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It was a surprisingly warm day for November, especially since it was only a few days until December and the start of people wasting an entire month on Christmas. In fact, it was a rather beautiful day and having lived as long as I have, that isn't a compliment I give freely. Days are very rarely beautiful for me, especially after the last couple of years, but when they are I notice.
In a way, it was kind of fitting. That it would be a beautiful day when I finally see him again, a man gifted with the ability to write about such beauty in such a unique way.
To be honest, I had spent almost an hour trying to talk myself out of going. I knew that if I saw him it would only hurt, hurt in a way that would threaten to make me scream and cry, and curse myself for ever making my deal. I had felt it before, in a situation so frightfully similar to this. If he had been anyone else, I probably wouldn't have cared so much. I would just show up without a care in the world, possibly force myself to hide how uncomfortable the idea of being in an older person's home makes me out of politeness, and flirt with whoever caught my eye if I was in the mood. I would smile and laugh with my old friend, talk about the good times when we fought off some nightmarish monster, and said a fond goodbye. Or maybe I wouldn't have come at all, just buried myself in booze, drugs and sex until they were gone and I can pretend it was for the best.
But he wasn't just anyone. He was my captain and he has asked me to come. Just like Oscar, Dottie and Alyssa, he was one of the few people in the entire word I could never refuse a request from or simply pretend like it was any other day.
The receptionist at the desk glanced up only for a moment after I entered, looking away for a single second before her eyes returned quickly and a small smile formed. A reaction that was very common and, even now with everything that has happened to me, I took some pride in deep down inside.
"Hello there," I began, glancing at her name tag quickly, "Mia. Lovely name, by the way."
She blushed as I gave her my most heart melting smile.
"I'm here to see an old friend. I got this letter," I explained, pulling the letter out of the pocket inside my coat, "from a Mr James Anderson. He's a very impressive one hundred and seven year old poet."
"Oh, that's you? He said he was waiting for someone to come visit, but.."
She had a guilty expression on her face which made my smile falter slightly. "But what?"
"It's just that, at his age he doesn't really have old friends. Or at least none that can visit him." she explained awkwardly. "When he told everyone that he was expecting someone to visit, we all thought...That is to say, we assumed that..."
"That he had lost it?"
"No! Well, maybe a little, but not in that way. Just that he was a little confused. I mean, I'm shocked by how young you are. How exactly do you know Mr Anderson?"
"Oh, we've been friends for years." I evaded her question while lightly waving my hand. "Now, where can I find him?"
"Well, he's in room 20. Go down that corridor," she explained, pointing to my left, "take a right, and you should see it."
"Thank you very much. I'll make sure to say goodbye on my way out." I replied with another smile, and as I walked away I subtly looked back to see Mia scribbling what was undoubtedly her number onto a piece of paper which made me smirk slightly.
As I followed the receptionist's directions, my stride did start to slow as I got closer to my destination. The circumstances were different, but it reminded me a lot of my last visits to see Oscar and Dottie. I was hoping this wouldn't involve yet another one of my misadventures with horrific supernatural monsters, though I was admittedly on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary. It was rarely something obvious, life was never that convenient, but I observed by surroundings as best I could for any sign of the malevolent and unnatural. I saw nothing, no frightened looks from the convicts of this elderly prison or menacing glares from their wardens, but still I remained alert as experience has taught me that it is never a bad thing to be on your guard.
As I reached the door, my knuckles hesitated before I rapped them against the door. I waited a moment before hearing a voice, almost familiar if I ignored how much heavier it sounded as it struggled to speak the words, calling me to enter. Taking in a deep breath to steady by nerved, my palms feeling sweaty as I gripped the handle, I opened the door. The room had that lived in feeling, the sort you only got when you've crammed your entire life into it after a decade or so. The wallpaper and bedding was very basic and simple, but on all the walls were pictures and drawings that showed a man with a life and a soul continued to live vibrantly. The man in question was sat a desk, focused intently on a book as he moved a pencil across the pages, making me wonder if I was witnessing another classic poem in the making.
I opened my mouth to speak but my words got caught in my throat, embarrassing behaviour for someone like myself, as his writing slowed down and he placed the pencil on the desk. He slowly turned, the effort in his movements notably and a reminded of the time that has passed since our last meeting, and when his eyes met mine I couldn't help but briefly see the man those eyes had once belonged to. A strong and handsome Scotsman, cool headed and determined to protect the men under his command despite the horrors of war but unnerved by the horrors that lurked in the shadows of this world. Not that I blame him for that last one, only an insane and irrational man was unafraid of the monsters that stalked humanity.
The eyes now belonged to an elderly man who I supposed had aged rather well, all things considered. The usual prune like skin was present and his hair had greyed, though sadly into what I considered an ugly shade of grey, but at least he still had his hair and all his teeth from what I can see. There was also, despite his advanced years, a sense of life in him that made him appear healthy and strong, as if there was still a few embers of youth burning defiantly against death. His eyes widened as he looked at me, an expression of disbelief I had grown accustomed to when meeting old acquittances, before a smile slowly formed.
"Dorian. You're here? You actually came?"
"Of course. I got your letter after all." I said with forced cheerfulness, trying to ignore the conflicting sense of familiarity and alienness of James' voice as I shut the door behind me. I stood somewhat awkwardly at first, the two of us just observing each other in silence for a moment before James lifted a shaking hand and gestured for me to sit on the bed. I obliged after a second of hesitation, removing my coat and folding it over my arm as I sat. "How did you get my address by the way? You been spying on me?"
My coy tone received a snort of bemusement from the old soldier. "Oh no. Well, I did start looking into you years ago and I eventually started sending letters to many people across the world, people who claimed to know a youthful lad named Dorian. You don't do a lot to hide yourself Dorian, so of course people start to look around for others you must have met. Obviously you have to sort through the delusional crazies, but then a lovely lass named Alyssa got to writing to me and told me about your address. Just took me a long time to work up the courage to write to you, honestly wasn't sure if you would come or not."
The mention of Alyssa stung, more than I would have expected after all these years, and I briefly considering asking about her. But I quickly pushed the impulse down, and I told myself that it was because I was here for James and if she truly knew my address then she would reach out when she was ready. It was a lie of course, but as I was lying to myself I didn't see that it mattered very much.
"You really haven't changed. I knew you wouldn't, but after so many years I started to doubt what I knew about you. Told myself that I had gone mad from grief and saw something that never happened." James confessed after a few seconds of silence, while I chuckled slightly in response.
"You're not the first person to tell me that James. But I'm afraid to tell you that it was all true, every single moment from the good to the bad." I hesitated before continuing, my mind unwillingly recalling his letter and the unfortunate manner we had parted ways. "I...I suppose I owe you an apology for what I put you through."
I was surprised by James laughter, not only because of the unexpected timing of it but from how joyfully alive it sounded.
"You suppose you owe me an apology? You really haven't changed at all." his words sounded judgemental, if not cruel, but his laugher and smile told me I should not be offended. "That's not why I asked to see you Dorian, what happened back then was...Well, it's what it is. I have come to terms with it a long time ago and put it behind me."
The prospect of a monster lurking where it can't be seen and terrorising the prisoners sounded more likely, and while I wondered how to ask this my eyes caught sight of a picture near James' desk. It was taken many years ago, that was obvious from the lack of colour, but still a decade or two after I ran into him outside that London club. He looked much better than he did now, and while the quality of the photograph left much to be desired I could definitely say that both James and the man standing next to him were a pair of attractive older gentlemen. They stood closely together, James having an arm around the other man, and it wasn't hard to put two and two together.
"That's Kenneth. It was taken in, oh I don't know, 1957? 1960? Somewhere around then." James explained, having noticed where my eyes had wandered, and his voice was filled with an affection that I couldn't help but feel a tinge of jealousy over. "We had a friend take it for us in secret, he wasn't like us but he had qualities of his own that made him an outcast."
"You look happy."
"We were."
"Were you happy after?"
"Very much, happiest I had ever been. It wasn't easy, we had to move a lot and there were many moments where I was convinced I was going to die, but I wouldn't change a single thing." he explained, the smile on his face one I don't think I ever saw. "He believed, despite everything, that things would be better as long as we kept on living and fighting for who we were. He refuses to apologise for who he was and what he believed, expected the world to take him on his terms, and never once got angry with me when my fears got the better of me."
He then turned to me, his smile become mischievous. "I suppose I have a type."
The two of us laughed at, a brief feeling of regret over missing the chance to meet Kenneth forming as we did, and I enjoyed the moment. It was nice, how easy it was to talk with James once I ignored how much time had passed. For all my faults and all my judgements on couples, I've never wanted anything other than for my friends to be happy and live lives that brought them the most happiness. Even if it was a life I could never be a part of.
James rather suddenly seemed to become solemn, his hesitation visible in his features as he spoke. "Anyway, that's not why I asked you to come Dorian. There was a reason."
And here it was, the plea for aide against a darkness that hid in the most unassuming of places. It was a bitter acknowledgment that's often all my acquaintances wanted from me, but it was one I had come to accept and knew I wouldn't complain about when it came to someone like James. With a nod and a small sigh, I pushed away the feelings and focused on whatever unbelievable tale James had in store for me, while mentally betting that it somehow tied to Mia. No logical or factual reason, just good old fashioned gut instinct.
"I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry."
Of course there's always a time that gut instinct proved me wrong.
"Sorry? What for?"
"For how I ended things between us, with that letter. I've thought about it often, for decades, and I've struggled to come to terms with everything I learned about you. I've accepted it now, but for a long time I was never certain how I felt about you." James explained, the sadness and regret in his voice catching me off guard. "You don't age and you don't die, so did anything you did during the war mean anything? Did you show any real bravery when you knew that you would walk away without a scratch? And what of your soul, did you even have one to speak of? I read the book about you and it offered no insight into these questions."
"But as time passed, those questions stopped being ones I thought about. I don't know if an answer would have made me feel better or not, so what was the point in trying to find one? I realised I had to accept what I did know about you and come to terms with how that made me feel." he continued, hesitation before speaking his next words. "It sounds so wrong to say this when you look so young, but I loved you. So much it hurt to be without you and I could never imagine loving anyone more. Despite everything, that hadn't changed and who I was because of you didn't change either. You made me into a stronger man that I was before I met you and that was real, whether you can die or not. What we had sometimes felt more real than the war."
"So I'm sorry for what I said in the letter. I'm not going too say I didn't mean it at the time, but I've regretted the words for a long time and I didn't want that to be the last thing I said to you. I wanted to do this properly and tell you how I really felt. I'm truly sorry." he finished while I just stared at him in surprise.
He thankfully didn't say anything and just sat patiently as I tried to find the right words, even though I undoubtedly looked like a fool. "I...Wow. I wasn't expecting that. That's not normally how these things go."
"Well then, I'm happy to have surprised you." he said with a smile, before gesturing to the top of a nearby wardrobe. "Now there's a bottle of old wine up there that I've kept hidden from everyone, they would kick up a fuss if they knew about it. Take it down and we can share a drink and some stories, if you have the time of course?"
I nodded and smiled, somewhat impressed by the vintage once I found the bottle and some glasses next to it inside a box. We sat opposite each other drinking, myself having more than James, and told each other tales of our lives. He spoke of his many jobs, notably as a professor in Edinburgh and how he met Kenneth, and I told him of some of my more amusing adventures and talked about the friends I had made. Neither one of us dared approach any painful topics which I was grateful for as we talked for hours. Despite my fears and worries, that day turned out to be one of the best I've had in a long time.
James passed away seventeen days later, complications in his sleep apparently. He must have known, it must have been why he wrote to me. There was nobody to attend his funeral except two from the home, neither of whom spoke and left very quicky. I approached after they were gone and just stared at the grave, the sole physical reminder that James Anderson had ever existed. I'm not sure how long I stood there but eventually I turned and left, doing what I could to bury the feelings and the memory as deep as I could in my mind. I needed a distraction, maybe have an appendix or something else removed again, anything to forget that I had one less loved one in the world and was yet again alone.