It was a shitty shitty birthday. The house was empty, his arm hurt, and his thoughts were so loud he felt like ramming a knife into his head just to shut them up. He sort of wished he'd got his friends to stay. Have a party. Get completely wasted. Not have to think about anything.
He stood up from the sofa in the now empty living room, glasses and bottles littering the surfaces, along with several pieces of paper and pens which people had been taking notes down with. He gathered everything up and tidied it all away, glad for something to do other than just sit about all night. He washed the glasses and put away most of the alcohol, except for the bottle of whisky he'd been drinking from earlier, when Tig got him the glass.
He climbed the stairs, socked feet padding quietly against the polished wood. The door to their bedroom was closed so he pushed it open, the familiar smell engulfing him the moment he walked in. This room had always smelt nice with candles placed on cabinets and on bedside tables, and fresh flowers in an ornate floral vase. He sat down on the edge of the bed, the soft mattress sinking slightly beneath him.
When he'd finally returned to the house after almost a year of avoiding it...it had been hard. The flowers in the bedroom had been the final straw. Obviously, they'd wilted and died a long time ago and were just shrivelled and crumpled husks that turned to dust when he touched them with shaking hands. That had broken him. He'd waited months to go back home in the hope when he finally did, he'd be able to hold it together. He'd been wrong, and he'd broken down in this exact spot, all alone, holding his head in his hands as he cried for hours.
Eventually, he'd curled up in the bed, still in his clothes, on top of the sheets, and had just laid there until he was pulled into a deep, troubled sleep that was filled with nightmares he couldn't wake from.
And it had been the same almost every night since then. He'd started trying to avoid going to sleep. He'd stay up all night, doing anything he could to knock back the exhaustion. But eventually he'd have to sleep and endure the nightmares, the thoughts of Peter, again.
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, pushing it out of his face. He got up off the bed and walked over to the desk in the corner of the room which was covered in more empty mugs and glasses and stacks and stacks of paper. He picked up a pretty blue fountain pen from where it had rolled onto the floor and uncapped it, leaning over the paper as he wrote.
That was the main thing he did now to keep himself busy. He wrote for hours and hours on end. Pamphlets, stories, poetry, anything really. The pamphlets they handed out earlier that day contained his words, explaining the struggles minorities were facing in Germany.
He'd also written ones on the war, and about what a bad idea that was.
They were at war now- since a couple of months ago. It was doomed to fail, he was sure of it. He didn't support it, didn't see how more violence would help. So he wrote about it. Put all his thoughts and feelings down on paper, unfiltered and unedited.
But it wasn't all just political. He wrote about Peter a lot. At first it had been painful, but the more he wrote, the better he felt. He would often cry though, his tears falling onto the paper and making the ink run. But he wrote better when in that state. Raw emotion, poured out onto the page, his handwriting messy, not much more than just scribbles.
He was about to start writing again, aiming to stay up all night and do that instead of sleeping, when he realised that his pen was out of ink. He pushed his chair back, looking around on the desk for another but he couldn't see any. He opened all the drawers but there was none in there.
"Shit," he muttered to himself, getting up and looking about the room, looking in the bedside table where he kept any books he was reading. Nothing. He flopped onto the bed and shimmied across so he could reach the twin table on Peter's side, opening the drawers and sifting through the many items in there. More books, the glasses he'd made Eli where when he was playing 'Otto', the box that Eli's treasure chest necklace had come in.
He was about to slam the drawer closed, too overwhelmed by the memories just those little things had brought back, when he saw the edge of a sheet of paper with what looked like drawings on it, tucked into the bible which lay underneath all of Peter's other items, long forgotten and unused.
He took it out, opening the bible to take the paper out before putting it back into the drawer and closing it again.
There were so many sheets of paper, each one containing beautiful sketches of...him. Every page was covered in pencil markings, each showing Eli in their home, doing just about everything. Sleeping, reading, writing, cooking. There was ones of him just sitting there, staring into space. Getting dressed. In the bath. Everything.
Eli just stared at them, lying across the bed on his stomach, slowly paging through the drawings, taking each one in with great detail. They were so good, each one so detailed and realistic, and yet he'd never seen Peter doing them. He didn't even know he could draw like that.
Peter had used to enjoy art, back when they were younger, just got together. Peter was 16 and he was pretty good, though not as good as he was now. He'd said he wanted to go to art school after he finished high school, because he was failing all his classes except for art. His mother had smacked him and screamed at him about how he had to get a proper job. He'd seemed to give it up then and lost all hope for pursuing a career he actually enjoyed.
Eli hadn't even realised he was crying until a tear dropped onto the top drawing of him sleeping in their bed, his head leant on his arm, sort of hugging the pillow to the top of his head, curls falling in his face, lips parted slightly. He wiped it away and put the drawings back down on the bedside table, not wanting to ruin them.
"Jesus Christ," he muttered to himself, choking back a sob as he wiped the back of his hand across his eyes to dry them, his throat feeling like sandpaper. "F-fuck."
This wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to block Peter from his mind, drink until he forgot. He wanted to feel nothing.
He stumbled off the bed and out of the room, down the stairs and into the kitchen, all of Peter's books and drawings clutched in his hand. He rummaged around in the kitchen drawers frantically, expression set, trying to hold back tears again. He found what he was looking for finally, and took Peter's belongings plus the box of matches he'd collected from the kitchen into the living room, dropping to his knees in front of the fireplace.
He picked up the first book and opened it to the middle page, grabbing a fistful of paper and ripping it out, not even bothering to look at what the book was about, or read any of the words printed in small print. He just kept ripping the book apart before dumping the rest of it, cover and all, into the fire place. He lit a match and then held it to the paper, hardly wincing when the pages caught and the flame licked at his hand.
He did the same with the rest of the books he'd found in Peter's drawer until there was a large fire burning, the pages turning black and curling up. He took a deep breath and picked up the pile of drawings, shoving down the emotions that threatened to surge up and overwhelm him as he held them over the flame.
All he had left.
He couldn't do it.
No. He had to. He had to do this to move on, to forget about Peter. He was dead. There was no changing that.
He closed his eyes, hoping that would make it easier to release the sketches. But as soon as he closed his eyes, all he could see what Peter's face, young and innocent, smiling at him warmly like everything about the world wasn't falling to shit.
"I'm sorry," Eli choked out, sitting back on his heels and pulling his hand back from over the fire. He kept his eyes closed, scared if he opened them again he'd lose Peter. "I'm so sorry. You're hurting me, I can't do this anymore, remembering you. It hurts."
He stopped talking and listened, half expecting a response.
"Please," he whispered, breaking the silence again. He felt like he could reach out and touch Peter if he wanted to. It all felt so real. He could feel the wind that ruffled Peter's golden hair on the back of his neck, could smell his cologne mixing with the faint smell of burning.
Burning.
His eyes snapped open and towards the fire, thinking for a second he'd burnt the drawings, let go of this private look into Peter's head, his thoughts and feelings and what he saw. But he hadn't. They were still safely gripped in Eli's hand, a little crumpled but all in one piece.
He left the remnants of the books burning in the hearth and walked back upstairs, arms wrapped around himself. He opened the closet and rummaged through the hangers until he found it. One of Peter's shirts that he'd saved, unable to put it away with the rest of his clothes. He gripped it tightly to his chest and shuffled over to the bed, collapsing down onto the sheets and curling up into a tiny ball, the shirt with its familiar and comforting smell clutched by his face. He lay like that, silently, until the soft fabric of Peter's shirt was wet with tears and he'd fallen asleep.