Who: Thomas Taylor & Joey Malone What: Old friends catching up Where: South Side, Chicago When: Friday afternoon, July 7th 2017 Warnings: Language, probably.
Thomas had wanted to come home sooner, but between his job at the Agency and finishing school, he'd been a little busy. Part of Thomas still couldn't believe that he'd just graduated from college, that he'd actually done what he'd set out to do when he moved to New York and left the south side of Chicago far behind. When he'd first come to New York, Thomas had been completely overwhelmed by the fast paced life style, the only thing fast about south side was how fast you could run from someone looking to beat the crap out of you. Not that there wasn't plenty of things rough about the big city, but these days Thomas was the one doing most of the punching, and it was all on bad guys, not nerdy kids with skateboards. (It was him, he'd been that nerdy kid with a skateboard.) Things had changed, he'd worked hard for five years, lost a lot of sleep to studying and lab hours, and in the end it'd actually paid off. He had a degree now, he was getting married in just a few short months, and life? Life was pretty much perfect.
Getting Joey's call three months ago had been a surprise, to say the least. Not a bad one, obviously, just... well, maybe a complicated one. Thomas had known he'd get out eventually, but after Joey had refused to see him once he was inside, when he wouldn't return any of the the letters Thomas sent him, Thomas had forced himself to stop keeping count. It still hurt a little when he thought about it, about what happened and Joey getting arrested, right after high school graduation. Thomas had never been upset with Joey for ruining his chances, for 'wasting' all that time and effort Thomas had put into getting Joey to pass enough classes in order to qualify for graduation. Thomas hadn't cared about any of that. He cared that his best friend was getting sent to jail, and there was nothing Thomas could have done to stop it. That honestly hurt more than anything else, that in the end, Thomas couldn't save his friend.
For years afterward Thomas would replay the events in his head like he could stop them, as if he had actually been there, even though he hadn't been. Joey never would have let him come along on something like that, no matter how much he'd always poked fun at Thomas for 'not being south side enough'. Sure, he and Joey had gotten into smaller amounts of trouble over the years, but never anything that serious. Joey had never invited Thomas along when he and his brothers were getting into something, and after Joey was arrested that final time, Thomas knew why. Half of him was a little angry at Joey in the beginning, while the bigger half of him just felt guilty for not being 'south side enough' to be there with him. Like he actually would have somehow been able to change the situation if he had been. He wouldn't have. He just would have ended up in the prison cell next to Joey's, but instead, Joey had gone in alone.
Eventually he'd forced himself to get past it enough that he didn't spend nearly every day wracked with guilt, but Thomas still never talked about Joey much to anyone, or at all. His decision to go to New York had pretty much coincided with Joey's arrest and refusal to talk to Thomas after. He hadn't even told Joey that he'd been considering staying in Chicago, knowing that Joey had no plans to go anywhere even though he'd graduated, but afterwards Thomas convinced himself that staying in south side for a friend was stupid. So he left. He left south side behind, he left Joey behind, and he started his new life as a college student and, even less expected, the reincarnate of Peter Parker. Really just the nerdy cherry on top of an already lanky dork with a skateboard and a British accent cake, who Joey had spent half his time teaching how to throw a solid punch while Thomas was teaching him chemistry and algebra.
He'd meant what he said over the phone a few weeks back, he was planning on visiting. Once school was officially out, he'd had his graduation ceremony and dealt with a few lingering wedding details with Kylie, Thomas had made good on his promise. He'd taken the MTN to Chicago and hopped right on the 'L' train, hopping off to say a quick hello to the aunt and uncle before heading straight on to south side, where they'd finally moved out of just a few years back. He should have called first, but when he didn't find Joey at his family's house, the first place he went was the park a couple blocks away, one of their old haunts, skateboard in hand like no time had actually passed at all. Like everything in south side, that place hadn't changed much, and Thomas was pretty sure he saw at least three drug deals going down on his slow walk across the grass, though with two rolled up spliffs in his pocket he didn't really have much room to talk. Once he spotted the back of Joey's head, still familiar even after seven years, Thomas wedged his skateboard under his armpit and cupped his hands around his mouth to shout. "Hey, wanker!"