"Sooooo you seem to know what all that was about." Tom drawled, gaze gliding towards Thomas, whose LED eyes shifted uneasily to Edward standing in the corner before settling on Tom.

"Somewhat, yeah." he admitted, hands nervously fiddling with his fresher shirt (that he'd gotten from Tom that morning) now that his gun was safely holstered.

The younger man raised an inquiring eyebrow, "Want to explain?"

Thomas tensed a bit and Tom sighed, stealing a peek at Edward as well. It was strange, the position that he currently found himself in. A day ago he would've stood staunchly against Thomas, but in just a night his perspective and attitude had shifted immensely in respect to his future counterpart. And it seemed that after his own attitude had relaxed, Thomas' had as well. He seemed slightly more open to Tom and the constant tension in his frame had lessened a bit.

And so Tom now found himself the most neutral party in the room. He'd never been the mediator of his friend group, that had always been Edd, so this entire situation was uncharted territory to him.

Surprisingly, Thomas did start talking after a few minutes of thoughtful silence, looking up at him.

"Matthew has... something like anger issues, I guess."

"What, like you?" it slipped out without thinking and Tom clamped his mouth shut. Thomas didn't seem offended though, simply giving a vague nod.

"A bit, except he doesn't actually deal with it at all."

Tom tilted his head, secretly wishing he'd thought to bring his flask with him. This was going to be a feelings talk, he just knew it, and he was much too sober for this shit.

Thomas shrugged, "Matthew... doesn't like anger. After his first few years with the Red Army he's been suppressing it as much as he can, not letting it show if at all possible. Before that it used to be... pretty bad."

"How so?" Tom frowned in slight concern.

Thomas wince, "He had... triggers I guess. Anything that reminded him of Edd, of his chin or his eye sent him on a rampage, sometimes he'd black out while going berserk and wouldn't remember anything after. Red Leader only put his foot down when he killed a fellow soldier. After that he started calming down, and then, well, he wasn't really angry anymore. Ever."

As he spoke Tom's sockets widened, a sick feeling building in his gut. 'Killed a fellow soldier'? What had stopped this bizarre dystopian stereotype of Tord from interceding before it had come to that? Just how lost had Matthew been in his own bitter, betrayed rage?

Thomas rubbed at his neck, making a complicated face, "Well, I say all that, but I honestly didn't pay much attention at the time, I was mostly told after. It's not like I really knew him back then, to me he was just another new recruit that Red Leader took a strange interest in, much like me." he shrugged once again.

Neurons fired in Tom's brain as he made the connection and gave a slight wince, "Ah, right, your amnesia. Did he-"

"What amnesia?"

Both Toms startled out of the conversation and turned to look at the corner of the room, where Edward still stood, now with an alarmed frown on his face. They'd honestly forgotten he was still in the room with them. As they tried to shake their shock, Edward approached them slowly, expression growing progressively more shaken.

"What amnesia?" he asked again, his intense stare now centered squarely on Thomas' face, who was caught in a deer-in-headlights expression and he unconsciously shifted backwards slightly. Edward paid the movement no mind as he became frantic, staring searchingly through the visor into Thomas' very soul, or at least that's what it felt like. Another step forward, his hand reached falteringly as if on reflex and his eyes shone with a manic kind of desperation, an absolute need to understand.

Thomas leaned further back, shifting uncomfortably as he tried and utterly failed to grasp for his earlier hostility as a last line of defense. He was too worn out emotionally to muster up that kind of self-deceit and aggression.

Finally Edward reached him, strongly grasping his shoulders as if afraid to let go. His expression seemed torn between horrifying realization, angry denial and a raw and wretched sort of vulnerability he hadn't displayed since he'd first laid eyes on Eduardo a week ago.

"Thomas." he uttered hoarsely, throat tightening around his airway as he struggled to get the words out, "What. Amnesia."

Thomas turned his head to side so he wouldn't have to look into those desperate, broken eyes, "That's none of your business, Gold." he retorted weakly, desperately trying to put any sort of distance between them.

But Edward wouldn't take it. His hands tightened around Thomas' shoulders and his stance lowered a bit due to his knees growing weak.

"Please." it was barely a whisper, raw and hoarse and tremulous and vulnerable in a way Thomas hadn't heard from him in almost a decade. It made him want to wince and shrink into himself and disappear from the face of the earth. It made a small part of him awaken and grow insistent again after years of slumber.

His loyalty or his regrets. He was growing torn, frayed at the edges of his standing and his beliefs. He was stretched out too thin over too many bonds he couldn't ever hope to truly sever.

Something somewhere was bound to snap.

He gathered himself up, held himself together with the barest tips of his self. He strained to keep himself in one piece, to endure under the pressure of years of contradicting feelings and so much pain.

His soul felt frayed and his heart felt hollowed out and the almost painful grasp around his shoulders reminded him agonizingly of-

"Stop." he whispered quietly, painfully, and after a moment the hands loosened before releasing him entirely.

He finally managed to look up at Edward, whose arms were now hanging at his sides. His face, so raw and open before, began closing off into now familiar apathy and for some reason he couldn't even begin to fathom the source of he wanted to stop that from happening.

"I..." he began, his mouth feeling suddenly dry and his throat tightening against the words, making him strain to speak. But Edward had halted in his entirety, waiting, so he had to keep pushing, "I... t-three years."

Edward frowned, face gradually becoming frantic once more, "What?"

Thomas swallowed dryly, "For three years... I remembered nothing. N-not you, not Matt, not us, not... myself..."

Edward's expression slowly twisted into one of horrified sorrow, "Thomas... but why-?"

Thomas shut his sockets beneath his visor and shook his head. He couldn't do this. Not now. Not here. This wasn't a forgiving Tom, he wasn't drunk off his ass, it wasn't the contemplative hours past midnight.

This was Edward Gold, he was terrifyingly sober, and the light of day illuminated every single detail of ugly, terrible, heartbreaking reality.

He stood up suddenly, still shaking his head and absently noting the tears streaming down his face.

He couldn't do this.

Something was bound to snap.

But he couldn't afford to snap.

Thomas turned on his heel and fled into the guest room, locking the door behind him. He collapsed on the mattress, curling up on his side as he fruitlessly tried to stem the tears. Eventually a shaking hand grabbed the visor and removed it. He winced at the white noise of sensation and the sudden, all-encompassing darkness before his body started shaking with sobs. He buried the heels of his hands into his sockets, silencing himself as much as he could. Only a few sobs escaped him.

It was too much.

He was stretching and stretching and there seemed to be no end to this. His edges were fraying and the invisible strings around his neck pulled and pulled and pulled in different directions and he couldn't breathe.

This place, these people, they were stripping him of every mask and lie and order he'd built himself on and around and his soul and heart suffered for it.

This place was killing him.

AN:

i was panicking cause id only planned until tom's little slipup and that was barely 600 words but never mind, the angst took over. at least we all now have a better idea of thomas' true feelings about all of this. and edward knows about the amnesia.

please feed a poor poor writer. comments are filling and inspiring!
and come talk to me on tumblr, I'm Lunahras over there too!