. No more deviltry and betrayals-not here, not under the molten African sun, not in this land of harsh, brash beauty.
But Grégoire could look, sometimes. And he could ponder, and hesitatingly half-form wishes in the deepest, most hidden recesses of himself.
After all, he kept his vows. Love Marianne. Live for Mani.
Never let himself be captured again. By anything.
***
"Exquisite detailing." Craning his head after one particular detail, Alec leaned over the railing till the museum guard in the corner began to step forward, a stern warning on her lips. He darted a casual grin at her, its fetching boyishness wiping everything from her face except for her blush, and straightened up. "What do you think, James?"
"As you say. They make for very fine art." James carefully kept his head tilted away from the strangeness of the leftmost sketch and concentrated his attention on the smooth-cheeked beauty depicted on the right-hand side. His companion caught the movement, and another, slyer smile sprang to Alec's lips. "I prefer the girl. The strokes are more even. Controlled."
"You would," Alec murmured, brushing a little closer than necessary to James as he read the descriptive plaque set beneath the pair of portraits. "Well, well. Siblings. Fronsac must have had a hard time of it."
"What do you mean?" James' voice was certain enough, even if he wasn't quite sure which statement of Trevelyan's was the focus of his question.
Flicking up lazy fingers to point out features of the drawings under discussion, Alec gave a lazy shrug. "Do I ever mean anything?" For a brief second, his green eyes flickered. "James, James, James. While you might be skilled enough for the usual chitchat, you would never be able to pass for a true connoisseur. Look at the shadings. It's obvious the artist was in love."
"With the sister?" James raised a brow and tapped a nail on the plaque. "He married her, it seems."
"And with her brother." The other man glanced back at James, wolfish smile eerily alike to the portrait's. "See how Fronsac doesn't try to soften the demon and the angel in his subjects? That, my brother-in-arms, is love."
"And here I always thought love was blind," James quipped, shaking off his slight unease. He checked his watch. "Damn. We're late."
"We're always late. It's expected of us, and if we ever showed up early, M would most likely have a heart attack." But Alec nevertheless began to step away from the sketches. "I hope you were paying attention, James. Today was a very important lesson in art appreciation."
"Always stand behind you?" Under the pretense of twitching a wrinkle from Alec's coat, James managed a whisper-light caress.
"Always look beyond the obvious," Alec snorted, brazenly stealing a cigarette from James' pocket and lighting up as soon as they walked out of the museum. "Love sees all."
"Justice," James idly corrected as he hailed a cab. "You mean justice."
Alec's head tipped up, an oddly solemn expression on his face. "They're the same thing, Bond."
Then the other man smiled carelessly again, spoiling the framing of the moment, and got into the taxi.
***