Fic: And Fall For The Flag
Title: And Fall For The Flag
Author: speak_me_fair
Fandom: Richard II
Characters: Hal/Harry Percy
Warnings: AU. Character Death, Sweet Fortune's Minions AU.
Summary: Hal and Harry battle to the end....
Notes: Written for lareinenoire to her prompt of Bad Romance'
They have a ritual, Hal and Harry. One tries to seduce the other and fails. One fucks the other and is too successful.
It's never clear which.
though they sometimes dig too deep with nails for words to be needed
It's never clear who's winning.
It's never clear where and to whom the points are given, only that it ends in bruises and someone, somewhere, mourns (but never either of them, for they always know what they are doing.)
marriage changes nothing, no matter whose
One time, it ends in blood.
and laughter is bitter and sweetly-biled
Another time, it ends in death.
It always ends in loss, and the call of the swifts gathering their insects, too high to belong to Grahame and too small to be Browning's swallows -
Harry lies on the river bank and tells Hal the difference, one day after Chapel, so he knows
- "Stop trying to protect me," Hal says once.
"Stop pretending," Harry replies.
Richard always lies between them, a cold and unforgiving ghost, reminder of the deal offered and rejected.
My father, and your father -
Death makes men beautiful. Hal remembers that, when Harry is dead under the high-flying swifts.
He lies dead under the banner of the Foreign Legion, and a small son who has never known him will live to mourn as Hal cannot.
He is a ghost in uniform, a bitter reminder of betrayal.
Harry is harsh and unforgiving existence that knows no mercy.
Hal dreams of flying.
There is a ghost that mocks him amidst the green lushness of a conservatory, and another that stands in his doorway in pale uniform, and neither of them will let him go.
He would give Africa his heart. He knows it thinks it has claimed his soul.
But Richard took one and threw away the other, and Harry, who never laid claim to either and yet could have brought them back, is a rotting corpse.
And the swifts call.
Author: speak_me_fair
Fandom: Richard II
Characters: Hal/Harry Percy
Warnings: AU. Character Death, Sweet Fortune's Minions AU.
Summary: Hal and Harry battle to the end....
Notes: Written for lareinenoire to her prompt of Bad Romance'
They have a ritual, Hal and Harry. One tries to seduce the other and fails. One fucks the other and is too successful.
It's never clear which.
though they sometimes dig too deep with nails for words to be needed
It's never clear who's winning.
It's never clear where and to whom the points are given, only that it ends in bruises and someone, somewhere, mourns (but never either of them, for they always know what they are doing.)
marriage changes nothing, no matter whose
One time, it ends in blood.
and laughter is bitter and sweetly-biled
Another time, it ends in death.
It always ends in loss, and the call of the swifts gathering their insects, too high to belong to Grahame and too small to be Browning's swallows -
Harry lies on the river bank and tells Hal the difference, one day after Chapel, so he knows
- "Stop trying to protect me," Hal says once.
"Stop pretending," Harry replies.
Richard always lies between them, a cold and unforgiving ghost, reminder of the deal offered and rejected.
My father, and your father -
Death makes men beautiful. Hal remembers that, when Harry is dead under the high-flying swifts.
He lies dead under the banner of the Foreign Legion, and a small son who has never known him will live to mourn as Hal cannot.
He is a ghost in uniform, a bitter reminder of betrayal.
Harry is harsh and unforgiving existence that knows no mercy.
Hal dreams of flying.
There is a ghost that mocks him amidst the green lushness of a conservatory, and another that stands in his doorway in pale uniform, and neither of them will let him go.
He would give Africa his heart. He knows it thinks it has claimed his soul.
But Richard took one and threw away the other, and Harry, who never laid claim to either and yet could have brought them back, is a rotting corpse.
And the swifts call.