Alternate RP The Light in Me Will Guide You Home

[Monty Pendleton]

Content warnings: old age and declining health, mentions of repressed sexuality of/by main character
Set in NZ in January 2062


Arvo was in no fit state to be leaving the house. But who was Monty to deny his best friend's last wishes? Monty, like Kata, liked to joke about the old man's amaranthine constitution, but there had reached a point not so many weeks ago that the joke ceased to be amusing, and now his interactions with Arvo's wife were solemn, the silences between them pregnant with sympathy. Their tacit understanding that the end was near underlined every pleasant remark, every hello and every goodbye; except, of course, when they were with Arvo, at which it appeared to vanish quite easily but in fact trembled under preternatural restraint. The arithmancer was no fool; he knew as well as they did that there was no recovering from this. But if Monty had been in his place, he would have wanted to see smiles, not frowns, on his loved ones' faces, and as many as possible at that.

It was in part this fact which he used to justify bringing Arvo to Queenstown Gardens. He hadn't mentioned the excursion to Kata, so that he could not say he was going against her wishes, but he was nonetheless going against his better judgement, which was perhaps worse. The effort required to keep himself from asking Arvo if he was all right doubled every minute; and all the while he was wrestling with a terrible presentiment of disaster. If anything unfortunate happened to the man, both he and Kata would hold himself entirely responsible.

Arvo wanted to come here, Monty reminded himself. Not bringing him would have been far more unkind. Besides, it was a beautiful day; the sun was shining in the sky; the fuchsias and cosmos were in full bloom; the lake reeds were tremulous in the afternoon breeze. How much more harm could he come to sitting on a bench in the fresh air than alone in his bedroom?

"I had forgotten how peaceful it is here," Monty said, to break a short silence. Then, "Are you comfortable?"

 

[Arvo Tuuri]

There was a lot to be said when one was facing the end.In all honesty, that wasn’t truly how he felt. The end implied a loss of hope, a man who no longer saw the beauty and elegance in the things around him. The end implied someone who could not trust their own eyes, their own mind, their own heart, but that had never been a problem for Arvo and even now, though his body was failing him, in all of his years, Arvo had never felt as though he was approaching it. It seemed like such a strange string of words, smashed together to make the idea of the things so much more terrifying than it was. The way it was handled, Arvo thought, was only a tiny piece of the greater misunderstanding of all of it.

There was really not much to be said about how it call came together, sometimes Arvo would find himself wondering if everything he was doing was right, and as his life had gone on, each thing more harrowing than the next, it was less about living his life and more about surviving it, which of course, made the game that much more terrifying.

Games, of course, by virtue of their very specific nature, could be either won, or lost, depending on the rules of the game one was playing. Arvo, though he did not often say this, had always considered life to be something of a game. The way it was played was determined how the game started, and for Arvo, with a life as hard and as full of struggle as his had been, had been playing it on hard mode for most of his life. The game was won, or lost, depending on how it came to an end and given all that he had achieved in his life, Arvo knew that he would win, in his inevitable end, because even now, tired and frail, he knew that he had achieved as much as he could, both for himself and his wife and for the people in his life that he loved so very dearly.

There was little in it that he would change - except, perhaps, for just one small thing.

“I will be less comfortable, Montgomery, the more you ask me that damned question.” he of course was not truly upset or angry with his dearest friend, but he had been asked so many times now, in his last months, about whether he was okay, or if he needed anything, or did he want a hand with something, that it had become a meaningless phrase. He was ill, but he still had a functioning tongue in his head and he was perfectly, mostly, sometimes capable of voicing his discomfort should it be warranted. Wanting to lessen the sting off the words, though there had been little bite in them to begin with, Arvo patted Monty on the shoulder, giving his old friend a big half goblin smile. “Ah, but you spoil me, my friend, the less we remind each other of our trials, the better this moment will be.”

There was a small mercy to having Monty as a friend. Not just because his tall friend was still well capable of lugging him around whenever it was necessary, but given his penchant for potions and the long history they had shared now, Arvo knew that Kata would always be cared for, should she ever need anything. They had talked about it, at some great length, whenever Monty was around and though Kata did like to make a fuss about Arvo and about Monty and about the fact that she often accused Arvo of never having grown into his years, she did love Monty so very much.

As did Arvo.

“Thank you for sneaking me out as you did, though I will hear it for a long time when we return, I needed, desperately, to get out of that stuffy house,” he said, the breeze lifting up the tufts of his hair as he looked around. He hadn’t been out to Queenstown Gardens in a long time, and he had missed it. Kata didn’t like him out of her sight, but he he still had some strength left in him. When it was his time, he knew, he would feel it. His father had known when he was going to go. Arvo endeavoured to have all of his letters written by then and he still had several to write. The last, he knew, would be reserved for his dearest friend, who had been nothing but his closest companion in his last months of life and he had always known that would be true.​

 

[Monty Pendleton]

"I know, I know,” was Monty's reply. His many creative variations of the exact same question weren't fooling Arvo. But he would always feel the need to ask if he was all right, not only for his own selfish reassurance, but so that he could make adjustments for his comfort, and he did sometimes wish Arvo would give him a straight answer. Perhaps he thought Monty wouldn't like to hear it. If the arithmancer was trying to protect him from worry, he was boarding up the holes of a ship that had already sunk.

Monty lifted his face to the afternoon sun. They had done so very many things together, some joyous, some bizarre, and some really quite regrettable. It had been good fun, hadn't it? He couldn't think of a single person with whom he would rather have made such memories. Arvo had not just been a friend to him, but a mentor, a father. And just like a son, Monty would feel the loss more heavily for all the kindness and wisdom that he would carry on in Arvo's memory.

“Oh, blame me,” Monty said, knowing full well Arvo would not. “I should be thanking you for getting me out of the house. I have no excuse.” Actually, he had a great many excuses, but he really was glad to get out for a while. To be in the company of his best friend was a bonus. Suddenly he grinned and said, “You know, I'm curious – what's the most scandalous thing you've ever done?”

 

[Arvo Tuuri]

There was little that Arvo would begrudge his old friend, but the constant questions tended to remind the old goblin of his inability to gain immortality, not that it was ever something he should want, that sounded like an absolutely horrid idea, given the frequency with which people tended to leave when one was immortal. Though, should he have had the chance, he might have liked a little longer. He often felt as though he had unfinished business, the kind that which was difficult to deal with once one was no longer around. Though, he supposed, it was not for lack of trying, but more to the point that some things would just never be finished. Like his friendship with Monty. Though it was nearing it’s end, Arvo often felt as though it was both renewed and deceased in equal measure.

“Ah, but if you really did know then you wouldn’t be acting as though I’ve just broken your favourite vial, Monty.”

There was much to be said about how the man really did need to get out of his home more, that was true enough, though something told him Kata would never agree. “Did you know that when I first met that woman, she stepped right over me.” she wasn’t even all that tall, though she was certainly taller than he - and that made it all the more hilarious in his eyes. “She was getting off of the train and I guess she didn’t realise I was beneath her, right over me, skirts and all, well when I tell you I was beet red and horrified, that was nothing compared to what she said to me!” he laughed.

It might not have seemed like it, but Arvo was not all that scandalous. He just liked to pretend. "She said that when a man is beneath a woman, you know he's found his place. Can you believe the cheek on her? I told her right back that a man can only be beneath a woman for as long as it takes to help her with her clothes. And I said this right in the middle of the station! We went back and forth like that for a while, trading barbs. By the end of it, I was about six pints in when she finally asked me what my name was. Can you believe neither of us had thought to ask until then?" Arvo burst into peels of laughter, though the effort of itself had him coughing.

“What about you? What’s the most scandalous thing you’ve ever done?”​

 

[Monty Pendleton]

Monty could picture the scene clearly: the train pulling into the station; Kata hurrying to disembark; a part goblin doing a bit more sight-seeing on his trip than he'd bargained for. Arvo would probably have had a bit more hair, but it would still be grey – even fifty years ago, he was an old man. He was the same age you are now, a little voice in Monty's head reminded him. That was a sobering thought. Was he old? Apart from the gradual accretion of aches and pains, a few extra wrinkles here and there, he didn't feel it, but time was catching up with him. He supposed it was all a matter of perspective. To Arvo, he was still practically young man. To his grandchildren, he was positively ancient.

What did it matter? Getting old was a privilege – one that had not been afforded to everybody he loved. He was alive, and healthy, and he counted his blessings.

“You know, I'd never heard the story of how you met,” he said. “Although I'm not remotely surprised there was alcohol involved.” He envied their relationship – not because he particularly wanted one himself, but because their love for one another was so enduring, so earnest, like no other couple Monty knew. They weren't perfect for each other, but it was precisely their differences which bonded them. You didn't make fire by striking flint on flint, after all. Monty was sure he would never find that sort of love. It wasn't something you could go looking for; it came to you, if it was meant to, on train station platforms, and in midnight gardens, beneath summer stars.

Monty suppressed an urge to ask, once again, whether Arvo was all right, and concentrated on the question. What was the most scandalous thing he had ever done? “I don't know,” he lied. “I've stolen a few things. That's quite scandalous. Oh, and one New Year's, after I left your house, I woke up in a bush with a traffic cone. I'm still not quite sure where it came from. But I suppose...” Monty gazed unseeingly at the trees on the other side of the park. There was so much he wanted to say; and perhaps it was because he knew that Arvo wouldn't be around much longer that he felt compelled to open up. “I suppose I – well, you know.” He shook his head. Why was it so difficult to tell the truth? He'd come so close, that night he and Arvo had shared a very old bottle of gods-knew-what and had a heart-to-heart on the living room floor. But he'd been lying to himself even then.

“Never mind. It wasn't that scandalous.”

 

[Arvo Tuuri]

There was truly so very little that Arvo could say to Monty that would change how he felt, even all of these years of their friendship. Arvo had seen much, and heard more and experienced every emotion available to him as a man, or as a Goblin for that matter. Love, pain, betrayal, excitement, hope, loss… desperation. None of these mattered much in the grand scheme of things, coming to where he was now, but he supposed, in all of it, the one thing he had tried so desperately to do was to impart, in some way, in some tiny crevice, an inkling within his dearest friend, that perhaps there was more to his life than what he allowed himself to take hold of.

It was not truly so that Arvo did not wish to go, he’d lived a very long and a very full life, there were not too many people he could say that about, and he’d been friends with so many of them, if he were to continue on in this life, he would do so for a couple of reasons, one of those would be because clearly his dear friend Monty was under the impression that he could get away with an outright lie to a man on his bloody final moments. The frown that creased up on Arvo’s face might well have been lost on the younger man, given he already had so many wrinkles, but Arvo wasn’t about to let that stop him. “Well, then you best get to telling me what was scandalous then, because I’ll not be leaving this very spot until you tell me, and I’ll blame you for breaking me out and you know Kata, she won’t be pleased with you my boy, I’m telling you that!” He said, shaking his finger at Monty to make him understand that he appreciated reciprocity whenever it came up.

He cast his mind back to his meeting with Kata, of course it had involved alcohol, so many of his best days tended to - even with Monty, some of their best conversation had happened when they were slightly munted.​

 

[Monty Pendleton]

Arvo always knew how to break the tension. Monty supposed he himself had provided plenty of opportunity for practice, what with his tendency to be, well, tense. He laughed, turning his face up to sky. It really was a beautiful afternoon; warm, but not too hot, a handful of white clouds drifting west over the trees, faint contrails stretching on for miles. Kata would forgive him soon enough for their jaunt, but somehow, Monty could tell it would be the last. He would never have this moment again, here in the gardens, with his best friend at his side, willing and ready to listen. Did he really want to spoil this memory-in-the-making with pretence and lies?

“Well,” he said, after a long moment. “It wasn't what I did do. It was what I tried to do.” Another pause to gather his courage. He had hardly begun, and his hands were already trembling. But he wasn't giving up this time. “Have I ever told you about Ermolai Vetrov? He was my best friend at school – two years my junior, but we bonded instantly. A mutual penchant for trouble, our headmaster once said about us. That was true. We got up to all sorts. We were inseparable. We'd spend every afternoon in the gardens, sitting by the water, building things. Oh - yes - we even came up with our own secret code, using spells, and so on. I could talk to him about anything. He understood me. Nobody had understood me before. Nobody had even really liked me before. So he was special, you see.

“After we graduated, Ermolai went travelling, but we kept in touch. And then – then one night, when he was in England, I invited him over. I was a little bit tipsy, if I recall. Anyway, he came. We lay on the grass in the garden, looking up at the stars, talking about this and that; I was feeling pensive, and he comforted me. He said...” Monty closed his eyes, transporting himself back to the moment. His heart raced now, as it had then, for different reasons. “He said that he'd stay with me. And he – touched my hand.”

It was getting harder and harder to continue. His throat seemed to be closing up, as if both mind and body were cautioning him against it. But if he just kept going, just said the words, perhaps it would finally begin to ease. He had to try. He couldn't live this way any more. He couldn't hide.

“I felt something. I'd never felt it before, and I've seldom felt it since, but I know what it was. And then I did something very silly and tried to kiss him. Well, turns out that wasn't quite what he'd meant. He didn't feel the same way. It was embarrassing, of course, but he forgave me. He still stayed.

“Only, he didn't. I hardly saw him again after that. He went to South America, and after a while, he stopped responding to my letters. I've since discovered he's not quite with it any more – something happened to him out there, I think. But for a very long time – twenty years, at least – I thought it was my fault. I thought I scared him away. I thought he didn't want to be around me any more.

“I tried to forget about it all. I told myself it wouldn't happen again, anyway. But it has. It wasn't a one-off.” There was Hezekiah – but that wasn't what Monty meant. It was the way he looked at men. It was the way, on occasion, he found himself admiring the slope of their shoulders, the cut of their shirt, the way their forearms looked with their sleeves rolled up to their elbows. It was the way he caught himself staring when they smiled, and lost his train of thought when they said hello, and felt a tremor when they brushed past. Individually, each sign had been subtle and far between, but considered as a whole they became impossible to ignore.

“I've been so afraid to lose anybody else,” he said. “I thought that if I pushed it all down, I could get on with things, and I'd feel better. But it didn't quite go to plan.”

And there it was. The whole truth. Not in the exact words he'd been looking for, but you had to start somewhere.

“So,” he said, without looking at Arvo. “That was my most scandalous moment. What do you think?”

 

[Arvo Tuuri]

“Monty, you absolute rascal!” Arvo chortled, clapping his hands together despite the effort it took. “Ermolai Vetrov, you say? You might have mentioned him in passing once or twice, but never quite in this context. Oh, the things we do for love or for friendship, especially when we're young and foolish, thinking we have all the time in the world.”

Arvo settled back against the bench, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “You know, there's a certain bravery in trying to follow your heart, even if it leads you to stumble and fall. It's the falling that teaches us the most, wouldn't you agree? And perhaps, just perhaps, it's those very stumbles that make the journey worthwhile.”

He patted Monty's hand gently, a touch filled with understanding and camaraderie. “You've always been a man of many secrets, my friend, but you know there's no judgment here. Just two old fools reminiscing about the lives we've led and the choices we've made. Now, finish that story about Ermolai. You've piqued my curiosity, and I don't plan on leaving this bench without hearing the rest of it.”

Monty had been a dear friend for a very long time and someone on whom he knew he could place his absolute trust without question. There were many things in his life that he was still grateful for to this day, many things that had helped him to grow and understand where life would take him - many lessons, he felt, that Monty still had left to learn and though Arvo wished desperately he could help to teach him, he knew only too well that there were going to be tough lessons his dear friend would have to learn even after he was no longer there to see them through. Arvo just hoped he had helped the man to open up enough to the possibilities of companionship with others that he would find someone to turn to in his hours of need.​

 

[Monty Pendleton]

Monty had been so prepared for some subtle judgement, some slight change in tone, some distance to form between them, that when instead he felt Arvo's hand, he caught it and held it tight. There was not one single gesture of kindness which could have meant more to him than this, and he knew at once it was deliberate – that Arvo was telling him, in the most unarguable way, that he was not afraid. For some time, all Monty could do was sit there in silence, gripping Arvo's hand like it rescued him. So much comfort he had rejected for fear of what it might do to him, for fear of the damage it might cause. It was never conscious. His mind acted automatically to protect him, severing some channel between mind and skin, so that touch was little more than a distant pressure. But he let himself feel it now – the warmth of Arvo's fingers, and all the kindness, comfort, and acceptance it embodied. He didn't just acknowledge it. He didn't try to moderate it. He felt it.

Monty had been underwater his entire life. Could someone learn to breathe, after holding their breath for so long? Did he even have the courage to start? These were not questions for now; they would wait until he was ready. But rather than bury them in the back of his mind, he put them gently to one side. He would not ignore this any longer. He would not let the questions bury him.

He held Arvo's hand still. He did not want to let go. At last he had found a man who loved him, who offered him the safety of a father he had never had, and the world intended to take him away. Few things in Monty's life had been fair, but this seemed the most unfair of all. Perhaps it was selfish to think so. Perhaps there was a lesson to be learned, about loving sooner, more freely. Monty didn't know. He didn't want to think about it. He just wanted Arvo to stay.

At some point, Monty had closed his eyes. He opened them. Nothing had changed. The sky was still blue. The birds were still hopping around on the grass, pecking at stray picnic crumbs. By degrees, his grip on Arvo's hand softened.

“That was the end of the story,” he said. “He never came back. Still.” A mischievous smile appeared to rival Arvo's. “His loss.”

Whatever the reason for Ermolai's leaving, Monty was ready to let it go. He could not expect to move forward until he made peace with the past, its uncertainties included. Life was terribly, terribly short – too short to waste any more time in this cloud of darkness and doubt. He had a chance to be happy; and while he might have been happy sooner, it was not too late.

He squeezed Arvo's hand. “Thank you,” he said, and he knew his friend would understand. He always had. “Thank you.”

---

FIN​