Jimmy awoke to a blindingly white surrounding which burnt his eyes just to look at. As his eyes adjusted, he found there wasn't actually much there to look at. There was nothing at all. It was just a blank canvas of a world, where the sky and the ground met no end and saw no beginning. He lay upon what he supposed must have been the floor, but there was no actual qualities to make it a floor as such; there was no texture or shadow, yet he was still certain that this was in fact the ground. It was all rather mindboggling. It was like he had been thrown onto a blank page of nothingness. He staggered to his feet slowly, cautiously, noticing with relief that he still felt normal and solid, and not see through and ghost like.
It turned out there wasn't quite nothing, Jimmy observed looking into the distance, a long, tall, house. Around it there was a patch of grass and even a sky, like someone had only bothered to design one bit of the world. It looked like it was far away, but as Jimmy ran towards it, it was there almost instantly, like the world was already moving in the opposite direction he was running in, bringing him there faster. Although, the ground didn't feel like it was moving, not at all.
It was quite a peculiar sight. The grass was green, but abnormally so, and the sky was like dark like the night, marbled with an array of different colours and swirls-like a galaxy-yet, light wise, it didn't seem like night, the many clusters of stars seemed to give off plenty of light, almost functioning like a sun. Even the building before him was weird; it was leaning slightly to the side, and it appeared to be a terrace house, just taller and more monumental looking. It looked like there should have been houses on either side, but instead it stood alone like the rest of the street had been bombed out or disappeared.
The door at the front was already open a tad, so Jimmy entered the strange building sceptically. Standing in the corridor, Jimmy realised that he hadn't yet put much thought into the fact that he was dead. So this is what comes after life? As he walked further in, he heard the sounds of distraught weeping. Rounding the corner, he came to stand in the doorway to a bizarre looking kitchen, with a table in the centre. Thomas sat at one of the chairs, head against the wood. He looked up when he saw Jimmy enter the room, jumping up towards him with open arms, nearly knocking his chair over. He crushed the younger man into a desperate hug, tears still streaming down his face.
"I thought I'd never see you again!" Thomas said, relieved.
He let Jimmy go and pointed to the chair opposite his, trying to calm his features.
"Tea?" Thomas asked, pulling the kettle suspended in the air into his hands and down onto the table. Jimmy looked around in confusion. All the things which would have normally gone on a shelf or counter surface were floating in the air. Thomas placed it back down on its rightful place on the counter, and pulled two tea cups out from above his head, taking them into his hands.
"What the-"
"There was nothing in this world when I got here. Built all this just by thinking about it, clever i'nt it?"
Jimmy stared in confusion.
"Then why on earth would you chose to put them in the air, you silly sod?"
"I am not a silly sod!" Thomas said I defence, the kettle starting to boil, despite the fact that he had put no water in it. It wasn't even over the fire, it just heated by itself! Weird.
"I just figured everything would be easier to find if it was all just…here" Thomas explained, looking up and placing a tea cup in front of Jimmy on the round table. Jimmy's mouth fell open as a tea bag appeared out of nowhere into the cup. Thomas poured the water and proceeded to sit down with him, oblivious to his surprise.
Trust Thomas to only take a week to get used to this. It already seems bloody normal to him!
"I have so much to tell you!" Thomas said, stirring the liquid with a spoon. He offered it across the table to Jimmy who took it willingly, although slightly freaked out by the situation.
It's so good to be back with Thomas though.
"Are you're sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin-"
"-don't try to be funny with me! Not at a time like this!"
Thomas raised a hand to his chest in mock disgust.
"Well I am sorry! Now where should I start?-"
"The beginning would be a good place" Jimmy cut in sardonically.
"Oi! Cheeky! Right well, I trust you got my letter explaining…things?" Jimmy nodded, as Thomas looked into his cup awkwardly. The former-footman stroked his arm across the table in attempt to ease his worries. "When I came here, the entire place was just white, like you probably saw outside, and as I just said you can sort of create and do things by thinking about them, that's how I made the sky and your tea." Jimmy nodded again, eyebrows raised amusedly.
"It took a bloody long time to work it out and do, I'll tell you that! But now you're here you can help, gotta pull your weight if we're to be dead together. How are you about…erh being dead then?"
"Fine"
Thomas' brow creased in concern.
Jimmy knew that he should probably feel sad and nervous, but truth was, this was the best he'd felt in months.
"Well, if you're not going to ask, now that I'm dead I'm not unwell anymore. Also, you can still feel things I've found, but say if you get a cut-like I did last week-it just seems to sort of…heal over instantly"
Jimmy nodded again, taking it all in before asking:
"How were you visiting me?"
The older man raised a hand to point out a window behind Jimmy's head.
"See the whiteness?"
"How could I miss it" came Jimmy's sarcastic reply.
"well, there used to be a sort of tear which I found I could walk through and go see you. Maybe somebody knew that I still needed to see you, you must have been able to see me because-maybe it's because of the connection we share. Oh don't look at me like that" Thomas said when he saw Jimmy's amused expression. "But now it's gone. That's why I was so worried, I thought I would never be able to see you again, I had no idea we'd be so lucky to get to be here together-there's no one else here and it ain't much fun on me own" A playful grin spread across Thomas' face. "But now you're here-"
"-We can fuck?" Jimmy intersected.
Thomas laughed and gave the blond a light hearted slap on the arm.
"Well I wouldn't have put it in those words exactly…but yes, I suppose we can" Thomas pondered.
"You know we can…" Jimmy looked at Thomas' clothes, the same fancy dinner jacket he had seen him in the other day, then down at his own, which he was amazed to realise he hadn't noticed were soaking wet. "What's going to with your new garb then, eh?"
"You didn't honestly expect me to spend the rest of eternity naked, did you?"
Jimmy smirked mischievously.
"I wouldn't mind."
The younger man's eyes grew wide as he felt his clothes disappear and shot Thomas a look across the table that said 'what have you done?'
Thomas just grinned naughtily in response, before putting Jimmy in a clean, dry, suit.
Jimmy huffed, and then looked down at his new clothes. He had to admit, Thomas did have good taste.
For what felt like an eon of time, neither of them said anything, just sat gazing into each others eyes dreamily. Thomas was the first to speak up.
"I'm sorry things happened like they did, I didn't want to keep the cancer a secret, I just couldn't bear to see you upset, seems that didn't quite go to plan as I had to see you hurt anyway…But y'know what, I don't regret what happened, and maybe you…dying was for the best in a way. Maybe that was your salvation from a life of misery" Thomas looked up and smiled. "Now we have a world all to ourselves, it won't be lonely as long as I got you."
They clasped hands across the table, a thousand more sorry's and thank you's going unspoken, merely being communicated through the power of their touch.
"Thomas, can I tell you something?"
"Anything."
"I love you a lot more than is probably healthy, and I don't regret dying to be with you for one second."
Thomas ran a hand down the side of Jimmy's cheek.
"C'mon finish up your tea; we got an entire world to build and an eternity of time to fill up."
Now that they ere here, there would be no more secrets and lies, nor would they let their previous wrong actions hold them back and hinder their romance like it had before; that was in the past, another life quite literally. And as they sat together on their blank canvas of a world, on a floor that didn't yet exist, they both felt empowered in the knowledge that they could finally be themselves, free from the society which held them back. Who knew what they could accomplish in a world where anything was possible? All Jimmy knew for certain was that he was looking forward to finding out.
It didn't feel like he was dead, in fact, he felt more alive than he had ever been, for Jimmy was no longer alone in the dark, now he was with Thomas, reunited; and that was all he needed. It felt like he had waited a life time to get here, but here they were, finally out of the darkness of sorrow and secrecy, and into the whiteness of a world which hadn't yet been made, at long last together in the light, now, forever, and for the rest of eternity.
The end
(the chapter after this is just a poem and authors note)