I. Percy.

Percy sat by the window, not looking out, simply looking-- his face pointed towards the wall, but his gaze fixed on nothing, unfocused, blank. Cyril had just awakened, and he peered at Percy uncertainly through a veil of uncombed hair. He was curled up on the bed in a tangle of bedclothes, the sheets wrapped around him like a cocoon around a caterpillar. Cyril had not expected to open his eyes to Percy, as Percy had not been there when he'd gone to sleep-- minutes ago, it felt like. Was it daylight already? He wouldn't have minded another few hours of sleep. But it seemed further sleep would be denied him. He had company. A slight frown creased his forehead. Ordinarily, Cyril liked nothing better than to see Percy first thing upon awakening, but it concerned him to see Percy with that emptiness in his eyes. He had known Percival Meredith long enough to know what that meant. Percy was fretting again.

For a few selfish, groggy minutes Cyril remained silent, his eyes half-closed, watching, relishing the sight of Percy unguarded, Percy not realizing he was being watched, letting the tension show in a thousand subtle ways which perhaps only Cyril would have recognized, such as the slightly cramped way his hands rested on the writing desk, the tilt of his head, the set of his mouth, the arch of his eyebrows, the altered rhythm of his breathing, the way his legs were folded beneath his chair, even the way he had tied his neckcloth this morning, a soft sadness folded into the white pleats of cloth. These thousand subtle things, Cyril knew, would disappear as soon as Percy realized he was awake-- for as well as Cyril knew Percy, Percy knew Cyril-- knew how to hide things from him, and hated to worry him.

Cyril did not allow Percy the opportunity to hide from him today. He spoke suddenly from his nest of sheets, taking Percy unawares. "What's the matter?"

Percy turned, a smile startled out of him, his unfocused eyes focusing on the speaker in the bed. "Oh, you're awake. I thought you'd decided to sleep the day away again."

Cyril would not be dissuaded from his purpose. "Out with it."

"Out with . . . ?"

"Whatever's bothering you."

Cyril said Percy's next words with him, they were so easy to foretell. "It's nothing." But as Percy laughed wryly at his own predictability, Cyril went on, saying more. "No, it isn't nothing. Clearly it's something. You've been brooding over it all morning, haven't you? And what is it now? Noon?"

"Half past one."

"Is it really?" Cyril struggled to sit up and succeeded, though the sheets twisted about all his limbs gravely hampered him. "Did Patrick let you in?"

"Yes, he did."

"I must have the most disrespectful valet ever known to man. To let a guest in when I'm not even dressed yet! I rue the day I hired that Patrick Bishop. As soon as I work up the nerve, I'm going to terminate him, I swear."

Percy laughed. "Patrick's a dear."

"Making me jealous will only hasten the day of his termination," Cyril observed. "So I wouldn't say such things if I were you." Cyril fought his way free of his bedclothes, then collapsed anew on the bed as though the effort of fighting his way free had exhausted him. He made a great show of propping himself up on one elbow and peered intently at Percy. "What is bothering you, damn it all?"

Percy's gaze unfocused again momentarily. Outside, the street vendors were shouting, and carriages rattled endlessly over the rutted streets. Somewhere in the house, someone was singing in a pleasant baritone, presumably Patrick. Not for the first time, Cyril considered simultaneously moving to the country and sewing Patrick's lips shut. Of course, he hated the country. However, he would not, he thought, miss the sound of Patrick's singing. "It's the children," Percy admitted.

"The children?" Cyril raised an eyebrow. "Your children?"

Percy nodded.

"Is anything the matter with them?"

"No, nothing's wrong. They're all in perfect health and high spirits-- or as high as can be expected."

Calling to mind the darkly dour Vera, the frightfully sensitive Vivian, and the woefully disobedient Kingsley, Cyril knew precisely what Percy meant. "What about them, then?"

"It's simply that--" Percy's hands fluttered briefly, and Cyril was reminded of a white bird trying to free itself from a snare. "--that they won't be children much longer."

"Ah. Yes. Much in the same way we won't be young much longer," said Cyril.

Percy shook his head. "We're not young anymore."

"Please, if you're going to say such things, speak only for yourself."

"Of course. My apologies." Percy bowed his head. Some of his hair, falling loose of the ribbon that held it back, fell into his face. The sight of those bright wisps of curls veiling those wide, beloved eyes, caused Cyril the same strange, hollow ache it always had. Cyril wanted to get up, to brush the hair out of Percy's eyes, to run his fingers over the soft skin of Percy's face, but before he could act on his impulse, Percy continued, "I fear for what will happen to them when they are adults. When they realize what the world is, and what it holds for them. You see, Cyril, I--" He paused, shutting his eyes for a moment, swallowing, clenching his hands. "I have nothing to leave them. And what will become of them? They're not quite like other children."

"No, thankfully." Cyril's eyes narrowed in dislike of the common juvenile throng. "They're perfectly delightful." He went on quickly, eager to assure the anxious father. "You needn't fret over them. First of all, I'm sure they wouldn't want you to, and secondly, you have given them as much as any parent ever gave their children, if not more. They are all, thanks to your good influence, clever, resourceful, imaginative, and quite altogether wonderful."

"I fear you speak with more kindliness than veracity," Percy said. "I won't deny that they're wonderful, of course-- they are. But good qualities are not enough. These days one needs money, and I have nothing but debts to give the children."

"Stop talking rubbish," Cyril said, a sharpness coming suddenly into his tone. "I never thought I would hear the day you would give wealth more credence than fineness of character. You sound like your brother. And yes, before you protest, I know these are his words coming from your mouth. Whenever you go to see him, you come back to me babbling like this. I really can't stand it. It always makes me long to ride straightaway to that enormous and ugly house of his and strike the man in his fat mouth with my riding crop."

Percy stared. "Cyril, you wouldn't--"

"Of course not. I'd never hear the end of it from Patrick. But it's great fun to imagine, isn't it?"

Percy allowed himself a chuckle, but said, "It isn't very charitable, though."

"I give charity where charity's due-- if I give it at all." He sighed. "I do wish you wouldn't go to see him anymore. It has a very adverse effect on you. God knows why, but you let him get under your skin."

"He's my brother. And sometimes I have no choice."

"I wish you'd let me accompany you, at least."

Percy laughed at the very idea. "You know how that would go. Frances can't abide the sight of you."

"Yet somehow, for all that, you abide the sight of him." Cyril sat up in bed. "Is it the money, Percy? If it's the money, I can give you some."

"I've told you I won't take money from you. Besides, Frances has far more to spare than you do."

"Yes. And he takes every opportunity to rub that fact in our faces like so much fresh shit, doesn't he?"

"Cyril!" chided Percy, with a frown. Patrick's singing fell silent. In the absence of his song, the cries of the street vendors seemed to grow more crass and irritating. "As I said, he's my brother. There must be some meaning in that, our kinship."

"In your mind, perhaps." Cyril rose from his bed, a vision in his nightclothes, which were of a dark blue hue that made his capriciously colored eyes appear more blue than the green they sometimes were. He would never understand why Percy bothered with his elder brother at all. It had always been a matter of contention between them, and Cyril suspected that Frances Meredith would have been immensely satisfied to learn that, the supercilious bastard. "But not in his." Cyril himself had nothing to do with his own brothers, and he was the youngest of five boys. But perhaps Percy, having only one sibling, valued him all the more for that. Perhaps it was Percy's heart, which so willingly forgave all trespasses against itself.

"Cyril," said Percy again, and there was something unaccustomed in his tone, something which raised Cyril's eyebrows and turned his head. "There's a favor I must ask of you."

Already in a bitter mood owing to their conversation thus far, his head full of thoughts of Percy's brother, and put on his guard by the solemn way in which Percy spoke, Cyril knew at once that he was not going to like this favor Percy was going to ask of him. "Yes? Do go on." He tried to keep his tone easy, but he knew that a trace of coldness crept into it nonetheless, and he felt as though within him, a tiny dark creature with chill claws was stirring.

"I don't quite know how to say this--"

"The best way, with me, would be to simply say it. I need no fine phrases to soften the blow, if you please."

"Very well." Percy swallowed, rising to face Cyril. "As I said, the children are growing older. They will be encountering a new range of experiences in the near future, new people, new ideas. And I would very much appreciate it if you would not-- even if the subject somehow comes up-- if you would not tell them about our-- our understanding."

Cyril stayed where he stood, standing very still, though within him the strange dark creature battled to get out. He could feel it carving up his heart with its claws like knives. "Our understanding?" he asked. "Is that what you call it? Or is that what your brother called it when he prophesied how your children would grow to hate you if they found out what kind of man you were?" Cyril realized his hands were beginning to shake. He tried to stop them, but they shook on. He hoped Percy would not notice, because Cyril did not mind if people knew he was angry, but he hated it to be known that he was hurt. "In either case, understanding, it would seem, is not the proper word, because I would say that one of us does not understand anything at all!"

"Cyril," said Percy in a small voice, growing pale. "You're shouting."

"Yes, I damn well am shouting!" Cyril shouted, at the limit of his voice's strength, and it seemed that the very vendors in the street fell silent for once. "How could you," he continued in a somewhat lower voice. "How could you be ashamed of us?"

"That isn't it--"

"Don't tell me what it is, because I know very well what it is. How could you think so little of me, and how could you think so little of your children, to ask this of me?"

"I'm sorry, Cyril, but I believe it would be for the best. It is not that I am in any way ashamed of our feelings for each other. But it might come as a shock to them to learn that their father and their Uncle Cyril-- and even their mother-- are not what they believed them to be. I know how you detest secrets, but I don't want to see them hurt. Things will be hard enough for them without adding this to their burden."

"Ah, their burden. I certainly wouldn't want to be a part of their burden."

"You're altogether misconstruing this."

"I feel like Gertrude! My husband's brother has poured poison in his ear!"

"That's not the most fitting allusion," Percy protested.

"I'll thank you not to criticize my allusions on top of everything else!"

"Please! Cyril! It is only for the time being. And when a time comes when they need to be told, I would like to be the one to tell them. As their father. Please. Please don't be angry with me. I didn't mean anything like what you said I meant, I swear." The afternoon sunlight shining in through the window caught the tear that slid down Percy's cheek.

What else but the sight of that tear like a star could have calmed the dark creature within Cyril? As though it were a charmed drop to soothe troubled waters, the fall of it down Percy's face quieted Cyril's anger. His hands stopped shaking. He went to Percy, who stood waiting for him. He touched Percy's cheek, brushed the hair out of his eyes. "Don't cry," he said.

Of course, these words made Percy cry in earnest, and Cyril took Percy in his arms as he sobbed. "I'm sorry," said Cyril, running his fingers through Percy's hair, massaging his trembling shoulders. "I shouldn't have shouted. They're your children. You must raise them as you see fit. I'll do as you say, I promise."

"I would never-- I would never be ashamed of you," Percy whispered.

"Oh god, stop crying. You make me feel such a brute. Of course you wouldn't be. Forgive your foolish Cyril, please?" Cyril leaned down to kiss his tears away. "Only say you'll forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive," sniffled Percy, his sobs easing, smiling. "In fact, you're right. I do wish I could tell them. Perhaps it's that I'm not strong enough. Perhaps I have been listening overmuch to what my brother says."

"Don't be ridiculous. You're perfectly strong. And if you'd really been listening to Frances, you'd presently be a respectable banker married to a wealthy dowager or something ridiculous like that."

Percy began to shake again, and for a moment, Cyril feared he was still crying. Then Percy said, "Oh-- Cyril-- you're so funny. Do you know, the last time I saw him-- he said I should look into banking!" He began to laugh softly, shaking his head. "Can you imagine? Me-- a banker?"

"That would be the greatest disaster the world of finances has ever known. Or at least the greatest disaster the bank that hired you would ever know."

"Oh, it would be, it would!"

"Have we-- have we made up then?" Cyril asked hopefully.

"We have," said Percy, and kissed him.

Cyril held him tight, returning the kiss fiercely. Feeling Percy's warmth against him had no less devastating an effect on him than it had twenty years ago. He wrapped his arms around the small of Percy's back, pulling him closer. With a quiet moan, Percy yielded, his hands finding their way into Cyril's wild hair. "I do promise I won't tell the children anything," Cyril murmured between kisses. "You have my word as a gentleman."

"I'd rather have your word as a scoundrel," Percy laughed. "I suspect it's worth more."

"That's a prudent request, but a scoundrel can only give his word as a gentleman, I'm afraid."

"Then I'll have to be satisfied with your word as a gentleman."

"Thank you," said Cyril, and meant it. "Now--," He seized Percy by his wrist and pulled him towards the bed, "while it's fortunate that I have not yet dressed, we really must do something about you."