Too Good to be True (Thomas)

[suave-thomas.livejournal.com]

Spending time with Tasha always made Thomas feel good. Her presence was both calming and comfortable. Thomas could talk to her as easily as he could talk to Peter, and he loved that. She had a way of saying just what he needed to hear, and somehow he managed to do the same for her. In hard times, when she had so much to deal with because she was a police officer, he loved just being there for her.

Heading home, Thomas realised he hadn't had a chance to take his daily jog. Jogging at night didn't seem like a bad alternative, even if it was freezing. He simply pulled his jacket tighter and then he shoved his iPod earphones in his ears, and he took off across the street into Regents Park to take the long way home.

Jogging always soothed Thomas' nerves as he worked on keeping his breathing even while he raised his heart rate. Even though he had been sick lately, Thomas had always kept his body in good health and he loved a good work out. Usually Thomas listened to his husband when he had his iPod on, but working out to Spectre wasn't the easiest thing. He needed something with a very definitive beat. Tasha had turned him on to Covenant and VNV Nation, both of which definitely worked. When Supermassive Black Hole by Muse came on his iPod, he grinned and upped his pace, crossing a path that would lead to the duck pond. He felt free and happy here, running through the night air. He ran right through a rather large cluster of pigeons that all took wing in offense to his presence.

Thomas laughed and he turned a corner and that's when he felt it. This chest tightened and intense pain took over his body so suddenly that even as sure-footed and graceful as he was, he stumbled and nearly fell. As it was, he slowed to a walk and then he fell to his knees, bending forward to try to calm his now heavy and desperate breathing. Thomas put a hand to his aching chest and he gasped a little before ripping his earphones out of his ears. "Fuck." He hissed, though the pain was subsiding.

"Are you alright?"

The voice caught Thomas by surprise and his head snapped up, almost fearful because he knew what the darkness sometimes held. He looked at the blond woman standing above him, and he didn't think she looked like she posed a threat, but appearances could definitely be deceiving. Who ever would think that Peter, of all people, would be such a hero to look at him. "I'm alright. I just...cramp." Thomas lied, and he adjusted himself so he was sitting instead of kneeling. He didn't feel like it would be a good idea to try to walk yet.

The woman cocked her head to the side and she raised her eyebrows. "Is that what it is, hmm?"

Thomas swallowed and he looked up at her, confused. "I was jogging." He still hadn't caught his breath yet, and he felt lightheaded.

"In a body you shouldn't even have."

Thomas' mouth slowly fell open and he leaned back away from her since he couldn't exactly get up and run as that had gotten him in this mess in the first place. How did this woman know?! "I...I don't...you...what?"

"You don't think I can feel that? The ex-angel part of you? Do you think I can't see that you're living in a body created by an angel and invigorated by someone who gave up their immortality for you? You feel like him." The woman extended a hand to Thomas, though the look on his face clearly asked if she was insane. "My name is Gwenivere. My mother thought it was pretty." She didn't look like she agreed. "Gwen. My mother was Leonore? Leonore Tracy by the time she died. Dr Wentworth is my brother. I've heard about you, Thomas. I recognised you because you feel like him." She did, of course, mean Peter. Peter was the one who had given his immortality for Thomas, and because of that, Thomas felt, to other people sensitive to that kind of thing, a little like him. He had also inherited some of Peter's traits, like a propensity towards incredible guilt...

"Ah..." Thomas decided that maybe he could trust Leonore's daughter. Maybe... He let the woman help him up, but he was still giving her a look that told her he didn't trust her as far as he could throw her. Or as far as Spectre could throw her...

"I'm sorry for being blunt." She shook her blond hair off her shoulders and offered him a sympathetic smile. "It can't be easy."

"What can't be easy?!" Thomas hissed, taking a step backwards. His chest still ached dully and it scared him more than he wanted to admit.

"Knowing that you have a body that was only meant to last three weeks." Gwen said with a little shrug.

"But I..." Thomas ran his fingers through his hair and, in his worry, he clenched his fists there, hair sticking up through his fingers. "It's mine."

Gwen cocked her head to the side, and she looked like she was speaking to a child then. "It's not yours. It was given to you to serve a purpose. Your purpose has been served and yet you remain."

Thomas blinked in confusion and he shook his head. "Peter gave up what he had. He gave it up. This is my life now."

"You know how people say sometimes if a thing seems too good to be true, it usually is?" Gwen asked, still sounding aloof which was beginning to grate on Thomas' already straining nerves. "That body you are in was never meant for this."

"What does that mean?!" Thomas asked, sick of angel's games. Sometimes supernaturals who had lived over a life time already, forgot that people who couldn't live forever were often in more of a hurry than they were.

"Just because Peter gave up his immortality for you doesn't make you immune to the pull, Thomas. The truth is that you don't belong here. And while Peter bought you time, that body still wants to return to where it belongs."

Thomas breathed in sharply. "R..return?"

"What you just felt. It was the pull. That was what it would feel like all the time if you really had been here this long. Peter gave you armour. A wall to keep it out. A pulse and lungs that need air, but you're not really alive."

"Yes I am!" Thomas shouted, his voice echoing around the vast openness of the park. "I bleed and I hunger and I can get sick-"

"That's a ruse, Thomas. Why do you think you wake up ravenous?" Gwen asked him, and she knew before his shocked expression that she was right. She had seen it before.

"How did you know?" Thomas whispered, suddenly silenced because she knew. She knew without him having to say, which must mean she was right.

"I've seen it before." Gwen said easily. "You wake up starving because every day is like starting out new. You aren't really alive, Thomas. You've been given the tools to fake it. But I can see right through that angel shell to what's inside. And that pull is going to get through again. Sometimes it takes years, but it will get through. Crippling you until you fight it off again. What you felt there was nothing."

It had not felt like nothing. It had felt like his heart had been ripped from his body with a blunt instrument for an instant. He was glad it had only lasted that long. But then...Thomas had suffered nearly a month of torment when visiting too often had caused the angelic body he had been brought back in to be inferior. His body has literally crumbled, but it had been a very slow process he had had to endure in silence without being able to move. Thomas Littleton knew pain. "It won't kill me?" That was all he was really afraid of. That this new life he had been granted would be ripped from him. He had things to do now!

Gwen shook her head. "No. It won't kill you. But you'll wish it would."

"You're fucking with me." Thomas glared.

"Why would I do that, Thomas? The hospital your best friend runs kept my mother safe for the last months of her life. My brother and my step father work there. I like Peter. I like your sister, Abby. I have no quarrel with you. And, it seems, you don't have anyone else who would warn you of this."

"Rolf didn't say anything."

"Rolf is an optimist who probably didn't know." Gwen shrugged again. "I wish it wasn't so. But messing with life does have it's drawbacks."

"I didn't ask for this!" Thomas yelled again then. It was true, he hadn't asked, and neither had Peter. There had been no deliberate 'messing' and it didn't seem fair, then, that there were consequences. "Is there anything else?!"

"I'm sure there is, Thomas, but I don't know all the specifics. You'll have to discover that on your own."

"Oh, gee, bully for me." Thomas hissed, and he pulled his jacket tighter again. "Thanks. It's been suitably horrifying."

"See you around, Thomas. Do watch your step while you're jogging."

"Yeah, I'll get right on that." Thomas stumbled away from her, his head so full of thoughts he couldn't settle on just one. What did this mean? Would he hurt a lot? Would it be enough to drive him mad? How long did he had until it happened more often? It had taken six months to get to him at all, maybe that meant he had a long time before it was more than just a momentary pain every once in awhile. And maybe, just maybe, that conversation had just been a supernatural taking advantage of an innocent enough situation by convincing Thomas of something that was never going to happen. Angels did like to play with humans, he had learned. God he hoped that was what it was.

To keep himself from thinking, Thomas shoved his earphones back into his ears and he listened to his husband singing to him as he walked slowly back home, all will to run utterly driven out of his body where now freedom and happiness had been replaced with fear.