Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize. When You Love Someone is another Bryan Adams song.
Edited to add: Another songfic where the lyrcis have been removed. The song it was is listed above.
When You Love Someone
Tommy sighed as he pulled his car over to the curb and stopped. He could not believe he was actually here. He had promised himself from the start that he would not do this. He would not go looking for Jason. Jason was the one who had left; he could be the one who got in touch with him.
Okay, so he had been pissed off when he had promised himself that but he had a right to be. He had woken up one morning to find his lover gone. He had sat in Jason's apartment and read that stupid note and had his heart broken.
Tommy put his head down on the steering wheel and did not move for a long time. He could not decide what to do now that he was here. Part of him wanted to turn his car around, drive back to Angel Grove and forget all about Jason and what had happened between them. But he wanted answers. He wanted to know why he had been left behind.
He wanted to know why Jason had run away from him. The rest of the town he could understand. The small town Jason had called home since birth had accused, tried, and convicted him of being unworthy and unlovable. Tommy snorted at that thought. If anything Angel Grove was not worthy of Jason and anyone who could not love him just because he did not fit all the town's norms...well, Tommy would adore getting the chance to cheerfully tell them just where they could shove it.
No, Tommy could understand perfectly why Jason had needed to leave Angel Grove. Tommy had watched, helpless, as the life had been chocked out of his lover until he was completely broken. He had always said Jason's big heart would get him hurt one day, he just had not expected the people of his home town to be the ones to do that wounding.
So Jason had taken off, fleeing before anymore damage could be done. Tommy was not sure how much more damage Jason could withstand and he was almost glad when he left but it hurt that Jason had not asked him to go too or even told him about it before he left.
Jason had written him over the seven months he had been gone but a return address had never accompanied the letters. He had not wanted to be found, at least not yet, and that twisted the knife in Tommy's heart a little more. He had no way of speaking to Jason, no way of reassuring him or yelling at him or comforting him or telling him he loved him. And as it became very apparent that Jason was filling those blanks sheets of paper with himself, and all his pain, Tommy wanted to be able to reach him more than anything.
It was after he had received the last letter that Tommy had started to freak out over his lover again. It had become apparent in that letter that Jason thought Tommy was not reading the letters, that the sheets he had poured himself upon were never being opened, that he was still all alone in the world.
It was then that Tommy had really started looking for Jason. Before he had left it up to Jason to initiate returnable contact with him, it seemed fair since he was the one who left without a word in the first place, but now Tommy was scared for his lover.
It had not been long after that last letter that Tommy had received a phone call from his absent lover. The phone call came when had shocked Tommy so much the first time he had heard it he had passed out.
The phone call had been a break-up, a good-bye, and what Tommy thought was final farewell to the people he cared about before Jason did something drastic to himself. Trini had been able to calm him down in the end. She was still Jason's lawyer, though she did not know where he was any more than the rest of them did. However, she did know Jason had arranged for Tommy to be his benefactor should he die and also that Tommy be the first informed if he were to die. Neither of those things had happened so, she had assured him, Jason still had to be alive.
It had also been a blessing in disguise because, in the end, Billy was able to use it to trace Jason's location. Tommy had no idea how he had done it, partly because Billy had been so concerned and then become so excited he had lapsed back into his teenage technobabble, all that mattered is that he had been able to hand him a print out of Jason's new address. And then Trini had managed to get onto MapQuest when Tommy looked at the address and realized he had no idea where it was.
Tommy had quickly made arrangements so he would be able to leave. Rocky, his business partner and fellow teacher at their dojo, had been told it was a family emergency, which it was. Tommy suspected he had some idea of what was going on but he never said anything; just let Tommy know his classes would be covered until he could get back. Billy and Trini had agreed not to say anything to anyone else about Jason's now know whereabouts until Tommy had a chance to talk with him. Tommy needed to get Jason to explain why he had walked out on him before their other friends got in contact with him.
But on the long, lonely drive towards his lover Tommy wished he had had some companionship. His mind was in a whirl and, with nothing more than some bad radio stations to keep him occupied, it began to wander back to the last night he had seen Jason...
As soon as Tommy slipped into Jason's quiet apartment he knew something was wrong. It had been rough going for his lover ever since the town had gotten wind that his sexual orientation was not what they wanted it to be, but around his friends and his lover Jason had still been Jason. He was a little quieter now but he was still the man they had all known and loved for many years. Whenever Tommy came to his home to stay the night, which was very nearly every night, Jason greeted him with a smile and there was always evidence of some sort of activity in the apartment from whatever Jason had been doing before Tommy arrived.
That night there had been no sign that Jason had been watching TV, or reading, or catching up on some work, nor had Jason's ready smile been there for him. Instead Tommy found his lover sitting on the edge of his bed, his shoulders slumped in defeat, as he stared at the wall that blocked his vision from going any further.
For a moment Tommy stood there, unsure of what to do, and then he sat beside his lover and turned the handsome face to look at him. The depth of the pain in Jason's eyes made his heart break. He gathered Jason into his arms, holding him close as Jason trembled as if trying to fight his tears and then broke down into gasping sobs.
Tommy did all he could to comfort his lover. He rocked them back and forth, whispering what he hoped were soothing words and wiping or kissing away the tears that ran like rivers down Jason's cheeks.
"Don't cry, love. Don't cry. It'll all be alright. You'll see. It will all work out." Tommy murmured when Jason had started to calm. Kim had always told him that sometimes you just need to release all your emotions and had a good cry. He wished it were that simple but he knew the reasons Jason was weeping were serious and not about to go away.
"You don't know that." Jason told him in a shaky, still tearful voice.
"I know I love you." He wished he could offer Jason something more substantial to hold on to but there was nothing he could give save for his heart and the knowledge that there were some who's love for him had not changed. "And that we do have friends that will always be on our side. I know it's hard right now but it could get better. It has to get better."
"There's nothing else it can get." There was a deadness, a hopelessness in the deep, rough voice that scared Tommy.
"Nothing can be that bad." Tommy hoped he was right; he did not want to think about what would happen to Jason if it really was that bad.
Jason reached up to touch Tommy's face in a gentle, familiar caress, a sad smile ghosting over his features. "Hold me. Just, please, hold me a little while longer."
Tommy absently reached up to brush away a stray tear as he remembered how,
after that short conversation they had made love. Jason had been incredibly tender and sentimental that night, laying for hours after they had finished just tracing Tommy's features. Then Tommy had chalked it up to everything Jason had been through to make him break down like he had. Now he knew it was because he was memorizing Tommy, making sure he would be able to remember every detail. Waking up and finding that damn letter after all that...Tommy just could not describe what it had done to him.
The first month after Jason had left Tommy was a wreck. He did not receive any letters from him during that time and swung between being worried out of his mind about him to being furious with him. It was all their friends could do to keep him from storming over to the Scott household, where the first trouble had begun, and taking his anger out on the people who had caused Jason the most pain. He did snap at anyone who made an even remotely derogatory comment about Jason, and his other friends were also known to have no tolerance for such remarks.
Their fierce protectiveness of their missing friend and the criticism of quite a few town members, some Jason had not even known were on his side, slowly began to create an uneasy feeling within Angel Grove. Like maybe what they had done to the town's one time golden boy was wrong and, in the long run, more their loss than his.
Things reached somewhat of a turning point when Skull, who had always made it clear to anyone who would listen that Jason was his friend and he would book anyone who harassed him without hesitation, arrested one particularly loud bigot, who had been hassling Trini about being friends with Jason, for defamation of character and harassment. The judge made the charges stick. His daughter had taken self defence classes from Jason, something that had come in handy when her boyfriend had turned abusive. After that changes in the town's outlook began to slowly be made.
By the time Tommy could go a week without hearing some slur about Jason the first letter had arrived. Tommy had recognized Jason's handwriting immediately and for a few minutes had simply stood rooted to the spot. He considered tearing it up unopened but found he could not. Instead he took it inside and put it on his nightstand. It sat there for two days before he finally decided to tear open the envelope.
It was short, awkward and had no return address but it was something. There were about half a dozen apologies but no explanation, at least not one good enough for Tommy to accept. It was sighed "love, Jason" and Tommy figured that that had to be worth at least a little.
After reading it and re-reading it a few times Tommy tossed it in the trash, only to retrieve it later that night and tuck it safely in a photo album. He repeated the process two weeks later when Jason's next letter, slightly less formal and much longer, had arrived and then again for the next six weeks until he had finally stopped pretending to wish Jason had never tried to contact him again. Then he started looking forward to the arrival of Jason's letter every two weeks, hoping for an address or phone number or invitation to come see him or word of a visit home.
That never came. Instead he got what damn well appeared to be a suicide note and then a phone message break up and good bye forever. But he never got a phone call or visit from the police and an address ended up being found in that awful phone message.
So here he was, sitting in his car outside what he hoped was Jason's apartment building, debating whether or not to just drive away.
'I should have known,' Tommy thought as he headed up the stairs, stalling for a little more time by not taking the elevator. 'I should have known I couldn't drive away. I couldn't tear up those goddamn letters. I can't let him go.'
Muttering softly under his breath, Tommy walked up eight flights and then going down one because he stopped paying attention to the numbers. The building was not impressive but it was not bad either. At least the door to apartment 705 was not, and later that door would be all Tommy remembered about the trip through Jason's complex on that visit.
Tommy sighed and reached out, rapping on the door until he heard the click of a lock being opened. He straightened his posture, preparing himself to see a face he had not seen in over seven months. This was it. He could not turn back now.
"Tommy?"