The Unanswered Question (Peter/Thomas)

[suave-thomas.livejournal.com]

Peter was putting Baby Lauren to sleep when Thomas found him. He leaned on the doorframe of the nursery and gave Peter a cute little finger-wiggle wave in greeting when Peter turned around to see who had joined him. Peter smiled silently back and he placed his sleeping daughter in her crib, grabbing the baby monitor before pulling the door of the nursery mostly closed. Once they were both in Peter's bedroom, Peter gave his best friend a hug. "Nice to see you, Thomas." He said softly into the other man's shoulder, as Thomas was taller than Peter was. "How is everyone?"

Wonderful." Thomas said, stopping himself before he gushed on unnecessarily about his siblings or his Mary and Spectre. Though, if anyone would listen to that, it was Peter. Peter himself was a gusher. He knew the ropes. "I just felt like Peter time."

"Well Peter is very glad you did." Peter admitted, leading Thomas out of his bedroom so he could take this opportunity to eat something. Baby Lauren was asleep and Baby Thomas was with Aly at her parents, the other kids were at school except Rasputina who was with Svetlana. You didn't waste moments of peace when you had seven children. They were few and far between. "I need a sandwich."

Thomas chuckled and he followed Peter to the kitchen, hopping up on the counter the moment they arrived. "Is Lauren crying less, then?"

"She's sleeping more. So...in a way, yes." Peter said with a shrug as he layered salami onto his bread. "She's still healthy as ever, so we're not sure why she cries when she's awake. I think she's just afraid. I wish I could make it stop." Peter sighed and he stopped making his sandwich for a second, even though his stomach did not appreciate the pause. "Thomas, you didn't tell me you almost left the monastery. What were you going to do? Run like I did?"

"Heh..." Thomas bit his lip and then he jumped down off the counter. This was something he should probably not be flippant about. He laid a gentle hand on Peter's arm and he sort of moved Peter out of the way of the sandwich. "Here. Let me finish this." Thomas knew what Peter liked, so that wouldn't be a problem. "I wasn't going to run out on you, Peter."

"I didn't think that sounded like you." Peter said, leaning against the counter as he relinquished the sandwich making to a diligent Thomas instead. "Put more tomatoes on."

"Yes, Ma'am." Thomas said with a grin, and doing just that.

"So was it before I joined then? When you were going to leave? Was it during your first year with Stuart?" Peter could understand that. Being a monk wasn't easy. And Thomas had never been a rule-follower. Exuberant and well into his faith, yes. Prostrate in front of his higher ups? Not really. He had always stuck to his vows, but he also believed that life wasn't life unless you had a little fun too, now and then. It had certainly made things interesting. And kept Thomas in trouble often. But Thomas himself was harmless and wonderful, which was why the punishment was never severe. It might seem that way when you were just starting out though. Peter was surprised, however, when Thomas shook his head. "No? Oh. Okay?"

Peter was a year younger than Thomas and he'd arrived at the monastery a year later. Thomas had been the one assigned to Peter to show him around, and take him through everything. It was a rite of passage, and they'd grown as close as brothers through it, inseparable even when the time came that they didn't need to be together anymore. But if it wasn't during that first year that Thomas almost left, that meant it was when Peter was there, and if Thomas said he wasn't going to leave Peter...Peter was really confused.

"Here." Thomas handed Peter his sandwich, wrapped up in a napkin so it wouldn't fall apart because it was quite large and cumbersome. "Be careful when you eat it. Peter, when I thought about leaving, it wasn't about leaving you...it was about leaving with you."

Peter had just taken a bite of his large and cumbersome sandwich, but when Thomas said that, he nearly choked on his mouthful, and he had to chew and swallow quite quickly to avoid the crisis. "What?!" He squeaked, when he finally managed not to kill himself with meat and bread. And tomatoes.

"Okay, give me that back..." Thomas held out his hands for the sandwich, raising his eyebrows.

Peter looked incredulous and he held his sandwich out of snatching range. "Feck off! I'm starving and you don't need it, you're dead!"

"I am just trying to make sure you don't die again, give me the thing." Thomas snapped his fingers and you didn't argue with that.

Peter glowered and he relinquished his sandwich, which was probably a sign of how deep their friendship was. Peter had food issues, due to the fact that he'd been locked in a bunker and starved for nearly two weeks. He did not hand over his food to just anyone. "Fine, you stole my lunch, you tall freak. What's this about leaving with me?!"

Thomas took a deep and unnecessary breath, and he led Peter over to the kitchen table where they could both sit. Then he scratched his eye by way of hesitating before he came out with it. "Adam came to visit me at the monastery. Remember, a few days before Svetlana killed me?"

"Yeah. You went off all by your lonesome and I didn't get to tell Adam my hilarious 'priest in the pub' joke."

"Your memory freaks me out, Peter Kemp..." Thomas gave him a strange look. "Anyway, he came to visit and he told me I was in love with you. Because really, how was I supposed to know, right?"

Peter's eyes narrowed, though it was in concern, and not suspicion. All of this had occurred 14 years ago, and by now Thomas and Peter both realised they had had feelings for each other back then, that hadn't been acknowledged. And when Thomas had been brought back the first few times, those feelings had been acknowledged. A lot, and on a regular basis. Until they both decided it was too hard, considering Thomas was all dead and Peter was not. But until now, Peter hadn't realised that Thomas had known before his death, however soon before it it might have been. "Thomas...what else did he say?"

"Just...that if I left the clergy to be with you, my family wouldn't look down on me. Because they're not like that. He wanted me to feel free to make a choice without worrying about what anyone else would think. He told me my family loved you, and that my feelings....you know the ones I didn't know about...were reciprocated even if you weren't aware of it either. I'd think it was just a ploy by my family to get me away from the church if they were any other family." The Littletons, however, were just not like that. There was no backstabbing in that family. If you felt something, you said it, and you didn't lie. Sure, they could be sneaky. But really, only to other people. Never to each other when it mattered. "But he just wanted me to at least think about it. He's my big brother. He was looking out for me."

"Here I was, bummed about my 'priest in the pub' joke, and you were receiving potentially life-altering advice..." Peter reached out for Thomas's hand and he raised his eyebrows. "What did you do, Thomas?"

"I thought about it. I asked Adam about God, because sure my family would be fine with it, but that was not the only concern I had. And Adam reminded me that whenever I spoke about God, it was always in the same breath as the word 'love'. And he said God would want me to love, and if he held it against me, why serve a God like that anyway. Which was a pretty damn good argument because I couldn't think of anything to counter it with beyond '....yuh huh...' which didn't make sense anyway."

Peter gave Thomas an amused look at that. Mostly because Thomas was nothing if not endearing. Then he gave Thomas's hand a squeeze. "And when you thought about it...what did you decide?"

Thomas looked up at Peter, his face intensely earnest. "I decided to talk to you about it. Because it wasn't the church I had an issue with and if you weren't interested in leaving, I wasn't either. But if you wanted to...to be with me...I would have. So I was just going to...bring it up. But I didn't think bringing it up while we were trying to help Svetlana's foster family was a good idea. So I decided to wait until after the exorcism and...well..."

Peter took a moment to digest that information, because it was a lot. Thomas and Peter had gone into the house of one of their parish families, never knowing they were walking into a room with an actual demon. They had spent years travelling around, helping families with things of that very nature, and they had almost always been psychological problems they had helped sort out. Never a case of real possession. And they had believed that Svetlana's case was going to be exactly the same. But it wasn't. Instead of believing herself to be possessed, Svetlana had been born a demon with powers that she didn't understand, and Peter and Thomas didn't know existed. She was Russian and she hadn't understood a word the two men were saying to her. Fearing for her life, she had killed Thomas in an instant. And Thomas had never had the chance to ask Peter if he wanted the same things he did. And that very thought made Peter's soul ache. "Oh, Thomas..."

"It's okay." Thomas quickly gave Peter a brave little smile, quirking up the corners of his lips. He didn't want Peter to think this was about sympathy or pity or anything other than telling a friend about his past. "Really. I'm glad I didn't mention it before going in there because...well-" Peter had gone off the rails when Thomas was killed. He'd run from the monastery and the church and he'd hid in his sister's house and spent three straight months drunk, before ending up in the arms of Katherine who had been very bad for him, all things considered. But he had had Lydia. And nothing and no one had changed Peter's life for the better like Lydia had.

"Yeah...I can see how that would have been-" Peter puffed his cheeks out and then he released the breath before adding "-crap." He looked up at Thomas and straight into his eyes. "Thomas are you alright? Is this...something that's been bothering you?"

"No. I mean, not really. I wanted to tell you the first couple times I was back, but you and I were...well, it wasn't relevant. Because there was sex. And then afterwards, when there wasn't sex anymore, I didn't feel like rubbing salt on the wound, really. But things are good now. Really good. They're wonderful and then seeing Adam made me remember. I thought he might bring it up sometime anyway. So...it was time."

Time indeed. And the perfect one at that. Because the story was tragic in itself, but the people involved were no longer wrapped up in tragedy. It had taken Peter 13 years to get over Thomas's death, but he was over it now. His friend was in front of him. And they were, the both of them, happy. "You're right about that." Peter nodded, leaning forward to kiss Thomas's forehead. "You know...I don't know what I would have said, had you asked me." Back at the monastery, Peter had been a very different person. His life had been fraught with tragedy and loss since his childhood, but he was sheltered and naive despite that. The things he'd been through since then, had hardened his shell without making him bitter. He was a stronger person by far. As for leaving the monastery for love though...there was no way to know if he ever could have. His faith, then, had been the most important thing to him.

"I wasn't asking for you to tell me that." Thomas assured him. "Whatever your answer had been, I would have been happy either way. Being your other half, in whatever capacity, always makes happy. It wasn't the answer that ever mattered. It was just the chance to ask it that I mourned. And you know...I got over all that long ago."

"So you're not like...sitting there wanting my body or anything?" Peter asked, whimsy evident in his eyes.

"I never said that!" Thomas grinned, sticking his tongue out between his cheeks, cutely.

"Hey. Even though I don't know what my decision would have been...Adam was right. About what I felt then. I figured I should say that."

"I know. But thank you for saying anyway." Thomas stood and he retrieved Peter's sandwich from the kitchen bench, placing it in Peter's eager hands. "You can eat that now."

"Yes, Master." Peter said, before taking a huge mouthful.

"Ah, that's what I like to hear!" Thomas announced, causing Peter to nearly choke again.

And then quickly, Peter mumbled "MINE" with his mouth full and then he curled his body over his sandwich to protect it, lest Thomas try to take it away again for his own good. And things really were exactly the same.