WHO: Charls Goodwyn WHAT: Saying goodbye to a memory. WHERE: Esthar WHEN: Starts evening of the full moon until the next morning. WARNINGS: N/A
“Chuck? You’re still in there?”
Charls was, but he didn’t say. With the bedroom lights turned on, it should be obvious from the outside that someone was within and he counted on Phil’s observational skills to give him the answer that he was asking for. True enough, the steps of the man came shuffling over soon after. Charls waited for him to appear by the doorway as he slid his fingers down the trackpad of his laptop and tapped twice to click.
Name: DULUTH, Emma, said the screen with a blonde woman looking back to him. Date of birth: XX year, XX month, XX date. Date of inactivity…
The same year she had stopped paying her taxes in spite of her previous record. On their own, these little tidbits were nothing but circumstantial evidence at best but Charls knew math like the back of his hand and could put two and two together without having to rely on a calculator. Emma Duluth’s account was blocked from access and she had also been inactive since the year she ceased paying her taxes. Ergo…
An electronic chime.
Ergo, his download had completed. Charls navigated his cursor towards its link when a shadow imposed itself upon his doorframe. He held off clicking in favor of looking up from his place on the bed to see Phil slipping the apron off his head.
“Come on,” he nodded outside, “dinner’s ready.”
Dinner was pan-seared dory, farmer’s market potatoes and shredded cabbage in roasted sesame dressing. It was a simple meal by the standards of many.
“How’d you learn how to do these?” By Charls’, however, and his humble personal budget, this was an extravagant version of what he would pop in the microwave in a clear plastic container purchased in the corner kiosk. He slipped off his glasses and set it next to the plate that was set down by his boyfriend. He rubbed his eyes while Phil drizzled oil onto his salad.
“WeView,” Phil revealed to the awe of no one, taking his place beside his partner and picking up his fork to start stirring his own salad. “I know we’re supposed to be denouncing such products of technology but…” His wrist met the edge of the white table as he cast his eyes elsewhere. “Would you believe it? We have a WeView channel!”
“Mhm,” Charls said, crunching on his cabbage while he spread sour cream over his slice of dory. “I set it up.”
“How funny would that have been?” Phil laughed. Charls smiled at him slightly before he dipped to catch the chunk of dory from the tips of his fork. “Too much salt.”
“Just squeeze some lemon over it. Or drown it in mayo.”
“No.”
Phil sighed.
Charls ate another chunk of his boyfriend’s cooking. “You should really cut down on salt. I don’t want to drive you to the hospital because of some urinary tract infection again.”
“You’re the best boyfriend in the planet, Charls.”
Charls smiled at him again. This time Phil laughed. He put down his fork in favor of filling their glasses with water from the filtering pitcher. Phil watched.
In the brief silence, he said all of a sudden, “I wish I could have married you, Chuck.”
The water stopped. Pitcher tilted straight, he directed a look at the man who bit into his sliced potatoes. “You can still do it,” he encouraged him.
“I’ve run out of time.”
“No,” Charls protested again, filling up his glass from where had had been interrupted. “The SeeDs may have overturned our work but you’re still here. That’s worth something, Phil.”
“I don’t have much time left.”
“You still have time!” He may not have shouted that but there was the thud of pitcher on table to speak for his emotions. Charls grabbed Phil’s hand and squeezed it. He frowned at him. “We can go now. Some priest or priestess or whatever must still be awake at this hour. How hard could it be?”
“How hard could it be to look for someone who’s willing to officiate our marriage at this hour in the middle of Esthar which is full of people married to their career?” Phil laughed. “I don’t know, you’re the one who taught me statistics! What do you think?”
“Don’t underestimate what this crazy city has done and can do, Phil.”
“Charls, what does it matter?” Picking up their hands, Phil shifted their fingers around so that it looked like he was the one who grabbed Charls with both his hands. “What do you want to get out of it? A ring? Around your finger? You’re not sentimental, Chuck, we both know that. You’d sacrifice that ring if it was going to get a job done.”
“I wouldn’t.” Charls felt hurt.
“Even if that’s the case, can you honestly imagine yourself wearing it around? I know you, Charls, you wouldn’t.” Phil laughed, shaking his head. “It would get in the way. It would attract attention towards you!”
“I suppose you’re right,” he conceded but not without ripping his hand free from Phil’s grasp. The fork was a better object to hold. “It’s funny you should say all that after wishing you could have married me.”
Laughing, Phil defended himself. “You know that still doesn’t change!” He shifted closer to his boyfriend to reach for his hand again, asking to keep it. “I want to marry you because marriage is like...the be-all, end-all of all relationships. Once you get there, you know you made it.”
“Phil, you are not ready to hear about divorce.”
“What the hell is that?” he asked, laughing at his own attempt of a joke. “Hmm...but maybe it is better this way. Being married would just subject us the the rigid laws of labels. I like the way we are currently. There’s no need for an external affirmation of us, we just are.”
Charls shrugged. Since Phil had reached a sensible conclusion on his own without requiring a helping hand, there was no need for him to make any additions. All things said, he still wanted to marry the only person he learned to love, though, and the only one who taught it to him. But for now, he could only take the fork again and pierce some potatoes on his plate.
“But I wish we could have spent more days like this,” Phil continued. “I don’t mind being the one stuck at home while you bring home the bacon.”
He put down that fork again. Silently, Charls looked at Phil.
He hazarded a smile. “Just like a normal married couple. The lucky ones who weren’t called to a cause. It was fun while it lasted. Best days of both my lives!”
“Stop talking like you’re dying.” Charls’ seat scraped the polished floor with an obnoxious complaint. Both hands reached to trap Phil’s in them, pressed down to their knees. He looked him in the eye, face close. “You’re not. You’re still warm, you’re still here!”
“Not for long,” Phil reminded him gently. “Don’t fool yourself, Chuck. You’re too smart for that.”
“I’ll believe what I see.”
And if he saw nothing, then that was what he was going to believe -- but that was a bridge they were yet to cross. Charls wasn’t keen on jumping that gun.
“If that’s what you say, then look at your plate. If you’ll believe what you see…”
“Then I believe there’s food on my plate and it’s getting cold,” Charls sighed heavily, returning his seat from where he’d dragged it. With his fork back in his fingers, he stabbed at the fish and cut himself a piece. “Your jokes suffer.”
“Was there ever a time I made you laugh a lot at them, though? Come on, Charls, be honest,” Phil was laughing again, poking at some shreds of his cabbage. “Do you want to do anything special tonight?”
“Like what?” Charls asked, looking at him. “You don’t like going to the movies and we both hate the bars here. Do you want to go for a swim in the building pool?”
“Sounds good.” Phil smiled. “Maybe you can hack the door so no one else comes through.”
Maybe he could. Charls considered it but didn’t push with the plan, counting on the Estharians’ inherent introversion to keep them away from something so real and natural as water. It didn’t belong to them and their cold society, he didn’t think.
Water belonged to them who were lost from Balamb and scorned by Balamb and those who allied themselves with the SeeD force. At least in that man-made sea, a secret pocket in a universe of electric lights, they could forget about all their enemies and trim down their world to the ones who were truly important.
Them. Each other. And no one else, not even the failed Sorceress.
They lived in it for the better of an hour, too short to reconnect with their younger, more peaceful days but time was a traitor. It scared Charls that so much of it should pass in a heartbeat that he was soon climbing out of the water and pulling Phil to join him in the shower. They were loath to be away from their arms for so much as a second. Out the shower, in the bed, they surrounded themselves with each other still, mouths kissing, hands grasping, legs entwined.
Charls didn’t know how long he had been holding Phil’s pillow for. The scent was there but the warmth was gone.
Phil was gone. Again. But not him.
And not the world.
Rumpled sheets were all that he had left to speak of Phil’s once-physical presence. He left them where he found them as he hunted for a pair of pants from his late boyfriend’s closet and put it on. It was so long, the ankles scraped at the polished surface of the floor, like a child’s pyjamas.
He closed the closet, turned to reach inside the lampshade on the nightstand to kill the light and found a note pressed under its stylish base. Phil’s handwriting was on it. Taking it, he raised it to his eyes to read. It said:
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
The words of his favorite book. His goodbye in the readable language. Charls read it again as if he’d never known such a line to exist even if he’d perused the novel countless times because of Phil’s love for it. He could hear his voice reciting it in his head as he brought himself to the kitchen with the note. Sunlight illuminated the once-cold interior of his flat. One hand held onto Phil’s words while the other reached to switch on the stove.
He dropped the note to the fire.
Phil was right. A ring would have been wasted on him.
He stayed by the stove only long enough to kill it. Charls left the note to burn in its own fire while he reached for the top cupboards to start a cup of coffee. Phil’s blend found the counter, and then the creamer next to it. Ah well.