Author's Note: Some people believe that death is an ending, others believe that it's the beginning of something wonderful. This is a small story that grew out of a sad mood. I'm aware that it leaves another bigger story untold, a past story. Who knows, I might one day get around to telling that story too.
Outside the window the sky was a high translucent blue, lit from behind by the power of the sun. Adam felt its shimmering intensity, even through the glass that separated him from the outside world. The sky had always fascinated him: the way the colour shifted and changed, so many shades of blue and grey; the way the clouds came and went, changing shape, altering dimensions even as you watched. As a child, lying on the grass, eyes shaded against the glare of the sun, he had felt a kind of empathy radiating from above, as if the sky belonged to him alone. It was a mirror of his moods, seeming to shine blue or grey in accordance with his emotions. Perhaps, on reflection, it was he who had shone blue or grey in accordance with its moods.
"What lies above the sky, Fabian, beyond the clouds ?" He had asked the question a thousand times.
The reply was always the same. "God resides beyond the sky, that's where heaven is, where all the people who once loved you in this life wait for the moment you will join them."
Adam had believed with all the unquestioning faith of a child, he believed everything Fabian told him. A sigh from the bed behind interrupted his reverie, drawing him away from the window. He smiled at the man who lay watching him, a forced, bright smile that constricted his throat. "Hello Fabian, did you have a nice nap ?"
Adam sat down on the bed, holding the frail cool hand in his, noting the paper-thinness of skin, the network of blue-black veins, the ridged, slightly yellowing nails. There had once been warmth and strength in these hands. Warmth and strength as they lifted him, holding him high above his head as he teased and laughed, or pushing the swing he had made especially for him in the garden. Hard strength too when they lifted him across his lap and spanked disapproval onto his bottom for some misdeed. They always reverted to their gentle nature afterwards, caressing, forgiving, comforting.
Fabian smiled. "I love you very much, Adam, you do know that don't you ?"
Adam raised the thin hand to his lips, kissing it softly, before turning it over to caress the delicate wrist with his thumb. "I love you too, and when you're well..."
"No." Fabian tried to look stern, but failed, his face revealing only gentle concern. "We both know that isn't going to happen. Don't feed yourself false hope, it will only hurt more later. Accept the truth, I have."
Adam held the hand to his cheek, closing his eyes, willing the life that ran strong and vibrant through his body to somehow convey itself to the man in the bed.
"Don't be sad, love, I'm ready." Fabian's voice was still the same, that beloved voice that had read him poems, sang so beautifully... and yes, sometimes raised itself in exasperation. There was no weakness in it, no hesitancy, it sounded just as it always had, only now it seemed bigger than him, almost too much for such a frail body to house.
Adam couldn't believe that soon it would fall silent forever; that he would hear it no more, except as a distant echo in his mind. He choked back tears. "Well I'm not, I'm not ready."
A gentle laugh, a hint of a tease: "No-one is asking that you should be. I have to do this alone, you know. We all do. It's not your choice, nor mine. It's just the way things are. I'm resigned to it and I'm not afraid."
"I wish I could be resigned, but I can't, and I am afraid." Adam kissed the hand once more and laid it gently down on the counterpane. "What is it that poem says, you know the one by Millay: 'I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.' She acknowledges the inevitability of death, but she refuses to feel resigned to it. I can relate to that. I know that death is unavoidable, but I refuse to be resigned to it, to see it as something other than the cruelty it is."
Fabian smiled sadly. "You're still at odds with the world, Adam. I prefer the optimism of Tennyson myself: 'I hope to see my pilot face to face when I have crost the bar.' Much more uplifting than miserable Millay. Faith, Adam, that's the difference, you used to have faith."
Adam said nothing. He had long ago realised that for him faith had been more a reflection of Fabian's faith, a desire to please someone he loved, rather than anything deep rooted within himself. As childhood slipped away so too did this fragile belief in a kind God, until it was no more than a half-remembered dream. He suddenly covered his face with his hands, sobbing. "It's not fair, Fabian, it's just not fair, don't leave me, I don't want you to leave me ! What will I do ?"
Fabian held out a slender hand. "Come to me, come on." He wrapped his arms around Adam, stroking his hair as he laid beside him on the bed, his heart aching for him. Perhaps it was his fault that Adam had never felt able to fully commit elsewhere ? Perhaps he was guilty of making him believe that only he could offer security, making him rely too much on him ? What else could he have done, he loved him ? "I'll always be with you, Adam."
Adam raised his head briefly, curving his mouth into a teasing smile: "Above the sky and beyond the clouds ?"
"That's right," Fabian smiled with him, "and not just above the clouds, but in your heart. Just as you'll always be in my heart. Death isn't the end. 'One short sleep past, we wake eternally and death shall be no more.'"
"John Donne," the smile wavered and Adam sobbed afresh, "bloody priest, what did he know ? What kind of God strikes you with this unholy disease and leaves the bastards of this world whole and healthy ? I don't understand and I can't accept that I'm going to lose you. Don't talk to me about God, I hate him, if he exists at all."
"Don't grow bitter, Adam. It's bitterness that brings misery to the world. It's a weed that chokes faith and kills hope. You and I found each other, I believe that God had a hand in that." Fabian sighed, for all that he had recently slept, he was tired.
They lay quietly together. Adam, his head resting lightly against Fabian's chest, listened to the irregular beat of his heart as it struggled to keep life flowing through his veins. He felt the power of Fabian's love for him transcending the frailty of his body, but his grief was such that it transmuted its warmth into an ache that seeped into his bones, to the very centre of his being. He wished he could share Fabian's belief once again, take comfort from something that sustained the older man, but all he felt was the agony of impending departure and the fear of being alone, of being without a man who had taught him that love existed and that he had a right to a share of it.
Fabian had become adept at reading Adam's mind. "You won't be alone, Adam, you have Tom, if you wish it, you have Tom."
"I told you, I'm done with Tom. I don't even like him anymore."
Fabian fought back a smile. "You don't mean that for a moment." He paused, then added: "You're just in a sulk, though I don't know why, because you richly deserved the punishment he meted out to you."
Adam raised his head indignantly. "He told you !"
The smile won, breaking through the grey pallor of Fabian's face like sunshine through mist. "Let's just say I've always been able to winkle information out of Tom. Besides, he needed to talk, he was upset and I don't like to see Tom upset."
"HE was upset !" Adam's gold-flecked eyes widened. "I don't know why he was upset, he was the one that hit me !"
"He spanked you, Adam, he didn't hit you. Cast your mind back, there's a world of difference !"
Adam lowered his eyes in acknowledgement, but pouted slightly. "It still hurt !"
"Yes, it's meant to," Fabian traced a tender finger down the young man's face, "and if he hadn't done it, and I'd had the strength, I would have spanked you myself."
"It was an accident, he didn't have to be so uptight about it, I wasn't badly hurt and the damage to the car was superficial, and he had no right, I'm an adult..."
". . . are you, Adam," finished Fabian, "are you really ? You were driving irresponsibly and could have killed not only yourself, but someone else. That's the third accident you've had because of the self-same thing. Tom was angry and frightened about what might have been, he cares for you deeply. He was quite right to treat you like a child, because you were behaving like one."
Fabian sighed again, trying to conceal his distress as pain invaded every inch of his body. It would be no loss to him, this earthly receptacle of his soul, he would be glad to be free of it.
Adam got up, wandering back to the window, staring out into the garden where he had spent so many happy days. The sky had deepened in colour, becoming opaque as dense white clouds gathered. He could see the swing that Fabian had made for him all those years ago, hanging motionless from the old cherry blossom tree, its ropes worn and weathered, its wooden seat badly in need of a coat of fresh varnish. If ever anything spoke of love for Adam it was the swing. He could almost see his child self standing there, his voice whispering: "For me, you made it just for me ?" His small arms had flung themselves impulsively around the man's waist, the first time in his life he'd ever offered affection, and the first time it had ever been returned to him when Fabian's arms hugged him back, when his hands stroked his hair.
Fabian watched Adam standing by the window, lost in some dream. He concentrated on committing every contour of his face and body to memory, drinking it into his soul, so he could take it with him on the journey that he sensed was approaching fast. White-hot pain surged through his body, he bit his lip, willing himself not to cry out and frighten Adam. Keeping his voice calm and steady, he said: "Make it up with Tom, he's a good man. Allow yourself to trust someone else and be happy, Adam. Let him care for you in all the ways I care for you and more. Take the chance, have faith, he won't let you down." He took a deep breath as the pain intensified, then receded, leaving a deep sense of peace. "Open the window, Adam, it's stuffy in here, let some air in."
Pushing open the window Adam felt a rush of air, only it seemed to be leaving the room, not entering it. At the same moment great shafts of sunlight radiated from behind a cloud and struck the earth with breathtaking clarity and beauty.
"Look, Fabian," Adam gave a cry of pleasure, "sunrays !" Turning from the window the cry of pleasure became a cry of anguish as he gazed straight into Fabian's eyes which were fixed on him. He felt himself absorbed in their blank opacity and knew that the man he loved so much had gone. A faint smile touched Fabian's lips, the lines of pain were smoothed from his brow and his arms lay outstretched on the counterpane, the palms upturned, the fingers slightly curled as if he was offering his hands for someone to hold. For the briefest of moments, no more than a heartbeat, a whisper that spoke of love hung on the air and was gone.
Adam was alone. Unimagined pain tore through him. Curling close against the still figure he wept.
Tom stood silently in the doorway taking in the scene. Walking across to the bed he gazed down for a few moments before gently closing Fabian's eyes. Briefly touching a hand to Adam's head, he then turned and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
He went to do what he knew Adam would not have thought to do, was indeed not capable of doing. To set in motion the procedures that would then lead to the ritual that would remove all physical trace of Fabian Johansson from their lives.
That done, he sat in the tiny sun-room that he and Fabian had built onto the house sixteen summers ago when their love enjoyed a brief physical flowering. The same glorious summer that had brought Adam into their lives, or more precisely into Fabian's life. Tom had been more an observer, watching as a bond of trust and love between a damaged child and a caring man grew into something wonderful, grew into something even stronger than the bond that existed between himself and Fabian.
Closing his eyes, Tom felt the warmth of a June sun reach to caress his face through the window, as gentle as the touch of a lover's fingers. Tears slowly worked their way from beneath his lowered lids, trickling and falling onto the terracotta tiles of the sun-room floor. The trickle became a torrent of salt water grief for a one-time lover and a lifetime friend, for a unique man who had a gift for reaching out and touching the lives of those he came into contact with, enriching them.
Wiping his eyes with the palms of his hands, Tom took deep breaths and composed himself. Rising, he walked across to the picture window gazing sightlessly out into the garden – remembering. "Safe journey, Fabian," he murmured softly, "I'll miss you." Suddenly he felt a tangible presence, a hand on his shoulder, a soft kiss of breath on his cheek, a whisper, that might have been in the room or might simply be an echo in his mind. He nodded, saying silently: "Don't worry, I'll take care of Adam." The presence was gone as quickly as it had come.
* * *
In the sun-room Adam stood quietly by the window. The funeral done, ritual obeyed, mourners departed, he and Tom were alone in the house they had shared with Fabian. He became aware of Tom's presence, of an arm being slipped around his shoulder. In the garden the cherry tree swing was caught by a sudden gust of wind that lifted it towards the sky; Adam imagined he heard the ghost of boyish laughter as it swung back and forth.
Turning his sight heavenwards, a strange peace descended on him. He now knew what lay above the sky, beyond the clouds. Somewhere out there Fabian was waiting. He would see him again, the certainty of it hit him like a ray of light striking the earth from behind a cloud. One day they would be reunited, Fabian's hands would reach out, take his and help him cross the great divide. He would see his much-loved face and look into his eyes again, but not yet. This was his time to live and to love. Curling an arm around Tom's waist he leaned against him.
Tom smiled, drawing Adam closer, gazing out into the garden where Fabian's love sang to them from a sky of summer blue.
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