A/N: Thank you Ruth for the awesome beta.
This was first posted on livejournal, in case you should find it familiar.
Note: All sixteen chapters have already been written, edited and betad. I'm not just done uploading yet :-)
Long Way Down, Long Way Home
Chapter Seven
by
Steffi
At first Tom didn't know what he was supposed to do next. For some time he just lingered at the bus station, feeling lost, trying to figure out what would be the next logical step. Oh great, so was the situation asking too much of him already? Seemed like his future was going to be fun. He hugged his bag close to his body, it contained all of his possessions, everything that made him him, at least so far. Forcing himself to calm down he followed the other people inside the bus station. It was chilly inside, the fan at the ceiling running on full power filled the room with a dull humming sound.
Tom put down his bag and reached into his pockets, pulling out a crinkled piece of paper which he carefully unfolded. Two addresses were written on it, the one of his temporary home and the one of his temporary workplace. His new life, lovelessly scribbled down and crumpled up.
He scratched the back of his head nervously and hesitantly made his way over to the ticket counter, trying to look as small as possible, which – considering his height – looked quite ridiculous. Placing the paper on the desk for the elderly woman who was selling tickets to read, he pointed to the first address.
"Could you maybe tell me how I can get there?" he asked, desperately trying to sound nice. It seemed to work. Maybe he wasn't an anti-social freak after all? Well, that was an encouraging thought, at least. The woman behind the counter took the piece of paper, frowned and handed it back.
"That's not far from here. Save the cab money, you can get there by foot," she informed Tom, and gave him the directions. Down the street, three blocks, turn right. Tom thanked her and put the paper back into his pockets, then he stepped into the street. He stopped, the duffel bag was hanging from his shoulder now, to wait – even if he didn't know what for. A sign maybe. Anything that'd tell him "You'll do just fine," or maybe "It's not hard at all, you'll see."
Instead the only thing that happened was the noise constantly growing louder. The cars that were passing by braked and honked. The people that were hurrying up and down the street jostled him around. Their voices in shrill screams as they tried to drown out the racket coming from the street. The cries of children, bluster from the apartments above the shops. Tom covered his ears with his hands as the noise began to bury him, and he felt like screaming or crying. Instead he just closed his eyes as tightly as he could and remained silent. His heart was racing, pounding violently. Couldn't the people hear his heartbeat? It felt loud enough. Little pearls of sweat emerged on his forehead, his body shook. Damn, couldn't he ever pull himself together? This was horrible.
He forced himself to open his eyes and uncover his ears. Instantly the noise swamped him. Tears of despair began to burn in his eyes, he just couldn't do it, he'd never be able to handle this. He wished himself back into the safety of the hospital, maybe there was a way to go back there? Maybe if he made them understand he couldn't do this, all on his own, maybe they'd help, maybe they'd allow him to stay a little longer...
The moment Tom thought the idea through he knew that was next to impossible. He wasn't suffering from any disease, he wasn't hurt – they couldn't help him any more. He was on his own and he would have to learn to manage these things, his new life. He felt like he wouldn't ever be able to do that, not in a hundred years, what if he failed? It scared him, pushed him till he was on the verge of a panic attack.
All he wanted to do was to hide somewhere. He wanted to lock himself somewhere and pull the blanket over his head and pretend things would turn out just fine. But to do that, he needed to find his apartment. With the prospect of some well-deserved loneliness he made for the direction the lady had pointed him in, soon he was almost running.
It didn't take long until he'd left the bus station behind and reached the building where he was going to be living. He stopped and tried to catch his breath, bent over with hands on his knees. For a moment he thought his lungs were going to explode, but soon enough his breathing had settled again and Tom rang the doorbell. The name of his landlady had been on the piece of paper. Nothing happened. Tom rang again, then the door made a buzzing sound and Tom was allowed in. He pushed the heavy wooden door open, and found himself in an old, dark hallway that smelled like bleach. One of the doors leading to the apartments was ajar. "Come in!" he heard a woman voice call. Tom did as he was told, and closed the door once he was in. The apartment fulfilled his expectations, it had clearly seen better times but everything was in neat order, from the old photographs on the shelves to the rag dolls that were looking at Tom from the couch. From the kitchen a woman now entered the room. Tom reckoned her to be in her forties. From her wrinkled face – which was framed by a mop of raven and badly done permanent waves of hair – friendly eyes set their gaze on Tom. She was wearing an old pair of jeans and a shirt that had probably been very trendy in the eighties. All in all, she seemed like an agreeable person.
"I'm Susan." she said, offering her hand to Tom, "You must be Tom."
He nodded, "Nice to meet you."
She laughed and rested her hands on her hips. "I say we take a look at your new place then, eh?" When she noticed the rather small size of Tom's luggage she frowned. "Is that everything?"
"Yeah," Tom replied, shrugging. Susan pursed her lips and shot Tom a pondering glance, then she disappeared in what Tom guessed was her bedroom, and returned with a pillow and a blanket. "You should buy your own stuff tomorrow or maybe the day after, but for now you can borrow this."
"Thanks," Tom felt his face going the colour of a tomato. Why hadn't he thought of that?
The apartment – a small room with a kitchen and bathroom connected to it - was on the third floor, also known as the top floor. The wall paper looked old, some parts were yellowed, but it didn't bother Tom. The windows looked out onto the street, and its red curtains seemed to date back to around the same time as the wall paper. And the carpet.
Tom did exactly what he had planned. Once Susan left he climbed onto the bed in his new strange room and buried himself underneath the blanket. He wondered what his room at home looked like. If only he could have remembered. The noises of street life were soaring up to him in his apartment, a police horn howled, in the apartment next to his he could hear laughter. And apparently the TV was on. It smelled peculiar, Tom thought. Everything here was peculiar. And all he wanted was to find a, no, his home. His real home.
He didn't get any sleep that night. Lying on his back, he stared at the ceiling, waiting for the hours to pass. Waiting for dawn. Thoughts were spinning in his head and didn't allow him to fall asleep. When it was finally time to get up he rose with a feeling of being strangely tired and refreshed at the same time. He trudged into the bathroom, took a shower and brushed his teeth with the new tooth brush he'd bought the day before, yellow with red stripes – combed his hair or tried to at least, dressed and took a deep breath. The evening before Susan had explained to him how to get to his new work place at the record store. It was now or never. His new life was about to begin.
He locked the door – with his keys, hell, how weird and yet familiar that felt – and went down the stairs. He stepped out into the street and this time the noise seemed less overwhelming. Maybe because he'd had all night to get used to it from his apartment. He still didn't like it, but it seemed to be bearable now, at least.
He bought himself a cup of coffee. As he ambled by the little shops he found that today, on second view, the town seemed not that bad after all. He crossed three roads, walked across a park and finally found himself standing in front of the record store Penny had told him about. He threw the empty cup into a trash can, took a deep breath and entered.
The bell above the door jingled as Tom pushed the door open, but was drowned out by the loud rock music that was blaring from the speakers. Behind the counter a man in his thirties appeared. A cigarette was sticking out of his mouth and he put a pile of CDs on the desk which he started to sort carefully before he even turned to speak to Tom.
"How can I help you?"
"Well..." Tom began, gathering his last bit of self esteem, "I'm Tom. I was sent here for work..."
The man took the cigarette from his mouth and stubbed it out in an ash tray, "Oh right. The guy with amnesia, right?"
Tom shrugged, "I guess that's me."
"I'm Chris." The man introduced himself. "I'm the owner. You like rock music?"
Tom strolled over to the counter and sighed, "No idea."
"We'll find out in time then, I guess."
The first thing Tom found out was that he shared his shifts with two other temp workers. Both seemed to be his age. June had long, red hair and wore definitely too much eyeliner. She liked to talk about the meaning of life and the origin of the universe for hours if you let her. Mikey was a gangly guy who appeared to be two or three years younger than Tom. Mikey never talked much, and he was terribly and secretly in love with June. At least Tom was fairly sure Mikey was.
Chris himself had apparently decided at the age of seventeen to never grow any older. He loved to throw around witty remarks that only he found witty or funny, and somehow Tom liked that, it seemed familiar to him. Chris tended to be a little out of it and Tom couldn't shake the feeling that Chris liked to smoke weed after work. His relationship with his workers was a friendly one, though he would never let them forget he was their employer. Every now and then Chris would receive visits from various people he'd call his "friends". They would lock themselves in the back office, and proclaim that they were not to be disturbed. Tom, June and Mikey of course knew clandestine dealings were going on there, but that was none of their business – and they didn't want to lose their jobs. So they remained silent and ignored what was going on.
Tom was informed on his first day that it was custom to have a few drinks together after hours. He was invited to come along and he agreed, his apartment wasn't that beautiful after all - it probably didn't matter where he spent his free time. That evening Tom found out Mikey had a wicked sense of humour, and that June actually had some interesting stories to tell. For the first time in a long time he laughed, and didn't think of what was possibly lying ahead. When he returned home that night – it was weird to call the apartment 'home' – he felt a little, just a little bit less lost than he'd felt only this morning.
A new feeling rose within him, and the thought rushed through his mind that maybe, just maybe, he would be able to handle these things after all, that maybe the things lying ahead weren't that bad, and that maybe his future was holding more for him than he'd expected.
TBC .
