Lambliff: Coming To and Moving On
Title: Coming To and Moving On
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Lambliff
Summary: Tommy always used to laugh at people who have a problem with dying. He doesn’t anymore because he’s like, mature and shit, but he just doesn’t get it.
A/N: This is super AU. Also also, this was supposed to be a drabble for the teamlambliff ficmeme prompt "time, lost, picture," but it kind of spun out of control by like 2k. My b. Either way, this goes out to whoever prompted it.
Tommy always used to laugh at people who have a problem with dying. He doesn’t anymore because he’s like, mature and shit, but he just doesn’t get it. Sure, it hurts like hell for a fraction of a second, but then you Come To right afterwards, hopefully as a bipedal and hopefully in the same place that you left off, but you never know. Either way, it’s nothing to get upset over. He’s been killed over a dozen times, and even after a short stint as a lemur in Madagascar, he still has no problem with it.
The science textbooks he used in school all say the same thing: if your body dies, you Come To in another body in another place almost instantaneously. No one ever Dies and everyone always Moves On. All this meant to Tommy was that he could kill his friends as a joke, no problem, only then there was no way of ensuring that they Came To in the same city, or even as a human, so mostly Tommy avoided doing that to people he actually wanted to have around.
The first time Tommy ever killed anyone, it was an accident. Most of the times were accidents, really, because Tommy just isn’t like that, but more so than the others, the first time was an accident. The thing is, Lisa had just been harping on him, really harping on him for being different or skinny or for having weird hair or what-the-fuck-ever, and he was just annoyed. No, Your Honor, he didn’t realize they were that high up, and no, Your Honor, he didn’t mean to do it, of course he didn’t mean to do it. And no, Your Honor, of course it won’t happen again, he promises. Tommy walked away with 250 hours of community service, which he just thought was bullshit, although his mom shook her head at him and said he was lucky. Lucky? Tommy had wanted to laugh. It’s not like Lisa was Dead; she was just someone and someplace else, probably having a blast while he was stuck picking trash up off the side of the road. Moving On was a part of Life; everyone did it sooner or later.
So he never had a problem with dying or killing, not really, but Tommy used to be afraid of not Coming To after dying. He expressed this fear to Monte once, only to have his friend mock him. “Oh, come on, Tommy,” Monte gasped through laughter, “you sound like a second grader after listening to campfire stories!” Tommy just scowled, and when Monte died a week later, Tommy genuinely felt bad. Although, technically-technically, that time wasn’t an accident.
(But, as it has always been and always would be, Time was uniform, and Monte made his way back to Tommy only a few weeks later. Monte looked different-he must have won the lottery or something, Tommy figured, because Monte died an ugly little shit and came back an oily beau hunk-but Tommy could tell it was him because he still had the same facial hair and he definitely still had the same right hook.)
When Tommy first sees Adam, it’s hot enough outside that his skin is covered in a thin layer of sweat, but not hot enough that he feels the need to take off his sweatshirt. Tommy’s in the parking lot of some mom-and-pop grocery store, and there’s this guy a couple of cars down that’s just-he’s just perfect. Tall and dark-haired, and when Tommy hears him laugh, he thinks, sold.
“Adam,” someone says, and it’s only then that Tommy realizes that Mr. Perfect is not alone. His friend is skinny as fuck, probably skinnier than Tommy is, and he’s got this chiseled face that makes Tommy hate him right off the bat. “On the upside,” the guy continues, “at least you look good your last minute of looking like that.” And then the guy raises a gun and just fucking shoots his friend, just like that, and Tommy jumps sky-high and drops his milk.
The guy then looks at Tommy, says, “Oh, please, he’ll be back in a week,” hops in his car, and drives away. Tommy stands there for a good ten minutes, his heart rate through the roof, and thinks, What the fuck. What the actual fuck.
Seven days later, Tommy goes back to the parking lot, just to see if the guy really does show. He drinks a Mountain Dew and eats a hot dog from the 7-Eleven down the street and, a couple hours later, the only people he’s seen are an elderly couple and a sixteen year old girl who tried to buy cigarettes. Tommy gets up to leave. His chest feels tight and he blames it on heartburn. He swears off of food from 7-Eleven.
A month later, Tommy still hasn’t seen Adam again. It gets to the point where he has more groceries than he could possibly eat, and he throws them all away. The next day, he gets hit by a car, and as he’s lying on the hot asphalt, Tommy hears a rush of sirens and horns. He thinks, What’s the rush? It’s not like anyone’s Dying.
He Comes To the second after he dies and thinks, Okay, get your bearings straight. Don’t get lost. Find out where you are. Find out who you are. Only… Only Tommy’s in his room in the apartment he shares with Monte. Only Tommy looks in the mirror, and he’s still him. He touches the mirror, almost expecting it to be fake. It’s not. He grabs his wallet and stares at his license photo, comparing it to what he sees in the mirror. It’s the same. The same hair, the same nose, the same eyes. Tommy freaks out. This has never happened before, not to anyone in the history books and certainly not to him. He spends hours in the shower, pouring over his body for something, anything, different. Scientific fact says you never come back as the same person twice, and Tommy just doesn’t know what to think about that.
“Hey, yo,” Monte says that night, “I heard you got hit by a car!” Tommy looks at him and stutters out a “No. What? No,” and goes to the bar to buy himself another beer.
“What do you mean, he Came To exactly the same?” Tommy hears some girl say.
“I mean,” a guy responds, and that voice is so familiar to Tommy. “I mean that yesterday he got hit by a fucking car, and this morning he wakes up, in our apartment, not an inch shorter and just as fabulous.”
Tommy whirls around because how the fuck did they know? And leaning against the bar a few feet away is the guy from the parking lot-the one with the gun-and some girl with red hair.
“Well, at least Adam is still-I mean, he’s not a cat or something, right? So that’s good,” she says, and Tommy thinks, Adam. He pays for his beer and when he looks back, Adam’s friends are gone.
Tommy stands in his backyard with a BB gun and he feels bad, but he has to know. He has to know that if you die, you don’t Come To again exactly how you were. He shoots the first bird he sees, and when it hits the ground, he shoots it again. He puts the bird in a box and when he checks back on it ten minutes later, it’s gone. Science proves triumphant.
Some days, Tommy contemplates telling Monte. Other days, he thinks he sees Adam out of the corner of his eye. Still others, he thinks he needs some more sleep.
It’s a perfect day, 85 degrees and sunny. Tommy reads the paper-something that he never does-and gets a coffee. He ties his shoes in double knots, eats a 7-Eleven taquito, and calls his mom. After lunch, Tommy does some jumping jacks, touches up his eyeliner, and licks his lips. He walks out the door and thinks, Who invented the double knot? He wipes his hands on his jeans and thinks, That taquito wasn’t worth the money. He stands in the elevator and thinks, Have skyscrapers always been this tall? He hits the ground.
Tommy Comes To exactly the same. He tries to convince himself that, no, no, his hair is a little shorter this time, but it’s not. He’s exactly the fucking same. He decides to try again.
Bleach tastes exactly how it smells.
A week later, Tommy doesn’t know what else to do because he’s not following the rules. He wants to-oh god, he wants to-but he just doesn’t. So he paces and paces and checks out library books and pulls out his hair and Monte looks at him, doesn’t really know what’s up, but says anyway, “Hey, man, maybe you should, I don’t know, get out of the house for a bit?” So Tommy leaves, just sort of wanders around until he ends up outside 7-Eleven and thinks, What the hell, because what’s the worst that could happen? Death by shitty food? Tommy’s willing to risk it.
He’s weighing the pros and cons of Twinkies because maybe they’ll do the trick-they can’t be healthy-when he hears a laugh-Adam’s laugh-from over by the Slurpee machine. He’s with his friend, the one with the jaw line and the cheek bones, and he says, “Being invincible really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
Tommy thinks, Tell me about it, and only realizes that he said that out loud when Adam looks at him and says, “What?”
Tommy’s mind frantically searches for something to respond with. There’s only so many ways you can say, “I can’t Move On,” without sounding like a creepy stalker fuck.
Adam buys him coffee-good stuff, not that 7-Eleven sludge, although Tommy would have accepted that, too-and they sit at a table in the corner of the café. Adam’s as tall as anything, and although they’re more or less at the same height when they’re sitting down, Adam’s knees bump against Tommy’s, his legs stretching over to Tommy’s side of the table.
“I’ve tried everything,” Tommy says.
“Me too,” Adam says. “But I always Come To the same.”
Tommy says, “Me too,” and when he looks at Adam, Adam looks right back at him and smiles, so big and bright that Tommy can’t make himself look away.
“Thank god! I thought I was like, genetically defective or whatever.”
And Tommy wants to respond with something like, “Oh, god, I know,” or maybe “No, you’re perfect,” or, “Hey, you want to get dinner?” Instead, what he says is, “I’ve been looking all over for you,” and then follows it up with, “Since you got shot. In the parking lot? I’ve been… looking. For you.” And he has never wanted to die and Move On more than he did right then, because at least then Adam wouldn’t recognize him, wouldn’t be able to point him out to his friends and says, “That’s the guy I told you about; the crazy one.”
He’s about to say something, anything, to take back what he said or to at least try to explain it when Adam leans forward on his elbows and says, “I’m glad you did. Find me, I mean.” He smiles and Tommy smiles and when Adam asks, “Hey, you want to get dinner?” Tommy says, “I think that’s my line,” and “Maybe we could go skydiving, too.” And later, after a few drinks and a few kisses, he says, “Come back to my place,” and Adam says, “Okay.”
Tommy's apartment is covered in books and guitar picks and his room is covered in laundry, but Adam doesn't seem to mind. Instead of commenting, he says, "We can't Move On; think of how much fun we could have with this." He tucks his fingers in the top of Tommy's jeans and backs them both towards the bed.
Tommy says, "Oh. Oh, shit," and decides that Moving On? Totally not worth it.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Lambliff
Summary: Tommy always used to laugh at people who have a problem with dying. He doesn’t anymore because he’s like, mature and shit, but he just doesn’t get it.
A/N: This is super AU. Also also, this was supposed to be a drabble for the teamlambliff ficmeme prompt "time, lost, picture," but it kind of spun out of control by like 2k. My b. Either way, this goes out to whoever prompted it.
Tommy always used to laugh at people who have a problem with dying. He doesn’t anymore because he’s like, mature and shit, but he just doesn’t get it. Sure, it hurts like hell for a fraction of a second, but then you Come To right afterwards, hopefully as a bipedal and hopefully in the same place that you left off, but you never know. Either way, it’s nothing to get upset over. He’s been killed over a dozen times, and even after a short stint as a lemur in Madagascar, he still has no problem with it.
The science textbooks he used in school all say the same thing: if your body dies, you Come To in another body in another place almost instantaneously. No one ever Dies and everyone always Moves On. All this meant to Tommy was that he could kill his friends as a joke, no problem, only then there was no way of ensuring that they Came To in the same city, or even as a human, so mostly Tommy avoided doing that to people he actually wanted to have around.
The first time Tommy ever killed anyone, it was an accident. Most of the times were accidents, really, because Tommy just isn’t like that, but more so than the others, the first time was an accident. The thing is, Lisa had just been harping on him, really harping on him for being different or skinny or for having weird hair or what-the-fuck-ever, and he was just annoyed. No, Your Honor, he didn’t realize they were that high up, and no, Your Honor, he didn’t mean to do it, of course he didn’t mean to do it. And no, Your Honor, of course it won’t happen again, he promises. Tommy walked away with 250 hours of community service, which he just thought was bullshit, although his mom shook her head at him and said he was lucky. Lucky? Tommy had wanted to laugh. It’s not like Lisa was Dead; she was just someone and someplace else, probably having a blast while he was stuck picking trash up off the side of the road. Moving On was a part of Life; everyone did it sooner or later.
So he never had a problem with dying or killing, not really, but Tommy used to be afraid of not Coming To after dying. He expressed this fear to Monte once, only to have his friend mock him. “Oh, come on, Tommy,” Monte gasped through laughter, “you sound like a second grader after listening to campfire stories!” Tommy just scowled, and when Monte died a week later, Tommy genuinely felt bad. Although, technically-technically, that time wasn’t an accident.
(But, as it has always been and always would be, Time was uniform, and Monte made his way back to Tommy only a few weeks later. Monte looked different-he must have won the lottery or something, Tommy figured, because Monte died an ugly little shit and came back an oily beau hunk-but Tommy could tell it was him because he still had the same facial hair and he definitely still had the same right hook.)
When Tommy first sees Adam, it’s hot enough outside that his skin is covered in a thin layer of sweat, but not hot enough that he feels the need to take off his sweatshirt. Tommy’s in the parking lot of some mom-and-pop grocery store, and there’s this guy a couple of cars down that’s just-he’s just perfect. Tall and dark-haired, and when Tommy hears him laugh, he thinks, sold.
“Adam,” someone says, and it’s only then that Tommy realizes that Mr. Perfect is not alone. His friend is skinny as fuck, probably skinnier than Tommy is, and he’s got this chiseled face that makes Tommy hate him right off the bat. “On the upside,” the guy continues, “at least you look good your last minute of looking like that.” And then the guy raises a gun and just fucking shoots his friend, just like that, and Tommy jumps sky-high and drops his milk.
The guy then looks at Tommy, says, “Oh, please, he’ll be back in a week,” hops in his car, and drives away. Tommy stands there for a good ten minutes, his heart rate through the roof, and thinks, What the fuck. What the actual fuck.
Seven days later, Tommy goes back to the parking lot, just to see if the guy really does show. He drinks a Mountain Dew and eats a hot dog from the 7-Eleven down the street and, a couple hours later, the only people he’s seen are an elderly couple and a sixteen year old girl who tried to buy cigarettes. Tommy gets up to leave. His chest feels tight and he blames it on heartburn. He swears off of food from 7-Eleven.
A month later, Tommy still hasn’t seen Adam again. It gets to the point where he has more groceries than he could possibly eat, and he throws them all away. The next day, he gets hit by a car, and as he’s lying on the hot asphalt, Tommy hears a rush of sirens and horns. He thinks, What’s the rush? It’s not like anyone’s Dying.
He Comes To the second after he dies and thinks, Okay, get your bearings straight. Don’t get lost. Find out where you are. Find out who you are. Only… Only Tommy’s in his room in the apartment he shares with Monte. Only Tommy looks in the mirror, and he’s still him. He touches the mirror, almost expecting it to be fake. It’s not. He grabs his wallet and stares at his license photo, comparing it to what he sees in the mirror. It’s the same. The same hair, the same nose, the same eyes. Tommy freaks out. This has never happened before, not to anyone in the history books and certainly not to him. He spends hours in the shower, pouring over his body for something, anything, different. Scientific fact says you never come back as the same person twice, and Tommy just doesn’t know what to think about that.
“Hey, yo,” Monte says that night, “I heard you got hit by a car!” Tommy looks at him and stutters out a “No. What? No,” and goes to the bar to buy himself another beer.
“What do you mean, he Came To exactly the same?” Tommy hears some girl say.
“I mean,” a guy responds, and that voice is so familiar to Tommy. “I mean that yesterday he got hit by a fucking car, and this morning he wakes up, in our apartment, not an inch shorter and just as fabulous.”
Tommy whirls around because how the fuck did they know? And leaning against the bar a few feet away is the guy from the parking lot-the one with the gun-and some girl with red hair.
“Well, at least Adam is still-I mean, he’s not a cat or something, right? So that’s good,” she says, and Tommy thinks, Adam. He pays for his beer and when he looks back, Adam’s friends are gone.
Tommy stands in his backyard with a BB gun and he feels bad, but he has to know. He has to know that if you die, you don’t Come To again exactly how you were. He shoots the first bird he sees, and when it hits the ground, he shoots it again. He puts the bird in a box and when he checks back on it ten minutes later, it’s gone. Science proves triumphant.
Some days, Tommy contemplates telling Monte. Other days, he thinks he sees Adam out of the corner of his eye. Still others, he thinks he needs some more sleep.
It’s a perfect day, 85 degrees and sunny. Tommy reads the paper-something that he never does-and gets a coffee. He ties his shoes in double knots, eats a 7-Eleven taquito, and calls his mom. After lunch, Tommy does some jumping jacks, touches up his eyeliner, and licks his lips. He walks out the door and thinks, Who invented the double knot? He wipes his hands on his jeans and thinks, That taquito wasn’t worth the money. He stands in the elevator and thinks, Have skyscrapers always been this tall? He hits the ground.
Tommy Comes To exactly the same. He tries to convince himself that, no, no, his hair is a little shorter this time, but it’s not. He’s exactly the fucking same. He decides to try again.
Bleach tastes exactly how it smells.
A week later, Tommy doesn’t know what else to do because he’s not following the rules. He wants to-oh god, he wants to-but he just doesn’t. So he paces and paces and checks out library books and pulls out his hair and Monte looks at him, doesn’t really know what’s up, but says anyway, “Hey, man, maybe you should, I don’t know, get out of the house for a bit?” So Tommy leaves, just sort of wanders around until he ends up outside 7-Eleven and thinks, What the hell, because what’s the worst that could happen? Death by shitty food? Tommy’s willing to risk it.
He’s weighing the pros and cons of Twinkies because maybe they’ll do the trick-they can’t be healthy-when he hears a laugh-Adam’s laugh-from over by the Slurpee machine. He’s with his friend, the one with the jaw line and the cheek bones, and he says, “Being invincible really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
Tommy thinks, Tell me about it, and only realizes that he said that out loud when Adam looks at him and says, “What?”
Tommy’s mind frantically searches for something to respond with. There’s only so many ways you can say, “I can’t Move On,” without sounding like a creepy stalker fuck.
Adam buys him coffee-good stuff, not that 7-Eleven sludge, although Tommy would have accepted that, too-and they sit at a table in the corner of the café. Adam’s as tall as anything, and although they’re more or less at the same height when they’re sitting down, Adam’s knees bump against Tommy’s, his legs stretching over to Tommy’s side of the table.
“I’ve tried everything,” Tommy says.
“Me too,” Adam says. “But I always Come To the same.”
Tommy says, “Me too,” and when he looks at Adam, Adam looks right back at him and smiles, so big and bright that Tommy can’t make himself look away.
“Thank god! I thought I was like, genetically defective or whatever.”
And Tommy wants to respond with something like, “Oh, god, I know,” or maybe “No, you’re perfect,” or, “Hey, you want to get dinner?” Instead, what he says is, “I’ve been looking all over for you,” and then follows it up with, “Since you got shot. In the parking lot? I’ve been… looking. For you.” And he has never wanted to die and Move On more than he did right then, because at least then Adam wouldn’t recognize him, wouldn’t be able to point him out to his friends and says, “That’s the guy I told you about; the crazy one.”
He’s about to say something, anything, to take back what he said or to at least try to explain it when Adam leans forward on his elbows and says, “I’m glad you did. Find me, I mean.” He smiles and Tommy smiles and when Adam asks, “Hey, you want to get dinner?” Tommy says, “I think that’s my line,” and “Maybe we could go skydiving, too.” And later, after a few drinks and a few kisses, he says, “Come back to my place,” and Adam says, “Okay.”
Tommy's apartment is covered in books and guitar picks and his room is covered in laundry, but Adam doesn't seem to mind. Instead of commenting, he says, "We can't Move On; think of how much fun we could have with this." He tucks his fingers in the top of Tommy's jeans and backs them both towards the bed.
Tommy says, "Oh. Oh, shit," and decides that Moving On? Totally not worth it.