For eternity

[gwenchan]

Fandom: Hetalia
Characters: HWS France/Francis Bonnefoy; HWS England/Arthur Kirkland
Rating: Teen
Additional Tag: Alternate Universe_Humans; Distant future; Reincarnation; Identiy issues; Falling in love. 
Prompt: Galleri d'arte vuota

***
 

Sometimes, if the light is right, the man in the picture smiles at him. Well, he smiles at everyone who's watching, but Francis likes to think the man is smiling for him. 

It's not a nice smile, not warm or welcoming. It's distant and proud, haughty with power. Yet, Francis has always been a dreamer. He wouldn't be working in one of the three art galleries still active, otherwise. 

The man in the picture has short, blonde hair and green eyes. Nobody has green eyes anymore. They went extinct at the end of the last millennium. He's not handsome. He looks like a teen who hasn't fully transitioned yet into adulthood, and the richness of his clothes cannot distract from his sharpness.

Above all, it cannot distract from the unfortunate things just above his eyes. 

Posing on an ancient armchair, facing right, his left elbow lazily put on a pile of books, right hand in his lap, the man has no name. "Portrait of a young man," it was called since nobody could read the tag scribbled on the verso when the picture was found in the back of a storage room, buried under hundreds of other, useless trinkets. It was dirty, centuries of dust layering over the painting, so much at first people thought it was an example of early Not-Figurativism. 

Certainly, the discovery had made a splash, whatever the subject. Already after a few days of analysis, it had been clear the painting dated between three and four centuries prior. Some months more and the estimate had been pushed further back, till someone claimed the painting came even from the previous millennium. It wasn't the first so old. But it was the first in such a good state of conservation.

That, however, had been only the beginning. Even with the stupor it caused, the age of the painting wasn't the juiciest part. That had come out once the piece had been passed through deep x-ray, revealing two major things, among several others for experts only. One, it wasn't painted black, only incredibly dirty. Two, a human shape could be seen underneath.

***

On Monday morning the museum is closed to physical visitors. Not that there are many physical visitors nowadays. Most people prefer to roam the rooms from the cosiness of their homes with their special goggles for augmented reality and their digital projections. Half of Francis and the other watcher's job is to place and activate a specific device before the designated picture. They fill some rooms to the brim with those things - the first half of the 21st century is always a favourite - and others they barely enter.

Some they could seal forever, pack the paintings back into storage. Like the landscapes - people don't like to be reminded how things were once - or the portraits. There are photographs for that. 

Francis would say realism is underrated. Photographs are cold and impersonal, but in art, in painting, there's emotion and passion. Someone touched the pigments, someone mixed them and sweated over the canvas. 

***

When he has some free time, Francis likes to study the artworks. The night shift is the best moment to do so. With most of the security entrusted to a complex, impenetrable, digital system, they could do without the human part. All paintings are chipped. Any attempt to disable the chip or even try to mess with the signal sends a message immediately to security, causing a chain reaction always resulting in the painting safe and sound and someone being dragged to trial for attempted theft. 

With so much free time, Francis searches the painting, examining them for all those details visitors miss in their rush. Some details are hard to spot but well-known, filling hundreds of essays with pages upon pages of debate around their supposed meaning.

Most of them, however, are useless. They are only trinkets with no reason except the artists thought it would be nice to paint them, usually for the need to fill some space.

"Portrait of a young man," is where he always circles back. He looks at the picture till his eyes burn, going over the surface millimetre by millimetre, looking for a sign everyone else might have missed to finally reveal more about the subject. 

He dreams of finding the final piece of the puzzle, solving the mystery, becoming famous. 

But no signature that nobody spotted or mysterious signs or anything else comes out. 

 

So, he'll have to proceed by the book. An art historian who couldn't break into the field, he's old-school trained. 

He studies the picture to divine when it was painted. For that the chemical analysis of the pigmentation should be enough, except late second-millennium is still too vague. But Francis is no scientist. He's a trained historian and knows painters rarely did things randomly, knows every stylistic choice has a message and a meaning. 

For instance, everything, from the clothes to the little furniture visible, screams mid to late nineteenth century. Thus, that must be the period when both the artist and the mysterious subject lived. 

Of course, it's not the only explanation. It might also be that the man decided to arrange a fake setting and commissioned historical clothes for some occasion. Though then, it's strange he didn't pose for a photograph. It would be easier and cheaper. 

Given two hypotheses, the simplest one must be the truth.

***

Francis is not the only one with an interest in the portrait. With it being so old and the whole restoration shebang, it was only a matter of time before the picture kicked off a whole new series of essays

Above all, three are the questions experts in the field are scrambling to answer. They wonder who painted it. They ask who is the subject. They search how it ended up abandoned for centuries in storage.

Every day, experts publish an article or a comment or hold a conference, all for exploiting the buzz till something new will come to steal the show. Meanwhile, there's a whole underground of research and conspiracy theories blossoming in the dark depths of the web. Most of the time they are so absurd it's a wonder someone wasted their time thinking about them. Some, still, are so crazy they could be true. They are fresh.

A user claims loudly to be sure who painted it. Forget what the experts say. They know nothing. But this user has a painting - well, a digital photo of the painting - whose style is exactly the same as the picture. It's all in the brushstrokes, in the way they flick slightly in the end.

In another discussion, someone bursts in, shouting about how they identify the subject. They have proof, real proof. No, it's not manipulation. Underneath they attach a scan of another photograph. Everybody laughs at them. The photo's old - not as old as the painting - but old and though it must have been coloured once, the centuries have washed almost everything off. It takes a lot of imagination to identify someone in the vague spot claimed to be a face.  

Besides, the painting pre-date when photography was invented. It's impossible the subject is the same.

That user, however, is sure. 

***

More photos arrive. Most are too ruined to be useful, but for the law of numbers, there can be pearls in the bunch. Like one, at the crack of dawn, with eyes burning from the lack of sleep. It's a dinner, from when people still ate food, real food, and Francis thinks he should go to bed, because he's seeing himself through the blurriness.

He downloads the photo. The morning after, his doppelganger is still there. Francis deletes the file in fear. 

Photos continue to pile, but in hours, days, weeks, pages of discussion, not a single name pops up. It's been too long, too much time has passed for that. If occasionally there are traces of tags, time turned them into a garbled mess. 

Anonymous subject by anonymous

***

Often Francis fears another museum will demand the painting, will require it for temporary loaning and then never send it back. It's a silly idea. The gallery would never take the risk to give away its jewel, even if it’s for a brief period of time. Point is, no one ever loans anything anymore. It's useless when a digital copy of each painting can be sent wherever one wishes, whenever. The effect is the same as the original.

Yet, Francis is ready to protest the painting being moved from its location. Though, he knows, nobody would listen to a simple watcher. He thinks he's ready to attach himself to the picture to avoid it being moved.

Sometimes, he feels a rush of anger for even the fact somebody else is watching the picture. It shouldn't even be exhibited for the public. He likes to imagine it was his. It should be his.

Everytime he looks at the painting, he wants more. He gets lost in it, in its details, waiting for some kind of eureka moment.

He receives an official warning for his distraction. 

***

Today there’s something new. After days of blurry photos, Francis logs into a discussion space he found some months ago only to find it on fire with discussion. Somebody posted the umpteenth picture, except this time with something juicy attached, two notes scribbled on the back who survived the test of time.  Notes are rare. Most got lost because people almost never scan both sides of photographs. 

There’s a date - 2005 - and a brief sentence, in a cursive few can still read. 

Un jour historique. Il n’a rien brulé

Somebody has typed underneath. 

“A day to remember. He didn’t burn anything,” Francis translates, automatically, in his mind. 

He shouldn't know. He has never studied the language, and yet he's certain about every word .

***

Francis's having strange dreams. His dreams have always had a penchant for craziness, but these are on another level. 

He dreams of a tower, except it's not exactly a tower. It's a structure, A-shaped, something of metal and wire, almost pretty in its ugliness and futility. He draws it as soon as he wakes up. 

When he searches and finds it, he's sure it's the first time. A colleague said it can't be. It was famous, superfamous, he must have seen it somewhere and then forgot about it. 

And he dreams about the man in the picture. For how much time he spent watching it, it was only a matter of time before it slipped into his sleep. 

They're sitting in the same parlour of the painting. It's a sunny day and he can smell paints and something sweet and he doesn't know where he is or why, except that it's a nice day.

He sees his mouth moving but cannot hear a sound. He tries, tries so hard he wakes up. 

The dreams don’t stop at night. Recently he often finds himself lingering in the gallery empty aisles with no idea how he ended up there. 

***

Somebody wants to buy the picture. It's rare - nobody has that kind of money - but it happens. From time to time someone from the elite decides they need to spend some money and for them buying art is the same for common mortals to go grocery shopping. 

"They cannot do that," Francis can't hold back from exclaiming. He can understand the practice for contemporary art, but "Portrait of a young man" is one of a kind. "The museum will never accept it."

It's something too important to be given to someone private, hidden to human eyes forever. 

But he also knows the museum is in perennial need of money. Most of their artworks require constant attention, special lights, non-stop monitoring, periodic restoration and in this era where everything is digital, it's cheaper to copy then to save. Every day it's a fight, a struggle against time to save the little artworks left in the world.

“Well, for now they ordered a high quality digital copy.”

**

He's back in the parlour. Relaxed in his armchair, the man is posing. He's speaking, but no matter how hard he focuses, Francis cannot hear a sound or make sense of what the man's saying. 

He looks down. Spots of paint stain his hands and his work-shirt, colour dripping from a brush hanging loosely between thumb and index. He nibbles on the handl), absent-mindedly.

The man shifts a little in his seat, tapping idly on the books, a vague annoyance turning into a frown. 

He’s about to say something else when somebody rings at the door. 

***

When Francis wakes up, his hands twitch and sting. He scratches them red before realising they're clean, that the paint was only in his dreams. 

He wishes he could catch it again. The picture wasn't done and now there's a strange taste in his mouth, his brain fuzzy for the confusion between fantasy and reality. 

Rolling on the other side, he holds onto all the details he can remember hoping to reprise the dream from where it left; but Morpheus decides he’ll visit someone else for the rest of the night. 

***

If he could, Francis would buy canvas and colours and complete what he cannot in his dreams. But real painting is a long-lost art and the smallest tube he found costs a full total of three of his paychecks. Real colours are a luxury for a few, a luxury a museum watcher cannot afford. Common people paint digitally, satisfied with programs able to imitate brush strokes and paints texture to perfection.

It's not the same. It'll never be the same. It is better than nothing. Carefully, Francis adjusts the glasses on his head.

The system asks if he wants to download a picture as reference, not missing mentioning the millions at its disposal. Francis refuses. He doesn’t need a reference, he knows the picture to the tiniest detail. 

“Yellow, red, blue,” he orders the system, discarting the option to have already mixed colours. He picks up the first brush, choosing on instinct the fittest, and gets to work. The clock in the program tells him hours have passed when he finally stops, his arms aching, but Francis feels like it’s only been minutes.

“Do you want your final product to be projected?”

He chooses yes. When he takes off the glasses, a life-size copy of “Portrait of young man” stands before him, identical to the original to the tiniest brushstroke.

***

Today there's nobody in the gallery except for the few watchers and the occasional digital projections appearing and disappearing before the paintings. It's been weeks since they had physical visitors. The board is even discussing continuing to offer that service when so little people care about it. 

Digital projections are a familiar sight, with their bluish light illuminating the space.

Only one doesn't flicker, standing right before "Portrait of a young man". The colours too, are wrong. They are too warm to be a projection, too vivid. Also, the visitor has been before the painting for a solid hour now. Francis glanced at them once, took a small patrol around an area of the gallery - mostly to stretch his legs - and when he was back the person hadn’t moved

"May I help you?" he asks, moving to the side to see the person in the face.

It takes a lot, all of his self-control, to not scream. He's spent months dreaming about the man in the picture coming alive. He ruined his eyes before a screen, sifting through blurry photograph after blurry photograph.

With the same messy blond hair - a dye, surely, all the population now has dark hair - and genetically-modified green-eyes, the dream is here. It breaths, less than a metre away from where Francis is standing, in the blood and flesh. It's not a miracle of Fate. It's a product of the Interconnected World. 

"I ordered a digital copy," the stranger says. "But I had to see in person at least once. It’s surely something. You are lucky, seeing it every day. Don’t you think?”

He turns and Francis made no mistake. The stranger is the spitting copy of the picture, from the root of his hair to the tip of his toes. If the picture wasn't still there, Francis would believe it came alive.

Then, the man's eyes go wild. "It can’t be," he whispers, disbelief in every word. "It can’t be. You’re here"

His body trembles, shaking all over, and Francis is already dialling the number for an emergency, sure the man is going through some kind of attack. Except that the man quickly recomposes himself. Next thing, he's laughing, loud and a little bit hysterical.

Francis knows that laugh. He doesn't know why, but he knows it.

***

"So, what is this all about?" Francis' voice drips with curiosity. He’s a nobody, an anonymous gallery watcher. There’s no reason somebody he’s never seen should know anything about him.

He tilts his head a little. Above them, pixels in the shapes of birds sing with hidden microphones, while a light breeze shuffles his hair. The other man is sitting at an arm distance, both on the bench in the museum digital gardens. Real gardens are nothing but a distant memory. This simulation, however, is born from decades of studies and it feels like being there. 

"That I’ve met you here, " the man says, like he can't believe the question. "You of all others!"

"The others? I don't understand."

He's trying. He's trying desperately, but nothing of what has happened till the picture arrived makes sense. This man, looking like a spitting image of the portrait, is only the peak of the iceberg. 

"It's not an easy thing to understand."

“I can try,” he offers. “The portrait. That is your ancestor, right?”

The man frowns, shakes his head, looks like someone searching for the right words to say and knowing they'll not find them. 

"Not exactly. Tell me, has something strange happened to you lately? Maybe memories you can’t explain”

“How do you know that?”

“Because it’s the same for me. Since I saw the picture in the digital news. Well, it was me. And I didn’t know how it could be possible. Of course, at first I thought about a very similar ancestor. Then, the dreams began.”

Francis listens, awe and disbelief mingling as he hears his same experience being mirrored. It all started with the picture, the flashes, the dreams, the language, everything.

"Why do I feel like I know you? That I've known you for centuries?" Francis' question is a whisper. He fears something in his brain is going to explode if he says it out loud. A storm is brewing inside, flashes of pictures pressing at the back of his mind.

He’s never seen this man before and yet he can clearly remember putting a knife to his throat. 

"Because you do," the stranger says. For how much he tries, Francis cannot remember his name. "Well, you did. In another life."

“In another life?” he repeats, attempting to keep an open mind. 

“It’s strange, I told you.”

“It’s not strange, it’s crazy.”

But as he says it, he doesn’t believe his own words. It’s not rational, but visceral, a knowledge he cannot explain. He keeps seeing things when he closes his eyes. Mostly,  it’s something better left forgotten. 

“You are free to not believe me. I cannot force you to remember. After all, we are different people.”

“Are we?” Francis replies, dubious. With memories he doesn’t remember creating, his life feels out of control every second more. It feels like it doesn’ belong it anymore. He decides to bring back the subject to lands he can understand. 

“You don’t happen to also know who painted the picture, do you?” 

“You don’t remember.”

“I tol - You asked me for a portrait because you said you didn't trust anyone else," Francis says, his mouth moving of his own volition. 

"No. I said I didn't trust you and you insisted you'd prove me wrong."

“And I did.”

***

They talk a lot, with too much to say and to explain. 

“But, that’s in the past,” Francis brushes it off. “And there’ll be time to reconnect everything. Now, how long do you plan to stay? I could show you around and -”

“I’m not staying,” Arthur stops him. “I came here to see the picture. You are an extra. I am glad we met, but I have a life.”

“Of, of course,” Francis murmurs. In the heat of the moment, he’s forgotten. He’d ask Arthur to stay, but travelling is expensive, not even rich people travel much anymore. It’s a rare exceptiont.

“I’m glad you understand. And  I can't promise you anything"

“What are we going to do?” Francis asks, unable to help the vague, desperate hope in his voice. It’s cruel, having to say goodbye after having just met again. But it’s also a fear he didn’t have up to this morning. He was curious to discover the mystery behind the portrait, he would be satisfied like that.

He never expected the picture to be brought to life.

The other aligns fingertips to fingertips. Even in a new body, some mannerism didn’t change. “Well, for a start, we have been talking for an hour and we haven't introduced ourselves properly yet,” he says. “I mean, I know yours …”

“You know?” Francis murmurs and leans forward, ready to receive whatever mystery the man’s about to provide. He’ll reveal his past name, his true identity.

“It’s on the tag,” the man reminds him, killing all his fantasies with a light nod of his chin. Of course, it's there before everyone's eyes, well written on the tag embedded in his clothes. “But it’s not your birth name.”

“How do you know?”

He started wanting to be called something else when he was a kid. His real name felt tight, like a borrowed identity belonging to someone else and that his parents have slammed onto him randomly

"Because you are like me. I did the same. I didn't know why, but I felt my birth name didn’t fit. I knew it wasn’t mine. So when I was old enough, I changed it. Now I'm -"

And Francis knows what's about to say. "Arthur," he anticipates him. "But that's not your name either."

"It was. Somehow."

The identity they chose to have some freedom. Even when their true selves had to fight, their alter ego could find love.

***

Francis asked for most of his shifts to be moved at night. Nobody protested. Only the crazy - or those who do not fear boredom - want to work at night. There are the occasional, digital visitors, but they rarely ask questions, already equipped with their digital encyclopedia and all the world knowledge accessible with a single click.

Night watchers are for emergencies, a relic of the past as much as the gallery is. But Francis likes it as it is. With less work to do, he has more time to admire the painting. And when the gallery empties completely, he can almost imagine being home, in his little apartment, with the picture hanging on the wall. 

He'd buy a real-life digital copy if he had the money. Thinking about it, Arthur must be extremely rich.

It has been about a month since he visited. He promised he’d call, but then the promise got lost to the wind. The more time passes, the more Francis believes he was only being polite. He didn't change.

Truth is, behind all fairytales fantasies, they are strangers. Whatever happened in the distant past, it is only that, in the past. It’s gone. It died a thousand years ago. 

All the history they had together wasn’t love at first sight, they built it in centuries, a continuous matter of trial and errors, each experience the base for what came next, A brief encounter, even with their glimpses of memory, cannot recreate that. It's a fantasy and a dream.

***

Once upon a time two kids met. A sea ran between them, but often one would take a ship and go visiting the other. With time, the kids grew up and the more they grew, the more they fought, thinking their little world to be too little for both. 

And the more they grew, the more they fought, consumed by their lothating, while the world around them became bigger and bigger.  A world-wide arena for their fights. 

Centuries passed. With time the kids became men and as they did, and new threats appeared, they slowly realised they could work better together.

But for that, it would take a long time still. 

***

Francis is a believer, in a world that abandoned faith. He believes in God and he believes in Love and he believes in Destiny.

He believes in chances and how men are called to take them each time they are offered. Even in his past life, Arthur’s love has never been presented to him on a silver trail. He had to fight for that. 

He could sit here, waiting forever for a call. He could forget about it, and wondering forever what could it be. 

Or he can stand up and act. 

***

“What are you doing here?” 

On the door threshold, Arthur stares at him with jaw clenched at the unexpected visit. 

He didn’t change; but that’s good. If he is the same of his messy memories, he’d never shut the door in his face.

“Hello to you too, An- Arthur.” Francis catches himself. He’d say another name if he lets his subconscious talk, but it’s not the moment. That, above everything else, belongs to the past. It’s already a miracle they remembered their human names. 

Yes, hello. What are you doing here?”

“Isn’t it obvious. I came to see you.”

Arthur frowns, twists nose and lips in a grimace. Then, just as Francis suspected, he steps to the side to make room. “If that’s the case, I guess I have no choice.”

Moments later they are sitting in Arthur’s living room, big enough it could host two times Francis’  apartment.

“So, why are you here?” Arthur passes him a cup and stirs his. The smell is so good Francis could think it isn’t something synthetic. 

“What if I say because I love you.”

“You love a memory. No, you think you love that memory.”

“You have a lot more in common with the man in my memory than you wish to admit. I know it, because I feel the same way.”

“Even so, I don’t love you. I don’t know you.”

Francis hasn’t asked someone out in ages. Yet, he knows exactly what to do. Words came easily, it’s like he’s done it forever. 

“It means I’ll have to conquer you again. “What about a date?”

Arthur ponders it. “Do you still know how to cook?”

“I -”

No, he should say. He never cooked in his whole life. Food comes concentrated, synthetic and ready. Cooking is a skill few still master and can afford.

“Of course I still do.”

“I hope so”

***

Francis’ in paradise. Well, not as much in paradise as when he could stand next to the artworks, but this is a close second. Arthur’s kitchen has food, real, grown into soil, food. They have perfume and taste and consistency. 

Francis searches for a recipe, reads it, and lets muscle memory guide him. After that, he watches as Arthur struggles to keep a minimum of self-control while he helps himself a third time. 

“Only because it would be a waste,” he mutters behind the napkin. 

Busy cutting his grilled vegetables, Francis lets him believe that. He suspects Arthur accepted his proposal only to exploit him. It’s fine with that. 

He’s forgotten how it was to receive praises and attention, even when hidden in gestures.. He likes it and he likes the little smile Arthur cannot hide. The robo-maid pours them another drink.

They hold the glasses next to each other and Arthur gets a little closer, mindlessly.  

Francis leans and doesn’t think about it. Arthur recoils. 

“No,” he says, “it’s not a good idea.”

Once Francis would laugh it off and dare to press a little more, playing hide and seek. He’d say a kiss cannot hurt. Either it turns out to be good and maybe leads to more pleasant things; or it is bad and it saves them time. 

“Yes. I shouldn’t have assumed.”

“I think we drank enough for the night.” says Arthur. “I think you should go.”

He gets up, leaving Francis there for a second, wondering if he’s starting to understand. For a moment he saw something in his eyes. But now he must get to the hotel.

His room is almost empty. Only a bed and small chair. He lies down on his bed alone, like he was before he met him. This isn’t quite what he expected. But it’s not over yet.

***

Adapting to the new city is difficult but not impossible. In the last centuries, most places ended up being one the carbon copy of any other. The few lucky, surviving, third millenium monuments are the most striking difference.

This city, like almost every other, doesn't have an art gallery to showcase physical artworks; neither do they have a place with digital pictures people can see. The closest space to a art gallery is a place filled to the brim with machines to managed the enormous amount of data going everyday to the thousands of virtual reality headset from people downloading high-referenced digital artworks in their home

Francis cannot stand it. He sends his application anyway. He never gets any answer.  He counts his savings, while trying to figure out how to apply a useless degree in a world where nothing has to be physical anymore. 

  

***

Arthur invites him again, with the old pretense it’s out of obligation; because it would be rude ignoring him, he says. Francis knows it’s a lie, that Arthur could ignore him as well, but doesn’t say anything.

Francis is no fool. However, though Arthur is only inviting him to exploit his newly-found cooking skills, it’s still something. 

A way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, an ancient motto goes

This time, he could even invite him to stay. This time, when Francis will lean for a kiss, he may not hold back.

If not this time, then the next one. Or the one after.

***

“You can stay, if you want. I have a spare room.”

They are eating their dessert when Arthur drops the invitation out of nowhere. Again, he pretends it’s for some courtesy he must show for old times sake. Again, Francis allows him the excuse, though Arthur’s rich enough he could simply book him in a better hotel room.

It’s all like old times, when they visited each other cities and though they booked a hotel to be safe, they knew they wouldn’t need it.

Francis moves into Arthur’s flat and the guest room. It’s big, luminous, with a bed meant for two. 

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, Arthur pads in and slips under the cover. “It was cold,” he says, though he has a perfectly working heating system.

***

For a while, things could even be nice. It doesn’t last. 

“You should get ready. Your interview starts in a hour.”

Laying on the floor, hands behind his nape Francis shrugs. “I’m not doing it,” he says. Upside down, he sees anger flashing on Arthur’s face before he presses it back down.

“And why is that?” Arthur asks, barely brindled fury about to explode. “You know how hard it was to find you a spot?” 

“Nobody asked you. But thank you, I suppose.“

“You suppose? What, do you plan to stay here laying around, doing nothing forever? You know, you could at least try.”

Francis feels his heart hurting, because Arthur still doesn’t understand why he won’t try.

“Try what?” Francis snaps back, sitting up abruptly. His body coils and Arthur’s does the same. 

“To adapt. To be grateful.” He mocks him and it’s something Francis can’t stand. Arthur is simply so entitled, so sure from his space of privilege, looking every one from down below. He was a bitch then and he is now.

“Grateful? You are not the one who left everything to come here.”

“Nobody asked you,” Arthur scoffs, still pretending to stay detached 

“Well, you could have called. You came into my life, you woke me up and then you disappeared again. We could-”

“Could what? Start again? Sorry, but I do not believe in fairy tales. That was the past. I have my life."

“And I had mine. I gave it up for you and you gave me what? A spare room in this giant manor and a job interview for some job I hate?”

“I gave you more than I should have,” Arthur spits, and his voice carries venom. “I never asked you to be in my life.”

That hurts more than expected. He waits, still. Hurting inside. 

“You are right. Coming here was a mistake.”

***

Francis’ packing when a message on the door-screen announces he has visitors and Arthur’s looks back at him.

Francis could simply not open. He's done that before, playing hard out of pure pettiness. Once decades could pass before they reconcile.

That luxury, however, is long gone.

"I am sorry for before " Arthur says as soon as Francis faces him. "You were right."

Those are words he'd never thought he'd hear. 

"Who are you? What did you do to my Arthur," he feigns a small laugh, ready to see Arthur blush when he calls him "my". But this Arthur doesn't blush, looking at him with wistful eyes.

“You see. This is the problem. You are thinking about someone else.”

The problem is Francis had no idea of Arthur’s existence up to some months ago and now he knows way too much. He’s been knowing him for centuries. He knows him since he was a savage kid who lived in the woods. He was there when he became a teen thirsty for blood and conquer, always wanting  more and more

Someone ruthless, usually cruel, who would cut you if you came too close.  Uptight and with a pretense of refinery. A prude and a hypocrite. But also charming in his own way, cunning, with a silver tongue. 

His partner in crime.

"Of course, you aren't the same either. But that's an improvement,” Arthur continues. He looks distant and sad. “Did you think we could have worked, together?"

Francis doesn't answer. His memories are vague, glimpses and flashes, mostly feelings and certainties he doesn't need to explain. He knows they were together - or they wished to be - for a certain time. What his past self thought, however, is a mystery. 

He lets instinct to speak on his behalf

"Yes, I do." As he says it, he's sure it's the truth. "We could. We did.” 

By the look on his face, Arthur doesn’t share his same sureness. He never did.  “You do . Did you ever love me?”

“Of course I did,”

“Like you did with everyone else.”

“It's not the same. You know it. You were the one who didn't love."

Francis realises he messed up a second too late. Talking about feelings with Arthur has always been a minefield. How could he forget that?

“That’s unfair,” he mutters. “You know I tried.”

“I know. But what about now?”

Arthur sighs.  “I ... I'm not sure

“That’s not much.”

“It’s the best I can give. But you could stay. We could try again. Think about it.”

Francis does think about it. He thinks deeply about it. He gives himself another two weeks of sleepless nights to think about it, pondering evil against evil and trying to divine the future to choose the outcome he'd regret the least.

 

He doesn't stay.

 

 

***

 

The museum is struggling. They closed two rooms in the time he spent away and when he visits, three more are about to be shut down, human and robotic personnel busy at work with packaging and moving. Faced with numbers, it's undeniable keeping them open is more a cost than they bring profit. They offer free visits, but it has long stopped being a matter of money. People are simply not interested anymore. Running through the aisles, there are rumors the gallery won't survive for long still. Somebody talks about a fusion, two galleries under the same management to share their resources; about transferring all artworks to somewhere people still visit.

 

Francis turns his head the other side, pretending it’s all temporary rumours. 

 

***

 

He thinks about calling Arthur. A long-distance relationship sounds better than nothing, except he's tired to run after Arthur and to get his scraps. He still has some pride.

 

He also wonders about looking for the others,  daring to believe they are still around, each with their strange dreams or maybe each blissfully unaware, fully exploiting the second chance they have been granted.

He could search and do with them the same Arthur did to him when he kicked his memories back into place. But finding others is only the first step of a plan they don't have.

It’s not like they were all best-friends in the past. That they can start a fun club for those like them. They died. They did their time and they died.

The world as they knew it, it’s gone.

 

 

***

 

Somebody bought "Portrait of a young man."

Francis marched to it like he does any other day to find the wall empty and clean and a robot-cleaner busy fixing the last touches on the wall. There is no trace of nails or discolouration. If it weren't for the space between two other art-works, it could be as if the painting was never there. Maybe, it would have been bettr, for everyone.

It was only a problem, and a burden for the museum. Past the buzz for its discovery and the conspiracies, nobody was never been truly interested in dealing with the physical copy. Even the digital visitors dropped quite soon. In the end, it was only a burden.

 

Apart from the buzz and the conspiracies, nobody truly cared for the portrait. Nobody but him.  He stays before the empty wall till the museum closes and he’s the last soul left inside. 

 

He's never felt so alone. Going to sleep, he wishes the portrait never appeared, lost forever in a storage under layers of grease and dirt where it should have stood. He wishes to forget everything, then for things to be back to normal, though he doesn’t know what normal is anymore.

 

***

 

A plane ticket came in the mail. The location tells Francis more than he’d like to know. He imposes himself to not get his hopes up. He did it once and it didn’t end well. 

 

He still takes the plane.

***

He finds a car waiting for him at the airport.

"Mr Bonnefoy?" the driver standing next to the vehicle asks. Francis nods.

"Then, please, follow me."

"Uhm, where?"

"I cannot tell."

Getting into a stranger car having no clue about the destination is probably the easiest and fastest way to get yourself kidnapped and killed; but he has already flied all way here and he can as well see where this was going. His attempts to make sense of the route are soon lost to the jet-lag.

 

He loses count of the several turns, letting the car lull him into a half-state of sleep.

"We are here," the driver eventually announces. He has halted the car before a building nested between several other, identical buildings.

"Tenth floor," the driver instructs, helping him with his little suitcase.

 

Francis thanks, hand curled around the suitcase handle, gives his name to the usher and takes the elevator, popping a candy in his mouth to prevent the dizziness of super-fast lifts.

 

It doesn't work much. His last dinner is doing soubresaults in his stomach while his eyes play tricks on him. Otherwise, Arthur wouldn't be standing here, a mere from him, waiting.

 

Francis blinks, rubs his eyes, and opens them again. Arthur is still there.

 

"If you are finished with this charade, would you please follow me," he says, turning without waiting for a reply. He walks down the empty aisle, right, left, and into a room with no furniture, except for one.

 

Francis's mouth falls open. Behind Arthur, hanging on the opposite wall in all its old glory, there's "Portrait of a young man"

 

**

 

"So, let me get this straight. One of the three last standing galleries is about to close and you want to open another."

 

And Arthur said he's the dreamer. Arthur scowls, so familiar. The more time passes, the more he's assuming the old mannerism.

 

"Precisely," he points out, unable to hide his irritation.

“And how do you think this will work? You'll go bankrupt the first month. And where are you going to find the money? No, scratch that, where are you going to find the artworks."

He knows Arthur’s type, the kind of people who think everything is due to them because they have money, except they are the reason things are like this. 

“That would be the fun part,” Arthur says, continuing before Francis can protest. “Why did digital art explode?”

Francis shrugs. The reasons are several, accumulating over the course of a thousand year. “Because moving artworks is hard and travelling has always been expensive.”

“Because you gave people the chance. We decided we could see artworks from home and it went downhill from there.”

 

Francis frowns. He can see where Arthur is going, in a certain sense. He too never liked how people forgot how to deal with real artworks, real paintings. 

 

“And your solution would be?”

“Don’t give them the chance to see the artworks from home. If they want to see them, they’d have to visit. “

“You do realise this is even more elitist. That people cannot travel from a city to another just to see an art gallery”

“This is why I am going to open more than one gallery.”

“You are crazy”

“It’s an experiment. We can start and we can go from there.”

 

“We?” Francis wonders, unable to hide his doubt. He’s been burnt once and he’s not really willing to retry the experience. “Is there a we?”

Arthur nods, pleased. “Do you remember how tables started to turn? Between us, I mean.”

 

Francis knows it well. Part it’s a matter of imagination, mostly he dug into old documents and footage to document. He must admit it, it’s strange to read about himself. The more he reads, the more present and past turn into a blur. If there weren’t documents and photos attesting he was actually re-born a baby, he’d could believe his old body to have regained consciousness after a long sleep.

 

“We became allies out of need,” he says.

“Exactly. Maybe we should start again. As partners, this time.”

 

***

 

“What’s the matter with you?” 

Sitting in the sand, with the ruins of a town once Francis knew very well in the background, Arthur rolls his neck and glances at him. 

Francis shakes his head, and the brush drips some colour on the canvas. Real, cloth-made canvas and real paint. A timid sun shines through the clouds. Francis couldn’t feel any better. Though the beach is reduced to a thin line, it’s still home. 

“I’m just trying to capture your real essence. It’s never a good idea to rush art.

 

“My real essence will be the one of a murderer if you don’t speed up.”

 

Problem is, it isn’t that far from reality. Francis moves the canvas a little to the side. He’s spent days trying to convince Arthur to abandon their constant hunt for forgotten artworks and takes a holiday. Arthur said it was the stupidest thing he ever heard, with their ten mini-galleries around the world and their team of about one hundred people to coordinate. He said that, but Francis can be very convincing when he wants.

“Murdering me would only be a loss. And I remind you, this body is not immortal”

 

“Thank God. I couldn’t spend eternity with you all at once. But I can take you one life at a time. You’re lucky we’re partners. Now how long still before you capture me.”
Francis taps his chin. “I’m not sure. There’s something missing …”

“Maybe, you need to decide what you are trying to paint.”
“You.”
“And what is me?” Arthur presses, shifting a little to a more comfortable position. “You never called me right. I’d like to hear it once. Say my name. My real name.

 

And Francis does.