'Some Things We Can't Escape' [Tom Conrad/William Beckett]
Title: 'Some Things We Can't Escape'
Author: that_1_incident
Fandom: The Academy Is...
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Profanity
Pairing: William Beckett/Tom Conrad
Word Count: ~2,000
Summary: Tom & William meet for the first time since Tom left the band a year earlier.
Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine, gosh. If I owned Tomrad, I would just make him take pictures for me all the time.
Author Notes: Title is from "Sleeping With Giants" by The Academy Is... Inspired by this interview & a couple of Tom Conrad's photographs from his photography site, ForeverNever.
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"Because," Tom says into the darkness. "Because, I don't know, you couldn't even give me a straight answer."
He sets his beer can on the sidewalk, extends his legs out into the street because no cars are around at this time anyway. He hates balancing on the curb, and all of this is hard enough as it is.
"You kept talking around in circles, and the Butcher had to tell me, you know? You couldn't even do that."
He isn't being accusatory, not really, and if he sounds like he is then, well, he isn't. Bill gets that. He can tell Bill gets that by his nod, by the way his face stays perfectly composed. When someone says something Bill doesn't like, Bill blinks. Tom knows this. He and Bill used to be in a band together.
Bill sighs, looks out at the streetlights. "I didn't know what to say," he says quietly.
Tom turns his face away, can't look at him after that, just can't. If he does, he'll remember how Bill's face looked when they told him. It wasn't working out, the Butcher had said finally, after a conversation that had gone on far longer than its outcome deserved, that Bill and Mike had seemingly been doing nothing to end. Personalities, meshing, they'd said, or something like that, and it wasn't working out. Which was fine, he'd said back, but he'd've liked a little warning, thank you very much - them being, you know, his friends and everything.
Bill had called him once after that, wanted to know if it was okay to keep selling the shirts with Tom's face on them. Sure, Tom had said. He didn't think he cared anymore.
And really, he doesn't know why they happened to be in this shitty city at the same time, or how Bill even knew they were, or how Bill got his number. All Tom knows is that he thought he was over it, but as soon as he heard Bill's voice on the other end of the line, he'd realised he wasn't.
"I'm just... sorry," Bill says after a beat.
You never meant for this to happen, Tom says in his head, perhaps a little more mockingly than Bill deserves - perhaps.
"I never meant for this to -"
Tom lets out a thick laugh; it's hoarse, like a cough, but with derision. Bill stops talking. He realises he's being cliché, Tom supposes. Tom is amused.
They stare out at the streetlights for a little while. Tom doesn't speak because there's a lump in his throat that he can't seem to dislodge, and Bill sips his beer in silence because he can't think of anything to say.
"They look like fairies," Tom says, finally, and Bill looks at him as if he's lost his mind. Tom nods. "The streetlights."
Now Bill's looking straight ahead again, but sneaking glances to his left, trying to figure Tom out. He thinks Tom doesn't see him, but the edge of his face catches a lightbeam so Tom can watch his every move.
"Yeah," Bill ventures cautiously, "like Christmas."
The corners of Tom's mouth curve up almost imperceptibly, and then he shakes his head. "Too cold," he says simply, because Christmas lights are more joyous. Everybody knows that.
Bill looks like he's considering this, like he might be agreeing, but then Tom makes himself stop watching because he can't do this anymore. He doesn't really know why he's here.
"I guess... maybe," Bill says uncertainly, and Tom catches himself trying to decide if Bill's truly ambivalent or just doesn't want to seem too sure.
They lapse into quiet again and really, Tom doesn't want to deal with this, so he raises his camera and takes a photograph of the street. Click. He carries his camera with him everywhere. Photography always was his escape.
"We've lost you, haven't we?"
Tom looks at Bill again. He told himself he wouldn't but this, this just throws him. "Considering that you fired me," he spits, "yeah, I think you have."
Bill is contrite. Tom can tell by the slight quiver of his lips, the momentary bobbing of his Adam's apple before he gets himself under control. Tom hates to admit it but he does know Bill. They used to be in that band together; of course he knows him.
"As a friend," Bill says, so emphatically that it's almost a sob. Tom almost believes he's sincere - almost. He sips his beer, taps his thumb against the cold aluminium, tries to ignore the dull ache in his heart. He won't dignify Bill with an answer, and Bill sags a little as he figures this out.
"Why did you call me?" Tom asks finally. "Why now, why bother?"
I wanted to fix things, Bill's face says, but it's like he knows he's too late because he stops himself from saying it.
"You're too late," Tom says anyway, because he can't resist, and Bill looks at him like how, if Tom sees so deep into his psyche, can they not still be friends?
"But does it have to be so-"
"Yes," Tom cuts him off. "Because you made it that way."
"But can't I-"
"No. You're too late."
"I hate you," Bill tells him softly, but without malice, "and I hate myself for doing this to you."
"I used to hate myself for not fighting harder. Now I just don't feel anything."
"If you ever-" Bill bites his lip. "We could..."
Try this again? Tom thinks, looks at Bill to confirm and yes, yes, Bill is honestly about to say that, and Tom wants to laugh, and a tiny part of him might want to cry, too, just a little.
"You're too late," Tom repeats eventually, grudgingly, when he realises Bill's not going to finish the sentence. He'd known what was coming but still wanted to hear it out loud in the crisp post-midnight air. He'd still wanted Bill to say it, because people seldom ever remember what they almost said.
"I know," Bill replies almost inaudibly. "That's why I couldn't. You know. Say it."
"William."
"What?"
"Stop acting like this killed you."
Bill's mouth moves but nothing comes out. It's like he's stopped himself from saying whatever it was he'd rehearsed, but his lips haven't quite got the memo.
"You didn't lose your band. You didn't lose your job. You weren't excluded. You never had to play other people's songs, never wished you could sit down with them and write your own. You lost," Tom pauses for breath, because he really didn't mean to get so worked up about this, "precisely nothing."
Bill's not looking at him now, not even looking at the streetlights but at the glistening sidewalk. "I lost a friend," he says in a small voice, uncertain, like he doesn't know whether this will fly... and it sure as hell does not.
"You chose to lose a friend," Tom says frostily, "I was told to lose four."
Bill makes a funny noise in his throat but Tom directs his eyes away, won't look back at him because a) Bill might honestly be crying, or b) he might be forcing himself to, and at this point in time Tom isn't sure which would be worse.
"I never meant for-"
"The hell you didn't," Tom explodes, pushing himself up off his haunches, stalking a few steps away. He can't contain his anger anymore - he has to move. "Why did you come here?" he snaps to the night air. His back is to Bill, and that's all Bill deserves. "And why don't you go back, right now, because there is nothing you can say to me that I want to hear."
He hears a slight rustle, knows Bill's moving, hears footsteps and hopes he's walking away, although they seem to be getting closer.
"Mike never hated you," Bill says, and Tom can feel the breath on the back of his neck so holy fuck, Bill must be close. He shivers a little, tells himself it's because it's dark and it's cold, that's all - that's all. "He just knew you were jealous, because you couldn't have me. Because you thought it was his fault."
And Tom really doesn't want to hear this, so he twitches his shoulder like he would if there was a fly buzzing around his ear and hopes Bill will take the hint.
"It was just... the negative energy, it kind of got too much," Bill continues, regardless. "You were barely even looking at Mike towards the end - we couldn't be a band like that, Tom, it..." His voice cracks slightly over Tom's name, but by now Tom is beyond contriving any form of twisted pleasure from this. His instinct to indulge his schadenfreude was doused the second Bill began to talk about the secondmost painful feeling he's ever experienced - unrequited love. The first is grief, and Bill is the only person for whom Tom has felt both.
"I don't want to talk about this," he says gruffly. "You won, Bill. It's over."
"I'm sorry," Bill breathes onto his neck and Tom tingles all over, wants to lean back and see if Bill will catch him.
"It's fine," Tom says offhandedly. It's not.
"It's not," says Bill, and Tom closes his eyes. He can finish. Bill's. sentences. How is he less perfect for him than Mike?
Bill chooses that moment to touch his hands to Tom's shoulders, and Tom loses it. "I hate you," he snaps, turning around, staring Bill square in the face. "I hate you, I hate you."
Bill's gaze is electric. "I love you," he says firmly, and jerks Tom towards him, and kisses him on the mouth.
Tom stops thinking. He attacks Bill's mouth with everything he has - he is desperate, yearning, he knows this will never happen again and he doesn't want it to stop. He's vaguely conscious of tiny sounds, moaning and whimpering coming from inside him, from his throat, but he won't allow himself to focus on them, won't allow himself to focus on anything but Bill. He wants to burn all this into his memory, look back on it over endless days and sweaty, lonely nights. The one time he can't use his camera to capture something is the time he needs it most.
Bill steps back eventually and Tom keens in protest, pathetically, fearfully. Whatever comes of this, it won't be good. It could be his feverish imagination but Bill's pupils seem dilated slightly, like he... actually got into it, or something. Bill presses a feminine finger to Tom's lips.
"I regret more than I admit," Bill tells him throatily. He sounds fragile, as if he's about to break, which is ridiculous because if anyone's having trouble holding himself upright, it should be Tom.
What the fuck does that mean? Tom wants to ask, but the words don't make it from his brain to his mouth. He wants to reach out and - and grab Bill, or something, but he feels powerless to do anything as Bill smiles sadly at him and then turns and walks away. Tom can't imagine where he could be going, thinks they're not that far from a main street after all and maybe Bill will catch a cab, maybe, and Tom wants to go after him but his feet. won't. move.
He doesn't know how long he stands there, only that he moves when the cellphone in his back pocket vibrates. It's a text message, he muses, from someone he doesn't know, from a number he doesn't recognize. He opens it up to read it and his breath catches in his throat.
if we hadn't fired you
i would have cheated on mike.
Tom sinks to his knees in the middle of the street, and doesn't get up for a very long time.
---<---<---@
Author: that_1_incident
Fandom: The Academy Is...
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Profanity
Pairing: William Beckett/Tom Conrad
Word Count: ~2,000
Summary: Tom & William meet for the first time since Tom left the band a year earlier.
Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine, gosh. If I owned Tomrad, I would just make him take pictures for me all the time.
Author Notes: Title is from "Sleeping With Giants" by The Academy Is... Inspired by this interview & a couple of Tom Conrad's photographs from his photography site, ForeverNever.
---<---<---@
"Because," Tom says into the darkness. "Because, I don't know, you couldn't even give me a straight answer."
He sets his beer can on the sidewalk, extends his legs out into the street because no cars are around at this time anyway. He hates balancing on the curb, and all of this is hard enough as it is.
"You kept talking around in circles, and the Butcher had to tell me, you know? You couldn't even do that."
He isn't being accusatory, not really, and if he sounds like he is then, well, he isn't. Bill gets that. He can tell Bill gets that by his nod, by the way his face stays perfectly composed. When someone says something Bill doesn't like, Bill blinks. Tom knows this. He and Bill used to be in a band together.
Bill sighs, looks out at the streetlights. "I didn't know what to say," he says quietly.
Tom turns his face away, can't look at him after that, just can't. If he does, he'll remember how Bill's face looked when they told him. It wasn't working out, the Butcher had said finally, after a conversation that had gone on far longer than its outcome deserved, that Bill and Mike had seemingly been doing nothing to end. Personalities, meshing, they'd said, or something like that, and it wasn't working out. Which was fine, he'd said back, but he'd've liked a little warning, thank you very much - them being, you know, his friends and everything.
Bill had called him once after that, wanted to know if it was okay to keep selling the shirts with Tom's face on them. Sure, Tom had said. He didn't think he cared anymore.
And really, he doesn't know why they happened to be in this shitty city at the same time, or how Bill even knew they were, or how Bill got his number. All Tom knows is that he thought he was over it, but as soon as he heard Bill's voice on the other end of the line, he'd realised he wasn't.
"I'm just... sorry," Bill says after a beat.
You never meant for this to happen, Tom says in his head, perhaps a little more mockingly than Bill deserves - perhaps.
"I never meant for this to -"
Tom lets out a thick laugh; it's hoarse, like a cough, but with derision. Bill stops talking. He realises he's being cliché, Tom supposes. Tom is amused.
They stare out at the streetlights for a little while. Tom doesn't speak because there's a lump in his throat that he can't seem to dislodge, and Bill sips his beer in silence because he can't think of anything to say.
"They look like fairies," Tom says, finally, and Bill looks at him as if he's lost his mind. Tom nods. "The streetlights."
Now Bill's looking straight ahead again, but sneaking glances to his left, trying to figure Tom out. He thinks Tom doesn't see him, but the edge of his face catches a lightbeam so Tom can watch his every move.
"Yeah," Bill ventures cautiously, "like Christmas."
The corners of Tom's mouth curve up almost imperceptibly, and then he shakes his head. "Too cold," he says simply, because Christmas lights are more joyous. Everybody knows that.
Bill looks like he's considering this, like he might be agreeing, but then Tom makes himself stop watching because he can't do this anymore. He doesn't really know why he's here.
"I guess... maybe," Bill says uncertainly, and Tom catches himself trying to decide if Bill's truly ambivalent or just doesn't want to seem too sure.
They lapse into quiet again and really, Tom doesn't want to deal with this, so he raises his camera and takes a photograph of the street. Click. He carries his camera with him everywhere. Photography always was his escape.
"We've lost you, haven't we?"
Tom looks at Bill again. He told himself he wouldn't but this, this just throws him. "Considering that you fired me," he spits, "yeah, I think you have."
Bill is contrite. Tom can tell by the slight quiver of his lips, the momentary bobbing of his Adam's apple before he gets himself under control. Tom hates to admit it but he does know Bill. They used to be in that band together; of course he knows him.
"As a friend," Bill says, so emphatically that it's almost a sob. Tom almost believes he's sincere - almost. He sips his beer, taps his thumb against the cold aluminium, tries to ignore the dull ache in his heart. He won't dignify Bill with an answer, and Bill sags a little as he figures this out.
"Why did you call me?" Tom asks finally. "Why now, why bother?"
I wanted to fix things, Bill's face says, but it's like he knows he's too late because he stops himself from saying it.
"You're too late," Tom says anyway, because he can't resist, and Bill looks at him like how, if Tom sees so deep into his psyche, can they not still be friends?
"But does it have to be so-"
"Yes," Tom cuts him off. "Because you made it that way."
"But can't I-"
"No. You're too late."
"I hate you," Bill tells him softly, but without malice, "and I hate myself for doing this to you."
"I used to hate myself for not fighting harder. Now I just don't feel anything."
"If you ever-" Bill bites his lip. "We could..."
Try this again? Tom thinks, looks at Bill to confirm and yes, yes, Bill is honestly about to say that, and Tom wants to laugh, and a tiny part of him might want to cry, too, just a little.
"You're too late," Tom repeats eventually, grudgingly, when he realises Bill's not going to finish the sentence. He'd known what was coming but still wanted to hear it out loud in the crisp post-midnight air. He'd still wanted Bill to say it, because people seldom ever remember what they almost said.
"I know," Bill replies almost inaudibly. "That's why I couldn't. You know. Say it."
"William."
"What?"
"Stop acting like this killed you."
Bill's mouth moves but nothing comes out. It's like he's stopped himself from saying whatever it was he'd rehearsed, but his lips haven't quite got the memo.
"You didn't lose your band. You didn't lose your job. You weren't excluded. You never had to play other people's songs, never wished you could sit down with them and write your own. You lost," Tom pauses for breath, because he really didn't mean to get so worked up about this, "precisely nothing."
Bill's not looking at him now, not even looking at the streetlights but at the glistening sidewalk. "I lost a friend," he says in a small voice, uncertain, like he doesn't know whether this will fly... and it sure as hell does not.
"You chose to lose a friend," Tom says frostily, "I was told to lose four."
Bill makes a funny noise in his throat but Tom directs his eyes away, won't look back at him because a) Bill might honestly be crying, or b) he might be forcing himself to, and at this point in time Tom isn't sure which would be worse.
"I never meant for-"
"The hell you didn't," Tom explodes, pushing himself up off his haunches, stalking a few steps away. He can't contain his anger anymore - he has to move. "Why did you come here?" he snaps to the night air. His back is to Bill, and that's all Bill deserves. "And why don't you go back, right now, because there is nothing you can say to me that I want to hear."
He hears a slight rustle, knows Bill's moving, hears footsteps and hopes he's walking away, although they seem to be getting closer.
"Mike never hated you," Bill says, and Tom can feel the breath on the back of his neck so holy fuck, Bill must be close. He shivers a little, tells himself it's because it's dark and it's cold, that's all - that's all. "He just knew you were jealous, because you couldn't have me. Because you thought it was his fault."
And Tom really doesn't want to hear this, so he twitches his shoulder like he would if there was a fly buzzing around his ear and hopes Bill will take the hint.
"It was just... the negative energy, it kind of got too much," Bill continues, regardless. "You were barely even looking at Mike towards the end - we couldn't be a band like that, Tom, it..." His voice cracks slightly over Tom's name, but by now Tom is beyond contriving any form of twisted pleasure from this. His instinct to indulge his schadenfreude was doused the second Bill began to talk about the secondmost painful feeling he's ever experienced - unrequited love. The first is grief, and Bill is the only person for whom Tom has felt both.
"I don't want to talk about this," he says gruffly. "You won, Bill. It's over."
"I'm sorry," Bill breathes onto his neck and Tom tingles all over, wants to lean back and see if Bill will catch him.
"It's fine," Tom says offhandedly. It's not.
"It's not," says Bill, and Tom closes his eyes. He can finish. Bill's. sentences. How is he less perfect for him than Mike?
Bill chooses that moment to touch his hands to Tom's shoulders, and Tom loses it. "I hate you," he snaps, turning around, staring Bill square in the face. "I hate you, I hate you."
Bill's gaze is electric. "I love you," he says firmly, and jerks Tom towards him, and kisses him on the mouth.
Tom stops thinking. He attacks Bill's mouth with everything he has - he is desperate, yearning, he knows this will never happen again and he doesn't want it to stop. He's vaguely conscious of tiny sounds, moaning and whimpering coming from inside him, from his throat, but he won't allow himself to focus on them, won't allow himself to focus on anything but Bill. He wants to burn all this into his memory, look back on it over endless days and sweaty, lonely nights. The one time he can't use his camera to capture something is the time he needs it most.
Bill steps back eventually and Tom keens in protest, pathetically, fearfully. Whatever comes of this, it won't be good. It could be his feverish imagination but Bill's pupils seem dilated slightly, like he... actually got into it, or something. Bill presses a feminine finger to Tom's lips.
"I regret more than I admit," Bill tells him throatily. He sounds fragile, as if he's about to break, which is ridiculous because if anyone's having trouble holding himself upright, it should be Tom.
What the fuck does that mean? Tom wants to ask, but the words don't make it from his brain to his mouth. He wants to reach out and - and grab Bill, or something, but he feels powerless to do anything as Bill smiles sadly at him and then turns and walks away. Tom can't imagine where he could be going, thinks they're not that far from a main street after all and maybe Bill will catch a cab, maybe, and Tom wants to go after him but his feet. won't. move.
He doesn't know how long he stands there, only that he moves when the cellphone in his back pocket vibrates. It's a text message, he muses, from someone he doesn't know, from a number he doesn't recognize. He opens it up to read it and his breath catches in his throat.
if we hadn't fired you
i would have cheated on mike.
Tom sinks to his knees in the middle of the street, and doesn't get up for a very long time.
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