[PSL] in this sense the open jaws of wild beasts will appear no less pleasing than their prototypes

[katabasis]

The bread that is over-baked so that it cracks and bursts asunder hath not the form desired by the baker; yet none the less it hath a beauty of its own, and is most tempting to the palate. Figs bursting in their ripeness, olives near even unto decay, have yet in their broken ripeness a distinctive beauty.

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[aletheian]

James splinters into those sharp pieces and Thomas holds him - his hand doesn't flinch away from that too-hard grip, his gaze doesn't falter. When James eases up, he curls his fingers against the fabric of his shirt, hard and so very real and here. He isn't afraid, no matter how dark or cutting it seems like it might be. He isn't now, and he wasn't then, when he first fell in love, when most people who saw the fire hidden beneath Lieutenant McGraw's stoic face backed away for fear of being burned while Thomas thought How wonderful to be so warm beside you.

We.

The pain of being taken from his wife and his lover had been crippling, but Thomas had never let himself wish to see them, knowing how completely severed he was from the real world and knowing how it would endanger them. He saw them in his dreams regardless, and prayed, how he prayed to anything and everything that they were happy together. Oh, Miranda. If he and James are one soul in two bodies then there's a piece still gone from both of them, ripped away and left untended, never to heal.

Thomas presses his forehead against James's. They're both in shambles but they have each other, more than either could have ever believed possible. Looking back it seems obvious, if no less torturous-- why else would he have kept on, if not for this end? He is so thankful. Not to God or fate or a universal power, but to James, for burning.

[katabasis]

He lifts Thomas's hand in the narrowness between them, kisses his knuckles then takes two long breaths. And then it's fine. He's fine. They're both fine. He can feel his pulse in his own throat, but it's a negligible point. He can straighten the curve of his shoulders and take account of Thomas in front of him for the six thousandth time. He can unravel their fingers and take Thomas's face in both his hands and ask him, all frankness:

"What do you want? Right now."

(Was that a question Flint had ever asked Miranda? It must have been. It had to have been. --Or maybe he hadn't needed to ask. Surely he'd known her mind like his own.)

[aletheian]

Thomas wouldn't have had to ask Miranda, either. They had all those years together. All those years as husband and wife, and then after, James has all those years as pirate and companion. She knew them both, best of all. If their heart was ripped away when Thomas was taken, then without Miranda, there are no moving joints, no depth perception, no center of gravity in the dark.

What would James take with him? Blood and teeth, perhaps. Could they have survived in another combination? James and Thomas together, Miranda spirited away? James executed instead of dismissed, the Hamiltons in exile? Maybe this is the only way-- maybe there is no misstep to retrace, and it is this or total annihilation and nothing but the emptiness of unmaking after, barred from heaven, with the kindest outcome still demanding their suffering.

Thomas's hands find James's back, arms around him, moving into that touch like he needs it to survive.

"You with me," he tells him, eyes clear. "You against me as we sleep, so I can feel your heartbeat, and your breath."

An achievable, heartfelt goal. Does he want to burn this place down, does he want to step into some other reality, does he want to convince James their flighty plan is suicide. Yes. But those are abstract desires and-- he can't, just like he can't say I want us to be back in my salon together and expect it not to taste like ash in his mouth. They're here and they're together. They're going to be alright.

[katabasis]

I believed your darkest thoughts somehow had the ability to manifest themselves upon our reality, he'd been told. Here's the concrete proof of how wrong that had been - such a simple want had been an impossibility then and yet here they are, infinitely capable. No darkness in him could've made this. So he laughs, small and low and absolutely justified.

"Done," he says as his fingers shift through the short strands of Thomas's hair. The light here in this room is so gentle it's as if there's no gray in it at all.