[Regular] For My Brother (Hector + Prince Alexandros) [FIN]

[candy lamb]

Dylan Rasmussen snuck out more times than Juliet Capulet. Jesse Alvarez didn't know that, in fact, Juliet Capulet didn't actually sneak out a hell of a lot, but the most he had seen was Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet and that was the most he was prepared to do with Shakespeare. Dylan was always sneaking out to do something messed-up -- sometimes he'd tell Jesse beforehand, sometimes he wouldn't. Sometimes he'd invite Jesse along, sometimes he wouldn't. Sometimes his green-eyed roomie would just go along and find him in the paranoid belief that someone else had gotten to Rasmussen first -- that he'd find him in a toilet, or beind beaten up behind the bleachers, or something.

Well, the only one to ever beat up Dylan behind the bleachers was Jesse. He'd never come to any more grief.

The nights were sinus-clearing cold still. Dylan's idea this time was that they could see some kind of goddamn constellation really well tonight, the Big Dipper or the Small Dipper or whatever kind of cutlery or kitchen tool. If he wanted to take rooftop photos of the stars, Alvarez wasn't going to stop him. He just went along and held the ladder and shinned up on top of the mathematics building after him, lying down on the chill tiles and staring up at the clear sky.

"I'm going to sleep," he announced.

"Go ahead," said Dylan. "You'll miss out on the purple mountains' majesty."

"I thought you were gonna be looking at stars, for God's sake," said Jesse, who was a little literal.

Eventually he had to stand up and follow Dylan, who wandered out over the rooftops and balanced on the tiles like a punch-drunk cat burglar. The nighttime made his hair pale and colourless, his eyes smoke, his mouth manic.

"You know what the problem with you is," he said, breath coming in white puffs, "it's that you're crazy. Literal crazy. You are a crazy sonofabitch. Why did I take up with you, Rasmussen."  

[codalion]

"I don't know," said Dylan, and wheeled on Jesse a little sharply, his feet doing something slippery on the roof tiles that made Jesse think that he was going to skid at any moment and fall off and break his neck stories below. But he did no such thing; instead he advanced on Jesse with a peculiar wide-eyed expression that made Jesse uncomfortable in ways he didn't feel like verbalizing. "Why did you take up with me? I do wonder it myself, sometimes," he almost closed the distance between them, breathing white clouds himself, "and it has become pretty immediately relevant, I have to say. Actually," he took a few steps back, backwards, "that's what I came up here to talk about."

He walked backwards a few more steps on the tiles, and then appended, "In a manner of speaking."

Walking backwards some more, he then added, "Also stargazing," and hopped down (still backwards, ********, Dylan was crazy) to a lower, flatter maintenance roof, mostly obscured from view.

This conversation had accelerated from zero to terrifying in .05 seconds flat.  

[candy lamb]

In the next .05 seconds, it went from terrifying to breathtakingly horrifying. Jesse followed after, a low tumour growing and swelling in the pit of his stomach, vaulting down to the next roof after Dylan -- why the hell was Dylan so unafraid of everything. The world ******** loved Dylan Rasmussen, that was why. Sometimes when Dylan looked at him he was goddamn disconcerted and didn't know why: he was actually put ill at ease, he was thrown for a loop. And now he was wishing that all of this had never happened and that he was still in bed with the blankets thrown over his head -- all of his blankets, it was warmer now, Dylan didn't need them.

"Oh s**t," he said, and he ran one hand through his hair. Dylan was looking at him incuriously, smiling, walking backwards another step, a light breeze whipping at his hair now. Dylan always smiled at you like you both shared some kind of secret. And now he didn't look alarmed at all. "Oh, s**t. s**t, Rasmussen -- Dylan. Dylan, look."

His roomie didn't change expression as Jesse stepped forward, and Jesse's eyes looked -- down at the maintenance roof, up at the starlit sky. Then he stepped backwards, away. "Dylan," he said. "Look. Jesus." ("Where?" said Dylan. "Shut up," said Jesse.) "Cora is great. I like Cora. She's a nice kid." (Dylan was tilting his head now.) "She's nice. Seriously. It's just sometimes when you go to a guy's school, all guys, it's like -- you get... I mean, if I ever said anything to, if I..."

Dylan tilted his head the other direction.

"Lots of guys feel... like... you know." He was fumbling now. "You're not gay. You're the straightest guy I know, Rasmussen. You love chicks. You're a good guy, I tell everyone that. You're straight. Me, I'm straight. It's just that we, you know, we're close, so it's like -- stop laughing. Why are you laughing."

Jesse immediately turned away. Dylan's laughter was being whipped away by the wind now, and he knew that his roomie was holding himself at the gut to try to stop it, blonde forelock falling over his forehead. For his part, he was pinching the bridge of his nose really, really hard. "You didn't come up here to admit you were a f*****t for me. Did you."  

[codalion]

Dylan's laughter had an edge to it, adrenaline, something else taut and strung-tight. He sounded uproariously amused, but he didn't sound like he'd been in a mood for amusement. It sounded like a spilling-over, letting go a bunch of strings. Something was wrong about the way he reacted to that. Something was wrong about his mood today. "Jess, if I wanted to admit that I'd have done it back in the bedroom. You know, just in case you said yes!" That was off too: not half as airy as it should have been. "Relax. No homo."

He sounded very off there, which prompted Jesse to turn back around and look at him. Dylan had fallen completely silent and turned his own back on Jesse. They were the same height right now, though Dylan had said before that he'd been this height for long enough that he was pretty sure he was staying there, and Jesse was pretty sure of the opposite with respect to himself. His thin hands were clasped behind his back, like he was brooding on something. Not that Dylan was the type to brood -- well, if he was, he didn't do it around other people, that was certain. But he was acting weird enough to take the edge off Jesse's embarrassment and make him actually wonder about him, and it was around then he spoke up again.

"Jesse," he said eventually. "Here's a hypo. You have to ask someone a question -- and you knew that if they really knew at all what you were asking, they would say no. But you need them to say yes, and since they don't know at all what you're asking of them, you know they will."

He gestured with one of his hands and hooked it into the waistband of his trousers, turning his head to look back at Jesse. "Is there any point even asking in the first place?"  

[candy lamb]

"Yeah," said his roomie, a little roughly: there was something about Dylan that -- he knew he wasn't high, he hadn't taken anything. Sometimes it was just that he hadn't taken anything. He ran on his own body chemistry, didn't need whatever he'd just popped to spur him on to do anything. It was worse when he was like this. When he was ******** up he was just ******** up. When he wasn't, well.

God, at least it hadn't been a confession.

At least. Thank god.

Great, now he probably thought Jesse Alvarez was a homo, or at least really arrogant. Well, what the ******** had he been supposed to think.

"Yes," he said again. "It matters. People don't understand promises, Rasmussen. They never understand what you're really asking of them anyway." Even his boys never really had understood what he'd been asking of them. "Rasmussen, I agreed to be your roomie without knowing it'd be a merry-go-round of -- of -- of e tabs hidden in vitamin bottles and you reading ******** Chinese poems at three in the morning and you jumping into pools with all your clothes on. What matters is that I agreed in the first place, okay, I always keep a promise."

He stepped forward: he picked up Dylan's hand, and he squeezed his fingers tight around Dylan's wrist. "I always keep a promise," he said, aggravated. Frustrated. "Do it. Ask me. I'm sick of words."

"You're never sick of words," said his roommate, still with that strange, strung-tight quality to his voice.

"Don't matter. You want to ask me, don't you." In a moment of realisation, he said: "Did you kill someone?"  

[codalion]

"Oh, yes," said Dylan, rather softly. "But that's immaterial. Not what I'm referring to."

He didn't move to yank his hand away, not that he really could have anyway -- they might've been the same height, but they never were the same body mass at all. If Jesse wanted to he could hold on to Dylan's wrist for as long as he liked. If Jesse wanted to he could shove Dylan backwards off the roof and there wasn't a thing he could do about it, now was there. Despite all that, Dylan didn't seem especially alarmed -- his eyes were locked with Jesse's and he did look very serious, much more serious than usual, but not alarmed. He had pretty spindly wrists. You'd expect people with spindly wrists, thought Jesse kind of nonsensically, to be more alarmed. 'Oh, yes,' what?

"I'm not going to ask you," Dylan said, and he stepped up to him and took his other hand, like he was about to drag them both off the edge of the roof. "That would be a waste of my time. I'm going to tell you, and I'd very much like it if you listened to what I'm telling you and didn't interrupt me."

He smiled. It wasn't pleasant. "Can you do that for me?"  

[candy lamb]

Prickles ran underneath Jesse's skin. A part of him said: this is the part in the horror movie where he takes out the shiv and sticks it through your neck, or the ice pick. Or just pushed him off the roof. He should have been the one pushing Dylan off the roof. Just pushed him down, over the lip, a wet meaty thud on the ground below.

He stared into the other boy's eyes like a deer being approached by a Mack truck, which was ironic: he had seen the look himself mirrored in half a dozen skinny-a** little boys who he told to lick his boots, or get their heads put in the toilet, or to kindly let him borrow that dollar --

"Yes," he said. "Yeah, Dylan. Sure."

Another part of him said: just like a b***h.

Another, different part said: just shut up and listen to him.  

[codalion]

Dylan did yank his wrist away at this point, and Jesse was surprised enough to let him; but a moment later he simply laced their fingers together in lieu of that and drew him in a little closer, staring like he was about to shank him, or eat him, or pull them both off the roof together, or tell him how many people he'd killed. It sent a cold shiver up Jesse's spine and put a different tense warmth in his lungs -- this was it, whatever it was, this was what Dylan was saying.

"Today you let go of who you are," said Dylan. "Today you let go of your home and country. Today I am your kingdom."

His fingers were laced through his. They were small; he wasn't gripping hard.

"Today you stand at my gate." Their shoes were touching. "Tonight you watch by my torchlight. Today you give yourself to my safekeeping."

Their hair was touching, too. "Not to be kept safe, but to serve my defense."

There was nothing to say to any of this, so Jesse said nothing -- while Dylan drew his head back and stared at him with the most intense, horror-movie-frightening look he'd given him this day. He looked angry, thought Jesse, as it was one of the few things he could make sense of at the moment. No, he looked -- something other than angry. Frustrated. Something like frustrated. Though not quite.

"You swear your fealty to me," it sounded like a demand now, "You swear your loyalty to me. You will serve no other king, you will raise no other banner."

There was a brief, very chill breeze; Dylan looked away and then back again.

"You are my sworn body," he said, and worst of all, kissed him on the cheek. "You are my sworn heart."

And then a rain of black leaves, or black petals, covered him -- glancing off Jesse, dripping off Jesse, only to settle on Dylan and then melt away -- and then he -- he wasn't Dylan any more. But Jesse didn't have the time to marvel at that, because Dylan made a gesture, and his eyes flickered behind Jesse, and it was only by the virtue of noticing that that Jesse turned enough to see the mirror -- and to see the man in the mirror -- and to see the man in the mirror whose arms came out and seized him, wrenchingly, by the shoulders, and dragged him in without a word.

When he came out again Alexandros was standing there, expressionless. He looked him up and down.

"Captain," he said, and inclined his head.  

[candy lamb]

Jesse stumbled back, reborn, bright with the fresh sheen of the magic of the Black Earth -- or at least, what had been Jesse, whose soul had been shoved aside and torn apart to make room for the interloper who now shared it. This was not, in fact, a rebirth. It was a displacement. His cloak fluttered around his ankles, black and violet, the rapier in his hand was a shining needle. He stumbled away from Alexandros as if they were the negative and positive end. Two magnets.

Now it was much easier to see how alike the two were. There were still differences: Alexandros was as pale-skinned as only someone whose civilian name was Rasmussen could be, light-haired, cream-skinned. The new Jesse was olive-skinned, his hair a duller caramel. Their eyes were identical: exactly the same shade of clear amethyst, though he himself would never have put it that way. Before, Jesse Alvarez had had eyes that were distinctively green.

They in themselves were mirror images: a reflection, though more a smoked, darker reflection of Alexandros than of being the binary. Alexandros was the alpha. He was the secondary --

"Captain Hector," he said, "reports for duty."

And then Hector lost it: flung down his sword and bellowed to the heavens, which was probably going to get them in trouble any moment now. Screamed, clutching at his face, though Alexandros might have smilingly called it a temper tantrum. He sank to both knees and he took the Prince of the Black Earth's hand between his own, gloved, placed his shaking face inside his fingers.

"I swear allegiance to my future king," he said, choked. And: "I swear allegiance to my older brother."

He stayed that way for a while, until Alexandros withdrew his hand. He was staring down at the maintenance roof, breathing hard. He had abandoned his sword. He was wild-eyed.

His prince was as composed as he was discombobulated, looking at his cavalier's discomfort and misery with a ******** benevolence. He was fiddling with one of the little trinkets at his belt. "And how much older was that, again?"

"One minute, twenty seconds," said Hector, who was still breathing hard. Raggedly: "For God's sake, Alex. Dylan. Alex."  

[codalion]

"Ah," said Prince Alexandros of Earth, or of an Earth, in any case; he had a light, dainty voice, daintier even than Dylan Rasmussen's, it almost seemed. Or perhaps that was the shimmer of memory across Hector's perception. Looking at him, his elder twin's voice had changed -- to something more musical, kind. Just at the drop of a hat, like that. Yes, that was Alexandros for you. "You can stand up if you like, I didn't ask you to kneel. In fact, I said the whole oath for you so you wouldn't have to." He smiled. "Do you like kneeling? I don't like kneeling. It's a bother, and the ground's hard."

When Hector stood up Alexandros unashamedly beckoned him with one of his hands. He arched a pale eyebrow when Hector hesitated a moment.

"That's no greeting for me," he declared a little sing-song. "Come here and kiss me, brother. It's been a very long time, you know. I've gotten very lonely here."

Hector couldn't help himself -- with a stab of familiarity, bitter familiarity, he glanced at Alexandros's eyes in search of any sincerity in that statement. But Alexandros had already looked away, airily, somewhere in the stars.  

[candy lamb]

Alexandros was still beholding the heavens when -- with a another strange stab of disinclination, and another simultaneous stab of relief -- Hector wrapped his arms around his brother. They held each other, cheek to fraternally identical cheek, and after a moment Hector clumsily went for that cheek with his mouth but ended up kissing him on the jaw. All Alexandros did was laugh his infectious, light laugh.

"You dropped your sword," he said, smilingly, "you never drop your sword."

Hector went to pick up his rapier, wiping it off, reaching back to slide it into the scabbard on his back. There was still a leaden weight in his stomach. His cheeks were hot. After a few moments he said, "So Corinna...?" and his prince nodded. All Hector said was, "Jesus."

His skin was unfamiliar, like new clothes. Hector felt absurdly ashamed.

"I don't know what -- what you want," he said, and he hated himself for saying it, he just hated himself right then. Alexandros had walked to the lip of the maintenance roof, and was now looking over at the lights of the city. "What now, what the hell do I -- we -- do now."  

[codalion]

Alexandros blinked and looked back at him. He looked young. He'd always looked young, Hector recalled -- one minute and twenty seconds his senior and he'd always looked young. The royal physicians had thought his hair would darken, and their mother had thought that his face would sharpen -- but at twenty-one nothing on him had been darker than candyfloss, and he'd remained elfin. Unlike Jesse, Dylan was Alexandros's spit, a ghost of him in twenty-first-century clothing. It made it an oddly childlike gesture when Alexandros raised his hands to rub at his eyes with his fists, and yawn.

"I don't know," he said. He sounded a little weary. "To tell you the truth, I summoned you in case you had any ideas, yourself. Though the sword of the Cavalier of the North," he nodded to the object itself, sheathed as it was on Hector's back, "is frankly not something I would ever turn away, if there were a battle to be had. Well, figuratively. It's not much use to me detached from the Cavalier of the North."

His own bow was strapped to his back. He was capable enough with it, but he had never been into battle without Hector in front of him; it was simply not the way of things. He was the Prince. His brother was the Captain. That was how it went.

Alexandros closed his eyes. "I'm tired," he said. Then he made a face, sort of a grimace. "Didn't I tell you you wouldn't have agreed to this if you'd had any idea?"

Gallows humor had always been in the Prince's nature.  

[candy lamb]

Hector did not say what he wanted to say: would you have done it to me had I said no? He knew the answer and didn't want to know the answer, pushed it away locked in a cell in his brain. He said instead, roughly, "It's the question that's important, and I said yes," though in fact he hadn't really said yes at all. Alexandros had said yes for him. Tonight he stood at his gate. "So, yeah; yes. Yes, all right."

He looked away from Alexandros' smile, another yawn splitting his face as he stretched up. The Prince walked as though he was not burdened down with heavy layers of cloak and quilted cloth armour, a bow on his back. Alexandros melted away from Dylan as he passed Hector, who -- belatedly -- melted back into Jesse Alvarez. Somehow being just Jesse next to just Dylan was worse. Twenty minutes ago Dylan had been his roomie; Dylan had been his friend; Dylan had been his manic, laughing, crazed friend, someone he'd protected without really worrying about anything more than people wondering how bad Dylan Rasmussen "sucked" "d**k."

Silently, he gave Dylan a leg-up to get to the tile roof, and heaved himself up by his hands to follow. The ladder was balanced down to the next shed.

Jesse stopped.

"I just want to know one thing," he said, as Dylan started nimbly down the ladder. "Me. Why did you say, 'well, it's gonna be Jesse Alvarez.'"  

[codalion]

Dylan was silent for a long moment on the ladder and Jesse, looking down, couldn't see anything of his shadowed face; he paused there for a moment, but then he hopped down and looked up, his white boyish face seeming to glow a little with reflected light. "Uniform looks dashing on you," he stated, and offered him a hand down which he didn't take. "Come on, let's catch a minimal amount of shut-eye."

The brush-off stung; but then again, it was an old brush-off, and a very old sting. It faded to another thread of scar tissue before they were down from the roof, and once they were even the black petals scattered on the roof crumbled to dust in short order.