Broken- And Fixed Again- (A Jamilton Fanfic)

Chapter 22: Something They Can Never Take Away

//TW: swearing, verbal abuse, manipulation, implications of rape\\

Somebody's going to die tonight.

Also, above is my take on Abraham Lincoln

(Edit: omg I drew that so long ago please believe thats not indicative of my current skill)

Thomas

"Alexander?" I asked upon seeing him standing outside my door.

He stood there, a breath away and a world away. My fingers trembled to touch him, to reach out and confirm for myself that he was not a ghost, not a figment of my imagination. I ached for his touch, ached to press my hand against his chest and feel the steady beating of his heart against my skin, the most beautiful song I will ever have the pleasure to hear. But I stayed where I was trapped within the confines of the doorway, terrified of getting too close and watching him swirl away into the fog he had stepped out of like some phantasmic masterpiece sent to torture me, sent to relieve me of my pain.

"What...what are you doing here?" I whispered. My words did not seem like my own. The world around me appeared as fractals, the yellow lights of the hallway bright but unfocused. Nothing seemed permanent in the state I was in, standing in the threshold between a dream I had idealized for so long that I become desperate for it, and the crushing reality of the life I had lived for four years. It was a window between two worlds, a portal that made everything seem less important, less permanent. Here, standing in the doorway, there were no consequences for my actions.

Alexander didn't answer, and after a moment, I had forgotten I asked a question at all. He stared at me, and I at him, waiting for something to happen, waiting to wake up from this dream and see myself back in James's arms, the hazy mists disappearing once more. I studied him, my mind everywhere and nowhere at once, lost in the lucid state I had found myself in.

He looked visibly upset. He had been crying, no doubt about it. His eyes met mine, and I could tell he was conflicted about something. Then, without saying a word, he walked up to me, placed a hand on my face and angled it down towards him, and laid a gentle kiss to my lips.

After a fire tears through the world, devouring everything in its path, you wouldn't think that answer, the savior, would rest in the hands of additional flame. After the fire has consumed all there is to be consumed, what good is there in allowing anything else to thrive at all? Why fuel what has already been destroyed, why add to the very heartless actions that have turned my life into a nightmare?

But Alexander's kiss, as soft and tender as it was, was in no way a fire. It was the rain that proceeded it. It was the summer storm that brought renewal, rebirth. It was the rain that healed the crippled land, extinguishing what flickering flames remained. Alexander's love poured through that kiss, and there is no other word to describe it. And at once, existing there in his arms, his mouth against mine for the smallest, most fleeting moment, the rain fostered the growth of the flower. At once, I was his again, and he was mine, and the world around me faded in favor of the garden—our garden—that had come to me in dreams.

And I pushed him away nonetheless, remembering myself and which reality I was subject to, and which boy was laying asleep in the room right behind me. Waiting for me. The hallway came rushing back, that awful scent of cedar wood and smoke that constituted James's cologne rubbed off on me. I pushed Alexander away, the bullets of my betrayal ricochetting through my chest. I was left reeling in the absence of his kiss, left to piece together those unsteady pieces.

There are moments where the world becomes so cold you can see your own breath, you can feel your fingers go numb, you see yourself as if an outsider looking in at an unkempt life, something so pathetic you can't help but laugh. That was one of those moments, and no amount of justification I could spin up would ever excuse what I had just allowed myself to do.