Chapter Text
Present - 23:50 - 10 Minutes to Midnight
The alarm wakes James as planned. He blinks at the red LED that stares back at him. Its intense gaze burning like tiny embers in the bleak darkness of the bedroom. There isn't a moment where he feels relaxed or refreshed after his slumber.
The Captain has awoken as though he hasn't slept at all.
Already alert and awake, he lets out a sharp breath as the memories of the last two weeks wash over him. His chest folds in on itself, a shield against the outside world.
17th December (2 Weeks Earlier)
"She left no remaining relatives, so her cottage has been bequeathed to you."
The solicitors office seemed smaller than it was a moment ago.
The smell of coffee suddenly more suffocating than aesthetically pleasing. The venetian blinds closing in rather than charming. The moon outside no longer beautiful, but piercing and watchful. The traffic from the street below roaring and a siren passing proved adequate cinematography for his current situation.
If his great aunt has no other next of kin then that would mean…
His parents…
The solicitor , Mrs Brown, stands to shut the window.
"Now there are many options for you Mr Ainsley," she says as she turned back around to face him.
"Of course the option most people go for in these scenarios is to sell the property, but with it being in such a remote location I cannot predict how long it might take to find a buyer."
He hears her words. Understands them even, but the whole time he cannot help but wonder what happened to mother and father. Was he really the last one left in his family?
"Alternatively, you may wish to visit the property before you make a decision. I know Gainsbly is quite far though."
"No, thank you - that shan't be necessary." He smiles, "like you say it is quite far, and I haven't seen my Great Aunt since I was a boy… so no sentimental value there for me either… I think it best if we simply put it on the market."
Mrs Brown nods with a kind smile, "if that's the case.." She thumbs through the beige file in front of her, paper rustling in plastic wallets in a confident and practised motion. "If you get these forms back to me as soon as you can, we'll get the process started for you."
Present Day - 23:51 - 9 Minutes to Midnight
The clocks insistence of a minute passing stirs him from memory, the sudden flicker of red guiding him back to the present.
With a heavy breath he turns onto his back and begins to stretch. His bare arms are cold as they leave the duvet and greet the offending air.
Ignoring the urge to snuggle back into the warmth of his 15 tog nest, he forces himself to push against the comfort of the cotton sheets.He sits to greet the darkness, his fingertip smoothing over one of his eyelids.
Irritatingly, a sticky mold attempts to sink further into the triangular crevice of his right eye; and the Captain feels as though he is taking an oversized ice cream scoop to his own flesh.
Creaky knees guide him off of the bed, and tonight (like the last two weeks) he doesn't bother to smooth over his bedding before heading to vacate the room.
It doesn't matter anymore.
On the floor is his pyjama top which he pulls over himself before slipping into his pale blue slippers.
Next to the bedroom door there's a burgundy blanket hanging over an old fashioned room divider. It's picture of faded Arnica plants and leafy vines no longer obscured from view, as the Captain retrieves the blanket and throws it over his shoulders.
The old cottage door groans as he pushes it open. It's sombre sound continuing behind him as he descends the small spiral staircase. Each wooden step adding to the solemn melody.
He moves through the living room and into the kitchen, setting the kettle to boil before heading to the bathroom.
17th December (2 Weeks Earlier)
When Mrs Brown had called from the London based solicitors to discuss matters of inheritance he hadn't been expecting to inherit a cottage in the middle of nowhere. He thought perhaps photographs of himself (that were unwanted by his parents). Or even a tiny sum (that in truth he had already decided he would donate straight to charity), but not his Great Aunts home.
Mrs Brown had said the cottage had remained empty since his Great Aunt moved to a care home a few years ago, and that it was likely to need a little TLC.
The Captain had so many questions, that he couldn't bring himself to ask.
He couldn't admit to anyone that he had no idea what happened to his family. So he remained mostly silent as Mrs Brown spoke to him.
Legally speaking, the house was his but he was certain he did not want to receive anything from a family he had learned to live without for the past two decades; putting it up for sale was the best option.
Now, with the tube rattling beneath his feet, a strange sense of normality settles over him. The day to day workings of the city remind him of reality, and indeed the life he had built for himself. So at ease with everything remaining unchanged, he returns home.
It's a short walk from the tube station to home. The small maisonette apartment he shared with his partner was a modest dwelling above a Beales. The smell of food cooking in the shops cafe below would mean the Captain constantly craved one of their chocolate brownies, and the crowds that charged onto the highstreet on Black Friday were slightly frightening when you lived atop a department store, but if you squinted from the kitchen window you could just make out Buckingham Palace in the distance - well the top bit anyway.
Stopping at the cafe, James grabs two coffees (and a brownie of course) and then heads upstairs. Nothing is amiss at first. Key in lock, key on table with his latest purchase, unzip coat and then-
Suddenly the world is falling apart around him.
No.
No it couldn't be true.
James hears it before he sees it. In the first second it is like a cruel trick on the wind, something made up entirely. A crack before the break. A sharp breath leaves not just his body but also his soul; with nothing to replace it.
He feels sick.
He doesn't recall the journey from the hall and up the stairs, nor across the landing to the bedroom door. There is only an iron grip on a golden plated handle as his heart splits right through.
Mind racing desperately as the soaking dread that hung above his head drowns him the moment he opens the door.
It's true.
"Frank?" He nearly chokes. It was barely a whisper. They didn't hear him.
There is a part of him that wants to rush forward in a cataclysmic rage and scream with the internal wrath of his suppressed solider. There's another part that wants to melt where he stands, or simply fade as though he were never there at all. What's left of his self worth withers as shame starts bubbling up from within, as though it were he in the wrong; because he hadn't been enough, so this was ultimately bound to happen.
Present Day 23:55 - 5 Minutes to Midnight
There's no balcony here like back home, but the view from the cottage porch is ten times better. He had found beauty in the smaller things in the city, but here the beauty is all around him.
It was the perfect place to seek refuge after all.
In such times of uncertainty the Captain wasn't a stranger to being alone, but he had gotten used to having a constant shoulder to lean on while with Frank.
Though strangely, as he sits and awaits the count, he doesn't feel as sad or as angry as he had before. He had walked though the motions, and sat himself here and now.. It was as though the loneliness that had crawled over his skin was being patched over with something new: hope.
Part of him is just glad, glad to be still here after everything.
Sure he doesn't know what awaits him, but… something about being here and away from everything gave him a taste of endless possibility.
The steam rises from the coffee cup to greet cold air, and he simply breathes the aroma in before taking a sip. The dull ache that had tormented his head and heart wasn't completely gone, and logically he knew the hurt was far from over, but perhaps this year he was choosing to believe in the New Year bringing something new.
There was no need to mention anymore what the last year took away.
17th December (2 Weeks Earlier)
"Well that makes things easier."
"Easier?" The Captain crumbles mentally, "Easier for… for whom, Frank? We've been… I thought we- Two years, two and a half bally years and you…"
The other man gathering his things is quick to make a hasty exit, with his clothes clutched in his fists, he is bare-arsed and tripping over the slightly raised floorboard on the Captain's side of the bed .The floorboard the Captain was accustomed to avoiding, and didn't mind as a potential risk of sleeping on that side of the bed because it was the side of the room by the window with his balcony. The balcony that he had spent the last few years sipping his morning black coffee (1 lump of sugar please) and planning days his future with his boyfriend.
Frank looks unperturbed , as though he were merely lounging in bed on a Thursday afternoon instead of having been caught shagging some random man in their bed.
"How long?" The pieces of his heart seem to shatter even more so as he asks the question, "how long have you been…?"
The Captain's brain is suddenly racing, rushing to find a fix. He should leave, walk straight out and leave his so-called best friend and life partner in the dust. Or… Perhaps if it was merely the one time it would be okay, they could salvage this… right? The Captain never thought he would be in this position, he also hadn't been prepared for the one he found his partner in without him.
"Oh come now James, you'll just get upset if we talk about that."
"How long?" The Captain is stern.
Frank's eyes seem to flicker with something. Sympathy perhaps? Guilt? His smirk waivers but he doesn't speak a word.
"FRANK!"
"Alright!" He bites back before snapping back to nonchalance, "alright."
Frank sits up with a low sigh, pulling the duvet into his lap as though they were merely discussing the bills or their day at work. "It's been always."
"It's been…always?" The Captain's eyebrows furrow with confusion.
"Well there's never not been another."
Oh.
The Captain doesn't know how to quite process this information. The man he had kissed goodbye this morning seems to be a completely different person to whom he thought he was.
"You're more than welcome to finish me off since he's scarpered."
Frank's confidence was disgusting. The Captain's eyes narrow with fury as the man he thought he knew chuckles from where he sits on their bed.
The Londoner tuts, "it was a joke, come on James just trying to defuse the shich."
"Defuse the?!" Had he falling into Wonderland or something? "Frank you were just in our bed with another man and now you're making jokes. Disgusting jokes might I add! What is- what is actually wrong with you? I thought- I thought we were happy. I thought I was enough. I thought we were happy, I-"
"Me! Me! Me!" Frank feigned that of a whining child, "perhaps if you were not so self absorbed James I-"
"SELF ABSORBED?"
"- wouldn't have cheated."
"You can't seriously be blaming me for your… your impropriety."
As James had laid in the hotel room later that night, the way Frank laughed at him filled his mind. His heart aching as he stares at a picture of them on his phone screen. The pair of them taking a mirror selfie before a date night just last week… where had he gone so wrong? The picture looked like love to him.. but it hadn't been true. Perhaps he didn't know the definition of love after all.
He sniffs back the tears, glancing to his suitcase by the door and the passport on his bedside table. Where could he even go now? Should he go back for the rest of his things? He turns in the bed, a text chimes on his phone and it's an email from Mrs Brown, she had attached documents for him to check over before she sent them off and said thank you for coming into her office today.
It is then that the Captain feels as though a light bulb should hover over his head, his eyes widening in realisation. He just needed to trust where the universe was guiding him… right?
He calls her immediately.
"Hello Mrs Brown it's James Ainsley… yes, I received them thank you. I was actually wondering if perhaps I could visit the property after all."
At first his time at the cottage is a blur.
He is drowned by quilt and waves of teary sea.
Dark spirals circle his mind, a shade of black that only can be seen in ones closed eyes.
A glittering memory of laughter and smiley cheeses face, taken over by the sadder end.
Day after day. hour after hour, the time torments him by passing with no other feelings that flower.
There's a knock on his door. Loud.
The soft pillow under his head is uncomfortably wet from the tears that stain his cheeks, but he doesn't bother to move as he continues to weep.
The knock comes again, like a drum. The door doesn't open but the pounding still comes closer.
They knock for days, or perhaps it's weeks or months. The cavity in his chest twisting and his stomach sunk.
Then suddenly the continuing knocking stops and he thinks it might've all been a dream, a nightmare.
Then tomorrow is New Years day, and strangely he has stopped crying, and though it has only been two weeks and it still hurts, he feels a little bit stronger now. Stronger than the cup of soups and bags of crisps he has been living on, and perhaps a shower tonight would be good.
Present Day 00:00
As the clock strikes midnight, the Captain watches the fireworks with his coffee as his own personal celebration that the past year is over.
Looking to the stars, he is thankful for the chance to start again. However that may be, and as he thinks ahead, the memories that had played in his mind a few minutes before are pushed aside by hope.
He doesn't need to think of last year anymore, or all the things it took away.
He can just make out a small gathering of people atop the hill, their silhouettes amongst the fireworks. They are likely his neighbours, celebrating in their way too. For now though, while he isn't up for celebrating the year past, and there is still a slight ache that he knows he will carry with him, he is in some way, happy to be here.
"Happy New Year," he whispers into the frosty air.