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Title: The Ecology of Love
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Once a realisation has been reached, there is nothing to do save act on it.
Disclaimer: It should be obvious, but I own nothing, save sundry plant life.
For the first few days after returning from that ghastly vision of the future, Arthur had immersed himself in the unconscious flow of tides, needing to become part of his world once more. The incredible filth and corruption of Earth under Darkseid's rule, the raw rape of his planet and his seas, the pitiable mutation it had engendered in his people from the sheer demands of survival, touched a core of hatred and revulsion inside him that was shocking in its intensity. In that terrible world, he had seen the ultimate expression of the irrelevance of life, and the wounds the sight had ripped into his soul were still bleeding.
But drifting some fathoms down, feeling the welcoming hum of subaqueous sound and the unambiguous thoughts of the sealife, he recognised that it was more than that. There had been a moment in that world where he had seen evidence of a horror that superseded even the plight of his world. In Desaad's twisted lair, listening to the wry, embittered words of a Batman driven past the edge, he had known pain beyond his comprehension, for he had never thought to expect its source. But they had held up the stained remains of J'onn's harness, and those words echoed in his ears and drowned the comforting swell of the ocean.
" ... put him in a particle accelerator ... smashed his atoms one by one ... the energy lit Vegas for a year ..."
And he could feel it. He could feel, even now, the soundless reverberation of a telepathic scream that could not end, an agony drawn out beyond all humane understanding. He could feel the flows of electricity, the energy flooding through that accursed city, as he felt the ebb of tides around him, and in his mind every pulse of energy cried out with the anguish of J'onn's trapped and tormented mind. He thought of the quiet, self-contained friend he knew, the man he had seen standing right there on their return, and the knowledge of the fate that would have taken him had they not been in time was a horror too much to be borne.
It had taken days in the companionable solitude of the accepting ocean for him to reconcile that impenetrable shock of horror with the emotion that had engendered it, and once he had, he had almost recoiled from it in disbelief. But the sea does not allow for self-deception, and the Lord of the Seas must never allow it in himself. Arthur knew that he had to face the feeling that gingerly made itself known to him, a deep and powerful current rising slowly from the depths of his subconscious.
Because he loved J'onn. And there seemed little he could do about it, save ignore it, and how could he, when he had seen in such wrenching detail how easily his Martian friend could be lost to him? No. Something must be done.
***
"J'onn? Could I speak with you a moment?"
The Martian turned to face him, his calm features registering some small surprise, but largely welcome. Arthur smiled internally. Now that he knew what it was he felt, it was so much easier to understand why he felt it. The calm, accepting presence of his friend was a balm beyond words to express in the hectic surface world, the simple welcome in scarlet eyes an eternal pleasure.
"Of course, Arthur." J'onn came to him, as easily as a dolphin, trustingly, and followed readily when the Sea King gestured down towards one of Watchtower's observation decks. Arthur could feel his friend's curiousity and vague concern as a warm touch on the edges of his mind, the feel of the Martian's mind dry and somehow fluid, thoughts flowing as sands stirred by the silken fingers of wind, even as Arthur's own moved with the slow power of currents or the darting arcs of spray. The contrast suddenly delighted him, how natural it was, how real.
When they entered the room he had prepared, Arthur remained silent. Words would not suit, here. For Arthur, they had always been brittle things, more readily used as weapon and defense than true communication, and the silence of his companion was well-remarked. But the silence was warm and enfolding, and there were other ways to speak. Arthur, a creature of the seas, was a servant of nature, and the gift he offered served as explanation and offering both.
J'onn stared. Sitting on a small table before the great windows, where they could catch the sun as Watchtower's orbit brought them around, were two vessels. In one, a cactus, thick and green and hardy, often difficult to approach, a son of the dry desert. This species was renowed for the rare blooming of flowers of incredible vibrancy and delicacy, beauty hidden until coaxed to reveal itself. And in the other, a glass bottle filled with translucent saltwater, was a seaweed, tenaciously anchoring itself to a rock at the bottom of the jar, a pale resilient warrior that bloomed into a great tree when the tides touched it just right.
When J'onn turned to him in confusion, he smiled tentatively, and allowed what he felt to unfurl in his mind as if the uncertain tides might just touch it as they were meant to. For a long and fearful moment, his friend only stood there, uncertain, but Arthur did not withdraw.
And then, silently, delicately, a bloom emerged from the sands of the Martian desert, and warm sand-filled winds caressed the waves, and J'onn moved to him, embraced him, a silent acceptance and response that filled all the wounds in Arthur's soul. In the quiet, another rhythm took over, as natural as the first, and Arthur couldn't remember who kissed who first, only that it had felt right. It had felt like coming home, like dropping back into the flow of life, like living again. It had felt complete.
Because he loved J'onn. And J'onn loved him back.
(AN: that cactus and that seaweed do, in fact, sit together in companiable silence on my kitchen windowsill. The dichotomy inherant in that placement has always tickled my fancy.
And Jen? I do hope this unworthy offering manages to repay, at least in part, the joy your fic gave me.)
