Fic: He is the Captain of His Soul
Title: He is the Captain of His Soul
Pairing: None
Rating: PG-13
Length: 1,932
Disclaimer: All content is fictional. I do not own, nor am I affiliated with, Top Gear.
Summary: He thought sadly that he would miss Fusker most of all.
Warnings: Contains suicide. If you are uncomfortable with that, please do not read.
---
He’d had this planned now for one month and seventeen days. Though the idea had nestled itself in his head as an adolescent - twenty-two and experiencing his first existential crisis and coincidentally, his first broken heart - he had harboured it over the years and thought recently that it had gone away. In two best mates he had found confidants, but even his story James could not tell. It was something to be kept inside and shut away; unmanly, he reckoned, to be concerned and so upset over such trivial matters as love. And so it was that the idea had crept back like a lover and cuddled up to him at night on the side where Fusker didn’t sleep, whispered sweet nothings - everythings - into his ear and asked him what is holding you back why don’t you just do it can’t you see this is all it will ever be.
He’d written it all down on the back of his grocery list and set about organising things the night before he had planned to do it. He had everything he needed - with his profession, how could he not? - and knew clearly what to do. The first thing on his list was to make sure Fusker was fed. The second was to prepare the car; at this stage, James had used dashes instead of dot points to mark the more extensive instructions that fell under the title ‘Prepare the car.’ He used words like tubing and air pressure. The third was to lock the doors, not that he wouldn’t normally. Fusker had a cat flap he could get through and James gathered that from early morning presents he had left on the doormat, he could hunt quite sufficiently. There were no more steps.
At six o’clock that evening he had sat down at his kitchen table to a nice dinner of sausages and mashed potato and taken three bites before his phone rang. From the other end James could hear Mindy’s chatting voice in the background as Jeremy spoke to him, asking him if he would like to come out to dinner, we’re going to this place Hammond picked out. ‘Come on, we can have a few pints while the girls talk about that Robert Redderford or whatever it is.’ This was the night he had planned it to happen. For one month and seventeen days he’d had to entertain Jeremy and Richard, go to the pub and film and laugh and pretend like he was not going to kill himself on the night when they’d let him be by himself.
‘Fusker’s a bit sick actually, Jeremy, so I think I’ll just stay in tonight.’ He sounded the same. Collected, patient.
‘He’s spending the night picking through cat sick, Hammond!’
Jeremy had pulled the phone away from his ear - and as such, his mouth - but James heard it as clear as day, could see in his mind’s eye Jeremy throwing his whole upper body back into the car seat as he laughed. To him it was a biting insult, the telltale thick, smoker’s laugh the cherry on top of the cake; as if it were a ludicrous idea that he stay in and look after his sick cat rather than go out to dinner with them. Not that Fusker was really sick. The thing was scratching at the table leg for a bit of sausage.
‘Well if you decide to change your mind, you know what to do.’ James knew it was coming before he said it. ‘Just put your lips together and blow. Bye mate.’ James waited until he could hear the dial tone before he spoke quietly. ‘Goodbye.’
Fusker pawed insistently at his leg. He dropped a bit of the sausage onto the ground with an affectionate, ‘There you go, you muppet.’ He thought sadly that he would miss Fusker most of all.
---
He had set everything up in the evening and, after locking all the doors and windows, crawled into bed and lay silently as he listened to his breath. It struck him odd; after years of thinking about it, he was finally going to do it. This would be the last time he would sleep, the last time he would hear himself breathing in the quiet stillness of his bedroom, the last time he would stare across at the window with its drawn blinds covering the twinkling night sky. James felt like he was on a school camp; lying in those steel bunk beds, staring into the darkness that was no different whether he had his eyes open or closed, listening to Ian Macarthy snore in the bunk below him and Anthony Dunfield rustle around in his sleep, knowing he would never get this moment in his life back again, knowing he would never ever be exactly like this ever again.
He didn’t even know he had been falling asleep until Fusker curled up next to him and tucked his head under James’ chin with a gentle purr. He watched his cat for a while as the animal slept, kissing the crown of his head one last time and committing to memory the warmth of his only companion. Fusker’s heavy purrs lulled James to sleep that night, as they did every night, and when he woke the next morning, Fusker had curled at his feet with one paw over his nose like he used to do when he was a kitten.
---
That morning James fed Fusker a hearty breakfast of tuna and the sausage he had saved for him, and sat stroking the animal’s beautiful soft fur for a long time afterwards.
---
He had listened to Beethoven as he had done it.
---
When the boys arrived, Jeremy was hung over and Richard was wearing last night’s jeans. Their knocks at the door did little and their shouts for James even less, and Richard had snickered as he’d used the key James had given him - Jeremy’s were in his pocket - to open the door. ‘He’s probably in the shower having a tug and can’t hear us.’ The beer does funny things to Richard, makes him lewd even in the morning when it has worn off.
The kitchen is empty and the dishes sit clean and stacked on the sink as they make their way inside. Jeremy makes an effort to push Richard out of the way and together they thunder up the stairs in laughter, hoping to be the one to catch James in flagrante delicto but the bathroom is empty and quiet and in James’ bedroom is much the same.
Jeremy thinks he must have gone to the downstairs loo but even that is empty. Being Jeremy, he crouches down as much as his back will allow him too and hides his snickers in his collar. ‘Hammond, we’ll split up. You go that way, I’ll go this way. Just scream if you find his head in a box.’ He creeps off like he was in a mystery movie - very Scooby Doo like - and Richard climbs the stairs again and after scouring the upstairs, finds no trace of James. His bed is messy, though; he must be here somewhere.
---
From somewhere upstairs Jeremy hears Richard calling him.
He opens the garage door.
---
He called out. ‘Jeremy?’ From under the bed the little fellow appeared. Fusker curled his way around Richard’s legs, little black and white face saying hello and enquiring as to when he would be fed, please feed me, feed me, apparently fit as a fiddle. ‘Hello, you.’ Richard crouched down to give the cat a scratch behind the ears, feeling the lovely soft fur; he got a meow and a headbutt in return. ‘Hasn’t he given you your breakfast, mate?’ That wasn’t like James.
‘Jeremy?’ He stands up straight and heads back downstairs as he calls again.
---
It is obscure how the mind works in moments of terror. You seem faced with an insurmountable situation, one that smacks you in the face like a brick wall and shuts down every bit of your brain except the parts that tell you something has gone wrong, something is not right. Jeremy thought about how it looked when he ran; did his long legs look funny? Did he seem to lumber heavily, slowly? Of course, as he ran, it was not fast enough. It would never be fast enough. Like clawing through molasses, Jeremy was just slow.
When he remembers back to this moment, during nights when Francie is asleep upstairs and he has dulled himself nice and proper with a bottle of the brandy they keep at the back of the cupboard so the kids won’t stumble on it, he finds he recalls the textures most of all. The images have dulled with time - so little time, only months, and yet they fuzz around the edges like someone’s swished the memory in a tray of battery acid - but he can still feel the cool, smooth metal of the door handle as he’d yanked it open. Just like the movies, everything had moved slowly. On its hinges it had creaked - the thing was old, needed repairing, but James couldn’t throw it away, said he would fix it up one day. It hit Jeremy’s thigh as it swung back - returning - with the force it had been opened with, and even now the orchestral music rose up in his ears like an old film, deafening and consuming. What he recalls clearest - and when he remembers, he weeps - is the feel of James’ jumper, that sodding stripey jumper. He didn’t consciously see James that morning, slumped in the passenger seat of the car; his mind made the connection without his eyes, really, so that it was like watching someone else reach out and grasp that stupid purple and pink shoulder.
---
Thump in slow motion, a heavy palm pushing, and when James’s head tips back with the movement, greying hair feathery and face a dulling white-grey, Jeremy is sick down his front.
---
Richard finds himself stuck in the doorway listening to a sick moan that he’s never heard before - never even heard the semblance of one - and all too soon he realises what has happened. He can see that pale face in the car, see the tubing from the exhaust pipe and from his vantage point, in his peripheral vision, Fusker’s bowl by the fridge is full of extra food.
Richard chokes on the wail that crawls up his throat.
---
It is what grown men do. They settle down and marry their girlfriends. They have children. They lead happy, fulfilling lives and are a benefit to society. James did not have a girlfriend, and he did not have children. James had a pet cat and did not benefit society. Being in his forties and single was difficult, but James would not - could not - let himself get old alone. Jeremy and Richard would watch their children grow and one night, when they were grey and wrinkled, fall to sleep and not wake up again. James would never watch his children grow. Fusker would die eventually. It wasn’t really a sin, he dreaded the thought of Hell and he hoped that he had led a good enough life to earn eternal peace. He was really just beating life to the chase.
Now he does not have to grow old, and he does not have to live a life of no purpose, because now, as Jeremy screams at Richard to dial triple 9, come on Hammond for the love of Christ please, he has no life to live.
---
Pairing: None
Rating: PG-13
Length: 1,932
Disclaimer: All content is fictional. I do not own, nor am I affiliated with, Top Gear.
Summary: He thought sadly that he would miss Fusker most of all.
Warnings: Contains suicide. If you are uncomfortable with that, please do not read.
---
He’d had this planned now for one month and seventeen days. Though the idea had nestled itself in his head as an adolescent - twenty-two and experiencing his first existential crisis and coincidentally, his first broken heart - he had harboured it over the years and thought recently that it had gone away. In two best mates he had found confidants, but even his story James could not tell. It was something to be kept inside and shut away; unmanly, he reckoned, to be concerned and so upset over such trivial matters as love. And so it was that the idea had crept back like a lover and cuddled up to him at night on the side where Fusker didn’t sleep, whispered sweet nothings - everythings - into his ear and asked him what is holding you back why don’t you just do it can’t you see this is all it will ever be.
He’d written it all down on the back of his grocery list and set about organising things the night before he had planned to do it. He had everything he needed - with his profession, how could he not? - and knew clearly what to do. The first thing on his list was to make sure Fusker was fed. The second was to prepare the car; at this stage, James had used dashes instead of dot points to mark the more extensive instructions that fell under the title ‘Prepare the car.’ He used words like tubing and air pressure. The third was to lock the doors, not that he wouldn’t normally. Fusker had a cat flap he could get through and James gathered that from early morning presents he had left on the doormat, he could hunt quite sufficiently. There were no more steps.
At six o’clock that evening he had sat down at his kitchen table to a nice dinner of sausages and mashed potato and taken three bites before his phone rang. From the other end James could hear Mindy’s chatting voice in the background as Jeremy spoke to him, asking him if he would like to come out to dinner, we’re going to this place Hammond picked out. ‘Come on, we can have a few pints while the girls talk about that Robert Redderford or whatever it is.’ This was the night he had planned it to happen. For one month and seventeen days he’d had to entertain Jeremy and Richard, go to the pub and film and laugh and pretend like he was not going to kill himself on the night when they’d let him be by himself.
‘Fusker’s a bit sick actually, Jeremy, so I think I’ll just stay in tonight.’ He sounded the same. Collected, patient.
‘He’s spending the night picking through cat sick, Hammond!’
Jeremy had pulled the phone away from his ear - and as such, his mouth - but James heard it as clear as day, could see in his mind’s eye Jeremy throwing his whole upper body back into the car seat as he laughed. To him it was a biting insult, the telltale thick, smoker’s laugh the cherry on top of the cake; as if it were a ludicrous idea that he stay in and look after his sick cat rather than go out to dinner with them. Not that Fusker was really sick. The thing was scratching at the table leg for a bit of sausage.
‘Well if you decide to change your mind, you know what to do.’ James knew it was coming before he said it. ‘Just put your lips together and blow. Bye mate.’ James waited until he could hear the dial tone before he spoke quietly. ‘Goodbye.’
Fusker pawed insistently at his leg. He dropped a bit of the sausage onto the ground with an affectionate, ‘There you go, you muppet.’ He thought sadly that he would miss Fusker most of all.
---
He had set everything up in the evening and, after locking all the doors and windows, crawled into bed and lay silently as he listened to his breath. It struck him odd; after years of thinking about it, he was finally going to do it. This would be the last time he would sleep, the last time he would hear himself breathing in the quiet stillness of his bedroom, the last time he would stare across at the window with its drawn blinds covering the twinkling night sky. James felt like he was on a school camp; lying in those steel bunk beds, staring into the darkness that was no different whether he had his eyes open or closed, listening to Ian Macarthy snore in the bunk below him and Anthony Dunfield rustle around in his sleep, knowing he would never get this moment in his life back again, knowing he would never ever be exactly like this ever again.
He didn’t even know he had been falling asleep until Fusker curled up next to him and tucked his head under James’ chin with a gentle purr. He watched his cat for a while as the animal slept, kissing the crown of his head one last time and committing to memory the warmth of his only companion. Fusker’s heavy purrs lulled James to sleep that night, as they did every night, and when he woke the next morning, Fusker had curled at his feet with one paw over his nose like he used to do when he was a kitten.
---
That morning James fed Fusker a hearty breakfast of tuna and the sausage he had saved for him, and sat stroking the animal’s beautiful soft fur for a long time afterwards.
---
He had listened to Beethoven as he had done it.
---
When the boys arrived, Jeremy was hung over and Richard was wearing last night’s jeans. Their knocks at the door did little and their shouts for James even less, and Richard had snickered as he’d used the key James had given him - Jeremy’s were in his pocket - to open the door. ‘He’s probably in the shower having a tug and can’t hear us.’ The beer does funny things to Richard, makes him lewd even in the morning when it has worn off.
The kitchen is empty and the dishes sit clean and stacked on the sink as they make their way inside. Jeremy makes an effort to push Richard out of the way and together they thunder up the stairs in laughter, hoping to be the one to catch James in flagrante delicto but the bathroom is empty and quiet and in James’ bedroom is much the same.
Jeremy thinks he must have gone to the downstairs loo but even that is empty. Being Jeremy, he crouches down as much as his back will allow him too and hides his snickers in his collar. ‘Hammond, we’ll split up. You go that way, I’ll go this way. Just scream if you find his head in a box.’ He creeps off like he was in a mystery movie - very Scooby Doo like - and Richard climbs the stairs again and after scouring the upstairs, finds no trace of James. His bed is messy, though; he must be here somewhere.
---
From somewhere upstairs Jeremy hears Richard calling him.
He opens the garage door.
---
He called out. ‘Jeremy?’ From under the bed the little fellow appeared. Fusker curled his way around Richard’s legs, little black and white face saying hello and enquiring as to when he would be fed, please feed me, feed me, apparently fit as a fiddle. ‘Hello, you.’ Richard crouched down to give the cat a scratch behind the ears, feeling the lovely soft fur; he got a meow and a headbutt in return. ‘Hasn’t he given you your breakfast, mate?’ That wasn’t like James.
‘Jeremy?’ He stands up straight and heads back downstairs as he calls again.
---
It is obscure how the mind works in moments of terror. You seem faced with an insurmountable situation, one that smacks you in the face like a brick wall and shuts down every bit of your brain except the parts that tell you something has gone wrong, something is not right. Jeremy thought about how it looked when he ran; did his long legs look funny? Did he seem to lumber heavily, slowly? Of course, as he ran, it was not fast enough. It would never be fast enough. Like clawing through molasses, Jeremy was just slow.
When he remembers back to this moment, during nights when Francie is asleep upstairs and he has dulled himself nice and proper with a bottle of the brandy they keep at the back of the cupboard so the kids won’t stumble on it, he finds he recalls the textures most of all. The images have dulled with time - so little time, only months, and yet they fuzz around the edges like someone’s swished the memory in a tray of battery acid - but he can still feel the cool, smooth metal of the door handle as he’d yanked it open. Just like the movies, everything had moved slowly. On its hinges it had creaked - the thing was old, needed repairing, but James couldn’t throw it away, said he would fix it up one day. It hit Jeremy’s thigh as it swung back - returning - with the force it had been opened with, and even now the orchestral music rose up in his ears like an old film, deafening and consuming. What he recalls clearest - and when he remembers, he weeps - is the feel of James’ jumper, that sodding stripey jumper. He didn’t consciously see James that morning, slumped in the passenger seat of the car; his mind made the connection without his eyes, really, so that it was like watching someone else reach out and grasp that stupid purple and pink shoulder.
---
Thump in slow motion, a heavy palm pushing, and when James’s head tips back with the movement, greying hair feathery and face a dulling white-grey, Jeremy is sick down his front.
---
Richard finds himself stuck in the doorway listening to a sick moan that he’s never heard before - never even heard the semblance of one - and all too soon he realises what has happened. He can see that pale face in the car, see the tubing from the exhaust pipe and from his vantage point, in his peripheral vision, Fusker’s bowl by the fridge is full of extra food.
Richard chokes on the wail that crawls up his throat.
---
It is what grown men do. They settle down and marry their girlfriends. They have children. They lead happy, fulfilling lives and are a benefit to society. James did not have a girlfriend, and he did not have children. James had a pet cat and did not benefit society. Being in his forties and single was difficult, but James would not - could not - let himself get old alone. Jeremy and Richard would watch their children grow and one night, when they were grey and wrinkled, fall to sleep and not wake up again. James would never watch his children grow. Fusker would die eventually. It wasn’t really a sin, he dreaded the thought of Hell and he hoped that he had led a good enough life to earn eternal peace. He was really just beating life to the chase.
Now he does not have to grow old, and he does not have to live a life of no purpose, because now, as Jeremy screams at Richard to dial triple 9, come on Hammond for the love of Christ please, he has no life to live.
---