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ROUND TWELVE WILL OPEN ON SATURDAY THE 8TH.
ROUND ELEVEN
closing at 5000 comments
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PROMPT FORMATTING:
Alphabetize pairings. They will be archived that way!Put [RPF] before RPF prompts ( Read more... )
To warn: this story mentions wartime atrocities, including the killing of children (I don't think it's very graphic but better safe than sorry).
CONSEQUENCE
--
The action of every man has a consequence-
--
In the days and months and years afterwards, they try and rebuild.
We can start again now, they say. He was a scourge, they say. He did this, they say.
Mostly, though, they don’t say anything at all.
They sweep up the rubble, they build new buildings. They tear the swastikas down and say good morning again instead of heil Hitler. They promise to find the war criminals.
He thinks, but we’re all war criminals. Will you persecute us all? He doesn’t say it, of course. You can’t say these things. You can’t say anything.
(Good morning, Frau Fleischer. How are you? Did you ever find out what happened to those people you reported? Did they ever come back for their house? They mustn’t have, you still live there. Do you ever think of them? Good morning, Frau Fleischer.)
You can’t say anything, and so he doesn’t.
--
There are no such things as heroes. Of course he knows that.
Still, he remembers the first time they heard about Captain America; his father handed him a flyer.
He said, “Look, Stefan. This is an American.”
He took the flyer, and stared, bemused, at the grinning, costumed man.
“Why is he dressed like that?” he asked, dismayed. “The Nazis will see him easily!”
His father burst out laughing. “He’s American,” he said, as if that was answer enough. Maybe it was. “Captain America.” He huffed, amused. “Americans love to pretend they are heroes.”
“Is he a hero?” he wondered, staring at the man’s bright smile, the painted shield.
His father shook his head. “There are no heroes, Stefan; only men.”
But men have done this, he thought. Still thinks it, even now. Men have done all of it.
Sometimes he wishes he could still believe in men.
--
After the war, he goes back to Stuttgart because he has nowhere else to go.
Poland is dead. Poland is empty. But Stuttgart is empty as well; Stuttgart is rubble.
He remembers it vaguely from before, from when his mother was alive. It was beautiful, then. There were castles. It was like a fairy tale. But of course fairy tales are just stories and stories end happily but life is not that sort of tale.
No, life is not like that.
--
After she died, there was Warsaw.
This is Warsaw; his father heading off to teach, smelling of old books. Catching the tram in the cold air of winter, watching the leaves change in autumn. Thinking there is more time. There is no more time.
This is Warsaw: there are Germans in uniform. There is one named Otto; he brings them bread. Father says it’s because he likes Zyta. But all the boys like Zyta, he says with pride: “She’s just like her mother was, the most beautiful girl in town.”
This is Warsaw: there is a tram, and the stop they are not allowed to get off at. Everybody looks the other way, and he looks out the windows. This is the ghetto, this is where Achym went… but nobody is allowed to talk about Achym, nobody is allowed to ask after him anymore, that bright-eyed boy, the funniest boy in class with the smart mouth.
This is Warsaw: a smuggled American propaganda reel, Captain America fighting the Nazis. A special message, to the Polish resistance, and Captain America looks grim and says, “Don’t let them win.”
(“What does he know about our lives?” his father asks, bitterly. “What problem has fighting ever solved?” His father, the pacifist. He never says it, though he thinks it: what if you had fought for mama?)
This is Warsaw: his uncle says, “Don’t be a fool. We must leave.”
And his father says, “What about Stefan? What about Zyta? Where will we go?”
In the end they don’t go anywhere.
In the end they come in the night, and there is screaming, and gunshots, and his father is crying what have I done, what have I done?
They tear his books up and yell at him: academic, intelligentsia- they spit the words like they’re poison.
Life is not the kind of story that has a happily ever after.
He does not see his father again.
--
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They take him and Zyta to an orphanage in Warsaw, and then they are moved to a children’s home in the country, and further and further out until they are far from Warsaw and further from Germany.
He wonders if they could have stayed in Stuttgart; they spoke German, their mother was German. That would have counted for something, surely. But maybe their father would still be gone. He could not have passed as German.
He thinks about it because sometimes the soldiers come and look at the children.
Sometimes they take some of them away; the young ones, the babies, or the ones with blue eyes.
“They’re trying to find the German ones,” Zyta tells him one day, as they watch the Germans salute each other outside.
He pauses. “But everyone here is Polish.”
“We’re not,” she points out.
“We’re not all German either,” he retorts, because he aches when he thinks of father.
Zyta probably thinks about it too because she falls quiet. Then she says, “We’ll tell them we speak German.”
“Why?”
Sometimes they take the other children; the ones who don’t have blue eyes. The ones who don’t speak German, look German. They never see them again either.
“Because otherwise they’ll kill us one day,” she says with certainty. “They will.”
--
Zyta has always pretended to be right all the time because she’s older. She’s not that much older, really; she’s fourteen and he’s twelve, but to her it makes a difference.
So she has always pretended to be right about everything. He just wishes that she wasn’t right about this.
They come, again, to look at them. Zyta says, we’re German. Our mother was German, we speak German. Zyta says, we’re twins. We’re both twelve (because everyone knows they only want the younger ones). Zyta says, I want to go home. To Germany.
What she doesn’t say is I want to live. I want to tell you what you want to hear so you won’t kill me. But she doesn’t need to. They all know. Everybody knows.
The German soldier seems to accept her answers, though. He says, “And you, boy? Do you want to go home, to Germany? To be German again? To forget about being here?” He adds, coaxingly, “You can be better than what you are. Germans are the ones who will rule in the end.”
(His mother was educated, as well. His mother was German. His mother was a communist. His mother was an agitator. His mother went out one day for bread and she never came home.)
He looks the soldier in the eye. “You killed my parents,” he says. “I will not go anywhere with you and I will never, ever forget what you have done.”
And so they take Zyta and the other children who can pass for Aryan, and they drive away, and that is the last he sees of Zyta.
--
After Zyta goes, things continue on. New children come; babies and toddlers- they’re orphans, or their parents are gone, whatever that means. Nobody wants to know what it means, and the older children know better than to ask. (Their parents are gone as well.)
So new children come and the others go. Sometimes the same solider who took Zyta comes back. The soldier always looks at him, with something like pity in his eyes. Once he takes him aside.
“You should come to Germany,” he says. “You’re German.”
He looks into the man’s eyes. They’re not blue; they’re a cloudy sort of grey, and his hair is more brown than blond. He inexplicably thinks of those smuggled news reels; Captain America, punching out the Nazis. Captain America looks more German than the soldiers here do. Captain America doesn’t seem to care much about it, though. Don’t let them win.
But they’re all losing anyway…
“No,” he says to the soldier. “I don’t want to be German if being German is being like you.”
The soldier doesn’t even get angry; he just nods, in a resigned sort of way and walks away.
That evening, they load two trucks full of children, and he is not loaded into the one with the blond-haired ones.
--
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--
He thinks of Zyta as they are unloaded and walked into the forest.
Because otherwise they’ll kill us one day. They will.
They are.
He has never considered himself to be especially lucky, and since Hitler came to power he’s thought that probably nobody is lucky anymore. But life is stupid, and works in stupid ways.
One of the guards- executioners- fires too early, and that is how he is saved, because as soon as he hears that shot he runs.
Behind him, he hears the shouts of the Germans and the sobs of the children. Other children are running, too, and now there are shots being fired and he just run and runs and runs.
He’s running blind, and then he’s falling over, and, still panicked, he huddles against a tree trunk.
His father told him never to be ashamed of crying, and for a second he remembers his mother; her hands ghost over his face, wipe tears (that he’s only just realised he’s crying) away like when he was a child.
He can hear the shots ringing out, and then shouts and he trembles on the ground and cries, because this is how it ends.
This is how it ends for so many people, every day, and nobody knows and nobody even cares.
--
This is how it comes together, then: there is someone crouching in front of him, and the first thing he sees when he looks is a gun.
He whispers hoarsely, “Don’t kill me, please.”
The man says, “I’m American.”
He looks up, and this time he sees him. He has blue eyes, and they seem… kind, like his mother’s were.
“Please,” he repeats, and the man replies in Polish: “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you. You’re safe.”
And this is how it falls apart: he thinks of his parents, thinks of Zyta and Otto and wonders if they would have had a chance, if it wasn’t for the war. He wonders if they will have a chance now, if they will find each other again. He wonders where Achym is, if he’s okay. He wonders where Achym’s parents are; they used to give him sweets and call him a good boy.
He’s suddenly crying harder, rocking and shaking with the terror and the grief and the knowledge, the terrible-
“They’re all dead,” he sobs- it’s not a question, and the American doesn’t lie.
“I’m sorry,” he just replies softly. “I’m sorry.”
And then the American picks him up, easily, and just holds him and lets him cry against his shoulder as they walk through the forest.
Then there are other soldiers- he doesn’t think they’re all American; they don’t sound it. He can’t help but stare a little at the dark-skinned one, even through his shock.
They’re talking amongst themselves; they seem upset.
“Even the little ones,” one of them says angrily, sounding choked. “I swear to fucking Christ-”
“All of them,” a man in a blue jacket says bitterly.
“Not all of them,” the American holding him says, as they approach.
They all turn.
“Steve…”
“Not all of them,” he says again, suddenly sounding determined. “They’re not all dead.”
(But everyone is dead, or going to be, he thinks. None of them can leave this behind.)
--
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They’re deciding what to do with him; they’re going to leave him with the underground, is the current plan, and then- what? A displaced persons camp, maybe. A long time to wait, and to wait for… nothing. There’s nothing.
They seem as discouraged as he does at the prospect, and he wonders if they know he speaks English. His father was an English teacher.
So they start walking. The American holds him the whole time; he’s a small child, and he knows he looks younger than twelve, but even if he wasn’t he doubts the American would have any trouble carrying him.
The man talks, as well, as they go. He knows Polish; speaks it well, with scarcely an accent.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
“Stefan, sir,” he replies, and the man smiles.
“That’s my name, too. Well. Steve. Steve Rogers. You can just call me Steve, if you want.”
He doesn’t reply; he’s too busy looking at the oddly shaped thing that Steve has been carrying across his back this whole time. He’s only just noticed it, really; it’s round, and looks like metal.
“Don’t touch the edges,” Steve warns, as if reading his thoughts. “They’re sharp.”
He doesn’t. He cranes his neck and looks at the other side of it. “What is it?” He sees garish colours; white and red and blue, and a- star?- a star, in the centre.
“It’s a shield,” Steve answers.
For a second he’s in their old house in Warsaw, and his father is handing him the flyer again. He looks up at Steve’s face, and- it is him, isn’t it?
“Are you the one from the flyer?” he asks, curious despite himself. “From the newsreel?”
Steve winces a little. “Sure,” he says, in English.
“Captain American,” he says, remembering.
Maybe the others don’t speak Polish; they haven’t been reacting to the conversation before this, but now they all laugh, understanding that part just fine.
“Yeah that’s right,” drawls the one in the blue jacket; “Captain America!”
As if on cue, the men start humming a tune softly, all at the same time; he’s not sure, but he thinks it’s from the start of the newsreel. They’re sniggering as they do it, anyway; teasing.
“Hey, enough,” Steve says, scowling, but he doesn’t seem that angry.
His father used to do that, when he and Zyta would carry on; pretend to be angry, but really he was just… fondly exasperated, maybe. He loved them too much to be really angry.
Just like that, everything that has happened returns to him, and he realises, with stark finality, what it means: he will never see mother again, or father, or Zyta.
He will never see them again.
He hears the humming abruptly stop as he turns his head and cries against Steve’s shoulder again. Steve doesn’t even tell him to stop; he just whispers soothingly into his ear and strokes his hair, and that reminds him of his father all over again, and he thinks, I’ll never see them again.
I’ll never see them ever again.
--
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They meet their underground contact at a farm in the middle of nowhere. He is an old man; his face is sad as he regards them both.
“Please,” Steve says. “Can you get him somewhere safe?”
The old man chuckles bitterly. “Nowhere is safe anymore,” he replies gruffly. And then, still looking at the two of them, he relents. “But I will try.”
With that promise, their paths diverge again. Steve sits him down in an empty room and says, “I have to go now.”
He nods, mutely.
“This man will take care of you. I’ve worked with him; he’s a good man.”
He nods again, still not sure what he wants to say.
Steve sighs; maybe he doesn’t know what to say either. “I’m sorry.”
He doesn’t know why Steve is, though. “Are you a hero?” he asks before he can think any better of it.
Steve looks startled. Then he shakes his head. “I’m just a man,” he says, and sounds very sure of that.
He’s disappointed, suddenly. “That’s what my father said,” he replies, looking down. "But I don’t believe in men. Men are why everyone is dead.”
Steve hesitates. “There are good men as well,” he says quietly. “Don’t give up on people. Don’t give up.”
Suddenly the grief is larger than he can hold, and he looks up, furious: “Why not?” he demands. “What’s the point in trying to fight anymore?”
Steve pauses, and then says, slowly, “The point is, if you do stay down, then the bad guys win. You have to stay a good man. Things happen for a reason, but you have to make that reason matter. You have to make it matter, what happened here. Make it count for something.” He shakes his head. “You can’t do that if you give up. So never give up. Never give up, or everything that happened means nothing.” He stops, and looks embarrassed at his own sudden passion.
They’re both quiet for a moment. Then, as Steve looks at him, he says, “I hate them.”
“That’s your right,” Steve says. “But…hate’s what made them in the first place. Don’t forget that.”
The door opens, and someone says, “Cap?”
“I’m coming.” The door closes, and Steve looks at him. “Stay safe,” he says softly, and then he gets to his feet.
He hesitates. “Steve?”
Steve turns back.
“I won’t give up,” he says. “I won’t let them win.”
Steve smiles sadly. “Then I won’t either.”
That is the last time he sees Captain America in the 20th century.
--
This is why he returns to Stuttgart; there is nowhere else to go.
From the farm he is taken to another farm, and then somewhere else; there are more children and a few women as well, and then they are all eventually taken to a camp for displaced persons. That’s where he is when the war ends, and that’s where he is after the war ends.
Then they move him from orphanage to foster family, and back; there are places to sleep, there are faces, and he feels nothing for any of them until he meets the girl, Elsa.
She says she was from Stuttgart, before, and he wonders at the chance of that.
And so, in the end, because they are alone, and because nowhere is safe, and because it’s the only place they both have in common and they’re the only thing they have anymore, they go back to Stuttgart.
--
Everywhere is ashes, and there must be a new start somewhere.
Everywhere they are rebuilding over their ghosts. There are so many ghosts, so many unmarked graves. There are trials and retributions and nobody will know their names, nobody will ever know their names.
But the swastikas are taken away and the propaganda reels destroyed.
The survivors start home and people say good morning again and pretend that they never said anything else.
--
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He doesn’t find out about Captain America until months after the war.
When he does find out, he watches the news reels about him.
That man, the same one who killed the men who killed the other children. Captain America dies in combat. The same man who carried him through the forest. Captain America saves millions of lives. Who let him cry against his uniform. Captain America prevents Nazi victory. The man who asked what his name was. Captain America, American hero. The one who told him not to give up on people. World mourns Captain America.
Nobody knows his name, he thinks, and wonders at the world. Wonders why people will know Hitler’s name forever, but that man- that man who tried to help him, tried to make it better- will only ever be known by the mask he wore.
His father said there were no heroes, and maybe there aren’t, not even when they dress up in ridiculous costumes… but there are men, and nobody knows their names.
Captain America is dead, he thinks. And so is Steve.
He wonders if anybody will mourn Steve.
--
And this is how he goes on: there are ashes, there is grief. There are the dark memories. But there is spring, coming around again, and there is rebuilding, and there is Elsa.
“We survived,” he says, and she says, “But so many didn’t.”
“But we did,” he says, and thinks, make it count.
Make it matter.
--
He has his wallet in his pocket, and pictures in the wallet.
Elsa and he, on their wedding day, holding hands. Their children as toddlers, sitting on Elsa’s lap at the top of Birkenkopf . A more recent family photo: he and Elsa and the children and the grandchildren, and oh, the first great-grandchild…
“Kneel before me,” says the man. Is he a man? He’s like a demon. “I said… KNEEL!”
And they do it. They all get on their knees. He has his wallet in his pocket and the memories racing through his head and that’s why, that’s why he does it.
“Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? It’s the unspoken truth of humanity that you crave subjugation-”
(And Frau Fleischer says “Good morning,” because that’s what she has to say now, just like before she had to say, “Heil Hitler.”)
“The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life’s joy-”
(“Don’t be a fool. We must leave,” says his uncle, and his father says, “What about Stefan? What about Zyta? Where will we go?”)
“-in a mad scramble for power. For identity.”
(“Because otherwise they’ll kill us one day. They will,” Zyta says.)
“You were made to be ruled.”
(The soldier finishes, “Germans are the ones who will rule in the end.”)
“In the end, you will always kneel.”
(And Steve says, “The point is, if you do stay down, then the bad guys win. You have to stay a good man. Things happen for a reason, but you have to make that reason matter. You have to make it matter, what happened here. Make it count for something.”)
He stands up. “Not to men like you,” he says.
The madman laughs. “There are no men like me,” he returns.
(Don’t let them win.)
“There are always men like you,” he says, and this time, as the man points the weapon towards him, he knows there will be no last minute rescue, no-
Life is still stupid, though and still works in stupid ways, because Captain America is jumping in front of him, and it appears that he will not die today after all.
--
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Afterwards, after the battle and the aliens and the madness, there is speculation on the news about Captain America. Is it the same man? Is it even possible?
He watches footage of the battle and he knows. For a long time he is stunned, too, because the man looks exactly the same. Exactly the same; it could have been yesterday that they were walking through the forest. He thinks that in some part of his soul it will always be just yesterday; in dreams and nightmares, in the spaces between thoughts, he is always walking away from the forest.
Except now… it’s strange. This is the man who saved his life when he was just a boy; now, looking at him seventy years on, he can see that his rescuer is just a boy. He can’t be any older than twenty-five, surely.
At home, Elsa shuffles into the room and watches him watch the news.
“Is it really him?” she asks, curiously.
(“What’s your name?”
“Stefan, sir.”
“That’s my name, too. Well. Steve. Steve Rogers. You can just call me Steve, if you want.”)
“Yes,” he replies slowly. “It is.”
Her eyes soften. “He’s just a child.”
“We were all children.” He shakes his head. “That’s twice he’s saved me,” he murmurs. “I owe him.”
“So do I,” Elsa murmurs.
When he looks askance at her, she smiles.
“He brought me you,” she says, and he feels tears prickle his eyes as she takes his hand. “He brought me you. My hero,” and she laughs.
“I’m not a hero,” he replies.
She arches an eyebrow. “What are you, then?”
He has children and grandchildren; a beautiful wife, a beautiful home. A life that they created from ashes, from dust and fear.
They have lived many years without fear.
Now, looking at Elsa, he realises that it does not cause him pain to admit it and that it hasn’t for many years.
He smiles. “Just a man,” he says. “Just a man.”
--
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The doorbell rings.
Steve sighs, and wearily puts down the book he was reading to answer it. To his astonishment, it’s none other than Tony Stark standing on the other side.
“Are you going to invite me in or what, Cap?” Tony asks, looking supremely relaxed.
Steve wordlessly moves aside and Tony strolls right in.
“Whoa- this place is…” He cuts off whatever he was going to say and forces out a strangled, “…homely.”
Steve is too tired for this suddenly. “Mr Stark,” he says. “What can I do for you?”
Tony spins around from his horrified inspection of the television set, and claps his hands together. “Apparently the world thinks that I’m your personal mailman,” he says drily. “So here I am- playing postman.”
Steve tries to work that out, and in the end settles on saying a dignified, “What?”
Tony pulls a letter from out of his pocket. “They’re sending your fan mail to me, now,” he says, rolling his eyes.
Steve stares at the letter suspiciously. “My… fan mail?”
“Yeah. This is all of it.” He snorts, as if amused, and then sighs when it’s obvious Steve isn’t biting. “Okay, look; remember when I went to Stuttgart to do some damage control?”
“If you can call it that,” Steve says, by way of agreement.
Tony throws him a dirty look. “Well, the mayor of Stuttgart asked me if I could pass this on to you. It’s from their national hero of the hour.” When Steve still looks confused, Tony elaborates: “That German guy. The one that stood up to Loki. The one you dramatically leapt over-”
“Oh!” Steve remembers, suddenly. “He wrote me a letter?”
“Sure did,” Tony agrees. “Or, actually- sent you a picture.”
Steve can’t help but feel a little putout. “You read my mail?”
“No,” Tony says, scowling. “I had Jarvis scan it to make sure it wasn’t filled with bombs or whatever the terrorists are using these days.”
Steve has stopped listening. He’s too curious to wait, and so opens the envelope right there and then. Judging by Tony’s expression, he’s curious as well.
“Well? What is it?” Tony asks impatiently, confirming it.
Steve frowns at it. “A photo.”
“I knew that! What is it of?”
It’s a family; an old man with his arm draped around an old woman’s shoulders. They’re surrounded by what must be their adult children, and then their grandchildren. Steve looks again at the old man, and recognises him as the man from Stuttgart.
“It’s his family,” he says, because Tony is bouncing with impatience.
“What? That’s all?” Tony deflates a little, and then perks up. “What does it say on the back?”
He turns the photograph over. Sure enough, there are words. For a second he’s confused, because they’re not in English, but they’re not German either, which is what he would have expected.
“What language is that?” Tony asks, leaning over.
“Polish,” he answers, as he finally remembers.
“And? Jesus, Rogers, you’re killing me here. What does it say?” He pauses. “Can you read Polish?”
“Yeah,” he answers vaguely.
He’s frowning over the words, because suddenly… there’s a niggle at the back of his mind. He turns it back over and stares at the photograph again, as Tony mutters about not being the postman for nothing.
He’s staring at the old man, and then, of their own accord, his gaze drifts down to the children. It’s the grandson that does it; the youngest-looking one, smiling softly. He looks the same as the old man did.
“Stefan,” he murmurs.
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Tony looks at him, surprised. “Yeah,” he agrees, sounding a little baffled. “That was his name. How’d you know?”
He runs his fingers over the photo. “I met him,” he says finally. “During the war.”
“And you remember him?” Tony sounds a little sceptical, but Steve can’t really blame him.
“It was only-” His stomach twists painfully, because hell. It clearly has been longer than he remembers. “Only a few years ago,” he says quietly. “He was just a kid.”
Tony, for once, is serious. “So he’s Polish?” He nods, and Tony hesitates. “Where’d you meet him?”
“In Poland,” he answers quietly. “We were scouting territory and-” It floods back suddenly; the fear and the horror, and oh god, those children. “Ran into some krauts.” He takes a deep breath. “Interrupted-”
The words suddenly stop coming. He remembers before he found the boy; killing the Germans, and then walking forward, towards the edge of-
“Rogers,” Tony says quietly. “You don’t have to-”
He shrugs, almost violently. “Interrupted an execution,” he says harshly- more harshly than he meant. “They were killing kids. One fired early and the older kids ran for it. He was the only survivor.”
There’s silence for a while, then. He’s remembering it, remembering the boy’s frightened eyes. To his embarrassment, there are tears in his eyes suddenly. “Didn’t think any of it mattered in the end.”
“Any of what mattered?” Tony asks, frowning suddenly.
He shakes his head. “Any of what I did.”
Tony makes a noise, and then takes the photo from his lax grip and turns it around. “What does it say?” he demands.
Steve swallows at his sudden intensity. “It says… ‘I did not give up. I made it count. Thank you.’”
Tony has an odd expression in his eyes. “Why did he write that?”
Steve abruptly feels like he’s in that small farmhouse again, and the boy is looking at him, eyes heartbroken.
“It’s what- it’s what I said to him,” he admits slowly. “When he asked me… why he should keep going. I told him- not to give up. To get back up.”
Tony’s expression is painfully gentle, then. Steve wasn’t sure he thought Tony capable of it, if he’s honest.
Tony grabs his hands and slips the photograph back into his grip.
“See?” he says quietly. “And he did. He got back up; he kept going. It mattered, Steve. To him, to his kids… it mattered.”
Steve looks at their smiling faces. “It was only a few years ago,” he says. He has to blink rapidly against the tears that have returned with a vengeance. “Guess it’s true,” he mutters.
“What is?”
“Time waits for no man.”
Tony seems to struggle for a second. “Only an idiot would think otherwise,” he finally says. “Come on, Rogers; you’re depressing me. Let’s go get something to eat. Something you’ve never had before.”
Steve forces a smile. “Like what?”
Tony shrugs. “Who knows? The world is our oyster.”
“… I’ve never had oysters.”
Tony laughs. “No time like the present,” he says, and then winces a little, like maybe he’s regretting the word choice.
No time but the present, Steve thinks.
“Fine,” Steve agrees. “You’re buying.”
Tony grins.
--
(He puts the photograph on his mirror to remind himself every morning.
This is why, he tells himself. This is why.)
--
I did not give up. I made it count. Thank you.
- this is the consequence.
--
END
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Anon. ;-; Thank you for writing this.
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Thank you for writing this.
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