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To this day, the place where his life was laid to rest remains empty.
They’ve cleaned up the debris, or at least some of them; put up a fence around the property, faded ‘Keep Off’ signs and yellow tape now completely weathered and devoid of colour, flapping in the wind like some absurd Christmas ribbon, so out of place when hazy autumn afternoons took reign, warm breeze and shadows dyed blue. There’s fog, too, and the viscous dusk of evening slowly slips into night till he can’t differentiate between the night sky and the charred remains of his childhood.
The skeletons of concrete walls still manage to gleam white through it all. If not here, then at least in his memory, a vestige that will follow him – always.
‘Pity. It was a beautiful house.’ The voice hovers somewhere on the periphery of his consciousness. Michael closes his eyes, feels the weight of his body on the ground, feels the air move against his skin. That’s all there is, for the moment in time. Him, and the memories. The ghost of his former house no longer smells like burnt timber and fresh blood – time has transferred an inferno he’s once lived through into something damp, trampled by passing rains and snowstorms, moss-ridden and slowly decaying to its origins.
He lets the feeling stay there with him for a while, breathing in the cool air, floating between memory and consequence, and it’s not until August speaks again that he lets himself drift back to the present, to the fallen leaves rotting beneath his feet, to the faint hint of smoke in the air, carried over from someone’s chimney, no doubt, but it makes him think of funeral pyres.
To the man that stood behind all this, in some way or another. Stood behind him, now, just off the overgrown front lawn, as if there was some invisible barrier that he couldn’t cross. As if this was Michael’s, and Michael’s alone.
‘I’m glad the fire didn’t spread to the chapel, or the other properties.’
‘They were quick to come.’ Michael says. ‘The firemen,’
‘Not quick enough.’
Michael glances over his shoulder, half-turning; bitter rebuttals at the ready if he was to be met with another smirk, but August won’t even meet his eye. In the fading light, his face is lit with an illusion of regret. It’s strange, but not in a bad way. He has known that face to wear a farce that robbed everything of dignity, and now it wasn’t the time to deal with that.
He doesn’t know what he’s hoped to achieve, bringing August here. Honestly, doesn’t even remember how visiting him in his care unit became a thing of habit, let alone accompanying him off premises. How he’s managed to rebuild a shell of his former self but still had nothing to fill it with, and now that it’s come to this, to this abandoned block of land where they stand –where he never though he’d bear to stand again, let alone with someone – it’s nothing but old wounds and unfinished words.
He hoped that he wasn’t making a mistake in letting the man share this macabre memory lane with him.
August could probably hear this thought.
‘Do you think it’s safe to go inside?’
‘I didn’t expect you’d want to.’
‘Maybe you’re right.’ He inclines his head, but the step he takes forth is steady and determined.
The once-fluroscent yellow of ‘Danger! Keep off!’ flutters in the wind in a useless tangle against their knees. August has to bend down a little to tug it over his head, just high enough to duck under, letting it drop behind him. Michael doesn’t bother, charging right through, and the heel of his boot leaves the ribbon pressed into the mud.
--
‘This is where I found them.’
‘I know.’
Of course he would. August was the one to have shown him how it happened, after all. Shown him the blood, the desperation, the pleading. The last words his father had uttered, the shock and confusion on his mother’s face – and what happened afterwards. The price he’s had to pay for his - Michael’s - survival.
‘That’s not how it happened.’ August offers from his place on something that was once a doorway. ‘If anything, the cost was his to fulfil.’
‘Get out of my head.’ Michael snaps, not bothering to look at him. Ossified soot breaks beneath his feet, where it stretches in a line of black, too orthogonal to be scattered there by chance. It might be branded into his memory, that wall, but here it has burnt down without a solid trace.
‘Believe me, sometimes I’d love to,’ comes from behind him – August still hasn’t stepped into the wreckage of the living room.
Michael traces his toe across the soot. It scatters in the air, the blackness fading, line blurring.
‘Can I come in?’
Not wanting to come off as invasive when Michael’s very soul and mind is laid open in front of him. Charming.
Still. At least he’s bothered to ask.
‘Yes.’
He counts the sound of footsteps - August is right beside him in three strides. He always could move astonishingly fast, like darkness seeping through night.
‘This is where the study room used to be.’ He motions. August knows the layout without this strange post-mortem tour, but he needs it said out loud, needs it consolidated and reaffirmed – the crackle of the fireplace he used to play in front of while his father worked, the unmistakable smell of fresh pastry as he’s chased out of the kitchen because the cake Mother planned was a surprise. It’s all gone now, buried under the heap of rubble and dust where the ceiling collapsed, the second floor caving onto the right wing and grinding it to nothing but shards of plaster and brick and concrete and his past life.
The guest bathroom, on the other hand, had survived well. Tucked away to the side, it was added onto he house later – he remembers all the fuss it took to pour a new slab for it, the smell of wet concrete and freshly milled wood – the sawdust would always get into the house, on the carpets - Mother hates it, Father promises he’d clean it up later. There’s even a scrap of wallpaper still clinging to the once-pristine material. It doesn’t crumble beneath his fingers like everything else does when Michael reaches out for it, just to feel something intact, the sheer mint-green-and-rose-print absurdity of it in the midst of this inferno.
There’s a creaking sound behind him, something breaking, and he tenses, startled, but its’s just August treading over shattered ceramic tile. He’s wandering in and out of Michal’s vision, partially obstructed by a block of concrete – a wall? A floor? – that’s broken off and fell tilting into a position slightly resembling horizontal over a pile of debris. It doesn’t look stable at the slightest, but it doesn’t budge when August nudges his foot against it, as if testing – gently at first, before committing the entirety of his weight to it. After a brief hesitation, he makes up his mind and pushes off his standing leg to swing himself over, settling atop the block, long limbs carefully folded over the jagged edge. From where he watches over his shoulder, he looks like an overgrown bird of prey perched amidst this aftermath of a disaster, a raven overlooking a battlefield; a role he’d play well. It couldn’t be very comfortable, of course, crude reinforcement bars digging into his thighs –plus it’d be cold.
He wants to know the extent of this discomfort, Michel reasons, otherwise he wouldn’t be crossing the distance between them, jumping over bits of rubble and scrambling for balance to join him on this dubious seat. Not the overwhelming need to feel something real nearby, something in this ghost house that still belonged to reality now. If something painfully akin to solace finds its way to him when a hand closes over his own, where it clutches at the concrete beneath, then it must be purely coincidental. It’s barely any warmer than the rough texture of their shared pedestal, but it is of comfort.
They sit like this, legs dangling, thighs touching, and August’s hands covers his but they still can’t look at one another. The silence shrouding them is peaceful, soft, but Michael suddenly wants to talk. ‘Suddenly’ might be a long reach – he of course always wants to talk, wants to accept that it’s something they both desperately need – but it’s hard, so fucking hard.
Sometimes he just wants to tell him, how important it was back then, when they were more to each other than just remorse and memory – or has that always been a lie, too? He knows August can hear what he’s thinking anyway, but it’s so far from talking, from a mutual exchange of emotion. Every other unequal exchange, every other thought ripped from his head was usually answered, commented on. It used to drive him up the wall, but now he’s learnt to decipher any adjustment to this pattern. Avoiding the routine disrespect meant that it had mattered to August, too, something left unsaid, something important.
Something about how they should have tried, at least.
How it’s not too late to break this awful status-quo even now.
‘Tell me about my father.’ He says instead.
‘Your father,’ August begins to reply, then pauses, a lingering sigh. It’s weird to see him hesitate like this, as if the words by which he himself was once so craftily ensnared had failed him.
‘Your father was a good man, Michael.’ He continues when the silence hangs too heavy, and it’s almost reluctant. ‘He was also very, very selfish.’
Part of Michael wants to lash out at that, to let his blood boil at the dishonour. The impulse doesn’t go unnoticed – he can tell by the way the corners of August’s mouth twitch, the way he watches him out of the corner of his eye. Perhaps it’s that which stops him, the desire to show that his emotion had no reign over him any longer, that he’s tired of how the older man never ceases fishing for reactions.
This thought, too, clearly doesn’t go unnoticed, for August rewards him with a grin, rotating so he can face him directly.
‘I still think you should explain.’ Michael offers, lest another tirade of ‘I’ve always loved you best’ ruin this moment.
The hand on his moves. He doesn’t even grip – just holds Michael’s wrist, warmth against ice, beating pulse against god-knows-what – directing it off the still-warm stone, bringing it up to his face. Michael lets him. A thumb traces the lines of his palm, as if August was trying to recite another prophecy off the marks in his skin, and something about the gesture feels too innermost to be looked at directly. He turns his face away and looks down instead - there’s tiny sprouts of green barely visible from beneath the blackened rubble, almost like not all life has been seeped out of the ground just yet.
‘I won’t tell you I was cruel to you. I won’t tell you I regret what I did.’ His hand is guided higher, until his fingertips touch flesh and August rests his check against the skin, his voice barely more than a whisper. ‘Those judgements are for you to make.’
There’s the tingle of another’s breath on his skin as he exhales, a phantom of something that was probably warm, once.
‘But there’s one thing I need you to understand.’ August continues against the inside of his wrist. ‘Before your father found the answers he sought. Before he married.’ – A kiss to the curve of protruding bone – ‘Before you were born. Your soul never had belonged to you in the first place.’
‘You mean-‘
‘Daniel was arrogant, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew the cost long before he cast his choices.’
The lives of your loved ones by your own hand…Michael remembers the flourished handwriting on black parchment, a recipe of his own prophecy, the way eventuality hung in the air around him then, the suffocating hopelessness of it all.
‘Suffocating, for you.’ August’s hair tickles his arm as he nods, surprisingly soft to the touch. ‘Born into a deal with the devil, where everything was predetermined – by your father’s choices, mind you.’
‘What was there that he could have done?’ He’s given up telling the man to stop reading his thoughts.
‘What he could have done?’ The hand around his instantly obtains gravity, August’s fingers tightening to the point of digging into his flesh. ‘What he could have done? I don’t know, how about not pursuing your mother’s affection when he knew his love was a death warrant? Opting for celibacy? Sending you to a different goddamned school where you wouldn’t have been a prefect, wouldn’t have walked back into my clutches?’
There’s a pause, and August laughs, pulling away from his touch, abrupt enough so that Michael whirls around to face him, startled, looking at him, at his own pale hand in his. The man doesn’t meet his eyes, and the cruel, unforgiving smirk is there but his voice is laced with a bitterness Michael has never quite grasped. Then, quieter –
‘Walked away when he knew it was too late?’
He lets his hand drop.
There’s nothing Michael can say to that, not when his mind feels empty, not when he knows, somewhere beneath the stillness, that if anyone could ever judge what happened 20 years ago, it was August. His hand lies where the man’s dropped it, draped over both of their thighs, and it’s just them and the facts.
Knowing the cost before you cast your choices. He, too, had known, yet he’s chosen to pursue the truth anyway, despite growing more and more suspicious of the risk. To kill a loved one. Back when that description was profiled for –
‘I’m shielding you off, for a while.’ He hears August say, voice sincere as ever. ‘Your thoughts, I mean. You can regard me however you want, I don’t mind’
‘Thanks for the offer.’ Michael snorts. Briefly, he wonders whether the man was telling the truth or not, but it’s not like it actually matters. It definitely wasn’t something August hadn’t known, hasn’t partaken in.
There was all the humiliation, all the deceit, and there were orders softspoken against the shell of his ear that set his blood on fire but turned his heart to stone and –
– And did he ever truly love him, after all that? Was there anything even akin to love, between the unlikely pretence of friendship, between the words of all the empty promises? (In the sound of two glasses coming together in a farewell, in the taste of wine, in the way the sword hung too heavy for his hand – and in how all that, too, is laid behind them?)
August had said, before, that to carry the burden of a prophecy was almost unbearable – he’s even seen it for himself in Jack’s hunched shoulders, in the projected memories that belonged to his father. He found he couldn’t share the sentiment, then – the thought of killing came and went, nothing but a bad dream. Perhaps that meant that back then, in that spring, the warmth they’ve shared in all the little moments between them – a joke, a word of reassurance, you’ll just have to keep this a secret from everyone else, yeah?- never got to grow into anything before decaying into something shameful, dirty. Never quantified as love to begin with.
If that was the case, why was it that he was never able to lay the past to rest? Why were they here now, August by his side, breathing steady, almost human, almost whole?
‘On a happier note,’ August speaks up after a little while, drawing him out of his thoughts – has he heard much of the mess going on in his head?
‘On a happier note, your father bore the gift of exceptional willpower. Noone else had even come close to lasting almost four months.’
Ah, yes, such a happy, cheerful topic.
‘I wasn’t done yet!’ there’s a note of protest in the man’s voice. ‘This is all among other virtues.’
He turns towards Michael even more, so that their knees are brushing ever so slightly, and Michael cannot help but listen, as if this was just another Latin lecture.
‘He truly was loved by the people, you know. And no, not just by prophecy. He was never unkind to anyone, never turned away from a grieving soul. All the doubts in his Master he might have bore beforehand he worked hard to dispel around him. He’d never felt lost again.’
Michael cannot say anything, only nod. That’s how he remembers Daniel, to this day.
‘He loved your mother, dearly. The kids, you guys, of course, but she was the light of his life .I’ve never seen him smile brighter than at their wedding.’
Michael raises an eyebrow at the familiarity. ‘Were you there?’ How could he say that, as if he knew?
‘Was I there?’ August slowly blinks at him, as if he’d asked something completely unthinkable, a small smile teasing at his mouth.
‘Well, you mentioned seeing him smiling, so I ass-’
‘I was, as a matter of fact.’ He rocks in his seat a little bit, legs swaying over the edge. ‘I initially came to – to gloat, almost,’ He drums his fingers at the concrete, ‘well, you wouldn’t understand, anyway.’
‘To appreciate your handiwork?’ Michael offers. It’s not a vibe of August’s that’s unfamiliar to him.
‘Something like that.’ The bemused expression is more evident, softer, and August’s hand nudges at his once more. ‘But it was a beautiful day, in hindsight. I was happy for them, even though I knew what it meant.’
Daniel had kept so many photographs of his mother – many were from the wedding day, white lace and roses and vibrant colours of the countryside in summer.
‘Show me?’ He breathes out on impulse. The photographs were good mementos, but they couldn’t capture the essence of life in the way a mind could. He half-expects for his vision to fade and morph again, but August gently shakes his head.
‘Maybe some other time.’
‘Okay.’ Michael doesn’t pry, but the curiosity is still there so he tries imagining instead. What kind of music would they have chosen? Was is windy, was his mother’s veil hard to keep in place? Where did the guests sit? Were there many? He imagined August himself, standing amongst everyone. He’d have his hair combed back, black suit jacket draped over his shoulders, smile bright and radiant and almost convincing.
‘Charcoal.’ The older man corrects him.
‘Huh?’
‘It was charcoal, the suit I wore. Or maybe a lighter gray, I don’t remember all that much. Oh, and I wasn’t standing with everyone else.’ August is leaning back, eyes closing as he, too, lets himself remember. ‘You see, your father was somehow fond of me enough to make me his best man.’
‘What?’ He’s not realised they were close – though he figures they must have been, for him to have been visiting, for him to have met Michael when he was only a child.
‘Spot on – though we grew distant after the wedding.’ August nods to confirm his thoughts. ‘Unfortunately we’ve had a bit of a convenient falling out after our little promise. There’s certain…nuisances with this whole not aging thing. Becomes too noticeable ’
So by ‘falling out’, he probably meant he’s mysteriously disappeared and never spoke to his father again – Daniel, at least, had definitely never mentioned him. Surely he had more to worry about than past friendships, anyway, as the prophecy gained strength with every passing day.
The image of a younger, less damaged August giving a speech at a wedding of all things is a much less depressing thought – it leaves something bubbling up within him, until he’s laughing, head thrown back as he leans on his arms, and the man looks at him with an offended kind of curiosity.
‘What?’ He’s not actually offended though, a smile already creeping back onto his face.
‘Sorry, sorry.’ Michael tries his best to settle down. So much for a sombre, commemorating atmosphere. ‘It’s just. Weird to imagine you, you know. In functional relationships with people.’
‘Functionality can be feigned. You should know best.’, and he has the audacity to fucking wink at him, still looking so carefree, still pretending Michael hasn’t learned to read the lines at the corners of his mouth or the emptiness in his gaze. The more he stares back, unaffected, the more of this feigned merriment ebbs away.
‘Though you’re right. It wasn’t always like this, I’ve told you, already.’
‘You’ve said these words to me, before. But I’m still not sure I know.’ Some things felt like they haven’t changed at all – he still had no way of knowing what August was thinking aside from that he hurt; or what role he would play in these thoughts.
‘Would you like to know, then?’ Yeah, just like now, when he looks at him like that, fixed, unmoving, and sure Michael can’t read thoughts but he can as well as see them race through August’s mind, taking his time, considering, calculating.
‘Would you believe me if I told you there are so many things I don’t understand about me myself?’ He says, finally.
Michael scoffs at that. Believe him? Look where that got them.
‘I could humour it, though.’
‘Then it’s even harder for me to tell you anything.’, and he’s almost apologetic when he says that. ‘But I can show you something, at least. Only if you’d like to, of course.’
He braces himself for the second time this evening, for something alien to pour into his mind. When has it ever mattered whether he’d like something or not?’
It only takes a split second for August to move from his position by his side to standing right in front of him, sending clouds of old dust and debris in his wake; their faces inches apart – Michael almost yelps at the sudden invasion of his space.
‘A lot’, and he drawls it out, slow, deliberate. ‘so much more than you think.’
Before the boy can formulate a response, he’s already retreated, dusting himself off, picking lose bits of dried paint and concrete shavings off his coat.
‘Also, that’s not what I meant by showing. I want to take you somewhere. You’ve shared something like this,’ – a glance to sweep over the entirety of another installation in the ‘August handiwork’ collection, lingering on where the living room once was – ‘with me, despite all. I feel it’s now my turn.’
‘Trains stop in half hour.’ Slowly, Michael slides himself off the concrete block, wincing as the dust threatens to get into his eyes and nose in response to every movement. ‘And half an hour after that is your curfew, and we’re not missing that again.’
‘Same bus route to the hospital.’ He clicks his fingers in the air, and the sound echoes, though there’s not exactly much to echo off. ‘You could call Cecil if you’d like, so someone knows where you’re going, or one of your roommates, anyone else you’d like.’
‘I don’t even know where I’m going.’ He protests, but August has already started to move towards the exit, and he struggles to catch up, tripping over objects he could no longer recognise. ‘I don’t even know if I’m going at all.’
‘You’ll find out soon enough.’ August tells him, snaking an arm around his shoulder, an unspoken request to walk with him. Michael, despite his protests at this new turn of events, doesn’t shake it off until they’ve shuffled back onto the street and crossed the entire block.
--
He expects, maybe, to be taken a house from August’s childhood, or somewhere he might have lived before St. John’s, or the hospital that witnessed his seeming recovery after the war. Maybe even something to do with another loss he could have been responsible for - an equivalent? He doesn’t expect a heavy stone fence that swallows the entire block, save for an iron gate, stalks and leaves of creeper vines intertwining with its wrought counterparts. It’s locked, but it doesn’t remain so much longer as August brushes a hand over it, and it’s only once they’re inside that he can see the rows of headstones, from single mounds to elaborate chapels.
He’s brought him to a cemetery.
‘What’s with you and those?’ August probably has less dangerous intentions than their last time in a similar setting – or at least he hopes so – but the residue of decrepit cold, abandoned churches and plain unease lingers (similar to how he can’t stand being in confined spaces, or how he’s not had a glass of wine since).
‘You’ve nothing to worry about.’ The words were meant as an offer of reassurance but it didn’t do much, really. ‘I’m just long overdue for a little something. You don’t have to stick around if you don’t want to.’
‘You’re the one who wanted me to come here in the first place!’ The amount of conflicting information is disorientating.
‘I always want you.’ August throws over his shoulder, in the same matter-of-fact tone he’d use for ‘Latin conjugates by almost everything’ or ‘The weather’s looking nice today’. Like it’s the most obvious, ancient truth in the world. Too resigned to make him all flustered like it would have had before. Now it just doesn’t sit right with him, not quite yet.
It’s too dark to make out anything more than bleak outlines. This is past visiting hours – technically, they’re trespassing, but then again what were they just doing before? There were lamplights, of course, posts stretched into the fading sky where the pavements and walkways would intersect, but they have long been switched off this late, rendering any sense of direction impossible. He’s wary, glancing around for a map of the grounds, or a plaque with directions, but his companion doesn’t seem to be inconvenienced in the slightest. August moves through this maze of all these unbeknownst deaths with confidence, never pausing before a turn, never slowing down whenever the path would split or take a weird curve.
Michael can’t say he’s having the equal amount of luck – the further away from the street they move, the darker it gets, until whatever’s beneath his feet has turned into a solid sea of black, and he swears he’s tripped over an actual grave at least three times, stumbling and cursing under his breath. He wonders whether this is another something August’s…unique capabilities assist him with, or if he’s been here often enough to commit this route to muscle memory.
It’s so sudden when he finally stops – Michael almost comes flying into the solid rectangle of his back, and he holds his hands out to brace himself against the impact. He opens his mouth to complain, but there’s a sound before he can make one, a weak crackle, and – ok, yeah, a single lamp suddenly flickering to life above their heads is definitely in the ‘weird supernatural ability’ realm.
‘It’s been long since I’ve made this visit.’ August tells him.
Michael’s eyes are slow to adjust to the light – at first, it only registers in the harsh shadows splitting the man’s face into new, foreign geometries. His profile is so sharply defined in the lamp’s halo, animated only by the way his lips move. The faintest tendril of fog escapes as he speaks, swirling, fading at an exhale, dissolving like it was never there at all. It’s only then that he tears his gaze away and takes in his surroundings.
They’re standing in a little inlet, singled out from all the other rows of granite markers by a low partition – though it’s nothing solid, just an ordinary chain stretched between posts to form an enclosure. Within it there’s no headstones, just three mounds marked by naming-plaques that seem almost identical from where he stands – on the very perimeter, not moving any closer just yet. They’re marble, not granite – and so is the shrine that towers behind them, an angel with a solemn face spreading his wings of stone and reaching towards the heavens, a slender cross. There’s little indents with metal fixtures he could imagine holding a bouquet in place, though now there’s nothing but dried petals and cobwebs.
It’s the shrine that August is headed to, stepping over the actual graves like they weren’t even there. Why bring him here, if the last resting place of these deceased had meant so little? Perhaps they were another set of victims to his actions, from another time?
For once, he’s actually half-hopeful August would address the thought, but he’s busying himself with something, bending over the alcove of the shrine, oblivious to his inner turmoil.
‘Ready for some more ‘weird supernatural’?’ He turns over his shoulder for a second to flash him another grin, and then for a few moments Michael can’t see anything from behind his back - no matter how he cranes his neck, curiosity taking the better of him, there’s just the suspicious movement of his hands and elbows. He’s about to inquire whether August is a hundred percent sure he’s not been brought here for some new kind of demonic ritual, but before he can the older man is moving again, retreating to stand beside him as if to appreciate a freshly-completed artwork from a distance. Michael, too, strains to look – he’s still not dared to come closer.
Where the old flowers had decayed and scattered to dust, there now lay three unmistakably fresh wreaths, craftily put together, leaves moving with the evening air ever so slightly. It’s too dark to make out the actual type of flowers, or their colour, but there’s even a feeble scent that’s almost something familiar.
‘How did you…’ He turns back to August in wonder, and the back of his neck tingles ever so slightly – but he’s not beside him anymore.
He’s instead kneeling down among the graves, foot planted between two of them, careful not to lean anywhere too close to the mounds. Where was all that seeming dismissal from just before?
Perhaps these were his friends from the battlefield, he thought, from the times of war. He catches himself wishing he could see, that August would explain what’s going on here, but to approach right now would probably feel insensitive, like he was interrupting something important. Sacred, even.
‘Come.’ The man’s voice is barely there, and he doesn’t tear his eyes away from the plaques even as he stretches an arm out to beckon him, to guide him by the elbow until he’s crouching by his side.
It’s the third grave that Michael cautiously kneels down at the foot of. A part of him feels like he’s intruding, like he shouldn’t be a participant in something so clearly private, but he ignores it. He knew so little of August outside of his kaleidoscope facades – and perhaps quiet pleas whispered into his nightshirt but he forbids himself to recall that night – that he’d take any bit of knowledge offered to him.
The plaque is old, not unlike the many markers at St. Johns. Alright, maybe not a-hundred-years-old old, but aged and weathered enough for the letters to have become little more than corroded ridges – they were gilded once, instead of etched into the marble. If he looks under a certain angle, there’s even a vestige of shine on those that are most intact. The stone is cold to touch as Michael traces the letters with his thumb, trying to piece them into words.
‘Mary? Meg? Ma– ‘
He exhales, sharper than intended.
The first word has suffered extensive damage, making it almost impossible to decipher, save for the first swirly M.
The proceeding ‘Macleod’ reads strong and clear.
‘You know, Michael…I, too, am like you. I lost my family when I was young, and never found out who the culprit was’
‘It’s the same as me, for him’
There are three more stems clutched in August’s right hand. He thinks they might be hyacinths. This man destroyed his entire life. This man had lived through so much suffering he couldn’t begin to fathom, let alone even attempt healing it – and where did the thought of healing come from, anyway? The flowers are probably lilac. The petals are short, curved to form little rosettes along the stalk. It’s easier to think about the flowers than of the emptiness that flows through him like floodwaters.
‘Mother.’ His companion says, emotionless and curt, one corner of his mouth twisting up in what was probably intended a smile but read a grimace. He lays the hyacinth atop the plaque, then reaches for the second – ‘Father.’
‘May. My sister.’ He has to reach over Michael a little bit to tuck the last remaining flower beneath the marble edge, and when he pulls back, his hand remains resting on Michael’s thigh, a little point of connection. ‘Such stale humour when it came to names.’
It’s strange to think about August with a family, surrounded in love and care that wasn’t founded in destruction, when his laughter would have rang genuine. When his mind was his and his alone, and his inner demons were nothing more than adolescent worries.
He wonders if May was anything like little Minnie, if there was a time where her older brother, too, had carried her on his back as she laughed, all unruly hair, scabby knees and bruised elbows and desire to live. If he’d read her bedtime stories before dozing off just to wake up to a love of tomorrow that only children really knew.
‘Not quite.’ August’s hand travels higher, light, uninvasive; it comes to rest on his elbow. ‘She was born two years before I was. See, we’re not completely alike.’
Gently, he tugs Michael’s arm backwards, until they’ve both shifted to sit on the cool, slightly damp ground by the site as opposed to crouching over the headstones. It was more comfortable this way. If he sits a little bit closer to August than needed, practically leaning onto his shoulder, he doesn’t mean to.
‘I never got to bury any of my comrades – or what was left of them. That’s just how battlefields are.’
Loss, there is so much fundamental loss he’s left in his wake, that has followed him all these years.
‘Remember the first time I had you in the altar room?’ August asks out of the blue, hand flying up to request his silence before Michael has the chance to splutter out something embarrassed, or furious – he hasn’t decided which one he feels more of at the mention.
‘I didn’t mean that.’ – though his mouth curves for a moment. ‘It’s something I said to you then – how I was never really intact ever since I lost my family. That wasn’t a lie. Most of the things I’ve told you weren’t.’
‘I figured,’ he replies, quietly.
‘I really did believe that I deserved everything that happened. Out there, on the field, when it came to me first, I thought it was my fault for how weak my faith was. All of it. I’m sure the feeling is no stranger to you.’
‘And now?’
The man shifts a tiny bit, leaning so that the side of his head comes to rest against Michael’s, so that he’s almost leaning on the boy, a sturdy weight on his shoulder. ‘Now? Who knows.’
They sit like this for a while, similar to how they did in the house. They do not speak this time, and in the silence his thoughts are free to race. It’s so conflicting, knowing how much of everything August has encountered, how much filth he was unwillingly dragged through; so easy to sympathise with him, to open up to comfort, to trust. But the history is there, and though he’s shakily come to terms with it, there’s no foolproof way to keep anything from repeating itself. Even if he humoured August’s promises that he shouldn’t fear him anymore, he could never not be reminded of how this decision was not always August’s to make, still painfully obvious.
He’d like to think on this alone – literally, without an audience to his mind – preferably over a period of time, but there’s neither time nor privacy, just residual damage and the steady rhythm of August’s breathing. He’s grateful when the source of his moral dilemma finally shifts again, gently shrugging him off, and that’s his cue to scramble to his feet.
His legs had started to feel a little sore from the lack of motion, the familiar tingle of pins and needles making themselves known. He stretches, and August does the same, spine uncurling with an audible crack. That must’ve hurt, if physical discomfort is something he can even experience.
‘We’re half an hour off curfew.’ A quick glance at his watch tells him they should probably get going. They’ve missed the curfew before – no consequences, of course, thanks to August’s tampering – but he’d rather they would stick to the rules. August, however, shakes his head:
‘Not so hasty – ‘ he turns on his heels, coat flapping behind him like a final wave goodbye to those he once loved. ‘Just one more place, since we’re already here. It’ll be quick – no flowers or anything.’
Michael doesn’t even get a chance to protest this time – August takes off without as much as a glance at him, winding between markers and pedestals. The light above them goes out. Back in the darkness, he’s got no choice but to stick close.
“One more place” turns out to be another grave – what else was he expecting in a cemetery? Though this one is a proper headstone, it’s so much smaller than the family shrine, so unremarkable that Michael pays no heed to it until August suddenly turns mid-step, as though struck by a change of mind.
Three steps back, four steps forward, until he’s pacing back and forth and around the single marker, only stopping when Michael bends down to examine it. It seems to be a lot newer, too – clearer engraving, located closer to the entrance, closer to spotlights of the streetlamps – so he has no trouble reading an unfamiliar name and date set in stone. A woman’s name. She had passed away young.
‘This one doesn’t have your last name.’ Was she not family? A friend, a lover?
‘She was going to.’ August shrugs, and something in Michael’s chest tightens.
‘Your fiancé?’
A curt nod is all he gets for an answer – that is, until August recommences his movements, talking as he makes restless laps around the grave.
‘Well, no, technically. We’ve split up a few months before she died. It was just before I moved to teach at St. John’s, so we both went on our way amicably.’
‘She didn’t say much in regards to the breakup.’ He adds, after a pause. ’I was sad to see her go, but I suppose it was better that way.’
‘What happened?’ Michael bites his tongue as soon as he’s asked – this isn’t his, isn’t his to know.
August stops pacing, stilling where light from the street cannot reach him. Michael has only the faint outlines of movements and rustle of clothes to suggest that he’s now facing him, that his arms are folded across his chest.
‘I killed her.’
His face is shrouded in the shadows, too, but Michael just knows he’s looking him straight in the eye, daring him to be disgusted, to accuse him. To believe him.
‘Did you now.’ He tells the darkness, hoping to God his voice doesn’t waver. ‘Care to tell me more?’
‘This isn’t yours.’ The darkness echoes his thoughts.
‘I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t. For you to have brought me here,’ he starts, but August’s laughter cuts him off. It comes almost forced, an attempt at intimidation that only has Michael thinking this entire evening has just been them coming so very close together, almost reaching something, only to drift apart again.
‘What if I was just bored? Just wanted to toy with you a bit?’
Then you wouldn’t have dedicated so much trying to convince me otherwise.
‘The last time you claimed you were bored and toying with me,’ he says out loud, picking his words with utmost care, ‘was a cover-up for what I was to you before we’ve been to Hell and back. I’d like to know what you’re covering up this time.’
August finally steps back out into the light, and when he laughs again there might not be much difference in the sound, but it rings so much more natural.
‘Ever so clever, my angel’ he teases, and though he outright hates that title, Michael doesn’t interrupt.
‘I didn’t kill her, you’re correct in that,’ – and he’s not relieved, and since when does it matter who has or hasn’t August killed? – ‘But she died because of me, just like so, so many after her.’
‘She knew something was wrong the moment she tied herself to me. She couldn’t see it, but she’d feel it, constantly. Dreamt of it even – impending disaster, malevolent spirits, voices in the walls – the whole set. She broke the engagement off after the nightmares got too bad, and moved away without telling anyone too much.’
‘Engagements, in a way, are something like prophecies, aren’t they?’
‘Mhm. It was too late.’ August inclines his head. ‘Whatever it is. Whatever I am’ - his hand is pressed against his chest. Michael wonders if he can feel his own heartbeat like that – if he even has one. ‘It followed her, wherever she went, whatever name she used.’
‘How do you know it was because of you?’ Dumb question, on second thought – he’s always assumed that distance wasn’t a factor in how tangible these things were to August and his ever-present alter ego.
‘I do. She loved me, Michael, and that was enough. I think I’d loved her too. This,’ – he nods at the grave, his mouth a solid line, his jaw set – ‘ was the price of my love.’
He runs a hand through his hair, palm pressed against his forehead, eyes downcast, and a part of Michael wants to reach out to him, to be of sympathy.
‘Don’t.’ August shakes his head in response. ‘That’s not why I showed you all this. I’m not even sure why, to be honest. Maybe I was just trying to be somewhat human.’
Michael nods. Does he know how bizarrely thankful he is for all this, to be trusted with this, to be shown glimpses of his past? He hopes the thought can reach him (and deep down somewhere, there’s embers of a different warmth. He doesn’t tell this to many – and Michael’s face feels flushed; he doesn’t disclose this to just anyone. He’s not sure how he knows this, he just does).
‘Well, it’s not just about trusting. No matter how I feel about you,’ – his voice drops just a little bit lower – ‘there’s something else you can take away from this.’
They should probably go soon.
‘Why it was that I’ve done certain things the way I have.’
‘With me?’
‘With everything – but mainly with you, yes. I guess I was happy that you found your closure for the deaths of your family, for Daniel’s gamble.’ August confesses, and every word drips self-mockery. ‘I guess I was still looking for mine.’
Hang on a second.
Daniel’s gamble. His prophecy. The death of his family, sudden and unexplained.
Your loved ones, by your hand…
His heart raced.
‘– chael? Michael?’ Would you like to go now?’ August touches his shoulder lightly – he’s probably been standing still for quite a while now, lost in a momentary stupor. ‘Curfew, remember?’
His thoughts were turning so damn slow, shards and fragments slowly creeping into a bigger picture – puzzle pieces being wrongly glued together, no regard for mismatched edges or how the image wouldn’t be right. By the time unease fully seizes his body – pinpoints of ice on his skin, blood roaring in his ears – he’s always thought nothing added up, while in reality… – his companion is already making his way down the path, towards the exit.
‘August,’ He calls out, taking a step, then another, until he’s almost running to catch up to him.
August turns in slow-motion, the way he holds his neck, the angle of his shoulders more akin to a stuttering mechanism over an organic gesture. It looks so slow, so unnatural – it’s nothing but unadulterated fear that stops his in his tracks. For one torturously slow second August doesn’t have a face anymore, and he braces himself for his features to have disappeared entirely, or for whatever grotesque apparition swirled there instead. The relief that floods him as the man comes into clear view would be comical if his heart wasn’t trying to break out of his chest.
This entire scene is way too dramatic to just play out on its own – dimly, he’s aware that this walking disaster has probably wanted this effect, had staged it all, but he can be angry about that later.
‘My prophecy. And my father’s.’ He breathes out, trying to keep himself in check, but his voice betrays him.
Parallels.
His father might have deserved a heavy toll to pay, but he wasn’t the one who decided what form it was to take.
We’re the same.
August takes a step towards him, then another, and he feels like an insect beneath a magnifying glass, observed from every angle at once. His skin crawls.
‘This whole time, ever since before I was born.’ Michael’s fists clench by his sides. ‘You’ve been…’
What, conditioning him to follow the same path? Writing his own past off as punishment for someone else’s sins? He’s at a loss of words. The realisation is twined with longing, with a bone-deep sadness that takes up every niche of his heart where anger used to dwell.
There’s static in the silence and he’s thankful when August starts to speak again; and he can feel every word he breathes out on his face, that’s how close he’s come up.
‘Imagine,’ August whispers, ‘though this part is something you know well. When you’ve been bled to exhaustion, till you have nothing left, but hey, God loves you, so everything is gonna be ok. When you’re drowning but it’s easier not to notice than to wade in to lend a hand. When you rot right through, but no one looks at you close enough to see.’
Michael doesn’t have to imagine – the second half of his fourth grade had supplied more than enough memories. (Except there was one, a source of validation, someone that looked at him and saw right through, that poured warmth into him that he couldn’t forget, that wasn’t completely exhausted even after everything that followed.)
‘You were so lost, my poor fallen one. You were hurt and with no direction, betrayed by your very faith.’ A cold hand strokes down his cheek, leaving tingles in its wake. ‘Just like I have been. Except – you weren’t one with the Devil, Michael. I was. I still am.’
‘And no one knew…’
‘I was always a good friend to Lazarus. Always the beloved pastor, the friendly colleague, the approachable teacher.’ A beat, and something in his face shifts a little; he looks more resentful, more tired. ‘A kind lover, someone to be desired. .’
‘That’s why you ran the Black Mass,’ he tries to say, but his throat is suddenly on fire and he cannot even get mad at how August keeps on bringing up what punctured wounds between them once, on how he’s bound to the memory. ‘You wanted to be Lucifer.’
‘It was the closest I could have come to someone knowing, to someone seeing what I was. They couldn’t understand, of course. Most didn’t try. It was one or the other, black or white, benevolence or sin. ’
‘So when my father came along –‘
‘When your father came along, there was suddenly someone whose burden I knew well.’ August nods, drawing back a little bit. ‘There were others before him, of course – he wasn’t unique in any way. But no one before had felt mine so keenly.’
‘That’s why you’ve made his prophecy mirror what happened to you.’
‘Wasn’t even directly intentional.’ August rubs as his chin – another part in this performance, or is he genuinely lost in thought? ‘I just thought that for someone to sell their soul for a perfect life, the price had to be something proportionate. It’s only after you were born that I realised what kind of fate I’ve dragged you into.’
‘Did Daniel know?’
‘That he was condemned to be my mirror? He knew too little of my past for that. Besides, he might have embodied the death I brought with me, but he wasn’t bound to me the closest. He hadn’t lost his family, or was the catalyst for their deaths. His prophecy foretold a future like mine, but so had yours. You were so naïve, so beautiful – the circle just had to be complete. The moment you chose to be with me, the devil was with you – that ring any bells?’
Beelzebub was a close disciple of Lucifer’s; his right hand.
‘Did you love my father?’ The words come before he can stop them.
‘What’s that? Is that jealousy I hear?’ August holds his gaze, and he reminds Michael of a lazy, docile predator skirting in the dark.
August thrives in pretence and deceit – but it’s honesty that takes him apart. So Michael decides to be honest.
So he remembers.
Remembers what desire felt like – and the distant cold that followed, as if he wasn’t good enough. When he was served humiliation and calculated decomposition labelled under ‘love of the flesh’, every other student still got a reassuring pat on the shoulder and a smile to go with it. The lake is cold, and Abel tells him that he never really mattered to begin with, and he’d probably bleed all over for that but he’s just so, so tired.
‘Something like that.’
August physically winces at the confession, teeth digging into his lip, as if the disclosure pains him, and deep down Michael knows he’s never wanted to see him hurt, that the man August once was would have wished him nothing but the best.
‘I loved him no more than I love all things wounded.’ Is the answer he finally gets.
‘And I?’
What was I, if everything in my life was predetermined? What was I, a thirdhand memory of someone else’s loneliness, a pantomime for acceptance?
There’s a hand on his shoulder and it clutches at his coat so tight be thinks the fabric is going to tear.
‘You?’
Such a good child, Michael
It’s true, you know, I was getting so bored of you
Thank you, Mikhail, my angel, my only
He just wanted the truth.
‘You wouldn’t believe anything I said’ He speaks through gritted teeth, as if each word was a burden, but that’s not enough.
‘You have to do better than that for an answer.’ Michael deadpans.
August draws very very close, and there’s a hand in his hair, fingers soothing the pressure in his temples. For a second Michael thinks he’s going to kiss him. Which is new, and it’s never happened before, and the curling pull of anticipation almost makes him wonder what that would feel like, whether he’d be as merciless as with every other touch he’s given him, or whether he would taste of apology. He doesn’t realise his eyes have closed on reflex, but the moments trickle down between his eyelashes until the pause is way too long and he pulls back to look at August again –
-except all he sees is white.
He sees himself at an age so young he can’t even recall, himself laughing, summer sun dancing in his hair. Sees himself back in his very first year, when the murals in the chapel of St. John’s were stained with magic and faith seemed absolute. He’s showing me, Michael realises, as more and more images come forth from a memory that isn’t his. Showing what August sees every time he looks at him, showing the liquid gold that comes streaming through his fingers, the way his hair reflects the light like a halo, and it’s so bright it takes him a while to even notice the blackness skirting the edges, the dark shapes swirling in the corners of his vision, cold and vile and impending. The boy in his memory outshines it all – and suddenly he knows, the desperation and longing and catharsis, the smell of rain in summer heat, the warmth of a smile in dead winter cold. Like a promise of something brighter, purer. Something like salvation. There’s other silhouettes in the darkness, faces that could be vaguely recognised as Abel Stapleton, as his father, as people from Lazarus’s photographs; others he’s never seen before – but they all don’t matter at all. The stream of vision and emotion crescendos on the image of a blond youth with a fiery sword clenched in a hand that seems too small for the hilt, and he knows.
When the last of the vision fades – please, please, I’ve waited for this for so long, one swing is all it takes, don’t you dare deny me this deliverance – he finds himself with his forehead tucked against August’s neck, black tweed of his coat scratchy against his cheek, and he doesn’t know why it’s slightly damp because he’s not crying, not crying.
‘It’s like this,’ he hears, and August envelops him, stroking his hair, big and soothing and comforting – all the things he’s had to come to unlearn associating with this man. ‘-It’s like this.’
He doesn’t know he needs to be held until there’s an arm across his back and the weight of another body to share his own, and they stand like that, in the fading light, in the shadows that creep longer around them.
Some few streets away, a church bell tolls 9 – though it could be 10, he really isn’t certain how much time passes like that. It does not matter.
They don’t speak until later, after they’ve left the iron gates of the cemetery behind. He’s not realised how long they’ve actually stayed out for – their bus, the last bus, is already pulling up at the stop when they see it, and it takes a bit of a sprint to push through the back door just as it starts to swoosh shut. They stand at the very back, and Michael leans against the window as he catches his breath. Watches dusk consume the streetscape trailing behind them, the feeble trickle of cars and people out this late - other places, other lives.
‘I’m glad you didn’t die then.’ Again, he won’t look at August - his eyes never leave the dusted glass, and the half-whisper is meant not for him but for where all the intersections, powerlines and barely-flickering lamplights bleed into the night.
‘Really?’
He’s probably wearing that stupid smile again, mischief shrouding something darker, and Michael wonders whether he truly means what he said, whether this bundle of loose ends could ever be anything of comfort.
He allows himself to think that he does.
‘I guess that’s you and me both.’ August shrugs from the opposite side of the isle.
‘Really?’ He questions in turn, head jerking up, eyes searching for his. It doesn’t seem much, just a couple of words, but it’s so very unlike poisoned wine or charred wings, so unlike a man who, beneath everything, had just hoped for release.
August just looks at him, a mysterious smile tugging at his lips. Reflections of electric beams and headlights and all the years he’s lived stream across his face as the bus picks up speed, ducking in and out of shadow. The ventlight has been left open, and a hint of a breeze teases at his hair until its usual slickness is completely dishevelled. And standing there, in the back of a suburban bus - scratched over with graffiti, bent railing and smashed lightbulbs – to Michael he’s the most alive he’s ever seen him.
--
‘We’ve missed the curfew again.’
‘It’s no big deal, you know that.’
The bus strands them just across the road from the hospice, leaving a cloud of dust and foul-smelling gas as it takes off. Most of the lights are out already – just a feeble glow warming the reception windows. He usually takes him all the way there, but tonight it’s best if August goes alone. The property is surrounded by a garden, more or less alive in the warmer seasons; it’ all guarded off by wrought ironwork interrupted only by something like a tiny gatehouse. He walks with August until they’re on the steps leading up to the gate, and this is his cue to turn around and go with a swift farewell – but the man is leaning against the wall as if he’s waiting for something, expectant, and he falters.
‘Thank you for coming today?’ he offers, unsure of what to say, what August wants to see when he’s looking him all over like that, gaze tangible like a physical touch.
‘No,’ the man reaches out to him. ‘Thank you – for many things.’
‘Maybe we could walk around some more the next time I visit?’ it was nice, after all. Created points of meaning that weren’t just traces of before.
‘I could show you where I grew up, if you were thinking of that.’
‘I wasn’t,’ he’s quick to lie, and when August laughs at this hastiness it doesn’t bother him.
‘If you say so. Till next time.’
‘Till then.’
He’s about to step off the porch before August turns towards him once more. His hand finds its way around his bicep, and the pressure through layers of fabric has an illusion of warmth to it as he pulls him closer, dangerously close, eyes never leaving his.
‘Just because you were curious, before.’ He smiles, slow and predatory – except this time Michael doesn’t tense up, doesn’t need to brace himself for some kind of emotional blow this expression once used to precede.
He certainly hasn’t braced himself for August leaning in and kissing him, soft and chaste, hand sliding against his jaw, along the side of his neck. His lips are cold and slightly chapped, and that’s probably why he wants to breathe life into them, wants to feel more than that. He’s been given more than enough space to retreat should he choose to, but he does the opposite, leaning into the touch, craning his neck for more contact. August’s coat is coarse beneath his fingers and he clutches at him like he’s the only certainty stopping him from drowning – that’s what he feels like as the kiss grows deeper, more heated, mouth and tongue and pent up somethings he did not realise were still there. There’s no room for bitterness, no rejection – just the inexplicable rightness of this, and perhaps the quiet sigh before August pulls away.
He has to pull away, eventually, but not before the boy’s head is spinning and the air doesn’t sit right in his lungs and he has to prop himself against the gate to retain a semblance of balance.
‘See.’ August sighs against his lips, so close, so painfully familiar. ‘Imagine if we could have been like this from the very start’
‘It’s not too late to try,’ Michael says on impulse, before he can stifle the thought; realisation leaves his face burning, leaves him readying himself against another snide remark. But August just stays there, forehead resting against his, a strand of hair blurring in his vision, and after everything it shouldn’t feel so right.
‘Isn’t it?’ the man says, finally, and his heart breaks a little, because this voice, this hollowness to it had previously been reserved only for the depths of hell and confessions in abandoned churches (and perhaps for then, when he was six, but he can’t remember.)
‘I guess.’
August kisses him again, softer this time, just a fleeting brush of lips against his before he straightens up, tidying his hair, and just like that, the moment dissolves in the night.
‘Will you come next week?’ His parody of a former lover asks just as he’s about to turn towards the gate, and Michael’s feet finally find the steps leading back onto the street.
He will, of course he will.
‘Perhaps.’ He says out loud. ‘We shall see.’
August gives him another catlike grin at that, taking him in from head to toe.
‘Maybe it’s not too late.’ He drawls out, voice dropping, barely enough for Michael to notice. ‘Perhaps.’
And with that, he’s gone, clearing the gate with one fluid motion (what a show-off, he thinks - he could have just unlocked it), whistling something to himself and he strolls towards the hospice.
Night has taken its full reign, and it will be later still by the time he’ll finally get home. It’s a long way off, but all trains and buses were surely back in their depots by now, and he didn’t fancy waiting around for a cab – instead, Michael walks all the way back to his apartment. It’s colder now, the wind persistent in plucking the last remaining leaves from their branches and tearing at his jacket – but it’s done some good, too, clearing the skies.
You can’t really see the stars that well in the city – the sky was always more fascinating in St. Johns, and even the risk of getting caught sneaking out after hours was worth it, he remembers. But the moon is out, a newborn crescent so thin it takes him ages to locate it in the cloudless blueblack eternity above his head. It twinkles there, too weak to actually emit any light, but it keeps him company.
He doesn’t stop smiling all the way until he’s home.