30-Aug-2003
edited: 24-May-2005
Title: Ash Wednesday
Author: Draco
PG, Angst
Note to Tyr: You knew there were some of us who couldn't resist, didn't you?
General notes: Did I mention I liked T.S. Eliot? ^___^
Dusk light filtered through what remained of the stain glass window, casting shadows of red and blue on his face. Vaguely, as if he were someone else, he wondered if he should pray, but then Heero came.
"Do you think me foolish?" Father Maxwell asked him, "To have spent what money I have for this useless vanity?"
"The window? Well, I've always known that you were drawn to shiny pretty things," Heero said. "Even if this hadn't happened, that stained glass window couldn't have lasted very long in this neighborhood."
"Trust you to make me feel more foolish," Father Maxwell smiled and shook his head. "And I was so hoping that you would offer me some of that great wisdom of yours so that I might have justified all of this."
"Do you really want me to tell you that it's okay?" Heero asked. "You don't want me to lie to you, do you?"
"No, but the doting idiot that I am, I always thought if I heard you say something, I'd believe you," Father Maxwell said.
"You never really needed me all that much," Heero sat down beside him. "For anything really..."
"Did you tell yourself that you didn't need me?" he asked.
"Yes," Heero answered.
"Did it work?"
"No." Heero said immediately. "I've never been good at lying. To other people or to myself."
"That's why they all trusted you so much," Father Maxwell laughed, though it hurt to laugh.
"Did you trust me?" Heero asked.
He paused, and inhaled the air and the fallen ash around him before answering. "I turned my back on God for you, Heero. I can do nothing but trust you."
"You're being a bit melodramatic aren't you?"
"For God's sake Heero, at this moment I'm talking to you rather than praying. I've broke my vows for--" Father Maxwell stopped and forced himself not to look at where Heero is sitting.
"I'm sorry," Heero said.
"No you're not," he said. Around him, the ash and dust were beginning to settle, covering him in muted brown. He suppressed a cough, and waited for the moment to pass. But moments were passing very slowly, and he didn't want to pause long enough to hear anything around him so he spoke again. "If I were a better man I'd... well, I'm not a better man so I guess I should confess to you now that I spent most of our senior year praying that you'd develop a speech impediment and take up some mute profession."
"Ah. Well, that was probably the cause of my repeated battles with bronchitis then," Heero said. "And all this time I thought it was punishment for our repeated sexual interludes in confessionals."
"Well, given the nature of my prayers, I'd go with your original analysis," Father Maxwell said. He imagined that Heero would be laughing at him, but he wasn't.
"Is that what you really think? Do you think all of this happened because we were together?" Heero asked.
"No. I'm not so egotistical that I think war and peace revolves around our affair."
"Well, you've always been very literal in your conversations with God," Heero said. "Though, I suppose the better question is 'do you blame yourself for all of this?'"
"Yes. Of course I do. If it weren't for me, you getting shot might have had more impact on the colonies. If you had a wife and some beautiful blue-eyed child, their grief would have been on very monitor from here to earth. It would have certainly made more impact on the public than... well, perhaps it is for that best that no one saw me sobbing in my own confessional," Father Maxwell said in one breath.
"I'm sorry." Heero said softly.
"You knew, didn't you, that you were a target?" he asked. "You were trying to make a point, weren't you?"
"No," Heero came closer to him. Almost close enough to touch him. "You know that's not true. I may have delusions of grandeur, but I've never been much into martyring myself--I *am* sorry."
"I miss you," he whispered.
"I know. But you knew, didn't you, that I loved you more than the world," Heero said. "And if I had to choose between you and them, I'd have chosen you?"
For a moment Father Maxwell couldn't speak. But when he found his voice again, he was surprised by how steady he sounded. "Yes, I'd known. I suppose that's why I left you," he said. "Because when I saw... when I saw how much the colonies needed you, I didn't want to bear the weight of taking you away from them. War and peace, as it were, did seem to revolve around you. But then from that moment to this, I've been wishing that I were with you that day. And all of this... this church, this orphanage, this life... all of it is so that I might not be still long enough to consider if I want my heart to go on beating."
"I've always told you that your heart suffers the worst blows from your own pragmatism," Heero said.
"That's because I've always feared what I felt for you. Even now, when I should be feeling all the pain in the world for everything that is lost today, I can only think of being with you again."
Heero did not respond immediately, but when he did, his voice shook. It was the only time Father Maxwell had ever heard his voice shaking. "And so we will be," Heero said as he extended his hand to pull Father Maxwell from the ground.
"Is it really this easy? To be together again?" Father Maxwell asked as he caught Heero's hand.
"Probably not," Heero said, "but we've never taken the easy way out of anything."
"May the judgment not be too heavy for us then," Father Maxwell said as the remains of the church started to shake apart.
"You're asking for mercy, now? Do you really care about our judgment?" Heero asked.
"Not when I'm with you. Let someone else pray for us," Father Maxwell said as Heero pulled him up from his broken body. Around them, the world crumbled.
~ Owari
Ash Wednesday by T.S. Eliot
I
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?
Because I do not hope to know again
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again
Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice
And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgment not be too heavy upon us
Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.
Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
Author's note: When I had first written this, I got a 1+2 label on the story, and I did a quick double take. During my rewrite I thought I make things more obvious... especially when I'm not going for that wallop to the gut at the end.
Though, if there is an award for rare and unusual couples, I think I deserve it, don't you?
(:./draco/ash)
