Fic: Though Thou Repent [Slings & Arrows]
Title: Though Thou Repent
Author: absinthe_shadow
Fandom and characters: Slings & Arrows, Geoffrey and Ellen
Rating: R for very disturbing and potentially triggering content. Please read the warnings and consider them seriously,
Stylistic: non-chronological and second-person and British spelling. Not everyone likes this.
Thematic: I’m always slightly uneasy when people make big claims for how troubling their stories are, and loath to suggest that my writing is, gosh, super powerful. With this one, though, it’s nothing to do with how the story’s written. It’s not meant to be a wallow, or, indeed, utterly devoid of hope - and certainly didn’t start out anything like as grim as the final draft - but there is some quite graphic and distressing suicide-related content. I am happy to give further details to anyone who is considering reading but wishes to avoid, e.g., mention of particular methods. My contact email is: only [dot] oscura [at] gmail [dot] com.
[Spoiler space before story]
Prompt (and spoilers, if any):
“This is the most depressing hallucination I ever had” ~Tony Kushner, Angels in America
Subtle spoilers, at least, for all three series of S&A.
i.
The electricity goes off in his gloomy digs after you make love for the first time, and it’s so cold - February, yes, and the snow still deep - that you drag his heavy black coat onto the bed and wrap it round you, and even then only begin to feel warmer very slowly. So you curl up next to him, just because you are cold, and push back your long hair which is too tangled to do anything about. You steal a cigarette from the pocket of the big coat and watch him sleep while you smoke it, and the smoke hangs in the icy air much longer than usual, so that, if only Geoffrey would wake up, he would have to marvel at such unearthly delicacy as it mists and twists into your hair - only he does not wake and perhaps you are just seeing too slowly, drunk on the late and solitary night. Then he is suddenly no longer still: little tensions pass over his face and you know that he is dreaming.
Nobody’s as good as Geoffrey. Four days of rehearsal and his Romeo is already inflected with some quality of terrible and shiftless flame, an ardour which is close to ecstatic in the love scenes but still veils every line with waxing and waning shadows of preordained disaster. As you stroke the hair back from his forehead and touch his chilly skin his reasoning is suddenly as clear as if he had explained it to you that very day: he thinks, of course, that the lovers are too often shown as victims of nothing greater than human dynasties. The fixity of his gaze as he watched Frank speak the prologue aches in your memory, and you think, star-cross’d, and reach out to touch his swollen mouth, which is the mirror of your own. Actually the faint throb is delicious to you. Grey light grows slowly stronger at the uncurtained window. And where thou art not, desolation, you think. You have never felt so lonely in a room that had somebody else in it.
ii.
“And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings / His soul and body to their lasting rest,” says Geoffrey, and his voice is full of strong and flowering tenderness. It’s alright now, you think. It’s going to be alright after all, you think, his hand taking yours as though he really needs it and isn’t afraid that you should know.
While you’re busy with some surprisingly good shortbread Geoffrey wantonly purloins your cappuccino and - the Fates, or perhaps Nemesis, are clearly on your side - gets milky froth all over his nose. When you lean over to wipe it off his breath hitches exactly as Romeo’s did when he murmured against your mouth, Give me my sin again, the words ringing out clear to the audience but for you almost lost in an erratic and shuddering exhalation.
There are some things, it is true, which you have expended many sighs in trying to forget, but you won’t ever erase his unbelievable stillness, the unmoving covers of the tall white bed. It was the only time you tried to visit, because his unbelievable fragility hurt in places you didn’t know you had, and even through the observation window you could see the exact tension of his restraints.
Oliver, of course, never went at all. And your eyes fill with tears as the terrible sights are replaced with the gentleness of Geoffrey’s face as he tipped the ashes out over the water.
“Geoffrey - I’m sorry.” You force the words out through your choked throat, and he gives you that wonderful smile, impossibly brilliant as early light striking early snow.
iii.
You lie on the sofa learning lines, eyes aching to close against the strong green room. It’s going to be a rotten season: someone on the board has pushed through a programme stuffed with less well-known (and for good reason, you think) plays which aren’t even taught in schools, which even dedicated subscribers will think twice about. The Comedy of Errors, Cymbeline - except now you’re too old for Imogen, will never play that part, and you try to forget looming nursehood - and King John. You are Constance, which is hardly going to stretch you, but there are rumours of better things next year: perhaps another Dream, and at last Titania, arguably more interesting than the ingénues if not quite Cleopatra.
“Grief fills the room up of my absent child,” you whisper. It’s rather dark with only one lamp lit, and very green, like being inside a curled-up leaf. “Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,” you say, not putting all the breath into it because you’re only memorising them, for God’s sake, there’s no audience. And then somebody is pushing open the door and it is Geoffrey and he comes in.
He is paler and thinner than he ever was when you acted together. He wears black trousers which look rather like part of a costume, and a white shirt which certainly is because nobody would wear sleeves like that in real life, only it doesn’t look raffish and romantic, actually it hangs off his smaller shoulders haphazardly, like a child’s nightshirt, and he’s sweating a lot so it’s clinging, and at the same time there’s a constant shiver running through his body as he crosses unsteadily to the sofa and goes stiffly down upon his knees. Then he seems to choke or sob for breath, and crumples up small and presses his face into the cushions. You think he is just weeping. Your hand goes out slowly, all on its own, and his hair is just exactly the same, thick and soft, and you hear your own voice in an unceasing murmur, asking when they let him go and whether he’s better, and telling him all sorts of stupid things about the season and your hideous wig and how completely fucking awful it’s been without him.
Only he doesn’t answer you. You can hear his crackling breath which is certainly not clogged with tears, and you curl your hand around his chin because suddenly more than anything you want to look at his face. He stays stiffly pressed against the sofa until you say in the rush of a sob, “Geoffrey, please,” and then all at once he is looking up at you like a supplicant, but after all you only get a little glimpse, because you have seen the dark, unbroken bruising on his arching throat, and you cannot take your eyes away from it for a very long time indeed.
Then suddenly it is too much to bear and you stand up and stagger away from him in a rush. “I can’t - I’m sorry,” you gasp, and you run upstairs in the dark, hitting yourself against banisters and doors like a desperate moth. You hunch up in the bed and listen to his painful breathing until the sound recedes, and then you force yourself to stand, walk to the window, pull the curtain aside with stiff fingers - and he is walking away down the drive so you can hardly hear him at all, it might even be just your imagination, and the darkness closes around him so he is no longer easily discernable, and then either you do not see him any more or he is not there. And you put up a hand to your cheek: it seems that there have been many tears and you have not noticed them. “This quintessence of dust,” says his voice, over and over again in your mind, and you realise that the morning papers will have the story, if there is a story, and it’s only a few hours, not really long to wait at all.
FIN
Author: absinthe_shadow
Fandom and characters: Slings & Arrows, Geoffrey and Ellen
Rating: R for very disturbing and potentially triggering content. Please read the warnings and consider them seriously,
Stylistic: non-chronological and second-person and British spelling. Not everyone likes this.
Thematic: I’m always slightly uneasy when people make big claims for how troubling their stories are, and loath to suggest that my writing is, gosh, super powerful. With this one, though, it’s nothing to do with how the story’s written. It’s not meant to be a wallow, or, indeed, utterly devoid of hope - and certainly didn’t start out anything like as grim as the final draft - but there is some quite graphic and distressing suicide-related content. I am happy to give further details to anyone who is considering reading but wishes to avoid, e.g., mention of particular methods. My contact email is: only [dot] oscura [at] gmail [dot] com.
[Spoiler space before story]
Prompt (and spoilers, if any):
“This is the most depressing hallucination I ever had” ~Tony Kushner, Angels in America
Subtle spoilers, at least, for all three series of S&A.
i.
The electricity goes off in his gloomy digs after you make love for the first time, and it’s so cold - February, yes, and the snow still deep - that you drag his heavy black coat onto the bed and wrap it round you, and even then only begin to feel warmer very slowly. So you curl up next to him, just because you are cold, and push back your long hair which is too tangled to do anything about. You steal a cigarette from the pocket of the big coat and watch him sleep while you smoke it, and the smoke hangs in the icy air much longer than usual, so that, if only Geoffrey would wake up, he would have to marvel at such unearthly delicacy as it mists and twists into your hair - only he does not wake and perhaps you are just seeing too slowly, drunk on the late and solitary night. Then he is suddenly no longer still: little tensions pass over his face and you know that he is dreaming.
Nobody’s as good as Geoffrey. Four days of rehearsal and his Romeo is already inflected with some quality of terrible and shiftless flame, an ardour which is close to ecstatic in the love scenes but still veils every line with waxing and waning shadows of preordained disaster. As you stroke the hair back from his forehead and touch his chilly skin his reasoning is suddenly as clear as if he had explained it to you that very day: he thinks, of course, that the lovers are too often shown as victims of nothing greater than human dynasties. The fixity of his gaze as he watched Frank speak the prologue aches in your memory, and you think, star-cross’d, and reach out to touch his swollen mouth, which is the mirror of your own. Actually the faint throb is delicious to you. Grey light grows slowly stronger at the uncurtained window. And where thou art not, desolation, you think. You have never felt so lonely in a room that had somebody else in it.
ii.
“And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings / His soul and body to their lasting rest,” says Geoffrey, and his voice is full of strong and flowering tenderness. It’s alright now, you think. It’s going to be alright after all, you think, his hand taking yours as though he really needs it and isn’t afraid that you should know.
While you’re busy with some surprisingly good shortbread Geoffrey wantonly purloins your cappuccino and - the Fates, or perhaps Nemesis, are clearly on your side - gets milky froth all over his nose. When you lean over to wipe it off his breath hitches exactly as Romeo’s did when he murmured against your mouth, Give me my sin again, the words ringing out clear to the audience but for you almost lost in an erratic and shuddering exhalation.
There are some things, it is true, which you have expended many sighs in trying to forget, but you won’t ever erase his unbelievable stillness, the unmoving covers of the tall white bed. It was the only time you tried to visit, because his unbelievable fragility hurt in places you didn’t know you had, and even through the observation window you could see the exact tension of his restraints.
Oliver, of course, never went at all. And your eyes fill with tears as the terrible sights are replaced with the gentleness of Geoffrey’s face as he tipped the ashes out over the water.
“Geoffrey - I’m sorry.” You force the words out through your choked throat, and he gives you that wonderful smile, impossibly brilliant as early light striking early snow.
iii.
You lie on the sofa learning lines, eyes aching to close against the strong green room. It’s going to be a rotten season: someone on the board has pushed through a programme stuffed with less well-known (and for good reason, you think) plays which aren’t even taught in schools, which even dedicated subscribers will think twice about. The Comedy of Errors, Cymbeline - except now you’re too old for Imogen, will never play that part, and you try to forget looming nursehood - and King John. You are Constance, which is hardly going to stretch you, but there are rumours of better things next year: perhaps another Dream, and at last Titania, arguably more interesting than the ingénues if not quite Cleopatra.
“Grief fills the room up of my absent child,” you whisper. It’s rather dark with only one lamp lit, and very green, like being inside a curled-up leaf. “Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,” you say, not putting all the breath into it because you’re only memorising them, for God’s sake, there’s no audience. And then somebody is pushing open the door and it is Geoffrey and he comes in.
He is paler and thinner than he ever was when you acted together. He wears black trousers which look rather like part of a costume, and a white shirt which certainly is because nobody would wear sleeves like that in real life, only it doesn’t look raffish and romantic, actually it hangs off his smaller shoulders haphazardly, like a child’s nightshirt, and he’s sweating a lot so it’s clinging, and at the same time there’s a constant shiver running through his body as he crosses unsteadily to the sofa and goes stiffly down upon his knees. Then he seems to choke or sob for breath, and crumples up small and presses his face into the cushions. You think he is just weeping. Your hand goes out slowly, all on its own, and his hair is just exactly the same, thick and soft, and you hear your own voice in an unceasing murmur, asking when they let him go and whether he’s better, and telling him all sorts of stupid things about the season and your hideous wig and how completely fucking awful it’s been without him.
Only he doesn’t answer you. You can hear his crackling breath which is certainly not clogged with tears, and you curl your hand around his chin because suddenly more than anything you want to look at his face. He stays stiffly pressed against the sofa until you say in the rush of a sob, “Geoffrey, please,” and then all at once he is looking up at you like a supplicant, but after all you only get a little glimpse, because you have seen the dark, unbroken bruising on his arching throat, and you cannot take your eyes away from it for a very long time indeed.
Then suddenly it is too much to bear and you stand up and stagger away from him in a rush. “I can’t - I’m sorry,” you gasp, and you run upstairs in the dark, hitting yourself against banisters and doors like a desperate moth. You hunch up in the bed and listen to his painful breathing until the sound recedes, and then you force yourself to stand, walk to the window, pull the curtain aside with stiff fingers - and he is walking away down the drive so you can hardly hear him at all, it might even be just your imagination, and the darkness closes around him so he is no longer easily discernable, and then either you do not see him any more or he is not there. And you put up a hand to your cheek: it seems that there have been many tears and you have not noticed them. “This quintessence of dust,” says his voice, over and over again in your mind, and you realise that the morning papers will have the story, if there is a story, and it’s only a few hours, not really long to wait at all.
FIN