Terry, Tommy- Mid afternoon

[x-traitor.livejournal.com]

Terry comes back to visit Tommy after finding out what he told Clarice and asks him about the thin line he's walking. He doens't have an answer.

and I don't have the time
to waste on you anymore
I don't think that you
even know what you're looking for
For my own sanity
I've gotta close the door


Tommy had given up on reading. Seemed whenever he was in the middle of something, someone interrupted him. So he lay back, moving in-between staring at Coca, who sat on his chest, and the ceiling.

Terry had pleaded with Jean to let her in and figured that it probably wasn't so much the words as the state of confusion that had convinced the doctor. She knocked on Tommy's door and slipped inside without waiting for a response or an invitation. Of course, if he knew it was her, she probably wouldn't have gotten one. "I need to ask you something."

Tommy sat up quickly, wincing at the sudden pressure on his ribs, Coca being spilled onto the floor. "Terry, what are you..." He saw the look on her face and shut his mouth. "What?" He added quietly, though he knew he would regret it.

She looked at him silently for a couple of moments, talking herself out of turning around and leaving again. She needed to know and more than that, needed to know what it meant. "Were you lying to Clarice?"

He settled himself a bit more into a sitting position, buying him some time before answering. Then came a quiet "No" Tommy not meeting her gaze.

"You know that I'm a mutant, right?" Terry asked desperately, pacing agitatedly forward, hands gripped together tightly. "I'm just like almost everyone else here. I'm one of the few who inherited it even. How can you not hate me too?"

Tommy still didn't look at her. "I know...and I don't know. I just...I couldn't let Josh or Duncun hurt you. They...they wouldn't have stopped."

"Tommy..." she sighed frustrated. "Look at me, please."

He closed his eyes. "I...I can't. You...you wouldn't understand..."

"Then explain it to me!" Terry demanded. "I can't understand it if you won't even try."

Tommy still wouldn't open his eyes as he explained, he couldn't look at her. didn't want to see her reaction. "At the fair...Josh would have killed you. He and Duncun...they took it as a personal insult that you tricked me. I'm not saying you did...but once I knew...I wasn't about to let that happen. It's why I broke up with you...I didn't want you getting hurt." Then his voice got rougher. "There, you happy?"

Terry flinched and dug her short nails into her palms, trying to stay focused. To think and not just react. "What would have happened? At the fair...if you had gotten there before Bobby, what would you have done?"

"I would have pulled Josh off you before he hurt you. He was stupid enough to start something in a public place, I could have used it to get him to leave...I wish I had kept track of him so nothing had happened at all."

"Don't you mean before I hurt him?" Terry's eyes narrowed. Angry that once again someone assumed that she needed to be saved, her voice was unnecessarily sarcastic. "That's what we do, right? Mutants are dangerous. We're a menace and have to be stopped."

"No! That he would have hurt you, damnit!" Now he really couldn't open his eyes, his hurt would have shown through. "You don't know what Josh is capable off. He *really* wanted to beat up on a mutant after I..." He shook his head. "Like I said, he took it personally you tricked one of his friends. He wouldn't have stopped beating on you until you were dead."

That wasn't that hard of a sentence to finish. "After you beat up Jay," Terry said flatly. "You said yourself that I tricked you. And you still haven't told me why you don't hate me for it. You hate Jay for no reason at all. I gave you a very good reason. What's wrong with you?"

"I never said you tricked me. That was how Josh and Duncun felt." He opened his eyes again but looked up at the ceiling. He wasn't about to explain to her why he hated Jay so much...beside that at his concert is where Tommy found out he had to give Terry up. "Apparently everything."

"Oh, fuck Josh and Duncan. I chose not to hurt him." Terry shook her head, "You didn't answer my question. Why don't you hate me? What is it that exempts me from being an evil mutant?"

Finally, Tommy turned to look at her, pain and desperation in his eyes. "I liked you, alright?! I honestly truly liked you! You weren't one of the dulled minded FOH girls who only wanted to date me because the upper level members liked me. You weren't set up with me by my parents. You had a brain which I admired, not to mention beautiful. I could have a conversation with you! You don't know how rare that was for me!" He sighed and rolled his eyes before looking away again.

Well, Terry thought as tears welled up in her eyes and she choked on a sob, she had demanded to know. It took her three tries to speak and her voice trembled as she did. "I'm still a mutant. If it wasn't for Josh and Duncun, would that have mattered to you?"

Tommy too had tears in his eyes but he wasn't about to turn and show them to her. "Honestly...I don't know. But still...even If I couldn't be with you...I wouldn't let anyone hurt you, mutant or not."

Terry had come down here to be less confused but she'd only ended up more so. Taking a deep controlling breath, she ran her hands through her hair. "I still don't understand you. I don't know how you can think like this."

He shrugged, still keeping his gaze away and resisting the urge to wipe his eyes. "You think it's any easier for me?" He knew he could ask her to leave...but he couldn't make himself do it. "I know it's confusing, it is for me too! But something about you...you saw me for more then the FOH...and I couldn't hate you nor let anyone hurt you..."

Terry crossed the space between them and rested her hand on the bed. "If I can not hate you for what you are. And you can not hate me despite what I am...why can't you see us all as people? That's all we are."

Tommy closed his eyes and didn't say a word.

Terry sighed. "Obviously not to you." She turned away. "I wish you could see why you're wrong."

Staying silent, Tommy looked down to the floor on the other side of the bed to look for his poor displaced rhino. Damn, he really was getting to attached to the damn thing.

When she didn't get a response she just shook her head again. "I guess it's good in a way. If you hadn't turned out to be what you are, I'd probably still be seeing you. And then I wouldn't have Bobby."

That hurt. He knew she'd moved on but he stilled didn't like to be reminded. Instead of say anything, he continued his search for the missing rhino, finally finding it, just in his reach.

His continued silence was becoming harder to bear and she glanced back over her shoulder to see him stretch for the silly stuffed animal. In a single step and a quick fluid motion, she'd picked it up and looked at it curiously before tossing it onto his bed again. "I wish I was a telepath so that I could see what you're thinking. Maybe I would be able to just give up on you then."

Tommy laid back in the bed, the Rhino cuddled in his good arm. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard before saying softly. "No you don't. I don't even like what's in my head right now..."

"If I thought like you, I don't think I'd like it either. I can't even begin to understand living with that kind of hate." Terry shook her head. "You could at least try, Tommy. It can't hurt."

"Yes it can. It would be abandoning everything I ever was...starting completely from scratch..." I'm not strong enough... Tommy thought to himself. "I think you better go Terry..."

"How about finding out what you are instead?" Terry said before shrugging and turning away. He'd asked her to go and she would go. And this time she'd stay away, it wasn't worth arguing with him--you couldn't save someone against their will. "Goodbye, Tommy."

He didn't open his eyes until she was out the door, and a few tears were released. Tommy sniffled quickly to get rid of them before anyone came to check on him. Then he laid back and attempted to fall asleep, anything was better then being awake and thinking at the moment.


--There's A Fine Fine Line, Avenue Q