Disclaimer: Trust me, I do not want to make any claim to the show at this point. Author's notes at end.
Maelstrom
By Ryeloza
i.
After everything, it should be a hard choice.
ii.
The note trembles in his hand and without meaning to, he wrinkles it, smearing the delicacy of the ink and the tentativeness of the words. Reluctantly, he raises his eyes to the mirror, and maybe it should scare him that the person facing him is unrecognizable, but it just feels like he's finally seeing the person who overtook his body months ago. Finally giving a face to the foreignness of every thought he's had, action he's taken, choice he's made—because if he's totally honest, he hasn't felt like himself in a long, long time, so of course he doesn't recognize himself in the mirror. Of course.
He might be more scared if he did.
"What are you doing?"
His voice is rough as gravel, tight like he hasn't used it in weeks. He shakes his head, opens his mouth to repeat the question, but it dies on his lips as he glances down at the ball of paper wrinkled in his hands.
"What am I doing?" he mutters.
He drops the paper, forgotten on the floor.
iii.
He decides to call in sick to work on Monday even though he wakes up in better shape than most nights lately. There is no hangover, no headache, no lingering nausea at just the thought of dragging himself through another day. And even as he picks up the phone, there is no crippling wave of guilt to overtake him for his dishonesty.
When was the last time he enjoyed this job?
The thought flits through his mind haphazardly, and he thinks of private jets and conferences and schmoozing clients with hundred dollar bottles of wine…
It's gone before any one thought forms long enough to paint a memory, and without consciousness, he thinks of the old pizzeria—of the weight of the key in his hand as he locked up for the last time and let out a sigh that had been caught inside of him for years, of the way Lynette thread her fingers through his and squeezed his hand reassuringly, and of how even as everything was ending, none of it felt like regret in that moment of failure. And why? It had been nothing but years of hard work and little money; of stress and tears and long hours; of life and death and everything in between. For a long time after, he was just lost, and he always thought it was because he failed yet again.
Over and over and over…Since he tried to tell his mother the truth about his father's affairs and was met with complete apathy…over and over and over…Math his freshman year of high school…over and over and over…Every fucking job he'd ever made a go at…over and over and over…With Kayla, the restaurant, going back to school…over and over and over, endlessly, until now…
Until now.
He gets Glenn's voicemail, silence stretching after the beep until it's uncomfortable, but that night keeps flashing in his mind—Lynette's hand…the stars…no regret…
"Glenn, it's Tom…" No regret. "…I quit."
And the words stretch out, waiting for something that never comes.
iv.
He's packing when Glenn calls back, hurriedly cramming clothes into his suitcases as Glenn begs, bribes, and then angrily hangs up. It's nothing the younger man can understand now, and maybe he never will. Maybe he will never look in the mirror and know that he's become the worst possible version of himself. But Tom has, and right now it feels unfixable, something he can't undo, and some irrational part of him is flying off the handle, cutting off limbs and patching pieces back together in an attempt to create something better. Something stronger.
"I never wanted this job," he'd said right before Glenn hung up.
Truth.
Fact.
When he has packed up the remnants of this life, he leaves and he doesn't look back.
v.
He checks into a hotel.
It doesn't feel much different than the apartment.
Smaller.
He tries to figure out his finances, but abandons the job rather quickly. Spends an hour throwing a ball at the wall above his bed and trying to figure out his life. It feels rather like spiraling out of control, and he isn't thinking when he picks up the phone and calls his brother.
They don't know—his siblings. They don't know about the destruction of his marriage or the job or the fact that he has descended so far into hell he no longer knows which way is up. Their conversations are practical: what do we do about Mom?; is Dad spending Christmas with you this year?; how are the kids? Kids raised by parents who always, always pretended everything was okay. But when Peter picks up the phone with his usual perfunctory turn to small talk, Tom feels something inside of him snap and everything falls out, scattering like puzzle pieces he has no idea how to assemble.
"And I have no idea what to do," he finishes.
Peter is quiet, and his mind wanders to the day his brother came home from college and yelled at him for touching his comic book collection.
"Tom."
"Yeah?"
"Go home."
And he wants to say I can't. He wants to say Did you listen to a word I said? He wants to spit out any of a million excuses he has on hand, but for some reason, he doesn't.
"This isn't about a job. You can work anywhere. A job is just a job. You're miserable because you're not with your family."
"Maybe I am."
It's the closest he's come to admitting it.
It doesn't fix anything.
vi.
The week slips by monotonously. He orders room service. Watches TV. Makes a halfhearted effort to go over their finances and figure out what kind of hole he's dug himself by quitting. Doesn't leave the hotel.
On Thursday morning, his brother-in-law calls and offers him a job managing the new store he's opening. Blatant nepotism aside, it's a step down in every way—less pay, less prestige, no perks—and it's only peripherally related to anything he's ever done. And still, as Shawn lays the entire offer out in terms that are based solely in reality and have nothing to do with glamour or persuasion or hype, Tom feels grounded for the first time in a long time.
Impulse. Feeling. The best decisions of his life have been made following his gut, and so he doesn't think.
He accepts, and tries to envision himself running a flower shop.
vii.
Friday night. 7:55. His hotel room. He stares out the window at the night sky and wonders if it is possible to save a sinking ship.
viii.
He thinks of telling her he quit the job she wanted him to take so badly, even though he's slowly realizing that none of this was ever about the job.
He thinks of saying he's sorry. He is. For a lot of things.
He thinks of asking her if she thinks she can change. If she can give up some of that control. If they can go back to making decisions together instead of separately. If they can be a team again instead of enemies. Because she is right—it hasn't always been like this, and it wasn't so long ago that she held his hand and told him that she loved him and believed in him as he made a choice.
He thinks of holding her hand again.
He thinks of asking her if he can come home.
He thinks of telling her that he has changed. He has changed. Not back to his old self because he has destroyed himself too completely to remember how to go back. But he's not the man who left her at the beginning of the summer either.
He thinks of asking her if she can love this new version of him.
He thinks of telling her how much he loves her. Has loved her from the first moment he saw her.
And maybe it all needs to be said, but yes, he thinks—he'll start with that.
ix.
After everything, it should be a hard choice.
But it's not.
-Fin-
A/n: I really want to thank all of my wonderful reviewers. It is because of you guys that I came back and finished up this story. I want to thank you for all of your endless support because without it, I wouldn't have written so much in this fandom.
I can't say definitively if this will be my last Desperate Housewives fic or not, but as many of you have probably noticed, my passion and enthusiasm for writing in this fandom has petered out over the past few months. I felt the need to at least finish this fic, and as much as I'd like to promise that I'll finish my other WIPs as well, I can't guarantee it. I do apologize for that, as I know how frustrating it is to see fic go unfinished.
A million thanks to you all. If you have a minute, please let me know what you thought of the ending. It would still mean the world to me to hear your thoughts.
-Ryeloza