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“Well,” Isaac says, as they near the door. “I think everything is in order now.” He pauses, briefly meeting Nigel’s eyes before quickly looking away again. “Thank you for coming by to parley, Lieutenant Colonel. I appreciate your patience with my—ah, with all of my questions regarding the revised peace treaty.”
Questions, Nigel thinks to himself, that he’s quite certain the Captain knew the answers to already. Which means that the only reason he’d asked them in the first place was to prolong their meeting today.
“Not at all, sir,” he replies, and gives nothing of his thoughts away. “I greatly admire your thoroughness.”
Nigel tries to catch his gaze again, but the Captain is quite determinedly looking at his feet. Inwardly, Nigel sighs. It’s been well over a hundred years already and yet it feels like they’ve barely made any progress at all. They speak only once a year and even then, their conversations are limited to discussions about the peace agreement or the borders. He reminds himself to be patient, that they have all the time in the world here and that despite Isaac’s clear interest, he obviously isn’t ready for anything more.
But it’s difficult, sometimes. As it is now, with Isaac standing so close and afternoon sunlight streaming in through the stained glass windows above their heads, haloing his striking face in a kaleidoscope of colours, shades of blue and green and orange and gold. Nigel allows himself the luxury of staring for a moment, a kind of reckless greed overcoming the need for discretion, and does his best to commit the sight to memory. After all, it will have to sustain him for at least another 12 months.
“You’re too kind,” Isaac is saying. He clears his throat and fidgets a little with his shirt cuffs. “Well, ah, thank you again, sir. This has been a most—”
Nigel hears the Captain’s melodious voice rambling words of farewell but none of it really sinks in. Instead he watches, riveted, as a faint hint of pink washes over Isaac’s cheekbones and spreads, before deepening to an ever rosier hue. It takes Nigel an embarrassingly long time to realise that it isn’t light from the window above, but rather a flush from within—a flush that he’d caused himself, with nothing more than the mildest of compliments. And for some reason, that’s the thing that does him in, the thing that takes his self-control and stretches it and stretches it until finally, it breaks.
“—so I very much look forward to the next—”
“Perhaps we ought to redraw the border this year,” Nigel blurts out.
Isaac abruptly falls silent. He blinks, nonplussed. Nigel feels his own face heat up a little; he hadn’t even waited for a natural pause in the conversation, just interrupted like some kind of uncouth, ungentlemanly fool. But he’s waited so long already, and Isaac is standing so close, and would it really be so bad, Nigel wonders, an edge of desperation to his thoughts, if he acted just a little selfishly, just this once? If he pushed just a little harder, just this once?
“I, I mean,” he hastens to add, “you did just get—reinforcements, of a kind, did you not? The former lady of the house, I believe, is now one of your number.”
Isaac stands frozen for a moment. “Ye-yes,” he stammers, nodding rapidly. “Quite right, you’re quite right. Henrietta Woodstone, yes. She joined our ranks just this year. So, uh… we should redraw the borders, in order to, ah…” He trails off, uncertain.
“To… to make the land share more fair,” Nigel supplies. “With more people on your side, you should have a larger portion.”
“That’s—that’s very noble of you, Lieutenant Colonel,” Isaac says.
Except it isn’t, of course. Truth be told, what he’s doing right now is the furthest thing from noble. But as Nigel watches the colour bloom on Isaac’s cheeks again, as he steps forward and dares to place one hand near Isaac’s elbow—though not actually touching him, of course—and gestures towards the door, inviting him to continue their conversation outside instead—
All’s fair in love and war, Nigel thinks. And just this once, perhaps no harm would come of it.
They walk around the property for quite some time, a respectable distance between them, as they negotiate the new borders. They’ve never actually done this before: spoken outside the house or taken a turn about the grounds. It’s easy to pretend that this is more than what it is; too easy to let himself get caught up in fantasies that, for the moment at least, are far, far out of reach.
“I must confess,” Nigel says, when they get to the point where they’ve just about exhausted all border talk possible, “I’m quite jealous that the lake is on your side. It really is very beautiful here.”
He pauses a short distance away from it and takes a moment to admire the view. The calm surface of the water, mirror-still and reflecting the sky above it; the surrounding trees, brilliantly green with springtime vigour; the small family of ducks waddling single-file along the shore.
“Yes,” he hears Isaac say, his voice oddly faint. “Very beautiful.”
Nigel turns to glance at him and Isaac moves too slowly to turn away. He’s caught blatantly staring and blushes so furiously that Nigel’s hands twitch with the instinct to touch him, with the urge to tell him that it’s all right, he’s understood, he doesn’t have to pretend or look away—
But Nigel doesn’t move, and doesn’t speak, and Isaac almost stumbles in his haste to put more space between them, to hide his face from Nigel’s view.
“I, ah, I mean—just that, it’s very—that is to say, it's just so—”
His voice is thin with barely restrained panic and Nigel’s heart breaks for him a little, that he should still feel such fear even now, more than a century after his death. That Isaac should be so afraid here, with him—and of him, probably, even though Nigel knows he hasn’t been nearly as subtle as he could have been. Should have been, really, in life or in death.
“Yes, you’re right,” Nigel says, nodding, making a conscious effort to keep his voice even and calm. “The lake is very happily situated.” He gestures to the open field around them and to the woods in the distance, and tries to put as much reassurance into his eyes as he can muster. “And the grounds in general are very beautiful at this time of year, are they not?”
Isaac swallows, an air of panic still about him but gradually starting to fade. “Yes,” he manages, after an apparent struggle to find his voice. “They are. Springtime is always… quite lovely here.”
Nigel nods again. “Perhaps I shouldn’t be so jealous after all, then,” he says, “when there is beauty to be found everywhere. Even in places where you least expect it.” He pauses, then smiles a little. “And it’s springtime, as you said. A time of growth. We live on opposite sides of the border but perhaps… perhaps we’ll both find something blossoming somewhere, where there was none before.”
Isaac stares at him for a moment, a small frown on his face. It’s a considerable improvement over his earlier distress, however, so Nigel just stands still and lets him, and waits patiently for him to speak.
“But… in order for something to blossom,” Isaac says slowly, “a seed needs to be there first. Already planted, that is, and tended to with care.”
“Yes,” Nigel says simply. “You’re quite right.”
He tries to catch Isaac’s gaze again and this time, he actually manages it. But Isaac’s eyes are very bright, aflame with far too many thoughts for Nigel to understand them all at once. Eventually, Isaac looks away again.
Nigel knows he should end the conversation now and go. He’s pushed farther than he’d intended already and he’s been selfish enough. But then Isaac glances up again, and something about the angle of it, the hint of steadiness there where before there was nothing but uncertainty, makes Nigel think he might be able to push a little farther still. That he might be able to commit one more act of selfishness that, eventually, may end up serving them both.
He hesitates, then throws caution to the wind. He extends one hand, offering.
Isaac just stares at it, then looks at him with a question in his eyes.
“We may not be modern men,” Nigel says, “but we do exist now in modern times. Perhaps we ought to… adopt some modern sensibilities, too.” Nigel nods to his outstretched hand. “Or just try them, at least.”
“W-well,” Isaac stammers, his cheeks colouring once more, “there’s… there’s no harm in trying, I suppose.” And he reaches out and slowly encloses Nigel’s hand with his own.
In all the time they’ve known each other, over more than a hundred years’ worth of parleys and acquaintanceship, this is the first and only time they’ve had any physical contact. The skin of Isaac’s bare hand is warm and soft and smooth, and Nigel has to resist the overwhelming urge to run his thumb over Isaac’s knuckle, or to gently caress his wrist.
Ever so slightly, Nigel tightens his grip. A moment later, Isaac does the same.
Nigel swallows past a suddenly dry throat. He wants so much more than a mere handshake. So much more. But all he does is nod and hang on just a little while longer, prolonging the touch as much as he dares.
“Until the next parley, Captain Higgintoot,” he says. He bows a little, as much as he can with their hands still clasped together.
“Until the next parley,” Isaac agrees. He inclines his head too, before slowly and carefully siding his hand out of their mutual grasp. “I… I look forward to it, Nigel,” he adds.
Nigel quickly bows again, partly to be polite but mostly to hide the expression on his face. Isaac has never called him Nigel before.
He takes his leave and starts to head back to the shed. Just before he crosses the border, however, Nigel stops and looks back towards the lake. Isaac is still there, standing by the water, staring down at his hand.
What courage it must have taken him, Nigel thinks, to even do this much. To reach out and take another man’s hand. Even if it was just an innocent gesture, even if he did truly believe that Nigel’s intentions were nothing more than a platonic farewell between possible friends. In many ways, Isaac is braver than he gives himself credit for—brave in ways that Nigel suspects he doesn’t even realise yet.
Nigel looks down at his own hand for a moment. He remembers the warmth of Isaac’s palm, the squeeze of his fingers, the slide of his skin as he slowly pulled away and let go. He remembers Isaac haloed in rainbows, and the sweet flush that stained his cheeks, and the way his voice sounded when he said Nigel’s first name.
The next parley is over a year away. Twelve months is a long time to wait for their next meeting but this time, at least, armed with memories that he, in truth, never really expected to make, Nigel is quite certain he’ll be able to weather the time a little more easily than he ever has before.