You made me kill you.
     You made me order it, watch it, regret it. You made me kill you. And I can't forgive you.
     These thoughts played in his mind on a repeating tape, and the scotch that filled the glasses on the Midlothian jet did nothing to assuage such thoughts. William stared into the gold of his drink and saw fire.
     And the closer he came to the object of his fury, the more furious he grew. The Veyron that bore the brunt of it complained with the drag of its tires against the insistence of his anger and gravity. And gravity is less a force than Plantagenet fury...
     Four years have gone by. Normally, so little a time to him would be a blink of an eye to him. He would scarcely notice such scant time. But these four short years have dragged their gamey legs over his consciousness, and with each passing limp, he has grown less and less patient, less and less forgiving.
     Seeing Davydd in Powis with his family only showed that one family was given precedence over the other, and older, relations. And still, William said nothing. For months, he has said nothing...
     For years...
     Nothing...
     When the door opened to a posh flat in the posh South Waterfront, the fight began. His hand to Davydd's throat, William pinned him to a wall with such force that the pictures of his sopwith camel (that they had flown together) fell to the floor. The door slammed. It was not to be the last, or the loudest, sound emanating from the flat for the next fifteen minutes.
     Rather than having the guts to be cowardly enough to take your own life, you made me do it, you selfish and ungrateful fuck. You could have killed us all. And my hand's around your throat. But you put it there, Davydd. You put it there when you put me in this position.
     Glass shattered with the imprint of a body. Safety glass, it splintered and shattered into a million pieces while at the same time remaining perfectly still. Not a single sliver fell upon the floor or dusted their shoulders as they grappled. Emotions spilled, exorcised in blood, as the two elders waged a miniature world war. Eight centuries of emotions were given their day upon noses, guts, with bloodied fists. Such poetic violence. War between men is rarely as graceful, and not half as brutal.
     By the time twenty minutes had elapsed, the posh flat on the South Waterfront was a posh shambles, wrecked by two forces of nature ripping through its small confines. However large the living space, it was not meant to contain the energies that have dissembled it...
     By the time twenty minutes had elapsed, the police were arriving to investigate, called when the glass of a penthouse shattered with the sound of something similar to an explosion (that was two-hundred and plus pounds of Welshman hitting the glass at a force barely accounted for in the manufacturer's calculations)...
     By the time twenty minutes had elapsed, both men suffered broken bones to go with their broken friendship. Flesh shook, not with pain -- pain can be absorbed -- but with the pent up energy that had been so tightly held for so long. Sprung free, it made the assailant tremble...
     By the time twenty minutes had elapsed, even the cement of the walls was showing the wear of war. Cracks appeared in the plaster where bodies had been thrown against it, and chipped plaster and paint littered the floor.

     It had been a quiet night, once.
     The quiet was shattered along with a glass of expensive wine falling to the floor. Don't ask her how she knew; she just knew, as surely as if someone had stuffed a knife into her gut. Fiona doubled over, a hand to her heart, covering her face them with both hands. "Davydd!" Not the soft 'Davy'; not girlish. No.
     And there was no time for explanations. Just something bad - a bad feeling - she was already in motion by then, dragging the husband she was with by his shirt (as if he was unwilling to go) even as her crimson gown was replaced by black leathers.
     Black leathers and blue hair and a bad attitude...
     The Triumph was gunned; she drove like the devil. Faster than usual, and better, for someone who ordinarily never drives. She ignored the existence of other cars on the road as vehicles, weaving between them. There was one bad moment where - but that passed ten miles behind. She pulled up to a side-screeching halt in front of the building with its police investigation about to begin, and didn't even get off the bike, didn't even stop to adjust the visor-like black glasses or her hair. Just three words, as curt and queenly as she's ever been, Fiona speaks.
     "Rhodri? Deal with them."
     And the bike is gunned...

     By the time thirty minutes had elapsed, the Oak King's silver tongue suddenly solid gold. Meeting the police outside the building, Rhodri ap Davydd doppleganged his father, explaining the situation with burst pipes and a faulty installation of the glass. He declined their assistance and with the ringing of his cell phone explained it was building management. The squad car departed, the lights spinning, then dimming...

     The door is unlocked but closed. Past the door, two men sit in the middle of glass and torn fabric, destruction all around them, and they are left with nothing but themselves and the pain they've caused one another. Earlier shouts -- largely muffled by the thick cement walls to everyone's great fortune -- were now hoarse whispers.
     "I'm sorry, Gwilym..."
     "Je suis aussi, Davydd."
     Both noses were broken, and there are a host of other injuries, the injuries already starting to heal. Physical injuries are the easiest to recover from. The invisible wounds, emotions can so easily be bruised and can so quickly go gangrenous. For a moment, tired and bloody as they are, it seems like 1185 all over again. They sit upon the floor together like they had the fallen tree in the Welsh woods.
     Holding his arm, swollen from where it was pulled out of socket (and then thrust back in), Davydd looks to William through his one good eye, the other swollen shut, bruised and bloodied. "I don't know what else to say," he mutters slowly, his sides hurting with the effort to speak -- the cracked ribs only noticed when he has to draw air to speak.
     "Je pas non plus," William murmurs, his French hard to understand with his missing tooth and swollen lips. Hand lifting, William swipes his mouth. A fang is missing, and his mouth throbs with the injury. The beautiful mouth is, for this night, ruined. His nose is swollen where it was broken. "I have loved you," he says, indigo eyes shifting to his battered friend. "I would have done anything for you," he shakes his head.
     "I know what I did," Davydd finishes. And both men wince and sigh. "I know... Gwilym... that I haven't loved you right. Christ, did you have to go for the 'nads and the ribs? I mean, what would have been wrong with just breaking my arm?"
     "I did break your arm. You are in shock. You will feel it later, mais oui. The arm was from Ian. The rest is from me..."
     Snorting, then wincing, Davydd cuts a bloody smirk. "I'm lucky he left me with one good arm."
     "Oui," William smiles, one fang still distended, his mouth bloody. He has to swallow it. "Now you can hold the ice pack to your balls." He lifts his left hand to pat Davydd on his bruised back. You're welcome.
     "Maybe I can just call Rose and shove the receiver down m' trousers," Davydd ponders, then laughs. Then groans.

     The motorcycle is driven directly into the building while Rhodri provides cover. Subtle magic, this, to have the elevator ready and waiting; the short trip up is used to turn the bike around. When the soft chime of the arrival is heard, the motorcycle is revved again. It's audible, no doubt; to such as the two of you, most certainly audible.
     A motorcycle...
     In the hallway..
     Approaching rapidly...?
     The door is booted open by the nose of the motorcycle. Well, what's one more bit of collateral damage in all this mess? It purrs into the room and then shuts off, and the girl driving it straightens up, liquid-leathered from head to toe as she shakes blue and white hair back from her face. There is no fight. There was, but there is none now. She scans the room with sharp-eyed gaze from behind the mirrored visor, then sighs, some of the tension visibly relaxing from her.
     He isn't dead. Yet. I'd feel it if he were. Fiona lifts a hand to pull off the sunglasses, her other hand lifting in a vaguely warding gesture as she looks around. Where? What is going on? What does she have to do? Who does she have to kill? Where the devil IS he anyway?

     The banter that began, re-emerging between the two of them like the phoenix reborn, halts at the sound of a motorcycle. But by the time they hear it and can put two and two together, the door's knocked aside and the motorcycle's turning amid the broken glass, the pulped coffee table. The only thing untouched in the room is Davydd's piano. The rest is a wreck. The motorcycle's hardly noticeable.
     Though, for a moment, William half expected it to be Edward coming to tell them what idiots they both are...
     They aren't as spry as they would be if there weren't bones and tissue mending. And teeth. An arm goes out in front of Davydd in a defensive maneuver, and William turns from where they sit, rising.
     Davydd looks dreadful. William looks brutal. But though majesty presses against the air like the insistent fingers of a child on its mother's arm, there is no anger, no hatred. There is a weird sense of serenity. He waves at Fiona to cut off the engine.
     He was dressed in a nice shirt and trousers. The coat was saved at some point, but the shirt has been ripped beyond usefulness. Fresh wounds still glisten on his skin, and bruising darkens the already olive complexion.
     Davydd is far starker, his whiter skin showing the marks, the bruising, the cuts, the swelling so much more clearly. He is trying to get up, holding his arm, wincing at the enormous bruise on his nether regions and at the sharp pain from the broken ribs. "Hey... baban...it's not what it looks like..."
     Funny, there aren't any naked women in here? Why is he saying that?
     His tongue feeling around in his mouth, William glances between the two of them. He lets Davydd sort out his own movement. Turning, he heads for the kitchen and cuts on the water. "Je ne vais pas pouvoir manger bien pendant des semaines," he mutters, spitting blood into the sink.

     Coming up the elevator is Rhodri...

     The motorcycle cuts off with the wave of a hand against its ignition key, and for a long, long moment, Fiona remains straddling the beast, looking like a refugee from another world. How appropriate, yes? She shakes her head, then, sliding off the bike and tossing the glasses onto the wreckage. There's a tinkle as it lands, the crackling of rubbish on refuse.
     "It looks," Fiona says evenly, in the emptiness of the expanse, "like the two of you went at it hammer and tongs. If it's not what it looks like, I'd love to hear this explanation."
     But her relief is palpable, nonetheless. Not dead. Not dead, and no war. She shoots William a quick look, then turns to Davydd, moving over towards him. Hang William, he can sort his own self out. She has a husband to look after. "Anyway, did I ask?"

     "Some things just have to be worked out in blood," comes William's languorous reply, even more elongated than usual, his swollen lips having a hard time forming the English words. "It is... exactly what it looks like..." There are no excuses made, no softening for her benefit.
     "He's probably been wanting to do this since 1325," Davydd murmurs to her as she comes over. He tries a smile. His cut and bruised lips make it monstrous. One eye peers at you, the other fused shut. His nose is broken, but snapped back in place to heal the right way. It's swollen as well, it's normally small surface area grown broad, and the freckles are invisible amid the bruising. He is holding his left arm and the way it's sitting and the degree of its swelling also indicates a break or dislocation. His legs, on the other hand, look fine, but he limps. It's the wounds you can't see that'll be keeping him uncomfortable for a few nights.
     "I think I'm in shock," Davydd murmurs to his woman, "... I feel strangely like having a kettle of tea."
     William keeps his distance for now, letting the two of the talk. He looks at them, however, his indigo eyes dark and intense as he fixes his attention on the pair. Spitting out another mouthful of blood and water, he reaches into his pocket to pull out his phone.
     "What the blue fuck," comes Rhodri's voice from the doorway as he surveys the damage. He closes the door, his mouth agape, and then his look turns heated, his face going red. But when he looks at William, he blanches and says nothing, turning to look at Davydd instead. "You ... alright? I ...got rid of the cops by the way," he glances to William. You're welcome, by the way. "Ah... da... are you... do you want to go ...across," another glance to William, "... for a healer?"
     Davydd shakes his head, his one usable green eye lifting to look at William. "No... no... I'll heal fine. My flat's right fucked though. Duw, I hate a mess," he sighs. "Do you think you could call a cleaner for me tomorrow?" he says to Fiona.
     Leaning against the kitchen counter, William speaks into his cell phone: "Non. Oui. Il est bien, vraiment. Il ira bien. J'irai bien. Je serai plus en retard a la maison. Bientot. Oui, bientot."

     One hand touches lightly to the side of Davydd's face, and blue eyes look down at him carefully. "I'll put the kettle on, if you didn't destroy the stove," she murmurs to him, hand moving away. "Is the kettle intact, or is it somewhere in William's liver?"
     She moves away from the elder of her two husbands, now, and now her gaze falls on William. There is no hostility; there is, instead, a wary appraisal. Neutrality. Boys do fight, god knows, but how bad is it, really? Her gaze is transferred as she moves towards the kitchen. "Rhodri, could you check and make sure the gas line's safe? I'd hate to turn on the stove and have it blow up in my face. Though it could hardly make the place look much worse."
     A shake of her head. If I did not love you so much... She is out of place, and aware of how out of place she is; but the entire thing has taken on just enough of a surrealist's dream that she is able to ignore it, finding the kettle and testing the taps in order to fill it. Make tea in a crisis. English women do it so well.
     "So," Fiona calls across, not looking up, "did you two work things out? Or will there be many more of these? I ask before I call in the cleaners; I don't have patience to go through this an infinite number of times. William, since you broke the things I bought him, you can pick up the tab for the cleaners when they've been through, by the way."
     Calmly, competently, she puts together the things for tea, setting them on and next to the stove and leaving the kitchen area to Rhodri to check and see if it's safe. She goes to the closet and takes out a broom, and using the broom - no, she doesn't clean the place up. She just haphazardly sweeps things enough that there's a clear path from the kitchen to the door. "I don't feel like getting tetanus shots tonight."
     When one has given birth, fought magical wars, and ridden through the streets as if in a hurricane, finding the combatants at seeming peace with one another has been too anticlimactic. For the moment, she shoves aside questions. But once she has finished her careful pathmaking, she tosses the broom, too, onto the heaps, and her hands go to her hips. One eyebrow rises. And Fiona turns a look on William and Davydd which both of them have undoubtedly seen before - if not on her, then on other women of certain temperament, throughout the years. It is a look which says one thing...
     Well?

     Indigo eyes lift, fixing their full weight upon Fiona, but he finishes his conversation. "Mais oui, je serai au palais sous peu." He straightens as he flips the phone closed, and it disappears into his suit pocket faster than the eye can see. Suddenly, where the phone was there is now a cigarette, unlit. William raises an eyebrow, then goes to light up. "There is no gas leak. I am not flame retardant."
     The pack of cigarettes is set on the counter with a thud, and he blows smoke past bloodied lips. He is not looking at Fiona or at Rhodri (Kelly, to him). William only looks at Davydd. "I do not believe," comes the slow resonance of his voice, "...that we will need to have this conversation again. No." And now he looks to Fiona. Though there are two kings and a queen here, there is only one emperor. "I will, of course, make the necessary financial arrangements. Before I leave tonight."
     With the apartment in a shambles, it doesn't really matter where the ash falls. William hesitates for a moment, looking for an ashtray out of habit and then, realizing it must be with the rest of the detritus, visibly shrugs and taps the ash to the floor. "If he promises that he will not lie to me any more, that he will do his best to love his brother with the unconditionality that such love deserves, then I see no reason for us to have to fight. I believe I have made myself... abundantly clear," he looks around, then back to Fiona and Rhodri.
     Davydd is back to sitting down. It's simply less painful. Sitting -- he's half lying on the sofa. "About as clear as always, Gwilym." He sighs, making a face at it. At all of it. "I get it, boyo. You don't have to beat the dead horse." He turns his one good eye, as unfocused as it is, upon those gathered here. Lastly, to William as William slowly lowers himself to sit beside him. "How about now... are we right at all..." he wonders quietly. "I can't take it, this civil war I caused."
     "Civil blood makes civil hands unclean," William mutters back, and then, cigarette stuck between his swollen lips, he reaches over to pat the one place on his friend's body that's unharmed -- his right shoulder. "We're right, Davydd. You understand it. You know how hurt and disappointed and upset I've been. Now, we are at a new beginning. Not back in time to where we were, but starting with a handshake on a Second Accord. That is the best we can do, you and I," William finishes off in a murmur. Patting his friend's shoulder again, he reaches up and around him. With a great complaint of pain from Davydd, he hoists the Cymri up and starts toward the bedroom. "How is it," he mulls in his elongated English, "...that I can knock your ass from your back and your head from your shoulders and you're still heavy. Your woman should stop feeding you," William casts a look behind him. "She's going to make you fat and slow. Next thing you know, Niall will be the one to kick your arse."
     Davydd laughs despite himself, groaning at the pain it causes. He rattles off in Welsh: "Fuck you for making me laugh, you bastard."
     And in Welsh reply from a French mouth: "It is what I do."
     A hand raking through his hair, Rhodri casts a look about. He's upset, but he's just as much in shock as his father. I'll get this cleaned up as soon as he leaves. What a fucking mess. I'll see what I can do about the wounds too.

     She is aware of the power in the room; she's not dense! But she stands under it, bearing it. It is her burden. It is more than some could do. Her emotional entanglements, however, help, obscurely. "That is appreciated," Fiona tells William politely. She seems less in shock than either of her two husbands; the path is cleared, and she goes to the window, looking out at the shattered skyline with a shake to her head.
     Remind me to have more daughters.
     She turns to go collect tea as the kettle begins to whistle, patting her younger husband on his shoulder. "His woman will go right on feeding him," Fiona remarks, "and right on running his arse into the ground in repayment." She is so very English, isn't she? Cups are set up. Tea is found, dropped into mugs, and boiling water poured over the whole. And then she moves to follow the procession into the bedroom. She is not leaving THAT MAN alone with her husband right now.
     Clean, certainly, but leave the wounds, Rhodri. He's alive; he'll heal. It will hurt, but sometimes, things need to hurt a little longer, as a message. If there seems anything wrong enough that it won't heal on his own, then we can take a look at it. But for now ...
     There is the suggestion of the shake of a head as Fiona pauses at the doorway. I don't think you should put yourself in the middle of this one. This is Davydd's to sort out. We're just along for the ride. And she isn't exactly pleased, either.

     Maybe you thought he'd finish the job in there. But what you enter upon is a kind of quiet benediction. Hand on his friend's head, William is bent, not in prayer, but in quiet speech he says: "Nous avons saigne ensemble. Nous allons bien sur le saignement. Nous avons saigne trop pour etre venus a ce que nous sommes venus. Et ainsi... quand ce sang est alle, et les blessures ont gueri, appelez-moi. Et nous irons chercher une boisson. Repos maintenant."
     He has fashioned a sling out of the bedsheet, binding the wounded arm of his friend up tight. It will heal right if he keeps it still. Rest now. There is more in that than suggestion. William remains at Davydd's bedside -- how strange this room looks, immaculate, when the living room suffers such destruction -- until Davydd's eyes close with a sigh and some muttered, incoherent word.
     Straightening, William turns to look at you. He's not surprised to see you. "He will rest. And he needs to. He will need to eat. Be careful when he wakes." And then that languid stride carries him toward you. He pulls out of the jacket long enough to come out of the remains of the shirt. Balling up the fabric, he carries it into the outside room, throwing it away.
     "Are the police handled well enough, or should I make a call?" Davydd did manage to get a few hits in. There is bruising around his midsection, and a few lacerations -- now healed to only scratches. Indigo eyes land their attention on both of you in turn.
     "I handled it," Rhodri notes quietly, arms folded against his chest. He doesn't argue -- he finds he cannot -- but he let's his displeasure mark its way across his face. "About the money..."
     "Oh oui," William recalls, reaching inside his jacket to remove a thin pad. He does not ask questions -- how much was the furniture worth, and so on. He merely writes a corporate draft, signing it with a flourish.
     Peering over, Rhodri makes a motion for him to add a zero.
     Indigo lifts to emerald, and bloodied and swollen lips make a savage looking smirk. Another zero it is. Tearing it free, he slides the corporate check along the granite countertop. LionCorp LTD, Lionheart Restorations.

     Fiona looks at her husband where he lies in his bed, looking surprising small and weak compared to his usual vigour. She sets tea down, and folds her arms over her chest, fixing William with a look. That much, she can do.
     "Half rations," she tells William clearly, in the same sedate tone of voice as in the living room. "And we'll be as careful as we can. It isn't as if there's an alarm clock we can use." She looks to Rhodri and sighs. "Thank god I'm not pregnant right now."
     She moves to take up a cup of tea, taking a swallow, making a face. Needs alcohol. She makes a gesture with one hand. "Rhodri, do you have a flask on you?" She needs a drink.
     There is a level look from Plantagenet to Arundel as he restores the thin pad to his pocket. William doesn't ask about the rations, though at first he thought you meant to half ration the blood Davydd will need. But realization is quick to dawn.
     Half rations on the monthly supply of fudge.
     A small price to pay.
     "Understandable," he says in English, his accent pronounced as his mouth cannot move as it would normally. "I am down a tooth, so it is just as well, ne c'est pas? And for our mutual friend," Davydd, "... you will not need an alarm clock. You will need plenty of rest. He will be looking for your blood tomorrow." He looks to Rhodri then. "I recommend you stay close at hand. If you need me, call me. I will be in London another night or two."
     William shrugs his jacket onto his person and, shirtless, walks toward the door. "Do not let him out of it so easily," he says, reaching the door and opening it. He turns, looking back to the two of you. "He needs to feel this. And remember it. Nos dda," he says, and the door whispers in its closing.
     After William is gone, Rhodri can finally breathe again. But the anger's drained out of his face by now. At the call for a flask, he pats himself down, removing the flask from the inside of his leather jacket. You never know when you might need a jolt. He hands it to you as he comes over, wrapping his arms around you.
     "I will buy you something pretty with William's money," he notes, kissing your neck. He closes his eyes, his arms wrapped around you. His skin hums against your own, causing the tiny hairs to lift, the air around you to shimmer. What was broken is soon restored back to its original condition.
     "At least we can be comfortable while we stand watch." Sighing, he touches his head to yours. "I am glad, for once, that you're not pregnant too."
     Though...
     You see it in his eyes. Not the thought of children. But the sudden urge to practice. "Are you alright? Shaken at all?"

     She manages to maintain that gaze, when she has to - somehow. "Make sure to brush your teeth after eating sugar, drinking blood, engaging in other corrosive activities," Fiona agrees. "We'll be nearby. Hopefully when he goes for my throat tomorrow, he'll remember to let go in time."
     She waits, watches, then adds, "I have no intention of letting him out of it easily. The fewer times all of us have to endure this, the better." Whether he hears her or not with the closing of the door, it is said. And then she is turning to her other husband.
     "Something pretty is nice," Fiona murmurs, patting Rhodri's chest and sighing, closing her eyes. Now she is trembling; just slightly. More as if in exhaustion than in fear. "I'm very glad. I'd worry - and he will need feeding. That will be tricky enough. But..."
     Shaken or not shaken? "A little," Fiona murmurs, breathing out the admission of weakness. "I thought we would find him dead and gone, Rhodri. I thought... well, it doesn't matter what I thought now, does it?"

     If William wanted him dead, we would never have heard it...
     He does not say it aloud, nor think it loudly. But it is there, the knowledge of that, in his eyes. But he is not dead. Nor are we. "It will be alright. I'll watch him. We'll watch him. He has some blood in store, in case he ever needed it. We will give him that first, and then we will ... handle what we must. He will be fine, and we...with him." He promises that in a kiss.
     "I need a drink. I don't think that little flask is going to do it." Taking you by the hand, Rhodri leads you to the restored bar. He grabs a bottle of vodka -- Stoli Vanil -- giving it to you, and he takes a bottle of bourbon, his father's drink of choice, for himself. Hand still in yours, he walks with you over to the sofa.
     There's not a hint of what transpired here today. Only your trembling fingers and his proffering two bottles of straight alcohol. Bending, Rhodri kisses your hand and he holds it still until your shaking subsides. "I'll go in first thing around dusk and put it out for him, the stores. That will calm the worst of it. He'll be fine," Rhodri assures. "And ... sure... I can see the value of the lesson. Even so, I'm going to...help him along. There's no sense in prolonged suffering. That's just sadistic... not educational."

     She doesn't speak of what she and you both know; she sinks to the sofa and curls up on her side. Leather melts away, becomes an oversized t-shirt with flannel pajama bottoms and a pair of her usual bunny slippers - these have dreadlocks braided out of yarn and Jamaican coloured plush 'sneakers' on all four 'feet'. The tail is a plush steel drum on each. "Yes, yes. The stored blood first. I'm glad you knew about it."
     Sometimes, that habit of not wanting to worry the wife can really bite you in the ass...
     You bend, and she pulls you closer, until she can pull herself right into your lap. "It's sadistic, but it is educational. For them. Not so much for us. And I don't want you helping it along, Rhodri. Do you really think that somehow, William won't know? And you heard what he said." Fiona smacks your shoulder with her palm, looking at you with a hint of a scowl. "I don't need worse things happening. Besides, how thick is your father's skull?"
     Rhodri gives you a look. You can't be serious. But he relents with a grumped look and an exhalation. "Fine," he notes after a moment. "I suppose he had that coming. But if it starts taking weeks, I'm going to speed it along." There, a sort of compromise. To a point. Rhodri wraps his arms around you, loosening his hold only when he needs to open the bottle and take a swig.
     "Tonight's the last night we're going to have any sort of fun, you realize," comes the slow and measured tone of your conspiratorial husband. "It's going to be sponge baths and maid service for a month. I can just feel it.
     He closes his eyes as he kisses you, tasting of bourbon. "I'm going to leave the sponge baths to you."

Posted by rowan at April 06, 2007 09:05 PM