A kind of teaser for an immortal tommy fic surrounding this sort of concept that I’m making! I hope you enjoy!
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Tommy lifts his head as the sky’s water pours down himself. He stares at the deep dark clouds above him as they drift softly across the sky - a large contrast to the aggressive winds and rain surrounding the whole area. He stands in the center of a crowd of scurrying people, trying to get themselves inside. They are fast, rushing. They are always rushing, Tommy notices. But, he is not.
Over Tommy's long cursed life, he's learned many things. Most importantly, to take in moments as they are while you still have them - otherwise, you take them for-granted.
As Tommy stands and stares, the faint words of a song drift through his ears. A song of a nation brought up through the ideals of freedom, only ending in trapping those it was built to save. A true parallel to his cursed life of a constant seeming freedom from looking at this cursed fate in concept, without outsiders seeing what it truly means. What people don’t notice is… he is like an iceberg, he is not as he seems from the outside of his icy mountain.
On the outside he is seen as tall, mighty, even intimidating for some. He should not exist in this time period, his time should have run out, yet he continues. That scares those with logical minds that don't think of the other side of the world’s coin. But, like on the bottom of icebergs, he is only more than those see. Many lifetimes of memories, of experiences and grief and lessons. His feet dangle in the dark and watery abyss of death, yet no creature in existence can grab him and yank him into the other side. No matter how long or how deep his feet sink, he will never take a final gasp of air.
As Tommy stares, the sounds of laughter and splashes fill his ears. Two children playing together off to the side of the road, as an older boy yells for them to come back inside. A memory of long long ago flashes in the cracked crystal blue eyes of the immortal. A sight of two children, while they were still able to be children, playing and dancing in the rain and puddles of a young nation of seeming freedom. But, little did they know, they were naive. They did not take in that moment as much as they should have, and so it passed them by and they realized that moment would never be able to be replicated again the day after, the day they first experienced the stripping of their childhood and the growth of the need to mature too quickly than any human - especially child - should.
As Tommy stares, he can hear countless voices say many things in the distance. Many words with various meanings and pressures and memories attached. Hatred, celebration, betrayal, happiness, loss, thankfulness, fear, encouragement. Words belonging to a story that lasted a lifetime, one that would seem to be beautifully tragic from the book the reader finds it from. Except, the storyteller outlives the lifetime, and betraying all odds and all people including himself, he stays and continues. Because the storyteller doesn’t have a choice. That choice was taken away by the one he must keep from taking away that choice from others.
As he stands, now with his eyes closed, he sees two boys in his mind. Not men, but boys, children. One of half and half, another of brown hair and a green shirt. He stares in his blank yet full mind, he watches, a place deep inside of him at the depths of the dark abyss longing for the time where they were real. Before he watched as they slowly disappeared through a choice taken from almost every human as they came into the world. The one in the abyss reminisces of the time when they first discovered of the curse that would fall upon the blonde, he smiles when they promise that they will stay for as long as time allows them. But time is a cruel guardian, and his smile will eventually turn bittersweet.
And so, he stands, he sees as the boys stayed, and stayed, and stayed. They keep their promise. All until they can’t. All until time no longer allows their promise to continue.
And, as he stands there, he takes his time to stay and enjoy the feeling of the rain. He takes this moment to listen to the sounds of the roaring wind, feeling it brush against his hair and clothes, to see the calming and contrasting clouds above. He waits as he thinks, all until he has no more thoughts to circle through his brain.
And as the people around him hurry and rush and run and breeze past this small moment, he takes it all in and gives it the time it deserves.
Because he's learned. He's learned to take the moments as they are while they're here, because you never know when it will no longer be possible for the moment to be taken in again.
