12 - Coming full circle
Dearest Anons,
In five days (on May 8, 2011) this meme will have existed for a whole year.
It is an extraordinary achievement, your extraordinary achievement, to have kept this going well and alive for so long. With thousands of fics and comments, this meme is one of (if not the) most amazing thing I've ever come across. Not only the amount of fic ( Read more... )
In five days (on May 8, 2011) this meme will have existed for a whole year.
It is an extraordinary achievement, your extraordinary achievement, to have kept this going well and alive for so long. With thousands of fics and comments, this meme is one of (if not the) most amazing thing I've ever come across. Not only the amount of fic ( Read more... )
Ed was frightened, painfully so, and David wished he could reach out and comfort him. It had been a year, more, since the leadership election and he couldn’t understand why he had spent so long punishing Ed for it. None of it seemed to matter now.
“It’s alright, I’m here,” he answered, unwilling to make Ed wait though his throat felt raw and bloodied. The tension in Ed’s shoulders released slightly, and David watched as his brother tried to squirm into a more comfortable position, wondering again why they had chosen to blindfold him.
To disorientate, he supposed, because if they didn’t want any witnesses, why would they let him watch it all?
It wasn’t until they came back, later, and he was forced to sit there, bound and useless as Ed begged for mercy that he realised. He was never going to tell because he was never going to get out of there.
-
They had been close as children, unsettlingly so, and when he was sixteen his father took Ed to America in an attempt to lessen their dependency. He had missed Ed though, desperately, and the first night he was back in the UK Ed came to his room and they slept in the same bed, wrapped tightly around each other.
He thought of that night when they cut the bonds around his wrists and half marched, half dragged him along a darkened corridor. They threw him to the floor when they reached the cell, airless and foul smelling, and David wasn’t sure if he was more panicked or relieved when they threw Ed in on top of him.
The floor was cold and unforgiving, and his stomach twisted with hunger, to match the ache that seemed to emanate from his marrow, and even as David finally hooked his fingers under the fabric of the blindfold Ed choked,
“We’re going to die in here, aren’t we?”
David just pulled him close, burying his nose in his hair to push through the stench of piss and sweat and vomit to breath in the scent of him. Ed clung to him in return, tears streaking the dirt covering his face, and David told himself, silently, that he’d keep it together for Ed’s sake, even if it killed him.
-
“I’m scared to die,” Ed whispered David didn’t know how long later, after they had been given half a cup of water and some bread and Ed had thrown his share back up almost instantly.
It made David think of other times, ensconced in the warm safety of home when Ed would come to him wanting answers about death, and what would happen if, like their dad said, there was no God and no heaven to live out forever in.
The last time had been after their father’s death, when they had sat side by side on the uncovered mattress in David’s old bedroom. He had wanted to comfort Ed then, to make him happy and see him smile again, and so he had hugged him tight and stroked at his back until they really had to go back downstairs and sit with their mother.
He tried the same tactic in the present, ruthlessly quashing his own fears to concentrate on calming Ed’s rapid breathing. When it worked, Ed falling into a fitful sleep against him, it all came flooding back and he found himself praying, desperately, to a God he didn’t believe in.
-
It was like a nightmare he couldn’t wake up from, and the longer it went on, the harder he found it to separate right from wrong and the unacceptable from normality.
They’d taken his watch away, along with everything else, so he couldn’t be sure but it felt like much longer than usual since the last time they had been given food and water. Ed had noticed too, he could tell, and when Ed entwined their hands he knew that he had resigned himself to what was inevitable.
David let Ed lay his head against his shoulder and let himself think about how things might have been if he hadn’t prevented himself. If he hadn’t pretended he couldn’t feel the kiss Ed had placed on his cheek that night at party conference, and if he hadn’t forced himself to stand tall at the altar, though he could see that Ed’s face was wet, standing with the ring beside him.
“I love you,” Ed said, and it was barely audible though the room was silent. David closed his eyes, accepted that it was time to stop fighting, and whispered in return,
“I love you too. You know I do.”
-
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Oh, god. This is so painful and good.
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“What would you do if we survived?” He asked, though he knew he wouldn’t get an answer, and he imagined the scenario himself, picturing Ed sat across him at the breakfast table, reading out amusing quotes from the newspaper and smiling up at him, happy, when he laughed at them.
He felt like laughing, manic and hysterical, but it wouldn’t come and he didn’t think he had the energy, anyway. The thundering in his head got louder, closer, and he kept his eyes shut because from the start of it he hadn’t opened them and willed them to make it quick, and not to make Ed suffer.
-
He opened them to the smell of antiseptic and starched white bed linen.
“It’s over,” his mother told him, looking a decade older, at least, than when he’d last seen her. “You’re safe now.”
It didn’t feel like it. He was on edge and afraid, constantly, waiting for them to return, unable to close his eyes lest he find himself back there all over again, reliving it in his nightmares.
He wanted to be near Ed, couldn’t bear the thought of being separated, and even when he knew it must look strange, too obvious, he couldn’t bring himself to care because society’s censure suddenly seemed like the last thing that mattered.
Ed needed him, and wanted him, and somehow it didn’t feel hypocritical when he lay beside him and murmured again and again,
“It’s all over, you’re safe now.”
-
They made it real one night, his fingers on Ed’s jaw as he pressed their lips together, and Ed returned it hungrily, clinging to him like he was an anchor and telling him, when they came up for air, “I can’t believe this is real. I can’t believe this is happening.”
He couldn’t either and he kept Ed’s gaze throughout, memorising Ed’s every reaction, because he understood now that you could never foresee what might happen. He learnt the way Ed tasted, and how he looked in that moment, and even how he unerringly found him in his sleep, pressing closer and closer until David put his arms around him.
It continued after he went home, somewhere they both needed to be for their children, and he supposed that perhaps he should have been more subtle because Louise looked at him with wary eyes one night once the boys were in bed and said,
“I understand that it’s not your fault; that it’s because of what happened. But you need help, David. You both do.”
-
He did try, though albeit not hard enough, and Ed tried too, though it hurt like a physical pain to put distance between them.
They didn’t succeed, not really, and one day a party aide had to take him aside and say that, even with an interim leader and them out of the limelight, there were rumours and though she couldn’t bring herself to ask, he knew his lack of instant denial had only confirmed them.
“What will we do?” Ed pleaded later, so that David took his hand, the one that shook and ached where they still hadn’t managed to properly reset his fingers. He kissed him because he didn’t have an answer, and when it got late Ed swore he was alright to go alone though David wanted to go with him.
He didn’t hear about it until the next morning, when he woke to the flash of camera bulbs through the curtains and what seemed like a hundred missed calls on his mobile phone.
It didn’t matter that they’d gotten through it he thought after, as he sat through the service in his blackest suit and his reddest tie, watching and hearing but not listening or seeing. Because what they had done had been awful but what he had done had been worse. He hadn’t just convinced Ed there was no hope for them, he had actually gone ahead and made it so.
And now there was no going back for either of them.
Sorry for the wait, I kind of fell asleep!
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JUST HEARTBREAKING. I feel gutted.
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even when he knew it must look strange, too obvious, he couldn’t bring himself to care because society’s censure suddenly seemed like the last thing that mattered.
This bit reminded me a lot of Emma Donoghue's Room (I don't want to spoil it for for anyone who hasn't read it but those who have will know what I'm talking about). We so readily accept the most horrific of human behaviour but can't seem to come to terms with the idea of love that doesn't quite fit a certain mold. But then of course that's what makes the idea of them so powerful.
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Thank you, anon.
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