Tomny, Remus & Lee - Merry Christmas, Please Don‘t Call
The Cadence of Part Time Poets by Motswolo
Honestly, the East End part of the story is my favorite, mostly because of Remus and Tomny, but also Lee. I just love their characters and how their relationships shift over the course of the story. Remus and Lee especially. They used to love each other like brothers and watching that fall apart the way it did hurt so much. Lee was completely out of his mind after Ian died and finding out that Remus lied must have felt like the biggest betrayal. Their last scene together actually made cry, because you can tell that there‘s no going back.
Remus and Tomnys love is the most specially to me. They love each other so much and are each others anchors. Their relationship has its ups and downs, sometime because they care so much and try so much to protect each other. But they always manage to find their way back. And I really believe that Tomny loved Lee too. He tried to do everything he could for him but in the end it just wasn’t enough. It felt to me like Tomny got out in the end and Lee didn’t.
What really gets me is how much Tomny carried without anyone really noticing. Remus never fully understood it, partly because Tomny kept him out of the worst things, partly because Tomny always seemed so bright and confident. I don’t think that Remus ever realised what Tom had to go through. That’s why their reunion at the very end of the fic was so amazing. Tomny broke down and cried and Remus was just completely shocked because he had never seen him like this. Meanwhile Tomny had almost lost everything. I think this scene really shows how Tomny always had to be the strong one and keep it together. He even made it look easy though it clearly wasn‘t, because he couldn’t stand the thought of anyone feeling pity towards him. But at the end of the book he had failed. Doss got out, Remus was on his way to make his own dreams come true (a far cry from the live they lived at the End), Flanky and Ian died, Tonya ran away, Lee went completely off the rails … and of course there were some other things he went through in that scene. But even though he had tried to hold on for so long, it had all but slipped though his fingers. And yet he was supposed to be the strong one.
The East End Boys (and Tonya, but that is a whole separate post) mean so much to me. I would read a spin off about them in record time.
Also I just think the song fits them so well. „Merry Christmas, please don‘t call“ is basically Tomny talking to Remus that one time over the phone. I could go on and on about parallels between the song and their friendship.
