Disclaimer: Not mine or maybe they are… All depends on how you read it.

A really small offering that truly isn’t worthy for the altar of the inspiration that is RB. Call it a belated birthday present.

Partially inspired by "Suteki da ne?" from the "Final Fantasy X" OST.

The room was empty save for two figures standing in a patch of sunlight that slid through the tall windows facing the wall. Since it was some time during early afternoon on a weekday the gallery was mostly deserted, apart from the few clusters of school children on educational trips, some elderly couples and a couple of rogue art students. Even then most people weren’t all that interested in this section of the gallery, with its handful of obscure paintings. The two men stood in front of one such painting.

"It’s pretty old then." The taller of the two spoke, looking a little uneasy at what appeared to be, to him, an uncharted topic of conversation.

"Yes." His companion didn’t turn his eyes away from the painting, though a long-fingered hand reached up to brush a few strands of brown hair behind an ear.

They succumbed to silence again.

The taller man shifted, then settled himself into what the military defined as an ‘at ease’ stance. His companion frowned in response.

"Do you have to do that?" His green eyes flickered to the side before returning to the painting.

"Do what?" Blue eyes fixed on the slighter man’s profile.

A sigh. "Let me guess; you’re either bored or hungry. You always look like you’re going to snap to attention at any minute when you get like this."

"No. Actually, you’re wrong." The sun seemed to pick out blue-black glints in the taller man’s hair.

"Oh?" The green-eyed man actually turned to look at his companion now.

"I’m bored AND hungry." The man seemed quite smug about the word play.

"Sophistry." The other muttered "Besides, don’t they feed you army-types?"

"Navy."

"Army, navy, whatever." A shrug.

"Her Majesty’s Royal Navy, thank you very much." A faintly affronted admonishment.

"Oooh." The sarcastic reply.

"You wouldn’t like it if I said that you were MI5, now would you?"

"MI6. We’re international operations, not internal."

"See."

Something that sounded like a huff was the reply as the shorter man turned his attention back to the painting. There was more silence for a while.

"So…"

Another sideways glance from the shorter man.

"This painting. It’s…" The taller man hedged.

"Beautiful." The other breathed.

"Beautiful." His companion didn’t sound convinced. "Uh, I’m not an art critic or anything but it’s not really… uh… all that…"

That earned him a light whack on the arm. "It’s not about style or technique, silly."

"It isn’t?"

"Certainly not. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s a good painting, you know. But that’s just it; it’s good but just not brilliant."

"But that isn’t what it’s about?"

"Exactly! It’s not about the painting itself but what it conveys, the emotions that compelled the artist to paint it."

"Which are, exactly?"

The shorter man shot a teasing smile at his companion. "Take a look and tell me."

"Well… There’s lots of cherry blossom, I’d guess it’s an orchard of some sort, or somewhere like Ueno park. Cherry blossoms flying everywhere. Not exactly everywhere, just round that couple there."

"That couple?"

"They’re the only two people in the painting but the blossoms flying round subtly mask the starkness of that."

"Go on." His voice was low, strangely softer as he listened to his companion.

"They’re just sketched figures but…"

"But?"

The taller man closed his eyes, appearing to be looking at some image that only he could see, etched on the inside of the eyelids.

"He’s beautiful, I think. Not too tall, slim with surprisingly delicate hands. Artist’s hands. Though he can never translate his vision to canvas. That’s the saddest part. He sees wonderful things in the glory of his mind’s eye but he can never tell anyone else. As soon as the brush touches the paints everything becomes cumbersome and awkward."

"I can relate to that." Came the murmur that the taller man didn’t hear.

"But his lover doesn’t care."

"No?"

"No. It doesn’t matter to him that his ‘artist’ isn’t actually all that good at art. He loves him anyway. You can see it in the eyes, the way that his completely blank expression softens when he looks at his lover. The way he holds him close: as if trying to protect him from the world. His gentleness…" He sounded faintly surprised at his own last half sentence. "Warriors are rarely gentle."

The other man made no comment.

His companion continued. "They love each other. That’s all that matters, from now unto eternity."

Even the air seemed to still in a reverent hush at that last admission.

"You got all that from… this?" the shorter man gestured to the painting, as his companion opened his eyes and got a shrug in response.

They turned away from the painting and began to make their way towards the gallery café. After a companionably quite lunch they sat across from each other, neither bothering to move just yet.

"So how old was that painting then?" The taller man, the Naval officer, asked finally.

"Two millennia almost or something pretty close."

"Two millennia." A low whistle. "That’s a long time. It’s survived pretty well though."

"Probably because it was overlooked."

"Yeah?"

"They found it in the ruins of a fortress in the Middle East back in the 40s."

"Strange. I thought it looked Japanese."

The smaller man smiled knowingly before pulling a leaflet out of his coat pocket and sliding it across the table.

"What’s this?"

"Take a look."

"It’s that painting… Hold on a minute, it didn’t look like that. Those figures are only little black sketches, like that guy who paints the stick-figures…"

"I know the one."

"But…"

"That’s what it looks like."

"But it can’t! I saw…" The tall man fell silent.

"You saw the same thing that I did." His companion smiled back and discreetly reached across the table to clasp his partner’s hand.

"Oh." Understanding appeared to dawn. "You’re telling me that I just think I saw… That I didn’t describe the painting… That artist who can’t paint, despite his delicate hands, with his long hair and jade eyes, isn’t really…" He was smiling now, tender gaze moving over the features of his companion.

"Any more than the great warrior whose gentleness belies his strength in the face of adversity. Whose love is the only thing that moves him to poetry… Yes." Came the reply.

"That’s quite… uh... What are you blushing for? Oh…"

"Did you really…"

"Yes. I meant every word of it. I love you, you know."

"Yeah, I know." The shorter man’s voice dropped to almost a whisper. "I love you too."

"Good." He said it matter-of-factly. "Else I’d have to go chasing some ghost instead."

"Ghost?"

"I bet he was pretty."

The slighter man chucked softly "I should hope so."

"Eh?"

"Family records indicate that-"

"Family records! Is there something that you neglected to tell me about this painting?"

"Well… it belongs to my family. Where they found it; it used to belong to us or at least part of our family."

"I did wonder why you chose that one out of all the others."

"It’s one of his few surviving works. We’ve only lent a few to galleries across the country but there are, perhaps, a handful in storage. I could show them to you some time… if you’d like."

A nod was the simple response; then a casual glimpse of the clock on the wall of the café brought forth a string of curses.

"Talk about long lunch but this is ridiculous!"

"Why? What time-" A glance at the clock. "Shit! I’m due at the ISS building this afternoon."

"What time?"

"Half an hour ago."

Both men grabbed coats and made to leave in different directions in a hurry. The taller of the two paused, turning back to his companion for a moment.

"Dinner. Nineteen hundred hours." He called back.

"Where?"

"Dorsia."

And then they were both running off to their respective appointments.

Later in the day sitting at his desk reading and signing various documents that required authorization a certain Royal Navy officer paused and sat back in his chair to stare out of the window thoughtfully. "Eternity." He muttered under his breath.

Across the other side of the city, leaning against the stone railing that ran along side the river, a lone civil servant stared across the water, long hair ruffled by the breeze. Something floated past him in the air and he stretched out a hand to catch it, staring in wonder at the single pink blossom that had landed in his palm.

The new ISS (Institute for Strategic Studies) building is located just off the Strand, opposite the Anderson Consulting building. The old one was just of Dury Lane, up from the old Randall Institute.

The gallery isn’t any specific place but it’d be something like Somerset House, I guess.

Maybe I’m getting sappy in my old age…

17:29, 10/12/02.