(no subject)
Untitled (if the author wants to add a title, just let me know!)
Pairing - P/C
Rating - PG
Word Count - 1157
Shoutouts go out to libertine68 for betaing, Tykey-baby, and bloodyhands
Dearest Bilo,
It’s Christmas. I used to spend this either with my family or alone. Never with girlfriends, never with mates. But then you came along. You and your Arcadia. You and your dreaming. I started to spend every moment with you. Then you got tired of just having me. You had to have the rest of the world too. You had to find other... things. To occupy you. To stop the ache you claimed to have because I refused to allow you to fuck me. I didn't want just sex. I wanted you. In your entirety. I didn't realize I had your soul warming mine until it was too late- until you'd decided to abandon it. You discovered so many things, Peter, that when that little brain of yours decided to try again, try at being who you were before, you couldn't. You'd forgotten. You knew too much.
I bought turkey this year. (I bought stuffing too but I have no idea what to do with it. I’ll have to ask my sister) Tiny little one, much smaller than the one you had, that one time I spent Christmas with you and your family. That had been the first time I'd ever had turkey. The times I spent with you heralded a lot of my first times. The first time I had ever kissed someone under the mistletoe. You made a joke about something hiding in it... Something to do with Harry Potter. I still haven't read them. I'll have to, one day. We made snowmen, remember that? Christmas, was it 1998? We made snow-angels too. Gary helped with the snowman, and then went off, with a girl. John refused to come outside at all. He claimed to be 'too cold fucking well inside, not going to be much better outside. You pair are insane. Gary, stay in here and don't die.'
I went to Midnight Mass with you for the first time too. I didn’t really get it. Why did it have to be so late at night? You know I need my sleep. But I went with you anyway. I went to see a part of your world from when you were small. Do you still go or will you be spending Christmas in jail this year? Yu made me go to your cousin’s sister’s daughters Nativity play the week before. It was sweet. She was the little donkey that Mary and Joseph rode on. I thought she looked more like a reindeer (the horns gave it away) but still, she was such a cutie. She came up to me afterwards and she smiled at me, a 5-year-old, ‘I’ve just lost my two front teeth’ smile and asked me ‘Do you want some mince pies?’. She looked a bit like you, you know?
I never played a guerrilla gig before you. Definitely not a Christmas one. You said that you wished you had a harp but you had to make do with a guitar. We played carols until dawn, John had pissed off and Gary was (once again) with his girl. I think it was the same one. Not sure. But we sang so many songs and you put a Santa hat on my head and exclaimed to the dwindling crowd, “There’s fewer more distressing sights than that of Carlos in a Santa Claus hat”. God, I loved you so very very much. More than anything in the world.
I never used to get Christmas presents from my friends. I never knew what to get them; they never knew what to get me. You burst into my life with your Doctor Who scarf and every year we spent together you bought me socks. I never had enough. You bought me he ones I’m wearing now. Stripy, black and neon green. You have always had a slightly insane sense of style. It was one of the parts of you I feel in love with. Along with the poet, the romanticist, the fact that you wore your heart on your sleeve in the way I never have been able to, never could.
I never used to have a Christmas tree. I always used to just sit, alone, at the table in my small flat that I shared with your sister while she was... elsewhere. I think she was celebrating with you. I never did think to ask. But when we started living together, you forced me to get one. It had to be plastic, so it would 'survive'. You 'saw hard times ahead. Biggles'. So we went out and got one. Got decorations, too. Tinsel, in so many pretty colors. Darling little baubles, dancing in the night. A big, nice star. Golden and shiny. It’s sat on the top of my tiny little tree right now. Meant we didn't get any alcohol or cigarettes for a couple of weeks, but the mangy little room we called home was pretty, for once. The flat I live in now is bigger. It has 2 bedrooms, a separate kitchen, a hallway. Stairs. But I kept the tree. The reminder of you. The thing that keeps me from running up those stars and throwing myself off the roof.
I loved you. I love who you used to be, who you are now. But I don't love who you became. My heart was too dented to go back to you and ask you to become who you used to be. I don't think I would’ve be able to live through seeing you crash and burn again. See you fall again. Because even though my heart was completely healed from what happened after you broke it, after you did all you did... I don't think it could’ve taken you again. I wish I could’ve said I wanted you right here, by my side, for the rest of eternity. But I could’ve. I wanted the old you. You see, my Arcadia isn't a place; it's a person and a frame of mind. It's you, the old you, and the new you, the you who can shoo away my demons. Not the you who burgled my house, not the you who got arrested so very often because of drugs. I mean, you always used to say you’d never do heroin. Look where you got to.
I’m sitting here, in the chair by the little plastic fireplace, wondering about my turkey and it’s stuffing, looking at my Christmas tree, my guitar sitting by my side with a Santa hat sitting on the top of it. I was thinking about going Midnight Mass but I thought of writing this to you. Not sure whether it’ll ever reach you. I might give it to Wolfie. I’m all alone, except for my memories of you, my happy/sad memories of a man who doesn’t really exist anymore.
I still care for you so very much, Bilo. Do you still care for me? I hope you do.
Yours Eternally,
Biggles
.x.X.x.