Chapter One:
"I could never give you what you want."
Thomas lay awake, a cigarette glowing between his lips, one hand cradled behind his head. In the darkness, alone, there was nothing but Jimmy's deep blue eyes and blonde hair and naked muscled back; nothing but his skin and his scent and his voice–
"I could never give you what you want."
–echoing 'round and 'round inside his head, the same as it had every night since he spoke those words to a battered and beaten Thomas.
Thomas blew a stream of smoke between his lips, then rolled over and crushed out the cigarette. He watched the remaining embers fade and die out.
"I could never give you what you want."
He closed his eyes, and tried to close his ears against Jimmy's words. But how do you shut out what's inside you?
"I could never give you what you want."
"Shut up," Thomas hissed at the disembodied voice as he pulled his pillow over his head, pressing it against his ears. "Just shut up."
"I could never give you what you want.
And in the darkness, alone, the other memories crowded in – the ones that were always there, waiting for him to surrender; the ones he wished he could cut out of himself; the ones he wished he'd never made.
A blood-soaked bed, a bloodied razor...
..."How? Why are you different?"...
...blue, unseeing eyes...
..."I just can't see it working, can you?"...
"Shut up."
..."Because of a youthful dalliance? A few– a few weeks of madness in a London season?"...
...the screams of men wounded and dying, the smell of the trenches...
"Please." A sob.
...the spray of blood and flesh as the bullet ripped through his hand...
..."You have been twisted by nature into something foul"...
..."I could never give you what you want"...
"Go away."