A Belated Christmas [Version 2]
Notes: This is a "localised" version of the original story, and is actually edited unlike the original. It's also a conscious act of writing going on here. Who knows if it made a difference.
A Belated Christmas
It had been the year after their 17th birthdays. Christmas Eve. Just like today. He thinks that it’s the reason why that memory is so strong, so persistent. So intense.
“Willy,” Alexander calls out teasingly, the unfamiliar nickname rolling off his tongue oddly. “Let’s go Christmas shopping?” He stands on the sidewalk, his heavy winter coat reflecting blue against the window. his words muffled by a thick chequered red and black scarf, cold chafed hands waving up to Will’s window.
The trains are crowded as they always are this time of the year. He saw them, all the people, as they got off - couples hand in hand, parents with smiling, rosy cheeked children, middle aged men with nothing better to do.
The trains are crowded as they always are. Hot despite the cold, stuffy despite the outside breeze. People visiting family and friends, children with parents asking for this or that, couples hand in hand out to go Christmas shopping, just like he and Lex are doing. Except for the hand holding.
Someone pinches his butt. He yelps and turns red. Alexander gives him a look, pulls him closer, and glances over his shoulder. A few seconds later, someone lets loose a string of curses. Lex looks especially smug. Will doesn’t really want to know.
That day, on that street - and he finds himself on that street again It’s the same shops with the same decorations; the plastic lady with the same Christmas hat but a different red scarf illuminated by the same holiday lights, the same artificial tree with the newest suitcases and handbags stacked under it, all wrapped with the same, same ribbons.
The windows glimmer brightly. “Let’s go there!” Alexander suggests, and pulls Will along by the hand. Again, but for different reasons, Will’s face takes on a bright red hue. They’d agreed not to do this sort of thing where others could see. Besides, it had taken them the better part of two years to get used to this...cuddling and hugging and hand holding stuff at all. Their friends used to tease them that there was more to a date than holding hands on the way to recess. But Lex seems so happy that he lets it be. Even if he can hear girls tittering around them.
Inside, Alexander finally releases his hand, opting instead to use his now free hands to hold up a shirt for inspection. “How about this one?” he asks, when Will violently sneezes. As one, the other shoppers turn and give him disapproving looks while Alexander looks on concerned. “Are you cold? Do you want to go home? My house?” His hand brushes lightly against Will’s. Will shakes his head. “It’s alright, I’m fine,” he says, and resolves not to sneeze for the rest of the day.
An hour later, they’re both laden with bags of presents. Will is wearing the hat Lex picked for him and Lex is wearing the scarf Will chose. “Snacks?” Alexander asks. The moment Will agrees, Alexander smiles just a little slyly. “Your treat!”
“Eeh!?”
It’s the same cross walk. The same building that used to have a poster of a penguin now has a poster of lions and zebras. People standing, people waiting, people walking. People eating, people laughing, people talking. People, people, people. So many people. What had made him special, had him marked, when there were so many people? The same café, the easel blackboard advertising the same tantalisingly warm drinks for the same ridiculous prices.
“French Vanilla Latte and Double Chocolate please!” It’s what Lex always orders. Sometimes, Will wonders if Lex does it just so he’ll whine about Lex being a boring person and deliver his “life is richer when you try new things” lecture for the four hundredth and twenty sixth time.
“I still don’t get why I’m paying.” Will pouts. “You’re older.”
“But you’re taller!” Alexander counters. That, he can’t deny. Lex never managed to grow past the five foot six mark, while Will had shot up another few.
A look comes into Lex’s eyes. Smiling, mysterious, mischievous. The light turns green. They begin to cross, Will on the outside. “I’ll give you an extra special present,” Alex says, and then-
He can remember it. The screeching. The car skidding on the ice. Black ice. Not stopping.
Will freezes. People scream. Alexander screams. His eyes are big, huge, scared. Strong arms envelop him, throw him aside.
He remembers the blood, the crying. Alex lying there, lips in a half smile, and then they lock eyes and he looks so, so sad.
He remembers it all.
He doesn’t want to.
“Stop! Stop!” his mind cries, a futile plea of the condemned, pain filled and heart filled and tear filled. It’s useless, and he knows it’s useless. Useless, pointless, needless. “No more!” And it obediently screeches to a halt, but, like the car, too late, and there is Alex lying there all over again.
A year. It’s been a year. Will tilts his head upwards, catches a snowflake in his lashes, another drifts into his eye. He blinks as it melts away.
"Alex,” he whispers, unanswered questions that can no longer be answered slipping through a mist. “What was the present?”
Someone taps him on the shoulder. Irresistibly, slowly, he turns. Behind him, the light turns yellow and red and green, cars coursing by in silence with their cranky engines, people talking voiceless into phones. A child runs by with exaggerated steps, mittens clipped onto sleeves trailing behind him, red toque dropping to the ground again and again as he picks it up again and again. Alex stands there, looking sad and happy all at once, but there. Through the jacket, his touch is oddly warm.
“Aren’t you dead?” Will finds himself asking. The face is exactly the same. White skin, soft under Will’s fingers as he brushes them against well padded cheeks. Hair dyed a dark brown, falling over ears. Eyes wide and kind.
“You wanted your present, didn’t you?” Alex smiles. The best smile. And right there on the street, he pulls the younger, taller boy down towards him, cups his chin in his hand and presses their lips together. He tastes like vanilla, Will thinks, before he melts under the touches, the warmth, the overflowing feelings. When they finally pull apart, his eyes twinkle. “Merry Christmas.”
Somewhere in the world, a clock strikes twelve.
- - -
Epilogue
When reality finally returns to him a few minutes later, Will stares. Maybe because no one's looking their way. Maybe because something feels off. A beat. The whole scene plays out in his memory again, and this time, he doesn’t try and stop it. A beat. “I’m dead?”
Alex bites his lip, looks down, swings his gaze upwards until it pinpoints on Will, eyes happy and sad all at once. “Last year...I couldn’t push you away fast enough.” Sad. “You still owe me a latte.” Happy.
Will groans. But he’s not in the mood to protest. “Where did you learn to kiss like that?” Pause. Alex looks especially evil. Or at the least, calculative.
“Come on. I’ve missed you. Let’s go home.”
And, hand in hand, that’s exactly what they do.
Because now they have all the time in the world to answer all those unanswered questions. And Alex has every intention of answering all of them. Every, single one.
A Belated Christmas
It had been the year after their 17th birthdays. Christmas Eve. Just like today. He thinks that it’s the reason why that memory is so strong, so persistent. So intense.
“Willy,” Alexander calls out teasingly, the unfamiliar nickname rolling off his tongue oddly. “Let’s go Christmas shopping?” He stands on the sidewalk, his heavy winter coat reflecting blue against the window. his words muffled by a thick chequered red and black scarf, cold chafed hands waving up to Will’s window.
The trains are crowded as they always are this time of the year. He saw them, all the people, as they got off - couples hand in hand, parents with smiling, rosy cheeked children, middle aged men with nothing better to do.
The trains are crowded as they always are. Hot despite the cold, stuffy despite the outside breeze. People visiting family and friends, children with parents asking for this or that, couples hand in hand out to go Christmas shopping, just like he and Lex are doing. Except for the hand holding.
Someone pinches his butt. He yelps and turns red. Alexander gives him a look, pulls him closer, and glances over his shoulder. A few seconds later, someone lets loose a string of curses. Lex looks especially smug. Will doesn’t really want to know.
That day, on that street - and he finds himself on that street again It’s the same shops with the same decorations; the plastic lady with the same Christmas hat but a different red scarf illuminated by the same holiday lights, the same artificial tree with the newest suitcases and handbags stacked under it, all wrapped with the same, same ribbons.
The windows glimmer brightly. “Let’s go there!” Alexander suggests, and pulls Will along by the hand. Again, but for different reasons, Will’s face takes on a bright red hue. They’d agreed not to do this sort of thing where others could see. Besides, it had taken them the better part of two years to get used to this...cuddling and hugging and hand holding stuff at all. Their friends used to tease them that there was more to a date than holding hands on the way to recess. But Lex seems so happy that he lets it be. Even if he can hear girls tittering around them.
Inside, Alexander finally releases his hand, opting instead to use his now free hands to hold up a shirt for inspection. “How about this one?” he asks, when Will violently sneezes. As one, the other shoppers turn and give him disapproving looks while Alexander looks on concerned. “Are you cold? Do you want to go home? My house?” His hand brushes lightly against Will’s. Will shakes his head. “It’s alright, I’m fine,” he says, and resolves not to sneeze for the rest of the day.
An hour later, they’re both laden with bags of presents. Will is wearing the hat Lex picked for him and Lex is wearing the scarf Will chose. “Snacks?” Alexander asks. The moment Will agrees, Alexander smiles just a little slyly. “Your treat!”
“Eeh!?”
It’s the same cross walk. The same building that used to have a poster of a penguin now has a poster of lions and zebras. People standing, people waiting, people walking. People eating, people laughing, people talking. People, people, people. So many people. What had made him special, had him marked, when there were so many people? The same café, the easel blackboard advertising the same tantalisingly warm drinks for the same ridiculous prices.
“French Vanilla Latte and Double Chocolate please!” It’s what Lex always orders. Sometimes, Will wonders if Lex does it just so he’ll whine about Lex being a boring person and deliver his “life is richer when you try new things” lecture for the four hundredth and twenty sixth time.
“I still don’t get why I’m paying.” Will pouts. “You’re older.”
“But you’re taller!” Alexander counters. That, he can’t deny. Lex never managed to grow past the five foot six mark, while Will had shot up another few.
A look comes into Lex’s eyes. Smiling, mysterious, mischievous. The light turns green. They begin to cross, Will on the outside. “I’ll give you an extra special present,” Alex says, and then-
He can remember it. The screeching. The car skidding on the ice. Black ice. Not stopping.
Will freezes. People scream. Alexander screams. His eyes are big, huge, scared. Strong arms envelop him, throw him aside.
He remembers the blood, the crying. Alex lying there, lips in a half smile, and then they lock eyes and he looks so, so sad.
He remembers it all.
He doesn’t want to.
“Stop! Stop!” his mind cries, a futile plea of the condemned, pain filled and heart filled and tear filled. It’s useless, and he knows it’s useless. Useless, pointless, needless. “No more!” And it obediently screeches to a halt, but, like the car, too late, and there is Alex lying there all over again.
A year. It’s been a year. Will tilts his head upwards, catches a snowflake in his lashes, another drifts into his eye. He blinks as it melts away.
"Alex,” he whispers, unanswered questions that can no longer be answered slipping through a mist. “What was the present?”
Someone taps him on the shoulder. Irresistibly, slowly, he turns. Behind him, the light turns yellow and red and green, cars coursing by in silence with their cranky engines, people talking voiceless into phones. A child runs by with exaggerated steps, mittens clipped onto sleeves trailing behind him, red toque dropping to the ground again and again as he picks it up again and again. Alex stands there, looking sad and happy all at once, but there. Through the jacket, his touch is oddly warm.
“Aren’t you dead?” Will finds himself asking. The face is exactly the same. White skin, soft under Will’s fingers as he brushes them against well padded cheeks. Hair dyed a dark brown, falling over ears. Eyes wide and kind.
“You wanted your present, didn’t you?” Alex smiles. The best smile. And right there on the street, he pulls the younger, taller boy down towards him, cups his chin in his hand and presses their lips together. He tastes like vanilla, Will thinks, before he melts under the touches, the warmth, the overflowing feelings. When they finally pull apart, his eyes twinkle. “Merry Christmas.”
Somewhere in the world, a clock strikes twelve.
- - -
Epilogue
When reality finally returns to him a few minutes later, Will stares. Maybe because no one's looking their way. Maybe because something feels off. A beat. The whole scene plays out in his memory again, and this time, he doesn’t try and stop it. A beat. “I’m dead?”
Alex bites his lip, looks down, swings his gaze upwards until it pinpoints on Will, eyes happy and sad all at once. “Last year...I couldn’t push you away fast enough.” Sad. “You still owe me a latte.” Happy.
Will groans. But he’s not in the mood to protest. “Where did you learn to kiss like that?” Pause. Alex looks especially evil. Or at the least, calculative.
“Come on. I’ve missed you. Let’s go home.”
And, hand in hand, that’s exactly what they do.
Because now they have all the time in the world to answer all those unanswered questions. And Alex has every intention of answering all of them. Every, single one.