Tom/Neil AU - NYC
It was fall in New York City and ice tinted breezes were whipping through the Battery, up across Times Square and unfolding through Central Park, shaking blood colored leaves from the trees. It was autumn and winter was coming and a lot of boys were being sent far from home, laced up in shiny black leather boots and desert cammo and, three years into this whole military thing, Tom Hobbes was about to go out on his first long term deployment in a conflict zone. He was twenty one years old and the world was scary and full of miracles, and somewhere there was a girl with blond hair and warm bed that was waiting.
Two weeks, two more weeks of freedom. Three years of bobbing through bases in Germany and Poland had worked him up some free time before he was next due in to Fort Dix New Jersey and a plane ticket that was waiting to take him to the hot, baked expanse of Kuwait. Tom bought a dog off a cart near Rockefeller center, and grinned and let the vendor keep the chain. He was crew cut, bashful, and wearing the only civilian clothes he still had, trudging through New York City’s streets in washed out jeans, an old Springsteen tee-shirt and regulation boots.
“You gonna be a tourist, Columbus?” Keith had shouted, throwing a wet towel at his head only hours earlier. Tom had dodged him, laughing in the barracks. It was a quiet morning, for once, and down time was a much treasured thing. The boys were playing cards all around him, laughing and bartering with chocolate and porn.
“Hobbsie’s gonna go look at all the big building, boys,” Seth drawled, Texas lilt making his speech slow and teasing. “You got your fanny pack, Columbus? You gonna take in a Broadway show?”
Tom had laughed and ducked his head, squirming when another one of the boys came up behind him in nothing but a towel and wrestled into a headlock. Breathless, bright faced, and laughing, Tom straightened himself up ten minutes later, ass still smarting from a recent rat-tailing incident, and pulled a tattered Army sweatshirt on over his head.
“You’re all a bunch of assholes,” he announced. “Enjoy your weekend sitting on base, boys. I’ll think of you while I’m having cocktails with Donald Trump and all those big deal movie stars.”
And they had all laughed, because there wasn’t anything quite so infuriating as Tom Hobbes when he had a bug in his brain. They were going to war in a few weeks, and Tom had never seen the bright lights of Times Square. He was going. He had the time and a stubborn streak, so he was going, alone if he had to.
And alone it ended up being. No time off, no inclination, no money, the reasons changed but the answer didn’t. When Tom showed up at the narrow single room in a hostel just a few blocks east of Times Square, he showed up alone, a small rucksack dangling off his shoulders and a crooked grin on his face.
“I’m uh - I’m Hobbes. Tom,” he explained to the boy sitting behind the desk at check in, squirming anxiously when the kid - sixteen, seventeen, he had no idea - just sat there, gawking at him. Tom ruffled a hand anxiously through his hair. The boy was dressed in dark clothing, piercings up one ear, and a tattered Clash tee-shirt hanging off boney shoulders, purple dyed hair sticking up at improbable angles. A tight, rainbow choker was around his neck, and Tom caught himself staring at it for a moment, just as intently as the other man was staring at his chest and shoulders.
“I...have a room for tonight?”
The boy leaned forward, arching his eyebrows at Tom hopefully. “Bet you do. Hobbes. Tom.” He flashed a bright smile, swiveling to look through heaped paperwork, humming quietly to himself. “You a suburbs boy?”
“Military, actually,” he said, blushing without exactly understanding why. “On leave from Fort Dix.”
The boy turned back around with a sad smile and a set of keys. “Now that is too bad, Tom.” He let his fingers slide against Tom’s as he dropped the keyring into his hands. “Forth floor, second door on the right. Changed the sheets myself this morning.”
“I. Uhm. Thank you,” said Tom, rolling back on his heels and feeling his neck heat up.
“You’re welcome,” the boy said keeping eye contact until Tom flushed and started to turn away.
“You in town all by yourself, Tom?” he called, unconsciously fiddling with a paperweight in the shape of a naked woman’s chest.
“I - yeah.” Tom nodded, rolling one shoulder. “Doing the touristy thing, just for a few days.”
“You got any plans for your first big, bad night in the City?”
“Ah...actually. I don’t.” Tom admitted. “They don’t put that kinda stuff in the tour books.” He flashed another uncertain smile. The other man’s grin grew slightly wider. “And, you know. Don’t like going to bars alone.”
“Well that’s a plea for an invitation if I ever heard one,” the boy said, slamming his hands down on the desk. “Tom? I’m Robby. And I’m gonna show you some of New York City tonight.” Tom opened his mouth to protest and was utterly over ridden. Robby held up both hands, shaking his head. “Don’t worry, soldier. Nothing that a straight boy can’t handle. I just can’t stand the thought of you sitting around and twiddling your thumbs all night long, alone in this big old city.”
Overwhelmed and laughing a little, Tom shoved a hand back through his hair. “I....uh, well....”
“It’s a date, Tom Hobbes,” Robby pronounced and laughed when Tom’s ears grew darker. “Or not a date. You be ready at nine, understood?” He grinned, dimples standing out in his cheeks. “Don’t worry, man. I’ll play nice and fair.”
And so, three hours into New York City and a little travel sore and anxious, Tom climbed four flights of stairs in the City’s chilly fall breeze and laughed to himself.
Well. At least he’d have a story to tell the boys.
*
It wasn’t what he expected. New York, the City, Times Square, the Empire State Building, all of it. It wasn’t what he had expected, it wasn’t the wonder and the clean lines of all those movies he’d spent a midwestern youth watching. It was different, but it was also more, and Tom Hobbes lapped up every minute, buying a miniature Statue of LIberty paper weight and picking up postcards to write home to Sophie, just like clockwork, just like always.
It also wasn’t what he expected when Robby rolled him out of bed at ten at night, taking by the hand like they were old friends and dragging him bodily from the hostel. Maybe that’s why it was easy to be around him, even with his dyed hair and rainbow bracelets and the lingering stares Tom could feel on his back. Robby was just twenty-one and cocky and out for a good time, and Tom, despite Army roots, was helpless to stop him.
“No where crazy,” Tom cautioned the younger man, turning up the collar of his jacket against a chilly breeze. His eyes darted nervously across the neon signs hung in small, packed bars. A subway ride had taken them down to a narrower, older part of Manhattan, and Tom was seeing locals on parade that wouldn’t be locals anywhere else in the world.
“Okay,” Robby said, grinning, dark liner smudged under his eyes. “Not yet.”
“I -” Tom said, exasperated, but he followed when Robby ducked into a narrow bar. It was pretty much like any other dive he’d been to back home or abroad, too loud music and TVs broadcasting ESPN. And yeah, what was different was pretty much immediately apparent. Eight dollar beers and two guys in Mets caps linking ankles under a table in the back of the room. Robby slid his way back to a table and Tom rolled his eyes and sidled up to the bar, grabbing two pints of the cheapest stuff and wandering back to the table.
“So,” Robby said, spreading his hands. “Welcome to New York.” He gestured at the bar. “What do you think?”
Tom scoffed, ducking his head. “I think, if my CO knew I was here-”
“Straight boy, innocent, this isn’t an orgy, it’s a bar. With beer. And sports.” Robby grinned. “Crappy beer. And crappy sports. But, I figure we can ease you in nice and slow. You can’t come to New York City without having stories about all the fags you saw while you were here.”
“I don’t -” Tom muttered, flushing red. “I don’t talk like that. Use those words.”
Robby laughed, rolling his eyes grandly and reaching over to pat Tom’s hand. “That is fucking adorable. Now, johnny drink up, come on now. All my big scary fag friends will be here soon and we’re not gonna stick around this joint for long.”
Tom sighed, fought back a little, but all Robby did was point out that home was a cab ride away if he got too scared for it. Which is what really drove him onward. Tom Hobbes was a lot of things, but not a bigot, and not afraid, and in the end he mostly ended up tagging along to prove a point. Stubbornness and sheer determination have been put to less nobel efforts, or at least that’s what he told himself, walking between bars behind a pack of laughing, shoving people, all Robby’s friends, straight and not straight, but a good mix. Tom’s defenses were up and he was drunk and wary, but something about it smacked of the barracks, affectionate nick names and teasing. He was an oddity and something to be enjoyed before he packed his bags and went back to saving the world.
He was enjoying himself. It could have quite easily been just another night out of a lifetime, hardly more than a roadbump he’d spin stories about in later years. But they moved from bar to bar through Manhattan’s East Village and slowly, by seconds, it was suddenly 2am and they were being evacuated from the most recent dance club, all it’s flashing lights turned off and flood lights turned on to scare the dancers out into the dark streets like cockroaches. Tom staggered a little as they left the bar, spinning around.
“We goin back?”
“One more!” someone shouted, and they made their way, late night bar open for all the drunks and late night fuckers, too drunk to know that they should be home and safe and in bed, sleeping. Tom tripped going into the bar, long past caring now that there were guys fucking around with one another in dark corners, loud, blaring music and crappy watery beer. Just another night in the city, so drunk that his elaborate plans for the next day were looking less likely with each passing minute.
He’d lost Robby, but one or two of his friends were still talking by the door, and Tom, feeling a lot less drunk than he actually was, made his way up to the bar for just one more pint, peering shortsightedly at his billfold as he eased and stumbled up to the bar. He was drunk and clumsy and when the man leaning against the bar suddenly pushed off with a full glass, Tom didn’t even have a chance of stopping. His shoulder caught the man in the elbow and the fresh beer tipped back and emptied entirely down his shirt before either of their impaired reflexes could catch it.
“Awesome,” the kid sighed, giving Tom a slow, disgusted look. Drunkenly, fumbling, Tom scrambled for ineffective cocktail napkins, muttering apologies as he did his best to blot the other man’s shirt. With a harsh noise, the man caught Tom’s wrist as he tried to press the crumpled napkins against his fly, blushing a bright and brilliant red.
“You are really, really gonna have to try harder than that,” he drawled, arching his eyebrows at Tom, cocking his head in surprise when Tom’s blush darkened markedly and he mutely tried to form words.
“I - not - friends, I’m staying at a hostel and -”
“Easy, man,” the kid said, huffing out a short breath and waving down the bartender for a dry towel as Tom stood there before him and held the crumpled, sodden napkins in his hands. “You spilled a fucking drink on me, what the hell do you think I’m gonna do? Fall to my knees and blow you for the favor?”
“I - sorry, honest mistake -”
“Yeah, I know,” the kid said, and this time, Tom was sure he saw a faint grin under all that blase annoyance. “If you were throwing it, I was sure gonna hope that you had better aim. You owe me a drink.” When he looked up, he was grinning and standing just a little bit too close. Tom stared at him for a moment, slackjawed with embarrassment and drunkenness. The other man was young, no older than him, and slim through his waist and shoulders, brown hair and dark brown eyes and the kind of presence that immediately made Tom squirm. They were standing very close and the other man was grinning, unapologetically refusing to break eye contact.
“I - yeah. I do. I’m sorry,” Tom said, and turned hurriedly to the bar, tapping his billfold nervously on the bar top as he waited for the bartender to notice him. The other boy slid up to the bar beside him, still watching him.
“You’re not from here,” he said, giving the bartender a slow, cheeky grin when he came over and took their orders.
“I - no. I’m Army. On leave.”
The other boy rolled his tongue around the inside of his bottom lip, arching his eyebrows in surprise. “You look pretty lost there, soldier.”
If only Sergeant Hathaway could see him now, Tom thought, blushing all over again and ducking his head. Tom laughed nervously. This whole damn thing was too ridiculous and it had come so suddenly out of nowhere. He rubbed a hand down over his face, throwing his last twenty onto the bar when the drinks came.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Tom murmured, passing the replacement drink over and toasting awkwardly.
The other man rolled his eyes again, making no attempt to hide it, and halfheartedly chinked his glass against Tom’s.
“Go home, soldier,” he sighed, leaning in to get inside Tom’s personal space, all hard lines and heat, breath puffing across Tom’s cheek and the lobe of his ear, close enough that for a moment their thighs were pressed against one another. “Here there be mother fucking monsters.”
And just like that, he was gone again, withdrawing with his pint and turning to disappear into the crowd. He raised his glass, giving Tom a shit eating grin over his shoulder.
“Thanks for the beer,” he called, sing songing it loud enough to be heard over the speakers. At the bar, still holding his untouched beer, Tom sat stock still and watched him, licking his lips after a moment and turning helplessly back to the bar.
When he swung his legs under the table, the bartender came over, collecting Tom’s pile of damp napkins with a sigh.
“Be careful,” he warned him, giving Tom a serious look.
Tom blushed deeply and raised his hands in his defense. “I’m not-”
“Just. Careful,” the barman said, turning away to ring the bell above the bar and shouting “Last call!” to a roomful of groans.
New York City, Tom thought, drunk and watching all the mixed colors bleed into one another. Sparkle, wonder, flash.
*
Last call meant flood lights and the kind of chaos that comes with a room full of drunks trying to track down coats and wallets and dates, all of which might have walked home with other people. Tom drained his beer, slid of his bar stool, and took one look at the crammed front door before spinning on his heel and heading for the rear entrance he’d seen Robby and his friends ducking out of to smoke cigarettes earlier in the evening. Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen them in what felt like hours, and that was a problem because they were his map and his ticket back home. 44th Street? 49th? He couldn’t be sure now. Even the name of his hostel was foggy, lost around beer number four or bar number three. Tom made his way down the dark hallway and, a moment later, out into the jaundiced alleyway light of New York City at four am.
He wasn’t the only one there. Sure, he’d expected kids fucking around, smoking, necking up against walls. Not this. Not shouting. Not the cruel kind of laughs you only seem to hear when animals are in pain. Tom was a wet behind the ears kid, barely grown, but he’d been abroad and he’d been in scuffles and brawls. This wasn’t that. This was a few stacked drunks spilling out of a sports bar in the street across the way, and one slim kid that was shoved up against the wall, sneering at them against his own best interests.
A familiar sneer, actually. Tom blinked in the doorway, shocked at New York City’s horrors.
“I said, how much for all of us?” one guy was saying as he shoved at Neil’s shoulders again.
“Not for all the fucking tea in china, frat boy,” the dark haired boy muttered, eyes darting around alleyway, slouching and glib, but for all his bravado, there was something scared and desperate in the set of his mouth.
“You hear that guys?” the ring leader said, gesturing drunkenly back at his snickering pals.
“Fag says we not uh, what? We’re not his type. Maybe you like them a little more fairy, huh? Weak wristed little pussies your type? I think you might make a pretty good weak wristed pussy for us, don’t you?”
“Fuck off,” the boy said tiredly, going to shove his way past the larger man, maybe hoping to be let go to catcalls and hateful jeering, but the other man was too drunk or too bigoted to let him slip out so easily. He slammed the smaller man back into the brick wall, holding his hand against his shoulder to pin him there.
“I didn’t say you could -”
The man was cut short by the sudden, blinding pain in his jaw, hard enough to make him stumble away, drunkenly clutching at his face. Tom was drunk, on leave, and a representative of the United States Armed Forces, but he manages a brutal right hook when motivated. No matter what else, however you disagreed, you couldn’t abuse someone because you were bigger or stronger or simply outnumbered them. It wasn’t right. No matter what else, it wasn’t right.
It was lucky for him that the man’s two friends were both as drunk as their buddy, and when they closed in on him, the punch to his kidney and the two sharp jabs at his face weren’t as bad as they could have been. Even so, it wasn’t much later that he heard a bouncer barking angrily at them, and the men were hauled off Tom and thrown into the street with shouted orders to go home. It could have been worse. In all likelihood, it should have been. Tom touched his bottom lip and it came away blooody. Already he could feel his right eye starting to swell. By morning, he wouldn’t be able to open.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Tom glanced up into the young man’s face, feeling disoriented. The tone wasn’t angry, it sounded more shocked than anything else, as if he was still having trouble believing what he’d seen.
“I -” The young man shoved a hand back through his hair. “Jesus fucking Christ, man.”
“You’re welcome,” Tom muttered, staggering to his feet, letting the other man help him when he almost didn’t make it.
The younger man snorted a laugh, and a hysterical peel of laughter made it past his lips. “It was damn cheap beer, man.”
“That’s not what I-”
“I know what you mean, fuck.” He drew back from Tom, crossing his arms defensively over his face, a brutal I don’t owe you anything written in the way he stood. “Where are your friends?”
Tom wiped his sleeve back across his mouth, the crisp white cotton coming away bloody. He sighed to himself. “Dunno. Met ‘em this morning. Work the hostel I’m staying at.”
The other man rolled back on his feet, snorting to himself. “Where’s your fucking hostel?”
Tom shrugged tiredly, already starting to wonder just what the fuck he was going to do. He must look like shit. He was still wasted. The maze they’d wandered from downtown through a series of bars to here was too difficult to trace back. He pressed his palm against his head.
“Off Times Square, somewhere,” he muttered. “Can’t remember the cross streets now.”
“Perfect,” he muttered, rubbing his palm over his mouth and watching Tom intently. “That’s just fucking perfect, soldier.”
“Tom,” he said, cursing under his breath when his head really started to throb. Fuck. As if tomorrow morning wasn’t going to hurt enough already.
“Yeah. Whatever. I’m Neil,” the other boy said. “I gotta - I’m going home. Just.” He shuffled his feet, pissed and indecisive and more sober than Tom. “Whatever. Follow if you’re gonna follow, Tom. I’m not fucking offering twice.”
“I...” The protest was already in Tom’s mouth when he swallowed it. He was bleeding, abandoned, and too fucked to find his own way home. He had no reason to trust the boy that was rapidly disappearing down the street in front of him, no reason at all. But...the scared twist of his mouth when Tom had first seen him cornered was too human for him to write him off completely.
It was a big city, and Tom Hobbes was very far from home. “I’m coming,” he said, and did his best to keep up, following Neil through the pre-dawn Greenwich Village streets, to whatever place he called home.
*
He doesn’t remember how they got there. A few terse instructions from Neil and Tom did his best to keep up, turning down a narrow ally that looked all too similar to the one that Neil had so recently led him out of. For the most part, the younger man kept his head down and his eyes forward, only looking back over his shoulder occasionally to make sure Tom was still fumbling along behind him, some kind of wonder making his expression seem distant and closed.
“Is it far?” Tom asked finally, weary from booze and trouble and blood. He spat on the slick asphalt, looking up at the other man with tired, half closed eyes. Neil spun, already digging his keys out of one pocket, the collar of his heavy plaid turned up against the cold. “What?” he said, short and fidgety. He dashed up the back steps of the building, not turning to make sure Tom followed. “We’re here,” he muttered impatiently, mouth twisted as he shoved open the heavy back door, apparently already regretting his decision to invite his unasked defender home.
“Nice place,” Tom said, something of a slur still clinging to his words. Sightseeing, tall buildings, it was hard not to laugh, slouched in the back foyer of a sagging old tenement, waiting for Neil to convince the second door to open. Fanny pack and camera and New York City in a long weekend this place was fucking not. Something about it made him miss the baking hall of the barracks they’d put all of them through in Basic. Brutally functional and no place you wanted to stay for long.
“What’s so funny?” the kid said, arching his eyebrows at him, all fuck you bravado and defensiveness. He was too thin and younger than Tom had first realized, but not as hard and uncaring as he’d seemed only hours before. “Nothing,” Tom said, stumbling up the stairs behind him, still laughing to himself. “This just...it wasn’t on the fucking bus tour.” And that right there almost made the other man smile.
Upstairs, fourth floor, Neil turned the deadbolt on one last door and looked over his shoulder at Tom, cutting him a look. “Listen, Captain America. I’ve got a roommate, alright? And we work in the morning. So, if you gotta puke, do it quietly. And don’t....just don’t do anything weird, okay?”
The apartment was small. Tom figured it would have to be, but the reality of the closet kitchenette and views of brick walls through narrow windows was jarring. There was one sagging couch, a small TV with a coat hanger antenna, and a coffee table made of out two cinder blocks and a plank of wood. On the walls there were black and white posters for bands that Tom Hobbes, all American, had never heard of. He was still staring, taking it all in, when Neil shoved an armful of pilled comforters and pillows into his arms.
“I said, you okay, Tom?” Neil was asking. In his other hand, he was holding a glass of water and a few aspirin, and as Tom watched, he turned back to the kitchen, hurriedly shoveling ice into a plastic bag. Tom popped the painkillers into his aching mouth and threw back the water in a few, rapid gulps, breathing heavily as he finished.
Neil crossed back to him, pressing the ice against Tom’s mottled jaw without warning, peering up at him with frank, accusatory curiosity.
“Thanks,” Tom said, flushing and putting up a hand to take the ice, but Neil didn’t immediately back away, fingers still pressed against the rag he’d wrapped the cold pack in.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked again, exasperated and tired. He frowned deeply, like he was trying to fit his fingers around the edges of Tom Hobbes and break him apart, piece by piece, and garner some meaning out of it before he decided whether or not to put him back together. Neil didn’t strike Tom as someone that stuck around long enough to clean up his own messes. “Um. Tom,” said Tom, helplessly shrugging. “I’m from Columbus, Ohio.” Neil snorted, rubbing the back of his head. “Yeah, I bet you fucking are.” He sighed, rolling back on his heels. “Go to bed, Tom. Tomorrow’s gonna suck a lot. Sleep it off while you can.”
As he turned to the closed door at the rear of the tiny living room, Tom muttered something, gently pressing the cold pack against his jaw and averting his eyes. “What?” “I said,” Tom muttered, making his way awkwardly over to the couch, sitting down with a weary groan. He dragged one of his feet into his lap with effort, making the first of several attempts at the impossible taks of taking off his shoes. “You don’t even know my last name. You sure it’s safe to, like, bring me home with you?”
What started as a hollow little laugh quickly degraded into deep, unstoppable laughter, hands on your knees, wheezing, uncontrollable giggles coming up against better reason. Neil sagged back against the wall and laughed, concern for his roommate quickly forgotten, throwing himself into it as if he hadn’t had much cause to laugh like that in recent memory.
“What?” Tom said, frowning. “It’s a serious thing - I - you don’t wanna get hurt. It’s just common -”
“Go to bed,” Neil finally managed, his color high as he finally got a hold of himself. He shook his head, cursing quietly under his breath when he caught Tom’s offended expression. “Jesus fucking Christ, man, what’s you’re last name? I mean, if it’s gonna make you feel better.”
“Hobbes,” Tom said, unable to block an answering grin in the face of all that mystifying laughter. He hauled his legs up onto the couch, suddenly and all encompassingly aware of how tired every joint and muscle in his body was. He hadn’t felt this bad since basic. “My name is Private Tom Hobbes.” Neil rolled his eyes as he finally ducked inside his bedroom, calling back as the door swung shut behind him.
“Sweet fucking dreams, Private. Try not to puke on my rug.”
Tom closed his eyes. Not a bad couch, and the room was barely spinning. It was just about dawn in New York City -he could see it clawing through the blinds. Wasted, fucked, on a strangers couch and already starting to snore. He pressed his face forward into the cushions, groaning.
Daylight would be coming for him all to soon, but for now he pulled his legs in, curled up, and let all of it go, settling into the undisturbable sleep that only drunks and children manage. In the next room over, Neil was still snorting and laughing to himself as he pulled on a tee-shirt and boxers, crawling in bed beside Wendy and whispering quiet explanations in her ear. He was grinning, he had no reason to, but it was still there, pinning up the corners of his mouth when he drifted into deeper layers of sleep.
All around them, New York City started to wake up.
It’s not the morning light that wakes him, or soft sounds from the kitchen, or even the front door slamming as someone let themselves out. What wakes Tom Hobbes is the sudden, deafening roar of the TV when someone switched it on, all static mixed in with the morning news. Hungover, but mostly drunk, Tom startled half off the couch, landing with a groan and the taste of ash and bile in his mouth.
“Sorry.” The voice is firm and female and doesn’t sound very sorry at all. He’s twenty one and infinite and this girl is probably his own age, but he forgets that for a moment and it slips away. She’s got pigtails and dark eyeliner, stuff on her lips that makes them look wet and pink and the look that she’s giving him is one of unapologetic suspicion. He can see a little girl in her, but what he mostly see is dont-fuck-with-me New Yorker and not too little scorn.
“Roommate?” he ventured, voice craggy and weak. He could feel the last few drinks still swirling around his belly. Details came slugging back, one after another. Jesus. What the fuck had he done? Going back to base bruised to shit wasn’t going to go unnoticed. He’d be lucky if he got out of it without penalties.
“Girlfriend?” he asked, and there was a lot of eyerolling in response to that and a muttered ‘fuck no,’ as she flopped back in the arm chair, switching back and forth between news and cartoons. After a moment, Tom gathered himself enough to stumble in the direction of the bathroom, splashing water on his face from a brown stained sink, looking at the mottled bruises and dark circles under his eyes. Dead man walking, he thought, wincing when he turned his head to get a better look at the marks. There were probably more on his sides and his back, and if he thought his head hurt now, then every fucking inch of him would be screaming tomorrow.
And then back to base on Monday. Shit.
“There’s coffee,” the girl said when he made it back out into the living room. “If you like it, or whatever. S’instant.”
“Thanks,” Tom said weakly, trudging over to the gas oven and lighting it up, hovering to grab the kettle before the whistle tore through his skull. Tiny, crappy kitchen. He could vaguely remember coming through it the night before. God. The bar, the ally...
“Neil?” he managed, almost shocked that he’d remembered the boy’s name. It was almost hard to bring up his face, dark eyed and grinning, looking at him sideways and then, later, looking at him like he was fucking insane and a burden, all at once. All in one.
The girl looked up, setting down the bowl of Lucky Charms she’d been eating on the makeshift coffee table.
“Work,” she muttered, futsing with the buttons on her shirt, not looking up at him.
“Are you-”
“Okay, look,” she snapped, staring up at him and now, if pressed, Tom would have trouble thinking of her as a little girl. She was hard and unimpressed and tired. “I don’t know who the fuck you are, okay? Neil - he never fucking brings people here, okay? And whatever you think about him, whatever you think he does - no, listen to me. You stay the fuck away, if you’re going to be a god damned pervert. He’s not like that. And if you -”
“People were roughing him up,” Tom said weakly, completly bewildered. He gestured at his own face, as if desperate for evidence. “I. I mean, I just didn’t know how to get home. I wanted to get home, I just -”
Maybe it was the shock, the confusion, but after a moment, the girl relented, the thinly veiled hate softening into heavy skeptisism.
“Wendy,” she said, but she didn’t offer her hand, just kept them crossed tightly beneath her chest.
“Tom Ho-”
“Yeah,” she said, laughing a little. “I know. Look. I don’t. Whatever. We work at Subz. Two blocks north, one block west. He said you should...go by, or whatever. If you actually didn’t die on our couch.”
Tom took a few mouthfuls of the dark, bitter coffee. “I...okay. Um. Thanks.”
She rolled her eyes and grabbed a compact off the coffee table, looking back at him over he shoulder one more time before disappearing in to the bedroom with a shouted.
“Good luck.”
It’s not hard to find, and through his hangover, Tom felt a burst of pride at finding the narrow, unremarkable sub shop squeezed in between a rag shop and a record store. It was the first thing he’d been able to track down in the city without the aide of a map and four impatient locals, all pointing down city streets and giving advice in short, trimmed down words. It was lunch time, half the day wasted, and when Tom pushed his way inside, he was confronted with a sea of New Yorkers, all waiting impatiently for their turn at the counter, talking loudly, crinkling newspapers, shuffling feet - noise that was funneled and amplified in too-sensitive, ringing ears. Tom shuffled to the back of the line wincing, lifting his fingers occasionally to his temple and groaning under his breath.
At first there were so many people ahead of him that trying to steal a look at the workers would have been impossible, but as lunches were directed in to New York City mouths, Tom got a good look at the bilious uniforms and the ridiculous hats on several bored looking teenagers behind the bar. The first time he saw Neil, he didn’t recognize him, not even in the slightest. The boy he remembered was smirking in dark clothes, leaning back all lazy bones against a bar and laughing at him quietly, but laughing with a strange kind of wonder, too. The smell of bodies and liquor and bad cologne, not warm deli meat and cleanser, not Neil looking tired and annoyed behind the bar.
“Welcome to Subz,” he said, not looking up from wiping down the counter. “Can I - oh, shit, man,” he said, startling back a little, glancing down the line.
“Wendy,” Tom explained, squinting under the harsh fluorescent lights.
“Jesus Christ, you look like shit,” he laughed quietly, grabbing bread and setting to work on a sloppy looking sandwich without asking Tom what he wanted, but through the fog Tom saw mayo and bacon going onto the roll and he could have wept for joy. He shuffled down the bar with Neil, watching him in a daze.
“You remember much about last night, soldier?” he asked at the end of the bar, stuffing the sandwich in a bag and handing it over, rolling his eyes when Tom fumbled for his wallet and waved him away.
“I, yeah,” Tom said, sounding defensive, unsure, looking at Neil worriedly. “...did I do anything - uh -”
“Yeah, you blacked out and fucked me,” Neil said, rolling his eyes, giving the woman in line behind Tom a wide, brilliant grin when startled, letting out a disgusted huff.
“I - Neil,” Tom said, beet red and holding his lunch up against his chest.
Neil laughed and shook his head, dodging looks from some of his coworkers that were looking at him with evident interest, watching Tom jitter and twitch under his scrutiny.
“Go eat, Tom Hobbes,” Neil sighed, patting his hair down under his cap and walking back to the start of the bar, eyes already on the waiting customers. “I got a smoke break in ten.”
With that, Tom made his way to a seat by the window, feeling bewildered and out of sorts and, as Neil had so eloquently pointed out, like shit. He unwrapped the warm sandwich and groaned with visceral pleasure. This. God, this. Bruises and aches and headaches aside, he could forgive all of it for a greasy sandwich and a cup of coffee.
It was fall in New York City. Outside, a faint patter of rain started to fall. Umbrellas sprouted like mushrooms, and Tom just ate and waited and pressed his forehead against the glass, watching all of it unfold.
He wasn’t sure what to expect. In honesty, he wasn’t sure why he was there. He was curious and he was lost and he was so hung over that just about everything in the world was causing him pain. So when Neil rolled his eyes at him and muttered, “Back alley, soldier,” Tom followed along, still licking mayo off his fingers.
Neil flopped down on the back stoop, next to a dumpster and cut an affronted, disbelieving look at Tom. Not noticing, too tired and sore to be uncomfortable, Tom slouched down beside him, tipping his head back against cool brick.
“You remember who you are yet, Anastasia?” Neil asked, offering Tom a smoke and looking spectacularly unsurprised when he turned it down.
“Private Tom Hobbes, hailing from Fort Dix,” Tom said, sounding tired. “Got in a fight last night with some assholes, got yelled at by your roommate earlier -” “ -- Wendy? What did she --”
“--and recently saw a young man defecate in the alley outside your apartment building. Also, If you can get me to Times Square, I can probably find my hostel.”
“Again?” Neil said, rubbing his forehead tiredly. “Jesus. That sucks.”
“Don’t worry,” Tom said, grinning tightly, feeing hysterical laughter pushing against he back of his throat. “I’m pretty sure I puked there too.”
That startled Neil into a laugh, huffing harsh, acrid smoke across Tom’s face. “Thanks man, you’re really brightening up the fucking neighborhood.”
Tom leaned back against the doorway. He shouldn’t feel safe, he shouldn’t feel happy, and he sure as hell shouldn‘t think he’s doing just fine. He was broke, far from home, far from Sophie, and was about to go back to base bruised and bloodied before shipping out for god knew how long. Still. He cut Neil a tentative grin.
“I’m going to Kuwait on Wednesday,” he said into the silence. “I was gonna see the city today, you know? Get the sites in. Been stuck down in Jersey for so long I figured....I dunno. I just wanted to get it out of the way.” Maybe he was still drunk, over tired. Danger zone and horror stories, and god, all he wanted was his girl back home.
“Guess I’m lucky I got most of the sites in yesterday,” he went on, talking into the silence. “I don’t know how likely it is that I’m going to be able to blink unassisted today.”
He closed his eyes, leaning back into the shelter of the wall, comforted by Neil’s breaths and the persistent wafts of smoke. Small town naievty or something more. He didn’t care. In fact, he didn’t even realize that he’d drifted off to sleep until the door opened, revealing Neil returning with a steaming cup of coffee and a few Tylenol.
“What’s this?” Tom asked dumbly, noting that Neil had already changed out of his uniform, back in comfortable jeans and plain, loose navy tee.
The other man just rolled his eyes, tugging Tom to his feet. “It’s coffee, dipshit. C’mon.”
Bullied by confusion and an abiding need to will the hangover away, Tom trailed after him, throwing back the pills and the burnt coffee.
“Uh -- where are we going?”
Neil didn’t even acknowledge him, pulling a knit cap down low over his ears and ignoring him until they came to a bus stop. “We’re getting you home, you moron,” he said, less venom than he could have managed. “And then, we’re gonna go see the god damned Statue of Liberty.”
He raised his eyebrows at Tom. “You haven’t seen it yet, right?”
Tom shook his head in a shocked, numb no, relaxing when Neil jerked his head up and down.
“Don’t you have to work?” he asked after a few moments.
Neil snorted. “I took care of it, whatever.”
“I...man, jeez.” When Tom Hobbes grinned, he looked about fifteen years old. “Thank you so much. I guess you’re pretty sick of all this tourist crap by now, huh?”
Neil snorted and looked away again, but this time, Tom caught a grin on his face before Neil turned his back on him. “Haven’t seen it yet, actually,” he muttered, lighting up again with hands cupped delicately over a match.
“Oh yeah?” Tom said, already starting to grin real wide.
Neil rolled his eyes again, but wouldn’t meet Tom’s gaze. “Yeah, Jesus Christ.”
“You know, I’m feeling better already,” Tom said brightly, too brightly, standing on the curb in New York City, drinking awful coffee and willing painkillers to work by sheer force of will.
Laughing despite himself, Neil stole an exasperated, annoyed look at him before digging out his wallet for the oncoming bus. “Great, solider, that’s just fucking....great.”
By noon, Tom’s hangover had caved under greasy food, enough coffee to make him jittery, and a few dozen blocks walked at high speed.
“You know,” Neil said, a few steps behind him and watching Tom with a look he was already familiar with - you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me stare- as he watch Tom look with wide eyes around the lower end of Manhattan. Out of the hostel, out of the village, into the unforgivable corporate and touristy slice of New York City’s world. Looking around at the looming shapes of giant buildings, the expanse of the bay, and the shimmer of Lady Liberty out in the bay, Tom was hard pressed not to be in awe. “We’ve got these things here, called busses. Don’t they even have horse and fucking buggies where you come from?”
“Aw, come on. It’s a beautiful day, Neil,” said Tom with blinding, unapologetic happiness, cutting his way through the Battery on a slow afternoon. Everywhere, there were tour groups, school trips, couples lounging back on blankets, and jogger cutting through the maddness of it all. The City. Even away from the noise and Time Square’s mad lights, it didn’t get less amazing. “Don’t you ever get tired of life in this wild, beautiful city?”
“Jesus fuck, keep your voice down,” Neil muttered, ducking his head in embarrassment, a toothpick hanging out of one corner of his mouth. He peered around at the crowds as if expecting someone at any moment to call him out on him hick-ish company. “I’ve got a god damned reputation to keep up.”
“Oh, yeah yeah. I don’t want to ruin your New Yorker street cred,” Tom said, grinning over at Neil enough that the other man knew he was being made fun of. “What? You guys don’t take kindly to outsiders here?”
“Christ, you might as well have a fanny pack and a sign that says, ‘here, take my wallet, I’m from the god damned burbs.’” Neil cut a poisonous look Tom’s way, “And I’m not a freaking local, you moron.”
“No?” Tom asked, all wide eyed, teasing innocence in a grin cast back over his shoulder. He jabbed an elbow at Neil as they made their way down to the ferry gangways and the ticketing booth. “I bet it’s someplace exotic though, right. San Fran?
” Neil snorted a laugh, jabbing his elbow back at Tom with something that was probably supposed to convey irritation but somehow fell short. “Fucking Kansas, man. You do know all queers don’t come from San Francisco, right? It’s not a god damned factory.”
And that was phrased just so, just audible enough, just with perfect timing that the bored teenage girl behind the ferry’s kiosk gave Tom a bored what the fuck stare as the two of them ambled up to the counter. Reliably, like clockwork, Tom felt his face flooded with blood and the knotted cord of his tongue stuck in his mouth. He gave Neil a horrified look, to which the younger man responded with an unconcerned shrug.
“What?” he asked, innocently, blinking far to fast for Tom to take him completely seriously.
“Uh, one please,” Tom managed to the clerk, fumbling thought his wallet hurriedly. “Military discount?” he asked, sounding hopeful. From the battered, frayed leather wallet, he produced an Army ID badge, an eighteen year old, newly crew cut Tom Hobbes peering out of the stamp sized photo in one corner, grinning like and idiot with his ears half a size too large for his head. Not all that long ago. Back then, his uniform had been new enough to feel rough and uncomfortable, all heavy cammo and canvas.
“Ho-lee shit,” Neil crowed, plucking the card out of Neil’s hand as the clerk ran the sale through.
“This you, Thomas Hobbes?” he drawled, holding the card up along side Tom’s face, squinting theatrically. “You sure?” “Yeah,” Tom said, grinning and failing to pluck the card back from Neil’s quick, reflexive hands. “What about it?”
“Oh, nothing man, nothing at all. You look like you’re about twelve fucking years old and, Jesus fucking christ, those ears....”
“Yeah, yeah,” Tom said, flushing a gentler shade of pink, taking his ticket from the girl with a quick, apologetic smile. He caught Neil’s wrist surely and tightly with one hand, taking the ID from his fingers with the other. “It’s me. Big ears are a sign of strength of character, you know.”
“Oh, no way, man,” Neil said, shaking his head and a little red from the wind and laughter, hair pulled against his skull by a tight, knitted cap that he’d been wearing since getting off work that morning. “You got it wrong. It’s a sign of a great, big -” he said, stopping mid-sentence when the clerk rapped sharply on the glass, trying to get his attention.
“One, please,” he said. “I don’t got a fucking military I.D., though,” he added, all long limbs and fuck you bravado slouching against the counter. “You believe me if I saw I was in the service?”
Whatever the clerk seemed to make of that was thankfully distorted by the vent separating them, but regardless, the ticket came out on the cheap side. Tom watched Neil in faint wonder, shaking his head at him as they continued down the ramp to board the old, metal ferry. Here, the docks smelled of the sea and of oil and the dozens of hot food carts parked everywhere, salt and grease and sugar. A group of people led by a guide speaking rapid German was boarding ahead of them, each one wearing identical matching tee-shirts and, yes, Tom noticed with a cringe. Fanny packs. Neil cut him a look that was almost a grin.
“That’s Lady Liberty, you know,” Tom said, for lack of something better, pointing out across the bay to the beautiful old statue, green with age and experience, an icon, an American legend.
Neil sighed and dug a pack of cigarettes from somewhere, lighting up in the curve of his hand, trying to escape the invasive, fall breeze. He squinted out at the landmark thoughtfully.
“You know, I always kind of thought she looked like a dyke.”
Tom breathed an astonished laugh. The ferry bleated loudly, sending slivers of pain from his temple to the center of his brain. He touched the side of his head carefully. “You sure you’re from Kansas?”
“Sure and fucking certain, soldier,” Neil said, shoving Tom by one shoulder. “Now get your ass on the boat, soldier. That green lesbo isn’t gonna wait all day.”
And laughing, more than a little amazed, Tom went.
Liberty Island is a mad house. Tom wonders what it had been like in its heyday, a shimmering beacon for new Americans, a proud and triumphant look at their final destination. Now it was hideously crowded and peppered with overpriced food carts and pigeons, school groups, foreign tourist groups, parents screaming at children, teenagers slouching in corners, trying to pretend they weren’t there with their parents.
“This is great,” Tom said brightly to Neil once they were in the seemingly endless line to the top of the old green lady, in between a German tourgroup and a middle aged woman who was reading a pamphlet about the island to her henpecked husband, word by word.
Neil cut him a poisonous look. “Yeah, well, maybe I’d be having more fun if we hadn’t spent all night at that queer bar, lookin’ for dick.”
The woman behind them in line missed a beat in her oration and Tom’s ears turned a color that probably have been used to flag down aircraft, his mouth working mutely for a moment, before hissing quietly, “I was not there to-”
“Now this is great,” Neil said happily, rubbing his hands together and grinning. How much longer to the top? Five, maybe six more days?” He glanced up the seemingly endless crisscross of stairs snaking around the inside of the monument.
“It probably won’t be more than twenty minutes,” Tom muttered, still recovering and shooting apologetic looks at nearby families. “Christ.”
In fact, it was two hours later that they finally made it to the top deck of Lady Liberty. It was a strangely small place, but that was almost hard to notice, even in and amid the screaming hordes of children and the flocks of tourists that weren’t all that much better. All Tom Hobbes could see from setting foot on the top deck were the iconic arching windows of the crown, the expanse of blue water and grey skies and harsh, gap-toothed skyline around its edges.
“Man,” he breathed, wholesome Ohio boy to the soles of his shoes. Beside him, Neil whistled lowly through his teeth. “Alright,” he admitted, “That’s something to look at.”
“Hey,” Tom said, reaching out to stop a passing tourist with a big, happy grin, “Do you mind - ?” The camera was already in the other man’s hand before Neil, horrified, had time to object. Man handling him towards one of the windows, Tom slung his arm obstinately around Neil’s shoulders. Just as the man lifted the camera, Tom leaned over and whispered out the side of his mouth, “ - smile, and I’ll help you track some - uh - dick down tonight -”
Flash.
It was an old camera, just a cheep click-and-wind, so it was weeks before Tom got the result of his little stunt. And there it was, picture perfect, the two of them standing in front of an idealic autumn view of the city, surprisingly good lighting, and both of them smiling real smiles, mouths edged with barely contained laughter, Tom’s arm fitting around Neil’s slim shoulders, easy as anything. Perfect. Easy.
“Fucker,” Neil breathed, still laughing. “What the hell were you -” “C’mon,” Tom chirped, backing up to the exit. He could make this easy just because he wanted it that way. Now was perfect, tomorrow might now be. The setting sun was sending long legs of afternoon in through the arching windows. Take the moments where you can
“Last one to the bottom buys the first round of drinks.”
Neil shoved past him, still laughing. “Fuck it, you’re on soldier boy.”
Later, there are more drinks, hair of the dog that bit you, fighting back the dawning day. Tom had a few crisp hundred dollar bills in his pocket and Neil was kind enough to steer him towards the tourist epicenter of down town, all noise and lights and loud, shoving bars. Not gay bars, not cruising for dick, just the two of them, strange friends on a strange weekend, plucked up out of the maelstrom of New York city and fitting in an unlikely place.
It was late, it was more than late. It was the kind of late where only hoodlums and beggars and prostitutes made themselves known in Central Park. At some point during the day, they’d both grabbed a few hours sleep in Tom’s downtown hostel, bright afternoon sunlight doing nothing to stop them from over sleeping. Now, even the New York City bars were closing down and Tom found himself barefoot on the edge of a Central Park fountain, letting his toes trail through the startling cold water, passing a brown bagged bottle of something brutal back and forth with Neil.
The sun was coming up over the buildings. Today was a day that was made for going home, back to barracks, back to the encroaching shipping out day, but right now in this moment it was still tonight. Tom took a drought and passed it wordlessly back to Neil.
“Thanks,” he said, squinting over at Neil speculatively. “I had a really great-”
“You got punched in the mouth for me, remember?” Neil said, cutting his eyes over at him - really? you’re thanking me for that shit?. “I bet that wasn’t in your tour guide, was it?”
Tom snickered, turning his head to watch Neil knock back a few more gulps of booze. “Nah, wasn’t,” Tom admitted, stretching his arms over his head. “Maybe next time I come back through town, you can teach me how to use a knife.”
“What the fuck do I look like?” Neil said, “Cause I used to be a - whatever man,” Neil said, laughing, stopping mid-sentence and pushing a hand back through his hair. He looked away as he passed back the bottle, running his tongue along the inside of the bottom of his lip.
“Wednesday, huh?” he asked after a long pause. Distantly, there were sirens. Tom wondered if that’s how the base would sound, all shrapnel and burning noise and air raids. He threw back the last of the booze and looked at Neil dumbly.
“Huh?”
“Afghanistan,” Neil said, rolling his eyes. “Or were you just praying on my weak fucking heart?”
“Oh,” Tom said, shrugging distractedly. “Yeah. Wednesday. It’s gonna take something like forty-eight hours of traveling just to get there.”
“You been over there before?” the other man asked, looking over at Tom from beneath the spill of black hair.
“Nope,” he said quietly, dragging the pads of his fingers over the cement. “First time.”
“Shit,” Neil said, eyes wide. “That...that sucks. Don’t do anything stupid, huh?”
There wasn’t much else to say.
Tom laughed, wanting to do anything but talk about it. This weekend wasn’t Afghanistan and it wasn’t how he wanted to remember it, just a nice thing before the war. It seemed like it deserved so much more than just that, and he said something like that, half drunk, confessions to an empty courtyard and an equally drunk Neil McCormick.
The other man didn’t laugh, though. He just gave Tom an incredulous look, like he still wasn’t convinced the other man hadn’t dropped in from outerspace.
“Yeah yeah,” he said finally, giving Tom a very rare kind of smile that made Hobbes light up again, for no reason he could understand. “That’s what all the soldiers say.”
“No,” Tom said immediately, digging in his pockets for a pen and a slip of paper, what turned out to be a receipt for the booze they were drinking. “Just me. Here,” he said, proffering the pen and paper. “Gimme your address.”
Still arching his eyebrows, Neil obliged, writing it down in tiny, chicken scratch writing. “What?” he said, chewing on the pen cap as he wrote. Dawn made itself known over the tops of buildings, spilling down into the cold fountain. Wispy fogs burned off. It was Monday, and the war was two days away. "You gonna write me letters?"
“Yeah,” Tom said, open and earnest and midwestern Boy Scout to his core. He carefully tucked the paper back in his wallet, behind the Military ID. “I am.”
And the war comes.
It takes, in fact, seventy plus hours from JFK to Afghanistan with all the stops and delays and changes. Even those dreary hours, wrought with anticipation and nerves and the endless waiting, the circuitous card games, battering chips of nothing back and forth, even that in months later Tom comes to love as the time before the war. In bunkers, at bloodied bedsides, he let his thoughts drift back to those bored moments, running his thoughts over a worry stone. Squeeze it hard enough, maybe, and the worry drains out.
They got to the main base and stayed there two days. After two days, insurgents planted enough roadside bombs to kill fourteen marines and a platoon was chosen at random to ship out to help. Maybe in another world, it hadn’t been Tom Hobbes’ platoon. Perhaps it hadn’t been fourteen friends who traded stories of women and booze and wild weekends spent in New York City, all those endless chances. But here, Tom was packing up and shipping out to the desert, tucking writing paper and pens safely in his pack.
And then came the war.
In later days, they’ll write about this, whisper about it. The Badlands, the War Ground, the Hurdle, which were all euphemisms for we sent so many of our young boys and fathers out into the desert to die.
Keith is the first to die, but at least it went quickly. The bomb he trigged on his fourth day in sent him up in a mist of red and that was that. He was gone, there wasn’t even much to bury. They sat together, Tom’s platoon, in the darkness of the bunker and stared at the bare bulb above him, and they remembered his pregnant girl back home whose name no on could remember.
Seth died two weeks later, the land mine he found much less kind. Tom had stood beside him, talking him down gently as they waited for a bomb expert to arrive, and Seth, laughing, loving Seth had stood there, crying for his mother until the wind shifted or his muscle twitched and then - and then...
Tom had sent a long letter to Seth’s mother and woke for three weeks after from nightmares in which he couldn’t get the Texan’s blood out of his clothes.
There were letters from Sophie, from his mother, care packages filled with chocolate and cookies and, once in a while, a Sports Illustrated with sports news that was two months out of date. He passed all of it around, tracing the graceful curve of Sophie’s writing with the tip of his finger.
My darling, My love, My dearest....
Hometown gossip, prayers, words of love. He knew that it should have meant more. In one week, they lost three more men in two separate attacks, and Tom had the sickening revelation that his tour had only just begun.
The letters to Sophie become harder and harder to write. Twice a week, then once, then once a month if he was thinking. She’s worried. He can tell. What he writes is short and simple. He loves her. He misses her. He can’t wait to come home.
It all feels like he’s reading something out of a book. The war came and it came and it came. There was no small town solution in Ohio for all this blood and sin. Tom lies awake at night and prayed and hoped to dream of her, and not what he normally saw flickering on the insides of his own mind.
It’s been four weeks since he’s responded to one of her letters. The package came the day their Lieutenant was shot dead while trying to help a four year old boy who had been screaming from underneath a pile of rubble in a remote and dying city. Tom Hobbes got the first field promotion of his career. He meant to write a letter to his superior’s widow, but there were so many letters to widows. It all ended up sounding exactly the same.
He opened the brown box mechanically. Sports Illustrated - swim suit issue, cute. He felt his mouth try to smile. A tin of stale cookies. Snickers bars. Letters from Sophie, his mother, a picture from the local Brownies troops who were glad he was defending the USA.
At the bottom, there was another envelope, thick and heavy. Waving the men at the stack of contraband, telling them to have at, he lifted it up, frowning thoughtfully. He thumbed open the cheap envelope and into his hand dumped the contents: a stack of photos, glossy and new under his fingers. The first in the stack was him and all the men - he felt his diaphragm twist horribly in his chest, god, so many of them had died - at a bar in Jersey. The next was Wilkins passed out in his bunk at the Fort Dix base.. The one after was a blurry photo of the New York City skyline, taken from a train headed into the city.
There was a small post it on the inside lip of the envelope, written out in Sophie’s neat handwriting
Darling -
I finally got the film you sent back to me developed! Sorry it’s taken so long, you know how it is. It got shoved in a stack somewhere and I only found it last week. Tell me you’re not angry! It looks like you had a wonderful time. Who’s the other young man?
--S
Hurriedly, hands trembling, Tom flicked through the stack of photos - his hostel, the clerk who had so unsettled him, downtown, Times Square, and - oh. Yes. There it was.
Worry stones, moments outside time. It means more than it should and it goes on mattering for a long time afterwards. Tom held the photo in his fingers and got out a rough, happy laugh, a grin pulling at his mouth in a way it hadn’t done in weeks.
Neil was pressed up against his side in this one, Tom’s arm back across his shoulder, and New York City unfolded in jagged, gap tooth smile behind him. From the top deck of Lady Liberty, a thousand brief memories came tumbling back. He hadn’t forgotten, he’d just denied himself the pleasure of the memories for so long, it was nearly the same thing.
Neil was smiling. Tom himself was smiling. It had been a perfect moment, or at least he remembered it that way now.
By now the sweets and the magazines were picked over, but Tom hardly noticed. He pulled paper and pen to him in the flickering dimness of the bunker and stared down at the blank page. Outside, he could hear the rumble of jets and tanks and the distant fire of guns.
He swallowed. He should write to Sophie. It had been so long and she deserved so much better...
He hunched over the page and briefly closed his eyes. It had been such a long string of weeks.
Dear Neil...