May 25, 1895 — Angie's Flat

You've never done me wrong
Except for that one time
That we don't talk about
Because it doesn't matter anymore

Angie was selling the flat, which meant Cash had to get the stuff he'd stashed here out of it, which was a whole — emotional Gordian knot. He didn't want to make things more difficult for her. He didn't want to go to the flat alone. Eventually Cash settled on going with Theo, on an early evening after they both left work but when Angie was still stuck at the Ministry. He'd cut it close — she needed to be out by the time her brother came home on Friday — but he hadn't wanted to do this at all. And it felt strange, bringing Theo here, even though they both knew Angie — partially because the flat felt like Cash's and Angie's space, and partially because of Eli.

He met Theo in the building's staircase, stayed quiet on the way up, and used his keys to unlock the door, pushing when it stuck in the familiar spaces. Cash cleared his throat and set his keys down on her table — (was she going to move that, or sell it to the new owners? It wasn't a very good table, but Cash felt hollow at the thought of abandoning it.)

"It'll mostly be boring, I think," Cash said, tone apologetic. "Cheap alcohol and penny dreadfuls I've already read."

But he'd still wanted to do it himself, rather than relying on Angie for it.

Theodore Gallivan Elias Grimstone

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MJ made this!

“You may be overestimating the excitement of my average evenings,” Theo said dryly, shooting Cash an offhand shrug and a smile he hoped was reassuring. Relaxed.

Anything to disguise the strange flicker of nervousness in his gut. Maybe it was closer to awkwardness than to nerves, just a sneaking suspicion that he was trespassing on something, shouldn’t be here. He had been here before, but not with Cash – so it already felt different. (Cash seemed different already, quiet.)

But that was alright. “Where do you want to start?” he murmured. But they didn’t even need to talk while Cash sorted through his stuff, if he preferred not to – if Theo’s task here was just to be here, some company in the space, well, that wasn’t much to ask. He could do that. (And cheap alcohol was still alcohol.)

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Cash considered Theo's question for a beat. His eyes flicked towards the door to one of the bedrooms, not Angie's, the other one — by rights, none of Cash's things should be in there, because Angie had had a roommate or two in the intervening years, but. He would have to look inside, to be sure.

He looked back at Theo, swallowed, and stepped into the kitchen. "The easy part," Cash said. He leaned up to open the cabinet, revealing bottles of liquor, some partially drank, some unopened. He brought down a bottle of bourbon that was already two-thirds empty. There wouldn't be any use in bringing that home.

He turned towards Theo. "Can you grab some glasses? They're — the cabinet two to the right," Cash said.

  

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MJ made this!

The easy part. “I’ll cheers to that,” Theo said with a nod, and reached down the glasses – the cabinet was already half-empty, maybe already partially packed away. He set two remaining glasses on the counter, glancing at the bottle’s label. Cash and Angie both drank the same particular kind of bourbon, a little different than the average Scotch or firewhiskey. Shared tastes.

“It must feel weird,” he ventured more seriously, to fill the silence while Cash poured. Having to leave a place behind; knowing you were somewhere for perhaps the last time.

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Theo wasn't prying, probably because he was not much of a pryer, but he was asking questions, and Cash knew that he probably ought to give him a little bit more. He finished pouring the bourbon, left the cap off, and took a sip before replying. He leaned against the counter. "It is weird," he admitted, "I feel like I've been — a lot of different versions of myself, here."

  

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MJ made this!

“Yeah,” Theo said, with a small grimace in sympathy; he was sure that it was true, and not sure that Cash actually wanted to talk about it. “Sorry you have to do this.” Sorry you have to say goodbye to this place, he might have said, but he almost didn’t want to let Cash get too deep in the past. And his memories must exist in more than the walls of this flat, anyway.

He tasted the bourbon (hopefully it would get better by degrees as he drank it), gave it another beat, and then picked up the bottle for them, gently nudging Cash’s shoulder. “Let’s bring this with us,” he said, because maybe it was better to be decisive, and help him rip the bandage off before the trepidation got too much? And it felt like Cash might need the drink to get him through it, facing – whatever versions of himself had existed here through the years.

Theo was trying not to think about it too hard, as he wandered questioningly towards the room Cash had been glancing at before.

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The nudge to his shoulder was welcome; Theo's approach of Eli's bedroom was less so. There was cognitive dissonance in his brain as he thought of Theo in that bedroom, and never mind that Angie'd had flatmates off and on in the past few years. The room would always be Eli's, and Cash half felt that they would open the door and find the boy alive behind it.

"All right," he said, following Theo's lead towards it. He placed a hand on the doorknob. "I don't even know that I have anything in here, but — it was his room."

He opened the door to the unfurnished bedroom; all that immediately remained in it was an empty nightstand, and a mattress and bed frame. There were no bedclothes on the mattress. Light shone through the window. Cash took another sip of bourbon.

  

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MJ made this!

“Oh.” It was Theo’s turn to swallow, half regretting forcing the motion of Cash opening the door. He knew who his meant, even if there seemed to be no particular signs of the room having been lived in now, by Eli or by anyone. It was stripped down, mundane and unhaunted in the lingering spring daylight.

Different if there were memories still inhabiting it, or things stowed away that Cash was worried or hoping he might find. Theo leant against the doorjamb on the threshold of the room, suddenly more hesitant about going in. He hung on to his glass of bourbon and the bottle tucked under his other arm, and let his gaze slide back to Cash to pass him a smile, trying to keep things light. “I can wait outside, you know, if you want.” He could sit in the kitchen and flip through one of those penny dreadfuls until Cash was finished, if he needed to be alone.

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