𝐃𝐀𝐘𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌 !!

stay alive

TOMMY HAMILTON NUMBLY PULLS his hand from the bloody spot on his side, stares at it. It's warm and sticky, crimson contrasting the sickly pallor of his skin. It's in that moment that the realization settles like the pain shooting up his side, sparking his nerves, reminding him of what happened; oh God, I'm going to die. Flashes of green and blue and a boat flicker in and out of his eyesight, the sound of yelling, the sensation of hands gripping tightly at his arms and torso, the rush of water and the creak of oars and the cold wind nipping at his face as the boat fights against the pulling current of the river. 

 'Actions have consequences,' Ma always told him, whether it was when he accidentally cut himself in the kitchen or scraped his knee when running up the stairs. Her eyes would soften when gazing at his face, usually streaked with tears or bright red with anger. She would calm him with counting. One two three four five. Un deux trois quatre cinq. Six seven eight. Six sept huit. He would breathe in one at one even and out at one odd, red fading from his face and heart slowing its thundering beats. Nine ten. Neuf dix. Ma would take another over exaggerated breath, then (and this was his favorite part) looking at her son, would smile, her laugh lines and her cheekbones prominent. Tommy would giggle and try to out smile his mother while his father would watch from afar, a fond smile on his softened features. 'You're all better now, see, Tommy? The wound is already gone-'

"-but the wound was already infected when he arrived." His doctor warned someone, voice low and hushed. The sound of a handle turning and wood crashign against a wall makes the blond turn his head slowly, almost painfully- and in storms his father, brown curls a wild mess and bouncing with each hurried step, eyes wide and wild and frantic, glimmering with grief and hopelessness and please, don't take my son away. "Tommy." He says lowly, like a prayer. His father looks like a dead man walking, face sullen and sunken in. The shadows underneath his eyes seemed to grow as he gazes on his eldest. "Pa.." He wants to shout, but it turns into a whimper. He needs to know what I did. His words force out of him as a wheeze, slurred and broken, but they come out and that is what matters. "I did exactly as you said, Pa. I held my head up high." He utters, recalling the sky. The dawn was always so pretty to him, purple and pink and orange blending into a light blue- it made him yearn to touch the sky, to take a sliver of it for himself, to keep a piece of that color with him everywhere he went. 'You already have it,' Ma would say when he'd tell her, small hands raised to up above. 'Your eyes are the sky itself, Tommy. As bright and blue as the heavens above. You're the sky.'

His eyes weren't all that bright anymore.

Pa just hushes him, tries to make him preserve his strength. Somewhere along the line, everything stopped hurting, fire turning into embers, numbing the sparks. "Even before we got to ten- I was aiming for the sky. I was aiming for the sky." Tommy mutters, cerulean eyes growing glassy and unfocused, greying like the rosy flush fading from his skin. They need to know, they need to know and I am running out of time- "No!" Sally Schuyler Hamilton wailed, her voice muffled by hands clamping over her mouth, almost startling Tommy. She seemingly materialized out of thin air, like a phantom forming shape out of mist- she almost looked like one. with how pale her skin became once her eyes landed on his. His eyes trail to her fiery red hair, the color of crimson roses blooming beneath the sun in their garden, and Tommy can't help but think of the blood coating his hand and trickling down his side, pooling at the cot he lay in.

Tears spring up instantly in her green eyes, glazed and shimmering. Ma was never a crier, he recalls, but maybe she was just too strong-willed to cry in front of him. Now, he sees her walls fall, crash to the ground as her voice grows louder and panicked and words spill from her lips as fast as lightning striking the earth. His mother's rambling, another rarity, is halted by his father's voice, small and frail, as if he had been shot in Tommy's stead. Is the world ending?  he wants to joke, but something in him says No, but you are. And just like that, the world sharpens. Vibrance dulls, like all the pretty things we can't help but lose.

He recalls piano lessons, the clumsy press of inexperienced fingers against ivory and black. The innocence of it, the bliss of learning and impressing his mother with every new piece he learned. "You would put your hands on mine-" he starts, but Ma shushes him and finishes his sentence. "You changed the melody every time." Her voice lightens a shade, eyes soften, a hint of a smile on that slightly weathered face. His mom had always been pretty. The world blanks out, but his parents can't know that just yet. "I would always change the line," He quivers and manages a twitch of his lips, despite the copper in his mouth. "I would always change the line." he repeats, for no apparent reason other than for his parents to remember what his own voice sounds like, as broken as it is.

The spots around the corners of his vision grow in number, gradually darkening his sight. His breathing quickens. His scattered thoughts evolve into a cacophony of sounds, the shrillness of a violin played in his mother's favorite plays. Oh my God. Oh my God. This is it. Thisisit. This. Is. It. I'm so sorry. Mom and Dad, I'm so sorry. "-Un deux trois quatre cinq six sept huit neuf," her soft voice pulls him out of a panicked heave for air, soothes him. "Un deux trois quatre. C-cinq six sept huit neuf." He chokes out, trying to regulate his breathing, but this isn't a scraped up knee and Tommy can't just wish the pain away.

"Good. Un deux trois-" 

The glassy look in his eyes shifts into a blank one, but he forces out one last line as they focus on a spot in the ceiling that blurs into black. 

"Un deux trois..." 

"-quatre cinq six sept huit neuf."

Silence. Tommy doesn't reply. 

Gravity untangles his hand from his mother's hair, her shoulders shaking with the violent cries tearing at her voice. She sobs, clutching him tighter as his body goes limp. From her side, Wilbur takes a sharp breath, a hand moving to cover his lips as tears relentlessly spill from his eyes. No. Not my boy, my son, my beautiful son. My little Tommy. 

She shudders, her voice weak and trembling, but she must finish counting for him. A final comfort for her son, despite the warmth already fading from his body, his now still chest, his dull, blue-grey eyes. "Sept huit neuf. Sept huit..." 

Gone. 

He's gone. 

---

AUTHOR'S NOTE

IT'S BEEN A CENTURY SINCE I'VE UPDATED STUFF I AM SO SORRY

APPARENTLY MY TEST WAS POSTPONED IDK WHEN IT'LL HAPPEN BUT I'LL PROBABLY BE BUSY SOBS

so take this angst bc i am unmotivated with my books and i write many drabbles in a server i am  B)

hamilton au that is half-assed but i wrote it anyways bc yes. also sorry of this was shitty but i tried

anyways, i don't know when i'll be back for sure-- consider this a weird, temporary sort of hiatus with scattered updates. on another hope, i hope you're all okay! please stay safe, remember to drink water and grab a snack, and take breaks if needed. ily all and i hope you have a great day.  <3