Work Text:
Willem was dreaming. He knew he was dreaming, not only because he could still remember climbing into bed with Jude and wrapping a firm arm around his shoulders, could still feel the warmth that came with sharing the space with a living body whilst being wrapped in blankets, but because the dream had a shining quality that was unnatural and unnerving. As if the scene had been filmed in unnatural light and Willem was pinned to a seat in a darkened movie theatre, the light pressing uncomfortably against his eyes. It was also too quiet to be anything other than a dream. Even in the deepest, darkest hour of the night, New York was never silent, never like this. This, Willem thought, was the silence of the dreaming or the dead, his skin prickling at the thought.
Vague images swam before him, small snippets of sound dragging across his consciousness like fingers across his spine. Flashes of faces that Willem knew intimately and some that he had only a vague memory of seeing before. He remembered Jude telling him that the only faces you could see in dreams were those that you had seen in real life, that you were not capable of creating a new face in your mind. Willem had asked him who he saw in his dreams seeing as he only saw the same few people day in and day out. Jude had given him a tight smile, and responded with a quiet,
“I only see you, Willem.”
Before he had changed the subject to the renovations that Harold had been discussing with them. The memory of that tight smile came to the fore, and for not the first time Willem noticed that Jude’s smiles rarely reached his eyes these days. Willem knew of only a few occasions where he had seen Jude give someone a true, bright and wide smile and he hoarded each memory with a burning jealousy.
He looked around himself, trying to find a way out or find a way to wherever it was he needed to be, but the images that surrounded him flew at great speeds until they blurred into a whirl of colour and sound. Eventually, they solidified around him and he found himself sitting in Harold and Julia’s kitchen, sunlight streaming through the windows and the smell of burnt fish wafting towards him. He was laughing although he didn’t know what he was laughing at, and Harold was waving a towel around trying and failing to get the smoke detector to stop beeping.
Willem looked to the side and there was Jude, his hair glinting in the sunlight and Willem’s heart skipped a beat, as it usually did. But something didn’t seem right somehow. In this dream, Jude was staring at the table top, the long sleeves of a henley that used to belong to Willem pulled over his hands, his eyes glazed and unfocused, dark smudges hollowing his gaze until Willem felt that he was looking at a skull. Willem reached his hand towards Jude’s, wanting to wrap his hand up in his own and Jude looked up to him, his gaze still unfocused. Just as Willem opened his mouth to speak, the skin from Jude’s face started to peel and fall away, his teeth loosening and clattering to the tabletop as Jude seemed to fold in on himself and Willem reared back with a cry, stumbling away from the decay in front of him. The clothes that covered Jude’s frame seemed to shrink away, the colours darkening as the body within them rotted away and Willem felt his stomach heave as they finally dropped to the ground and lay still.
He turned quickly away and found himself face to face with Malcolm, who was telling him about a new project that he had taken on, how the clients seemed to take him seriously when he said,
“If you have any questions, just let me know!”
And had decided to bombard him with text messages until he had had to put his phone on silent just to be able to eat his dinner. Malcolm was shaking his head even as he smiled at the memory, his exasperation at his clients battling with the obvious pride he felt in himself at finally working at something that he loved. His eyes were bright and he was slapping his hands on his knees before launching into another story about a different set of clients. He seemed to have not noticed what had happened to Jude at all, his gaze didn’t even pass over their friend. Willem stared at him, his chest heaving and heart pounding, a bead of sweat making tracks down his spine. He closed his eyes, roughly rubbing his knuckles against his closed eyelids before opening them again. He turned around, expecting to see Harold’s kitchen behind him, but instead he saw the wall of the old apartment on Lispenard Street.
He took a deep, shuddering breath, reaching up to wipe at his face as he did so, before turning and facing the rest of the apartment. It was exactly as he remembered it, as if he had managed to walk into a photograph instead of an image conjured from his own memory. The lighting was dim, only the side lamps were on and he could see one of his own jumpers thrown across the back of the couch. He turned his head to one side and could see Jude’s shoes lined up carefully by the door, his satchel sitting next to them waiting for their owner to need them again. He took another breath and looked back into the bowels of the apartment. It was too quiet again, Jude would have been playing music or even humming to himself if he were here but there was nothing.
The silence was haunting, Willem realised. His mind knew that Jude should be there to fill in the gaps, but he wasn’t and for the first time Willem realised just what Jude’s absence would mean for him. And it was haunting. Ignoring the prickling of his skin, Willem moved further into the apartment, head turning with the hope of catching sight of Jude in one of the dark corners, curled up with his feet under him, heavy book held in his hands. Willem would call out to him, because Jude did hate it when they snuck up on him, and Jude would lift his head and smile as his eyes focused on Willem. And Willem would cross to him, drop to his knees in front of him and kiss his hands, praying that he would be allowed to keep this man, this life that they had created. Jude would keep smiling at him, even as his hands caressed Willem’s head and he would hum a song for them until Willem could stand again.
But no matter how hard Willem looked and how hard he prayed, Jude did not materialise. Panic was beginning to claw at Willem’s throat, bile rising with each second that Jude was out of his sight. He remembered the Jude from Harold’s kitchen, how that beautiful face had collapsed inward and felt his stomach heave. He quickened his pace and burst into their small shared bathroom, finding the room empty but he still crossed to the sink. Reaching down he ran his fingers over the cold porcelain, reaching further and further until his fingertips ran across the edge of the ziploc bag that Jude had hidden from him from their first night in this apartment together. He pulled the bag towards him and counted the number of items in it. Same as he remembered, so the worst hadn’t happened. Not yet.
Relief flooded him with such momentum that his knees buckled, causing him to grab at the edge of the sink, pulling deep breaths of air until his head stopped spinning and he was able to stand upright again. He wiped at the tears that had started to run down his face, and dropped the bag into the sink. Turning back to the door he moved back into the living area of the apartment, for the first time noticing that there was a cold draft circulating the small space. He followed the breeze into the bedroom, the relief that had previously filled him draining away and leaving trepidation in its wake.
He didn’t bother flicking on the overhead light, Jude hated that anyway. Instead he could make out the interior of the room by the light of the streetlights outside, the bed still made and tidy. The only thing out of place was that one of the windows was wide open, the breeze growing stronger the longer he stood frozen in the doorway. With heavy steps he walked to the window, ignoring the shaking in his hands as he looked out. He still couldn’t see Jude anywhere, and a quick glance down told him that he hadn’t fallen out. That only left the roof.
Taking a deep breath, Willem heaved himself out of the window onto the fire escape, swearing as the cold night air bit into his skin. He pulled himself up the fire escape, climbing slowly until he reached the roof, the brickwork pulling at his skin as he hauled himself over the edge and on to the roof. Dropping heavily to his knees and breathing heavily, his eyes screwed shut as he tried to settle the roiling in his stomach.
Once his nerves had calmed and his breathing had returned to normal, he carefully pulled himself up onto his feet and stepped away from the edge. Opening his eyes he scanned the roof, his gaze snagging on the figure standing opposite him at the edge of the roof. His heart dropped into his stomach as he recognised the figure of the man that had gently reached out and taken his heart from him. Who held his entire world in the bright shine of his eyes, and whose presence made Willem feel that his life was worth something more than what had been laid out for him.
Jude didn’t seem to notice that Willem had joined him on the roof, he was facing out across the city, the breeze tugging at the locks of his hair and causing his shirt to blow around his narrow form. A light seemed to emanate from somewhere in front of Jude, Willem couldn’t see where it came from but it cast an ethereal glow over the man he loved. Jude seemed entranced by it, staring at it as if it held the answer to every question that he could possibly think up in that enormous brain of his. He was as still as a statue, not even his hands were trembling in the cold, but Willem could almost picture in his mind what would happen if he lost his balance, or if he deliberately stepped forward. How his body would drop, the wind rushing and wailing around him until he met the ground with a smack that Willem knew would haunt him even into his waking hours.
Willem stepped forward, his feet making no sound against the roof as he stumbled his way to where Jude stood. He stopped a few steps behind Jude, not wanting to risk knocking him from his precarious perch. He reached out his hand, his fingers spread wide to grab him, reaching for him, to pull him back into the warmth and safety of his embrace.
“Don’t,” he said plaintively “don’t do this. Don’t leave me.”
And Jude looked back, a small smile gracing his features. Willem felt a pull on his soul and stretched his hand out further, panic threatening to overwhelm him and Jude continued to evade his grasp.
“Jude, don’t please” he cried again, “I couldn’t stand it, just please, come back to me.”
Jude froze, his eyes glancing between Willem and the light that seemed to pulse and glow as if it too was calling to him, pleading it’s own case for Jude’s life. Jude turned to face him again, a frown creasing his forehead, confusion evident in his gaze as he stared at Willem. Willem didn’t dare breathe as he stretched again for Jude, for his Jude.
“Why should I stay?” Jude asked. “What has this world done for me that means I should stay?”
And Willem couldn’t answer that, not really. Because what had the world done for Jude? What had the world given him that wasn’t pain and grief and suffering, and how could he refuse Jude the peace that he so desperately wanted. If Willem was a better man, he would have pulled his hand back towards his chest, taken a deep breath and nodded to Jude. Would have given his permission for Jude to leave him and find the peace he craved. But Willem was not a better man, he was human and selfish and afraid.
“Please don’t leave me alone, Judy.” He whispered, tears falling down his cheeks even as he stared at Jude, who swallowed and clenched his fists slightly at the sight of Willem’s tears.
They continued to stare at each other, the silence pressing against them until even Willem’s own heartbeat seemed deafening. And then all at once, Jude seemed to fold as if the strings that had been holding him aloft had been cut. He looked back to Willem, smiled again and reached out his hand, his fingertips gently caressing Willem’s own. Willem grasped his hand, his breath punching out of him, and roughly pulled Jude towards him, wrapping his arms around his back and shoulders, hands creasing Jude’s shirt as he tried to close the now nonexistent gap between them, as if pulling Jude into his own body would keep him safe. If Willem had been able to, he would have carved open his heart and gently placed Jude inside it, safe from the world and surrounded by Willem’s love.
But Willem was only human, he was selfish and he was afraid. So he could only hold on, breathing in the scent of Jude’s hair, feeling his chest rise and fall against his own, feeling Jude’s tears run down his neck.
It was enough in that moment, but Willem knew that it might not be enough in the future. He wondered if he would be strong enough to survive it, if Jude went first, if the darkness that had hooked into Jude’s soul won the battle and Jude gave in, no longer able to battle the world. Would he be able to pick himself up off the floor, go back to work and carry on? Would he be able to pack up the memories of Jude and store them out of sight, only taking them out to view them occasionally when the mood struck him? Would he be able to look at another human being and feel the way his heart would skip a beat at the knowledge that they were here with him? He didn’t think so. A small, vicious and cruel part of himself pointed out that if he went first then he wouldn’t have to be strong. But he roughly shoved that thought away, as he carded his hands through Jude’s soft hair and began to feel the pull of wakefulness.
Willem had always hated the phrase “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it”, all it did was prolong the inevitable in his mind. It left you unprepared for the future and then when it did come, it left you angry that you had not put a plan in place earlier that would have avoided this outcome. But as he felt himself wake, Jude’s almost too thin body wrapped tightly in his arms, his hair tickling his face as his breath fanned across the side of Willem’s neck, he understood why people said it. He didn’t have an answer to the questions that plagued him, didn’t know what he would do if he had to face their friends and tell them that Jude had gone, and he didn’t want to have that answer. Because maybe the longer he didn’t have the answer, maybe the longer Jude would stay. He turned his head to breathe in Jude’s scent, felt the body wrapped in his arms shift into waking and smiled to himself, as Jude’s hand clenched on his hip and he groaned into Willem’s neck.
For now, Jude was here, was beautiful and incandescently alive in his arms, his heart was overflowing with love for the man who against all odds had decided that he was worthy of his heart, the sun was starting to pour through the window of their room and he had somehow managed to convince Jude to sing with him today. For now, the agony lay quietly in the corner of his mind. For now, he could let go.