Title: Generations of Lovers
Pairing: Dorian Gray/Tom Sawyer
Summary: The hardest part about being immortal is trying to not get too attached.
Warning: Slash
Rating: T

This was just a thought that passed through my head, and I had to type it because there just aren't enough fics on this pair.
This is SLASH between Dorian and Sawyer.

"I'm going back home."

I think you were expecting a greater response from me, but all I gave you was a simple and dismissing nod over the top of my book. I had heard the words before. Lovers aren't forever, after all.

"Give me something!" I closed my book when you began to yell. Your eyes pierced me with anger from below those blond bangs. "Do something! I want… I want someone who will worry about me. Someone who will care for me. Love me. Someone who will talk about a future with-"

"A future?" There was a cold hint in my voice and it stopped your words immediately. Your, what must have been, well planned tirade swallowed into your throat, gone as fast as a screaming kettle being taken off the eye. "A future with you, Tom? What does that entail? You, aging slowly, though it will be swift to me. In the blink of an eye, you'll no longer look like yourself. You'll be an old man that I'm forced to take care for. Your memory slowly leaving you so that eventually you won't even remember who I am. A future with you? I'll have to decline."

If there were tears in your eyes, I could not see them. However, I heard your voice choking up as you spoke, obviously reluctant, or unwilling, to surrender the words. "I'm uh… I'm going back to Missouri. My childhood sweetheart still sends me love letters. Yeah, still does, even after all this time. She wants some kids and a life together, and I'm done denying her."

It took you… two days to collect your things for the trip back to America. Your words were preplanned, but your actions were not. I think you wanted me to stop you.

I didn't.

I called you a carriage, and you treated it like a dagger to the heart. We waited in the antechamber of my house while your belongings were packed away. So many boxes. I doted upon you too much.

The tears were there then. I could see them in the morning sun. You wouldn't let them fall. No, you were too prideful for that.

"I'm sorry you wasted so much of your life here in England." I wonder if I really meant that.

"I'm not." Those two little words made me want to take your lips in one of those sweet kisses that I know you loved so much. I would never have done that to you. All it would have been to you was false hope. You would have stayed. You would have had renewed faith that things would be different.

They wouldn't have.

I would have treated you the same, and you would endure it as your warm and loving heart tore in two.

No, lovers aren't forever. Not even the one who shifted his feet, waiting for me to say something, anything, to make him stay. Not even I am that cruel. I wouldn't do that to you.

Your lips grazed mine. You always had a way of messing up my plans. I kissed you back. You deserved as much.

I pulled away and you acted as though I had just run you through with my sword. "Your… carriage awaits." Why was I so hesitant?

You'd always been so strong, rarely accepting my help or advice. You destroyed everything I thought of you in that moment. You threw yourself on me, fingers digging into my nicely pressed vest, unclean nails raking folds throughout it. "Ask me to stay." Your head buried itself in my chest. I couldn't see the tears, but I heard them in your words. I felt them in my heart, what little of that remains.

"No… I won't." You needed some form comfort then. I could give you that, at the least. My arms wrapped around you. You always loved it when I was possessive of you. "I'll destroy you, Tom."

"I don't care. I love-"

"DON'T… say it. Don't waste that word." My arms moved up your body to your face, forcing your gaze upward. "Look at me. Look at me, I said." You still avoided my eyes. Maybe you were embarrassed by the tears you were wasting on me. "You will leave. Yes, you will leave England behind you and continue the life you put on hold." I wiped your eyes with the pads of my thumbs. I didn't want the last image of you to be one with tears. "Write me when you arrive."

You collected yourself from the pitiful display you had just put on. A little nod and you were out the door and in the carriage. Your eyes didn't avoid mine then. Were you trying to guilt me into running up to the carriage by flashing those eyes that I've never denied?

I lost a lover, not a love. The words became a repeated message to myself- blurring together with my saying them so much- as I stared at the ceiling that night. You had left before, short little excursions to satisfy your youth. I still always felt your presence in the bed though. My lifeless frame provides no heat, and no amount of blankets helped. I lost a warm lover, nothing more.

Lovers aren't forever. Not even the ones that whisper, "I love you," for ten years with no more than false hope of hearing it in return. There's nothing to gain from falling in love with a shadow.

Shadows don't age. Their appearance never wavers. The only thing you ever have to worry about is if it will be there when you look. Their presence is uncertain and undependable.

I suppose I kept you away from the world long enough. It's possible you simply wanted a life. Maybe you left because you had begun to see your features change. I saw it. Did you leave because you didn't want me to see you grow old? Your mortality struck you with fear. Fear and an understanding that no, we would not grow old together. Were you intimidated by my curse?

Age attacks all things. Except me.

.:o:..:o:..:o:.

You were proud of your son, I could tell. You sent me so many pictures. When the boy reached his early twenties, I could see so much of you in him, Sawyer. Your letters told me the boy was just as adventurous, too. He wanted to explore the world and its wonders. I offered help in that aspect. I extended an invitation to England for the boy. You turned me down several times. I wonder if you were worried of the influence I might have on your son.

Maybe you knew me better than I thought.

Your son was like you in every way. The way he spoke, the way he laughed, even the way he writhed in the sheets.

What visible differences I saw were eradicated as I threw my head back and closed my eyes. The voice almost took me back in time. You were under me again. My name on your lips between moans.

I felt as if you knew what actions your son and I committed at night. You must have. Your letters hinted as much. I avoided the topic in my responses. Maybe that made you even more suspicious.

I wonder if it hurt you. If it did, was it because you didn't want your son tainted in the same way you were? Or maybe it was jealousy.

Your son wasn't as strong as you. Too young maybe. He stayed for three years, allowing extravagant tours of Europe, before he grew homesick. I sent him back.

.:o:..:o:..:o:.

He had a daughter.

You have a granddaughter now Tom. You must be getting old.

She was beautiful. She had that blond hair. It's become my favorite color. I'll look at no other.

It's a tradition now, I suppose. Your family loves Europe. And it is understood that the Gray house always opens its doors to Sawyers.

I tried to tolerate her for your sake, Tom. I found her an annoyance above all else. Caught up in the ideas of love and peace that came with her generation, despite the looming war your country was involved in at the time.

It wasn't the same. She wasn't you. I couldn't even fool myself into thinking it was you as I did with your son.

She… didn't stay long.

She loved her grandfather. That's what she told me when she left for his funeral. I didn't tell her that I did too.

I saw her off. I closed the door behind me and locked it tight. The darkness always welcomes me back. I collapsed onto the floor.

Demons don't feel. Shadows don't love. Heartless don't cry.

Does that mean that I'm none of the above?

Tears were the first warm thing I've felt since you left.

.:o:..:o:..:o:.

Each generation looks less like you.

.:o:..:o:..:o:.

Happy New Year. It's a new century, Tom. One hundred years since I first met you, and what do I have to show for it? Your great grandson's arm around my waist.

He's nothing like you. Don't get me wrong, he's a good kid. The boy's simply more than a little arrogant. I chuckle to myself. Maybe it's only because I don't like competition in that department.

Why am I obsessed with your family, Tom? Do I summon them to me because I want to feel near you again?

I pull his arm off me slowly and slide out of bed.

Why do you haunt me, Tom? You're there every day. You're there every hour. Every minute. Every second.

Get out of my head!

Leave me alone already. I know I have my sins. I know. But I did nothing to deserve the torture of remembering your enriching smile. The smile that made me grin back a time or two. The sweet accent in your voice is a curse that plagues my life. Your playful innocence a close second.

I'd never admit it, but the greatest memory was when you would pull away from my lips just long enough to say that you loved me.

My feet led me to the library. Isn't that where I first saw you? Those good-humored eyes. It's almost as if you never took the mission seriously. You were simply happy to shoot something with your little guns.

I tried to stop you from coming with us. Remember? You would have ruined the mission assigned to me. That wasn't the only reason though. You were too young, too inexperienced, for such responsibility. You proved me wrong. You held your own on the battlefield. Your mind helped in several situations. You helped me plead my case to the rest of the League after it was all over. I was only after my portrait. That's why I betrayed them.

You were wrong, Tom. It turns out there is no excuse for me. I'm simply evil. I'm evil through and through.

It explains a lot, doesn't it? How else could I have let you go? If there was good in my heart, I would have seen that you needed me. I didn't care though, did I? All I thought was the bothersome pain of watching you grow old and leaving me as I held your hand on your deathbed.

I'm evil, Tom. I am evil and weak. I know this because if I wasn't, I would have been able to tell you what I deny everyday.

"I love you, too."