Anniversary

by Raye Johnsen

'The Dark is Rising' sequence is written by and copyright to Susan Cooper, and she would probably have a fit if she knew I was doing this to her characters. All rights remain hers, and I have no claim to any of them. I promise to put the boys back when I'm done....

14/3/2048

Today is our seventieth anniversary.

It seems odd to look in the mirror and see an unlined face, that could be that of a man in his late twenties or early thirties. People of our age normally have white hair and faces graven with years. That thought provokes a chuckle. Well... I have the white hair....

The bed was empty this morning when I awoke, but listening, I can hear the sounds of a Mozart sonata drifting up through the house. Will have been restless this morning, to drift to the piano so early. It must be because it's time for us to start contemplating another career change.

It's strange to see the photos that are hung with such care along the wall of the stairwell that leads down to the ground floor. Strange because they show the passage of years in fashions and locations, around two faces that don't.

Having a wizard for a lover has more benefits than anyone realizes.

I pass by the photos of our childhoods, deliberately parallel to each other on opposite walls. I glance at the photos of myself with my Da and Cafall, skimming over them with practiced calm. Owen Davies was not my father, but he was my Da. It was Da who went to the parent/teacher conferences and taught me to drive. And it was Da who I mourned, that cold winter in 1992, when the influenza struck. They shouldn't call it "the 'flu"; that makes it sound mild and harmless, a minor inconvenience. It isn't. It kills. I never knew he had a hole in his heart; I never knew he was one of the ones who should have gotten the immunization. He was only fifty.

In their way, though, the photos of the Stantons on the other side are sadder. Will had to watch his family cope with losing him after he faked our deaths, and he has great-nieces and -nephews he'll never be able to let himself meet.

Happier memories greet me as I step further down. Holidays together, in Buckinghamshire and Wales, as we slowly grew from children to adults and slowly grew closer. Photographs from our first year at university, when we first started to live together, and first discovered gay culture. We went more than a little wild.

Photographs from our days in the band together. Will had started to learn piano when he was fourteen, in order to accompany my harp, and the skills translated well onto an electronic keyboard. And playing a harp is in several ways similar to playing the chords on a guitar (as long as you remember to strum as well as pluck!), so we were fairly good. And then the band got picked up....

Heady days indeed. I still have the black leather catsuit in my wardrobe upstairs. I love it, if only for the expression on Will's face when he sees my body in that butter-soft, skin-tight leather, with nary a ridge to mar the line - I may be clad from neck to ankle, but he knows I'm wearing absolutely nothing beneath it.

My wizard needs to be reminded, from time to time, that there's more to life than work and duty.

Our later careers as high school teachers, after we faked our deaths in the car crash. Nobody did die, or was even hurt, but when the police pulled two 'bodies' from the wreckage and positively identified them as us, it made it easy to pass from one life to the next. After all, everyone knew Bronze Davis (my stage name; it was easier than constantly explaining how to pronounce 'Bran', and our first manager's consistent misspelling of 'Davies' stuck) and Will Stanton had been killed when, in grieving for his father's death, Davis lost control of the car they were driving in and crashed. So two men, even if they had similar names and features, could not possibly be the same men.

After that, our careers as archaeologists. I think Will stole a page from Merriman's book when he suggested that; if I remember correctly, Merriman's last career was as an archaologist. Archaology is a lot less exciting than Indiana Jones would have had the world believe. However, there is nothing quite like telling a policeman to blow it out his arse, we're on the edge of a breakthrough and we don't care if this is the property of the Municiple Bank of Whatever. I don't think London has quite gotten used to the idea that there's an archaeological dig going on in the middle of the central business district.

But we've been archaeologists now for twenty-five years, and people are starting to comment on how young Doctors Stanton and Davies look. It's time to move again. This time, we should probably change names as well. I crack my knuckles, anticipating the hack into the Central Births and Deaths registry.

The only thing I know for certain is that we will be together, wherever we end up.

Peeping around the door of our music room, I see Will sitting, in his pajamas still, idly playing on the piano. Set slightly beyond it is my floor harp and stool, where we can watch each other as we play, flirting with eyes and music. One of our favourite activities is playing the raciest pieces we know at each other. Don't listen to anyone who says 'Bolero' can't be played on a harp!

Will's playing this morning, though, is much more melancholic than seductive. I see that this is one of the times when I will have to remind Will of all we have, and all that we have managed to create between us.

He is sunk so deep in his own mind he has no notion I am so close until I begin to lay butterfly kisses along his neck and shoulders. His fingers stutter to a stop as I wrap my arms around his torso, the broken notes oddly reminiscent of the Cat's Fugue.

"Don't stop," I whisper, slipping to my knees behind him. "Keep playing." My fingers move up, and begin unbuttoning his pajama top. After a moment, Will breathes in, and begins to play again, that mindless staple of the beginning pianist, 'Chopsticks'.

I huff a chuckle against the small of his back, and, having finshed unbuttoning his top, snag it with my teeth and pull it half-off. My fingers begin to stroke against the flesh of his navel, strumming in time with his pressing of the piano's keys.

I can hear his smile in the music, as I move up his chest, stroking in time with the music. I stop to pluck at his nipples, his sudden gasps a charming counterpoint to the piano.

His sudden swing around on the piano stool, to face and tackle me, is unexpected but not unwelcome. My wizard normally enjoys being played with, and usually I'm the one who intensifies the game. Will may kiss me, but I'm the one who'll start frenching him; Will might unbutton my shirt, but I'll be the one who pulls it off. This sudden change is surprising, and it takes me off-guard, sending us both to the floor.

Lying on our carpet gives me plenty of access to his skin, and I take full advantage of it. Of course, he does the same to me; and soon enough we are each writhing under the knowing, loving touch of the other. Clothes are in the way and swiftly discarded, by force as much as skill. We'll have to sew a few buttons back on later. But right now that doesn't matter; all that matters is getting to that soft tan skin, so dark in contrast to my own. All I care about is claiming my slender dark wizard with the too-wise eyes and the bittersweet smile, driving away his cares and asserting my claim. This is my man, my wizard, my Will - nothing, not the world nor magic nor even time itself, has any right to infringe upon that which is the property of Bran ni Arthur ap Pendragon, the Once and Future King of Britain.

We lie there, enwrapt in pleasure and each other, and as I move over and within him, that's all that I can think of, that he is mine and I am his, and it may have been seventy years but I still can't really believe it's real.

And as our bodies cool and our breathing slows, it's almost all I can do to push those chestnut-brown locks out of his eyes - they're always falling in his eyes - and watch as he comes back to himself. And I smile as I see that there are fewer shadows haunting those grey-blue eyes I love.

"Happy anniversary, Will," I say, as if I have not noticed them.

"Anniversary?" he blinks, and then, "Oh. Oh, hell, I'm sorry -"

"You forgot?" I say, ironically. "You?"

The shadows flee as he retorts, "I'm only human!"

I grin, taking the sting out. "I'll let you make it up to me," I inform him cheerfully. "But what made you forget? Worrying about our next identities?"

He blinks at me. "You were thinking about it too?"

"Of course," I tell him airily. "What do you want to be? I rather fancy being an Air Force ace, myself - the nice uniform and all that... and, of course, being able to boss around - mechanics...." I run an eye up and down my lover's body.

"Nice to know I'm in there somewhere - but that's a little too high-profile, I think. Investment traders, perhaps?"

"That's low-profile, all right...."

But still, I think, as we leave the music room, this argument proves the fact of the centre of my life: we will always be together. Always.

Author's Notes:

    There is some internal inconsistency in dating in the Dark is Rising sequence. The events of 'The Dark is Rising' have been fairly neatly pegged as occurring during the Christmas/New Year period of 1971/72, but internal evidence (references to fashion and current affairs) in 'Silver on the Tree' seem to indicate it occurring during late 1976. However, it is very clearly indicated that SotT occurs about eighteen months after DiR.
    Therefore, the date at the beginning of this piece is arbitrary; if Will and Bran were twelve in 1973, they would be seventeen, turning eighteen in 1978, and that's the age at which I see them getting together. If you prefer the dating in SotT, then the year would have been 1982, and if you want to change the date at the top to 2052, I don't mind.

    If Merriman can extend Hawkin's life seven hundred years, to the point where someone has to consciously end it for him to die, I don't see why Will can't do the same thing for Bran.

    The influenza that swept over Europe in the winter of 1992 killed several hundred people, and was notable for being dangerous to people with heart problems, as well as the usual target groups.
    People with holes in their hearts, if the holes are not large or badly positioned, can go through life outwardly healthy and with very active lifestyles. If a person has a hole in their heart, it should be repaired immediately, but it is possible that a person can live an active life without that measure. (I'll admit it's not likely, but it is possible!)
    I have no real reason for placing Owen Davies in that group, and making him a victim of the killer 'flu of '92, beyond that of giving him an honourable exit. I don't see either Bran or he abandoning each other willingly, but at the same time I think he'd have moral difficulties with the idea of immortality.

    I see Will and Bran's band as one of the Culture Club copycat bands that sprung up in the early- to mid-eighties.

    There isn't a dig going on in London right now, to the best of my knowledge, but there have been at least two in the past - the excavation and reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe, and the excavation of the temple of the Roman god Mithros - and it's highly possible that there will be more in the future.

    One of the most famous pieces for solo piano is 'The Cat's Fugue', inspired by the composer's pet cat walking across the keyboard of his piano.