He remembers a time when there was nothing but silence.
Echoing, choking, shattering silence. It surrounds him, cloaks him, turns him into nothing. It swallows his footsteps, his breaths, his every movement.
Sometimes the silence is broken with Timmy we're back, you won't believe what we saw, South America, Portugal, an elephant, Tim, an elephant, a scepter used by a queen a thousand years ago, and then there was the shark.
He sits outside the door of their bedroom, listens to their murmurs late into the night, presses silent whispers against the wood of their door, please don't go, please don't go, please don't go.
When he is alone again, when there is no one and nothing to break the silence, he is careful. So, so careful. Keeps his mouth shut tight and doesn't let a sound escape. Doesn't whisper, doesn't shout, doesn't scream, and no matter what, he does not laugh.
Because when he does, when he grins and giggles at a joke in one of his father's books, when he sees a hummingbird outside the kitchen window, when the excitement and glee are too much to hold, when they finally escape, when he laughs…
No one answers. And the silence crushes him.
…
He remembers a time when there is wonder. And fear. And so much noise and excitement, he thinks he's going to burst, explode all over the pavement, filled to the brim with so much sound.
He remembers hearing a note, following a tune, letting a song take him by the ear and lead him, and he remembers the first time he sees Jason.
Loud, bright, burning Jason with his ancient guitar and his music, the music that swoops high, sweet and melodic, then dips down, low, longing and sorrow in every note. It soars and it mourns, and it makes something in Tim's soul hum. It makes something in Tim want to answer back, want to open his mouth and…
He remembers letting every note of it wash over him and cover him and burn away the dull roar of silence, of nothingness that has been suffocating him for so long.
He remembers the warmth of Jason's smile, and how when Tim laughed, there was finally someone there to answer.
He remembers sitting in the square with the fountain and the boy and the guitar and the music, and he remembers feeling something inside of him singing.
…
Then there is a time when there is no silence, and there is no music. Just a constant buzzing drone in the back of his head, a dull, aching roar.
"We're sorry," the men say. "You're parents…"
And there is no song to sooth the pain, no tune or melody that can break through the noise in his head.
They tell him that his godfather will take him in. That he'll have to move two thousand miles away. That they're leaving in a day.
He can't let go of Jason's hand. Jason, loud, bright, burning Jason, with his guitar and his music, and the smile that makes everything in the world alright again.
Except Jason isn't smiling now. He's gripping Tim's hand like he's never going to let go. Like Tim is the only thing keeping him from drowning.
Tim wonders what will happen to Jason. He's not stupid. He's seen the bruises, the scars, has felt Jason flinch away from a hand on his shoulder. Has seen the way Jason watches, when he thinks Tim isn't looking. The way he appraises, with shuttered eyes and flickering glances.
Tim has seen Jason, cornered and snarling and terrified.
"I'll come back. When I'm eighteen, in four years. I'll come back. I'll find you."
And Jason nodds and swallows and won't meet his eyes. And Tim knows that Jason doesn't believe him.
…
There is a time when he thinks he's going to die. When he thinks that the silence will bury him, that the music will never come back, that the only sounds filling his head will be the cries for Mom andDad and Jason.
Bruce is… nice. He's there, always, which is different. But nice.
And when Tim asks for music lessons, Bruce only asks, "Which instrument?"
For a long time, it's just an exercise. Learning the notes, memorizing the finger positions, building muscle memory. He learns quickly, and his teachers compliment his abilities. Technically, he is flawless.
He simply, they say, lacks soul.
"Find your own music," Mrs. Benson tells him. "I know it's in there, Tim. You just need to find it."
He tries. Oh, how he tries. But there is simply nothing there. Just the notes of someone else's song, and the hollow echo of a tune he doesn't remember.
…
He gets the letter from Julliard on a crisp spring morning, and all he can think about is that he'll be eighteen in nine days and how Jason was always happiest playing early in the mornings, when dew was still fresh on the grass and the city just beginning to wake up.
He wonders if Jason even remembers him. He wonders what he looks like now, twenty years old and hopelessly out of Tim's reach.
Why would Jason remember? Why would Jason wait for him? What does Tim have that could capture Jason's attention?
The answer is simply: nothing.
He graduates from high school, and Bruce already has the apartment rented and the car waiting to take him to the airport. Tim hugs him tight and it's harder to let go than he expected. Bruce, he has found, is more than nice. He is good, and he's there, and he cares in a way that Tim has never experienced from a parent before. So it's hard to let go. Hard to say goodbye to the man that Tim has come to think of as 'Dad'.
The city is almost exactly as he remembers it. A few buildings have been ripped down, a few new ones added on, businesses moved and gang land reclaimed. But the park, the square is still the same as ever.
But Jason isn't there. There's a new boy in the park, a boy whose fingers are clumsy, whose songs are different, who doesn't feel the music the way that Jason did. But there's a rawness, a hunger in his eyes that makes something in Tim's stomach clench, and he drops a hundred into the boy's case before returning to his apartment.
He spends three months wandering the streets.
He doesn't find Jason.
…
Find your own music. Find your own music.
Find. Your own. Music.
He picks up the violin, slips it under his chin. And wonders where the music is. Tries to remember if he ever had any. If the singing in his heart was just some kind of dream that he imagined, along with the park and the perfect days, along with Jason.
No. He remembers. It wasn't a dream. It was real. He has proof. He has the music.
He positions the bow, places his fingers along the instrument's neck, closes his eyes, and he breathes.
He remembers the first time he heard Jason play. A terrified boy lost in the city, hearing the notes that plucked at his heart. He remembers Jason, with his spiky, messy hair, the way he was bent so intently over his guitar. The way he had looked up, blue green eyes sharp and joyful, and how he smiled at the boy lurking at the edge of the square.
That smile, that music, the way it had made something inside of him answer…
Tim breathes. And he plays. He plays until his fingers are raw and red and aching, until his heart is swollen and his throat is dry and he has absolutely nothing left to give.
It's his. His music. Jason helped him find it. The death of his parents took it away.
And now he's found it again.
…
He graduates in two years, spends a few weeks with Bruce and his newest little brother, whom he suspects might actually be a demon, and he moves back to the city.
The square is empty now, the boy long gone.
Tim plays there sometimes. When he's not working and the weather is just a little chilly, scaring away the bigger crowds and leaving him with just the idle passer by, the pigeons, and the rush of the city.
He plays his music. The music he felt when he first heard Jason's song, when he first felt that pull, that stirring in his heart. He hopes that if Jason hears… He hopes Jason will know it's him. Hopes that Jason will feel something tugging at his own heart. He hopes…
Tim hopes a lot of things.
And one day he looks up, and Jason is standing there (six years older, ridiculously taller, but Tim would know him anywhere) with this strange mixture or shock and wonder and joy on his face, and Tim thinks that he probably wore the same expression all those years ago.
…
He twists their fingers together and tries not to stare at the scars that twine across the older man's hands like vines.
"Accident," Jason says, not meeting Tim's eyes, and he knows that there's so much more to the story than that.
"How bad…" he tries to ask, but Jason shakes his head, grins that same wide, sharp smile that always made Tim's heart ache, and instead examines the calluses that cover Tim's fingertips.
He tries not to blush, tries to remember if this was always there between them, this crackling, this soft, dry heat that creeps up his throat and rests under his tongue.
He doesn't think it was there before. But he likes it.
…
"I came back. When I turned eighteen, I came back for three months. I looked for you, but I couldn't find you."
"I left."
"You… You left?"
"I left because… Because when you didn't come, I would be able to pretend that it was my fault. That you had been here, and I had just been out of town. Because I didn't think you would come back. Why would you come back? Why are you here?"
A sigh, a whisper, a tingle of notes and nerves down the back of his throat as he swallows.
"I missed you."
…
There is something in Jason that is cracked. There was a crack before, something damaged in him, but this is different. The crack is wider. More jagged.
It hurts, sometimes, looking at Jason. Wondering what happened that Jason won't tell him. Wondering if he could have stopped it, if he hadn't left. Wondering if Jason wouldn't look quite so tired, so worn when he thinks Tim isn't looking.
Jason leaves again, and Tim doesn't know what to do. How to make him come back, how to make him stay. But there's nothing. Tim has nothing, he is nothing, why would Jason stay with him?
He only has the music.
So when Jason appears almost two weeks later, face bloody, hands torn, ribs cracked and bruised, Tim patches him up as well as he can, and once the older man is asleep, Tim plays. Quiet and soothing and oh, how he wishes there were words he could find that would make Jason understand.
When he stops playing, Jason is awake, hunched over, face buried in his hands.
"Jason?" Tim says carefully, voice cracking, and Jason is trembling, shaking, his breaths gasping, and Tim in panicking because he didn't mean for this to happen, what exactly is happening, how is he supposed to help if he doesn't know what's wrong?
He slips an arm around the other man's shoulders, and Jason crumbles.
"I'm not whole anymore. I'm not… I lost the music," Jason whispers, face pressed against Tim's shoulder.
"That's ok," Tim says, hugging the older man tightly against him. "I'll help you find it."
…
They form a rhythm of their own, a song in the clattering of pots and dishes, doors opening and closing, running water, the background noise of the TV, the shouts and banter that slips in through the open windows and slinks in under the door. The soft rustle of turning pages and the quiet movements as they dream, curled together, heavy and warm and close.
And one day, as Tim steps over the threshold of the apartment that was once his home and is nowtheir home, he hears the gentle thrum of guitar strings. Hears a tangle of notes that make his heart swell and his fingers twitch and his soul hum. Hears a song that makes him want to open his mouth and sing.
So he slips in quietly, inches around corners and edges into their bedroom and sees Jason, and he hears the music, and the way that Jason is playing, different, harsher, softer, here with more feeling, there with less, but the song is the same as it always was, and when Jason looks up at Tim and smiles, smiles like the sun is caught between his teeth and Tim has handed him the stars, well, it's enough to make Tim almost cry.
They shift. They merge. They settle.
And somehow they reach a point where it's just them. Them and the music, the lilting, raging, comforting, consuming music that makes them laugh and cry, that puts light in their eyes, that knots their hearts together.
The days when it's just them, them and the music, are the best days. When Jason sits in the widow, letting the sun flood over him, guitar balanced on his thigh, scarred fingers running over the body, the wood warm enough that he can imagine the instrument has it's own heartbeat. Tim, sitting nearby, legs crossed, sun drowsy and eyes warm, the violin comfortably tucked under his chin.
And they play. They play until their fingers are raw and their throats are dry and they have sprayed the rooms with music, notes bursting in the breeze and crushed to the ceiling, until the air is saturated with all the words they could never find to tell each other. Until Jason is sprawled out on the floor, sun drenched and song drenched and absolutely purring with contentment, Tim lying across his chest, a sleepy smile on his face, glowing with the music and the warmth and the knowledge that the silence isn't ever coming back. Not as long as Jason is with him.
Finally, Tim sings.
I like this. I really do. For an August Rush prompt on tumblr. I got carried away, but the idea was so beautiful. ^_^