A/N: I leave Ireland soon, I'm hopping on a bus bound for the airport in about 5 hours. I wrote this yesterday evening, after my last day at city centre, trying to process the fact that I'm leaving and trying to imagine how it'll be being back home. It's super duper melancholy and sad – mind you, I don't think I'm quite this bad. Not yet, anyway, we'll see. Short and sad. I promise I'll update when I can with less depressing stuff.
People liked to think that Terence was permanently cheerful.
He wasn't.
He smiled enough for it, and when he did smile, his face showed the expression like an old friend, wrinkles coming in right around his mouth and eyes, working in deeper as he aged. But there were other wrinkles growing, too, beneath his eyes and on his brow, from the frown that no one ever saw.
He didn't like being depressed, but he was used to it. It never lasted unbearably long, the bouts of melancholy, the tear down the middle of his heart, the emotional turmoil that drove him catatonic. It was always there, dull and forgotten, but sometimes he'd look in the mirror and it would come back with a vengeance.
Often in those times, Gawain would find him lying listlessly in a seat, staring, a bottle of whiskey sitting untouched in front of him.
"Eh?" Gawain would ask, even though he knew the answer. Terence would only nod, never making eye contact, and continue stare at the whiskey, every desire and none at all coursing through his expressionless veins. Gawain would nod with a heavy sigh before going over to half ruffle, half hug Terence's head, familiar and comforting.
"Aye, me too, lad," The knight's voice would drop. He'd leave and return with a bottle of scotch, and he'd set it on the table next to Terence's whiskey and they'd sit there silently together and not drink. Oh, sometimes they took a shot or two, or five or six on a really bad night. But mostly they just sat, and stared out the window, out to the distance, where surely somewhere there was a portal to an unspoken place where they'd find both halves of their hearts together again, not spasming for a missing part.
"It doesn't actually exist, does it?" Terence asked one evening, frown constant.
"What, lad?"
"Home."
Gawin looked and stared. After a moment, he took a swig of scotch. "I don't know. Maybe."
Terence took up his face in his hands. "I feel like I've been trying to get there for an awfully long time." Gawain nodded slowly in understanding.
"In time, lad, in time."
As Terence leaned forward to uncork his whiskey, Gawain glanced sidelong at him and noticed that he'd dressed in his faery clothes today. Faery clothes and a faery face, with English boots, a human heart, and a seat in Camelot. Maybe they'd come together one day. Maybe, in time.
"You're going there too, Gawain?" Terence asked, leaning back.
"Aye, lad."
"Good." They looked at each other for the first time that evening, and saw in each others' eyes that thing, whatever it was, that told them they weren't alone. Terence nodded, sad but sure. "Good."