Tom was pissed.
He was also drunk.
Neither of these were new to him, but nevertheless they were both part of his present state.
Why, you ask? Well that would depend on which part you're referring to. Tom was drunk because he had an obvious drinking problem and had been under a lot of stress lately.
Tom was pissed because someone had taken his vodka.
Oh it wasn't the real good stuff, that was in a safe in his room along with Susan (except Susan was currently on his bed since he'd just been playing). But it was still his stash and no one had even asked for some and now three out of five bottles were suddenly gone. Poof. Disappeared. Vanished into the ether.
He was also pretty sure he hadn't drunk them and then forgotten because otherwise the empty bottles would have been in his room and, well, they weren't. So.
Someone had taken his vodka.
His suspicions currently lay mostly on Edward as he had been the only person in recent memory to take some of his... had it been gin? He wasn't entirely sure. And also because his critical and deductive thinking was currently somewhat impaired. Alcohol will do that to you.
Tom grumbled some rather unflattering things under his breath as he grabbed one of the two remaining bottles from the kitchen cupboard and headed back to his room. No sooner had he sat down on his bed, however, than he heard a loud thump and a groan from right outside his door.
He frowned in consternation and sighed, heaving himself up to an unstable standing position and walking back towards the door. He didn't immediately see anyone upon opening it, but another groan prompted him to look down.
There, lying on the ground in a pitiful heap and in the middle of a rather pathetic attempt at getting back up, was Thomas.
Well, shit.
Tom lowered himself to crouch beside the man who he hadn't seen since his rather eventful collapse. Thomas looked pretty awful. The old blue shirt that Tom had unwillingly loaned him (what the fuck Edd) was wrinkled and sported a few stains and wet spots, his hair was all over the place, his fly was open and his visor was askew on his face.
All in all he was a mess.
And his apparent disorientation, how his LED eyes squinted unevenly and the way he seemed to miscalculate his movements...
Tom's eyebrows went up to his hairline as he instinctively raised a hand to steady Thomas before he fell on his face again.
"Are you drunk?"
The disbelief and irritation in his tone went completely over Thomas' head as he took an inordinately long time to process the question and formulate an answer. "Naaawwww, just bit, bit buzzed. I don't, uhhhh..."
'Formulate' being a rather generous term here.
Tom mentally corrected himself. Thomas wasn't drunk.
He was absolutely hammered.
"Aren't you supposed to be clean? Sober for four years and all that shit?" Tom asked, hand still supporting the other man's shoulder as he braced himself on his right arm.
"Ahhhhh, y'know, fuck that. I just... just need another drink..." was his rather eloquent response.
Tom rolled his eyes and...wait, was that where his vodka had suddenly disappeared off to? Ahhh fuck this guy, seriously.
Ah.
"Wait, did you drink three fifths of my vodka stash all at once?"
Thomas gave a breathy giggle, "Hahaaaaaaai wish. Third fell'n broke. Too baaaad but I need... what was- a drink! The kitchen..." he startled up, attempting to stand but ultimately falling heavily back down on his arm. His other hand went to his head as his face lowered almost to the ground. "Fuuuuuck..."
Tom frowned. This was... off-putting. Not only had Thomas apparently broken his four years of sobriety, he'd downed what he presumed to be two whole bottles of the cheap stuff in the course of maybe an evening, stone cold. Plus Tom was pretty sure he wasn't such a loopy drunk usually.
He looked down the hallway but decided that the guest room and the bathroom were ultimately too far away for him to reliably carry the man around without having the both of them tumble face-first into the ground. With a grumble and a frown of displeasure, Tom lifted Thomas' torso as far as he dared and slowly dragged him into his room, leaving him to lean against his bed on the floor as he closed the door.
He grabbed a bucket in a corner of the room that was meant specifically for situations like this, although it was usually for himself, but he guessed they weren't that terribly off the mark in that regard. He was just in time too, since the moment he placed the bucket in front of Thomas the man proceeded to relieve his stomach of its mostly liquid contents. He spent a good five minutes bent over the bucket, heaving and panting from the exertion. Tom would've felt bad for him but he didn't have particularly generous thoughts in regards to this man.
Tom sighed, irritated by the unwelcome interruption to his evening, and grabbed his own bottle, sitting on his bed with his back against the headboard. Now he definitely needed the stuff. He spared a look at Susan, who lay abandoned beside him on the bed from when he had left her to restock for the evening. He picked her up, setting the bottle down on his night stand and in his immediate reach for later use, and started strumming the bass guitar. A random yet almost melodic sound filled the room for several minutes and managed to calm him down, his audience almost forgotten.
However he noticed a glace snuck at Susan and sneered, grumbling,"Play your own." as he kept on playing. The man looked back down.
"Why do you hate me?" the quiet question was sudden and made him flick a chord entirely the wrong way. Tom stopped playing and considered the older man for a moment, taking in his hunched shoulders, the wince on his face and the hand supporting his head and keeping it steady.
Maybe it was the quiet of the night or maybe it was the drinks he'd already had, but Tom decided his main mission today wasn't to antagonize the man before him. So instead he told the truth.
"I don't hate you."
A flinch, "But-"
"I don't like you. You're aggressive and violent, something of a traitor, you act like you're above everyone else. You're pretty much a version of me I never want to see myself become." he paused, "But I don't hate you. That'd take too much energy."
"Sure does seem like it..." Thomas muttered and Tom almost didn't catch the slurred speech.
He sighed, setting Susan down on his lap and taking a swig from the bottle beside him. "Look, I just don't like what you've... done with your life. And I can't really understand it either. And it makes me mad. But I also realized I don't really know anything on your reasons so..." he shrugged and gulped down some more cheap liquor in the hopes that it'd make him pass out before he said something about feelings that he'd absolutely regret in the morning.
There was a moment of silence as Thomas shifted, setting the bucket beside him as they both valiantly ignored the smell and laying his head back on the side of the bed.
"...he was th'only thing I knew for years."
Tom blinked. "What?"
Thomas' electronic lids fell shut, as if shutting out the world.
"Tord. I... I was going blind. Eye cancer's shit." he chuckled a bit, gaining coherency, "Edd- Edward- didn't want me on the field-"
"He told me." Tom interjected without meaning to. "Uh... about the attack. And you disappearing."
"...ah." Thomas was silent, as if considering his words carefully with the absence of his usual filter in place. "Something... happened in that battlefield. Maybe I hit my head, maybe the cancer progressed t'my fucking brain, I don't know. But when I woke up... I couldn't even remember my own name."
Oh.
Oh shit.
Tom was in no way equipped to deal with this, shit. Fuck his morbid curiosity, knowing the future was a fucking curse. Ugh.
"Tord... took me in. Had my cancer treated and brought to a stop mostly. Gave me back my vision." he traced a finger down the edge of the visor, "He said he knew me. That we were friends. So... we were. He was... the only link I had to myself."
Tom's hands had tightened to white-knuckled fists by this point, arms trembling slightly. From his vantage point he could barely make out the tremulous smile forming on the older man's face and it made him want to puke for reasons entirely unrelated to the now extremely tempting bottle sitting beside him on his night stand.
"I joined the Red Army because he wanted me to. I climbed up the ranks... he liked to praise me. It was nice. And then I'd mess up. That's when I left his office with bruises." his voice sounded increasingly detached, as if he was distancing himself from his own terrible tale. "He said he loved me..." was said in a hoarse whisper.
Tom was staring down at Susan on his lap, unable to look at the man. All the alcohol in his veins wasn't helping him deal with this at all.
"...why are you telling me this?"
That startled a laugh out of Thomas, shrill and wet and almost hysterical. "I don't know." he said, a tremble in his voice, "Maybe I just needed to tell someone who wouldn't fucking pity me. An absolute idiot in love with the man who lied to me, hurt me, turned me on my friends. And yet..." he looked down at the floor, shoulders trembling. "It was so stupid. I said I wanted to go back, and yet... I was hoping I could find him, the Tord of this time. That maybe... that maybe he wouldn't be so... so... cruel, so hurtful. Just... a stupid delusion. Classic stupid Tom..." by now he was sobbing quietly into his hand, a wet trail running down his cheeks from beneath his visor.
Thomas... represented a lot of things that Tom resented. There were a lot of things the man did and represented that Tom didn't agree with at all. But in that moment he couldn't bring himself to care, sliding down into the floor beside him and letting him grip the front of his hoodie like a lifeline.
He'd just blame it on the alcohol come morning.
But for now, angry and frustrated and confused, he let himself be a comfort to another.
AN:
i dont... particularly like how this chapter came out. that conversation couldve flowed better at least. oh well, here you have most of the full story behind Thomas' disappearance and subsequent betrayal. and also finally a crying thomas (about time). hes gonna feel all that vodka in the morning tho. natural tolerance or not, years of sobriety arent exactly the precendent you want to two fucking bottles of the cheap stuff (im stretching things here cause im relatively sure that would be absolutely lethal to a lot of people, tom just has cartoonish tolerance)
heeeeeey wanna know my creative process for this fic? 1. receive validation through comments. 2. ? 3. Profit!
(too on the nose? sry its like 2 am haha fuck me)