Chapter Text
They gave Orlando a medal. They didn’t even give Flynn a tombstone. The poison was a biohazard, so they cremated him, poured him into a vase, and handed him to his mother.
There was no funeral because there was no burial. His mother held a memorial.
Orlando was not invited, he understood why. He had let her son die, used her son’s body to save himself, her son’s gun to save the mission, wore her son’s medal on his collar.
Loser has to do whatever the winner wants.
Orlando had not thought what he would have asked Flynn to do.
They called it the Immortal Glory, Flynn’s Immortal Glory. It should have been Flynn’s.
His weapons had saved the mission. His body had saved Orlando.
Flynn's death had raised questions about the Academy’s tradition of sending newly minted cadets on dangerous missions. The Daily Apple asked if the federal army was so poorly manned that it needed to send children to war.
The Tittle-Tattle was more brutal. Lambs To The Slaughter. Flynn was no lamb, but he had still been slaughtered.
So they gave Orlando the Immortal Glory, paraded him as an example of the best that the academy had to offer. They said Flynn’s death had been an unfortunate accident, a freak incident. They burned away his courage, his sacrifice, his brilliance.
Orlando was not there when they burnt Flynn. He still felt it.
Flynn hung between life and death for three months. His mother would not let Orlando see him. He understood why. He did not want to see himself either.
Orlando’s mother visited his father’s grave every Saturday, to lean back against the tombstone, and tell him the news of the week. Sometimes she read the tabloids to him and laughed. She had visited him every Saturday for the last fourteen years, although she did not always stay long.
Flynn did not have a tombstone to visit, so Orlando spoke to him wherever he was. He told Flynn about the spring flowers, about the Nine Days War and its mysterious winner, his car breaking down and stranding him in the rain, losing a styling battle with the mechanic and having to pay full price (“Just my luck he wanted to practice Lilith Fairy Tales”), the mouse that Mr. Lancelot had bought in, how he’d screamed, how Nina had laughed.
He told Flynn about Nina’s apprenticeship and her grief at his death. He did not tell Flynn about her forgiving Orlando.
Flynn had been a mess of contradictions: incorrigible, irreverent, irresistible. Neat as a pin, top of the class, always out of curfew. Brilliantly lazy, lazily brilliant.
Flynn’s loss was a mess of contradictions. Alive, Orlando was always quieting him. In the library, in their dorm, in class, during morning drill.
In those stolen moments in their rigidly structured days.
Orlando showed Flynn the stars. Flynn’s smile showed Orlando the sun.
Now Orlando was always talking to him. In his car, in his office, in the shower, on walks, in his empty bed at night, by the fire with Mr. Lancelot. He read out Nina’s letters to him.
Flynn made an umbrella that fired bullets. Flynn made a gun that fired roses. Both of these things had saved Orlando's life.
He kept the umbrella, so Flynn could keep protecting him. He replaced the fading rose with a paper one so Flynn’s memory would never fade.
He wore the medal as a rebuke.
Loser has to do whatever the winner wants.
Orlando had not thought what he would have asked Flynn to do.
He knew now.
“Come back to me.”