Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dear Tommy,

I miss you.

Love,

Purpled.

Tommy had always been so bright. Magnetic. Purpled knew better than anyone that he could have made anyone laugh—a fact that never failed to confuse Purpled; Tommy was always so teasing. But he was Tommy, and that was enough.

And then he was gone.

And now Purpled is alone.

Dear Tommy,

I want to get to know you better. I want to know who you were, not just from what I knew and what I saw, but from what other people knew and saw. My therapist thinks that it’s a good idea. She said it might help with closure.

I don’t know if I want closure. I don’t want to let you go.

Maybe I won’t have to.

For now, I’m going to get to know you all over again.

Love,

Purpled

It’s remarkable how intimidating a simple door can be when you know who’s waiting behind it. When you know that just behind it, is a step you can’t take back. Knowledge you might not want once you have it.

Unfortunately for Purpled, he can’t turn back now. It might disappoint his therapist, and besides, he wrote it in his letter. That would be like disappointing Tommy, and that’s one thing that Purpled could never find it in himself to do.

He takes a deep breath and knocks, the sound solid and sure, the complete opposite of how he feels. A few moments (and some barking from inside) later, the door creaks open, and Purpled is face to face with Sam.

His hair always looked greener in the pictures, Purpled thinks.

“Hi,” Sam says, out of breath. “Can I help you?”

“Yeah. Well, I hope so, at least. It’s fine if you can’t; I understand. I can just…go talk to someone else.”

“I’m happy to help—”

“You knew Tommy, right?” Purpled asks.

The silence is deafening.

“Yeah.” Purpled thinks that Sam might be about to cry. He can’t really tell; he was never good at that kind of thing. “Yeah, I knew Tommy. Why don’t you come inside?”

Dear Tommy,

I met Sam today.

I see why you like him. He seems nice. Kind, even.

“So,” Sam begins, faltering immediately. “I take it you also knew Tommy?”

Purpled nods, letting the silence fester for an uncomfortable moment. He doesn’t really want to talk about himself and how he knew Tommy—that’s not why he’s here. But Sam deserves an explanation. “He was my roommate.”

Sam squints at him. It makes Purpled want to disappear in his hoodie. Did something in his tone give it away? Did Sam know that Tommy was so much more?

Instead of mentioning it, Sam just asks, “So you’re Purpled, then?”

“That’s me. And you’re Sam.”

“Yeah…Tommy talked about you. A lot. He really…he really cared about you.”

Purpled blinks, something warm and cold and foreign curling in his chest. “Oh. He did?”

“All the time.”

“Oh. I…he talked about you too.”

He smiles. “Yeah?”

Purpled nods, too quickly and too much. “Yeah.”

The silence settles again, this time lighter—but not exactly comfortable. There’s still something hard about it, something bitter. It tastes like grief.

“I wanted to talk to you about Tommy, actually,” Purpled manages. “I wanted…I wanted to know what he was like. Who he was to you. If you don’t mind talking about it. Him.”

Sam smiles again, but it’s slight. And sad. “I can do that. What did you want me to talk about?”

I think he really loved you, Tommy.

We all did.

Who couldn’t?

“Anything,” Purpled said. “What he was like as a student. Inside jokes. Anything you want to say, I’m here to listen.”

“Alright then.” Sam pauses. “I was his teacher—well. You already know that. I wasn’t exactly his teacher; I was more like a sub? ‘Cause I was a student teacher at the time. I taught history. He was always so excited to be there, and he’d show me his doodles of the stuff we were learning, especially about the revolution. Did he ever show you his art?”

Purpled nods. “Yeah. He was really good.”

“He was. It brought the lessons to life, I think. He brought the lessons to life.”

“That sounds like him,” Purple says softly. Fondly.

“Yeah! He always brought a certain life into a room, you know?”

“I do.”

“He was amazing.”

“He was.”

It feels warmer, he thinks.

“Are you thirsty?” Sam asks, jerking to his feet. His eyes look wet. “I have—tea. Water. I might have coffee?”

“Water is fine. Thank you.”

I remember how you loved the revolution.  You were always talking about it. The way you always said that there were no good guys and bad guys. Just people. Your face would go all…soft.

I’m glad that you had someone else to talk to about history. I know I wasn’t always the most attentive, and God, I wish I had been. It’s so quiet without you.

Sam returns a few moments later, a glass of water in one hand and something warm (it smells like tea, but Purpled can’t be sure) in the other. He hands Purpled the glass and sinks back down into his velvety green armchair with a sigh.

“So. Tommy.”

“Tommy,” Purpled agrees.

“He was a good kid.”

“Always.” He hesitates before admitting, “I miss him.”

“We all do, kid.”

Purpled can almost hear Tommy’s indignant screech of “I’m not a kid!” He’s not sure whether he wants to smile or cry at the memory. He opts for neither. “Can you tell me more about him?” He hates how desperate he sounds. How desperate he is.

“Of course.” Sam pauses for a moment, likely thinking about what to say. “He was a talker. He’d always talk about the randomest things. He was so passionate about it, too.”

“What did he talk about?”

“History. Mostly the revolution, the people who fought it. For someone who acted so immature all of the time—he was oddly mature about people and emotions. Kind of like a baby cat.”

Purpled can’t help but laugh at that. The sound is strange and foreign, but it makes Sam grin like a kid at Christmas, so he doesn’t try to smother it. “Yeah. That’s Tommy for you.”

“He talked about you a lot,” Sam says, repeating his words from earlier. “He adored you, you know?”

“I do.” It’s not a lie (it’s not), but it tastes bitter on his tongue. Tommy loved him, sure, but did he deserve it?

Sam stills for a moment, his gaze flitting between whatever swirls in his mug and whatever he finds in Purpled’s expression. “I know that I’ve never met you before, and I know you don’t really know me, but if you’re anything like how Tommy talked about you—you’re a good kid. You deserve—to heal. You deserve to get better.”

“I know.” This one is a lie.

If Sam knows this, he doesn’t say anything.

I didn’t realize how much you talked about me. You really cared.

I mean, I already knew that you did, objectively at least, but without you here, it’s hard to remember how much you loved me.

You might have been the only one.

I’m glad you had so many people who loved you.

I’ll admit it: I think I like Sam.

Love,

Purpled.

Chapter Text

Dear Tommy,

I can’t do this. I can’t do this without you. Why did you have to die? Why did this have to happen?

Why you? Of all the people to die, why did it have to be you? Why not me or him or anyone else? Why you?

I miss you, Tommy. I miss you so much.

I wish you could know that.

I wish you were here to know that.

Love, 

Purpled

The room is dark, the glint of sky through the window a pitch black, the stars hidden by the subtle hint of gray.

It is dark, and Purpled is alone.

Somehow, his ears manage to catch the noise from the neighbors’. The clatter of pans. The harsh lilt of squealed laughter. The humming background noise of something on the television.

They sound happy.

And he sounds lonely (he is).

A weight settles on his chest, wrapping around his lungs as cold sweeps over his nerves like the claws of a cat. It’s quiet quiet quiet quiet quiet—

It was never quiet when Tommy was there. When Tommy was alive. He’d be laughing, yelling, joking. He’d talk to the cats, to himself, to Purpled, or he’d blast Animal Crossing music so loud they’d get a noise complaint from the neighboring apartment complex.

But Tommy is not there, and it is quiet, and Purpled is alone.

Purpled finds that he cannot bring himself to move. His limbs feel heavy, leaden, and his thoughts are somehow rushing faster than the speed of light and lugging themselves through the thick molasses of his mind simultaneously. It is awful, it is painful, but it’s all Purpled has, this contradictory numbness.

Eventually, he manages to pull himself into a sitting position. His body screams in protest, but he has to. He has to move. To get up. To do something instead of sit here and miss him miss him miss him—

There’s no point, Purpled thinks fiercely. There’s no point in missing him. He is gone. Missing him won’t change that.

(But he can’t stop missing him, even if he tries.)

Dear Tommy,

I hate you. 

I wished you stayed. 

I want to kill him.

I miss you.

Love, 

Purpled.

The darkness, Purpled knows, isn’t just in the room; it’s in him, too. And there’s a difference, a crucial, defining difference between the shadows on the floor and the ones in the crevices of his mind.

The ones in his head don’t go away when the sun comes up. They’re still there—haunting, cold. A something born from nothingness—a presence in the shape of an absence.

Purpled wouldn’t call himself a poet, but he thinks Tommy was something like his sun. The shadows went away (or at least faded) when he was around, like the ones in Purpled’s room. Purpled always felt a little lighter with Tommy. A little brighter, a little warmer.

But what happens when the sun no longer shines?

What happens when the moon no longer reflects its light (when everything is covered in black, black shadows)?

(Is that where the story ends- when the sun sets for the last time? Or is there something more? Is there anything after this? Is this where it ends?)

Dear Tommy,

I don’t know what to do without you. It’s been a year, a whole year, and I’m still like this. I’m still nothing. I still need you. What am I supposed to do without you? Who am I supposed to be? Am I even a real person without you there to bring me to life?

Am I just as dead as you?

Sometimes I think I might be. Or should be.

Love, 

Purpled

This game isn’t much fun—the standing and waiting, vulnerable and grieving and tired on someone’s front step—but Purpled plays anyway. He owes it to Tommy.

As it turns out, the knocking never gets any easier.

Eret answers much faster than Sam did, the door opening within a minute. His brown hair is a mess, and his sunglasses are pushed up on top of his head. (It’s interesting, the lack of crown—Tommy didn’t have a single picture without Eret wearing it).

“Hello,” Eret says, her voice tinged with nothing but the slightest tint of confusion. “Do I know you?”

“I don’t think so,” Purpled answers. “Not directly, at least. I’m Purpled. He/him.”

Eret’s eyes light up with recognition. “Purpled! Tommy’s…” They trail off, the corner of their eyes softening and their mouth twisting into a frown. “...Tommy’s roommate. I’m—I’m Eret. I use any pronouns.”

Purpled already knows this, but he nods anyway.

“Is there…a reason? For you coming here?”

He nods again. “Um. Yeah. Sorry. I’m here to talk to you. About Tommy, if you don’t mind. But I guess if you have something else you want to talk about, I’d be alright with that too.”

Eret tilts his head—it reminds him of the way Sam’s gaze flitted over him. Not this again… God, adults, Purpled can’t help but think.

Dear Tommy,

Today was Eret. That sounds weird. What I meant was, today I met Eret. The day had something of a rough start (if you were here, you’d tell me what a “fucking understatement” that is), but the rest of it wasn’t too terrible. Eret seems nice.

Of course, I can’t help but hate how all of your friends so far seem so worried all the time. God. I’m fine. I just miss you, that’s all.

Well. Maybe I’m not fine. But I don’t want them to know that. I don’t want them to care.

After a moment, Eret shrugs, and she opens the door a little wider. Purpled takes this as a subtle invitation in, trailing hesitantly after her.

“Sorry,” they say. “My apartment’s kind of a mess. I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

“That’s alright. I didn’t give you any warning. Mine’s…mine’s messier anyway.”

It reminded him of Tommy, the mess of his own apartment—the difference was the reminder never went on random cleaning sprees at two in the morning. And it was never just that! There was always the damn Animal Crossing music in the background too!

“You alright?” Eret asks.

Purpled startles. “Yeah. Fine.”

“I get it.” He throws some dishes in the sink. “It’s hard without him, isn’t it?”

He shrugs. Eret pauses, something sad flickering across his expression.

“My apartment used to always be clean,” she admits. “I kept it clean for when Tommy would visit.”

At last! The subject is brought away from Purpled.

Unfortunately, that also means it’s feelings time. Why did he agree to do this?

“Did he visit often?”

“Often enough. It helped that he never texted me until he was two minutes and forty three seconds away—long enough to make sure I was there, but short enough that I couldn’t do anything about it.”

Purpled smiles. “Yeah. That sounds like him. Why two minutes and forty three seconds?”

“He never told me. I don’t think there was a reason, to be honest; he just did it to be annoying. And oddly specific.”

“Yep. That’s my Tommy.”

Eret shakes their head. “He was always pulling stunts like that. Sometimes I wonder if he knew it helped—I think I told him once that I don’t like having my apartment messy.” They look around wistfully. “It hasn’t been clean since—well.”

The mood sours.

Purpled can’t do anything but nod.

“I’m sorry,” Eret says. “It must—it must’ve been hard for you. I didn’t even…I didn’t spend half as much time with him as you did. I mostly knew him from work. But you—God.”

He can’t respond.

Or move, when he tries.

Still.

And quiet.

Just like everything without him.

I wish they hadn’t said that, Tommy. I wish they hadn’t brought up how much I miss you. I do, I do miss you. I kind of wish I didn’t. I wish no one knew. I wish they had just left it alone. I didn’t want to talk about myself or my feelings! I wanted to talk about you.

Purpled opens his mouth, somehow, but even then—he can’t find it himself to say anything.

Can’t, can’t, can’t—

He wants to scream.

Eret looks worried.

Instead, Purpled smiles. “I’m fine.” His words catch on the lie, a hint of fear (and maybe a bit of pain, too) touching his tone.

Tommy’s friend doesn’t look convinced, but he nods. “Okay. Sorry. I didn’t mean…anyways. Do you have any specific questions, or should I just ramble?”

Purpled silently thanks whatever gods might be listening for the subject change. “You worked with Tommy, right?”

“Yeah. I manned the register; he made the drinks. When I first started, he was the one at the register—but…ah…Niki moved him due to customer complaints.”

Purpled snorted, earning a grin from Eret. “He told me about that. He was the one complaining then.”

Eret full on laughed at that. “He was! He grumbled so much that Niki threatened to dock his pay.”

“I bet that got him to shut up.”

“Surprisingly, it did.”

Silence falls between them, and at first, it is comfortable—but as always with the subject of Tommy’s death, grief’s cold fingers brush the moment, her hand making the warm sun seem to dim.

“Yeah,” Purpled bites out. “Tommy was the best.”

It’s true.

You were the best.

I think, even through death, you might still be.

Could anyone else leave behind so much destruction just by dying? Could anyone else bring so many people so much grief?

Could anyone else have ruined me more?

Purpled changes the subject and asks, “Do you still work there? Niki’s cafe, I mean.”

She shakes her head. “No. I actually resigned a month before…everything happened. I was just working there while getting my degree.”

“I’m going to a party,” Tommy said.

Purpled tilted his head, frowning. “A party? What for?”

“Eret’s graduation party! They’re graduating college.”

He digs his nails into his skin, the pain clearing his mind. “I think I remember something about that. What did you major in?”

“International relations,” they chirp. “What about you? Are you going to college—or did you go to college?”

Purpled shakes his head. “I never had time for that. Besides, I don’t know what I’d want to do anyway.”

“That’s cool,” Eret says, but it’s slow and tinged with worry. Purpled wants to go home.

He shrugs, skin crawling. This conversation has been so long and Eret has been so worried and he just wants to go home and write his letters. “Anyways, I should probably get going. Thanks for talking to me…sorry for taking up so much time.”

“It’s alright. I enjoyed talking to you. You’re always welcome to come back and talk more, if you need anything.”

Purpled nods. The movement feels stiff and awkward, but he’s done the motion enough that he’s pretty sure that no one notices if it is. “I’ll keep that in mind. See you…I don’t know. See you again sometime.”

Eret grins.

Eret is nice, sure…but they’re a little suffocating in their worry. Sam didn’t talk nearly so much about me and how I felt, and it was a lot more comfortable that way.

I don’t know what you’d say if you were here. You’d probably tell me that it’s good to talk about my and my feelings—and maybe it is. But I don’t want to. I don’t want to know what it feels like to be over you.

Love,

Purpled