Life and Death. We married creatures and symbols both. Who knew that the beginning of Us would be the ending of all that came before us? I did not know. If I had, would I have reached out in that moment late one night to pick up a girl off the street? If I had known that it would have cost me the dearest ones in my life, would I have still reached for her?
     I doubt it, Destiny or no Destiny. There'd have been no way that I would have traded in eight-hundred years of love and friendship for a promise of something else. But isn't that what I did in the end?
     Summer rain is inconstant, as all summer lovers are inconstant. It falls in intermittent spittle to the street. Not enough to be a shower, too much to make for clear weather.
     It's late, and The Abbey, one of London's premier modern art galleries, is closed, the cafe cleared. But the door remained unlocked, to be opened by a specific set of hands.
     Those hands grasp the heavy door, and even in its old world solidity the door opens easily for him, the large figure standing there. Holding the door ajar with his leg, he collapses his umbrella, giving it a final shake before stepping inside. God forbid any drop should land and mar the marble of Plantagenet's floor.
     Davydd looks up and around as the door closes heavily, announcing his presence better than any herald. He sets his umbrella aside and steps into the gallery proper, his eyes straying only very occasionally to the art. Without seeing Plantagenet, he knows he is there. "I wasn't expecting to hear from you so soon..." he says aloud, his dark green eyes gazing upward along the curving, modernist body of the stairs.
     "I have chewed on it long enough," comes the languid baritone, that echoing and too-placid tone of William Plantagenet. "I now have indigestion." Hands appear on the railing, one bearing the ruddy golden glow of a wedding band. William leans into the spot lighting, revealing the midnight blue suit, and a layer of cashmere sweater of the same midnight hue. His Olympic face, with its Doric beauty and Italianate mouth, wears an expression of quietude.
     William's ringed hand brushes against the metallic staircase as he slowly descends. "But... before we... get into the how's and the why's of this meeting, I just want you to listen."
     How well does Davydd ap Owain know that the quietude and the control is merely the expression of William Plantagenet's anger. The more angry he is quite often the more placid and unshakable he seems. Other men, and he is one of them, rant and rave when they are in such moods. That is when William seems most introspective.
     Davydd looks to his hands a moment and makes his way to one of the several leather ottoman benches. It is going to be a long late night and a later morning still.
     "I am not going to lie to you," William continues, descending the last step and coming to face his friend. "I am highly irritated with this situation, Davydd. This... broken situation. We were a family. If you were in trouble, you could have come to me." Through the placid facade there are glimmers of his emotion, held in his eyes and in certain flexing of facial muscles when he speaks. "I would have helped you. Edward would have helped you. All you ever had to do was ask."
     "I know," Davydd whispers it. Visibly chastised, his folds his arms against his chest and tilts his head back, resting it against a marble wall.
     "You know," William echoes softly, his shoulder given to the very same marble wall that is propping up Llywelyn's head. "Then why couldn't you tell me? Why," he continues, his quietly borne voice resonating in the absence of other sound and the presence of so much marble, "... after so many years together, could you not trust me to love you? There is nothing that upsets me more than my love being doubted by those who should know better. At least, with Ian's doubt, he doubted me because I gave him plenty of reasons. But with you? What cause did I ever give you, old friend, that you should not trust me when... it appears to me anyway... you needed my trust most..."
     "...When it appears that you needed to confide in someone. Have I not always, at your merest word, given of myself? My heart, my mind, my blood and my sweat. And my trust, a sacred thing between brothers, Davydd. Do you understand what I am trying to say? Me... in my rusty English."
     With an exhalation of unnecessary breath, needed in fact only as catharsis demands, Davydd unfolds his arms and faces his friend's ire head-on. "Your English is fluent as ever, William. Believe me, if I could go back in time, I would to change this. I would have confided in you and in Edward from the start. But saying it's not going to make it right. I doubt I'll ever be able to right it, and I have ruined this brotherhood in my own desperation. I was afraid. Of everything. And that fear now has cost me everything."
     William's indigo eyes rest their attention as palpably upon Davydd as his body does against the wall. "Fear," he repeats. "Fear of what, Davydd? That we would turn on you? When was there ever proof of this?"
     Fingers disappear into red hair as Davydd leans forward, his head in his hands. He feels the weight of that stare, and of the disappointment. "No, not afraid of you, William," Davydd murmurs. "Not Edward. In the beginning, I was afraid of... everyone. Those who knew I was the last to see Mithras, that I killed him. I was afraid of any other possible Children out there. I was afraid of the fairies that kidnapped me, afraid of not knowing more of what I was, and afraid of letting anyone know the real truth with me. That I was an in between ...thing. An abomination to both. That if I said anything, that they'd come t' get me. When I was young, before I knew you were still around, those were my fears. I never stayed in one place for long. I traveled anonymously. I kept to the Andalusian desert for years. Until I heard you were alive." Davydd sits up. The two of them share a look. Well, alive in a manner of speaking...
     "...And then," Davydd exhales, "... I met Edward... when he was newly made. I was a frequent visitor to El-Adar. And it helped that I spoke fluent French, two dialects. And Latin. I talked to him when there were few there who could, or wished to, speak to him. Anyway," he rubs his eyes and lifts his face, looking to William. "Keeping it from you both... in the beginning, yes, it was a conscious decision to keep my nature, or whatever it was, to myself. I finally found a brotherhood. And I did everything to protect it, to cherish it. Including repressing any thought or knowledge of being anything other than the childe of Mithras. I repressed my other nature, stuffed it down and swallowed it like I swallowed blood on occasion. I did that so long, William," he shakes his head. "I did it so long that it became natural to repress, natural to forget. So, I did. And we did great things, the three of us. God, we were brilliant, weren't we?" His voice finishes off in a whisper and he looks from his friend and to some particles of air as his eyes burn with liquid not yet freed.
     "We had our moments, to be sure," William murmurs. Pushing off of the wall, he takes a step away, heading to a decanter of wine and several glasses. "So, what changed it, Davydd? If you repressed it, if you were afraid of revealing it, then why the sudden need, compulsion, obsession with revelation? Why now? Why not simply be as you have been," his hand gestures, the decanter's stopper in his grasp, "... keep our faith, know our love and honor it? Why did you choose this path? What... could you have imagined to gain from putting me in a position to order your forced and complete embrace? It is not the story I would have written," his voice softens in his own emotion as he watches the red wine fill the two crystal glasses.
     "I dabbled in the energy, from time to time. You know, when it was convenient. To cover tracks, to help the Twelve, to make my career as a famous highwayman. Things started changing with me in the 20th Century, when the wars started, the great ones," Davydd corrects. He takes the glass that is offered, sitting with rounded back with the wine glass dangling between steepled fingers. He stares at the liquid, and in it his own reflection. "I had to remember to do shite I long ago forgot. To fly. To stay alive. To keep you alive. To hear things, create things, mend shattered wings and propellers while mid-flight. Fuck, Gwilym, I was so fucking tired, boyo. I was ... I don't know. Afterwards, I just was worn out and remember when I went underground?"
     Glancing up at William, Davydd finally sits up and takes a swallow of the wine. He gives his back to the wall behind him, his head resting gently back against the stone. "I mean, I really went underground for a bit. To repair. And then when I came back, Rose and I started fighting more and more. I started drifting. I went to the same vampire parties, but I just never got my wind back. So, well, eventually Rose and I just fizzled out. I wasn't going anywhere fast. And then Sandrine came into my life. God, I fucking loved her. I still do. But before we could get a good start on it, her and me, fucking fairies started popping out of the woodwork, calling me the Savior of Britain in front of mortal girls and I started losing my mind. I started panicking, William. I thought they were going to out me to everyone. I had to call up all that missing energy and start appeasing them and guarding the masquerade. And the more I did that, the worse it got. I didn't have the energy, the magical strength, William, to keep all those fucking plates spinning anymore."
     Davydd closes his eyes, blood dripping from them as he recounts it in those lyrical tones of his, his quiet voice now and then inflected with sudden and tight emotion. "And the fairies were fucking everywhere I turned. Singing in the middle of the street, for Christ's sake. Edward witnessed that one. Compelling young girls to show up in Chinon," forest eyes widen with a pointed look. You remember that. "And ... the more they were around, the less I could hide what I was. The less I could hide what I was, the more ... frantic I became. And... so on. It was a vicious fucking cycle. I had fucking fairy queens popping out in Powis. And it changed the landscape, William, not only of the air around me but... my own landscape. It... awoke that reality in me... and I could no longer hide it. I would fuck Sandrine, and she'd become mortal for an hour after I came. It freaked her out. And I couldn't rein it in anymore. Flowers would bloom on the bed, the bed would become this... magical thing. And I thought... holy shite... I can't live as I've lived now. I'm a fucking beacon. I'm going to fucking be found out and then we're all dead, aren't we. So," he drinks again, "...I told her I couldn't go with her, an archon by the way. And I didn't think she could come with me. God, it was so fucked, William. And now it's fucked to the core," Davydd finishes in a whisper.
     During all of this, William had said nothing, nor had started to interject with word, or sound, or interrupting expressions. He watched his friend as he watches him now. There is compassion there. But there is also the keen eye of a man, a vampire, a prince, attempting to understand what would be an incoherent rant to most. He is silent for many moments before he speaks quietly, "Why then would you think or even consider giving yourself over to The Court? How would that have improved anything?"
     Davydd opens his eyes, letting the tears come as they may, and he lifts his gaze to his friend. "I didn't think it was going to improve anything, William. I'm not even sure I would have made it there. They've wanted fuck all to do with me since Mithras nabbed me. I was just so fucking out of my mind and desperate. I didn't think I had another option, really. The magic was ... making itself known. I was a king and my kingdom was waking -- whether I wanted it to or not. And if the vampires were going to hunt me down and kill me, I needed a place to hide. Not on your sofa. Not on Edward's. I couldn't risk jeopardizing you like that. So...I thought... if I offered myself to them, I might be able to keep you and him out of it...well... out of it as much as I could. I had to tell you beforehand, though. And you stopped me from doing something catastrophically stupid. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry you had to do that. And I'm sorry I let myself break to that point before saying anything."
     Davydd lifts his right arm, his bloody tears disappearing against the black fabric of his suit's jacket. He exhales deeply. "So... anyway... when I came to London that night... well, that week, I was scared and desperate. I wanted to confide in you and in Edward... I needed you. I was thrashing around like a fish without a head and out of water. I was hoping you'd be able to calm me down if nothing else. But I'm shite at talking about stuff like this. And Edward, bless his soul -- if he doesn't want to hear it, he's not going to hear it, you know? Anyway... the court's not the least bit interested. In fact, they like me less than the vampires, if that's possible. I am very sorry I put you in the situation I put you in, that I wronged you, Ian and Edward. That I made my problems more important than our relationship. That really wasn't my intent, but my intent means fuck all now, don' it. I've cocked it up beyond belief. I'm sorry, William. I really am. For... endangering us all just to chew my foot out of the trap. Now I'm out alright, but what does it fucking matter? I don't have my mates. I don't have much at all." He sets his wine, only half tasted, aside and returns his head to his hands. "I'm sorry, Gwilym," he whispers it.
     "If you'd lost me, I wouldn't be here asking what the fuck is wrong with you. I love you. That is why I am here, Davydd." William sets his glass aside, the glass empty, and he motions Davydd to scoot over. "It wasn't the smartest thing you've ever done, no. But at least I have a better idea of why now. Am I happy? No, I won't say that I am. I won't lie to you. But ...I don't think you did it maliciously, Davydd. It is a lesson, however, in what panic can do." William gives his back to the stone as well, his fingers lacing against the darkly colored but lightly knitted cashmere.
     "I do not know what, if anything, would convince Edward of that. Davydd, you have lost him." Indigo eyes look to his hands. "For now, it seems. He loved you more than himself, more than anyone else in his life, with the new exception of Valan. More than he loved me, or at least ...so differently. You were there in Spain with him from his youngest days. He believed in you. He supported you when you went mad about being prince. Where belief once was held strong, now suspicion and hurt dwells in its place. He feels... even more betrayed than I have felt. He is... like a younger brother, mais oui? His older brother has done him harm, could have caused his lover harm, and he does not know how he could ever trust you again. I ... don't know that he will. You must prepare yourself for that. I... can only truly try to ...make sense of this new you, to me. I do not know who you are. The man I thought I knew....he didn't exist. So that is my challenge. Our challenge," William adds in a hush. "I ... cannot predict how it will go. Or whether we will be successful. What I do promise you is that I will never simply give up."
     Davydd both chuckles and sobs to hear that. Turning his head to his friend, he gives a vipered grin, his eyes creasing in the corners. "Now that's the William I know and love," comes the croak of his voice. "On my ass to the end of time."
     "You have your fate, ap Owain. And it seems that I have mine."