A/N: ohai. Remember this story? I should be working on biochemistry, but then inspiration became a thing. Fitting, seeing as I wrote the entirety of the original story in just over two weeks instead of studying for my organic chemistry final. This is set immediately after chapter 3.
He almost doesn't make it home. He's in no state to drive, way past too drunk and too flustered and too out of it to drive safely, and he knows it, but the thought of leaving his car behind at this fucking club and having to come back in the morning, face it all again in the light of day… In the end he can't do it. He's parked a couple blocks away, downtown parking still being a nightmare even at nearly one in the morning, and he uses the walk to try and clear his head. It's raining a little, a slight drizzle that's cold on his face, but he tilts his head up towards the sky and lets the droplets hit him, wishing for a moment that it would start raining harder, a downpour that could wash this fucking night away, wash him away.
He's not stumbling or staggering. He tries and finds he can even walk a pretty straight line, which is good. He feels more sober and alert in the cold night air. He knows he's using that as an excuse to justify a truly bad decision, but he's already made so many of those tonight, why stop at one more? He's fighting the image of Jude's eyes, wide and teary and full of shocked, betrayed pain, and he's fighting the memory of her body pressed against his and her husky voice in his ear moaning "I want you." He shivers a little, feels himself twitch. It's better outside, in the cool and the rain and away from the music and the people, but he's still all keyed up and tense and half-hard and he cannot afford to think about Jude, not if he wants to make it home without killing himself or someone else on the road. He takes a deep breath as he approaches his car, shakes out his hands and mutters, "You're okay, Tom," to himself as he walks around to the driver's side. He fumbles the keys as he takes them out of his pocket, dropping them on the asphalt, and picks them up quickly, trying to act as nonchalant as possible and pretend nothing happened, even though no one else is around.
By dumb luck or some kind of miracle, he makes it home without incident. He's not thinking about Jude anymore, not exactly, but he's definitely thinking about not thinking about her, which is almost as bad. He can feel the memories and the emotions pounding at the walls in his head, and he knows they're going to crash back in on him soon enough. He must seriously look like shit, because the guy behind the security desk in the lobby of his building asks him if he's alright. Tommy just waves a hand and makes a vague noise as he walks past in the direction of the elevators.
He leans back against the wall of the elevator with a sigh. As the elevator doors slide closed, he gets a flash of a memory. Jude, 18, stepping into this elevator with him and practically launching herself at him as soon as the doors shut. He can feel her lips for a moment, her soft blonde hair in his fingers. He can still picture the flush that crept up her neck after the doors had opened to reveal a distinguished-looking older couple. They sprung apart and Jude spent the rest of the elevator ride looking down at the floor in embarrassment while Tommy tried to repress his laughter. After that, when they got into an elevator alone, he would try to kiss her and she'd object for a second and then give in, but she'd keep her eyes on the doors as he kissed her neck.
He hisses a curse and slams his hand back against the wall of the elevator, snapping himself out of the memory. This cannot be happening again. For a pathetically long time after Jude left, every corner of his life would bring up memories of her. At the studio, at home, walking through the goddamn streets of Toronto, his brain could tie anything and everything he saw back to memories of Jude. He even seriously considered moving, despite how much he loves his current apartment, just to escape the ghost of her in his bed every night. Slowly, though, it improved, until he could go weeks without thinking of her, until only very specific things—hearing one of her songs on the radio, finding one of her guitar picks mixed in with his, folded sheets of lyrics she'd tucked into some of his notebooks—made it impossible to avoid remembering her. He was even able to work, after a few months, to sit in the studio and not imagine her next to him at the board or smiling him from behind the glass.
He's been doing so well, lately, but after tonight he can tell he's about to relapse. Hard. As he unlocks the door and steps into his apartment, she's all over. He's battling memories of eating breakfast and arguing over lyrics and making love to her, all interspersed with her jet black wig and her hurt eyes and the heat emanating from her body as she rubbed against him. He tries to block it out and walks to his liquor cabinet, pulling out a bottle and pouring himself a glass of something he barely glances at before downing it in four swift gulps.
He could've said yes. He probably could've even brought her back here. Sure, she was high, and maybe she wasn't his Jude anymore, and yeah, it would've only been one night and then she'd have left all over again, but it would have been one more night than he's ever going to get otherwise. One more night with the love of his life. He pictures her here right now, imagines peeling off that tight dress, pulling her to his bedroom, but the fantasy keeps getting mixed up with memories of the Jude from two years ago, of the Jude that was his girlfriend, the one he was naïve enough to believe he'd spend the rest of his life with.
It would have been awkward and painful. She'd have woken up hungover in the morning, then left and torn out his heart all over again, but maybe it would still have been worth it for one more night of her in his arms. He thinks of her voice on the phone whispering "I still love you," then slams the door shut on that thought as hard as he can. He's all kinds of pathetic, but even he won't let himself go that far, far enough to hope that if he hadn't screwed up tonight then she'd be here now telling him she loves him, that she'd ever leave behind her life in London to be with him. He hesitates with the bottle in his hand, but stops himself before he can have another glass, because it isn't going to help anyway. If anything, more alcohol will just keep him from being able to put up any of the walls in his head. He could drink enough to put him to sleep, but she'd surely be there, too, in his dreams.
So he puts the bottle back and heads for the shower, trying to think of work, of Mikala, of anything other than Jude as he strips off his clothes and turns on the water. Another memory—is it a memory? Maybe just an old, well-worn fantasy—of fucking her in this shower, her body pressed up against the wall, his hands on slick skin, water dripping from her hair, droplets in her eyelashes. He can picture her face, her eyes rolling back in her head, jaw slack as he thrusts into her.
Fuck. This is getting truly out of hand, now, and the more he tries to push it away the worse it gets. At this rate he'll never get to sleep, he'll stay amped up like this and toss and turn for hours in the grip of something on the border between dreaming and memory. There's nothing he can do about the hole in his chest, the fact that he's lost her, but there might be something he can do for the rest of it, for the physical tension if nothing else. His body is desperate for release, for fulfillment of the promises Jude's hips were making on that dance floor. So he leans into it, the fantasy, sharp hipbones and long legs and small, round breasts and his name a breathless moan from her perfect lips. He just wants to get off, finish fast so he can get it over with, but her dilated eyes are there, teary and betrayed, and she's pressing a last kiss to his cheek before she walks out on stage to beak his heart, and it's not working so he goes deeper, simultaneously indulges an old repressed fantasy and an even older self-loathing. She's got dyed red hair and a short skirt and eyes full of self-doubt. She's admitting to him that she's never had a real kiss before, and then he's pulling her to him and kissing her hard and it doesn't matter that she's not even sixteen. Dark red hair in his fist and bright red lips wrapped around his cock as he fucks her pretty mouth.
He comes with a groan, so hard his vision goes grey for a second, then leans both hands and his forehead against the slate wall of the shower, letting the water run over his back as his breathing returns to normal, his muscles relax, and the hollow ache slowly fills him up. He turns the water as hot as it will go, hot enough to hurt, and he stands under it for as long as he can tolerate, then turns the tap all the way to cold and only turns it off when his teeth are chattering.
When he goes to step out of the shower, he notices a purple razor sitting on one of his soap dishes, and some sort of fruity scented body wash next to his shampoo. He frowns. They can only be Mikala's, but when the fuck did this happen? He glances over and confirms his fuzzy memory that she's got a toothbrush sitting next to his on the counter by the sink. Now that he thinks about it, he can recall at least four other things of hers he knows for sure are in his apartment, and have been for a while. He thinks of her casual use of the word "girlfriend" to describe herself and wonders now if it was calculated. Has she been moving herself in? Not just into his apartment, but into his life? Has he been letting her? He thinks of Jude's face, backstage of the concert, the sick, stricken expression she tried to hide when Mikala kissed him, called herself his girlfriend, and he wonders again what she feels for him. I still love you…
But no. He stops that thought cold again, because he can't afford to believe she loves him. Even if she does, he can't afford to believe that means anything for their future. As he's thinking this, he trips over a pair of Mikala's shoes in the corner of his bedroom and kicks them away with a surge of disgust. How dare she? How dare this woman try and push her way into his life? The thought is deeply unfair, probably truly awful, but he doesn't care. He's disgusted by the thought of her, furious at how far he's let this go. She's trying to encroach on a space meant only for Jude, and he hates her for it. He doesn't think about how Mikala is funny and sweet and dead gorgeous, doesn't even try to remember how good the sex is, he just thinks about how she isn't Jude. What does it matter that Jude is gone? So what if it's been over a year? He doesn't want to move on, doesn't want to replace her. He never wants to love again, never wants to fill this hole, he just wants to stay here in his apartment and wallow in memory and fantasy. He'll fill the spaces she left behind with ghosts of her, and that way she won't really be lost.
He stumbles as he tries to pull on a pair of boxers, and he hits his back on the corner of his dresser. It'll be a hell of a bruise in the morning, but for now he barely notices. Alcohol and fatigue and emotion have turned his brain into soup and are slowly doing the same to his body. He basically falls into bed, and as he does he decides he'll break up with Mikala in the morning. As he succumbs to exhaustion and sleep starts to pull him under, he wonders if he'll break her heart. He thinks of Jude's hurt eyes and wonders if he's broken hers.
He wonders if his will ever be whole again.