Henry knew it was coming; he'd known it for a long time now. Though he'd done everything humanly possible to prevent it, James had finally given in to his illness and now he was gone. It had happened the way James had wanted; in his home, in his bed, in Henry's arms. He passed quickly, his face eased and relaxed as Henry held him into the next world. It brought him comfort to know that James had been happy in the end. But Henry was still not prepared…
Tangled in the sheets of James' bed, holding him in his arms Henry wanted nothing more than to join him. Henry pulled James close to him, buying his face in his neck and sobbing so hard that his body shook like it was going to break apart. James was still warm, he was still soft; it was easy to convince himself that he was merely sleeping. James was sleeping…..but he would never wake up. Henry grasped him tighter as the realization really hit him. Soon, someone would have to take him away. Soon he would be cold and hard and put into the earth where he would decay and fade away. This would be the last time he got to hold him, to touch him…..this would be the last time he could show him love.
"Come back…come back….." Henry begged in a desperate voice that sounded like a child's whines. He rocked back and forth, half from his sorrow and half from the shuddering of his body. "Come back! James…."
It was a vain thing and Henry knew that deep down. James couldn't come back; he was lost forever. How easy it must be for others; a simple cut of the wrists, some sleeping pills….and he'd never have to feel this pain again. He didn't know, didn't care what lay beyond this life; if that's where James was, that's where he wanted to be.
But he couldn't…..it was his curse that he was left behind and had to live even though he wanted nothing more than to die. Pain of such extremity burst through his chest that for a moment he thought it might kill him; but unfortunately it just left him feeling detached and hollow. He was simultaneously feeling the worse pain he'd ever felt and giving into an emptiness that threatened to consume him. If he'd had his wits about him he would have recognized that he was going into shock. Even so, he didn't care.
Henry pulled himself back away from James, but only just so. James' body lay across Henry's lap, his head cradled against Henry's arm. Henry felt a shudder run through his body as his tears dried on his cheeks, not even bothering to try to wipe them away. With great care Henry pulled the covers around himself and James, though James received the greater portion. Henry tucked them around James, convinced in the cloud of his brain that if he could keep him warm it meant that his heart was still beating.
With the task completed, there was nothing left for Henry to do but look down at James and when he fully looked at him for the first time since….Henry felt his breath stop in his lungs as if it was physically pulled out.
He was so beautiful…Even in his illness, even in death. Everything about him was perfect in Henry's eyes; that was how he'd first known he loved him. When everything about his friend was perfect it made him ache inside he knew he cared for him like no one else.
Henry put his hand on James' cheek, running his thumb along his skin, feeling something wrench inside him deep and permanent. James was so young…he should have had decades left of his life. They had both been robbed of that.
"I was going to tell you" Henry said, his voice raw and broken in the quiet of James' home. He put his forehead against James', keeping his hand on his cheek. "I was going to tell you...I am immortal. I am immortal and I wanted to be with you forever"
Henry whispered it even though his audience couldn't hear him; would never hear him again. He didn't know why, he just felt that he had to say it. He had never gotten to tell James in life and it seemed important now.
Henry had been planning on telling James. They'd been friends for nearly a year when things had become more between them. Henry had known plenty of people in his many years, even felt he loved a few but the way that he felt for James transcended all of that. James had cared for him when he saw Henry's perfect, brilliant façade; he had come to love him when Henry had given him the rare gift of showing him who he was when he was vulnerable. After Nora's reaction to his telling her he was immortal and the suffering that followed he vowed to never tell anyone again. But James had changed that; Henry was sure that he could tell James and he would accept him. He knew that he could handle it; he'd already been asking the difficult questions that made Henry sure he knew something was up. He couldn't marry James; he couldn't even fully express his love for him in public. But that didn't stop him from being sure he wanted to spend the rest of James' life with him and he was going to tell James that when he told him his secret.
He'd planned a fancy dinner that night; he'd had all of the details in place as he went to the hospital to pick up James. That was when he found out…James had tuberculosis. It was the worst possible trick the universe could play on him. The very day he decided to spend his life with James and reveal who he really was he was robbed not only of the future but the present. Knowing James' time was so limited it hardly seemed fair to share his secret with him.
"I wanted to tell you everything" Henry said, pulling back and looking down at James. "I was going to ask you to live with me….forever. As long as your forever was" Henry smiled at the same time he felt tears in the corner of his eye. "I was going to be all romantic and sappy about it too…..you would have hated it"
Feeling a stab of love and pain in his heart as he thought about it, leaned down and pressed his lips against James' He didn't think about the fact that this was the last time he would get to, he didn't think about the fact the lips under his didn't move in response, didn't think about how they tasted too much like blood…
Henry thought about hundreds of kisses and how each one seemed to be burned into his mind in perfect clarity. The feel of stubble against his cheek, the way James would bite his bottom lip playfully, the dark look James would get in his eyes right before he kissed Henry, the vibration of James' gasps muffled by his own mouth in the dark secrecy of the night. Only the good things; that's what Henry could focus on with his eyes closed and his lips on James'.
When Henry pulled back, he felt tears on his cheeks that he didn't remember crying, his vision slightly blurry as he looked at James. "But really all I want to tell you is I love you" Henry said, his voice catching. "I want to be able to tell you how much I love you, every day, for thousands of days."
Henry leaned down, putting his mouth against James' ear, holding him as tightly as he could. "But you don't get thousands of days" Henry whispered, as if by keeping it quiet it might become a horrible secret that wasn't true. "You deserve so much more. But…it's okay. You fought very hard; you did the best you could. Now….I suppose…..it's time for me to say goodbye."
Henry didn't want to say goodbye; he didn't want it to be the end. But he knew, though his mind shielded him some from fully realizing it yet, that the next time he saw him it would be for the world and not just him. The next time that he saw James, it would his funeral. He would be surrounded by all of the many other people who had the fortune to know James. Henry could cry and say how much he would miss his friend. But he would not be able to show how he really felt; that he was losing the person who now felt like a missing part to himself. He couldn't show that without James he had lost the part of himself that made living this immortal life worth it; he was losing the man he loved.
Henry didn't want to forget anything as he sat with James in the private and quiet. Now, he could study him; could memorize the little details about him that he didn't want to forget because his memory was the only thing that could live on and he would live on for far longer than Henry wanted it to.
Henry put his hand up to James' curls, running his fingers through them. Henry thought about how they felt against his cheek when James would hold him tightly from behind during the night; how James would purr like a cat when Henry ran his fingers through them as he kissed his neck. Now they felt a soft and right in his fingers as they always had, still wet from the sweat of his constant fever.
Henry let his fingers trail from James' hair to his face, feeling every inch of it as he took it in. His fingers touched his eyes, that now closed were so known to Henry that he wasn't sure he could forget them if he tried. The twinkle James' eyes had when he was excited, the tired gaze of them behind glasses when he worked too hard and didn't sleep, the dark, intense stare he could give Henry that made him instantly feel all of his blood rush in anticipation. They were eyes in this moment that were closed and to never open again; Henry leaned down and pressed his lips to first one and then the other eye, hoping irrationally that it might make them open.
Henry let his fingers trace along James' nose and back around to his ears, tracing every curve and twist in them. His hands came back around to rest on James' lips and froze there, envisioning a million words and acts that were burned in his brain from these lips. How many nights they spent hours upon hours just talking about so many things; he could hear James' melodious singing voice as clear in his head as if were hearing it with his ears. He could hear the easy, musical laugh, hear the words 'I love you' spoke with such feeling Henry knew everything was okay…these were the things that Henry thought about. He didn't think about the coughing and wheezing that had been James' constant companion in the last of his life and how each time he heard the sound and saw the red handkerchiefs he knew that James was closer to death's door.
Henry put his head against James' chest, his ear right over where James' heart was. So many times, late in the night, tired and impossibly happy, he would fall asleep like that; James' warm skin on his face and his heartbeat in his ear. But now there was no heartbeat….it was quiet and still. Henry felt his stomach lurch and his eyes sting at the quiet sound, willing it to beat again. Even though there was no sound of a heartbeat, there was no wheezing or coughing either and Henry tried to take some comfort in that; James had suffered so much in his illness and now he could rest.
With heart clenching pain, Henry laid James down on the bed, collapsing on his chest. He tried not to cry this time; there would be plenty of time for that later. He just wanted to feel him, to be still… Henry lay against James' chest, running his hand along his arm until it found his hand, slipping his fingers into James'.
"It's okay" Henry said, his voice shaking but as confident as he could, as if James could hear him. "Rest now…I'll love you forever" Henry barely managed to choke out the words before he bit down hard on his lips.
He lost track of how long he lay there; time had lost all meaning .Henry wished more than anything that James would wrap his arms around him like he did when he lay on him like this; it was the first time since he'd become immortal that he really felt safe and protected and that he was allowed to feel vulnerable. Now, all he felt was crushing loneliness and soul that felt smaller and more helpless than it had in a century. He had given James more of himself than he ever had anyone else and James had taken that part of him into death.
In over one hundred years of life, Henry had never been more frightened.