illicit | five hargreeves - EDITING

fifty

chapter fifty: long story short

An English poet once said "All good things must come to an end." And that's where we are right at this second, not only at the hopeful end of the apocalypse, but also the end of their time spent in the decades of the nineteen sixties. It had only been a mere three months, but it really did feel like a lifetime ago since Anthony had first dropped into the alleyway in the pouring rain.

"All good things must come to and end." I think that the perception of what's been good and what's been bad might be very much askew between our Anthony and Five; they've both had entirely different experiences in the sixties, and neither of them fully understood why the other felt the way they did about leaving.

For Anthony, it had been the place where he had met his only real and actual friends; Joey, Dorothea and Inez, who he was now going to have to inevitably leave behind. He always knew that he would have to, but that didn't make the thought any easier.

For Five, it had been the very place where he had watched his entire family die for the second and third time; the first time he had watched his husband die, and the only time he had ever held someone's hand as they practically died in his arms.

Again, totally different perspectives.

Anthony sat on the floor of Joey's bedroom, but it didn't really matter considering that the Cooper family were already long gone and would probably never return to their old home. He sat with his back against the bed, his knees brought to his chest with both his arms wrapped around them. He stared blankly at the wall, just thinking.

He couldn't help but begin to mourn the short amount of time he had spent here, because it really had been the first time in a long time that the boy had felt truly happy. Anthony would miss his friends, the girls and of course Joey, he would miss his grandparents, he would miss Dallas as a place, and he would miss the simple stability he had felt while he lived there.

Anthony lived a simple life through those three months, something he wouldn't take for granted. It allowed him not only to reflect on a lot of things that had happened in his life, but also to try and move forward from everything.

His life had never been easy even when he was a kid, but he almost felt as if his time here made up for that, because he really did get to have the short experience of just being a teenager that he had missed out on in his life. Anthony wouldn't admit it, but he realized he really loved school, loved learning, making him hate how painfully oblivious and clueless he really was and had been his entire life. He realized how much he actually depended on his husband, since he was a lot smarter than him.

Anthony also loved having his friends, and was almost sure he wouldn't be as okay as he was right now if it hadn't been for them. He loved spending time with them, he loved not having to worry about the Commission or even the apocalypse.

Anthony had realized not long ago that he really had no idea who he actually was as a person; he didn't really have an defining traits, he had no real personality of his own, his only real purpose just seemed to be...Five? He felt the only thing he really had a meaning for was just his husband, because he really and truly had no life of his own, he never had.

He wished he knew who he was. But he didn't.

When Anthony thought about himself, he really couldn't even think of anything good. In his mind, he was still the same scared seventeen year old that was once kicked out of his home for being gay. It had been eight years, but he felt as if he hadn't changed in anyway shape or form.

In a way, he simply never got the chance to grow up and experience the real world. Anthony had missed out on the time period where he was supposed to find himself, like every other teenager does.