Anthony Blunt

The return of the sun has left Darrow in a celebratory mood, but Anthony remains subdued. Worries plague him—for Guy, mostly, who is still suffering aftershocks from the earthquake of information that Anthony had shared with him—and beneath that, an empty sort of sorrow that he refuses to examine too closely.

Nearly fourteen days have passed since Anthony has heard from Gabriel. About five days ago he had braved the dreadful weather to go looking for the boy, only to find him gone from his apartment. Since then, a cold truth has settled in him: Gabriel is gone. It's a pity, Anthony tells himself, but inevitable. People vanish from Darrow all the time. If he is feeling a bit disappointed about this particular disappearance, then it is only a sign that he had grown a little too attached. All for the best, then.

Still, he remains indoors, a cloud hanging over him. Ostensibly, he’s reading, but he hasn’t gotten very far with his book. Anthony is distractible, and that is probably why he hears his phone buzz. Idly he picks it up, only to freeze when he sees the name displayed on the screen.

Gabriel.

Anthony probably shouldn’t be enjoying having Gabriel in his French class quite as much as he does.

Two weeks into term, and those students who will be a trial are already separating themselves from those with potential. Gabriel is one of the latter--bright and thoughtful, and with a magnificent ear for languages. Most professors would be pleased to have him in their class, but it isn’t the young man’s scholastic capabilities that has Anthony looking forward to teaching, of course. They haven’t even spoken during class, and Anthony is confident that no one knows that there is something between them (perhaps too confident, in fact), but the knowledge that Gabriel is there leaves everything…heightened.

Tragically, the beginning of the term also means that they haven’t had as many opportunities to see one another as they had the previous month, and Anthony decides that he has had about enough of that.

I was sorry not to see you during office hours today, Mr. Harkin, he texts as he heads home at the end of the day. Come by tonight?

Anthony doesn’t believe in acting out of anger. Frankly, he doesn’t believe in feeling anger, either, and and would likely insists that the icy-cold tension that coils tighter and tighter beneath layers of calm is nothing of the kind. He certainly would not admit to being angry at Billy Russo, of all people.

But oh, if Anthony were a violent man, he would have plotted the man’s murder five times over by now.

Guy has been gone for seventy-two hours. Anthony knows exactly where he is—he has tracked down Miss Zenik and given her his contact information, in case she needs it—and is keeping an eye on him. He knows he cannot drag Guy home; Anthony can only wait until Guy gives up trying to escape the quiet horror of what they have learned and comes back of his own volition. Then, and only then, can Anthony start to pick up the pieces.

In the meantime, Anthony can only sit with his worry, and his fear, and his fury.

He isn’t proud of the fact that that fury finally drives him to Billy’s door. But here, seventy-two hours into Guy’s binge, is where he stands. He knocks on the door. When Billy answers, Anthony doesn’t bother with pleasantries.

"Guy has run off," he says, allowing Billy to interpret that as he likes.

Now that two weeks of madness are behind him, now that Anthony is sleeping again and can actually think, his mind has returned again and again to a particular moment in a particular conversation with Lieutenant William Russo.

You were a spy for the Russians. You sold state secrets. I kill people with precision and gather intelligence. Guess we've done our alma maters proud.

At the time, the revelation had startled Anthony out of his skin, but he had been far to wreaked by thoughts of Julian—and nothing but Julian—to examine too closely what knowledge lay behind Russo’s words. But now, he turns them over and over in his head.

No spy wants to be known—not ever. Nevermind that Billy comes from decades into his future, if he knows something about Anthony’s Blunt’s involvement with the NKVD, then that means the world knows. And if the world knows…that spells a very dangerous future.

It spells a dangerous future for all of them. We’re like skittles. If one goes, we all go.

Anthony needs to know. For his sake, for Guy’s sake, for all their sakes.

He finds Billy’s phone number on Guy’s phone and texts him. We need to talk. He names a quiet, nondescript bar and notes a time.

On the appointed date he is there, waiting.

Anthony’s dreams keep getting worse.

He does his best to fill his days and nights with distractions. Anthony works as much as he can, ready with the excuse that someone has to keep an eye on the paintings department when everyone else is swept up in this new fashion for horror and surrealist film brought on by the announcement of Le Fin Absolue du Monde. He spends time with Gabriel, who seems to have appeared in just the moment Anthony needed him most (how appropriate, he thinks, because Anthony Blunt will always be a vicar’s son underneath it all) and that is certainly making him more attached to the boy that he might have been otherwise. He drinks a little more than he should.

Still, night after night, he awakes abruptly in the darkness of his bedroom with the nausea-inducing smell of explosives and charred flesh in his nostrils.

Anthony can no longer pretend that it’s anything other than Julian that he is thinking of when these visions come to him. He sees the poet’s face sometimes, his eyes wide and wet with disappointment and confusion. Sometimes, in the middle of the day, Anthony will turn a corner and see a young man up ahead with a familiar mop of curly hair, but he always disappears before Anthony can catch him. Once or twice he has even wondered if Julian could be in Darrow, and has hated himself for the mix of hope and dread that follows that dangerous thought.

But most of all, Anthony dreams of explosions and death. One death, in particular, that he could have done more to prevent.

Now it’s nearing two in the morning, and Anthony is sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of gin in front of him. He has taken Julian’s photograph out of the book where he has been keeping it, giving into the ridiculous impulse that has itched at him for weeks now. Now he stares at the wall, but he runs his thumb lightly along the image’s torn edge.

He’s a little drunk, and more than a little weary, and he dreads what he will see if he closes his eyes.

Appropriately, Anthony did end up needing a favor from decorative arts.

There was a painting in one of the museum’s period rooms—a dreadful 19th century portrait of the museum’s founder—that a family member wanted to borrow. God knows why, as it was hideous and did nothing to make one think the Victorian tycoon was anything other than a decrepit, wealthy goon, but Anthony is glad to see it leave the museum, if only temporarily.

Anthony could have called Marcus to ask about the loan. He could have, God forbid, emailed. Instead, he walked to the decorative arts department two floors up and knocked on the collections manager’s door. If they found out, Guy and Julie would certainly point to this as proof that Anthony had taken their advice to heart, regardless of what Anthony said to the contrary.

In the course of the conversation that followed, Anthony discovered that the young man wasn’t timid in everything he did, after all.

Quelle surprise.

Anthony isn’t about to tell anyone, of course. If he did, he would never hear the end of it. And when he returns to the flat he now shares with Guy, nothing about his appearance or his demeanor indicates that he spent his lunch break having sex in his colleague's office.

In the time Anthony has been at work, four now-empty tumblers have collected on the side table next to the sofa. Anthony sighs and goes to pick them up. Why did he ever invite Guy to move in here?

Oh, yes. He never actually did, did he?