Sphinx prompt: Jeremas
(Note: There are two different AU’s involved [Thomas Lives AU and TIOR AU], so I split the two AU’s with dashes. This is a fanfic for my dear @noirepyh, who I promised I’d make this. I’m not quite sure if this story is fluid, but I hope its message comes out!)
-Thomas Lives AU- Upon the solstice of winter, the sun could not touch the earth with its warming rays of sunshine as much as usual, as winter attempted to forbid it. The air, because of the lack of warmth, felt like a gaseous version of ice to Jeremy as he stepped quickly towards the door. Even with his heavy coat, the air sneaked through torn threads of the clothing and painted Jeremy’s arms slightly red. The man stiffened slightly as he pressed one of his fingers onto the doorbell. A bell sound could be heard from inside the home, and soon after, a series of barking noises tried to answer the sound. It was not multiple voices creating the sound: Jeremy knew it was only one. To be specific, the dog inside was a miniature Australian Sheppard. Eventually, there was another voice, but it was that of an aging woman commenting about the dog being silly for barking so much. Thanks to where Jeremy worked, it was instinct to pick up on unique noises, such as approaching footsteps. The knob of the door twisted right in front of him, and then door opened in front of him as the lady spoke, “Well, I shouldn’t let you freeze out here, Fitzgerald. Come on in”. Jeremy entered the home, and after the madam insisted that she hung up his coat while he stayed in the home, he was guided into a pale-coloured room by the lady. “I’ll make some tea and bring it to the both of you.” She then spoke before leaving Jeremy in the room. Of course, he wasn’t alone. He had mainly come here to visit someone that was not the lady. “Thomas,” Jeremy quietly said to a man with black hair that was lying in bed, “how are you feeling today?” “Um, I guess slightly better than yesterday. The pain’s beginning to finally die down for good.” Thomas answered honestly. “I think I should be back at work in the next couple of days.” Jeremy smiled a fraction at the reply, but the idea of Thomas trying to return back to the cursed party pizzeria made him concerned. Vincent was surely mad that Thomas had survived the attack he tried to murder the Head of Security, and Mangle wouldn’t appreciate Jeremy for letting him come back. Considering what all had been done to Thomas leading up to when he got violently scratched by the pink and white fox, Jeremy was surprised but thankful Thomas was still alive. “That’s good to hear!” was what Jeremy ended up saying, only because Jeremy wasn’t quite in the mood to debate about Thomas walking back into the mess. He could barely keep up with work and college for the first week after he had to help Thomas get to the hospital… If this were to happen again, Jeremy couldn’t predict how he would react to it. He didn’t want to think about what would have happened if Thomas hadn’t been saved, but Thomas accidentally made him consider it. “Hey, Jer, I guess I got lucky, considering I’m alive. What would you think would have happened if I had, um, not been as unfortunate?” Jeremy’s eyes widened slightly as he began to think about how it would have all gone down. There were some things he knew would have happened, like how he would have naturally been the one to find Thomas dead. However, there were a vast number of paths that could have happened. He felt as if all that he tried to stay at the place for would have fallen in vain, but maybe there might have been some hope. Maybe the police around there would have finally gotten their shit together and arrest Vincent on the multiple accounts of murder, and that time, let him rot in jail like he deserved. I can’t take Thomas’s life for granted. If he had died, I don’t think I’d be the same man. The first guy to confess his feelings towards me, just to die the next morning… “My life would have torn itself apart.” Jeremy quietly answered.
-TIOR-
It was a lot harder to explain the amount of grief Jeremy had endured. Imagining this all was one thing, but actually living through the rollercoaster to an emotional hell was something that could not be written and understood by those who read it. As a child, Jeremy wouldn’t think he would murder anyone, not even a fly, but as he silently waited outside the abandoned building, he realized that he essentially was contributing to a gruesome murder. Jeremy couldn’t bear to accept that fact as something bad, as what the ‘victim’ had done was far more terrible than anyone he had ever breathed near. Mr. Fitzgerald, in about three or four years, had enough of a story to make a trilogy with. He listened to someone make their last call, their last words being a confession to him. He assisted spirits of the past get revenge against someone who had murdered them. He’d lost more than he could handle at points, and it all led up to this finale. And, even though Jeremy was glad his love would finally be able to pass on, his last conversation with Thomas would be forever scarred into his memory… It was about 6 PM when Jeremy glanced over at the rabbit made of void. Everything had been set up, and Ivy told Jeremy that he should have one more conversation with Thomas. Jeremy teared up slightly at the thought that he would never be able to talk to his one true love ever again past that night and felt Thomas’s cold hands over his own. “Thomas… I guess this is it.” “Yeah. Um, I actually never thought we’d be able to get to this point. I had doubted it a lot, but yet here we are.” “… Damn it, I don’t want you to leave, but at the same time I don’t want you to be stuck here forever. I wished this all would have never happened, and you would have been alive when we got to here!” “…I wished the same for a while, but eventually I had to accept that not much could have been done to prevent this.” “Why did we have to get stuck in this mess?” “Because otherwise this all would have, um, never happened… Jeremy, please stop crying… You’ll be fine. I’m sure you’ll be able to make many great stories while you’re alive.” And then they had to leave. Jeremy had been left with an eternal question of what if Thomas had been alive. To think about a happy ending where Thomas and Jeremy would have been together until they both died seemed counter-productive at that point. But it haunted him like the spirits had the past couple of years.