Work Text:
1966
‘What is it?’
‘Not ‘what’ is it,’ Keith corrected him, sounding hurt. ‘’Who’ is it.’
‘It’ was reclining on Keith’s childhood bed; it had patchy fur that was a muddy puddle brown, worn cobweb-thin around its snout and its stout, lumpy paunch. A single yellow eye, glass, was perched atop its lopsided face, dulled by years of scuffs and scratches. John bent down, wrinkling his nose. He didn’t want to touch it. It looked like it might have fleas. ‘All right. Who is it.’
‘Bear.’
‘"Bear"?’ echoed John, incredulous. ‘I needn’t have asked.’
Keith glanced over at them, armpit-deep inside a cluttered wooden chest. ‘Had him since I was a baby. Mum likes to keep him there when I’m not around.’
‘How precious,’ cooed John, fluttering his eyelashes.
‘Shut up.’
Keith sprang to his feet and crossed over to the bed, dropping an armful of tattered comics onto the covers. ‘Here, look what I've found!’
John’s interest was piqued. He browsed through them one-by-one, but it wasn’t long before a dog-eared issue of Strange Tales was thrust directly under his nose.
‘Read this to me.’
John looked up. Keith flapped it at him. This wasn’t a request.
Keith swept the other comics unceremoniously onto the floor so that he could lie down. John cleared his throat - looked around, embarrassed, even though they were alone - and turned to the first page.
***
‘John.’
‘Yeah?’
‘You’re doing the voices.’
‘Didn’t realise,’ muttered John gruffly, clambering down from the falsetto he was using for the heroine. ‘Sorry.’
Keith laughed. The mattress quivered, which made Bear look like he was laughing, too. ‘No, they’re good. Keep going.’
John started again. ‘Alright, so she’s going down to the cellar. She’s opening the door - creeeeeeak - and there’s a creepy ol’ coffin in the middle of the room-’ He stopped when he felt a gentle tug on his shirtsleeve. He looked behind him. Keith gazed back, eyes like saucers.
‘Lay down, I want to see the pictures.’
John did as he was told, awkwardly toeing off his shoes and swinging his legs onto the mattress. He let his head drop back onto the pillow. Bear was sandwiched between their heads, conveniently hiding the faint pink stain that raced up John’s neck and into his cheeks, like mercury in a thermometer.
‘Look,’ said Keith excitedly, jabbing a finger at one of the panels. ‘She’s going to open the coffin.’
‘Stupid bint,’ smiled John.
‘Next page, next page!’
John lowered the comic, turned the page, held it aloft again.
‘Aaaaaaaaah!’ they squawked in girlish unison as the unfortunate female was snatched into the arms of a vampire.
‘Are you alright up there, boys?’
‘Yes, mum,’ shouted Keith, not taking his eyes off the page. He had one cheek pressed against Bear’s threadbare belly, his fingers toying idly with the matted fur on his paw.
‘Bear smells a bit weird,’ observed John.
‘Does not,’ retorted Keith. ‘Y’don’t, do you, Bear?’
John glanced into Bear’s impassive face, half expecting a reply.
‘No,’ came Keith’s voice - or rather, Bear’s - deep, slow, lugubrious. A blink, and Keith was bright again, wide-eyed. ‘Not very nice of him, was it Bear?’ His body sagged, mouth drooping comically. ‘No,’ said Bear, tragically.
‘You fuckin’ nutcase,’ chuckled John, struggling to suppress the swell of guilty, helpless love that would envelop him at times like this. Keith was every bit the little boy he might easily be mistaken for.
'John can be horrid sometimes,' continued Keith in a quieter voice, his cheeks a touch redder than a few moments ago, 'but you like him, don't you?'
Bear's loosely attached head waggled from side to side, as if considering the question. 'Yes,' came the final, emphatic reply. Keith's face was partially obscured as he gazed owlishly at John over Bear's motheaten bulk. His eyes were dark, soft. 'That's good. I like him, too.'
John propped himself up on one elbow. His left hand curled carefully around Keith's upper arm. Their knees connected, their legs entwined. His heart pounded wildly against his ribcage. They stayed like this for a few warm, uncertain minutes, pressed together on the narrow bed. John couldn’t wait any longer. He leaned across, Bear squashed between them, Keith's quick breath fanning his burning face. He closed his eyes, alive with anticipation.
'Don’t.'
John blinked, drew back. Keith turned away. He was frowning, teeth worrying his bottom lip.
'Oh,' mumbled John, crushed. His body had gone numb and heavy, as if it had been replaced by an enormous lump of ice. 'Sorry.'
Keith looked disappointed, too. John realised that it wasn't that he didn't want to - it was simply that he shouldn't. It was a rare moment of restraint that he was sure he'd need to wait a long time to see again.
'I'm sorry, too,' Keith murmured. A baby's cry drifted up through the floorboards.
They gradually untangled themselves from one another. 'Here,' said Keith suddenly, as they were in the act of sitting up and straightening their clothes. He picked Bear up again, clasped him in both hands. He closed his eyes and pressed a long, lingering kiss onto Bear's crooked stitch of a mouth. He looked into his scuffed glass eye with a gentle smile, then held him in front of John. John let him maneuver Bear into placing a furry, slightly damp teddy's kiss against his lips. 'Mmwah,' said Keith, with an air of finality.
'Thanks, Bear,' said John, feeling happier, if not a little silly.
'C'mon. Let's go down.'
They left Bear tucked under the covers, wearing a new and secret smile on his scruffy face.
1973
'Hello? Keith, you there?'
Tara was like a grave. No window-rattling music, no strangers milling about with drinks in hand. Only a deep, unsettling silence.
Broken glass crunched under John's shoes. Torn curtains dangled off of sagging rails. He sidestepped a puddle of something dark and sticky and looked about; the evidence of a hastily abandoned party was all around him.
'John?'
Keith had appeared at the far end of the corridor. He was rounder, ruddier. He shuffled towards him like an old man, dressed only in a quilted dressing gown. John stopped him before he put his bare foot in the broken glass. 'How are you?' he asked cautiously.
'Hospital was a fucking drag,' muttered Keith. His voice was uneven, raspy. 'How're you?'
'Good,' said John bracingly. 'I was passin' through and heard you were back home, so I thought I'd bring you something to cheer you up.' He indicated the package he had tucked under one arm.
'Oh, you shouldn't have,' said Keith, visibly pleased. His words unspooled like a record on the wrong speed. 'You coming here has cheered me up no end.'
They sat side-by-side on a pink chez lounge with mauled upholstery.
'Drink?' Keith poured them both a glug of brandy before John could answer.
'What did the doctor say?'
Keith's face twisted menacingly. 'Fuck the doctor!'
John took the glass offered to him and put it on the floor. He brought out his parcel and placed it in Keith's hands.
'Go on, open it.'
Keith unravelled the twine eagerly. Torn paper unfurled over his knees.
'Ta-da.'
Keith stared into his lap. He looked confused. 'What is it?'
John sniffed. 'Not 'what', 'who'.'
Keith's eyes met his, searching for an explanation, then fell away blankly. John waited. Another pause, and then, out of the blue: 'Bear!'
John grinned.
Keith held him aloft, a smile filling the deep lines on his face. 'You went to mum's house?'
'I did.'
'Was Kim there?'
John's stomach dropped. He'd long since acquainted himself with the moods that passed over as quickly as clouds on a windy day, but that didn't make them any easier to anticipate, or navigate.
'No, Keith. She wasn't.'
He felt afraid, but couldn't place why. Keith had never made him anxious in the past. He had hoped that his gift would unearth the memory of Keith's previously untouchable innocence. He realised, now, that it had long since bled out of him on a tide of pills and vomit.
'Never mind,' said Keith at last, breezily.
'Yeah,' said John unsurely, momentarily wrong-footed.
A deep, soulful drawl wended its way past Keith's lips. 'He can be horrid sometimes.' Bear nodded his head at him sagely. 'But I...' Keith's brow knitted. 'Hmm,' he said, distantly. 'I've forgotten.'
John took Bear out of his hands. Keith looked on as John pressed a whiskery kiss to Bear's greasy snout, then turned him around and mimed him passing the kiss to Keith.
'Remember that?' said John.
Keith let out a short, muddled laugh. 'No.'
John sighed. He looked between Keith and the floppy, portly, tattered Bear in his hands. 'You two are starting to look alike.'
Keith took him back. He handled him awkwardly, in the manner of an adult who’s long forgotten child's play. 'Yeah. We've been well-loved.'
A moment of silence.
'How about some music?' he said suddenly, springing upright. His dressing gown flapped behind him as he rushed over to the record player. Bear tumbled under the seat, forgotten. John picked him up. They exchanged a private, mournful look.
Tchaikovsky whinged into ear-splitting life, filling the house with a solid wall of sound. 'Where's the fucking telephone?' Keith was screaming. 'Dougal? The telephone! We're going to have a party!'
John left him to it, stopping briefly to look into Keith's bedroom. He took in the upturned ashtray on the covers, the girly mags, the bra flung over the bedknob. They didn't belong, he decided - not anymore. He left Tara to the distorted, explosive strains of the 1812 Overture, Keith conducting wildly through the window, Bear nestled safe in the crook of his arm.