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If you asked Alastair Carstairs how he was doing, he would doubtlessly say that he was quite well.
He knew the art of standing tall, strolling into the room with a high head and a commanding presence. He had trained his voice to snap when his traitor heart sparked in fear, learned how to channel those feelings into anger and armor. He had what Thomas would affectionately refer to as “snapping eyes,” giving him a small smile and ruffling his hair until that sharp gaze softened with affection. He was smart; he was clever. His tongue was a whip, and that was what made him Alastair Carstairs.
On some days, he could almost believe that this was the complete truth of himself.
It wasn’t difficult; his personality was not a façade. He was cutting, cunning, convincing. He did have sharp edges, and ones that he was learning to love as Thomas ran his fingers along them and did not draw blood. And yet, underneath that layer, there was more to him. There were the long, nightmare-filled midnights that Thomas held him through when he stayed over, drawing steady circles on his back and telling him that it was alright not to be quite well. There were outings where he would catch a whiff of gin’s strong scent and cover his nose, willing his eyes to show nothing as he walked away too quickly.
“Perhaps I am an enigma,” he had told Thomas once on a quiet night, a little smile on his lips.
“I don’t think so,” Thomas had said. “I think you are just a person.”
And perhaps that was true, but Alastair knew that there was still something inside of him that was broken. Something inside him that struggled to let go of the fight-or-flight response that he had developed after years of inability to shed that horror for even a moment.
-
Matthew Fairchild had once told his mother that he was fit as a fiddle, and that had been a bold-faced lie.
He knew it, even as his hands shook while he spoke the words. The taste of gin was still on his tongue when he looked her in the eye to tell her that he was perfectly well, and she had become exasperated with him. She hadn’t even tried to understand. Perhaps she was too filled with worry to do so, but even now Matthew wished that she had made the effort.
He sighed to himself. He was better now; he had to hold to that.
He no longer required the bottle, and it no longer required him. That was more than enough.
And yet.
Matthew had forgotten his fears from before he started drinking, his inadequacies and concerns that he was too frivolous to be taken seriously. Or, rather, he had not forgotten them; they had integrated with his greater fears, his more overarching sorrows that he, Matthew, was both monster and villain. And now, without the dulling presence of liquor’s soft embrace, his hands trembled for an entirely different reason than an accursed gin-induced lack of control.
He tried to talk to Jamie about it, and he listened. He was kind, holding onto Matthew’s arm as he poured his silly little heart out about the days that he was too heavy to get out of bed. And then he talked to Tom about it, told him of the horrifying madness that overcame him on alternate days where it took all in his power not to do something unfathomable. “I wished to swim through the serpentine once,” he confided. “I thought it might be amusing to collect live ducks and unleash them within the London Institute as a jolly prank on Uncle Will. It was some wretched two-in-the-morning thought, after I had gotten in my Ford Model A in an attempt to beat my own record in how quickly I could race about Piccadilly Circus.” He sighed, rubbing his temples. “It was as though I had no control at all. I believe myself an enigma, Tom, truly I do.”
Thomas raised an eyebrow at that, but he said nothing.
And when he had gone home, Matthew lay back on his bed beside Oscar, his cravat loose. The copy of Cyrano de Bergerac on his nightstand seemed unfathomably far away, and his hand would not quite move. So he lay there and contemplated his odd dichotomous nature, the challenges of his odd post-alcohol experience.
He wished someone understood.
-
Sometimes, Alastair thought that he wished to speak with someone who had the same little voice that made a cacophony in his head. The voice that sounded so much like Elias Carstairs’, telling him that he was a worthless little fool. The voice that sounded somehow like both Charles Fairchild telling him what Alastair owed to him and Augustus Pounceby telling him that the universe owed Alastair nothing.
He had no idea that such a person was closer than he thought.
-
We are all of us in the gutter, Matthew’s mind quoted at him. But some of us are looking at the stars.
Matthew was not looking at the stars, not now. He was looking at darkness, empty space.
The fire he had lit hours ago had fizzled out, and he was not sure the last time he had spoken with someone. The sunrise had had odd bursts of lavender in it this morning, which he only knew because he had stayed up late enough to see it. That lavender hue, so like the tears his mother had cried after he had nearly assassinated her, stuck to his mind ever since his eyes had rested upon it. He did not even have it within himself to create a dramatic turn-of-phrase about the hue, could not get up the courage to liken it to the eyes of cherubs or some such thing. Instead, he retched into a bowl at its sickeningly-sweet scent. Odd that a color might smell like something.
Fire messages had piled up before him as the day ticked by in seconds that felt like hours. He did not have the energy to read them. He would not even try.
Angel, how he wished he could drink to forget.
It would be so easy.
And yet, it would make things so much harder. He knew that.
Besides, he did not even have gin in his flat. He supposed this was precisely why Alastair had thrown it away.
Another short eternity passed, and Matthew feared that he must be shriveling up due to old age when three strong raps sounded through his flat. His eyes darted sideways; he was not looking at the door, and lacked the energy to turn to face it. And yet, that did not matter. His unwanted intruder would not be deterred by a piss-poor greeting or even an insult that wasn’t worth uttering. He sighed and buried his face in his hands as the key turned and Alastair Carstairs’ steady tread made its way toward him.
Well, toward the window before him. He yanked the blinds open with zero preamble; Matthew’s eyes burned at the light. “Angel,” he said. “It’s bloody dark in here. Have you recently been bitten by a vampire?”
“No. No creatures of the night here besides you,” he said, burying his face in his hands. “What do you want, Alastair?”
“I want you to reply to Thomas’s fire messages,” he said. “He’s been worried sick, and I did not wish for him to come here on his own and find you doing some wretched-”
Alastair’s voice went quiet. His mouth kept moving, but Matthew could not hear it. His cravat was that same lavender of the sunrise, lavender of tears, lavender lavender lavenderlavenderlavender
“Fine,” Matthew said in a blank voice. He sounded unemotional, detached. “I will respond. Apologies.”
He felt blank. He felt soulless. He felt-
-
Matthew gave Alastair an odd, blank stare. He tried to continue, but that stare. He knew that it was haunted. He knew that, if it brought out a flat look in Matthew’s Fairchild-green eyes, if it made the light freckles that most people did not notice stand out, it was not Matthew’s fault.
And yet, for a split second, something inside of Alastair’s mind shut off. Blond hair, he reasoned, focusing on Matthew’s stupid gold head. Not red. Not Charles. Blond, like-
Hell. Blond like Elias Carstairs.
Distantly, he watched Matthew take a deep breath. It was a sight all too familiar for Alastair’s comfort.
Matthew gave an odd little half-smile, and Alastair could have jumped out of his own skin. “Why are you looking at me as though I’m a particularly bad stuntsman in Cirque du Soleil?” His voice was painfully quiet, but it held a forced inflection. “I do believe I could hold my own on stilts, provided that those in the front of the audience had better taste in cravats than you do.”
Matthew. Matthew Fairchild. Cursed little hellion. Alastair let out a breathy laugh; it was such a Matthew thing to say that it pulled him out of his thoughts. Matthew raised an eyebrow at his uncharacteristic chuckling, and he sat down beside Matthew on the floor. Oscar rested his head in Alastair’s laugh, and he stroked it, doing all he could to ignore the stench of gin and pine-needle cologne that was not eclipsing his senses. The-
“You haven’t been drinking, have you?” He knew that the smells were in his head, and yet. He had to ask.
“How weak-willed do you think I am?” Matthew sounded affronted, possibly offended. Alastair was unsure, but at least the emotion was back in his voice. “There’s no drink in this flat, anyway. You made sure of that, if memory serves.”
“Right,” Alastair said. “I’m sorry I insinuated otherwise.”
A ghost of a smile passed Matthew’s lips. “I smell things that aren’t there too, sometimes,” Matthew said.
Alastair blinked once, twice. “What?”
“You heard me. You smell gin when it is not there; don’t even deny it, you have that look about you. I smell baking scones.” He shrugged. “Sometimes, the scent of cranberries is overwhelming. I cannot countenance their horrid sweetness anymore. I haven’t been able to since… well.” He paused. “Sometimes, I even smell them in my sleep. Jamie thinks it might be the neighbors, baking. But I don't believe so.”
“It is not,” Alastair said. “You are… well, you’re a mad person, of course, and ridiculous. I would never be so stupid as to wear the ensembles that you seem to hold so dear.” Matthew snorted, and Alastair went on. “But you must know that it is in your mind. It is not the neighbors, and it is not madness to know that your thoughts are playing tricks on you.”
“I suppose,” Matthew said. “Periodically, like you, I also smell gin, albeit for different reasons. Perhaps it is because I lost myself to it for so long, though I am much more easily able to talk myself down from that. Loathsome worm Alastair poured my brandy out the window, and all that.” And then, looking oddly vulnerable he continued in an unexpectedly bold voice. “Other things give me that horrid sickly feeling, too. Lavender, for example. The color.”
Alastair raised an eyebrow. “Must you truly make fun of my cravat at every turn?”
“Believe it or not, I’m quite serious,” he said. “The potion I fed to my mother was lavender, as were her tears when she… well.” He looked haunted, and Alastair knew better than to pry. “Though, you are also correct. It is the reason I hate your cravat.”
“Oh.” Alastair had simply assumed that Matthew was being his usual empty-headed self. “You’re truly not just being a horrible, vain twat?”
Matthew’s voice was breathy. “Not this time, no. Though you can count on it tomorrow, for sure.”
Alastair sighed and pulled the cravat off. He shoved it between the couch cushions where it would be invisible. “Are you going to be your usual depraved self, now that the offending article is disposed of?”
“I find that I do not have it in me to be charming and witty today. My poetic and theatrical nature is currently eluding me. Apologies for disappointing.”
“You’re not,” Alastair told him sincerely. Angel, was this encounter becoming so vulnerable that he was being earnest with Matthew bloody Fairchild? “I’m not disappointed with you.” He paused, cursing himself as he chose his next words carefully. “Did you know that I become rather ill at the sight of redheads?”
Matthew’s gaze met Alastair’s, his cheeks pale even in the bright sunlight. “My brother?”
“Yes. Your brother. He was… not good to me.” As if that described the manipulations and the backhanded complements, the days of I-owe-you-nothings and you-must-understands and I-want-to-matters. The nights of Alastair’s can-you-slow-downs and Charles’s you-owe-mes.
“My brother will one say answer for all he has done,” Matthew said, too gently. “I am sure of that. He is good to no one, not even his own family. He cares for no one and nothing beyond his own blessedly-destroyed ambition.”
“Red hair also sends me into a phantom miasma,” Alastair continued, deciding that he did not wish to get into the questionable morality of Charles’s pursuit of him. “Even you must be conscious of his horrid pine stench.”
“Ah,” Matthew said. “I suspect that explains why Thomas has been buying me expensive Fortnum and Mason’s colognes, then.”
“Thomas… what?”
“A while back, Thomas started to gift me with the nicest colognes I could have dreamed of, obviously knowing I was a vain sort and would cease to nick my brothers’. I believed that I was quite lucky to have such a thoughtful friend.” His eyes narrowed. “I should have known that it was truly for you.”
Pressure rose against the backs of his eyes, and he forced his sappy thoughts of Thomas down for the moment. “Oh.” He paused. “For what it’s worth, Thomas quite loves you as well. Angel knows why, but you have been precious to him since you were still squalling in the rather mad self-rocking cradle that your father made you. Precarious, that.”
“Perhaps it dropped me on the head,” Matthew said.
Alastair nodded. “Can’t rule it out. It would explain a lot.”
“It would, wouldn’t it?” Matthew nudged Alastair’s shoulder.
“Quite. I do wonder how one might explain me, though, as I obviously did not have an unfortunate encounter with hardwood flooring as an infant.”
Matthew rolled his eyes. “Perhaps you were just born inanely irritating.”
“Perhaps.” Alastair closed his eyes, allowing himself to enjoy the feeling of the sunlight hitting his face through the window. “You know, Thomas is amazing.”
“I know,” Matthew agreed. “Though I don’t see the point of you saying so every twenty minutes like clockwork. Love is a woeful state,” he lamented. “I do very much wish to succumb to its woes.”
“Thomas is amazing,” Alastair continued, “and supportive. And yet, I cannot shake the feeling that sometimes talking to your stupid countenance makes me feel lighter in a way that even my hamsar-am cannot.”
Matthew sat there silently, considering. Finally, when he spoke, there was a smile on his bright face that was uniquely Matthew’s. Alastair wondered how he had ever seen a lesser, more artless piece of rubbish in his face; he and Charles truly did not look alike at all, not in any way that mattered. “I find,” Matthew said, “that I quite understand your meaning. After all, I have had similar experiences with Jamie, and with my mother. Support, and love, but without the camaraderie of lived experience.” He looked thoughtful. “I think that sometimes, when that horrid little demon in the recesses of your fevered imagination devils you about being worthless, you wish to speak with someone who has that same nagging voice telling them similar things.”
It was an odd echo of those thoughts that had haunted him in the past, and Alastair found that he didn’t have it within himself to even be surprised. Nor did he have it in himself to find a clever turn-of-phrase. “Yes,” he said simply. “I have often thought that, too.”
-
When Alastair left, he felt lighter than he ever recalled feeling. It was a beautiful summer night, and the stars shone brightly above him as he walked through Kensington Gardens toward home. He stopped and sat on a bench, throwing his head back to grasp their light in his dark eyes.
-
That night, Matthew did not close his blinds. He held his copy of Cyrano in his hands while he looked out the window, feeling oddly giddy as the stars above sparkled with a shimmer that felt somehow new.