Work Text:
It was Wednesday, a piece of information I only knew because my phone told me, a piece of information I could hold on to for a split second before forgetting. After all, what did it matter what day it was? It didn't. Nothing mattered anymore. Not since the 28th of July, which was a Thursday. That was the day the world stopped for me.
I glanced at my phone again, why had I taken it anyway? Oh, right. Lafayette had called and it had taken me too long to get out of bed when it rang. My cell phone was on the nightstand, really it shouldn’t have been that exhausting. So I should call them back, right? That's what I should do. It was simple, but nothing was simple at the moment. Lafayette answered after the second ring.
"Thomas? I'm glad you called back," the French accent in their voice was heightened, it sounded like they hadn't slept well in a long time. Of course, they hadn't. It was hard for them too, their boyfriend had lost his brother, one of their best friends had lost his boyfriend and James had been their friend too, they had lost him as well. July 28th. Just like that. It was hard for everyone, even Alexander Hamilton was grieving, James had once been his friend, but that was a long time ago.
"What's wrong?" I asked, my voice hoarse. I hadn't spoken in a long time. Who would I talk to? There was no one here. Lafayette seemed to be searching for the right words, perhaps because they couldn't find the right English words, perhaps because they couldn't find the right words to deal with me. In the past, I would have offered to talk to them in French, but today I didn't know if I even knew French.
"Thomas, listen, I know I shouldn't be doing this on the phone, but it's about the service. There's a fixed date now and..." I hung up.
It was the wrong words. The funeral, right. It had all been insanely complicated and stressful. James had been buried, but there had been no funeral. He was supposed to be buried in Virginia, where his whole family lived, where he belonged, but he died in a hospital in New York, and the funeral was draining and exhausting because of that, and it was just the immediate family, but James' family was big and everybody deserved to say goodbye to him, so his family planned a bigger funeral. But I didn't want a memorial service, I didn't want to mourn and I didn't want him dead. And that stupid service made it all more real.
The funeral was hard enough. To be honest, I don't even know how I managed to get to Virginia and back when all I wanted to do was sit in our apartment and wait for him to come home. And that was so stupid of me because he was never coming home again. The cell phone I was still holding in my hand vibrated. It was a message from Laf: "Next week Tuesday. I'll come later, okay? I'll bring you some food." I didn't answer because they were coming anyway. They were worried about me. Of course they were, they all were. Even Hamilton. But Lafayette was probably the most worried. I was probably the biggest asshole because I hardly appreciated it, even though I did. I just couldn't show it. They had even offered to let me stay with them and Herc for a while so I wouldn't be alone. I refused because that was exactly what I wanted. I wanted to be alone, I didn't want to be in a room with other people who also missed him, because that made his death so much more real. Maybe that's why I refused the stupid funeral service.
I looked around the bedroom everything was the same as before his death, both sides of the big bed were messy because every night I fell asleep on my side and woke up in the morning sweating on James' side. Even the book he wanted to read next was still on his nightstand. I hadn't put it away when he left for the hospital, naively believing he'd be back in two weeks at the latest. But he didn't. He would never do it again.
Anger came over me more and more lately, and in a way that was a good thing, because when I was angry, it was proof to myself that I felt something besides the sadness that numbed my body. It spread through me like a poison and I closed my eyes. James was not coming back. Never, ever again. Keeping his things was not considerate, it was painful and only reminded me that he was missing. I didn't know exactly when I started moving, I didn't realize I had done it until I started pulling the books off the shelf and throwing them carelessly on the floor, not knowing if it was anger or desperation that made me do it. "It's not fair!" I shouted to no one in particular, "It's so not fair!" Unfortunately, even without James' beloved books, the room reminded me of him far too much. I tore everything down, the pictures he had loved so much. I smashed the mirror because I couldn't stand the fact that he wasn't standing next to me, smiling. I threw his things out of our closet and dumped them on the floor. The best thing I could do after that was to burn them.
My tears were hot and running down my face as I stood in the kitchen and threw everything out of the cupboards that James had liked. Unfortunately, that was almost everything, because James was in the kitchen much more than I was, and unlike me, he was a fabulous cook. So the things he used for baking ended up on the kitchen floor. The olive oil bottle broke, leaving stains on the wallpaper that would never come off. Not that it mattered. I rummaged through the cupboard for James's favorite mug, it was yellow and had been taped before because he had dropped it when I had once startled him by hugging him from behind. That same mug now shattered into a thousand pieces after I threw it on the floor. I found his favorite tea and threw it into the mess. Then I closed my eyes for a moment and let myself sink to the floor, exhausted, before going to the bathroom to erase everything about James from reality.
"Honey?" I winced, because there could be absolutely no one here who would call me that. Who would call me that and have James' voice. I shouldn't open my eyes, I was probably going to freak out now. "Are you okay?"
I opened my eyes anyhow, I was on the edge anyway.
"James," I whispered, because that was all I could manage when I saw him standing in the kitchen doorway. He looked at me questioningly, his dark eyes sparkling with life.
"James," my voice was louder this time and I jumped up and ran in his direction. He didn't disappear and I hugged him, he smelled exactly like the shower gel and cologne that I would probably have thrown away or broken in the next ten minutes.
"Thomas, darling, what are you doing here? Were you trying to cook?" he asked softly and I couldn't help but laugh and cry even more when I heard his voice.
"No, no, no," he stroked my back soothingly like he always did, "Shh, don't cry. Don't- It's okay, okay, look at me. Shh." I looked at him, and even through my veil of tears I could see the face I knew better than any other.
"Okay, breathe with me, all right? Real slow." So I imitated my boyfriend's breathing, which was so idiotic because he was dead and would definitely never breathe again. But...he wasn't dead, he was here with me. My breathing had calmed down a bit and my tears had stopped. James smiled at me, had to look up at me and wiped the tears from my face with his thumb.
"Very good. You're even prettier when you stop crying. Okay, do you want to sit down and tell me what you're doing here?" I could only nod mutely and pulled James, my James, into the living room because I couldn't show him what I had done with his books in the bedroom.
We sat down on the couch and James kept a small distance from me. That's exactly how it was before, we sat at a certain distance from each other and after half an hour at the latest we were cuddling. I had to swallow and felt the tears welling up, but they were completely useless because James was here!
"What's wrong, Tommy?" my boyfriend asked.
"Why didn't you tell me that you were getting worse?" it burst out of me, all the questions that I had been asking myself all the time, now I could ask them of James. "If I had known - if anyone had known -" Then you might still be alive. I couldn't say it, but James seemed to understand me even as I said it. He didn't answer.
"How are you? Are the others taking care of you?" he asked instead, his voice sounding worried. I nodded and let out another stifled laugh. Hysterically.
"Mhm, even Hamilton is pretty tolerable. He and John were here once, they brought a casserole," I replied, not taking my eyes off James. That was two weeks ago. The casserole was still in the fridge, missing only one piece, which I had eaten under Laf's supervision.
"We all miss you, Jemmy. I miss you," I whispered and James smiled sympathetically.
"I know you do, dear. I miss you too," he replied, reaching for my hand.
"How's work?" he wanted to know and I just shrugged.
"I don't go there anymore. At least for now, Washington thinks it's okay. I'll might quit, though. Work just isn't the same without you." James ran his thumb over the back of my hand, drawing circles like I had done countless times when he had panic attacks.
"You shouldn't quit, Thomas. You like this work," he said thoughtfully, and I shook my head.
"I don't like anything since you left. The truth is, you took a part of me with you when you left, and I don't know how to live without that part, how to live without you, Jemmy." I hadn't talked this much in a row since James died.
"Even though I took a part of you, didn't I leave a part for you?" asked James cautiously. Yes, you did, I thought bitterly, the part I'm desperate to get rid of because it hurts so much just to hear someone say your name.
"I don't mean the stuff Thomas, I know what you did with it," he said calmly and I started to cry again, shaking my head.
"You don't," I muttered and James tilted his head. He always did that when he didn't understand something.
"I saw the kitchen," he said and I bit the inside of my cheek.
"But not the bedroom," I muttered and he looked at me questioningly again,
"What's in the bedroom?" I stood up wordlessly and reached for his hand.
"My books!" James gasped. No doubt he wanted to react better, but he couldn't. I pressed my lips together and tears started to run down my face again.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I couldn't bear to see them anymore," I sobbed and James turned back to me.
"No, don't cry again, okay? they're just things, they just fell down. It's all right, isn't it?" he said quickly and I shook my head.
"I wanted to burn them. Everything," I mumbled and James looked at me with a look that had a lot of concern in it and something I couldn't interpret.
"It's okay. When was the last time you were outside anyway?" he asked. I shrugged. That was a lie, I knew it. When I came back from the funeral, but that was over two weeks ago and what would James say if he found out that I hadn't been outside for so long?
"Let's go for a walk. Come on," he suggested and I nodded.
We used to go for walks often, it was good for James, and we had even found our own beautiful paths in New York. Since his death, it was just another painful reminder that he was gone.
"Which way do you want to go?" asked James, blinking as we stepped into the bright sunlight. I shrugged again.
"Brooklyn Bridge," I muttered, thinking I was crazy. But James smiled and nodded and that alone was worth it. We were silent for a while and I cursed myself for not saying anything, because all I wanted to do all this time was talk to James again and now I could finally do it again and I didn't say anything at all.
"There will be a service for you. Next Tuesday, at your house," I told him, even though I hadn't even planned on going.
"Nice. Are you going to go?" James asked and I swallowed.
"I don't want to go to your funeral, Jemmy. I don't want to sit in a room with your uncles and aunts and whatever relatives and listen to them give speeches about what a great person you were even though they saw you maybe three times a year and sent your birthday cards two weeks late every year."
James smiled, "Yeah, they did."
"Besides, I don't want to be there when people ask how I'm doing and that it's really a shame because you were so young after all, because I'm obviously not doing well and it's obviously a shame." James nodded thoughtfully and buried his hands in his pockets.
"I understand that, Tommy, I really do, but it's my family and they're all allowed to grieve, aren't they?", James just said what I was actually thinking, but it felt so good to talk to him that I just went on.
"I don't know how to look your family in the eye, James. I don't know how to talk to you because I was the only one around you. If anyone could have stopped all of this, it would have been me. But I didn't," I had become more and more quiet towards the end.
"No one could have prevented anything, darling, not even you. It wasn't your responsibility. I promise you, my family won't think that either," he said quietly.
"But it was you! Of course it was my responsibility! It was your fucking life, James!" I suddenly shouted, horrified by my own words. "I'm sorry," I mumbled quickly.
"Tommy, it's okay. You don't have to go to the funeral, I can't tell you how to grieve."
"But do you think I should go?" I asked him and he tilted his head.
"I think at least it wouldn't be bad if you went. You need to let the grief get to you and deal with it eventually. Maybe some contact with other people who feel the same way wouldn't be a bad thing," he replied. So I should do exactly what I had been avoiding for weeks. Great.
"I'll think about it," I said quietly, and James nodded.
"That's nice." We fell back into a strange silence and stepped onto the sidewalk of the Brooklyn Bridge. There were very few tourists, and in the distance the skyscrapers of Manhattan sparkled in the sunlight.
"I wanted to marry you, James. I bought the ring three months ago, but I never found the right moment. Maybe I was just scared," I confessed once we had walked a few yards across the bridge.
"I know," James said.
"You can't possibly know," I said confused, "How do you know?"
"I found the ring, a while ago. You suck at hiding things," he said with a smile.
It was true. No matter what I had hidden, James had found it without even looking for it. Even my Christmas presents for him, for which I took so much time every year to find a good hiding place. I had gotten into the habit of wrapping them as soon as I brought them home. Of course, the ring was no different.
"You must have been looking for it this time. What are you doing in my sock drawer?"
"Hey, it's really all your fault! I wouldn't be rummaging around in your drawers if I wasn't always looking for my cuddly socks that you steal from me at least eight times a week," he laughed and I gasped in feigned shock before laughing too.
"Thomas?" he asked when we had calmed down.
"Huh?"
"I would have said yes if you had asked me," he said and my eyes filled with stupid tears again.
"You would have?" I repeated and he nodded.
"Of course."
"Then let's get married! You're back and..." Suddenly I felt energy coursing through my body for the first time in a long time.
"Thomas, darling, no. I-I can't stay." James trailed off, tears gathering in his eyes.
"Of course you can! And we'll honeymoon in Sweden. You love Sweden, James!" I said more and more excitedly while James started to cry.
"Yes, yes, that would be nice. But we can't do that, Thomas. You know I can't stay here, I have to go," he said and I shook my head and grabbed his hand.
"No, no you can't go Jemmy. I just got you back."
"Thomas? You have to promise me something, okay?" asked James with a cracked voice and I nodded.
"Of course, anything you want."
"You have to take care of yourself, for me. You should live your life for both of us, you know?" he ran his thumb along my cheek.
"I don't think I can do that without you, James," I admitted and James nodded.
"Yes, you can. Look, I know you can. Please, please promise me that you won't let yourself go. Go to Sweden anyway, do everything we wanted to do, can you do that for me?", James was still crying, but he was still smiling tiredly, "I can't promise you that everything will get better right away, but eventually it will. I'm with you Thomas, but I have to go. I'm sorry," he let go of my grip. I nodded.
"I'll try, Go ahead," I murmured and James smiled again.
"Thank you Thomas," he turned and slowly walked away.
"James? James," I called after him and he turned to me and looked at me curiously.
"I love you," I whispered, "I love you so much. We're going to get married in the next life, okay?" James had to smile.
"In the next life. I love you too, Thomas. I will always love you," he replied and then he turned around and disappeared and unlike what I expected, I didn't break.
"Thomas?" I heard a voice. I looked up.
"James?" He had changed his mind! He could stay after all.
"No," the voice, Laf's voice, said softly. I turned to face them. They and Herc were standing a few feet away from me, watching me anxiously.
"What are you doing here?" Laf asked worriedly. Instead of answering, I ran to them and pulled them into my arms. Because that's what James would do, because Laf has been such a remarkable friend lately.
"Thomas, what's wrong?" they stroked my back gently.
"I'm so thankful that you're my friend, Laf. I'm so thankful that you all care about me. I'm so grateful that you..." I trailed off, "How did you know I was here?"
"Well, you hung up earlier and we were worried, so we left a little early, but you weren't home, but the apartment door was open, so we went looking for you and found this place," Laf told me excitedly.
"We tracked your cell phone," Herc threw in, "Laf was so worried about you. To be honest, after all these years, I was still not sure if Herc really liked me, and we had definitely had better times, but the man had lost his brother. It was a tough time.
"I wouldn't have done anything to myself, I just wanted to get out," I reassured Laf, who had let go of me by now.
"That's good, really. Do you want to go home now or stay out for a while? Do you want us to leave? Do you want to be alone?", Laf didn't let me get a word in edgewise.
"Laffy, shh. Why don't you let him talk first?", Herc said and Laf nodded.
"Right."
"Honestly, I would like to go back. With you guys. And I don't know if the offer still stands, but can I stay with you for the next week? Until the ceremony?" I asked and Laf nodded.
"Of course, Thomas. Come." We walked back down the Brooklyn Bridge towards Brooklyn. Laf cautiously reached for Herc's hand, but only after they looked at me questioningly and I nodded. That had been another thing, I didn't want to stay with Herc and Laf because they reminded me so much of James and me, even though we were completely different.
"We can get something to eat when we get to my place. I have some casserole in the fridge," I said and Laf and Herc looked at each other.
"Yeah, that's a good idea. Food, but I have something freshly cooked with me." Laf replied.
"Oh, and don't be scared, the kitchen is a disaster. I kind of freaked out earlier," I said quickly. Maybe they wouldn't want to come after all, but I don't think I would ever go back alone as long as the apartment was like this.
"It's okay. We can help you clean up," Herc replied with a shrug, and I felt like my heart was going to explode with gratitude for these people.
"By the way, I thought of something for the funeral that I think James would like," I said after we had walked a bit.
"Do you want to come with us? You don't have to feel obligated if it's too much," Laf assured me quickly.
"No, I want to come with you. It'll be fine," I said with a smile, "and I was thinking that everyone should wear something yellow. Just something really small, a bracelet or something. But that was James' favorite color, and we'd use it to symbolize that we carry him with us even when we grieve." When that idea came to me, I didn't know exactly what it was. But I liked it, and I'm sure James would have liked it too. Herc nodded.
"That's really nice, Thomas. I'll tell Dad when I call later," he promised me.
"You can do that...or I'll do it. I was going to call back anyway," I explained and he nodded again.
"All right, if you want."
"I'm sorry for the way I've been the last few weeks. I will try to be better," I apologized then, because I owed it to them. To all of them.
"Thomas, it's okay. Really," Laf assured me, "but we really should go now or the food will get cold and that would be a real shame." I laughed for the first time in ages and in a few steps we would be leaving the Brooklyn Bridge.
I turned around again. James was with me, always would be, and I would see him again in the next life. We had promised each other. I would be able to wait that long and I couldn't wait to see him again and tell him how I had put all our plans into action. Alone, but still together with him because he was there. And of course I would not get better from one day to the next. There would be hard days where I would probably miss James so much that it would tear my heart out, but there would also be better days and God, I can't wait to see him again, it's only a matter of time...