#all of the above are my feelings roughly about daisy too and how the fandom treats her guilt for all she did under influence of the hunt

[hezekiahwakely]

Can we. Can we talk about how Melanie was—effectively—losing her mind during all of season 3 and half of season 4. Can we talk about that.

Her emotions were being twisted into only feeling anger during all that time. For over a year. She leaned into it because it felt good, that was her downfall, but we can't deny that she was being influenced.

Her erraticness and volatile behaviors during this time can't be separated completely from the bullet wound seaping Slaughter poison into her leg.

Is she completely innocent in this scenario? Absolutely not. But she is just as much a victim of the Fear's influence as any of the other male characters in the series who we idolize for having sexy grey morals. We can't be treating her like some sort of pariah in the fandom for not reacting perfectly in terrible situations.

[denimwrites-archive]

The Day Things Changed

Prompt: The way you said “I love you” prompt #6: “On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, the late sunlight glowing in your hair”

Fandom: Tuck Everlasting

Pairing: Jesse Tuck X Reader

Summary: You became friends with some boy who seemed to always be hanging out in your woods, and when you develop feelings for each other things are much more complicated than just teenage angst.

Word Count: 1,673

Warnings: Kind of a sad ending?

A/N: I tried to leave the ending as vague as possible? Probably didn’t go as well as I hoped, but I tried. Also I know that this probably won’t really apply for everyone cause not everyone lives with woods in their backyard (I don’t even have woods anymore, and when I did I never got to explore them, so who knows if this is accurate). I was just really sad at the lack of Tuck Everlasting fics and decided to write one myself.

~~~

As the summer slowly turned into autumn, you decided to start doing some of your homework outside. Try to get as much fresh air as you could before the winter set in and ruined any outside activity due to the cold. You were in your backyard, facing the treeline of the forest that you had grown up with. You were looking through one of your textbooks, taking notes, when you heard a strange sound from the forest.

Peering through the trees, you thought you saw a flash of movement. Furrowing your brow, you set your book aside, wanting to take a closer look. Even if it was nothing, a nice stretch of your limbs wouldn’t hurt. You set out and walk the winding path that you know by heart, but don’t seem to find anything. After about half an hour, you turn to go back and finish your notes when you hear something overhead.

Looking into the branches above you, you’re surprised to see a face looking back at you. “Uh… Hi?” you say, unsure what this boy was doing in your woods. He just smiles at you and carefully starts climbing down, until he’s able to just hang and drop off of one of the branches.

Landing gracefully in front of you, he sticks out his hand to you. “Jesse Tuck, and you are?”

“I’m… (Y/N),” you reply, warily shaking his hand. You look around you, as if there could be more of him hiding somewhere else in the forest. “What were you doing?”

“Climbing a tree. What were you doing?” he asks in a teasing tone. You cross your arms at him and he seems to smile even wider.

“I came to see what some strange boy was doing in my woods.”

“Strange isn’t the worst thing I’ve been called,” he responds and walks past you. You turn to look at him walking away and start after him.

“Well, now where are you going?”

He turns around and walks backwards as he says, “You want to know where the ‘Strange boy’ is going? I’m going to find the tallest tree to climb. And I guess you’re joining me?”

You stop in your tracks. Why were you still talking to this guy? You should just let him be, but he seemed interesting, and this is definitely more entertaining than homework. Even with some of your instincts telling you to be wary, his eyes held a kindness that you couldn’t help but trust. You start to take a few steps after him. When he sees that you’re following him, his smile grows and he turns back around to walk forward.

You pick up your pace and start walking next to him. Glancing at him every once and awhile, you just follow his lead. He sometimes stops to look up at a tree, but after some consideration, continues walking. After the sixth tree you decide to take over the lead. Since you grew up exploring these woods, you knew the tallest tree. You start to head in the direction you knew it’d be in, and Jesse notices your shift, and starts to follow you.

You get there in about ten minutes, and when Jesse sees the tree, he has to stop to take in just how magnificent it is. With the season’s change at hand, the leaves were a rainbow of colors. Some were still green, while others were fire red, or daisy yellow, or orange, or brown. They blended together perfectly to form a stunning image.

Walking up to it, you place a hand on the trunk and think back to the first time you climbed the tree. It had been after a particularly stressful day one spring, and you had wanted nothing more than to just get away from the world. Climbing from branch to branch and emerging above everything else in the forest gave you a sense of how miniscule some things really were in life. As Jesse stepped up next to you, he rested his hand on the trunk as well, you knew that he understood the thoughts going through your head.

After a few minutes of just appreciating nature, Jesse’s hand moves to the closest branch and grabs a sturdy hold, pulling himself up. He looks at you with a twinkle in his eye, “Race you to the top!” he shouts, before taking off like a shot.

You gasp and start climbing. With your familiarity of the branches, you’re soon caught up to Jesse. It seems like a tie for as to who gets to the top first, but the view is a prize enough for the both of you. From your perch you can see all the other trees and their changing leaves, along with the life that each of the trees hold.

The two of you just sit there and take in the majesty that is the world, and even though you don’t really know Jesse Tuck, you know that he’s someone worth getting to know.

You do end up getting to know him over the course of the month. Meeting at your treeline after school everyday, you explore the woods like you never did when you were younger. You play games and ask each other stupid and deep questions. But even after getting to know him, you still don’t know where he came from, or all that much about his family, You know better than to push something that you don’t know about, but you still wish that he would open up to you more.

With the weather getting colder and colder, and the nights becoming more and more prevalent, you try to convince Jesse to meet you at the library, or somewhere else that there’s heat. Instead, he brings you to his tent. You raise your eyebrow when he first suggests it, but after finally getting to see it, it’s actually really nice.

It’s similar to a popup caravan, but it’s been modified for comfortable living, including a wood stove that keeps you both warm as you talk about everything and nothing. Winter comes and goes, with you giving Jesse some books, and him gifting you a drawing he did from the top of your tree: the tallest tree in your woods.

Spring comes and you know that your friendship with Jesse is growing to be more than that, but you stomp down those thoughts, not wanting things to change between the two of you. That doesn’t last long though, when Jesse gives you a bouquet and a kiss on Valentine’s day. You’re left awestruck, but finally kiss him back when your senses come back to you.

After that day, you spend more time with Jesse, and it seems like he’s trying to make the most out of the time before the summer. Still sharing stories like when you first met, but you notice that Jesse doesn’t seem as enthusiastic as before. You try to cheer him up with plans of the future, but that only seems to make him even more somber. Finally, you decide to confront him. It’s been about nine months since you first met Jesse Tuck, and you aren’t about to let him be sad on your watch.

You make a picnic, complete with sandwiches, chips, cookies, and a blanket. When Jesse sees the basket in your arms when you meet him, you can see his eyes light up. As he takes your hand, you can’t help the smile that makes its way to your face. Deciding to eat at your spot at the trunk of the tallest tree, you set out the blanket and prepare your special meal. You sit in relative silence, sometimes broken by your giggles and quiet jokes.

When you’ve finished eating, you find yourself in Jesse’s arms and can’t help but wish you could just stay there forever. His head is resting on top of yours, and you can only imagine what’s going through his mind. Your hands in his, you give them a squeeze, and when you know you have his attention you take a deep breath and ask the question you’ve been dreading the answer to.

“You have to leave when summer comes, don’t you?” Your voice is quiet, but still shatters the peaceful time you were having like a siren.

Jesse doesn’t respond right away. He clutches to you tightly and buries his head into your shoulder. You carefully run your hand through his hair, knowing that this is just as hard for him as it is for you. Hearing him mumble something, you turn so you can look at him. “What?”

You see the tears in his eyes as he repeats himself, emotion laced throughout the bold statement, “I love you.” You can feel your adoration for Jesse well up and you’re kissing him with every fiber of your being.

“I love you, too,” you reply when you finally pull away. His hands cup your cheeks, and he kisses your forehead. You relax into him, and you just sit there, absorbing the magnitude of what just happened and what is to come. When the sun starts to set, and the night air causes you to shiver, Jesse finally gets up and helps you pack up, still not saying a word.

You walk him back to his tent and you give him a kiss on the cheek. As you turn to head home, he grabs your hand and pulls you back to him. Kissing you roughly, you can feel everything he’s feeling. His desperation to hold onto today. His sorrow at having to say goodbye. You give him everything you have in that kiss, every ounce of love you can muster.

When you pull away for air, your foreheads are resting against each other and you feel like you’re the only ones left in the universe. You don’t know what the future holds, but even if Jesse isn’t there, you know that you will never be able to forget the time you spent with him, or the way he made you feel.

[sonofhistory]

Fandom: Hamilton - Miranda

Relationship: Alexander Hamilton/Thomas Jefferson

Series: Part 5 of the Young and Beautiful. series

Word Count: 5,565

Hot summer days, rock 'n' roll

The way you play for me at your show

And all the ways I got to know

Your pretty face and electric soul

        There was something magical about holding somebody's life in the brush of your fingertips. Like pressure points, Alexander Hamilton’s touch padded its way across the skin of Thomas Jefferson’s chest. It all led up to his heartbeat; a minuet in which all strides danced across the marble dancefloor to his heart. Electric impulses following their way up to his own being, pulsating in rhythm and in muse with the man before his gaze. The sound of his heartbeat lying just below the layers of skin and into the fragmented piecings of his whole- record the time, listen to the beat, remember the life and make a song from the pulse in his chest that you and your lover will both duet to.

        The hand on his waist burnt a pattern into the rip of his hips and like a flame, it spread indolently charring the place where Thomas’s extremity culminated their emotion. The heat surrounding the two in a Renaissance bed would illuminate the cigarette that Alexander would light using the tear stains on Thomas’s cheeks. Ash, soot and a bitter taste of charred paper resting on his tongue was all worth it to take away a sole piece of the Virginian’s pain. That much anguish would fill the lungs of every breather on the planet, suffocating in remnants of disdain.

        In the center of an office corridor, witnessed to not one but themselves- a new promise was roughly impressed onto the skin of his teeth; ingrained like a tattoo on the bite of his jaw. One taste that he swiftly melted into in a quick surprise- and he realized he had been starving his entire life. The thirst for that man’s tongue against his bottom lip and the tough padding of fingers on his pelvis. Where Thomas left those earlier marks that night he’d leaned down between the immigrant’s thighs and left soft impulses of kisses across the scatter of his skin. The hunger forever implanted itself in his bosom and he always craved more. He pressed another butterfly into the man with so much misery, placing feather light presses to taste a bit of the salt on his skin. He was cut from fire and ice and at the same time his lips became charred as wash of ice melted from a storm. All that day Thomas searched through the shores on his skin, for strips of the past, and of the rocks they collected the last time the sea painted them in salt.

          Ever so often, Thomas would lift his head in the arch where his neck cascaded like a wave into his ribs, growing roots around his ribcage and sprouted flowers just below his collarbone; reading out his name. Alexander plucked those vines, tugging at the petals as a daisy and always truth rang out in a silver bell; he loves you . The sun set on another day and Alexander sung as best he could in reeds, “my beloved, even the sun is not afraid to leave the mountains and find himself a new home in your eyebrows.” Thomas’s eyes did not meet at the center, but blinked, finding value; the whole world wished to remark on the color varnished inside his eyelids, the muddy sunset that faded every time he slept and an amber rise every time he woke.

          Thomas shifted his hand, tracing his caress even higher from his lateral and dragging an elegant line in the sand of his skin to his shoulders. There his hand rested gently tracing pictures on the curves of his skin and folding consistent melodies and harmonies. There were scars on both their souls, scars etched into their sheath, some were outside and some were beneath, all had a story of why they exist, but some were unwritten, too scared to admit, some Alexander saw but most were kept hidden. With cashmere and satin ribbons he’d unwrap Thomas like a beautiful bow so he could imbibe all of his secrets, fall deeper in love with his mind and cut his cheeks on the horrors he’d seen.

         The light that faded in through the balcony window where they just once stood, their footprints were etched into the marble and stone of the apartment. His somber skin, clean like porcelain, the words touched his cheeks flushing them to rouge. Alexander would make a pallet of paint from the various colors of both of their souls. Dye the sky rose in the gentle feel in spirit, draw a streak on the city lights with charcoal to silence the mood. Shine from a finishing day splashed like waves on their skins, fingertips hovered above Thomas’s heart were streaked apricot from the soul of the sky.

          Last night Alexander dreamed he built a castle in the sky, he got Thomas to live in it too; from the tallest tower they could see the whole world and from there Thomas grew wings and flew far away- the castle crumbled to dust and sand in an hourglass that slipped away to time. Thomas came back, and the castle was rebuilt. Thomas hummed to himself, Alexander remarked how his hair looked like clouds- and the color that dashed upon his cheekbones was added to his collection. But watching the man flap his wings- a suddenly recognition of why some birds don’t fly. Alexander did not have wings, and he could not fly. But all that he needed was the castle in the sky and that tower where he could see the entire world breath, close his eyes and dream.

         Where Thomas was sweet, Alexander developed a new tooth for him. When the sunset shone across the tips of hair they shined across the contrasting paste of the pillow and melted to gold. Nature’s first green was gold, it is the hardest hue to hold, dawn goes down every day; the gold can never stay. Alexander smoothed the edges of his fingertips across the fringed tips of the secretary of state’s hair and became rich upon rare beauty.

         “You’re staring at my hair, Alexander.”

         The non-stop man simply purred in response. Alexander wished to save the world from all its wars, but he knew first he must save himself from all the wars he put himself through. Stupid arguments in a cabinet meeting that was never forgotten. The truth may sting for a time, salt on old wounds licking themselves descent, and that is why he constantly spoke. The things that finally break you in the end are the words that are trapped in your throat, crammed in the pockets of Thomas’s coat are paragraphs Alexander knew he should of said. While they gathered in his throat, finding common placing in his lungs- he was drowning in the phrases and sentences he did not speak. In a crowded room Alexander could now see, Thomas was that only one without room left to breath as he perished beneath the waves- the only one of many who did not try to swim.

         A sigh admitted from Alexander’s lips and cast shadows in the air, he lifted a nail and traced a streak in the center of Thomas’s lips, searching for the expressions that were hidden all this time. “How about you show me your words?”, it slid past his argot and aught was sweeter he seemed to find then his name in Thomas’s language and colliding onto his collar in feral waves. He saw poems flash before his eyes when Thomas slithered between his thighs. But right now there was no sexual components about the mood, lust of course imbedded into the air but love isn’t just gestures or letters to be said, it is not just touch or sensations to be bred- love was looking into Thomas’s semblance and simply being able to the dissect the stories of his past as if he’d read it all his life.

           The tips of the man he once held in distaste curled up into the slight smirk, sitting up in the bed and Alexander laid his head on his chest. He heard the vibrations of that Virginian’s heart- fearful that it only beated for him. It was tune of pleasure that soothed his soul. Let’s take what we can carry and leave behind the rest. Full lips spread like lights across Thomas’s visage as his stubble scratched the dents in Alexander’s chin with a kiss to his forehead erasing his misery and speaking with actions that his mind was beautiful. “How about a bath instead?”, Thomas suggested, his gaze from above scrutinizing the scene.

          A moan escaped in pleasure and Thomas lifted his hand off of Alexander’s shoulder, he fell back against the bed and buried himself in a pillow and groaned. The taller’s side of the bed dipped around the corner before becoming flat again. The mist of his hair over his sight allowed secrecy as his peered at Thomas’s naked silhouette, his swaying as he exited the bedroom; the Caribbean was mesmerized, watching his perfection glow in the dark. As he noticed the glow fade down the hall, Alexander remembered in the ivory pages of his books that when flies fall in love their entire brain is rewired to only know loving each other; when one of them dies, their memory becomes blank. With that fact of memory glistening in his head, he wondered what it would be like; if like Thomas- instead of a brain with clever dialect he had a heart with mouth. What would he say then? He speculated why his books hadn’t told him that boys with eyes of stardust, who taste like rain, who talk like silver are the reason behind so many unfinished lives and too many sad dreams.

        A rush of water down the hall made his heart bounce and he raised his head to the accent. He didn’t bother covering himself up as he skated off the bed and padded down the hall, following his blind three second view with another man’s shifty fingers loosening his tie. He rested his hand against the frame of the door and tuned his ears for the sound of music notes hanging in the air as Thomas hummed to himself silently; leaning over the tub and running his hands underneath the water. It did not take much hesitation for Alexander to join him, the heat of the bathroom clung to Thomas’s behind and rubbed off on his own as he wrapped his arms around his stomach as he leaned over. The tight hug where he put some strength into it, using both arms not just one with the scent of coconut and lavender entering his lungs in wafts of rich steam.

         He buried his face in the arch of Thomas’s back, feeling him pause when he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to let go. He did of course, several minutes later when the tub was full and the red lashes across Thomas’s skin were lyrics singing that he would never let go. He could feel the aura of change that washed over the both of them. Alexander was man of his words, no love in his actions. The Virginian would usually place an index teasingly in the center of his lips; he didn’t need someone to tell him that he loved him; he needed somebody to show him.

          In the center of his bathroom, Alexander showed him as best he could. Most people search their whole lives in divine for something that they have already found. In a way it was a thanks, and a trust. The heart Thomas established in his clutch, he was gracious for that promise he would get the opportunity to keep. For too long Thomas turned away and ironed his emotion, the past had taught him not to get caught in something not worth pursuing; to never do the things he’d done that once led his undoing. Thomas glided into the tub first and dipped back his head in the ecstasy and Alexander did not hesitate to follow into his arms. He was seated behind him, slowly reaching his arms around his waist, a protective message. Crawling his trembling skin into his arms and feeling his fears leave him like sleep.

         The water was hot against his senses, with Thomas’s legs sheltering him from the sides, his back leaning against the gentle chest. There was silence. Men sometimes enjoy solitude, and can be robbed of their speech; the deepest feeling always shows itself in silence- not in silence, but in restraint.  Sitting in that bathtub with his lover’s fingers scratching their way through his scalp, threading the hair and leaning back his head- Alexander caught the pattern of Thomas’s quietude, he did not even expatiate but he knew what he was thinking, every single reflection. As if the fingers that were scraping their way through his scalp to his pleasure were transferring all his emotions, remembered a tremble in his bones, when he ached inside. Everything he held so sacred, to all the world he hid.

        There was a poker face Thomas held but there was always a flash in his optics, a solemn glint of sapphires and then descending into crimson. The point of a poker face was to dilute others by keeping stories trapped in your eyes and a tongue behind steel bars. A bruise is tender, but it doesn’t always last- returning to the way you used to be. But Thomas- Thomas was a scar. A scar can be stitched in an attempt to repair but they will always be there. On the surface of your exterior when you gaze into glass or etched into your heart- so nobody knows your pain. The invisible scars of tear drops falling off his nose.

        Alexander became overwhelmed with the coconut scent in his hair. He sunk lower into the tub, and Thomas became to hum again- if Alexander chose a song to be the last thing he heard before he shut away- he’d listen to it on reprise until his untimely demise. One glance at him and moonlight lit up the corners of his lips, and the fringed edges of his hair in blaze like the sun- all the stars revolve around him. Alexander would try to sing along but he didn’t interrupt and it wasn’t long after he’d washed the soap from his stomach and drained the tub- leaving trails of water on the floor that Thomas was too tired to clean up. He pulled a towel off of the back of the door, tugging it around his shoulders, it wasn’t just the lovely scent of coconut and lavender. It was that man’s scent on himself and the towel wrapping him in smelled of him. Taking on the scent of rain, blend of fresh air and smoke.

         Thomas reached over one hand, the other holding up the towel around his own waist and and stroked his hips; the tips of his fingers felt like sandpaper scratching at his skin. A mark of love like a burning kiss. Alexander Hamilton would've at no time imagined several months ago that Thomas Jefferson would be touching him with every brush of his palm so full of attention, every flick of his wrist was as if he was writing a novel of his skin. Thomas had given him the pieces of his character no one else had seen- snipped to paper snowflakes and wrapped in velvet ribbons. Alexander in return, shoved him a slice of his soul, jaggedly cut from a place no one had ever reached- he swaddled it up in newspaper knowing his words were his best thing.

        An irony of life, is that our greatest fear is to forget, but yet it is certain fate, that anyone who we have ever met, we know one day will find itself victim to time, that nothing will be left, to tell his story or his, and still through life we all rush, scrabbling for something to remember, perish at the thought that one day everything we have build will turn to ash- not a single memory of the ember.

        Alexander didn’t want to obliterate Thomas, Thomas was fire but he did not burn, because he knows all too well, how to live with the ashes. Alexander remembered every love story he had ever seen- scoffing at the TV and nobody noticed the silent pain that flashed across his eyes or the invisible noose that wrapped around his neck. He tried to write a love story once, but all that came were blank pages- not having a love as strong as this, but now he had a story, one he could recite. They did not bother dressing but reticently glided into bed- they didn’t need sentences, they made up for it in glances. The sun was vacant from the night sky now. But because of the city lights there were no stars- maybe, if he erased the sky he could view the stars, but there are no stars without the sky and no night without the sun. It was funny how the city created so many lights to imitate the stars when all they needed was to shut them off and look up. The freckles flaking across Thomas’s shoulders formed an entire galaxy that he traced collecting constellations in.

        “Am I allowed to be scared?”.

        Alexander’s brows shot to the center of his forehead and he tipped his chin to meet Thomas’s survey, the cinnamon that shone down looked like the earth- reminding him of all the reasons that he was still here. His hand found it’s way to the side of his neck, “and what exactly are you afraid of?”, although he already knew. Thomas bit his lip, nibble on the flesh and falling quiet again as the tips of his ears turned red. He was willing to admit it; Alexander’s lover was willing to admit that he was scared just of love, hope was sweeter than despair and that there was no rose without its thorn and no pleasure without its alloy. It wasn’t just the love that frightened him the most- it was to love him . To have a person you conceive breath fluttering in their chest as they fall asleep; the last thing to see before being submerged in Cimmerian shade; yet the first you wake to is their eyelashes fluttering open to the radiance.

         The teeth ceased nibbling and his grip tightened, “Maybe I’m just afraid I am going to wake up, and you’ll just be some seven syllable name on the door of an office.” his breath tumbled in uneven patterns out of his bouche. “The hardest part about waking up is remembering what I was trying to forget the night before.”, a chuckle passed and he blinked slowly, “and then sometimes I’ll somehow end up at the beach and write your name in the sand- thinking of how the earth feels in my hands because you slipped through my fingers.”, Thomas closed his eyes and swallowed the sob that was culminating in the hind of his throat. “The waves will always come crashing in, your name will be gone, but on the sandy coves of my head you’ll always be written between the lines- as much as I attempt to forget you, you’ll always be there, I might chose to laugh at this night we’ve spent together. I’ll of course pretend not to think of you at all. But you’ll always be there.” There was a pause. “You’ll somehow always be there”.

        Alexander’s heart seemed to halt beat for just a magnitude and waited, and words limping idol on his tongue, copper in his breath- a penny for your thoughts. There were touches everywhere, they were nails across his hips, kisses on his lips, they were in his hair- there was an itch but he didn’t shake them out. The immigrant tried to commemorate when they both began delivering in poetry, or when he packed into the back of his brain how many eyelashes there were fluttering across his cheeks. He mediated when Thomas didn’t just lay his embrace across Alexander’s coating; now in crossing tones he articulated with his heart, and stroked Alexander in coves of his imagination he did not even know existed.

         He took advantage of the pause, “My sand may be made of skin, which means I am a beach. I felt your footprints on my surface, you left something of yourself on me. But I am a beach, meaning I cannot leave, I cannot move. But you Thomas-”, Alexander inched his head up and Thomas hesitated just for a few till he met his scanning prevail and Alexander counted eight hickeys in purple bruisings up the border of his jowl. “-You can build a house. If you do I will not be lonely.” Thomas patented his entrance to conspire but fastened it and remained hushed. “I’ll see the brown of your eyes in my fourth cup of coffee, or your hair when the clouds draw silver linings across the sky.” His palm found their way to Thomas’s chest and he stretched his fingers, attempting to feel every shoal. A dull beat throbbing underneath the ribs and the empty cavity, recalling he once did not believe this man had a heart; now he knew that he had too much of one.

         The downfall of having a good heart is that you are constantly looking for angels in demons. And you wonder why god knows so much pain.

         Alexander relaxed his head back on Thomas’s shoulder, “You see angels in demons; underneath my halo there are red horns. I am made of thorns.”

        To Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson was a metaphor. One you’d find neatly printed into the pages of a faded book with a fabric cover. In that book there was a story of some sort of love, the Virginian was very type of love. Sour as the air in the room, salty like the beads running down their cheeks, and sweet as cherries and marigold flowers. Alexander is a warrior lover with wild eyes, strong hands and a piece of Thomas’s poet heart. The absent minded finger drawn across his carapace was parchment, and even as the ink did not sink in he could read them. The sheets ruffled around their feet. Another interludent posterity deposited itself in place; healthy, kind and everything exceptional and comfortable. It was not a void that needed to be filled or an desolate space. The paint swirled itself in the corners of the ceiling and the sun drew a final breath before dipping behind the skyline and sinking below the harbor.

         The callouses that were ripped across the pads of Thomas fingers tapped and Alexander struck inspiration, “Is it true that you play violin?”.

        Because Alexander’s head was reversed away, focused at following the architecture above, he did not notice the glint of glee that flitted across the taller gentleman’s visage. Without a word, Thomas again stepped from the bed and the “average sized male” fell, plunging into the sheets and widened his muse. His lover’s sweaty feet padded against the floor to the hall until Alexander couldn’t hear the rhythmic beat anymore his shoulders decended. They soon returned and he peeked through the half lidded gaze he’d grown into, the bed sank down at the corner and brows rose almost as if they were going to shoot off his forehead. There was a familiar man of 6’2.5 seated at the end of the bed, naked of course, his feet were crossed underneath him. But, the black case that flickered open, Alexander did not notice and he sat up.

       Thomas’s nifty fingers flicked the case open and an aroma of polished wood hit his nose. Working from the emerald leather, he placed the bow between two fingers and gently as if it were a delicate bird on the perch of his left shoulder. Like the patterns in the corner of the ceiling the mahogany wood swirled at the end and looked too small within his grasp. He gulped away a laugh that bubbled in his throat and fell back against the pillow, kicking out his feet. “Thomas, my dear, are you going to play for me?”, a hint of amusement plastered into his vocals.

        “Alexander, my dear, if every single song I played for you would take your breath away- I’d play them all.”, the edges of his mouth turned up and the Treasury Secretary rolled his optics in remark. Alexander underestimated what he was about to hear, it was changing. Life changing moments do you always appear as catastrophic earthquakes; little things that happen shape who you are. That’s what he was- shaped.

         From the moment Thomas shut his eyes like that page in that book that makes you dream. His arms raised, from the night sky rising in the earth his bicep cast a shadow across the floor and he pressed the bow to the strings of the violin. Alexander never had the time for music, never found it to enjoyable. That was until Thomas’s fingers pressed the white string of the bow against the violin. Only after a few notes he felt his stomach lurch and like a impact from a punch to the gut he crumpled like paper. He could not find where Thomas’s arm ended and the violin began. Thomas is this violin, breathing music to a patient moon. He invented long ago songs into modern air, he was the song, the strings, and the bow.

          Alexander felt as if he was lifted, the only thing he could hear was that violin. The soul of the music did not fade or rust, one day that violin will cease to play, but the music that played through it lives on, in the souls of those who heard it, and in the souls of those who were inspired to play too. It was almost like Thomas was a masterpiece that was mute, Alexander just needed to teach him how to speak. For so long Thomas was the music and Alexander had turned his ears off. It was the beat of that fucking violin, he felt like he had been found, feeling drugged up and usually there are that one lyrics of a song he felt himself humming or that explained his life to a tune. There were no lyrics, there were no words and yet the vocals filled his soul, challenged his heart.

        My god, because sitting on that bed with that man and his shut eyes, the simple angelic placing of every feature of his face, and the mesmerizing wave of music that hit him in pace; Alexander realized he had fallen in love with a music box, Thomas was that music box, his lid was slammed so very tight, just waiting to see who was lovely enough to want to hear something so beautiful or take the time to crack the lid, just waiting to see who cared enough to open him up. Thomas was the type of man who never put his music on shuffle, he always has to know what the weather will be like two days in advance because he is scarred by the unpredictability of his thoughts.

        Alexander met Thomas and it was as if he heard music for the first time and he already knew his favorite song. He would play his favorite songs over and over again in an attempt to find who he was, if he left, Alexander would forget the words. He did not even know his hands were shaking or the tips of his ears were fuming, Thomas wrote poems so beautifully and though there were no lyrics he could hear all those stories and they were kept in the front of his mind; his thoughts must of been a terrible place. The syllables were Thomas’s laughter, he counted every last one and Alexander waited for the line to break in between breaths, he spilled out like ink onto the pages of their days.

          He thought of every stupid love song he heard on the radio, every lyric that bit him in nasty ways, he also realized why he didn’t listen to music.

         Alexander locked his eyes and didn’t the feel that tears that lapped against his cheeks now, the salty kiss of emotion traced across his skin. He felt everything at that moment. The dark lips of his eyes turned into a sunset, his mother’s bare footed dance across the sandy shores of the beach and the lovely and mesmerizing flow of her hair against the wind and he loved looking up the sky and seeing where he was. He could feel John’s hot breath on his ear in the cabin of their soldiers den, their names were both etched the book of sorrow, violence most man’s memory as they sleep a deadly peace.

         Thomas was every song and Alexander knew if he left he wouldn’t just be a name in long forgotten memories or a flip through his phone book. It wouldn’t just be his eyes in his coffee in the insomniac mornings. It would be every letter and ever metaphor spoke, every notes of music that he heard, every heaventhat he woke up to and every leather-back book on his shelf, every rows of white daisies in the cracks of the sidewalk, every breath of wind across his cheeks and the tears that he shed bore resemblance to his name. Thomas loved everything the world had forgotten, he loved snails, grains of sand and wilting flowers, when his stomach heaved into a nasty sob, he knew that’s why Thomas loved him, the most beautiful things in the world are the things that are the most broken, but they couldn’t be fixed not with all the glue or plaster in the world. He would try to fill these empty cracks with every piece of himself.

         Alexander’s eyes remained closed even as the the music gradually culminated to a stop and tears that cascaded down his cheeks like waterfalls still came crashing down etching silhouettes.

         “Alexander?”, a timid bite of concern lashed across his back.

          Alexander leaped across the bed, falling into Thomas’s arms. Again he remembered his books, the human heart beats 4,000 times per hour. Every beat was for him, and they created the most beautiful song. In a crowded room with alcohol on his tongue he knew no matter what he’d always fall in Thomas’s arms and that he would always catch him. If you feel you are falling apart, fall into his arms. I promise he will catch every little piece of you and I promise he will always love your brokenness.  A sob ripped through his throat and his arms tightened around Thomas’s bare skin, he reconciled every little thing he’d lost and everything he had gained. He willed to run away together, away from city light, where no one knows their name yet, and they can see the stars at night, watching sunrises color the sky, learn what they were really there for, he knew it would be alright, as long as his lover held his hand.

          It didn’t matter that he could barely speak because he was sobbing so hard or that he was absent of breath and cloaked Thomas’s skin in the wash of his salt.

          “I love you, Thomas.”, his fingers quivered, “you are the sky, and the moon and every single one of the stars. You are everything and you everything and you are always, your in coffee and the sky, in words and in songs.” the Virginian seemed to give meaning to those three words. "You're everywhere and everything- when did you become my all? When did you transform into every piece of my heart?".

         His eyes wretched with tears and his stomach heaved, because he could still conclude when the sunset danced on his mother’s skin and even as he tried to forget, he saw the square shape of his brother’s jaw and the tan caress of his skin. He remembered every returned letter he’d ever written to his father and every inhale of cracking paint on the ceiling of his stone home on the island. Hair was the tropical breeze and his mouth the ocean. He cried for everything he thought he’d forgotten, and everything he knew he had. He had nothing, and everything all at the same time. How is it possible to have both?

        The feeling jar where he kept his feelings, smashed, Thomas didn’t need those three words back, Alexander already knew. He stretched his fingers back over Thomas’s heart and listened to every impulse, what would happen when this life stopped? The sun was gone and even if they wouldn’t disappear and start a new life, he was okay with arms around his back and thick hickeys on his neck. The cotton fluff of his hair, he fell. Thomas grew inside him, his roots in his bones, and flowers on his skin. He felt thoughts flutter from Thomas’s mind as they trickle down inside himself planting words like gardens.

         Alexander’s existence is only to love him, for Thomas was the heartbeat to his heart.

        The world could wait, he was feeling his favorite song.