aftermath

by elfin

 

Pulse racing, Tom pushed open his own front door slowly, carefully, hoping the random squeak wouldn’t choose tonight to make a guest appearance.

The blue wood around the mortis lock was splintered.  The Yale lock had caved more easily.  Someone had really wanted in to his place, someone who might still be inside.

To his left the kitchen was relatively intact, although someone had rampaged through three of his cupboards – there were pans and cleaning materials all over the floor.  But no real damage, no demolition. 

Silently he toed off his shoes and padded along the corridor.  Up ahead he could see straight into the redundant dining room at the back of the house; into his drinks cabinet.  It was open, a bottle of scotch lying on the floor – still in one piece and still relatively full from what he could make out.  It didn’t look like wilful vandalism, it looked as if someone was after something specific.

Stopping at the base of the stairs he listened, trying to ascertain if whoever had broken in - for what was looking more and more like a quick drink - was still in the house.  

A moment later he realised he could hear something… someone.  But not destruction; it sounded more like crying.

Cautiously, he stepped into the lounge and peered around the door, amazed and shocked at the sight which met him. 

Adam Carter, of all people.  Sitting on his couch, knees pulled up under his chin, bottle of vodka grasped in one hand like a lifeline, the other raised to his face, wiping away snot and tears in vain.  His sobs were guttural, every other one riding a hiccup.

His red tie was loosened, collar open.  His suit looked like he’d slept in it.  His white shirt had a clear stain down one side that Tom guess was a mix of alcohol and tears. 

Tom stood still, not a clue what to say or do.

Then, very slowly, Adam tipped sideways.  He curled in on himself, holding the vodka to him like a safety blanket as the remains of what Tom could have sworn was an unopened bottle of Stolichnaya dripped out onto the cushion under him. 

The past was the past, Tom couldn’t watch any human being in so much pain; even Adam Carter.

Closing the distance in three strides, he crouched down in front of the sofa and took a hold of the neck of the bottle. 

“Give it to me,” he instructed, tugging on it experimentally.

“No.”  Adam got the single word out, sobs muting to weeps as he turned his head into the soft cushion; shoulders hitching, body shaking. 

“It’s okay.”  With a sigh, Tom stroked one hand over Adam’s hair, smoothing the blond clumps out.  It felt almost natural to touch, even after almost a year.  Again he pulled on the bottle and found some give in the death-grip Adam had on it.  “It’s okay.  Whatever it is.  This won’t help.”

Adam nodded his disagreement but let go, let Tom take it and put it on the glass coffee table behind him, out of harm’s reach. 

“What happened?” he asked gently, hiding his fear for Zoe and Danny and Harry.  What else would have brought Adam here?  But then… would a death really provoke so strong a reaction in this man?  Such soul-destroying grief?

Adam stilled, and Tom wasn’t surprised by his next words or his sudden attempt to get up.   

And he was fast enough to get the waste paper basket under Adam’s face before he threw up, something which only seemed to upset him more.  There wasn’t much – liquid mainly, proof he hadn’t eaten in a while – and after wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, he pushed the basket out of the way and made an impressively determined reach for the bottle.

“No!” 

Tom’s sharp command snapped Adam’s head up, red-rimmed indigo eyes widening.  He wasn’t sure why he’d had that effect but if it worked….

“Stay there.  Don’t move.” 

He lifted the bottle and took it and the basket into the bathroom, tipping the contents of both down the toilet, flushing the mix away.  He threw the basket in the bath and picked up the empty bin from under the sink, taking that back with him into the lounge.

He was amazed to find that as instructed Adam hadn’t moved.  He was sitting in much the same position he’d been in when Tom had found him except that his head was dropped forward to his knees, arms wrapped around his legs.  Still crying, only quieter this time; less hysteria, more pain. 

Tom sat slowly down onto the sofa next to him, one leg tucked beneath him to turn towards his unexpected, uncoordinated guest.  Gently, he touched Adam’s shoulder before starting an up-down stroking of his arm to his elbow.

“What happened?” he asked again, voice low. 

The response came, mumbled but clear as crystal to Tom.  “They tortured me.”

Oh, God. 

“Who did?”

Adam moved his head carefully, left to right and back again, not lifting it from his knees.  “It was years ago.  Four… years ago.” 

Didn’t matter.  One week, one year, five years, a lifetime.  Tom knew the drill, knew enough to know that the memories wouldn’t fade.  Four years wasn’t that long.

He waited, hoped Adam would elaborate, at least tell him why this was happening now, even maybe why he was here on Tom’s sofa and not at home with his wife and kid. 

Or perhaps, thinking about it, he didn’t need to explain that one.

“I still wake up screaming.” 

Tom covered Adam’s linked hands with his left, reached up to stroke the fair head with his right.  ‘Of course you do.  And it’ll never end.  How do you do it?  How do you block it all out and present this face to the world?’ 

At least Adam’s lust for danger made more sense now.  Pushing his luck, over and over until one day it would break and take him with it. 

“We were holding a guy, last three days.  I… did to him what they did to me.”  Tom was amazed that Harry had let him get away with it; or maybe he hadn’t.  Deniable accountability was a phrase Tom was more than familiar with.  So had Harry turned his back and let Adam act out his own worst nightmare.

Raising his head an inch, Adam stared out at the dark fireplace on the opposite wall.  “Danny… kept looking at me like I was some kind of freak.  Someone…” he pulled one of his hands out from under Tom’s and wiped his nose with the back of it, “... someone to pity.” 

Then he wiped the back of his hand on his trouser leg and pushed his fingers between Tom’s, getting it wrong and finding himself one finger short.

“I’m not!” he declared suddenly.  “I lived through it!  I survived and I don’t… won’t let anyone….”  He trailed off.  And a couple of seconds later he put his head back down on his knees, sideways, bleary eyes finding Tom’s before closing. 

Tom kept up the gentle stroking of Adam’s hair for a couple more minutes.  Then he reached his arm around the narrow shoulders and eased Adam against his him, head pillowed against his chest.  There was no resistance; he was already half-asleep anyway. 

The leg under him was already going to sleep but Tom ignored it.  He sat in the quiet of his lounge, the faint stink of vomit surrounding them.  He kept up the lazy stroking of Adam’s head and back, didn’t try to move his other hand from Adam’s loose grasp. 

And it was if he hadn’t spent the last ten months thinking of this man with nothing but anger and bitterness.  Adam had taken his job, his team, his life, practically.  And that night of celebration he’d taken Tom too.  Only back then Tom hadn’t known about Fiona Carter and little Wes.

As absolutely certain as he was that he wouldn’t ever see Harry again, he’d been equally sure he’d never see Adam again either.  And maybe he should have been pissed that the first time the man of his dreams reappeared in his life, he’d broken into his house, drunk his vodka and thrown up in his living room.  But Tom was beyond holding grudges. 

He didn’t want to think about what Adam had told him – not about the guy they’d held, but about his own captivity.  The idea that someone could torture such a man – hurt him and watch while he suffered – was unbearable.  He couldn’t help the vivid thoughts of what they’d have done - of Adam curled into a ball, body beyond his control, in agonising pain, unable to stop it.  Adam tearing into the skin around his wrists and ankles, desperate to get out of the bindings, to get away from the ringing in his head – that terrible, perfectly pitched wail.

Was he rescued?  Did they take him from there, filthy, soiled and bleeding?  Or did he escape, find his own way to save his sanity before he was destroyed?  The question had to be ‘why’.  Why didn’t they get him out sooner?  Why had whatever operation he was involved in gone so very wrong? 

Tom dropped his aching head back to the corner of the sofa.  He could go around in circles and it wouldn’t change anything.  No point in taking up Adam’s anger, his pain.  Better to be a buffer, someone Adam could turn to and not see pity or ignorant sympathy in their eyes.

He was right – he survived it.  In tact.  Almost.  Who was anyone to take that away from him? 

Resting his face on the sweat-damp, blond head, Tom took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

 

 

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