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In Anthony, James saw an impossible future. His eyes shone as crystal balls of unfulfillable fortunes, his toothy smile comprised tarot cards of doom. The length of his elegant yet formidable limbs denoted a long-stretching future without him.
Anthony looked at him sadly the day they'd uttered their confessions in the low lamplight of James' office. It had been a conversation brought about by the kind of tiredness that caused tongues to become lax. The otherwise joyous revelation was sodden by their awareness that topic lugged an undeniable weight of danger. “I can't be with you...” Anthony uttered, pity filling his dark eyes.
James had expected it, a swirling storm of rejection, carving a tornado's destructive path through his heart. There could be any reason for it: perhaps Anthony identified himself as being too good for James – James wouldn't blame him if so. He certainly didn't consider himself to be a catch by any stretch of the imagination. If anything, he was the furthest thing from eligible as a life partner having not even yet mastered the skill of friendship. Perhaps there was somebody else in the picture, a dear gent Anthony longed to return home to after his duty was done. Perhaps Anthony was simply a ladies' man – fumbling in social matters as James was, they'd not used precise terms whilst discussing their affections for one another. Plus, after all, James did have a tendency to read people wrong.
The next part of Anthony's sentence provided just a tuppence of blessed relief, adequate to lighten the stormy cloud cover, but not enough to make the sun peek through. “...Right now.”
James' heart leapt, skipping a beat as a runner jumped a hurdle. There was a 'but', a caveat. A promise that one day they would fulfil what they both wanted. The fact that they both wanted it was the key saving grace.
Anthony continued, gentle, tender; just as he always was. “It's not our time. But once this is all over, I will find you.”
James smiled, confidence reignited. “That is, if I don't find you first.”
“Seems it will be a jolly rewarding race.” There it was, all the validation he could possible need.
“You would be the most wondrous prize.”
*
Anthony was leaving. It appeared that the man had gotten cold feet on him.
“What about-?” James dared enquire. A desperate gasping for oxygen as he drowned in the constricting wash of apparent rejection. As far as he could see, matters couldn't be made any worse.
“Yes. But not right now.”
James had no way to ensure he upheld this promise. He hadn't any idea how they'd stay in contact to ensure it.
Perhaps the promise was empty. Maybe it was as a parent said 'maybe' to their child when they meant 'no'.
James had never been in on the jokes his peers had made, and had often been the butt of them due to his lack of understanding. But to his knowledge, Anthony had always seemed to be the outlier: Anthony had always been kind.
He hoped this wasn't Anthony blind-siding him in that same way, nor that he meant it in this infantilising way which took advantage of another's obliviousness.
Most bitter of all, even if Anthony was being his consistently kind self, neither of them could guarantee that he would even survive to see his promise through.
James could do nothing to stop him. The deed was done: the transfer paperwork was signed. With it, they had passed over their future together into Fate's unreliable grasp. Fate threw it in his hands as one did a small ball, unpredictable glint in his eyes. With each repetition, their future landed safely in his palm, but all it took was one missed catch...
With a bowed head Anthony left.
*
He'd heard a rumour, that Anthony would be at the victory celebrations. As James dressed, he feared that perhaps Anthony's loyalties may have wavered. It was said that absence made the heart grow fonder, and for James that had been true. However often people said things that they didn't necessarily mean – a confusing rule of the world.
Without his medals, he wasn't permitted entrance at the venue. And so he found himself a pacing spot down the quite country lane, somewhere quiet to occupy himself with his thoughts.
The first attendee left, denoted by a single car trundling down the long driveway. James darted behind a wide-trunked tree to conceal himself. He dared to peer around it, disappointed by the face he spotted behind the wheel.
The car was just the first of many. From his incognito spot, James desperately identified the occupants of each vehicle. Pain seared through his chest as his ribcage was painfully battered by his pounding pulse.
Spying the target of his quest, an electric shot jolted through his chest. Inelegantly, he darted around from behind the tree. Before he could begin to wave his arms frantically like a fool, the car squealed to a halt.
The occupant leapt out, leaving the door open.
It was like stepping into a fantasy, as James had so often dreamed of Anthony in the time they'd been apart. He almost had to pinch his own arm to assure himself of its reality.
Fate hadn't fumbled.
Tall and devilishly charming as always, Anthony made his approach. His expression was unreadable, and something of his appearance took James aback. Scattered down the side of his face was scarring, a trail which made its way across his eye and down his cheek. Pink in hue and rough in texture, but it didn't seem to bother him.
Still, James tried not to show his alarm at the marring. It bothered him somewhat. He also tried not to show added fear at the fierceness it painted next to Anthony's otherwise gentle features.
James had only taken a deep breath to steel himself for the reveal of Anthony's feelings, when Anthony melted as he always had done in James' presence. Those dark, glossy eyes that he had missed so achingly seeped a familiar adoration, divulging the unashamedly honest truth of his feelings.
“James.” He spoke his name on an exhale as though it were a hushed prayer.
“Anthony.”
The man appeared to prevent himself from leaping forward, despite the fact that for the moment they had only their own company. “I'm ever so pleased to see you, old thing. Whyever are you not at the party?”
Heart in his throat, James' voice came out constricted. “I haven't my medals yet.” It was a pathetic explanation
“That's rotten luck. I was disappointed you hadn't been in attendance. But here you are...”
In James' mind, Anthony was reaching out to caress his cheek. His tone led easily to this imagining. But in actuality he held back, a few respectable yards' space between the two of them. It was in this air that something more pressing hung. James felt like an eager schoolboy, excitement laced with anxiousness as he dared ask whether he and his classmates might be permitted to indulge in an early breaktime.
“Anthony- I- I-”
James hoped that Anthony could read between the lines of his futile stuttering in a way he himself had never been apt at.
“I know.” Pity settled in the lines of his face.
James gulped.
His voice lowered into a whisper. “But not yet. Soon,” he promised, tone tempting like warm treacle.
It grated on him, the hope dragging him down. The cheek where he longed for Anthony's hand to be was strikingly cold in the spring air.
*
A calendar pinned to the cream-painted bedroom wall was adorned proudly with the lettering 'MAY 1946'. Anthony firmed his grip around James' shoulders. Beneath one queen-sized duvet, in a comforting domestic sphere, laid James' entire world.
“Happy VE Day, dear,” James whispered.
“A year ago, eh?”
“Indeed.”
“The best victory I've ever had was winning you.” Anthony pressed a kiss to James' nose.
“That can't possibly be greater than coming home from the front alive.”
“Oh it is. Without you to come back to in fulfilment of my promise, there wouldn't have been much point in surviving.”
James felt his brow furrow, sinking down his forehead in combined concern and confusion. “Do you mean that?”
Anthony smiled. “Well, there were some things I wished to return to, of course. I wished to resume being able to see my family, continue playing cricket. But what I clung to, what I had see me through the darkest days was the promise that I could start a life with you. There were old things I wanted, yes, but above all it was this anticipated newness that excited me and got me through.”
“I'm jolly pleased that it bolstered your morale such.” He smiled up at Anthony, admiring the elegant slant of his nose from his perspective of repose.
“Didn't I tell you?” Anthony whispered it closely, breath warm against the shell of his ear. “Not then, but now. Now, we can be together.”
“And we are.”
Always the reliable second-in-command, Anthony had kept his promise. He had told him. He'd told him right then they couldn't be together 'right now', for right then had belonged to the confines of duty and rigidity of societal expectations. Naturally, they were still impacted by such things, but they were no longer under watchful gazes that oversaw their strict adherence to them. But now wasn't right then. Now was now. And in their own sanctuary, the nowness was bright, spiralling, stretching for miles.
Fate had safely returned their small ball of future back to their hands.
Now was theirs.