This will make no sense if you haven't read the arc.  I won't even promise that it will make sense if you've actually READ it.  I just was trying to force myself to finish just one of my 742- or something like that- unfinished stories, and this seemed a good place to start, as the resolution can be Someone Else's Problem.

Taryn

***********

Second Chances

*********

The air was unseasonably cold tonight. /Brisk/, as his father had called it, in a far away place and what seemed a million years ago, back before everything went wrong and the world was still a trustworthy place.  Keith could feel the chill from the stones seeping through his clothes into his very skin and bones as he curled up on the edge of the castle battlements, with one leg swinging over the ledge into oblivion, and watched the first tendrils of mist rise from the lake far below into the last of the rapidly fading light from the dying sun.  There would be a rather spectacular fog in the morning, and the more reserved side of Keith's brain thought briefly about canceling lion practice even as the rest of him tapped a cigarette out of his nearly-empty pack and tried to ignore the thrill of the addiction that was already singing through his veins, even so soon after the last hit. 

It would be much easier, Keith thought to himself as he lit the cancer stick and took a deep drag, if the only thing calling him up to the battlements every evening was the pull of the need for nicotine.  If the craving singing along his nerves every waking hour of the day and night was only the need for the cigarettes, then everything would be normal and all right.  When he'd opened that first pack that night as a way to pay Lance back for forcing him to voice a question that he wasn't yet prepared to ask outside of his own fantasies everything had fallen completely apart.  Keith knew by now the way the script was supposed to work.  Lance was supposed to appear like a knight from some damned fairy tale at the last moment and save him from himself. He was most certainly not supposed to join him here every night, rain or shine, early warmth or unseasonable cold, and taunt him by looking so fucking sexy as he pulled on his own cigarette and stared almost sightlessly out into the darkening fields and forests that his very existence drove Keith nearly mad with raw aching need.

But, apparently, the gods either had other ideas or sick sadistic senses of humor.  Every night for months it had been this way.  He'd flee up to the parapet after dinner, almost desperate in his need to fuel his duel addictions- the nicotine and Lance's presence.  Sometimes he couldn't even breathe when he dropped down as close to the edge as he could manage to get on his trembling legs and flung the first cigarette out of the crumbled package with shaking hands, unable to stop himself from listening with every ounce of his being for the soft tread of Lance's boots on the stairwell behind him.  Then Lance would appear, bringing with him the rush of anguish that always accompanied his presence now that all the questions about their relationship- or, really, the complete lack of one- had been laid on the table for all to see.  When their eyes met every night for that first and sometimes only time, he could see the sudden flare of lust in Lance's gaze, usually followed by something undefinable most closely resembling confusion before Lance would look away to stare out at the horizon as if it held all of the universe's answers.  And who knew?  Maybe it did, if you were asking the right questions.

At first these nightly rituals visits to the temple of their joint addiction had been enough to quiet the cravings for more.  During the nights of the last month or so that seemed to stretch into aeons the dual mix of the nicotine and Lance's inexplicable presence had been so entirely overwhelming that there hadn't been room for anything else. Slowly, though, the half-veiled looks had become even more exquisitely painful than the not-knowing had been.  Yet through it all neither one of them said a word; Keith because he was terrified of breaking the spell that caused Lance to follow him up here alone every night to join him in something that seemed so intimate and even illicit given their "nothing-but-friends" status, and Lance for reasons he could never quite comprehend.

At that moment, the long-awaited footsteps sounded in the stairwell behind him, freeing him from the waiting even while they chained him into an entirely new brand of slavery.  Not for the first time he wondered what Lance would do if he refused to relinquish his grip on the pack.  The thought of whether or not the nicotine was Lance's only reason for these little twilight idylls kept Keith awake at night, and even while he berated himself for not pushing to learn the truth of it, he didn't think he could take the thought of yet another question answered forever.

To make things even worse, there hadn't been an attack for weeks now, and Keith wasn't sure if that was a blessing or a curse.  The loss of the rushing, oh-so-distracting high of battle only brought more recent losses into aching clarity, making his situation nearly unbearable.  Sometimes it was all he could do to close his eyes in silent acknowledgement of the unthinking, horrid unfairness of it all, as if his prayers for the ultimate flame to fuel the fires of all his failed addictions was finally being answered.  And for once, come what may, he wasn't going to break.  He would sit here in silence until the end of time when they both dropped dead of the soon-to-be-dreaded battle with cancer before he would utter the words that drove Lance away again, if for no other reason than that he wasn't completely sure that when Lance left he wouldn't take the nicotine- his last and now only hope for salvation- as well, leaving Keith with absolutely nothing at all except a need to reach the oblivion that never ceased calling to him.  If all Lance wanted from him was his quiet presence and an addiction that they could finally share, he'd have it.  He'd just sit here quietly and fantasize about what would happen if he asked Sven to find him some cigarettes laced with ecstasy and let the unfulfilled need drive him stark raving mad.

"Keith?"

The soft voice sliced through his fractured thoughts, pushing him so close to the mental edge that he screwed his eyes shut and tightened his hands into fists in an effort to drive the voice away.  For an endless moment that seemed to be suspended in eternity all he could think was that Lance had not just spoken to him.  This couldn't end, not yet, not now, he wasn't ready.

His body's instinctive jerk had just barely made him lose his balance when hands closed tightly around his arms, pulling him almost urgently away from the edge of the wall.  Keith's eyes snapped back open and he stared down into the swirling fingers of fog rising up and imagined them cradling him like the hands of a new mother if only Lance would just let go and let this all end.  Instead the fingers tightened on his arms hard enough to leave bruises, and Lance whispered his name again like the voice of doom.

"Keith."

This time the whisper held a note that was as compelling as any command, and Keith's eyes moved of their own accord, slowly drinking in the sight of Lance's face, shadowed in the rising twilight so that he looked more otherworldly than human, and Keith could almost imagine this was a dream.  Almost, that is, until his gaze reached Lance's eyes, and then all thought stopped.  There was something new there, something that looked like it might be resolve, and the detached part of Keith's mind wondered vaguely if Lance had finally found the answers he was looking for, and what they meant for him. 

Lance's eyes refused to release him as the other man knelt down beside him, as one hand unlatched from his arm and gently moved up to touch his face.  Keith was only obscurely aware that Lance's hand was shaking, and then nothing else mattered at all because Lance's lips were on his, and he was kissing Lance, and Lance was kissing him back and somehow not pushing him away.  He imagined he could taste the herbal tang of the cigarettes on Lance's lips already, impossible though that was, and he was so warm against the chill of the night and the chill that always seemed to be encasing his heart, and it was somehow better than he'd ever imagined it would be, if only because it was real.

Lance tensed and pulled away, and Keith could see the trepidation in his eyes.  This at least he understood, but he'd be damned if he'd let this end now, not when he was so close.  He pulled Lance back to him again and renewed the kiss, praying that maybe this would be answer enough. Apparently it was, because Lance's arms closed around him, pulling him closer, and then there was nothing of hesitation left in him, nothing but the burning aching need that Keith knew so well.  And his only coherent thought, as the light failed completely and the castle spotlights kicked on far below, shining up through the hazy mist of the swirling fog, was the hope that this was only a beginning, and not the beginning of the end.

Arc Home
Visit Taryn