darker_london | Breakdown (Thomas, Peter)

It was not usually Thomas who needed people to help him retain his sanity. It was usually Thomas helping people gain it back. He was normally such a vibrant, loving and happy person, but he felt as if it had been drained away from him. Stolen by the one person he could honestly say he hated in the entire world.

Thomas pulled himself out of bed and he made his unsteady way to the bathroom, wheeling his damned IV stand along with him. It was supplying him with a constant stream of liquid food and without it, even for just a minute, his abused body put everything it had into combating the pain of the pull and Thomas was in a state much like he had been while in Amaris' captivity, though slightly better off physically in that Spectre had healed his wounds. Nothing, apparently, could repair the damage she had done to the body he wasn't even supposed to have. A body that had been created by the act of an angel bringing him back. A body that wasn't really his, just a temporary housing for his soul that happened to look exactly like the body that once had been his.

Or at least it had looked exactly alike. As Thomas stood in the bathroom, he finally chanced a glance in the mirror. The first time he had done so since being rescued. And what he saw horrified him more deeply that simply imagining what he looked like had. Because now it was confirmed. He could see himself, clear as day, and the vision was so sickening it nearly made him vomit, which wouldn't have helped matters.

Thomas' cheeks were sunken and he could clearly see the shape of the bones of his skull through his skin which was stretched so tightly across the bones of his face, that they protruded and it was almost painful looking. His eyes looked too large for his head, and when he lifted his shirt up to survey his chest, he let out a horrified noise and quickly covered it back up again. His ribs were so prominent, one could have counted them. His stomach had been a tiny valley of nothing, curving back painfully as if it was determined to touch his spine.

Thomas lifted his bony hands to cover his face in an effort to shut out the harrowing vision of his own reflection. He couldn't understand how anyone else could stand to look at him. How could they manage it without being disgusted? There wasn't a single part of him that wasn't disgusting in Thomas' own mind.

It was too much. Anger and hurt bubbled away in Thomas' stomach. He was outraged at what had been done to him, and so far it hadn't surfaced because he had simply been so glad to be alive. But now it erupted like a long smoldering volcano, hot and furious. He had been violated. He had been tortured and starved and now he was a disgusting slip of a thing. His health had been devastated, and it wasn't just the two weeks he had suffered now. He had to go on suffering. For a year or more. It wasn't going to end. It had been done to him and there was nothing he could do about it.

Tears spilled from his eyes and Thomas looked at his reflection again, a hateful look on his face. He had gone from someone who hadn't shed a tear since he was ten, to someone who cried nearly all the time. From frustration or fear, from hunger and now anger. In a rage he screamed at his reflection in the mirror and then his arm flashed out, slamming into the mirror with a lot of force for someone so wasted. Thomas at his full strength would have shattered it with a minimum of effort, but now all he managed to do was make his knuckles split open and blood smear across the mirror. The mere fact that the mirror had stood up to him made him angrier and he lashed out at the offending piece of glass again and again until his hand was a bloody mass and his arm ached from the effort. Still the mirror remained intact.

Sobbing in frustration, Thomas lifted his IV stand high in the air, though he found it was difficult for him to do so and even that angered him. He had to make his reflection disappear. He just had to. He rammed the four-legged bottom of the IV stand into the mirror, shattering it instantly. The glass rained into the sink and onto the floor with an almost cheerful noise and Thomas covered his face, sinking slowly into the pile of shards on the floor. The onslaught had drained him completely of his energy where he used to be able to jog for an hour without feeling tired.

A quick examination of his arm revealed that he had pulled his IV loose, and there was only a bloody hole where it was supposed to be lodged. Frantically, Thomas searched through the rubble for any sign of the silver needle that was meant to keep him from shriveling up into nothing. He shredded his hands in the glass as he searched, and but he couldn't find it in the wreckage. Even if he had, the IV bag that contained the food that dripped into his veins had ripped, spilling it's contents all over the floor.

Thomas could literally feel his stomach shrinking as his body converted his breakfast into energy to fight the pull almost instantly. It caused him pain something akin to hunger pangs multiplied by hundreds and he groaned, curling up over himself.

If this was the cost of living, Thomas pondered, he didn't know if it was worth it anymore. If this was how it was for his soul, existing in a shriveled body he was never meant to have, why should he stay?

James and Marie and Mara need you. Spectre needs you. Peter needs you. Your family needs you. Suck it the fuck up, Tommy boy. Everything you just did, you did to yourself. There's no Amaris to blame it on. No Aurelia in sight. You did it. Congratulations, you're making it fucking worse.

Thomas took several deep breaths, as his entire body was responding to the separation from his IV. His vision was blurring and his thoughts fading. He was progressing into starvation, and taking his entire body with him. Thomas grunted in frustration and he turned his head to locate the lovely red call button, that was sitting an impossible distance away, unaware of the desperate situation unfolding in front of it.

Dragging himself out of the bathroom on his hands and knees, Thomas crawled for the call button, though he was sinking faster than he was crawling. The unrelenting metal of the shackles on his wrists didn't help, as they were heavier and it weighed him down. Thomas almost screamed in relief when Peter stepped into the room and immediately rushed to his side.

"What the hell, Thomas?!" Peter hissed in his ear, as he helped his shuddering best friend to his feet.

"I...had a moment." Thomas mumbled.

"No fucking kidding." Peter, who was stronger than he looked which was probably a very good thing as he looked like a light wind would knock him over, practically carried Thomas back to his bed, though he didn't have a particularly easy go of it.

"Heh...usually...other way around." Thomas commented. The amount of times he had carried Peter, broken and wasted, to a bed so he could rest...Thomas couldn't even begin to count them. And now here Peter was, in his place. It was strange, but more comforting than he could ever say.

"I was thinking that." Peter helped Thomas cover up because now he was shivering too and then he pressed the call button. "You made quite a mess in there." Peter glanced back over to the bathroom where the floor was littered with glass. "And of yourself, you nitwit."

"I couldn't look at myself anymore. It's hideous." Thomas couldn't quite bring himself to say 'I'm hideous' but that was what he meant.

"Don't be daft." Peter shook his head and he moved to push Thomas' hair out of his face. "Thomas, you're beautiful."

"I was." Thomas found taking pride in his looks easy. He wasn't rude about them, he just knew he had looked good. "Peter. I don't want that thing in me again, but I need it. I...I can't..I hate-"

"I know." Peter leaned down to kiss his Thomas on the forehead and he lingered there, not with any romantic notions, but because his friend was in pain and Peter would do anything in his power to save Thomas from it. "I wish there was something I could do."

Thomas looked up at him, his expression beyond sad. "Tell me you love me?"

"I love you, Thomas." That much was easy.

"Tell me I'm not a monster."

"Thomas, you could never be a monster. Honestly." Peter's eyes clearly indicated there was no trace of a lie in his words. "You are and ever will be the greatest man I know."

"Oh, Peter. You too." Thomas took a deep, shuddery breath as a nurse rushed in to give him another IV. The pair of men stayed silent as she worked, and then cleaned him up, bandaging his hand without an air of scolding that he would certainly get from Abby later. When she was finished and they were alone again, Peter crawled into bed with Thomas, completely unashamed.

"I know this has to be...beyond hard." Peter said quietly, a frown affixed upon his face. "But, Thomas...you have to remember you're not alone anymore."

"It just...it hurts so much, just to keep living." Thomas sighed and he stared up at the impassive ceiling which certainly had no answers written on it.

"I know, Thomas. I lived through pain too. I had to suffer through chemo just to keep living. It's terrible and sometimes all you want to do is give up. When you come to the end, all of that won't matter any more, Thomas. All you'll remember is that you're glad you went through it because life is good again. And you have so much to get through it for."

"God, I know." Thomas squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself not to cry again. "I know, Peter, but fuck. What if I don't recover."

"You will." Peter assured him.

"But what if-"

"Cut that the fuck out right now." Peter said, stern but kind. He was not angry, merely speaking in a way Thomas would understand, as was Peter's way. "No what ifs. They'll only depress you and they won't happen anyway. Come on now. You'll get out of this room soon enough and won't that be bloody amazing."

"Fuck yes." Thomas breathed.

"Then stop doing everything in your power to stay here." Peter curled up and leaned his head against Thomas' bony shoulder. "I know there's things in your head that need working out. Of course they do. There's still things in my head that need that. I was fucked up for a long time after Fort Haven. I still have issues. No one's expecting you to be alright all the time. But destroying hospital property is...probably not the best way to go about getting help..."

"Yeah..." Thomas looked sheepish, but he smiled a moment later when Peter kissed his cheek. "Bugger this shite, Peter, tell me happy stories. Tell me about the monastery." Not that Thomas didn't know all the stories, as he had been there for them. But he loved remembering his life then. When things had been so simple and he had been so effortlessly happy. "Tell me about us."

"I could tell you a thing or two about us." Peter looked wicked. "That did not occur at any monastery."

Thomas laughed loudly, his lungs expanding to equate for the air he used in doing it. It felt wonderful. "Oh, I like that idea more than the other one. Could...would you get me something to eat? And we could have story dinner?"

"Of course, Thomas." Peter smiled brightly. "I'll be right back with a feast fit for a warrior. And then I'll tell you all about two young men very much in lust." Peter winked and then he ducked out into the hall. Thomas watched him go and even though he was then alone, he felt a little bit better.

Peter always made Thomas feel complete.