Archive of Our Own

He was so sweet and polite towards you, making sure you were alright and always being there when you needed somebody to talk to. It wasn’t long before you considered him a good friend, telling off anyone when they made fun of him, while he in turn would chastise Julian whenever he made an inappropriate comment towards you, Fanny when she scolded you for supposedly unladylike behaviour.

Today you were doing what you often did, sitting in the library with Thomas, watching something on your phone. You had been lucky enough to die holding your phone, which had seemed to ascend to ghosthood alongside you.

Amazingly it still worked, and so it gave you and your fellow ghosts a connection to the world of the living without having to bother Alison constantly. Thomas could use it to write his poems so he didn’t have to always remember them off the top of his head, and there was even a couple of weeks where you’d accidentally gotten Kitty and Pat addicted to Pokemon Go. Of course, you were careful to ensure that Julian was never allowed to use the phone without supervision because you didn’t need to be mentally scarred by his Google searches again.

But it was especially nice to be able to share things with Thomas. You could show him all of your favourite music, films, and television shows from when you were alive. Who knew that your Netflix subscription would continue working after your death? He’d even been able to find some new interests of his own – the week after he discovered the music of Taylor Swift was certainly an emotional time for him – and you could update him on anything he wanted to know about how the world had changed since he was alive.

The episode of the current show you’d been binging had ended, and you sighed, resting your head on Thomas’ shoulder. He tried not to freeze up. You had always been very physically affectionate, and he should have been used to it by now, but he never failed to end up incredibly flustered. Of course Thomas didn’t dislike the contact, that couldn’t be further from the truth, honestly it was the thing he looked forward to the most when he woke up every morning, and the last thought on his mind as he fell asleep every night.

He had come to love you dearly since the two of you had met, and strangely it had taken him a long time to realise it. When you had died, he’d still been pining over Alison, but gradually all of his thoughts started to become about you. How he longed to tell you his feelings, but what if you did not feel the same way? Would suddenly revealing romantic feelings hurt your friendship? In any case, he wished to confess his feelings to you through his poetry, and he’d been working on a particular poem for a while now. Perhaps he would eventually work up the courage to read it for you.

“Are you alright, Y/N?” Thomas asks, when the shock of you being so close to him had worn off, and he was finally able to speak again. You open your eyes and gaze up at him from where your head is resting, and he is nearly struck speechless again by your beauty,

“Hmm? Yeah, I’m fine. Just a bit tired. You don’t mind, do you? You’re actually really comfortable.” You sigh contentedly, and Thomas had to stop himself from launching into some dramatic speech about how there is no place that he’d rather you’d be than by his side.

“I am always glad to be of help to you, but surely you would be more comfortable on your bed?” he suggests, despite the fact that he’d love for you to stay there forever. “And perhaps you would allow me to borrow the telephone, I have a few ideas for a poem I have been working on and I would very much like to make a note of them before I forget.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” you admit, waiting a few more seconds before you stand up, yawning and stretching for a moment before placing the phone in Thomas’ hand. “Just make sure to bring it back, okay? We don’t want Julian getting his hands on it again.”

“Indeed.”

You smile sleepily at Thomas, giving him a little wave before turning to leave the library. He simply sits there for a moment, thinking about you resting against him before getting to work on his poem. You certainly had a way of inspiring him without even realising it.

*

You only intended to take a little nap, but you ended up sleeping for a few hours, as it was dark outside already when you opened your eyes. Thomas had left your phone on your bedside table like he said he would, and you reached out to pick it up and check the time.

It’s nearly seven pm. It would probably be best for you to get up now, otherwise you were going to be awake all night and end up exhausted tomorrow. Though, if it gives you an excuse to rest your head against Thomas again, perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad? Maybe if you rested your head in his lap next time he’d finally get the hint that you were in love with him.

You unlock the phone to check something, and notice that Thomas had left the notes app open again. Sure, it didn’t really matter since the phone could never run out of charge, you suppose, but you still prefer to close apps when you are no longer using them. Probably just a habit from when you were alive.

As you’re about to shut the app down, something catches your eye in the note that Thomas had left open. It was a poem, seemingly a work in progress, but there at the very top was your name. You knew it was wrong, Thomas’ work should be his own business unless he decided to share it with you, but you couldn’t stop yourself. You felt a little bit giddy, he’d written a poem about you!

Thomas’ words were the most beautiful, romantic things you had ever read in your life, or death. A lot of the poems that he’d shown you had been a little bit silly – you’d still found them adorable though – but this was truly a work of art. As he writes about how he longs to tell you how he feels for you but cannot find the courage, tears start welling up in your eyes. He’s worried that you don’t love him back and that his feelings will scare you off. All you want to do is run out and find him so you can confess that you love him too, but then he’d know that you’d been reading his private things and he might get upset.

Nevertheless, you end up reading the poem a few more times, still just as emotionally affected as the first time. You’re so distracted that you don’t even notice someone walk into the room, tears streaming down your face as you stare at your phone.

“Oh my, Y/N, is something the matter?” Thomas asks, concerned, and you’re so startled that the phone slips from your hands. You scramble to try and catch it but fail, and it ends up falling on the ground. “Allow me to apologise, I did not mean to frighten you so.”

Ever the gentleman, Thomas bends down and picks up the phone for you, but you notice his expression change as he catches a glimpse of what you had been reading.

“This is…”

You look up at him with wide eyes, frightened that he’d be angry at you, but find that his expression carries much the same emotion as your own.

“Please excuse me, I… I must go.” Thomas turns and rushes out of the room before you even have a moment to react. As quickly as you can you follow him into the hallway, but by the time you get there he’s already gone.

“Shit…” you mumble to yourself, wondering where he could have run off to. Why couldn’t you have just shut off the phone and not looked at the poem? Sure, you wouldn’t know the truth of Thomas’ feelings for you, but he also wouldn’t be so upset.

You set off to look for him, checking all of his usual spots – the library, his bedroom, the attic – though all of them were empty. You hear the voices of the other ghosts, asking you what’s wrong, but you brush them aside. You’d apologise to them later, you needed to apologise to Thomas first.

You wracked your brain for a few minutes trying to think of where else he might be, until you finally thought of something. In the poem he had spoken of the moment he first met you, just after your death, while he was on a walk by the lake…

Well, it was worth a try, wasn’t it? It’s not like he could have left the grounds, so there was only a limited amount of places he could be.

Surely enough, you went out to the lake, and saw Thomas sitting there in the grass, gazing out towards the water. His knees were drawn up against his chest, his head resting in his hands. Your phone was sitting on the ground beside him.

“Hey, Thomas,” you say quietly, not wanting to startle him, as you sit down next to him. “It took me a bit to find you, you weren’t in any of the usual places…”

“I required some time to think,” he tells you, still looking out at the lake and not at you. It’s hard to tell, with how dark it is outside, but you think that he might have been crying. Poor thing, you really hadn’t meant to upset him.

“You know, you ran off before I got to tell you what I thought about your poem.” That certainly gets his attention, and he looks over to you, you can see the fear in his eyes.

“You needn’t say anything. I know that it was foolish, amateurish work, unfit to be read by anyone’s eyes, especially yours.” Thomas buries his head in his hands again, clearly very broken up by this whole situation. “I had so much more that I needed to say, to fully convey the depth of my feelings for you, but I–”

“Thomas, you said everything that you needed to say.” You move closer to him, placing your hand on his shoulder. Thomas’ hands come away from his face, and his gaze is transfixed by your own hand. “I’ve never read anything so sweet and romantic before, and it was all for me. I kept reading it over and over, I had no idea you felt that way about me. The way I feel about you.”

Thomas squeaks, unable to form any words at this point. God, he’s so adorable.

“Will you promise to read it to me sometime? I think I would like it a thousand times more if you did.”

“I… I only wish that I had known that you felt that way, Y/N…” He finally looks you in the eye, his brows furrowed in a way that makes it seem like he might start crying again. “I am afraid it is too late. I disposed of the poem.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I know how to get it back.” You pick up your phone, press the screen a few times, and then hold it up towards Thomas. The poem he had spent so long working on only to delete on an emotional whim was back as if he had never lost it.

“Amazing,” Thomas says, looking at you in awe, like you had performed some kind of magic. You grin at him, and he can’t help but smile back. He loves you so much that at this moment, he cannot sort through all of the emotions rushing through him to put them into words. Maybe it were best to stay silent for now, so he didn't say anything foolish.

As you had earlier that day, you rest your head on Thomas’ shoulder, and to his surprise, he feels even happier than when you had done the same thing before. Knowing that you love him, and wish to be close to him as well.

“Hey Thomas? You know… it’s a bit cold out here. Maybe I’d warm up if you put your arm around me?” You suggest, after you’d spent a few moments just enjoying each other's company in comfortable silence.

Thomas tilts his head to the side so it’s resting on top of your own, and you giggle softly. “We’re ghosts, Y/N, we cannot feel the cold.”

“I know that. I’m just trying to sneakily hint that I want you to put your arm around me.” And of course, Thomas is more than happy to do so. “I love you, Thomas.”

Thomas makes that squeaking noise again, so surprised to actually hear the words coming from your mouth, even if he already knows how you feel. “I… I love you too, my dear.”

The two of you end up staying there until you’re too tired to get up and return inside, and fall asleep in each other's arms, curled up together on the grass. When the others come searching for you the next morning, they smile at the sight of you, just looking so happy and content there.

“You owe me ten,” Robin says with a smirk, elbowing an irritated Julian in the ribs.