Title: Graveyard Here
Author: Naisumi
Pairings: Lance/Scott, Scott/Lance
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: If I owned X-men:Evolution, you would know. Oh, believe me...you would KNOW. ...*cackles, then gags and coughs spasmodically* Aherm. But since I don't...well. Yes. ...I don't. >.> Damn.
Archive: If you want, but could you tell me at least? ^.~
Warnings: Language, usual angst, rampant symbolism and poeticness, deathfic, slash
Notes: Go read my Harry Potter fic! ...Oh, right, about this fic? Er...yes. One-shot, slash, you know the drill folks.
*coughs* anyways...Enjoy and give me lots of C&C!
Additional notes: Not betad! Thanks to Morwen O'Conner--whose name is spelled with an E (E!!) for those of you who spell it "O'Connor"--for giving me the scenario which is listed, not verbatim, beneath.
Summary: In an old graveyard in the snow. (or...something to that effect. I believe it was supposed to be a run-down old plot, but I don't remember.)
--
The snow crunched beneath the inch-and-a-half thick rubber soles of Scott Summer's boots like crystallized styrofoam, crackling as he ground his heel against it, smooth and now slippery, compressed by his weight and the brethren coolness in its pores of ice. He wrapped his fleece jacket closer about him, feeling the soft cloth tugging at his shoulders where it stretched too thin after so many years of wear; eroded as rice paper pressed against the flesh-covered bone, the cotton-covered flesh, the harsh guttural sting of wind against it. His fingers were numb from inside his wool mittens, as if the winter air had saturated his entire being with its frigid eldritch cold, a cone of stark light poured from the crater-lips of the moon, judicially resting atop the steel gray wisps of clouds sparsely scattered about the navy-black sky.
In the vastness of night, the world seemed strangely flat, as if Gaia had opened her palm and now held it still, waiting patiently for man to continue his time-imbued trek across her lifeline. The horizon was flat, with trees rising up like fleeting shadows, only defined by the imagination of the mind and the prism red glow of his vision, the splotches of darkness only outlined because of their slightly darker disposition; chameleons ebbing into the night, then reappearing when he blinked. It was useless to discern their true shapes, though, so he once again concentrated upon the misting streams of smoke that was his breath; the slowness and sometimes split-second stumbling of his step.
Scott now approached an iron-wrought gate, that of which seemed to stereotypical as it was dangling from one of its hinges, obviously uncared for in a breadth of time too long to be counted by the decade on two hands alone. He pushed it open, cringing as it creaked too loudly, sounding like a loud skirl, too grating for the sanctity of the silence of the night. Gingerly, he stepped inside the confines of the loosely fenced in acre of land, taking care to slowly close the dinted old gate behind him, his fingers curling about its ornate frame and praying that it wouldn't shriek at its movement and his touch. Once it was closed, thankfully a lot more quietly than when it was opened, as is usually the case with the revealing of something than shutting, Scott carefully picked is way through loose clumps of dirt and the ominous marble-cut boulders of tombstones, jagged and protruding from the earth like dwarfed monuments forgotten.
He barely took notice of his surroundings, hands still clenched about fistfuls of the thick fabric of his coat, eyes trained ahead at some imperceptible point in the distant; a certain place of which he could see in his mind and was only waiting for it to appear before him. It was beginning to snow, the flakes of pale lace-like ice clinging to his shades, beading them with blurry drops of moisture; finding themselves fused against the warmth of his cheeks, melting like tears; tasting like winter itself. His tongue flickered out briefly, tasting the burning iciness, like liquid nitrogen stitched up in lacework and flung down from the heavens. Scott's eyes shuttered close for a brief moment, his steps slowing just a bit, then they opened once more, his stride regaining its steady purpose.
It was darker still when he reached the grave--or perhaps the moon just seemed to be brighter; a dewdrop pearl, reflecting its luminous off of the many prisms of twirling snowflakes tumbling to the ground silently like gossamer shapes cut out of the stars. Or perhaps the tombstone itself cast a shadow about the small cemetery; perhaps its heavy-set engraving of 'Alex Masters--beloved friend and brother.' Brother, indeed. Kneeling before the comparably straight tombstone, Scott couldn't help but feel a twang of remorse; a small quiver of bitterness within him, like a cold hailstone lodged in his throat and distorting the tempo of his now-hitched breathing. He ignored the moisture smearing his sight obscure as the rapidly increasing snow; the warm tracks of wetness down his cheeks to the point of his chin as melted ice.
Jerkily, Scott tugged off one glove by the fingers, the wool scratchy and rough against his numb skin, and reached forward, brushing his middle and forefinger against the etched words, the furrows in cold onyx that left the feeling of searing slash-marks against his flesh. In a moment of irony, he wondered if the letters would now be melded into his fingerprints; swirls of identification blended with words; tragedy. It would be fitting.
Now he drew in a lungful of frigid air, his face feeling wet, slick, unreal, yet his lips chapped, numbed, hurting. He imagined his chest caving in from the pressure of the strange weight he felt at seeing the tombstone, the words branded into his memory though the night too dark and his vision to scarlet to see them. Perhaps the winter coldness would freeze his throat, suffocate him crystalline shards of ice; slowly fill him up with the literal manifestation of the lonely emptiness he now felt. In that moment, the thought didn't hurt as much as it might have.
If you could see me now, Scott thought ruefully, your big brother falling to pieces just because of...
His ruminations grated to a stop, a wall of still tender raw anguish, refusing to relinquish the memories with clarity. So, instead, he stopped thinking and thrust his hand into his jacket pocket, groping around with blind fingers, before finally finding what he had been looking for. Drawing in another painfully deep breath, he pulled his hand out, feeling the bite of the winter air against his skin, keen as a razor blade, and stared hard at the closed locket cradled in his palm. Then, his arm trembling so hard he nearly dropped it, he flicked open the top of it, his one still gloved hand cupping over it as he bent close, trying to see the picture he knew was inside by the light of the moon. He could barely make out the paleness of his mother's face, and so closed his eyes, both hands clasped together to protect the precious photograph from the swirling snow. In his mind, he could see the picture still. It was red.
He wasn't sure how long he knelt before the silent grave, jet black in the night, glittering a faint pink along the edge as a sheaf of moonlight escaped the silver strains of cloud embrace above. After a while, it seemed as if he would stay there forever, his lips almost stopping their numbed quivering; the ache fading from his limbs, his ears shrouded with the softly freezing torrent of feathered snowflakes seizing the earth for their own. In the darkness, however, there was the distant screech of the cemetery gate opening; its crackling clang as it shut just as noisily. The warmer brightness of a flashlight found him, and he turned his head slightly, eyes burning at the sudden intrusion. Shifting a little, Scott squinted, the haze of crimson and black that had been his vision for the past stretch of time blurred, obscuring the bearer of the artificial lantern.
"Scott," he heard, then he was being pressed against something--someone--solid, real, secure; arms thrown about his shoulders, holding him close. At first, Scott couldn't tell who it was, but after a moment, he recognized the warmth radiating from the figure. He reached around the broad shoulders and clung to the other's steady frame, asking tentatively,
"Lance?"
"Fuck, kid, lookit you," was his answer as Lance held him at arm's length, brushing damp chestnut bangs out of the way. Then he rested his forehead against Scott's, kissed him plainly and simply, then drew the shivering boy into another haphazard embrace.
"C'mon, let's get you home," Lance said after a moment, lips finding the column of Scott's neck beneath the fold of his collar. The other boy shook his head jerkily in response, jamming his ungloved hand into his coat pocket and depositing the beloved locket there, away from the bitter cold. He didn't bother putting his glove on again for it was soaked, and so he shoved that into the other pocket, fingers laboriously bending with the action.
"You go ahead--I-I'll be all right."
Lance frowned, one arm resting on his knee as he crouched beside the other boy. He tilted his head, lips slightly apart and breath fogging up the clear, dark air before him, snow drifting down into the beacon of light from the unmoved flashlight, as if his breath had transformed into a million tiny fragments of white and was splintered.
"Are you insane? I'm not gonna leave you here."
"Lance," Scott blinked rapidly, shutter-shut movements of his eyes fragmenting Lance's move to draw him into his arms again. He leaned towards the dark-haired boy and found tender lips kissing his temple, warm against snow-chilled flesh.
"I can't leave," he said weakly, forcing away the staticy break that threatened to crack his voice from his words, leaving them limp and pleading.
"Alex--Alex, he..." Scott trailed off and, finding nothing more in his throat that would not shatter his tenuous self-control, just pressed his cheek to Lance's shoulder once more, his eyes slipping close involuntarily as fingers gently stroked his soaked-through hair, the wind-gnawed nape of his neck, massaged his hunched shoulders into marginal relaxation.
"C'mon, Scott," Lance repeated, more softly now.
"he wouldn't want you t'kill yourself over this."
"No, he wouldn't, would he," Scott mumbled back, voice numbed and muffled by the thick cloth of Lance's coat, bunched against his face.
"But I...I need to, Lance," he drew away now, eyes down-turned to the tube of man-captured light; the flashlight beside Lance's foot. The chocolate-eyed boy noticed his gaze and picked up the flashlight, slipped it carefully into Scott's grasp, curled the other boy's fingers around it. Then, he guided the beam of light by Scott's hand to the headstone, reading it aloud,
"Alex Masters--beloved friend and brother. May he always rest in peace, eternally loved and remembered..."
Scott's hand shook.
The other boy was quiet, then he said softly,
"Scott, it's not your fault..."
"I know," Scott replied blindly, his voice wavering like a chaotic sleeve of tin pounded upon to produce reedy thunder.
"I know, I know."
Lance hugged him close, wrapped both arms around him and clutched him so tightly their chests were pressed together, heartbeats too loud in the snow-frosted silence. It seemed, from the wildness in Scott's voice, that he didn't know--however, one might assume that he probably knew, yet could not stop feeling in any case. That was only human, after all, as Scott was want to be, and to cry was also only human, yet in that moment, neither of them did even though now they were together in the still of the night. No tears in the frostbitten air reeling from a frozen deep-seated pain. No tears for the quickly paling headstone.
No tears at all.
A beat of silence, then Lance was kissing his hair, his face; the stubborn warmth of his lips staining the other's skin with wetness as the snowflakes yielded to the persistent heat, running clear from white like liquidized diamonds or opals of a lighter sheen. He took the flashlight from Scott's numb hold, switched it off; set it down in the crumbling snow, the dove flakes crusting his fingers like bits of coconut. He settled back, holding Scott close, warmed him with his breath as if they were one and whispering,
"Alright, we won't leave."
Scott leaned against him, his eyes slipping close. He was still for a long time, then he murmured quietly,
"Thank you."
And so they sat, huddled together in front of the tombstone with the snow tumbling from the heavens all around. For a while, it seemed as if they were the only ones left in the world; for a while...it seemed as if, despite it all, it was going to be okay.
~fin~