Something to Live For (Honorverse AU, T, M/M)

[extrapenguin]

Title: Something to Live For
Pairing: Thomas Theisman / Denis LePic
Rating: T
Wordcount: 2100, 2098 or 2161 (LibreOffice, AO3, gedit respectively)
Synopsis: Theisman's coup has been uncovered before it could be executed. Denis LePic ruminates in a cell.

Denis wondered when he'd be executed.

 

They'd been close, mere weeks from a successful coup. Then, poof, StateSec troopers arresting them. Arresting everyone involved, probably. There'd been a bit too many of them to be completely disappeared, so show trials were probably going on at this very moment. Theisman would be last, letting Public Information build up from small fish to major traitor. Unless he'd simply been shot behind a shed somewhere. Denis hoped not.

 

They hadn't beat him up at all, so obviously they were using someone else as their information source. They gave him enough food, so they might be staging a show trial. (It always paid off to show how they were being generous even to enemies of the People.) If they were staging a show trial, they might try him and Theisman simultaneously. He'd like to speak to Theisman again.

 

The cell Denis was in was just under four meters tall, and three meters deep by two meters wide. The walls and ceiling were the dull gray of unpainted metal coated with grime, while the floor was covered with gray rubber matting. One of the back corners had a toilet and a sink. Someone brought him food every now and then.

It was impossible to track days. The meals were served at irregular intervals, and all of them were from StateSec Academy cafeteria's lunch menu. By his sleeping periods, Denis had been in here for a week. It felt like longer.

A Citizen Lieutenant brought him food. Lasagna, his least favorite lunch. Perhaps they'd looked up his culinary hatreds and were feeding them to him as a curiously subtle form of torture?

 

There were no windows in his cell. Denis had wished to be outside. Now, outside was feeling like a vanished dream. The cell was reality, everything else was a product of his mind.

Except Tom Theisman. Tom had to be real. Tom was the catalyst from thoughts to actions, the reason Denis was here.

For Tom, Denis would do it all over again.

 

Lasagna. More cheese than last time, though.

Denis hated cheese. It stuck together and stretched and would not obey where likable foodstuffs did. Also, all but the most exclusively expensive varieties (and even some of them) were horribly greasy and smelled terrible.

The cafeteria used very cheap cheese.

 

Denis dreamed up memories of Outside. How had he come here?

The path had started long before Tom and he had discovered McQueen's leftover network. On Enki, Tom had taken him aside and asked Denis to join him in his cause. Tom's path to treason could be traced to Cordelia Ransom.

Denis' had begun much, much earlier. He remembered being assigned as People's Commissioner to a Citizen Commodore Theisman. Within a month, he'd fallen in love. Somewhere along the line, Tom had fallen in love with him.

The ultimate forbidden love in the People's Republic. Perhaps later someone would write another Romeo and Juliet from their story.

 

His mother had once told him that finding something to die for was easy, it was finding something to live for that was hard. His father had ranted on about honor and glory and how the military was the only way to advance under the Legislaturalists, so why are you still going to study law? Why won't you listen, boy?

His mother had asked him to stay on Tarrin. An idyllic world in the middle of nowhere important, where the planets thinned out to form the hazy frontier of humankind. Not very many Legislaturalists there; he might even have been able to get a job as a low-level lawyer.

He'd told his mother that he was in it for the chance of reform, not obscenely large payslips. To her credit, she'd understood.

 

Silence. As always. Denis breathed heavily to break it. Occasionally he'd catch the echoing murmurs of a faraway conversation.

He screamed. Its echoes made him feel better.

 

The cell had smelled of ozone and new air-car. Now it smelled of ozone, new air-car and Denis LePic. Denis wished he could remember what Tom smelled like.

Had he ever known that? He didn't think they'd ever been that close physically. Under the watchful eye of the Capital and Denis' cameras, all of their intimacy had been emotional. Even if they'd both desired the other. (Once, Denis had sent out I love you to Tom over the ship's message system. Tom had replied I know and smiled in the general direction of a camera. Denis had erased the messages from the ship's log, feeling ridiculously happy.)

 

Denis paced in an attempt to stave off insanity. Wasn't solitary confinement considered a form of torture?

 

Thomas Theisman was everything Denis admired: a loyal man of integrity and honor, and competent to boot. Personality-wise, he was quiet except with those he trusted. He refused to suck up to the execution-loving Committee of Public Security, even if their economic policies were in line with his. If he also happened to be exactly the right height that he could tuck his head under Denis' chin while they hugged, well, Denis wasn't going to complain.

The next time he went to sleep, Denis dreamed that Tom was there next to him. He woke up hugging his pillow.

 

Eventually, Denis arrived at the point where he was searching for anything to kill himself with. He didn't find anything, which left only starvation as an option. Would they force-feed him if he didn't touch the hideous lasagna?

Two untouched meals later, Denis came to the conclusion that they wouldn't.

 

It's easy to find something to die for. Finding something worth living for is much harder.

Tom may or may not be dead. If he were alive, Denis would certainly want to stay alive for the off chance of meeting him again. If he were dead...

If Tom was dead, their coup would be dead beyond saving. Their ideals gone, to be resurrected by another group of idealists later.

But who would remember Thomas Theisman?

Denis would. He devoured the next meal provided to him.

 

Time went by. Denis did his best to exercise in the limited space to keep his head clear. The building vibrated minutely.

 

Footsteps. Two pairs. Food, perhaps? Denis realized he was hungry. Had they missed a meal?

They paused in front of his cell door. Some electronic beeping sounds followed – someone was overriding the palm-print lock?

The door opened, revealing an armed woman in a black uniform. A black beret was perched on top of her dark brown hair. The other person was a Marine in combat gear.

“Denis LePic?” the woman said. Her insignia revealed her as a Lieutenant.

Denis tried to speak, but his voice refused to work. He settled for nodding.

The Lieutenant nodded back absentmindedly. “I'm Lieutenant Alyssa Patre. Follow me. If you try anything stupid, Private Soi there will blow your head off.” She turned on her heels and walked away slowly. Denis had to scramble a bit to follow. The marine took position behind him.

 

Five flights of stairs later Denis nearly collapsed. Lieutenant Patre and the marine looked at him desperately trying to catch his breath. Denis blamed the extended period in captivity for his breathlessness.

 

Countless storeys up, Denis still hadn't caught a glimpse out a window. The Lieutenant finally led them out of the stairwell into a corridor with a window at the far end. Suddenly, the Lieutenant stopped and turned to face him.

“What exactly was your role in the attempted coup?” she asked.

“Tom asked me to participate. I did. I was his first co-conspirator. Mostly I tried to deflect Saint-Just's attention. I guess I failed”, he replied, his voice hoarse from disuse. Lieutenant Patre turned and led them wordlessly to a room.

The room was much larger than Denis' cell, with cream-colored walls and furniture made of faux mahogany upholstered with wine-colored velvet. There was a large, round table in the center of the room. A window on the far wall, flanked by marines, revealed their location as being around the tenth floor.

A Manticoran Admiral was sitting on one side of the table. Facing him was Thomas Theisman. The Manticoran was waving a piece of paper and a pen at Tom in frustration, while Tom was speaking.

“–so honestly, Admiral White Haven, I cannot sign that piece of paper.”

“You're the senior surviving government official!”

“I spent who knows how long being imprisoned and interrogated!”

“You never got fired!”

They would have continued, except for Lieutenant Patre clearing her throat. Both Admirals turned, argument momentarily forgotten. Tom's face turned into a portrait of delighted shock upon seeing Denis. Denis had to suppress the urge to throw himself at Tom.

Admiral White Haven smiled. “Ah, Mr. LePic. I do believe you have some training in constitutional law?”

Denis nodded curtly.

“Who, then, would be authorized to sign this unconditional surrender of Havenite forces?” White Haven waved his prop, then steepled his fingers and gazed at Denis.

Denis unconsciously clasped his hands behind his back and stood with his legs a bit further apart. “Well, Admiral, please keep in mind that I went to law school when the Legislaturalists were in power, and the Committee of Public Security has certainly changed things.” Denis looked at the ceiling in thought and drew in a breath. “Now, since you're asking Citizen Admiral Theisman to sign, I take that Saint-Just is dead?”

White Haven nodded. “He didn't even have any convenient civilian underlings to ask.”

“Well, since you have run out of high-level civilians, and the civilians at the next level down have no order of precedence whatsoever, you'll have to turn to either the Chief of Naval Operations or the Chief of State Security.”

“The Chief of State Security and his exec both are their pulsers. We had to do a DNA analysis to confirm their identities. And, since Saint-Just didn't name anyone else as CNO or head of Capital Fleet after you, that means you are the only living person with the authority to sign this”, White Haven told Tom, giving the paper a flourish.

Tom sighed. “I don't want to do this, you understand”, he said, then signed the paper. He rose from his chair, and one of the marines peeled from the window to follow Tom. Tom caught Denis' hand as he was going past, and Denis followed him, trailed by the marine from the window.

 

Tom didn't let go of Denis' hand until they were in a set of rooms at the other end of the corridor. The marine was outside the door.

“They promised me there wouldn't be any cameras in the bathroom or bedroom.” Tom walked sideways to another room, making sure Denis followed him. The room had a bed. “I don't care if they were lying.”

Denis closed the door behind them, and Tom pulled him down into a kiss.

 

Afterwards, they were lying on the bed in a tangle of limbs. Tom inched closer to Denis.

“These aren't exactly the circumstances in which I imagined this to happen”, Tom murmured into Denis' shoulder.

“Still, we did it. – I enjoyed it.”

Tom made a pleased sound. Denis started stroking his hair, resulting in more pleased sounds. They exchanged murmured declarations of love.

As the sun began to set, they sat up and gazed out the window. The room had a moderately spectacular view along a road that led to Voyageur National Park, one of the few places where native Havenite flora had been preserved as-is.

“I thought you were dead”, Tom said, arm around Denis' waist.

“I considered starving myself to death. Then I decided to live, if only so someone would remember you.”

Tom hugged Denis tighter.

“What did they do to you, Tom?” Denis asked quietly, taking in Tom's scent.

“Sensory deprivation. Interrogations involving beatings. Threatening to saw off limbs, rape me, kill me. Starvation. When the Manticorans came, they gave me these rooms. Admiral White Haven has been trying to browbeat me into signing for two days. Then you turned up, and I wanted nothing more than to bring you here.” Tom leaned his head against Denis. “I guess we could retire now.”

“I doubt Manticore wants to expand to govern all of the People's Republic, economic hellhole that it is. Which means we'll have to form a government, and you can continue being Chief of Naval Operations until someone actually fires you. The Navy will need something of a clean-up.”

“I don't want to have to think about that now”, Tom said, pulling Denis back down. They didn't.