//TW: swearing, suicidal thoughts\\

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Alexander

I don't think I got it.

The bird.

I don't think I got whatever message he was supposed to impart. I don't think I got whatever Thomas had been trying to tell me with that obscurely frustrating look in his eyes as he offered me something more than I had ever deserved. I don't think I got the happiness that the bird was supposed to be bringing me. It seemed like a waste, to have him here I front of me, unable to do the one thing it had been put on this planet to do.

It wasn't Dick's fault. He was doing his best. He was singing his melancholy song, a perfect imitation of the voiceless words that he had overheard in Thomas's care. His fragile body, beautiful and bold and familiar, seemed like a beacon and a promise all combined into one small existence, and it made me question if Dick was even aware of the power he yielded, of the role he was supposed to perform. It seemed a lot to ask of one tiny creature.

He was supposed to make me happy. But I looked at him, and all I could think of was Thomas, and somehow, I grew even less happy. This sadness that consumed me seemed as though it would never disappear. It would always be apart of me, intertwined with my being. This bird, this stupid fucking bird, perfectly symbolizes everything I've lost, everything that fled from me in the wake of a soft breeze. He reminds me of my Thomas, of the one lost piece of my uncompleted heart, of the one thing I need more than anything else in the world. Who am I without him? What am I, but a loveless, lifeless, shadow of someone I had once been?

The bird, however unfair it may be, harkens back memories of a happier time. I close my eyes, I picture the world renewed in the wake of our love. I picture my hand in his as we stroll through the park, listening to the birdsong drift through the trees, a melody meant only for our ears. I picture his body pressed against mine as we sit on the bench. I picture Thomas and all that Thomas stands for, and I picture kissing him. Slow and soft and sweet. A promise. A promise that died because I was unable to keep it and nurture it the way I should have.

And now, those memories will forever be just that, memories. I will never experience them again. They are gone, utterly and truly gone, and all I can do is mourn their absence.

I rested my head on my arms, which were laying on the table. My eyes studied Dick, watching as he hopped around. He seemed as if he was looking for someone. Trying to call out to a person that just wasn't there. His song was desperate, sad, needing. A haunting melody.

He wanted Thomas.

So did I.

I can't do this. I can't keep living like this. I can't, not without him. Not without something to fill this empty room, my empty bed, my empty life. Not without something, somebody to bring color and meaning and worth back into my pitiful existence. But for now, I sit here alone in the empty, stale room, wishing for something I will never have again. How fucking painful. How fucking true.

Nothing else holds the meaning that Thomas did. Nothing else matters to me in any possible way.

I don't think I can do this any longer. I'm trying so hard to keep together. I'm trying to stay strong, for Thomas. My Thomas. But this is getting harder and harder. The idea of letting go of him was slowly becoming more and more appealing. Does that make me an awful person?

I've never liked crying. Maybe it works for other people, but I hate to cry. It's a sign of weakness. It doesn't accomplish anything. I rarely cried.

This was one of those times where I couldn't keep it together. It seems like Thomas has a way of reducing me to tears, huh?

Tears trickled down my face softly as I watched the bird look for his favorite person in the world. I couldn't blame his constant, terrified, desperate search. I felt the exact same way, sitting there and watching him as he tried everything he could think of to call to the one person who would never respond, never again. The tears began to burn, like liquid fire rolling down my eyes. Like somebody had lit a match within me and grinned as the flames roared and consumed my flesh, my soul, my mind.

I wanted to die.

Sitting here alone was torture. I wanted my heart to stop beating. I wanted my existence to end. I wanted death and destruction and for everybody that ever existed to forget my name, to forget I had ever made any semblance of a mark on this world. I wanted to disappear forever and never have to worry about this all-devouring loneliness that has ruined every fucking aspect of my goddamn pathetic life.

The bird stopped. He turned, as if seeing me for the first time, as if noticing my existence. I don't know why. I don't know how. But something within me fluttered a bit under the bird's scrutiny, the same exact sense of belonging and love that had brightened my world every moment I had spent with Thomas. My tears turned bittersweet, and God, how I utterly despise that word. The sadness feels worse, somehow, when amplified by those inconsistent yet happy memories.

"Hey Dick," I said as he wondered over to me. I held out a hand, allowing him to brush his head against my fingertips.

He let out a sad chirp.

"You miss him too, huh?"

He chirped again.

"I understand. I just want him back, you know? But this is getting so hard. Any advice?"

The bird let out a chirp. I'm not sure what I expected from him.

"I guess Thomas really changed your life too. He cared about you. He gave you another chance. He loved you and your broken wing. He must mean a lot to you."

Another chirp.

"Good talk."

Dick let out a final trill of agreement.

"You're useless."

I should write something.

I have nothing to write.

Fuck me.

Dick slipped closer, pressing his head against my knuckles. I gazed down at him, my mind wandering and wondering. How much intelligence existed within that tiny creature? How much love did it have to give, in every song and every movement and every sad attempt to cuddle with me?

I picked up the bird carefully, slid his tiny, delicate body up to my shoulder. He buried his face against the crook of my neck, and I closed my eyes, and it felt nice to just have something warm and living exist near me once more.

I'm so tired. I'm so sad. I'm so empty.

Dick let out a soft trill, coaxing me onwards.

I stood up and made my way to my old room, the one I hadn't even stepped foot in since Thomas admitted he needed me, wanted me. It had seemed pointless to return to it when everything I had wanted was in the other room, down the hall. And then when he left, this room somehow seemed even more empty, devoid of the plants he had loved and the space he had filled. There was nothing of Thomas's within my old room, and so I opted instead to surround myself with the things he had cared for to try and conjure his presence once more.

I'm so fucking needy. So fucking pathetic. How can one fucking person do this to me? I've never needed Thomas before. My life was fine without him, wasn't it?

Of course I already knew the answer.

I returned to the room, anyway. It smelled stale, like nothing had resided in here for a while. And to be fair, nothing had, not since Thomas confessed to his feelings for me. Not since I had first kissed him, first promised him that no matter what, I would be his and he would be mine and the world could try but it could never come between us.

Was it really only a few months since then? Feels like years. Decades.

I flickered the light on, gazing around the boring room. Somehow, I managed a laugh, observing the way everything had been before Thomas had filled my life with something so pure and perfect. It seemed like any, normal room, and in a sense, it was. There were no painful memories attached to this one, for it was just a place I had slept in. There was no love to be found. No lost things to be remembered.

To be honest, I'm not quite sure why I even bothered entering that room. Maybe I figured I'd find some old writings I could redo. Or possibly that there was something I could do besides sit and mope around all day. It might've even been that there were answers, hidden somewhere in that room.

Turns out there were.

I rooted through the drawers to my old desk, unsure what I was looking for, when my hand brushed against something oddly shaped. Confused, I took it out of the drawer and set it down on the desk. Odder still, I had no recollection of whatever this was supposed to be, hidden within drawers like a poorly-kept secret. Well, perhaps poorly is a bit unfair, considering I had never noticed it before. I put the—well, the thing—under the intense scrutiny of the desktop lamp, desperate to make some sort of sense of it, desperate for answers that I needed to explain away the sadness and the misery and the heartache that now seemed synonymous with my life.

My eyes widened and I took a deep breath in as I swiftly realized what the box was, where it had come from, where I had seen it before. The memories came rushing back as I drank in the sight of the neatly-wrapped box, the hazy, wavering memories. I swallowed down the bitterness that pooled into my mouth as I pictured Thomas and that fleeting smile as he offered it to me.

Shit.

It was a box. A carefully wrapped box.

A gift.

From Thomas.

For me.

For my birthday.

The one I never opened.

How long had this been in here? How long had it been collecting dust? Being ignored? Had I really just forgotten to open it?

My hands hovered over the bow, still pristine even after the months it had been left abandoned in the drawer. My fingers lingered for a minute, my heart drumming its solemn, foreboding song in my throat.

Did I really want to open this? Did I really want to be reminded of when everything was better? Would it be anything but torture?

The answer to all three questions was yes.

Dick let out a swift chirp, startling me, for I had forgotten he was there with as silent as he had been in the wake of the new revelation. I glanced over at him and his position atop my shoulder, peering down at the box with as much curiosity as filled my heart. He chirped again, as if begging me to open it. Perhaps I was projecting. Perhaps I didn't give a fuck. Whatever was in here could have answers. At the very least, it would have been something that had once belonged to Thomas, even briefly. And as desperate as I was, I needed to have something of his held close to my chest once more. I needed to pretend it was him.

I'm pathetic, but I'm happy with it, so fuck off.

I ripped off the wrapping paper quickly, revealing what was inside.

Oh.

That's what he meant when he said something about a sketchbook as a gift yesterday.

I ran my fingers down the spine of the book, feeling the old leather. I drew in a deep breath and opened the cover. A piece of paper slipped out from behind the front pages, and I managed to catch it before it hit the floor. I stared down at it, breath catching in my throat. God, I was terrified to read his words. Terrified to know what he had penned all that time ago.

The writing was scrawled messily, hugging tight together. The ink had bled a bit, making the letters almost indecipherable. It took me longer than it should have just to make out the first few words, as messy as it all was.

But I read it anyway, unable to keep myself from it even if I tried.

Alexander,

There is so much I want to say and there is no way I can possibly put it out on paper, but I'll try my best.

Thank you. Thank you for everything you've given me these past few months. I cannot fully express my gratitude in any way that matters. You've been there for me. When I've needed you, you've been there to support me. Truth is, I don't know where I'd be if you hadn't of helped me.

Where would I be now if you hadn't of just asked if I was alright?

Maybe I wouldn't be here anymore.

It's impossible to tell.

I know this sketchbook is nothing compared to what you've offered me, but it's a bit of what's helped me get through this all. And I'd like to give it to you.

They aren't amazing, but they're mine.

You deserve the world, but unfortunately, that isn't something I can give you, despite how much I try.

Thank you for everything you've done, even though I have never deserved it

Yours,

Thomas

Well I'm crying again. That's pretty great.

I read the note a couple more times, committing it to memory. I couldn't explain why but it felt so important, like I was witnessing the course of history change. Like I was watching as a comet collided with the earth, ending life as we know it and forever altering the future. Creating a new order, and a new world. I folded the paper gently, set it aside, took a deep breath. Dick chirped yet again, as if prying.

Then, I opened the sketchbook.

I hadn't been ready.

Life poured at me from every angle, every different sketch and painting a message and a note I would never be able to understand. He invented worlds and meanings and lives within these pages, jotted them down as quickly as he could have as they entered his mind and faded just as fast. Looking through this sketchbook, looking through the various images that had been spawned from places I couldn't even begin to imagine, looking through every burst and every subtlety of color and passion and fantasy—it all overwhelmed me. I peered through the drawings, the cracks where Thomas's soul had poured through his fingers and onto the page, and I was filled with something simultaneously burning and chilling. They were more than just inane sketches driven by loneliness and fear.

They were how he viewed the world. They were his thoughts and his desires and his ramblings. They were Thomas.

I flipped through the pages quietly, studying each and every drawing.

Most of them were serious. Flowers, mockingbirds, wildlife, still lifes, and stuff like that. But every once in a while, there would be something stupid, like a drawing of a pig with a top hat and beard and the caption: Abraham Lincoln.

Nice Thomas.

And rarer still were the drawings that genuinely scared me. The depictions of what could only best be described as his darkest thoughts personified. Decapitated heads, gory bodies, broken wings and broken necks. Things that if left within his mind, would have no doubt corrupted him for good, building and building until there was nowhere to go but outwards in a dizzying explosion, a feeling he captured as well in one particularly gut-wrenching depiction I couldn't look at for longer than a few seconds.

I think he might have a bit of a problem with the mockingbirds though. Seriously, there are so many mockingbirds in here.

His sketchbook wasn't really what I would call... organized. There were pages torn out, multiple drawings on a single page, some folded up papers crammed between the pages, and so on. Some drawings were colored, others were hardly detailed at all.

But I loved every page I saw. Even the scary ones. Even the boring ones. I loved every drawing and every stroke of the pencil and every last detail and word and meaning that lingered behind it. I loved it because Thomas had loved it, and I loved it because he loved me enough to entrust me with something as endearing and personal as his sketchbook.

And his bird.

It certainly all set something into perspective.

He trusted me with this. Back before we were even dating, he trusted me with this. This sketchbook probably meant so much to him, and he trusted me with it.

My eyes began to tear up again. But this time, I smiled through them, unable to contain my laughter as I gazed at each and every one fondly. I could feel Thomas oozing out of the page, his presence, his very existence. And it made me smile and laugh, just the thought of him being so close once more. I couldn't contain my joy at seeing the small fragments of him bleed through the pages, and I remembered just how much I respected him. Just how much I loved him.

Finally, I got to the last page that had been filled with a drawing, though a few more remained empty afterwards. I ran my fingers down the pencil marks, smudging it slightly, but I was too enraptured by the drawing to even care.

I had seen this drawing once before, though not completed.

A mockingbird.

And on the page next to it was a sticky note.

With three words on it.

Are you okay?

I inhaled a sharp breath, staring down at the sticky note, the catalyst for all of this.

Who knew that all of this would happen when I decided to write down three simple fucking words on a blue sticky note and hand it to him?

Tears broke free, spilled down my face, splattered against the page. For a sharp moment, a biting, agonizing moment, I could not breathe. Dick let out a single, melancholy note, mourning the one person who should have been here with us. I paused, hugging the sketchbook tight to my chest, and let out a breath.

The room was utter silence for a moment.

And in that silent moment, I made a decision.

I stood up and set the sketchbook down. Then, I returned to the main room and put Dick back in his bird cage as carefully as I could without hurting him. He chirped, obviously upset to be locked away once again when he should be free. But I couldn't leave him alone, and I couldn't bring him with me.

"I'll be back in a little bit, okay?" I said to the bird. "And I'll have Thomas with me when I do."

I've done it before, I can do it again.

But one thing's for certain.

I have to get Thomas back.

~•~

God this chapter is terribly written.

And there are so many references to like... 3 different chapters that were published so long ago so if you're confused, I wouldn't blame you at all.

Also, congrats to all those who noticed or even cared that Alex never opened his gift from Thomas.

Have a cookie.