[fanfic] Two Parts of a Whole
Title: Two Parts of a Whole
Author: sonofon
Pairing: Peter/Richard, (Bill Haydon/Jim Prideaux)
Rating: G
Summary: Peter Guillam, and the aftermath of the scandal that never broke out.
Notes: tinker tailor feelings them I have yes. Also, link to ao3!
-/-
i.
In the morning after Richard left Peter awoke as he always did, on the left side of his bed so he could turn off the alarm that had never really been needed. His feet touched the cold wood floor; he let his toes wiggle. Between them, Richard had been the early riser. He liked to open the windows-never in the bedroom, but in the living room, the sitting room, the kitchen. The window in the bathroom was notoriously difficult to open, something Richard did not realize for the longest time and his back was worse off because of it.
The kitchen was neat, as it had been the night before. This was where Peter found him paying the bills, catching up on letters, planning ahead for his lessons. He wrote in a clean cursive, with his S’s slightly stooped and his Y’s with a dip and graceful flourish, all in the fashion of his Edwardian forefathers.
(“Peter?” he says, finishing his sentence. He sets down the pen and reaches for an envelope that had yet to be addressed. In the morning, he’ll send it off.
“Richard,” Peter says.)
He fumbled for the sugar jar, found it half-empty, and took two scoops that morning in honor and in mourning. No one had died. By eight o’clock Peter was at the Hotel Islay, updating himself on Merlin activity, watching George wipe his glasses clean.
One day he woke up feeling like a coward.
Sometimes he wondered if he was a naturally sad person or if he was just bad at being happy. He had never noticed it before. Indeed, there were days where he found himself inexplicably unresponsive and gloomy. “Everyone gets like this. Everyone sees the world as a haphazard or a fake at one point or another. It is really not so different.” In the effort to save himself, he took up distractions. He had a tendency to sabotage his own happiness.
The first girl he ever liked told him he enjoyed trapping himself in impossible situations. “It’s this web of mistakes and mishaps, and the more there are, the better. Because you want to keep yourself down until you’re literally forced to climb back up. That’s the thrill. Thrill seeker.”
“Will I ever reach the top?”
She shrugged. “That’s not what you care about.” She was the first girl he’d ever liked, and the only girl whose breasts he’d ever wanted to see and the only girl whose voice reminded him of honeysuckle. They played in a rundown lot before getting caught so they moved on to empty hospitals and, once, a lean-to that was probably a forgotten remnant of the war. He kissed her one day behind the public swimming pool and she kissed him back.
Her name was Julia.
Richard called him the child of apathy and illusion. He said, “Why else do you so helplessly believe in a higher power?”
“You know what I think of religion.”
“I’m not talking about religion.”
“Well I don’t believe in religion.”
“No. You believe in sacrilege,” Richard insisted. “You believe in misguided idealism.” You are a misguided idealist. You are a nervous wreck. You are a nervous wreck in a three-piece suit. He didn't know how close he was to realizing Peter’s occupation; he didn't even know the full extent of it.
“I don’t believe in anything.”
“You throw your trust away so easily. I worry.”
“There’s nothing but trustworthiness in journalism,” Peter smiled grimly.
“I know. I worry about that too.”
ii.
“Can you tell me how he looked, at the very end?”
Jim kept his head down and his face was very still and very somber so Peter knew he had been affected by the question. His orders had been to give Jim up to Sarrett. He would not be hurt, and in fact he would be lavishly praised in the private company of men who wore tailored jackets and drank more than the socially accepted amount of whiskey. Lacon had called earlier to confirm the hit. He seemed vaguely disinterested; on the other end of the phone, Peter could hear him spreading butter on his toast. It took guts to do what he had done, more or less. That much was universally understood. Lacon was not in the mood to bother with logistics; and probably none of them were.
They had been driving for twenty minutes now, with the roads mostly empty and the leaves falling off branches. Every time they stopped at a traffic light, a bundle of leaves fell from above and onto the front window of the car.
Jim Prideaux kept to himself. Once he muttered: “He almost smiled at me.”
“Oh,” said Peter Guillam.
Two men came to the car to lead him away, not that Jim was resisting. In the time between he had entered DS and crossed the entrance of Sarratt, he seemed to age ten years. Peter stayed in his seat, smoking. He was thinking partially of what would happen to Jim: a sizeable pension, possibly a new identity, a membership at a respectable club. In the days before Operation Testify, he’d known Jim as a quiet, hardworking superior. And later at the Cambridge Circus, he’d come to know Jim’s other half.
For now, there would be no reports to make. That was all taken care of. He sat smoking and wanted badly for his brain to dull over. Richard had a pet name for Peter’s anxieties but that wasn’t what he wanted to be thinking of. Instead, he tried to think of the men he had known and how they might have been in their younger days. He tried to imagine Bill Haydon the schoolboy, the lightly aired collared shirts and shining black shoes. The Sunday afternoon teas with aunts and lesser-known cousins; the scraped knees from roughhousing on perfectly mowed grass; to the dimly lit rooms in the hidden corners of the Moscow airport; mortuaries, red flags, and fur hats.
How did it come to be that men could turn into demigods, oh Muse; how did they manage to soar in international air unnoticed, never touching the ground so closely below? The song was deceit and treachery; it was called love, for irony and tragedy’s sake. Peter finished his cigarette, and started the engine. He had been so preoccupied that he hadn’t opened the windows. The car edged out into the street, and, eyes slightly blurred and watered, he blindly pressed down on the gas accelerator.
Author: sonofon
Pairing: Peter/Richard, (Bill Haydon/Jim Prideaux)
Rating: G
Summary: Peter Guillam, and the aftermath of the scandal that never broke out.
Notes: tinker tailor feelings them I have yes. Also, link to ao3!
-/-
i.
In the morning after Richard left Peter awoke as he always did, on the left side of his bed so he could turn off the alarm that had never really been needed. His feet touched the cold wood floor; he let his toes wiggle. Between them, Richard had been the early riser. He liked to open the windows-never in the bedroom, but in the living room, the sitting room, the kitchen. The window in the bathroom was notoriously difficult to open, something Richard did not realize for the longest time and his back was worse off because of it.
The kitchen was neat, as it had been the night before. This was where Peter found him paying the bills, catching up on letters, planning ahead for his lessons. He wrote in a clean cursive, with his S’s slightly stooped and his Y’s with a dip and graceful flourish, all in the fashion of his Edwardian forefathers.
(“Peter?” he says, finishing his sentence. He sets down the pen and reaches for an envelope that had yet to be addressed. In the morning, he’ll send it off.
“Richard,” Peter says.)
He fumbled for the sugar jar, found it half-empty, and took two scoops that morning in honor and in mourning. No one had died. By eight o’clock Peter was at the Hotel Islay, updating himself on Merlin activity, watching George wipe his glasses clean.
One day he woke up feeling like a coward.
Sometimes he wondered if he was a naturally sad person or if he was just bad at being happy. He had never noticed it before. Indeed, there were days where he found himself inexplicably unresponsive and gloomy. “Everyone gets like this. Everyone sees the world as a haphazard or a fake at one point or another. It is really not so different.” In the effort to save himself, he took up distractions. He had a tendency to sabotage his own happiness.
The first girl he ever liked told him he enjoyed trapping himself in impossible situations. “It’s this web of mistakes and mishaps, and the more there are, the better. Because you want to keep yourself down until you’re literally forced to climb back up. That’s the thrill. Thrill seeker.”
“Will I ever reach the top?”
She shrugged. “That’s not what you care about.” She was the first girl he’d ever liked, and the only girl whose breasts he’d ever wanted to see and the only girl whose voice reminded him of honeysuckle. They played in a rundown lot before getting caught so they moved on to empty hospitals and, once, a lean-to that was probably a forgotten remnant of the war. He kissed her one day behind the public swimming pool and she kissed him back.
Her name was Julia.
Richard called him the child of apathy and illusion. He said, “Why else do you so helplessly believe in a higher power?”
“You know what I think of religion.”
“I’m not talking about religion.”
“Well I don’t believe in religion.”
“No. You believe in sacrilege,” Richard insisted. “You believe in misguided idealism.” You are a misguided idealist. You are a nervous wreck. You are a nervous wreck in a three-piece suit. He didn't know how close he was to realizing Peter’s occupation; he didn't even know the full extent of it.
“I don’t believe in anything.”
“You throw your trust away so easily. I worry.”
“There’s nothing but trustworthiness in journalism,” Peter smiled grimly.
“I know. I worry about that too.”
ii.
“Can you tell me how he looked, at the very end?”
Jim kept his head down and his face was very still and very somber so Peter knew he had been affected by the question. His orders had been to give Jim up to Sarrett. He would not be hurt, and in fact he would be lavishly praised in the private company of men who wore tailored jackets and drank more than the socially accepted amount of whiskey. Lacon had called earlier to confirm the hit. He seemed vaguely disinterested; on the other end of the phone, Peter could hear him spreading butter on his toast. It took guts to do what he had done, more or less. That much was universally understood. Lacon was not in the mood to bother with logistics; and probably none of them were.
They had been driving for twenty minutes now, with the roads mostly empty and the leaves falling off branches. Every time they stopped at a traffic light, a bundle of leaves fell from above and onto the front window of the car.
Jim Prideaux kept to himself. Once he muttered: “He almost smiled at me.”
“Oh,” said Peter Guillam.
Two men came to the car to lead him away, not that Jim was resisting. In the time between he had entered DS and crossed the entrance of Sarratt, he seemed to age ten years. Peter stayed in his seat, smoking. He was thinking partially of what would happen to Jim: a sizeable pension, possibly a new identity, a membership at a respectable club. In the days before Operation Testify, he’d known Jim as a quiet, hardworking superior. And later at the Cambridge Circus, he’d come to know Jim’s other half.
For now, there would be no reports to make. That was all taken care of. He sat smoking and wanted badly for his brain to dull over. Richard had a pet name for Peter’s anxieties but that wasn’t what he wanted to be thinking of. Instead, he tried to think of the men he had known and how they might have been in their younger days. He tried to imagine Bill Haydon the schoolboy, the lightly aired collared shirts and shining black shoes. The Sunday afternoon teas with aunts and lesser-known cousins; the scraped knees from roughhousing on perfectly mowed grass; to the dimly lit rooms in the hidden corners of the Moscow airport; mortuaries, red flags, and fur hats.
How did it come to be that men could turn into demigods, oh Muse; how did they manage to soar in international air unnoticed, never touching the ground so closely below? The song was deceit and treachery; it was called love, for irony and tragedy’s sake. Peter finished his cigarette, and started the engine. He had been so preoccupied that he hadn’t opened the windows. The car edged out into the street, and, eyes slightly blurred and watered, he blindly pressed down on the gas accelerator.