Take Me Out

7- Don't Kiss Me

warnings: smut, angst, & fluff

***

Tom follows you up the stairs to the second floor of your townhouse, where your office, bedroom, and bathroom are.

He's not entirely sure why you invited him up. But he goes along with it, watching as you toss your purse on the dresser, unzipping your dress, your body is still stained with Kline's blood. You look like a corrupted angel in your white lingerie, stained dark red.

Tom laughs at his stupid metaphor. You turn around, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Is something funny?"

"No, not at all, I was, it's stupid."

"Then keep it to yourself," you roll your eyes and Tom takes a step back as you walk around your room, grabbing a towel from your closet.

"What are you doing?"

What a stupid fucking question, Tom feels like an absolute idiot for asking. Obviously, you're going to shower, you're going to wash the sins of what he did off your body. You're going to clean yourself of him.

"Showering, obviously?" You ask, as if Tom is the dumbest person alive. At the very least he is most definitely the dumbest person in the room.

"I should go."

"No, there's something I need to talk to you about, I'll be right back."

You, in fact, don't come right back, but Tom doesn't blame you. If he was as covered in blood as you were, he would have spent hours in the shower scrubbing until his skin was rubbed red and raw.

That's precisely what you do, and when you get out of the shower, you're shivering because you look like you've practically rubbed the top layer of your skin off. Of course, you're going to be cold. He changed into a different shirt, the one he was wearing previously has blood on it, Tom tries to ignore the smell of ash and smoke that radiates throughout the entire room. Seemingly blurring his vision and suffocating him. It takes everything inside him to take deep breaths in counts of three, his heart rate never going back to normal as he waits.

Tom has hardly moved from his spot in your bedroom since you left for the shower. He shifts uncomfortably as he tries to strike up a conversation.

"So, about tonight."

"About what, Holland? About how you wanted to be a fucking hero? I could have fucking died!" You shout at Tom, holding the towel tight around your body.

"But you didn't!" Tom shouts back, tossing his duffel bag on the bed. He doesn't understand why you're so mad at him, why you're taking out your anger on him when Jake is the reason behind everything.

"All you had to do was tell me! Tell me that Jake changed my needles, and I could've replaced them."

"I didn't- I wasn't sure if Jake actually switched them. So I was preparing for the worst case scenario," in Tom's mind, this is logical and it makes perfect sense. He didn't want to start trouble with someone like Jake if he could avoid it, meaning anybody who happens to get hurt in the process is collateral damage.

"You realize that if you told me, we could have avoided me almost dying."

"You know, you would think someone like you wouldn't be afraid to die," Tom mumbles under his breath. You know exactly what he says regardless of how muffled he tries to sound. The townhouse is otherwise eerily silent, you don't bring home the ghosts of the people who you've taken out.

You shake your head, furious at Tom. You figured when you first met the scared trembling boy that he was different. That he would be unlike any other man you worked with. But it turns out he's exactly the same.