//TW: swearing, manipulation, verbal, physical, and sexual abuse, trauma, violence, guns, heartbreak, suicidal thoughts\\

Me: Listen to new musicals like Waitress or the Book of Mormon and expand your tastes.

Also me: *listens to the Steven Universe Soundtrack on repeat*

Also, look at this picture of my ferrets to distract yourself from the pain this chapter might bring you.

Thomas

There was a sense of finality trilling through my bones as I stared down the barrel of what was most definitely a loaded gun. The black metal gleamed in the streetlight overhead, but the person who wielded it was still obscured by the shadows of the alley, just to the point of making it impossible to see his face. I should have been scared, but for some reason, it was as though that part of me had just been turned off. So instead, I just felt a gaping emptiness deep within myself, devouring all there was to devour until my entire body went numb from the shock.

It was almost as if New York City stopped existing for a moment, no more than a distant memory faded into the background. But where else could something like this happen? Where else could somebody have everything they want and lose it all in a matter of seconds? The lights grew dimmer in the wake of the shadow standing on the other edge of the alleyway, still as a statue; the air grew just a fraction colder as a breeze shifted between the concrete buildings and whispered a final parting.

Even if everything goes right, I'll probably never feel it again. I'll never feel the breeze playing with my hair, I'll never see the endless sky above me, promising a life I should have known I could never have. After tonight, once more will I be locked in that unbending, iron cage, trapped forever like a songless bird, but this time, I will know what freedom tastes like and mourn for it every time I catch a glimpse of the gorgeous night sky.

Tonight marks the end of so many things, a return to the way things were before.

It wasn't fair, but in the end, it didn't matter. Nothing will change for us, and nothing should. We are insignificant in our temperance. We will die all the same. Why should a world that existed millions of years before us and will continue to exist millions of years after we burn ourselves out ever bend for the likes of me?

The alley was shrinking, the walls pressing tight against my ribcage; they ripped the breathe from my lungs and the sense from my head. It brought me back to the present, as awful a present as it was. The past was obsolete and there was no future for me anymore, so all I had was the present.

There was silence for a few moments. It was like time had frozen, come to a complete standstill. It didn't seem real. It seemed like something from a dream— no, it seemed like something from a nightmare.

The kind of nightmare that comes in flashes of blood red and absolute black. The kind of nightmare that follows you around for days afterwards, even when most dreams would have been lost to the place all things go when they are forgotten. The kind of nightmare that was so vivid, so disturbing, that it unwound the ropes of comfort and safety you could have spent years knotting together to keep you grounded to a sense of reality that was already starting to drift away.

It was the kind of nightmare that could only be reality.

Alexander reacted almost immediately. Without saying a single word, he grabbed my arm and pulled me back behind him, as though to shelter me from the lightning cleaving the sky into two dark halves. A cold fury had washed over him, leaving my world darker than it had any right to be. His grip on my hand tightened, fingers digging into my skin. He didn't do it on purpose, but it still stung all the same.

A part of me admired his bravery, his refusal ro think before he acted, choosing to put himself in harm's way before ever even considering letting me get hurt. A part of me cursed it at the same time.

But he must not have understood. The gun wasn't trained on me. It was meant for him.

"Do it," Alexander growled in a voice so low it sent shivers traveling down the length of my spine. Fear dragged its silky veil over my eyes, obscuring the shapes of the alleyway until it was just Alexander and James, and nothing else mattered. Least of all me.

I had never been so terrified of Alexander as I was in that moment. Terrified that he would do something, terrified that he would not he walking away from this alive.

"You're a fucking monster," he spat out.

I tightened my grip on his hand, hoping that he would shut up. Maybe, if he would shut up for once, everything would go alright.

Maybe.

Probably not.

"Is that the best you can come up with?" James asked. The sound of his voice was hardly more than a discordant screeching deep within my veins, leaving me numb and helpless as I recounted the last time I had heard it against my ear. "Quite redundant, no?"

"Va-t'en et laisse-nous tranquille," Laf hissed.

"Don't you dare hurt him," John joined in, and Eliza remained quiet. Searching, scanning. She saw what the others could not see. She must have also seen the way that the gun didn't so much as tremble in James's hands. She must have seen the determination flash through his gaze and subsequently arrived to the exact same conclusion I had.

He would shoot us. He would kill Alexander without batting an eye. He would smile as the world went up in smoke, knowing he had been the one to cause its downfall.

I dared to let out a soft breath. Even as quiet as it was, it echoed in the silence of the alleyway, and all eyes turned to me, waiting, anticipating. They burned my skin, they tortured my mind. I tried to breathe but their stares sucked all the air from my lungs and filled it with a bile that left a sour residue in my mouth.

I wanted to vomit. I wanted to cleanse myself of the grime and the filth I had become for putting the people I cared about in harm's way. I wanted to pour myself out onto the cement floor underneath me until there was nothing left, until Thomas was nothing more than a name on the tip of somebody's tongue, a mere thought and memory.

James met my gaze, questioning in its own right. I couldn't bare to describe the thousands of things swirling in his cold, hard eyes, the memories that only the two of us would ever be privy to. I shriveled underneath his stare; I wanted his unrelenting flames to consume me once and for all.

I wanted to die.

"Well?" he prompted, deliberate. "Is this what you wanted, Tommy?" He sneered as he spat out the name, his grin only widening as I flinched at the overwhelming barrage of memories attached to that stupid word coming thundering down over my head. He said it to hurt, and it would never mean anything but pain again. "I did this all for you, you know."

He laughed at me, slow and careful. I swear I could feel the prick of his fingernails digging into my wrists as he held me down underneath him, constantly taking and demanding and doing whatever he pleased because he could and—

Stop.

This night was hard enough already. There was no point in making everything a thousand times worse.

All of this will be over tomorrow.

It was true, wasn't it? Just get through tonight, and this will all be nothing more than a distant, hazy dream escaping in the intense sunlight of an unbearably hot morning. The feeling of being loved will die, just as it should never have been born in the first place. Not for me.

"I'll kill you," Alexander promised, ignoring my unspoken pleas for his silence. "If you so much as touch—"

"Don't worry," James said smoothly. "I won't hurt any of you. I just want Thomas."

"He's not a fucking commodity for you to own," hissed Lafayette, his fingers drawing into the pocket of his worn coat, where of course, he kept his pocket knife. It would do no good, but perhaps it was nice to have.

But Alexander laughed at James. Brave Alexander. Brave, foolish, doomed Alexander.

"Yeah, no. I'd rather die than let you just have Thomas."

I stiffened at his words, wishing he didn't mean them while simultaneously knowing they were perhaps the most genuinely truthful thing he has ever uttered in his life.

Could Alexander ever just think before he did things?

Probably not.

James cocked the gun. It clicked, the noise detonating a bomb of panic inside of me. My heart thundered in my ears.

"That can be arranged."

"No!" I exclaimed.

The word tore itself from something deep inside my chest, a being hiding within me that I had no control over whatsoever. The reverberations of the single syllable ricochetted through my body, an instinct more than a solid thought, formed all at once from the deepest recesses of my mind. 

I felt everybody's eyes shift to me. I swallowed and began to play with my hands. Words formed in my head, repeating the same idea in a million different ways. I wanted to sound brave, I wanted to sound like I knew what I was doing.

But the sad truth of the matter was that in the end, it wouldn't matter. I'd never be enough, I'd never be more than the miserable creature that had risked the lives of the only people who would even notice if he disappeared. I had no idea what I was doing. I was playing a game with pieces that didn't fit in my hands, rules I didn't know, and a board that changed every single moment. I was playing to lose, and I was going to.

The words that actually did escape my mouth were weak and stupid and totally did not sound like I wanted them to. "Y-you promise not-t to hurt them?"

I was not brave. I was not the hero. I was a scared child pretending to be something that I simply was not, an animal disguised as a human.

I do not have starlight in my blood; I have nothing but darkness.

"Wait, what?"

James's penetrating stare pierced mine, and when he finally spoke, his voice was as cold as ice. "That was the deal."

"Deal?"

A note of panic trilled through Alexander's voice. He tried to spin me around to look at him, but I refused to let him. The harder this was, the more likely somebody would wound up with their blood spilling on the pavement and a bullet embedded in their skin.

It should be me. It's what I deserve, to die. To watch as the light leaves the world, as everything starts to blur together until red and black coat my vision. I should be the one to fall, as this city will not miss me when I'm gone. Nobody will, and that's good. That's what I want. 

I want to die.

"Aww, Tommy. Don't tell me you haven't told them about our little arrangement?" James drawled, the tone of somebody who knows that no matter what happens, they will win. The game is already in his hands, the cards stacked in his favor. All he has to do is deal the final blow, and everything will once more belong to him.

"Tell us what?"

I couldn't answer him. Nothing in this universe could ever be adequate to describe the full length of my betrayal, every step I had taken in assuring they would end up hurt.

"Tell us what?" Alexander repeated, tone colder than a lightless void.

I stepped away from him, let go of his hand. There wasn't enough space for me to breathe. He tried to regain the ground, tried to reach for what he had lost, but the click of the gun made him freeze.

"It wasn't important," I said finally, careful to choose my words. One wrong thing could basically screw everything up.

"Would someone please explain what is going on?"

"Go ahead, Tommy. Tell them what you did. Go ahead and tell them exactly why they're here right now instead of safe in their homes," James urged cooly. There was a sick, maniacal joy to the way he held the gun, almost as if he wanted to hear the echo of the shot against the brick walls. I watched him for a long moment, desperate for him to reveal even the slightest hint of vulnerability. But it never came. He was still; he was cold.

I held one arm with my other hand and turned to the others. I opened my mouth and closed it again, trying to figure out what to say. No explanation I could come up with would ever be good enough.

"We're waiting."

Somehow, I managed to find my voice even as it fled away from me. It sounded wrong, not like my own, but it was all that I had. "I—I'm sorry. I n-never wanted this to happen."

Deep breaths, Thomas. You can get through this.

You have to get through this.

"What did you do?" Alexander demanded.

"Go on, Tommy," James mocked, his smile like that of a starving wolf finally finding something to eat in a long, cold winter. "Why don't you answer him?"

"I...I had to, o-okay? He—he was g-going to hurt y-you if I didn't! I—I—I didn't...I didn't have a ch-choice."

John started forwards, but Eliza grabbed him and pulled him backwards as James's attention flickered over to the three of them briefly, as if only just realizing they were there.

"Thomas," Lafayette hissed, trying to reach forwards for my hand, but I pressed myself further away from them. The last thing I needed was their warmth, their tenderness, their comfort.

It might have convinced me to stay.

"He p-promised that...that as long as I d-did what...what he w-wanted me to do... He promised that—that he wouldn't h-hurt you."

Alexander's gaze met mine. His panicked, horrified gaze alight with that sudden and horrible understanding. "No," he begged, hardly above a whisper. He grabbed ahold of my hand, pulled me closer to him as though that would make everything else in the world disappear. And it should have. But it was just too much, and what we had would never be enough.

"No, Thomas, please," he continued, squeezing my fingers underneath his. "Thomas you cannot do this. He's lying to you, okay? We can figure this out! I promise, everything will be alright, you don't have to go—"

"You think this is an empty threat?" James demanded, a slight laugh emerging on the tip of his tongue. "You think I wouldn't kill you, happily? Just say the word, Thomas."

"No, stop!"

Silence.

In.

I wanted to rip myself to miserable little shreds.

I wanted to burn alive, letting the starving flames gorge themselves on my skin, rather than stand here under the scrutinizing gazes of four, hard pairs of eyes.

I wanted to throw myself off of the highest building I could find, watching as the deep shades of blue blurred around me as I cut brilliantly through the sky, my own form of flight but a broken body inevitable hits the pavement.

I wanted the darkness to consume my body once and for all and let me die a slow and painful death.

Out.

But in the end, it didn't matter what I wanted or what I deserved.

I must live through this, which is a torture worse than anything death could ever bring me.

"I'll go with you, okay? I'll do whatever you want. Just don't hurt them, please."

I am a coward. I always have been, and I always will be. I will die alone and afraid, with no semblance of what it feels like to be loved, as relative a concept as that is, and I will have deserved it. I am a weak, miserable coward that deserves a slow, painful death being eaten alive by my own doubt and anxiety. I am a pathetic, worthless coward who runs and hides from any problem that dares to present itself.

Well I can't run from them. Not anymore.

Small sacrifices are easy to make for people you love.

I could feel James's impatience wearing thin. I could already feel the burning hot pain of his bare hand against my face, of his body shoving mine against the wall. His gaze was dark and unreadable, but for the smallest fraction of a moment, I swore I saw something human.

But it flickered and died a second later, leaving me to wonder if I had ever truly seen it in the first place.

Alexander's grip on my hand tightened. "Thomas, you are not going to do what I think you're about to do."

"Let go of me Alexander," I said calmly.

Take deep breaths Thomas, it'll all be over soon.

"That's the last thing I'm going to do," he growled.

"Alexander, please." It hurt. It hurt a lot to see Alexander Hamilton, someone I had always known for being brave and for standing up for his opinion, no matter how absolutely stupid it was, sound so defeated, so desperate.

"Thomas—I can't— I swear to fucking God— I'm not going to— I can't— I– No, please— I—"

"Alexander, please, I'm doing this for you!" For just a moment, a bit of me cracked, and a piece of the fear that I was trying to keep pent up inside of me poked through.

And that's when it snapped. The string, binding us together, the thick cord woven from destiny itself finally gave way under the sheer amounts of tension pulling at every angle. The string snapped, and we were unwound. He was free, and I was lost.

I stumbled back away from him, each step I took getting closer and closer to a life of heartache and remorse for what could have been, if I had been a little bit stronger, if I had just deserved it enough.

Whether intentional or not, Alexander's grip on my arm softened and I yanked it out of his grasp. Trying to fight back tears, I moved over to where James was standing and waiting. I blocked out all the protests and my friends yelling at me to stop, to wait, to just listen to reason.

But the truth was that I couldn't run anymore. There was no place to go, no place to hide, no place where I could be safe and loved and cared about. Not if my friends could get hurt.

Funny how the world works sometimes, isn't it? Sometimes it doesn't end happily like in a Fairytale. Sometimes not everything works out for the good guys. Sometimes, we lose.

"Well?" James asked.

It'll all be over soon Thomas, it'll all be over soon.

I took a deep breath. "As long as you don't hurt my friends, I'll go with you."

The world collapsed around me as the final lines were etched into the sand. James lowered the weapon glinting in the dim light of the lampposts, reached forward, and grabbed my wrist. He wrenched me away from the light and pulled me deeper and deeper into the thick layer of shadows cloaking the world in their imperial blackness.

It's done.

This was how it was always supposed to end. Since the beginning of time, this was the way the cards were supposed to eventually fall. So it doesn't make sense why there's still a small part of me deep down inside struggling to hold onto the last, dying embers of hope as a cold, overbearing wind finally extinguishes them.

"Thomas, you can't do this!"

I turned back to face him, allowing myself just a moment to admire the way the light caught his face. The way it reflect the desperation and the fear in his gaze, the way it illuminated his tan skin. I did my best to commit every last detail to memory before, just like a comet shooting through the night sky, bright and brilliant, he would disappear from my world forever. I gazed onwards at him, wondering what I had ever done to deserve somebody as utterly wonderful as him.

And that's when the swell of emotion finally overpowered me, and two, burning hot tears rolled down my face. But they were not tears of grief; they were tears of joy. Joy for every moment I had got to spend with him. Joy for finally understanding what it meant to live in love, to no longer have to spend every day cowering in fear. Joy for being with my Alexander, as short as a span it was.

I would never forget it. I would never forget him.

I made myself look away from Alexander, because any second longer, and I knew I would have crumpled before him. I would have collapsed before his feet, and he would have reached down and held me one last time, and that would have made it so much harder to leave his embrace. It would have made it so much harder to forget all of the promises he had made to me once, his offer to bring the world to its knees just so I'd never have to spend another day in fear.

A symphony swelled in my ears, a sad, lonely symphony I would never hear again. Alexander brought music and life and colors to my world and once again, I would have nothing.

"Come on, Tommy," James hissed. "Let's go."

But even, as cold and as corrupt as he was, could not taint the light of Alexander and the memory of his smile.

"Thomas, love, please," he begged, the words mangled by what sounded like sobs. What a world we lived in, where somebody as wonderful as him could be so lost without somebody as awful as me. "Please don't go. I—I need you."

"You don't need me, Alexander," I said, stepping backwards as James tried to pull me away. His fingernails dug into my skin, but the temporary physical pain was nothing compared to the scars that would last forever after seeing my Alexander like this, reaching out for me only to find nothing in response. "You never have."

"Thomas, can we talk about—"

I smiled softly. "Take care Alexander. Stay safe."

One day, I will wake up, and this will all be nothing more than a distant dream. A beautiful dream, a dream to be treasured and love and never forgotten, for it is the only thing that could ever bring light to my life ever again. But a dream nonetheless.

"Thomas–"

My throat and eyes burned as the sobs continued their unending assault. It hurt to speak, it hurt to stand before him knowing that this would be the very last time I would ever see him in this light again, the token of all the goodness in the world. Today was the last day I got to feel his arms around me, the soft tenderness of my lips against his. Today was the last day I would ever again have him as mine. "Thank you. For everything. I'll never forget it, Alexander."

It. Because I simply couldn't say you without fracturing like delicate glass.

Stay strong, Thomas. You have to. You owe it to him.

"Thomas!" he screamed, stumbling forwards, but Eliza grabbed him and pulled him back just as she had done with John. She mumbled something to him, something even in the relative silence of the alley compared to the rest of the city, I couldn't quite make out. But whatever it was, it made Alexander crash to the ground, overcome by sobs.

"Come on," I heard James say. "Let's go."

I cast one last look at my four friends before turning and following James.

I walked away. I put love and light and happiness behind me, and I walked away into a darkness that hollowed my chest and left me with nothing but a splitting, piercing pain.

And behind me, though I didn't dare to look back, I heard Alexander's sobs echo through the night.

~•~

James let go of me the second we stepped into the dorm room. I glanced around as the same old memories came rushing back, each one more painful than the last. The dorm was a mess, but somehow, it was still unspeakably empty.

I stepped forward to embrace what it had been before, and he closed the door behind us, forever separating us from the outside world once more. There would be no turning back, there would not be another chance. This was it, and the finality of that thought withered something deep inside of me.

He let out a sigh, setting his hand against the small of my back. "Well, Tommy. I hope you're happy with yourself. But it's all over now, yes?" He grabbed onto my arms, pressing his chest against my back. "We can finally go back to the way things were meant to be."

With wide eyes, I took in the place of torment, of pain. How many sleepless nights had I spent here, alone, wishing for death or wishing for some hero to come and take me away? And the second I had finally gotten what I had wished for, I had thrown it all away.

"Answer me," he growled, his hands tightening around my arms.

"Y-yes, James."

For a long moment, he said nothing. I trembled in his arms despite trying so hard to stay together, terrified of what he would say, of what he would do. He could kill me, right now, and leave me to die alone. I couldn't think of a single worse fate, then to be in pain and heartache and fear and have nobody to hold my hand as darkness clouds my vision. He would do it to. I know him. He'd do it happily if it meant letting me suffer.

But James let go of me, shoved me away from him as though I disgusted him. "Bedroom. You have five minutes."

I faltered, and that was enough for him.

"You are the one wanted to act like a pathetic whore. So I'm going to treat you like one, understand?"

"Yes, James," I said, stepping away to do as he asked, for it was much easier to just do what he wanted then to argue, to justify myself when I had no ground to stand on.

At least now, things could go back to the way things were always supposed to be.

At least now, Alexander could finally learn what real happiness means without just another burden tethering him to a nightmare he didn't deserve any part in.

And as selfish as I am, the thought made me cry.

~•~

Start 2018 off right.

(Edit: daaaaamn is this chapter really 3 years old?? Fuck guys thats so long ago)

Also this is kinda the end of book 1 but to save time and the souls of the innocent I'm just gonna include book 2 in this one. Makes it easy for me.