Work Text:
THE RING
By: Natasha Barry
DARK SHADOWS Episode Arc 1970-1971, posted 2006, edited 2022, Quentin/Gerard
Part One: FEALTY
Quentin Collins was the handsomest man he had yet seen; also the greatest friend he had ever known. They shared an interest in roaming the earth, in the supernatural, in women. Yet their other common interest was select unto them, one in which gentlemen spoke of in hushed tones. Something they themselves knew, and even they had yet to raise the topic between them, since Quentin's return from a presumed watery grave.
He and Quentin had gone to sea together, traveling around the world with ship and crew, targeting destinations both sullen and enticing. It was while on the voyage Quentin confessed his marital woes, and his reason for seeking respite because of his love for a woman other than his wife. A love his wife knew of, yet divorce was out of the question.
There followed a few drinks, and Quentin sitting atop his bunk, then Gerard held him, and even today Gerard was uncertain who moved first. But it was about Quentin, it always was.
Quentin always got what he wanted, except Joanna, his lost love. Now he had Gerard, but Gerard was not quibbling. He had Quentin, the one everyone wanted, but who paid attention to him, who did not look to him as if fascinated only until a Quentin of his own came along.
He had sought to claim Quentin once and for all, by claiming the wealth – and even the family and stature – of Quentin Collins, until the deceased appeared in the doorway. Just as quickly, Gerard vacated his claim upon it all, only hanging onto that slender thread – the companionship of Quentin. If Samantha – Quentin's near-widow - thought he would fight for her, or do anything against Quentin to claim her, she was mistaken. Her love for him was expedient, but now merely regrettable.
Thereafter she tried to bar Gerard from Collinwood, the family home, ban even the male bonding between he and her husband, but neither he nor Quentin paid her any mind. They were together again, firm friends as always, quick to find security in each other's presence, confiding in each other as always.
If others wondered why he remained in Collinsport, the answer was stark as he, Gerard Stiles, would remain in Collinsport as long as Quentin did.
"Gerard." There was that soft summons.
Gerard turned to him, to face the tall comely figure of waved brown hair and blue eyes. They were not dissimilar in appearance, Gerard realized, though his own features were perhaps too sharp, too striking, to be called handsome.
"Heavy thoughts." Quentin held out a glass for them to share a drink.
Taking it, Gerard noted the prominent adornment on the hand, an item so unusual it always raised questions. It was the ring Quentin Collins wore on his third finger, left hand, the ring Gerard bought for him, because Quentin wanted it and therefore Gerard wanted it for him.
He had already confessed to Quentin, his wooing of Samantha had been a ploy to gain Quentin's position and influence, his urge to be as Quentin. Quentin had not minded, but cautioned Gerard of Samantha's rage.
The marriage had withered so swiftly upon Quentin's return, yet he and Quentin were still friends. Could a return to a more than fraternal embrace be far behind?
Gerard told him, "I was just thinking what brought us here."
"And where do we go?"
Quentin offered a reminiscent smile that Gerard returned. Everything would be all right. Again. The pact of THE RING held true.
Part Two: SOLACE
I held him in my arms as he lay dying. But no chance of a kiss, as the witnesses heard his apology, the horrors of his own crimes against me loosened in his voice. And I? I'd barely had a chance to hate him, to scorn him for what he'd done, before learning he wasn't at fault. He'd been taken control of, his body used by an entity for ignoble purpose, his – my love's – fealty to me everlasting; even unto death. But no words of love could pass my lips, for the witnesses before us. There was only that wish my eyes conveyed the understanding he sought from me.
It had all been taken from me: Samantha, Joanna, for a time, Daphne. And Gerard.
Gerard and I – and Tad, my son – had been everlasting together. Onto the high seas the world and its stars our true domain.
Upon the breakdown of my marriage, my wife, Samantha, remaining at Collinwood while I brooded and grieved over my Joanna, my lost one. Only to find Joanna's face lost to me as Gerard's most handsome, nay, beautiful, features settled into my eyes as if it were their home. And he swore everything to me, and I to him, sealing our bond with a ring, even swearing off women, but only in our less lucid moments, wine or whisky gone to our heads.
When lost at sea, I thought never to see him again, the storm carried him far away, or was it me from him? But he was at Collinwood, when I returned, and in a way I would never have envisioned: married to my own wife. Of course, the marriage could not stand, but Samantha's choice between the two of us was Gerard. And I could not hate him, especially as he came to me pledging his fealty once again, admitting it had been his desire for me, that led him to try and become me. My station, my wealth, my family; it was all for me, for in this way – which to the outsider could never be understood – he could have me again. He could bed my wife, and become me through her, and yet through her be himself with knowledge of me. It was tangled; yet immediately I understood his motives. So he broke with Samantha and she pledged to part us. Of course, it could not happen. Now he and I found each other again, nothing would part us. Not even my growing attachment to Daphne, whom I learned to be Joanna's sister, and pledged to destroy me in her own way, for thinking I had caused the death of dear Joanna, my one truly lost love.
The tides of the wind brought women to you and took them from you, but Gerard was always there, and staying in Collinsport, to be near me. Forever, as we'd once said, in our exchange of vows.
Coupling in secret, in silence, so no one would hear, just as on our days at sea, though seamen frequent each other's bunks, for a quick embrace or tender interlude, we – the two ‘handsome ones’ as we were called – loathed the scrutiny. It was enough the men understood who we were, and what we were, to each other, our intimacy plain with each exchanged smile or word. We shan't make a spectacle of ourselves, we said, holding our feelings for each other in such reverence sometimes we thought we would die of it. Men were friends and comrades, but we were so much more than that. And we rediscovered it here, or never lost it, to be frank. But now our pretense at secrecy had to be true. No one must know, for we would be outcast, or perhaps killed in our beds. At the least, my son would be torn from me by his vengeful mother, the woman I now knew to have killed my Joanna.
But as my attraction to Daphne grew, perhaps because of the sister in her I now saw, my distance from Gerard grew as well. We saw each other, spoke frequently, but coupled not. Too many people, I gave as an excuse for his absence, even Gerard's presumed resentment of the continued women in our lives. It was my life: Samantha, Daphne, the shadow of Joanna. My life so complex, I had no time to worry on Gerard, except when people came to me with tales, spinning lies, or misunderstandings or half-truths turning my Gerard, my one constant love, into an evil foe who'd stolen the fealty and affections of my father and my love, Daphne, who pledged herself to him.
I never believed any of it, defended him until my near death, only to find it was all true: all except one thing; it was still not Gerard who'd stolen my inheritance from me, or made me the suspect in murder and the practice of witchcraft, and therefore responsible for my near death, the execution that would have been Judah Zachary's revenge... Not my Gerard who'd practiced witchcraft to turn the heavens against me. It was the spirit of Judah Zachary who'd controlled him, and influenced events. My Gerard was blameless, so ashamed, so broken-hearted and destroyed at having this calamity against me attributed to him that it was all that consumed him upon his death. He bore no fault for the spirit which absconded with his body and used its majesty for its own ends. No fault for any of the actions committed against me therein. For my Gerard would have killed himself before pulling a hair from my head. And I knew this truth in the ways that others never would. To them he'd been a friend turned betrayer, but for me he remained my champion, my lover, that one the word "forever" belonged with.
There was THE RING to prove it.
THE END