AU: Rewrite (Josh)

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Life had lost its color since Josh had left him.

Sean knew he was depressed. He needed neither his undergraduate degree in psychology nor his medical degree to identify depression, but it did nothing to combat the symptoms. It was all he could do to get up in the morning and to go about his day as though nothing was wrong. Although used to putting on a façade as part of being a telepath in a non-psychic’s world, it took so much out of him to do so. All he wanted to do was lie in bed with Josh’s pillow in his arms.

Objectively, he realized that was unhealthy.

After a few weeks, he had been wandering around the Village on the way home, when he thought he saw Josh. His heart skipped a few beats, and, against his better judgment, he followed the other young man up the street. However, when he caught up to him, he saw that it was a stranger. After a rushed apology, he ducked into the nearest shop. An antique shop that he didn’t remember opening up in their neighborhood.

Needing the distraction, he glanced around for a few minutes. The shopkeeper was an old man whose attention he could feel on him despite having his back turned.

Finally, after a few minutes, he was drawn to an old desk with a typewriter, a banker’s light, and several early 20th Century items. Josh would have loved some of these.

That thought caused him to frown and his chest to feel tight.

[Joshua Bernstein]

The shopkeeper limped in the direction of his only customer, right hip stiff from some old injury.

"I see you're a man of taste," he wheezed out a chuckle as he approached. "That's a fine typewriter there. Still works like brand new."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

It spoke more to how out of sorts Sean was than to the shopkeeper’s ability to sneak up on people that he had failed to notice the older man. It was shameful, since, if Sean had paid even the slightest bit of attention, nobody could escape his notice, not when they were so close within his range. Instead, he nearly jumped from being addressed, and he turned around to look at the older man behind him.

He didn’t apologize for not realizing that the shopkeeper was there. It would only call further attention to an awkward situation, and it wouldn’t solve anything. Even his innate sense of manners told him that it wasn’t worth it to apologize.

Instead, he tried to listen to what the older man was talking about. Something about the typewriter.

The typewriter was nice. Old fashioned. Heavy, surely, since even the typewriter he had at home was heavy, and that was made of more modern, lighter-weight materials than the older models.

Feeling as though he should say something, the telepath asked, “Where did you get it from?”

Not being an antiquarian himself, he couldn’t recognize such items by model or year and relied on the knowledge of other people to fill in those gaps.

[Joshua Bernstein]

"It was brought in by a young lady, a few years older than you I would wager. Had no small amount of items, she did. Said her father had passed on and she was cleaning out the attic for her mum. Her father had won it from a fortune teller in a game of cards, she said. Isn't that something?"

[Dr. Sean Neville]

If by “something,” the shopkeeper meant “a terrible and obviously untrue story,” then, yes, Sean had to agree. However, as distressed as he was, as disappointed as he was at himself for getting his hopes up and at the universe for making the stranger he followed not his ex-boyfriend, he still had enough manners to keep his thoughts to himself. Even if the rest of the world never paid him the same courtesy.

Instead, he tried to feign interest, by nodding a single time. However, he quickly said, “I’m sorry about her father.”

Although Sean knew that a great many – if not most – of the items that ended up in antique stores came to the seller through inheritance from the death of someone related to them by blood or by marriage. Occasionally, there were stories about people finding antiques at garage sales, but those were less common, and, often, the people who put together the garage sale had acquired those things from a relative, before stuffing them in a closet and forgetting about them until they needed the storage space.

He reached out to touch the side of the device, searching for a price tag. Surely, the shopkeeper had told this story to justify the price.

[Joshua Bernstein]

The shopkeeper tapped a finger against his lips thoughtfully as the young customer searched for a tag.

"Are you interested, son? It looks like you could use something to cheer you up."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean tensed slightly at being addressed as son by a stranger. The only people to call him that – the only people who should call him that – were his own father and Robert Hopkins. His mentor had addressed him in that paternal, reassuring way since their first interactions at Hammel. It felt wrong to him.

He said nothing. He wasn’t going to get into an argument with the shopkeeper, someone easily old enough to be his own grandfather. Surely, he meant well even if the familiarity was displaced.

In one area, he agreed with the proprietor: the telepath needed something to cheer him up. He felt utterly lost and empty without Josh, and despite all assurance from his friends and from Robert that the feeling would fade with time, he didn’t believe that. He only managed to feel worse with each passing day, after waking up in the morning to find himself alone in bed, alone in an apartment that still had some of Josh’s decorations up. He didn’t have the heart to take them down.

Yet, Sean doubted that a typewriter would provide the fulfillment he needed. It was an object, not a person. “I’m not much of a writer,” he murmured.

That was an understatement. Creative writing had always been a weak area.

[Joshua Bernstein]

"Do you know how to type?" The shopkeeper asked, the corners of his lips pulling up into a smile. "If you can type you can write. This beauty here is meant for someone who needs cheering up to type about their hopes and dreams. You don't need to be eloquent to do that."

He patted the typewriter for emphasis and then added, "And it might just make you feel better."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

“I can type,” Sean replied automatically, more a matter of pride than anything else. Not that he was proud that he could type, since that was a basic and requisite skill for most jobs of a certain station, as well as a requisite for schooling. Rather, he wanted to assure other people that he didn’t lack such a basic skill, even if, absent a typewriter, his handwriting was impeccable.

However, he didn’t think that technical proficiency was the same as creative skill. The same way he could play the piano but couldn’t compose, and how nobody would ever come to a concert he put on, if he had any mind to do such a thing.

Outside of his parents, the only person who had ever shown interest in his playing had been Josh.

The thought of his ex-boyfriend caused his chest to constrict.

He disregarded most of what the shopkeeper said, since he considered it part of a sales pitch. For the rest, he assumed that the old man meant what Sean would mean in the same situation: that writing down his feelings was a method of processing, healthier than keeping them bottled up.

Considering that the only people he could talk to about this pain were Greg and Daphne (who, while his peers, didn’t understand the particulars about being a telepath), and Robert Hopkins, who lived in Vermont, was old enough to be his father, and had dealt with enough of Sean’s emotional baggage to last two lifetimes.

From that perspective, he could see the merit in having an outlet.

Also because Josh had taken their typewriter when he’d moved out.

Technically, Sean had left it for Josh to take, since his boyfriend was still in law school and required the device more than Sean, who used the typewriter at the hospital.

He mulled it over, and then asked, “Will it work with modern ribbon?”

[Joshua Bernstein]

"It uses a universal spool," The shopkeeper confirmed, bobbing his head for emphasis. "There's no problems with it, wonderful condition. A finer typewriter couldn't be found if you searched every shop and attic in the City."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

That removed one of Sean’s concerns, in that the typewriter wouldn’t be completely useless, sitting on a table or desk in an apartment too large for him and which he would never use due to incompatibility with modern methods.

Still, he didn’t need an antique typewriter, not really. Surely, the shopkeeper needed the sale - given how the telepath was the only customer in this store and, despite living in the area had never even noticed it before - more than Sean needed an antique. In a more rational state of mind, he wouldn’t even consider this; he would call it an unneccesary and unwanted luxury and then bid the shopkeeper good day.

Unfortunately for his wallet, he wasn’t in a more rational frame of mind. While it occurred to him that he could haggle about the price, he didn’t have the energy. Instead, he asked, “If I buy it, will you let me borrow a cart or wagon so I can bring it home? It’s too heavy to carry.” And he didn’t have the van with him.

If the shopkeeper was willing to accommodate him so that he could actually bring the typewriter home, then the telepath would buy it so that he could end this conversation.

[Joshua Bernstein]

The shopkeeper's smile widened as he closed in on the prospective sale, "Oh, yes, I have a little wagon in the back."

He shuffled off towards the storage area of the store at a surprising pace for a man who barely lifted his feet off the floor, and returned tugging a chipped red wooden wagon behind him.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean waited by the typewriter for the shopkeeper to reappear with his wagon. The telepath hadn’t known what to expect, but a little red wagon hadn’t crossed his mind. And yet, there it was. Chipped but still red and wooden, looking sturdy enough. The fact that the shopkeeper had managed to retrieve it so quickly and effortlessly would impress Sean were he capable of feeling anything against the backdrop of emptiness that consumed him.

Yet, the shopkeeper had provided transportation for him to bring the typewriter home, and so Sean had no other excuses. He paid the tag price, fishing cash out of his wallet and counting it out until he had the exact amount. Then he moved the typewriter - every bit as heavy as it looked - into the wagon so that he could cart it out of the store. “I’ll be back in about half an hour,” he promised the shopkeeper, so that the old man wouldn’t think that he was trying to steal the wagon.

Not that he thought anyone would want to steal the wagon.

Getting the typewriter back to the apartment was easy enough; the antique store wasn’t so far away from where he lived. Getting it up to the apartment was more difficult, but, finally, panting, he made it, and managed to set it up on the desk in the bedroom.

Sean paused only long enough to drink a glass of water, before leaving to return the wagon to the shopkeeper.

By the time he returned home the second time, he put the typewriter out of his mind and went about making something for supper. He had largely lost his interest in food, beyond eating to keep up his dietary needs so that he could wake up the next day and start all over again.

The rest of the evening passed with the same listlessness that he experienced every day since the Break Up. Nothing felt right, and, in turn, Sean felt like doing nothing.

It was only in the middle of the night, when the telepath had woken from yet another dream of falling to pieces (literally) that he thought of the typewriter. The shopkeeper said that it might help his mental state, and, sweating and hyperventilating from the intensity of the dream, he had no intention of going back to sleep. He had nothing better to do.

Sitting down at the typewriter, he began typing the first thing that came to mind.

I wish that Josh was here with me. I miss him so much.

[Joshua Bernstein]

Josh dropped his pencils back onto the desk with a clatter. He turned to glance at the clock, groaning when he realized what time it was. He had spent hours studying, but that would do him little good if he was too tired to wake up in the morning.

The law student hurriedly rushed to the bathroom to brush his teeth, only to find himself in a room that wasn't his bathroom at all.


"Ahhh..."

Had he fallen asleep at his desk while studying? That was the only explanation for the fact that he was now in a formerly familiar room, staring at Sean bent over a typewriter.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean didn’t know what to expect when he had settled at the typewriter. Primarily, he supposed that he had expected nothing to happen, since the shopkeeper’s vague assurances had to have been part of a sales pitch, telling the younger man what he thought he wanted to hear in order to unload the typewriter. Perhaps he might experience some form of relief, being able to share his pain and longing with something, when he felt so isolated in his despair and depression otherwise.

He certainly hadn’t expected for Josh to appear in their apartment from nowhere.

However, he would recognize the younger man’s presence anywhere. Even without hearing a word or seeing him, he could feel the familiarity of Josh’s mind so close to him, and he lifted his head to look over.

It was him. Somehow. Back in their apartment.

Sean hadn’t changed the locks since their Break Up, and so Josh could, theoretically come in whenever he wanted. In fact, the telepath had kept the locks for that purpose, should Josh change his mind. Yet, he knew that the other young man hadn’t come through the front door, which made this all the more perplexing.

His friend looked as surprised as the telepath felt. He sounded as surprised as the telepath felt, given how he was just as speechless as Sean had been rendered.