AND THOMAS THINKS, we’ll use the back door, stay inside, directly to my car. Thomas thinks, Jesus, it was your own fucking idea, don’t get pissed at me. Thomas thinks, please don’t ever move, let’s just stay here and be warm and snuggle until the weather passes. But he says none of it, not even tell me what’s on your mind.
And how could he, when the response to his offer is such a loaded statement? It’s not as simple as ‘I give up and don’t want to argue’; it’s not meant to be passive-aggressive. It’s more like, ‘I know I’m a pain and you should want better for yourself’. But Thomas doesn’t want better and refuses to be told how to feel, what to want. Alexander might be a hurricane all his own, but Thomas is a dark storm cloud, looming in the distance, ready at any time to swoop in and rain on your fucking parade and strike you down. He can be grumpy, he can be miserable. But most importantly, he’s stubborn as hell.
Which is why hands come up to cup Alexander’s cheeks the second tears drip into the fabric of an old t-shirt. They curve along his jaw and settle against skin much paler than his own, and the contrast is its own metaphor. Where Alexander brings tension, overwhelming emotion, Thomas does his best to remain a blank slate.
Thumbs tilt the other man’s chin upward. Eyes are still closed, but that’s not what’s important. If looking with your ears were a thing, it’s what he’d say, but Thomas isn’t eager to sound stupid and controlling. He hates how stern he sounds, but it’s the only way he knows to get Alex’s attention in this kind of a spiral: snap him out of it.
‘ Don’t you dare apologize. Don’t you do that. Not for everything, at least. ’
There’s a brief pause where Thomas considers if ‘for all of it’ really means what it says, or if he means the bad things. Like, yes, leaving, or the razor-sharp tongue the words had dripped off of that day. Thomas hasn’t forgotten, and he hasn’t necessarily forgiven, either, but he’s working on it.
‘ Alexander Hamilton, do you hear yourself? Are you really tellin’ me that you regret ever coming into my life? ‘Cause, I don’ feel that way. And I’ll be fucked if you try to tell me for one second that it’s all been bad since you arrived. ’
His words are heavy, but his tone remains light. After all, something has to, lest they sink into a black pit of despair and a void swallows them whole. And Thomas, though he never admits it, is afraid of the dark.
‘ You are one of the most interesting things that has ever happened to me. It hasn’t always been good between us but fuck you if you think I’m leaving you. I GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOU. ’
Another pause, a swallow he’s sure Alexander will hear, another tilt of a head but this time his own. A forehead resting against Alex’s, closed eyes as he inhales, the words shaking, his hands shaking, his heart — well, he’s not sure if hearts can shake, but it certainly rattles his rib cage metaphorically. ‘ I care about you in the deepest way a person can be cared about. ’
And then there’s no sound for just a second, and Thomas, with trembling lips, offers in silence, I love you.
AND THAT blows the door wide open, doesn’t it? Pulls the curtain up on the stage their emotions had been playing out on while Alexander sat in the audience, willfully unaware. It demanded attention in a way he’d been so afraid to give it before.
THE GENTLE PRESS of palm to cheek accompanied by steady, firm voice grounds him in a way he so desperately needs and the scope of the world seems to slide in, only to surround the two of them. And it’s not exactly kind, there will be no fairy tales citing Thomas as their inspiration but they’ve never been gentle, opting instead for teeth and bruised hips and the knife of a tongue to quick to speak. They’re all jagged edges and old breaks that never quite healed and that’s how they exist. Achingly, but together.
FOREHEADS PRESSED together and voice so fragile it may as well fall apart in the air Alexander has to wonder for a second if any of it is real, if the intent and his interpretation line up. But then, how else is there to interpret it? Breath hitching with well silenced sobs and tears still leaking from the corners of closed eyes he gathers himself and blunts his tongue. This is not a time for wit and the clever concealment of feelings. They are both raw as an open wound and it shows and thunder rumbles in the distance and he has to remind himself he is a man made of words and to stay silent now would be to condemn what this has become.
“I `AVEN’T loved in a long time.” Voice hoarse and cracking he forces himself to continue, arms still wrapped around Thomas shaking even as they held on as if their life depended on it. Perhaps it did. “Last time `e died and the person I was died too. And I am not a fraction of the man I was then but per`aps that is better -- I think you would’ve liked that `amilton even less. But I `ave been SCARED and I `ave been `IDING because I `ave not wanted to die again because I do not know what I will become and that is terrifying. But I am--” There’s more thunder, this time jarring enough to cause him to flinch, to interrupt his monologue. A deep, shaking breath, and then,
“I AM TIRED OF BEING SCARED AND I LOVE YOU.”
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