TOMMY

I know that if I open my eyes or move, I'm going to be in a world of misery. A quick sniff tells me that at least I haven't spent half the night passed out in a puddle of vomit in my own bed for which I'm grateful. Slowly, I pry one eye open, once more grateful to see that the curtains are drawn tightly closed and apparently someone managed to get me changed into a t-shirt and sweatpants before putting me to bed. I move carefully, feeling my stomach lurch in protest even as my head starts to pound. I make my way across the room to the bathroom, knowing that I need a shower to start feeling better.

It takes a while and few dry heaves before I'm sure I'm going to live and I finally drag myself out of the shower and get dried and dressed. I snatch up my sunglasses and head slowly downstairs, surprisingly unsteady on my feet. Where the hell is Zedd when you need him? Spends two months trying to pick me up and carry me around and the one time I'm actually unable to walk without falling on my face and he's nowhere to be seen. Come to think of it the house seems to be surprisingly empty. Once in the kitchen, I get a cup of coffee and sink down at the table. I wish I could say I don't remember last night, but I do - including every mean word I said to Zedd, which may very well account for his absence right now. It's like it's the only time that my Swiss cheese memory actually worked properly - when I was drunk. Hell, I still remember how I treated Jason and Hayley the first time I got ripped after the funerals - and I was an ass then too.

Between the misery of missing my parents, the misery of hurting Zedd and the misery of the hangover, I feel awful. Also, as I realized yesterday, I can't expect to come back every year. I just need to suck it up and get over the fact that my parents are gone, I probably won't see Sam and David again, or Jason and the rest of the gang. It's just not practical to try and come back every year. Depression suddenly hangs on me like a proverbial wet blanket. Even if I died right now, I can't even be buried next to my parents. As far as I know, the spots on either side of them are taken by other families.

My thoughts continue to spiral down completely out of my control, becoming more and more depressing. I abandon my coffee, head back upstairs and crawl back into bed. I don't know how long I'm lying here - could be ten minutes, could be three hours - before Zedd comes in the room looking far more worried than I can ever recall seeing him. "Thomas, love, what is it? What's so bad?" Fuck, the bond. I feel him sit down on the bed, kick his boots off and curl up with me. In a moment, his fingers are coasting through my hair. "Talk to me, please."

I shrug.

"Thomas, please."

"Everything."

Frowning and looking at me carefully, he seems to think this over for a moment before answering slowly. "Everything? That's a lot of things, love. Surely there must be at least one thing that's not bad….I would say me, but I think that ship has more or less sailed many centuries ago." Funny.

"I wanna go back to sleep."

"Okay, do you want me lay with you?" Shrugging as I'm honestly not sure what I want at the moment, I can feel him sigh more than hear it. "You have to work with me at least a little bit here, love. I know I'm almost the image of perfection and all, but again, a mind reader I am not."

"I don't know what I want." For the first time since my parents died, I actually consider heading back down to the garage and seeing if there's any booze left and having at it. When I did try it all those years ago, Jason and Hayley stopped me, chances are Zedd will do the same, but I suppose it's worth a shot. "Did I leave any alcohol last night or did I finish it all?"

Narrowing his eyes and clearly not pleased by that question, his answer is given carefully. "I believe there might have been a bottle or two left. I'm fairly certain that they aren't there any more, though. Why?"

"Want them."

I can feel how shocked and stunned he is through the bond now that he's so close. "Why?"

"Don't want to think, don't want to feel - I don't even want to be right now."

His tone softens. "Why not, Thomas? I thought you were supposed to be feeling better today? Fairly ill to your stomach and with a nasty headache, but emotionally better at least. Or so Jason led me to believe."

"I was until I started thinking."

"What were you thinking about that got you so distraught?"

"I can't come back, you know. Won't see any of them again. I know that I want to be with you and I'm sorry I said Goldar and Scorpina weren't my family, because I know they are, but I'm still going to miss my family here. Jason, Sam, David, Hayley. I'm never going to get to see them again and it hurts."

"Whoever said that you can't come back and see them again? I'm not going to keep you from your friends, Thomas, nor your family. If it's a matter of getting you back here, I'll bring you whenever you want or get you your own ship, just as Pina, Dar, and I have our own. There's no reason for you not to be able to see them whenever you want."

"It's not practical, Zedd. You can't stop running your business two months out of every year so that I can come back and see people. You and I wouldn't be comfortable having a separation of that length and distance. It makes no sense."

"Is that what this is about? Thomas, love, you have got to stop doing this to yourself. This overthinking thing that you do is going to end up killing you one day. First of all my business is, as you said, MY business. I can come and go as I please and in my absence Dar and Pina are more than capable of handling things. Second, as for us being separated, that may change in another year, Thomas. The bond is still very new and thus the desire to be side by side constantly is still very strong, but that does fade after time and getting used to it. We very well might be able to endure that type of separation much sooner than you think. Not saying I won't miss you or be very clingy when you return, but still I think I'll survive while you go see your friends and family."

"It doesn't matter" I answer listlessly. "Right now, I don't care. Quite frankly, I'm surprised you can even stand to be around me, considering the things I said to you and about you last night." Because, yeah I just got worse after telling him I'd knock him out.

"Not all of what you said was entirely untrue" he replies. "Although, I found it quite a knock to my self esteem that your mother would only rank me third most handsome." I roll my eyes at that. Egotistical ass. "I am sorry for your losses, Thomas and I know there's nothing I can do to ease your pain, but you should know as well that I'm not going to let you go out and destroy what's left of your liver before your powers have time to heal the damage you already did last night. You're not me, nor Dar, and from what I've seen and understand of you, drinking is not something you do often or have built up an extreme tolerance for like we have. I'm sorry, but I love you too much to watch you try and destroy yourself again today."

"Everybody's sorry for something." God, I really need to get my mouth under control before I say something I can't take back or can't be forgiven. "It shouldn't still be this hard, Zedd."

Silence falls for a minute and he takes a breath. "I do understand a little about how you feel, Thomas. I don't talk about it, but there was a matriarch, you call them 'grandmother' I believe, in our family that favored me. No matter how I misbehaved, she always took my side. Told my father that my actions weren't all that out of line for a boy like me who favored mischief over perfect behavior. Said I wasn't all that different from himself when he was young, he just thought he hid it better. I didn't actually hide it at all, but still. It was a great blow when she passed... think that's about when my behavior got truly out of hand to be honest."

"It sucks. I mean, my parents weren't stuck with me - they chose me. That made it - I don't know - more special somehow. They could have picked any baby there. Mom always said that she took one look at me and knew that I was the one they had to have. I don't know if it was true or not, but it always made me feel good."

He's quiet again for a minute. "Tell me your favorite memory of your parents."

I feel the sad smile break out on my face. "I was about ten years old or so. We'd gone somewhere for vacation where there was snow. I'd lived in California all my life and hadn't really seen or played in snow before. I'd spent the whole day sledding with some other kids that I'd met there. Dad had been skiing all day. We got back to the cabin at the same time. Mom had spent the whole morning baking cookies and the house smelled awesome. Dad and I went and changed into warm dry clothes like she said to and we had soup and sandwiches for early dinner and then spent the rest of the day eating cookies, having hot drinks and playing games by the fire."

"That's the kind of thing that they'd want you to remember, Thomas. I'm fairly certain that they wouldn't want you to spend the rest of your life grieving for them."

"I'm allowed one day a year, Zedd. After their funerals, I got drunk and Jason and Hayley found me the next morning passed out on the floor. Odds are, if I'd finished the bottle in my hand or they hadn't found me soon, well, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. Once I sobered up, they tore me up one side and down the other. Tried to say that I was suicidal - especially since I kept trying to get the last of the bottle back. We finally agreed that I get this one day every year as long as one or both of them were available to be with me so I didn't die."

"This is why you shut your emotions down for over a week before we came, isn't it?"

"Yeah. I had to or I was going to want to get wasted then and you wouldn't have had a clue what was going on or why. And I wasn't going to be in any kind of condition to explain it to you."

"I'd let you meet my parents if it would make you feel better, but chances are you'd just end up furious and threatening to burn their estate to the ground as Pina and Dar have in the past. Think the only reason they didn't is because it's technically still under my name when they pass away as the eldest male heir, and they figured I'd want the honors of starting the fire."

Looking at him for a moment, I shake my head slowly. "You lead a very odd life, Zedd."

"Probably no more odd than yours seems to me, love." He kisses me lightly. Hmm, this would be a better way to avoid thinking than the alcohol - and certainly just as addictive.

When he pulls back, I ask quietly, "Where is everybody, Zedd?"

"Left for a while. Jason and Hayley took Pina and Dar down to her café, I believe. I think Jason's still upset with me."

"We'll deal with that later." I pull him back down against me, kissing him again. "Help me stop thinking, Zedd."

"Thomas, I'm not sure this is the wisest of ideas if your stomach is still upset."

As if to prove his point, my stomach rolls uncomfortably. I sigh and roll back on my side. "I guess you're right."

"Love, I will do almost anything you ask of me to make you feel better and when your stomach settles, I'll do this and gladly."

"No, I know." He curls back up with me. Just the fact that he still seems to want to be with me, in spite of the things I said, is reassuring - kind of. Once more, he's having to put up with a lot of crap from me and because of me. I was worried about our relationship being unbalanced because of how he was treating me and then I go and treat him ten times worse. Again, he would have been better off if I'd died - or at the very least if he'd refused to mate with me when I was evil. Pain squeezes my heart and by the way his body jerks, he can feel it too. Fucking bond.