To Remember
Pairing: Tom/Bill - nonsexual
Fandom: Tokio Hotel
Rating: G
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the story and no offense is meant at all
Warnings: Major Character Death
Summary: I still don’t know why we went back there. I like to think he wanted closure, for everything to come round full circle, or maybe his mind was fading with his life - he needed to be there, to feel it, to remember it better.
The house we grew up in is gone now - it burned to the ground several years ago. We didn’t know until the day we arrived and I remember my brother being so upset he nearly made himself sick right there in front of the broken gate.
I still don’t know why we went back there. I like to think he wanted closure, for everything to come round full circle, or maybe his mind was fading with his life - he needed to be there, to feel it, to remember it better.
The ice was hard, crunchy beneath our feet and the numb feeling in my chest only intensified when I noticed he didn’t bring his jacket from the car - he wasn’t shivering, wasn’t aware of it - this drifting snow didn’t faze my brother.
I didn’t want to turn back to get it. He was marching ahead of me and my eyes never left his body and I’m grateful now for the memory of it - his swinging hands were blue with cold, the soles of his shoes making a pretty pattern that I was careful not to step inside. Even now, when I close my eyes, I can see the snowflakes landing in his hair and on his cheeks when he turned back to check on me - to check on me - the crystals that settled on his face forgot to melt.
I took his hand in my gloves because it was all I could do. I wanted that awful color out of his skin but the more I rubbed the grayer he seemed to get.
When we were children we had a secret place, somewhere we could go to be alone - alone meant us, we two, together, a pair. There was no alone when one had the other.
So I knew he was heading to this place and it was all I could do to keep up - even at the end my brother was at the head, the helm. He didn’t look back again. I’ve returned to this spot many times since, trying hard to hold on to the fading aura I remembered, but I’ve come to realize it was never really special in itself - it is nothing but a clearing set deep in the woods, a place where the trees grew around so tight and tall the sky disappeared, a place where no one could find us.
He made it special.
When he stepped into the clearing, I lost sight of him and panicked. The tree branches were thick with snow and as I hurried to push through it landed in my hair, inside my collar, and I was shivering again by the time I caught the tail end of his scarf disappearing behind the tall oak he’d been convinced was an ancient spirit when we were children.
I remember he’d named it Ben.
Ben was cut down the last time I came.
I hope his spirit found another home.
My brother was waiting for me in the middle of the clearing, his arms open and trembling and I threw myself into them, feeling incredibly warm despite the frozen touch of his hands on my neck. I love you, I love you, I love you. There were no other words to be said now that everything else was said and done.
We sat in the snow and he pulled my head to his chest and I listened to his heart beat for as long as the sun shone. He wiped at my tears and rubbed my red cheeks and whispered to me but he need not have said anything - I could feel it in the wind, the brush of his hair across my eyes, the weakening pulse through his veins - each beat was my name in his body, in his blood, and I cursed myself for not being strong enough to stop the pain flowing down my cheeks.
The stars came out, twinkling one by one in the small circle above our heads and I remember the clouds disappearing just so my brother could show me which was Orion, tell me the names of the three stars in his belt one more time. I clung to his every word, his every breath, and each time he blinked his eyes fell heavier and slower until he told me he was tired, so tired. And I told him to sleep.
I remember now pulling him into my lap, holding my brother to my body as his fingers pushed their way under my shirt and up to my chest, his cold palm over my heart, peace in the shadow of his smile, my tears falling on his face, and he turned toward them as if they were a cool rain and then he was gone.
I am alone here.
I remember promising him I would not give up, but giving up means surrendering yourself to the abyss, to the emptiness, and I’ve not done that. When I close my eyes I see my life and all it is and has been and I see him and I see us and I see myself now, lost and alone, and I see that my life is no longer whole, no more purpose, it is a book that was abandoned in the middle and will never be finished - the author lost his epiphany, his inspiration, his soul.
This is my final lamentation. I am in our clearing and I can hear your voice in the chirping of the birds and the whisper of the wind through the green clover and the soft beams warming my face through the leaves and I feel you here, watching me, waiting for me.
As I lay dying, you are near me and I can imagine you willing me to fight the toxin in my veins, my blood, your name in my heart growing softer but never fading completely, never in this life or the next, I promise you. I cannot bear to be here alone and you know it was never meant to be this way. I’m fixing this. I am coming home to my brother, can see you through the haze in my eyes and I’m coughing the last of the breath from my lungs to call your name as you step through to take my face in your hand, bright and beautiful and you are everything I know.
I remember you.