Dance, Traditional, in Two Movements
by Ashura
pairing: Bran/Barney, mention of Bran+Will
warnings: kind of angsty; sex implied
archive: Arcadia (http://arcadia.envy.nu)
disclaimer: Susan Cooper's. Not mine. Poor.
****
i.
Another summer. Another reunion, if it can really even be called that. We always come, and on the surface we say it is tradition, but if you ask any of the rest of them for a real, tangible, thorough reason why we always dedicate the week of Midsummer's Day for a collective migration to an Aberdyfi resort, they would not be able to tell you. It is too much thought, and once a tradition is in place, no one wants to be the one to fracture it.
My father would say it was for the golf. He can play golf anywhere, of course, but he claims he prefers the air here, or the sixth hole with his Lucky Tree. Maybe that is his real reason, I've never been much of an expert on the workings of my parents' minds. Mother comes because she likes family holidays, and she says she doesn't get to see any of us enough. I think it's just because now she has a granddaughter to spoil.
Jane comes because it was her idea, the first time, and so the tradition is really hers. It used to be a chance for her to see Will, and now she's moved past that, but she still comes. Besides, it would be a bit strange, the two of them, now.
Simon and Mary come because Jane and Will do. It's harder for them to schedule now; Mary's not teaching anymore but Simon's needed at work, and neither of them can do anything anymore without taking into consideration the vast amount of time, effort, energy, and attention required to take Jill anywhere. Not that there's anything wrong with that. My niece is adorable. But that's because I'm just Uncle Barney, and I get to hold her and say how cute she is and then give her back to her parents if she looks like she's about to fuss.
I have no idea why Will still comes. I expect that if I asked him he'd claim the family angle too, but I think it goes deeper than that, for him. Then again, I gave up trying to figure Will out years ago.
I, of course, come to see Bran. And Bran comes because it's not much effort for him, just an hour's drive in that battered wreck of machinery he calls a car, and because he wants to see Will. He's been watching him for years, quietly, when he thinks nobody can see. I recognise the look, sort of hungry and longing. It's the same one Jane used to have, before she figured out what Bran is going to have to realise someday—that you just can't touch Will. It'd be like trying to hold onto a shadow, or a hologramme, your hands would just slip right through him, because there's something about him that just isn't in the same world with the rest of us. For someone who looks so ordinary, he can sure entrance people. And of course he has no idea of the effect he has on them, he just goes on being cheerful and friendly and charming people who will never be able to catch him.
I used to think Bran was the same way. I remember when I first thought it, it was the first time we ever met him, and he was standing like a king on top of a mountain, glowing because the sun was behind him, outlining him. That's when I felt it. I was too young then to know that it meant I was going to be in love with him for the next ten years—more like worship at the time, really. It was just this sudden epiphany that I would follow him to the ends of the earth and back if he asked me to—and that I really, really wanted him to ask. I wanted him to need me for something, even if it was something small and stupid.
I dream about him sometimes—silly schoolboy dreams, where I'm in danger and he rescues me. The one I remember most, I've been taken captive by an army—a medieval army, swords and all that, probably because of all the Arthurian myths I've read—and they say that I'm a spy and they're going to kill me. But Bran comes to find me, and tells the general that I'm not a spy, that I'm his. And before we leave the general kneels down before him and says something that sounds reverent, but that I don't understand. My own dreams, and I don't understand the language. But maybe it's something I'm not meant to know.
Or maybe it's because even in the dream my ears are still ringing and my heart throbbing with the echo of, "he's mine."
Because I am, even if he never decides to claim me.
ii.
Just after two in the morning. A moon almost full, pouring silver light through the hotel room window, reflecting off the pocked surface of the sea outside. Long limbs sprawl limp and sleepy, tangled in the sheets; the moonlight makes white skin glow, and he looks like I think one of the Fair Folk might. I kiss the inside of his knee, and his leg jerks once.
"Hey now, that tickles."
"Oops." I want to say something more, something lighthearted and clever, maybe something that alludes to all the non-ticklish things that I've been doing with his body for the past two hours. But I can't. I tread carefully, because this was an accident.
The answer to all my prayers since I hit puberty, but still an accident.
Bran always shares a hotel room with Will. Like the holiday itself, it's tradition. You can't change tradition, even when you're lonely as hell and the person you've been in love with since you were twelve still hasn't noticed how you feel.
Not that I'm complaining, exactly...but I hate seeing him so sad. I ache for him, and really, if Will Stanton were to wake up this morning and say 'what an idiot I've been for the past decade, Bran, I'm in love with you, let's run off together,' I honestly think I'd jump for joy just to see him /happy/. He doesn't smile enough, and it's enough to get me drunk when he does.
But it's not going to happen, and I think he's starting to realise that.
So when there was a very soft knock on my door, and I dragged myself out of bed, rubbing sleep out of my eyes and wondering what was so godawful urgent that Little Barney Drew's immediate attention was required at 12.09 in the morning, and opened it to a haunted-looking Bran Davies in his shorts and holding a pillow, I just rejoiced in my very, very good fortune. Apparently Father Christmas was delivering early this year.
He asked if I had room for him, just for one night, and babbled some half-coherent explanation about how he couldn't ask Simon because of Mary and Jill, and Jane was obviously out, and I just pulled him inside and crawled back into bed and pushed the covers back for him. I had a single room. I had never been so glad of that, before.
He never did explain why he wasn't in his own room with Will, and I didn't ask. I think I didn't want to hear it. I put my arms around him because he looked so devastatingly lonely, and I waited to kiss him til after I thought he'd fallen asleep. He hadn't. In retrospect, that was a good thing.
But in that space of time after he collapsed, before I woke him up again, there were streaks of wet silver on his face that had nothing to do with moonlight. Such beautiful, silent, heartbreaking tears. I wanted to gather him up and hold him, kiss his tears away til he forgot what he was crying for, but I couldn't because it wasn't for me to do. Because if what he feels...if he loves Will even half so much as I love him, I wouldn't be able to make him forget anyway.
He rolls onto his side, props his head up on his hand. He watches me like he's trying to figure out what to say. I try not to hold my breath. Finally he speaks, and his voice is low and shaky.
"Barney...what've we done?"
I don't know how to answer that question.
I want to tell him it's all right, but I don't know if he'd understand, let alone believe me.
I don't want to let him go, but he's going anyway, even if he stays here in my arms all night. I watch the retreat of his eyes and fumble for useless platitudes and empty words. I had him for a few moments, unguarded, lost completely in me, but I'm losing him.
Maybe I was right about him, the first time. Maybe he is another who's too bright to touch.
"I think...." His voice is heavy as he pushes himself upright. "I think I'd better go." He doesn't look at me, not quite, not steadily, just little flickering glances of his golden eyes.
I say, "You can stay, if you want to."
He looks at me then, startled, but warmer; he had cloaked fear in distance. He smiles in relief, shining silver-white and ethereal in the light from the window. "I—I better go. But thank you for saying—Duw, you had me scared there for a minute, Barney."
And the horrible tense moment is broken and I can speak again. I want to tell him everything, but I can't yet, it still isn't my place. And it might never be. But I say what I can.
"It's all right," I promise, and crawl out of the bed and cup his face in my hands, capture his eyes so that maybe, just maybe, some of what I'm not saying will come through anyway. "I'm here if you need me." No promises necessary. No obligation. No new traditions. "Don't feel bad." About me. About Will. About anything. Be happy about something, Bran, please, God, be happy.
Very slowly he nods, as if reading my eyes, or my mind. He doesn't know what to say, or how to answer, but I knew he wouldn't. "Diolchi fi," is all he says before he leaves to go back to his lonely room with untouchable Will.
I go back to bed, and arrange myself around the wrinkles and dips and empty space where he was lying, so I can pretend he's still there.
[fin.]
****
notes and translations
Duw: God
diolchi fi: thank you
1] Yes, it is Mary Stanton that Simon is married to. I don't know why, I just felt like it. And it saved me having to try to invent a wife for him.