Afterlife [2/?]
Title - Afterlife [2/?]
Pairing - Matt/Jimmy
Rating - T (language)
Warnings - Jimmy is dead. Also, there will be sexual content later.
Disclaimer - As far as I know, none of this really happened.
Summary -
A translucent haze. Endless dreaming.
Dreams. Memories. Aren’t they the same now?
Feels like it.
But they’re only memories...
Memories we can never make again.
Memories that feel so wonderful, so vivid, so real as they engulf my mind.
Then they leave me empty. In pain.
Alone.
I wish I could go back...
Chapter 1
His ocean eyes seemed opalescent, almost glimmering, with the afternoon light flitting through the window behind him. The rays outlined his pale face and accented the smile that was barely there, covert, whenever I was near. People always told me so.
He had my heart in his hands. It was that moment in which I realized he had my heart in his hands. I couldn’t have foreseen that he was never letting go of it again, for the rest of his life and beyond.
“You know,” he said softly, diverting his gaze for a moment as if he were embarrassed, but I knew that he was a master of adorable acts. “I think I finally figured out what it feels like to be in love.”
“You’re fucking cheesy.” I muttered, grinning despite myself. “What does it feel like?”
He boosted his body off its side and hovered over me, his lips brushing my cheek and lingering so close to mine that strands of soft black hair tickled my face. “You should know. You taught me.” And he stayed where he was, his nose touching mine and his eyes closed in contemplation.
I expected contact, the compassionate caress of his lips, the sparks that triggered inside me whenever he kissed me. Inherently, I expected it, and it didn’t come. Nothing came. I felt that something wasn’t right.
“Did I?” I asked, my hands finding his hips and pulling him closer, though my smile had faded. “I may need a reminder.”
He was stumped. He lingered there for only a moment longer before receding to my side. “Come and get one.”
“If I don’t?”
“Then you’re shit outta luck, sexy.” He turned his head to face me, humor in his eyes.
“I’m not amused, Jimmy. Kiss me.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t.”
“Why?”
We faced a standstill. Either he couldn’t tell me or he had no reason to give. The disconcerting sensation of falseness remained in my mind, crawled across my skin and permeated the air around us. I searched my memory for something, anything, that would give me insight to this situation...this instinctive discomfort...
Suddenly I felt flickers of grief, throes of agony, flashes of a gravestone surrounded by flowers. It took all I had to keep the tears welled up inside me and realize..
“Am I dreaming?”
The door burst open on the other side of the room to reveal a flustered Brian. He took up an expression of confusion upon seeing us there. “Jim...Matt?” he blubbered, incredulous as he noticed our intertwined hands. “Am I...er...interrupting something?”
I remembered this. This was the first time he had seen us together. Out of all our friends, Brian was the one who failed to pick up the signals, who meandered along beside us totally oblivious to the glances we threw and the moments we shared while everyone else was preoccupied. In the original memory, he would have walked in on us kissing and tripped face-first onto the floor in shock.
I turned on my side to snuggle close to Jimmy and kiss him on the cheek, as if that would explain everything. “It’s a dream, Brian,” I said, breaking my own heart in the process. Because the flawless, incomparable man beside me was a dream too.
Brian assumed a dazed look as the realization registered in his mind. “So then...Matt, is that really you?”
I paused to rest my cheek on Jimmy’s shoulder, breathing him in while I finally had the chance. He was so real. “Question is, is this really Jimmy.”
“I’m still here, you know,” Jimmy interjected in his opinionated, comical little voice. “Of course it’s really me. Nice of you to finally notice.”
I sat up abruptly. “What?” was all I could manage to say, and it came out as a sort of croak.
“You’ve gotta be shitting me. Even as a figment of our imagination, he thinks it’s funny to play cruel tricks on us,” Brian grumbled, crestfallen as he watched Jimmy slide off the bed. The tall, infallible apparition had a void expression on his face, as if he was contemplating how to make us believe him.
He turned to me. “I wish I could kiss you. Nothing could ever replicate that feeling. Not even memory.”
I gazed at him for a moment, dumbfounded. My vision became blurred and my throat rendered useless as he became entirely real to me again. Something I didn’t think possible. And yet...my dead paramour, my Jimmy, was here inside my dreams and I was falling to pieces in his arms.
With his arms wrapped around me and his lips planting comforting kisses on my head, I felt whole again. The only time I felt whole was entwined with him, and he was never around to complete me anymore.
“I’m sorry...” he said, rocking me back and forth. “I’m sorry for everything I put you guys through.”
I only cried harder when I understood that my breakdown was hurting him as well. And I cried harder when I recognized that his heart wasn’t beating.
If only I had swallowed my sobs and remembered that my time in that realm was limited.
-----
Brian stormed into my house within minutes of awakening. I was still sprawled across my couch halfway to hysterics, drying my face with a pair of sweatpants. He picked me up by the collar of my shirt and almost screamed at me, “Was it him?!”
I would have answered if it was possible for me to do so in that physical and mental state. At length, he set me down and allowed me to convalesce. He had been through half a case of beer and was passing the time on Call of Duty by the time I managed to salvage my sanity.
“I know it was him.”
He jumped when I spoke, followed by a fit of swearing as the controller flew across the room. Afterward, he didn’t seem to care. He turned his back to the game that continued on-screen without any qualms.
“How?”
I swallowed. There wasn’t really a sufficient way to express my certainty to him. I simply knew. I sensed it in my heart, in the core of my being.
“I loved him. That was my Jimmy. Without a doubt.”
He appeared skeptical, but it was obvious to me that he wanted to believe as well.
It was a difficult notion to accept, after one had already spent so much time trying to accept the latter. I had been through it myself. This conception of our fallen brother still being metaphysically cognizant had already shattered any pretense of stability I’d built up since his death.
“I’m going back to sleep,” I said. Brian opened his mouth to mother me, but apparently decided against it. He wanted to see Jimmy too.
“What if it doesn’t work anymore?”
I nearly choked on the pills from trying to consider that possibility for even a moment. My body wedged itself back into the corner of the couch and I closed my eyes, forced to breathe in the stale air pushing against my face that I was so used to. I wanted to be conscious for as short a time as possible.
“If it doesn’t work, I’m done for.”
-----
Pairing - Matt/Jimmy
Rating - T (language)
Warnings - Jimmy is dead. Also, there will be sexual content later.
Disclaimer - As far as I know, none of this really happened.
Summary -
A translucent haze. Endless dreaming.
Dreams. Memories. Aren’t they the same now?
Feels like it.
But they’re only memories...
Memories we can never make again.
Memories that feel so wonderful, so vivid, so real as they engulf my mind.
Then they leave me empty. In pain.
Alone.
I wish I could go back...
Chapter 1
His ocean eyes seemed opalescent, almost glimmering, with the afternoon light flitting through the window behind him. The rays outlined his pale face and accented the smile that was barely there, covert, whenever I was near. People always told me so.
He had my heart in his hands. It was that moment in which I realized he had my heart in his hands. I couldn’t have foreseen that he was never letting go of it again, for the rest of his life and beyond.
“You know,” he said softly, diverting his gaze for a moment as if he were embarrassed, but I knew that he was a master of adorable acts. “I think I finally figured out what it feels like to be in love.”
“You’re fucking cheesy.” I muttered, grinning despite myself. “What does it feel like?”
He boosted his body off its side and hovered over me, his lips brushing my cheek and lingering so close to mine that strands of soft black hair tickled my face. “You should know. You taught me.” And he stayed where he was, his nose touching mine and his eyes closed in contemplation.
I expected contact, the compassionate caress of his lips, the sparks that triggered inside me whenever he kissed me. Inherently, I expected it, and it didn’t come. Nothing came. I felt that something wasn’t right.
“Did I?” I asked, my hands finding his hips and pulling him closer, though my smile had faded. “I may need a reminder.”
He was stumped. He lingered there for only a moment longer before receding to my side. “Come and get one.”
“If I don’t?”
“Then you’re shit outta luck, sexy.” He turned his head to face me, humor in his eyes.
“I’m not amused, Jimmy. Kiss me.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t.”
“Why?”
We faced a standstill. Either he couldn’t tell me or he had no reason to give. The disconcerting sensation of falseness remained in my mind, crawled across my skin and permeated the air around us. I searched my memory for something, anything, that would give me insight to this situation...this instinctive discomfort...
Suddenly I felt flickers of grief, throes of agony, flashes of a gravestone surrounded by flowers. It took all I had to keep the tears welled up inside me and realize..
“Am I dreaming?”
The door burst open on the other side of the room to reveal a flustered Brian. He took up an expression of confusion upon seeing us there. “Jim...Matt?” he blubbered, incredulous as he noticed our intertwined hands. “Am I...er...interrupting something?”
I remembered this. This was the first time he had seen us together. Out of all our friends, Brian was the one who failed to pick up the signals, who meandered along beside us totally oblivious to the glances we threw and the moments we shared while everyone else was preoccupied. In the original memory, he would have walked in on us kissing and tripped face-first onto the floor in shock.
I turned on my side to snuggle close to Jimmy and kiss him on the cheek, as if that would explain everything. “It’s a dream, Brian,” I said, breaking my own heart in the process. Because the flawless, incomparable man beside me was a dream too.
Brian assumed a dazed look as the realization registered in his mind. “So then...Matt, is that really you?”
I paused to rest my cheek on Jimmy’s shoulder, breathing him in while I finally had the chance. He was so real. “Question is, is this really Jimmy.”
“I’m still here, you know,” Jimmy interjected in his opinionated, comical little voice. “Of course it’s really me. Nice of you to finally notice.”
I sat up abruptly. “What?” was all I could manage to say, and it came out as a sort of croak.
“You’ve gotta be shitting me. Even as a figment of our imagination, he thinks it’s funny to play cruel tricks on us,” Brian grumbled, crestfallen as he watched Jimmy slide off the bed. The tall, infallible apparition had a void expression on his face, as if he was contemplating how to make us believe him.
He turned to me. “I wish I could kiss you. Nothing could ever replicate that feeling. Not even memory.”
I gazed at him for a moment, dumbfounded. My vision became blurred and my throat rendered useless as he became entirely real to me again. Something I didn’t think possible. And yet...my dead paramour, my Jimmy, was here inside my dreams and I was falling to pieces in his arms.
With his arms wrapped around me and his lips planting comforting kisses on my head, I felt whole again. The only time I felt whole was entwined with him, and he was never around to complete me anymore.
“I’m sorry...” he said, rocking me back and forth. “I’m sorry for everything I put you guys through.”
I only cried harder when I understood that my breakdown was hurting him as well. And I cried harder when I recognized that his heart wasn’t beating.
If only I had swallowed my sobs and remembered that my time in that realm was limited.
-----
Brian stormed into my house within minutes of awakening. I was still sprawled across my couch halfway to hysterics, drying my face with a pair of sweatpants. He picked me up by the collar of my shirt and almost screamed at me, “Was it him?!”
I would have answered if it was possible for me to do so in that physical and mental state. At length, he set me down and allowed me to convalesce. He had been through half a case of beer and was passing the time on Call of Duty by the time I managed to salvage my sanity.
“I know it was him.”
He jumped when I spoke, followed by a fit of swearing as the controller flew across the room. Afterward, he didn’t seem to care. He turned his back to the game that continued on-screen without any qualms.
“How?”
I swallowed. There wasn’t really a sufficient way to express my certainty to him. I simply knew. I sensed it in my heart, in the core of my being.
“I loved him. That was my Jimmy. Without a doubt.”
He appeared skeptical, but it was obvious to me that he wanted to believe as well.
It was a difficult notion to accept, after one had already spent so much time trying to accept the latter. I had been through it myself. This conception of our fallen brother still being metaphysically cognizant had already shattered any pretense of stability I’d built up since his death.
“I’m going back to sleep,” I said. Brian opened his mouth to mother me, but apparently decided against it. He wanted to see Jimmy too.
“What if it doesn’t work anymore?”
I nearly choked on the pills from trying to consider that possibility for even a moment. My body wedged itself back into the corner of the couch and I closed my eyes, forced to breathe in the stale air pushing against my face that I was so used to. I wanted to be conscious for as short a time as possible.
“If it doesn’t work, I’m done for.”
-----