Disclaimer: It is most definitely not mine. Author's notes at end.
Maelstrom
By Ryeloza
Part II
i.
He dreams.
He dreams the type of dreams that have him waking up in a cold sweat, heart racing as he blinks in the darkness and slowly reassures himself that reality is far from a nightmare. The problem is that it's not really reassuring so much as depressing—alone in a dark room whose shadows are still strangers he'll never be able to welcome—and his heart simply slows to the rhythm of a man far past broken. Not a night goes by now that his sleep is restful, and for a person functioning on the bare minimum anyway, it does nothing to improve his situation.
Some of the nightmares are old staples. Reruns of that day he discovered his father's infidelity and was abruptly tipped from boyhood to manhood without any say in the matter. Ones whose pictures fade instantly, leaving behind just the vague familiarity of despair in the pit of his stomach. And a particularly vivid terror of drowning underneath a layer of thick ice, unable to scream for help or find an escape, just staring up into the sun while the shadow of a person who can't—won't—help haunts him overhead. These, these he can handle. These he can brush aside after decades of practice, not quite managing to get back to sleep, but at least dozing until his alarm blares in the early light of dawn.
It is the others that torture him.
ii.
When he married Lynette he had two big secrets. The first was his dalliance with her best friend, a night made foggy from too much booze and regret; one he tried to pretend never happened no matter how many teasing looks Renee might have sent his way. A night he still tries to pretend never happened because that one mistake almost cost him everything.
The second was the careful mask he wore over the scar of his father's infidelity, hiding it so completely that he forgot it was there. At the time, it felt like just this fact he had come to accept about his father, a fact that Lynette would neither understand nor condone. Best to leave it untouched, unspoken, forgotten. Years later, when his father's own negligence brought the truth to light, he brushed it aside carelessly, never able to look too hard at the reality of the situation, and she never asked the one question that would have brought it all to the surface.
How did you find out?
It wasn't until his parents got divorced that it spilled out of him—the pain he had been hiding for thirty-some odd years. That night he drunkenly ranted, spinning her a tale of a thirteen-year-old boy who had stumbled across his father fucking some stranger in their family car; a tale of a boy who agonized over whether or not to tell his mother, finally breaking down and confessing, only to be told to box up the truth as though it didn't matter at all.
These things happen. It's not a big deal. He's still your father, Tommy.
It left him hurt and confused and alone. His siblings, already settled into grown-up lives, didn't care. There was no one else to talk to about any of it. And it took away his right to be angry. It took away his right to hate his father. That night, telling her all of these things that he hadn't talked about with anyone in his life, he was finally able to say it.
I hate my father.
And she knew. She bore that burden's twin—discovering her mother's infidelity at the age of twelve—and she didn't condemn his feelings or tell him to ignore them or brush them aside. She held him and poured him shots and let him go on and on and on and on…
Still, he never told her the rest. To this day, he hasn't explained everything. The string of girlfriends—beginning with Chelsea and ending with Annabel—who he barely cared about. Cheating on every last one because they were all so damn needy. So damn desperate for a commitment; for a diamond and a vow with no conviction.
So like his mother, overlooking every flaw just to be taken care of, even when they didn't need to be.
He has never told her that she was—is—different, and that is why he chose her.
Because she doesn't expect to be taken care of ever, even though it's as plain as day that she needs to be. For years, that has fueled him, propelling him forward and making him love her no matter how hard she pushes him away. And it's only just lately that he's begun to think that maybe it would be nice, just once, to hear the words.
I need you.
iii.
They want to send him on another business trip, and he agrees with all of the enthusiasm of a man desperate to escape. He declines the jet, though, ignoring the strange looks he gets when he announces he wants to drive.
Drive himself. In his car. With his baby's car seat sitting unused in the back seat.
He might as well have announced he plans to walk to the moon. They laugh. Whatever you say, Tom. Like he's an eight-year-old whose flights of fancy they're indulging good-naturedly.
He's beyond caring what they think of him, though. Just packs his car, turns on the GPS and goes.
Sends her a text: Going out of town. Be back Thursday, and tells himself it's only so she'll know not to drop the kids off this weekend.
iv.
The dreams only get worse once he's sleeping on a foreign hotel bed in Seattle. They aren't the familiar ones either.
Vivid and repetitious. Violent. He's with her and they're fighting, screaming and cursing and hurting one another. It is vicious, but not unbearable. Not until he grasps her, pushing her down on the bed and ignoring her hurried, angry cries get off me, and just going further, further, further, ripping off her clothes and kissing her protests away even as he can feel them on her lips and then…
It is a blessing when he wakes up, shaking and shivering and crying. Disgusted because he's half-hard and it sickens him that this is what his mind has succumb to after everything.
He hates himself.
v.
Things don't go well in Seattle. He's exhausted and short-tempered. When the vice president of the company makes a snide remark under his breath, his anger bursts like a balloon, and he finds himself cursing in a board room full of important people. The worst part is that he barely cares. Even when Glenn calls later and bitches him out in a way that no one has ever done in his lifetime, the most he can manage to do is stop himself from being careless and yelling right back.
It probably saves his job, but that brings him less satisfaction than it should.
vi.
The drive back is long. He leaves late at night, thinking that by the time he gets back to the apartment he'll immediately pass out—no dreams. The road weaves beneath his tired eyes as he blasts the air conditioner to keep himself alert (the radio stopped working after he accidentally-on-purpose punched it one morning). It's barely working, though—at one point he actually dozes off for a few seconds—and it's after that moment that he pulls out his phone and hits one on the speed dial before he thinks it through.
"Tom?" she says when she answers, and the hint of concern in her voice fills up his whole body like oxygen he didn't realize he needed. "It's after one. What's wrong?"
"I'm driving," he says. Even in his hazy mind it sounds stupid. "I'm exhausted. I just—I need someone to keep me awake."
Her voice sounds tight when she speaks again, and he knows she's probably only agreeing because it would be too hard to tell the kids she let him die in a fiery car crash, but her agreement is still the most welcome thing he's heard in weeks. "Fine."
There's this awkward pause because they haven't talked in (if he's honest) months, and he's too tired to figure out the right thing to say in this situation. He wants her to take the lead, to lead them somewhere safe, and so he's surprised when she asks, "How was your trip?"
"Miserable." He confesses before thinking it through, then decides he doesn't care. "I fucked up pretty bad. Glenn chewed me out over the phone."
"Oh."
"It was just a bad day. I—I'm not thinking clearly."
She's quiet for a moment, though she's probably not puzzling out his use of the present tense as he is. It's the truth, though. If he was thinking clearly, he wouldn't be driving at all right now. If he was thinking clearly, he wouldn't be on the phone with her. As it is, he's surprised when she says, "Do you remember the day I lost the baby lotion account? Michael called me into his office, ready to bitch me out, and you came with me. You said—"
"We'd take the fall together. Yeah. I remember."
"I was shocked. You know I was convinced you…hated me."
There is a hesitance in the last part that he's never heard before in this recollection they've shared a hundred times over. Usually in bed, her giggling softly and smiling that smile that is all his. He wonders what it means. He's too tired to figure it out. "I did," he recites like it's a line he memorized years ago. "But I was also in love with you, so…"
"Nothing's really changed, huh?"
Fuck, he is not in the right state of mind to be having this conversation. His mind twists with the soft cadence of her voice and the sadness there, mixing with the images that lurk from the hellish nightmares he's been having and colliding with his torturous, desperate longing for her. It's too much to deal with right now.
The moment passes before he figures out how to answer, and it feels like he lost an opportunity.
"Penny is getting her braces on tomorrow," she says. He voice is tinged with something false now, but he latches on to the conversation like a lifeline and lets her guide him to safety.
They talk about the kids for the rest of the drive.
vii.
He falls asleep the second he hits the bed, not even bothering to take off his shoes.
He sleeps for twenty-four hours straight, and doesn't dream once.
A/n: I am very interested (slightly anxious) to hear what you guys think of this chapter. It's definitely a darker turn than I usually take with these stories, but I hope it still works.
Thank you to everyone who reviewed the first chapter. I'm glad you enjoyed it so much (particularly the kiss scene, which was sparked by my utter craziness during the finale—me wishing, several times out loud, that Tom would just grab her and kiss her senseless at some point in that episode). It's always great to hear what you think, especially when writing stories like these where I'm trying something new.
In other words, you guys are completely awesome, and I can't thank you enough.
-Ryeloza