The song is "On my own" from Les Miserables, as sung by Eponine.
The evening was late, but it still felt good to be back on good old English soil. At least Robbie Lewis thought so as he popped in for a beer at the pub. It wasn't the usual one, but what with having had to get a new place after the trip to Australia that wasn't surprising. Anyway, it was a good pub with affordable prices, a good range of beers and a dart board. What more could a bloke want, really.
Well, maybe company. It felt a bit weird to be alone, but they had agreed he come back in advance since Laura wanted to spend a bit more time with the new baby. He couldn't blame her; when Lyn had had her boy he'd been prepared to set up camp in the back garden just to be close to them both.
So, here he was, a Thursday evening in his new local and as it turns out it was karaoke night. Some girl on the stage was belting out a pop song Robbie had never heard before and would prefer never to hear again, but it was listening to the almost singing or sit at home alone.
As he hid in a corner and drank his third beer, he finally allowed himself to wonder where James was this night. His sergeant - except he wasn't anymore, now was he? They'd both retired. He wasn't even sure what James was doing these days. They'd kept in touch at first with phone calls and emails but eventually that had tapered of - the time difference had simply been too large. And there had been something in the way James wrote him. Something there, something not said. If he put his mind to it Robbie would probably be able to figure it out, but a feeling of unease kept him back. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.
He hadn't even called James the day before to let him know he was back in Oxford. Maybe, he thought as he considered getting another beer, he should have.
The girl on the stage seemed to have finished, and there was a lull in the excitement over the karaoke machine. Well, a group of lads were over in another corner, insisting that someone called Jim get up there and show 'em what he was about. Whoever this Jim was, he was clearly reluctant as Robbie had heard the lads on and off since he arrived, trying to make him get on stage.
Finally, it seemed as if Jim had had enough, because he got to his feet and on the stage. He turned out to be a leggy blonde, with a youthful face that Michelangelo would have killed his mother to get his hands on. And his dick in, most likely, Robbie thought and felt ashamed of himself. The man was gorgeous, sure, in that cool pale way that always had made Robbie want to get handsy. He'd always been an equal opportunities man and leggy blondes were his thing. Was that why he had warmed to James so quickly? Beautiful James, where was he tonight?
The lad on the stage seemed to have made up his mind, as he started the machine and a sweet low tune that seemed full of sadness started to play. There were equal parts booing and cheering from the lads in the corner, but when Jim started to sing they all fell silent as if spellbound.
"On my own, pretending he's beside me… all alone, I walk with him til morning." Jim's voice was low and slightly rough, like a smoker's. Robbie recognized the words; they were from that musical that had been so popular a few years back, the one he'd see with Lyn. The one about the French Revolution. It had been a girl singing it. He liked this version better.
"Without him, I feel his arms around me… and when I lose my way I close my eyes, and he has found me." Jim was looking at something a million miles away, and for a moment he looked like a very young boy wondering why the world had abandoned him. It made Robbie think of James again, of how his sergeant had looked that night of the fire. The night he'd almost lost him. That same raw, haunted look was on the singer's face. James face. Because it was James. It had to be James. Right? No, of course it wasn't James.
"In the rain the pavement shines like silver; all the lights are misty in the river. In the darkness, the trees are full of starlight, and all I see is him and me forever and forever."
Jim - not James, not James - wrapped his arms around himself, looking even smaller than before. "And I know it's only in my mind - that I'm talking to myself and not to him."
Robbie remembered the look on James' face in the airport. The barely hidden desperation, the despair, the… the longing. It had been clear as day in those pleading blue eyes. Don't leave me, those eyes had begged. I need you, please stay. But Robbie hadn't stayed. And now he didn't know how to come back.
"Although I know that he is blind" The singer - Jim - his voice was like a cry, on the verge of becoming a wail, and from the corner of his eye Robbie saw a woman at a nearby table dab at her eyes at the heartbreak in the words, "Still I say - there's a way for us!" Had James thought that, Robbie wondered as he sipped at his empty beer glass. Had he kept believing, even in the end, that there was a way forward? Even when Robbie had refused to even acknowledge the existence of the path.
Jim seemed to pause, as if unsure if he should continue, and all Robbie saw was James in their shared office, caught in the middle of a train of thought he was unsure how to put into words. Beautiful. "I love him, but when the night is over, he is gone… the river's just a river."
"Without him, the world around me changes - the trees are bare, and everywhere the streets are full of strangers." James had said once that he didn't do friends, or girlfriends. How lonely was he, really? How alone had he been when Robbie left? He'd had his band, but beyond that… no one, really. At least that was the impression Robbie had. All alone, in a world of strangers.
"I love him, but every day I'm learning - all my life I've only been pretending." James had said once that he felt like he was wearing a person suit, but he'd been drunk at the time. But then again, out of the mouths of babes and drunkards, wasn't that the saying?
"Without me, his world will go on turning" Jim's voice once more seemed to break, as if he was trying his damnedest not to bawl in front of a room full of people who were half drunk and didn't know him, didn't care about him. "A world that's full of happiness that I have never known!" Robbie wanted to take him home and wrap him in soft blankets and cuddle him. But more than that, he wanted to make him James. Then take James home and wrap him in blankets.
On stage, Jim closed his eyes as if unable to be a part of the world as he sang the last few lines, his voice nearly inaudible as the music rang out its last few bars.
There was a moment of complete, stunned silence. Then someone started clapping. And then more people joined in. someone stood up. Within moments, the entire pub was giving this one man a standing ovation, and there were more than a few people openly crying. Jim seemed to realise how many people were seeing him, and turned white. Then he was down the stage and disappearing out the back, fleeing the scene like the hounds of hell were after him. Two of his mates gave chase, and Robbie wiped at his own wet eyes. That had been the most moving thing he'd seen in a very long time, and as he left the pub he pulled out his phone and dialled a familiar number.
He didn't see that in the back alley of the alley, with two of his friends having thrown their arms around his shoulders in silent comfort, James stared down at his phone even as he rubbed his wet cheeks.
He felt very small, very lonely, and very afraid to answer.
I love him … I love him … I love him… But only on my own.