Alex's Nightmare
The dream starts out the same.
Men are yelling, dogs barking, a horse whinnying off in the distance. Much closer is the howl of a wolf, and again and again, and then it's the hoarse screams of a man instead of those of the wolf.
He knows these screams, of course, he's heard them before although he thinks it has only been in his dreams that they have sounded panicked like this, panicking and in pain.
He doesn't remember being on a horse before, and the dream has almost always been exactly the same in its details, if not always precisely so. He doesn't remember being on a horse, as he rides towards the screaming, and notices the other silent riders beside him, and the dogs are barking and howling just ahead of them, growing closer, and the man's screams are closer too, but they're growing quieter, fainter.
Bodies do not exactly litter the ground, for there are not quite so many of them as that; but there are more than several, dead men with their throats torn out, eyes glassy, staring and unseeing. On some of them, he thinks, the expression is recognizable, for he knows those faces and those hands from one hundred fifty-nine hours of forced familiarity.
Someone, he can't tell who, calls off the dogs, as he dismounts, and walks closer, sword in his hand. The man is naked and bleeding in the snow, torn half to pieces by the dogs, surrounded by scraps of grey fur and grey feathers. It's clear that it's painful for him to move, as he tries so hard to turn his head to look at Alex, and it's a parody of the smile that belongs on his face, with half the flesh of his cheek torn away by a particularly vicious bite. The man's voice is broken, made hoarse by his screaming and by the injuries to his throat. It is not beautiful, now, as once it was.
"Mon chevalier, mon amour, vous êtes venu pour me sauver..."
There's a hand on the back of his shoulder, pushing him forward not quite gently, but not unkindly. "Go on, then, Tirragen. You're supposed to be a knight, not just some sort of whore, right? Prove yourself something more than that, then. Kill the monster, he's evil, he came as a wolf and a man and wants to destroy us all, you know. He's killed so many already. You're a knight, sworn to protect the people. Protect us, Tirragen, kill the bastard."
Another moan from the broken form in the snow before him, as he approaches, feet as silent as those of a cat. "Je t'aime, mon chevalier, mon Alex..."
There's a knife in his hand, a dagger whose balance he knows well and has known for years. His own blade, this, and it knows his hand as well as he knows its grip, balanced lightly in his hand. He looks down at the broken body of a man, ripped and torn, bleeding in the snow, and kneels beside him, watching him, face blank.
Again, that parody of a faint smile, jaw stained red from blood and just barely visible through the hole in his cheek.
"Je t'aime, mon amant, mon beau chevalier, et je t'aimerai pour toujours - "
He is cut off with a gasp as the dagger slides home between his ribs, and Alex knows well that his heart is in the center of his chest, where other men might have aimed too far to the left.
Grey eyes grow dim quickly, in the cold, blood darkening in the dimming faint sunlight. He looks around at the others, silent as they stand in a loose circle, watching him and the lifeless body in front of him.
Nick smiles, with his arm wrapped around David's shoulders, the tallershortertaller man's head resting on his shoulder. "Well done, Alex. I think your therapy's finished, now. Very well done."
There's a blond who's sometimes a blonde, standing with the arms of two dark-haired people around him, one lover, one cousin. "He didn't love us anyway. Good riddance," he - or is it she? - mutters to them, quietly. Their arms tighten around him, and kisses are pressed to cheek and forehead.
There's a sob, not quite muffled by a hand, and one short youth breaks forward from the rest, tearing away his cap to reveal long beautiful red hair, braided and pinned, and Alanna falls to the snow beside the broken still-bleeding body, reaching out and not quite touching what used to be a face, what used to be beautiful long blond hair. She looks up at him, tears flowing freely from violet eyes; and she asks why, how he could do this, why he would hurt Grace so; and she tells him that this is not what amour is supposed to be, surely, as she cries.
Hair the same shade as hers catches the dying rays of sunlight, as Thom moves forward to join her. His hands are broken and bleeding, with no-one to heal them anymore, as he tugs at her shoulder and stains her dress; and he tells her that she doesn't understand what he is, what he was; and he tells her that it is wrong for her to mourn him, because he was Evil, no matter what else he might have been or done for her, and Alex was Good and Right to kill him, monster that he was. And then those broken bleeding hands pull Alanna away from the body in the bloodstained snow, pushing her at George because at least that was right, as he starts to fade, translucent and purple and crimson hair and ivory skin, crimson blood and ivory bone, and Thom is dead too, and that's blood on Alex's hands just the same as the blood of the body in the snow.
They turn, and they walk away or they ride away, and they leave him in twilight with a corpse and the howls of wolves in the distance, mourning one who was never quite one of their own.
Alex wakes, and wants to reach for his sword, and he knows that he is not wearing a sword. He wants to check his hands for blood, but does not want to see it if it is there.
He's silent, stiff and still as he lies in bed, and he is in a bed, in his bed, their bed, and he knows this bed and this room, and it is not some unknown empty wood, but instead is their room upstairs at the bar. He knows this.
Alex opens his eyes, and stares up at the ceiling, and it is the ceiling he knows from dozens of sleepless nights for a sleepless knight, down to the watermarks and cracks that he should mention need patching.
The bed shifts, a little, and he's even more tense although still he doesn't reach for a weapon, head turning to see what this intrusion into their room is.
"--oh gods, angel--" You're here, you're all right, it was just... it was just a dream, wasn't it?
Parry smiles, a little, leaning down over him, hand cupping his cheek, thumb smoothing over his cheekbone, and he leans closer and kisses Alex softly, fingers brushing back into dark hair.
He is as beautiful as Alex remembers, pale skin and long lines and grace in every movement, and the skin of his cheek is unmarred and untorn, as Alex's hand touches it so very lightly, shaking just the slightest bit. You're okay, right, Beloved?
He's smiling, still, as he kisses Alex so softly, and then pulls away to leave kisses on forehead and cheeks as well.
Parry? My love? Tell me... tell me you're okay, please? Tell me anything?
He straightens, pulling away from Alex, and through the gap in a half-unbuttoned white shirt, the hilt of a dagger protrudes, and the white shirt slowly starts to stain red, now that it's touching the blood.
The hilt of a dagger that he knows well, and has for years. His own blade, this, and it knows his hand as well as he knows its grip, and it is buried hilt-deep in the center of his angel's chest, and he looks at the hand that is not quite touching Parry's cheek anymore, and there is blood on it, he sees, and knows that he is the one who placed the dagger there.
Finally, then, he speaks.
"Je t'aime, mon amant, mon beau chevalier, et je t'aimerai pour toujours, mais - I'm leaving, Alex mon amour, because I know you don't love me anymore. Goodbye, Alex, adieu."
He stares at Parry in shock, forgetting the blood on his hands and knowing only that it feels as though the dagger is in his own heart, and someone is twisting it and he does not know who, and it hurts to breathe as he forces himself to ask, almost pleading, "why? How - how could you say that, how could you think that?"
His angel is smiling, just faintly, hand brushing over his cheek again, as he leans in and presses one last kiss to his hair, to his forehead, to his cheek, one last sweet soft kiss to his lips, kisses that still say I love you, Alex, mon beau chevalier as all his kisses have said, for all these months.
"I know you don't love me, Alex, because if you did I know you wouldn't have killed me. But I love you still, mon amour, and I forgive you. You did what you thought was right, and I won't blame you for that. No more self-recriminations, Alex, the blame isn't yours, I'm the one who's Evil, after all. This never could have lasted, you're far too good a man for me. Je t'aime, mon amour, and as I said, adieu."
And he backs away, off the bed, standing, and he smiles again, just for a moment, as he takes one last look at Alex, looking as though he plans to memorize his face, before turning and walking for the door.
Tears track down Alex's face, unnoticed, because the back of Parry's shirt is in shreds, and he can see that there are no pearl-grey feathers, and there are no silvery-grey markings that aren't quite not a tattoo. There's the tip of his dagger, a faint silvertoned steel shimmer in the light between his shoulderblades, and on either side of it are two great dark ugly slanted slashes, the size and shape and place where his wings once attached to his back, where they have been cut away. The gashes are still bleeding a bit, sluggishly. He knows this, can see it even from where he's still lying on the bed with Parry already in the doorway, and he wants to cry out, to say something, to call Parry back and tell him that it wasn't him, that he wouldn't have done it, that it was just a dream oh please gods let it just have been a dream, but his throat is choked up from the tears streaming down his face and he can't make a sound, and then the door shuts behind him and he's gone, for good, forever.
Alex wakes, with tears on his cheeks, looking up at the ceiling, and it is the ceiling he knows from dozens of sleepless nights for a sleepless knight, down to the watermarks and cracks that he should mention need patching.
He turns his head a little, room blurring on the other side of unshed tears, and sees the empty bottle of what had once been absinthe, sitting on the table beside the bed. He doesn't have to look to know that there's another bottle, not quite empty, fallen to the floor between bed and table from where he'd drunk himself to sleep last night.
He stumbles to the bathroom, and is sick for a very, very long time.
Eventually, cold and pale and shaking, he washes his face and hands and reaches once more for a pearl-grey feather, wrapped back on itself into a ring, hanging beside the other pendant he wears around his neck.
It isn't there.
He falls back against the wall, braced in the corner between it and the sink, scrabbling frantically to take his shirt off, to make sure it's not just trapped underneath by accident.
His shirt is dropped to the floor, and the malleable shape of the feather is still not there.
It's less than another moment before he's back in the bedroom, tearing the bed apart, looking for it.
It isn't there.
But he freezes, at the sight of a single feather, in the middle of the bed, not quite tucked under the pillow he had been holding as he slept, as he woke.
A single feather, the size and shape of the feather the man he had called Natasha had given him, once. A single feather, not shaped into a ring.
A single feather that is brittle, and a sort of dusty black that is most certainly not a pale pearl-grey.
Alex crumples, slowly, falling forward against the bed, falling to his knees beside the bed, collapsing to hands and knees with his head hanging, and it is only then that his gaze is torn from that single black feather, as tears keep falling unnoticed.
Something is noticed.
Something pale, under the bed, just barely visible, and he reaches for it, not realizing he is until he has already pulled it into his lap.
He thinks he remembers why one of Parry's shirts was under the bed. Not so very long ago, just last week perhaps, the day he left, and Parry had brought them upstairs already nearly incoherent from Alex's teasing, and the shirt had been thrown to the floor along with the rest of the clothing that had actually managed to survive removal. And then he'd left, while Alex slept, and one way or another perhaps it had been kicked under the bed and ignored.
And it's dusty, now, a little, but it still smells like him, like cigarettes and coffee and an odd sharp tang that he always jokes about and claims is the brimstone, but Alex has tasted his skin just out of the bath and that's just him, and this shirt smells of him and that is why before he realizes he is doing so, Alex has wrapped himself in Parry's shirt, for all that it's too big for him.
He sits there beside the bed for a few very long minutes, eyes on the black feather in the middle of their bed - his bed? - and eventually he reaches for it with a shaking hand, cradling it close carefully, because it more than looks brittle, it is brittle, nothing like what a feather should be, he knows, from countless nights spent with his hands buried knuckle-deep in an angel's wings.
His angel, for all that Parry never was an angel, and for all that Alex thinks he could count the nights if he tried, because there were far too few that were spent with his beloved.
Eventually, he reaches for the bottle of absinthe on the floor beside him, and almost he drinks.
Almost.
And then he drops it again, face pressed against his knees and arms wrapped around his legs, because he doesn't want to believe this dream is like all the others he's had, even with the proof of the feather, which has changed after something else he thought was a dream, once, as well.
He doesn't want to believe this dream is true, too, like all the others have been true, and so he can't drink from the day-old bottle just yet.
Two bottles of absinthe weren't enough to keep the dreams away.
Maybe three will be, or perhaps four.
Slowly, shakily, he pulls himself to his feet, keeping the feather in his hand carefully, and in Parry's shirt and yesterday's pants, barefoot, he heads out the door and downstairs to the bar.
He will try to eat, he supposes.
He will ask for absinthe, and this time he will not check the bottles.