I dreamed of you last night, in a field of blood and stone - MBV/HoW - PG13
Title: I dreamed of you last night, in a field of blood and stone
Fandom: My Bloody Valentine/House of Wax crossover
Disclaimer: not my characters; just for fun. Title from Springsteen
Warnings: spoilers for both movies
Pairings: Wade/Tom
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 1635
Point of view: third
Tom woke gasping.
“Hey, hey,” a soothing voice drawled. “Take a deep breath and calm down.”
He was on his back in the woods; through the trees, the sky was a clear blue.
The last thing he remembered-his mind balked, shying away. But there had been blood, so very much blood.
“That’s good,” the voice said. “Deep breaths.”
Tom listened, trying to calm his galloping heart. “Where-” he gasped out. “Where’m I?”
A large hand patted his shoulder and another gripped his own, pulling him up. “We’re at the in-between place,” the man said. He was kneeling at Tom’s side, long dark hair to his shoulders and a wide, bright grin on his face. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You get used to it.”
Looking around, Tom saw only trees and sky and the man. “Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m Wade Phillis,” he said, holding out a hand.
“Tom Hanniger,” Tom replied, shaking. “How’d we get here?”
Wade sat back, long legs stretched out. He shrugged. “I think I died. The last thing I remember is more pain than I’d ever felt before, and then this.” He gestured to the woods. “I haven’t gotten hungry or thirsty the whole time I’ve been here, and I’m pretty sure it’s been awhile.”
“So what do we do?” Tom asked.
Wade shrugged again. “There’s a lake about half a day’s walk that way,” he said, pointing east. “I built a shelter for when it rains, which is about every couple’a days.” He smiled, surging to his feet. “Wanna go for a swim?”
Tom stared up at him. “Is this real?”
Wade nodded, his smile gentling. “I don’t know where we are, or how we got here, Tom. I’ve just taken each day as it comes, as a gift.”
Tom took a deep breath. “Yeah,” he said. “I wanna swim.”
o0o
Days passed, weeks and months. Tom thought he’d get bored, but he never did. Wade showed him around the woods, all the way to the edge.
“I tried to leave,” Wade said, “at the beginning, but I never could.”
Tom stared out-beyond the trees, there was nothing. Just a mist.
“The in-between place?” Tom asked.
“Yeah,” Wade answered. “That’s what I call it.”
o0o
As they walked, they spoke of their previous lives. Wade told him about Carly and the wax museum and then the man who tortured him. “That’s why I think I died,” Wade explained.
Tom nodded, then began with his horrible mistake in the mine. He sank to the ground, back against a tree, and finished with, “They left me behind. Harry Warden had me cornered, and there was so much blood, and they left me behind-”
Wade leaned in, hands on Tom’s shoulders. “You can be angry,” he said softly. “You should be angry. A lot of people died horribly because of you fucked up.”
For a moment, Wade’s face looked like Warden’s mask. Tom blinked and he was Wade again. It had to be a trick of the light.
“But tell me, Tom,” Wade was saying, “did you kill those people in the hospital? At the party?”
“No.” Tom shook his head. “Warden did.”
Wade’s huge palm cupped Tom’s cheek, kneeling so they were eye-to-eye. “Have you forgiven yourself yet? You were a kid. They gave you too much responsibility, too soon. And you made a mistake.”
Leaning in even closer, Wade rested his forehead on Tom’s. “Let’s go swimming,” he whispered. He pulled back and rose to his feet. Tom followed and Wade gave him a quick grin. “Race you to the lake.”
He took off, long legs eating the ground, and Tom laughed, following again.
o0o
Tom could admit, watching the sun set from a treetop, that he’d never been so happy. Even before his mistake, there’d been Mom’s lingering death from breast cancer, and Dad’s drinking, and his life planned out for him.
But here, he had only Wade and the lake and no one telling him what to do or how terribly he’d fucked up. Here, there was no blood.
“Tom!” Wade called. “C’mon down, man.”
Tom smiled and scurried out of the tree. Wade met him at the ground. “It’s gonna rain. I didn’t want you to get struck by lightning. Let’s head to the shelter.”
o0o
They lay side-by-side, listening to the wind howl. “What if we never leave?” Tom asked.
“I like it here,” Wade answered sleepily. “I’d be okay with it. Life sucked, anyway.”
Tom bit his lip, thinking about Sarah. Thinking about Wade. And before he lost his nerve, he rolled over, leaning above Wade.
“Can I kiss you?” he whispered.
Wade’s eyes opened and he said, “I’d like that.” He reached up, hand curling around the back of Tom’s head.
o0o
“Tom,” he heard through the haze of sleep. It sounded like Wade, but sad. Heartbroken. “Tom, it’s time to wake up now.”
A kiss pressed to his forehead, arms tight around him, a warm torso next to his.
“No,” he muttered.
“I’m sorry,” Wade said. “But it’s time.”
A kiss to his lips, warm and wet, so desperate. “Goodbye,” Wade murmured into his mouth. “I’ll be waiting.”
o0o
Tom woke gasping. He tried to reach for Wade, but his hands were strapped down. The mattress beneath him was hard, the walls pale and undecorated, and a woman stood next to him, holding a clipboard.
She smiled at him. “Welcome back, Mr. Hanniger,” she said. “You’re at the Meadowlark Institution.”
He breathed slowly and deeply. He wanted to kill her for not being Wade. He wanted to weep. He turned his head and closed his eyes.
o0o
It took weeks before they let him sleep without restraints. He learned he’d been catatonic for five months and three days, and it’d been two years since Warden almost killed him. He couldn’t remember anything since that night.
Tom spent six years awake at Meadowlark Institution. He cycled through doctor after doctor after doctor, and he never told them about Wade, but he did mention all the times he wanted to kill people. He’d fantasized about killing nurses and other patients and the visitors other patients received that he never got, and he wanted to kill the doctors, too. He told them about the mistake and the hospital and the party, all the people dead because he’d been a forgetful fuck-up of a kid. He told them how he came face-to-face with pure, undiluted evil, and that evil fucking bled on him.
At night, he dreamed of Wade, those days of swimming and walking, the few kisses, and Wade’s body warm beside him, above him, in him.
o0o
“You had a psychotic break,” Dr. Norton told him. “You lived through a horrifying ordeal, compounded by your guilt. Your desire to inflict pain is being directed to others, but you mean them for yourself.”
Tom listened, but the words meant nothing.
Dr. Norton was the one who finally prescribed the right concoction of pills. Tom quit dreaming of Wade.
Once he got out of Meadowlark Institution, he meandered across the country, and ended up in Louisiana. For some reason he couldn’t remember, he looked up wax museums and learned about the serial murders of ’05.
He stared at the article that listed the victims. For some reason he still couldn’t remember, the name Wade Phillis leaped out at him.
But then it was time to take his pills like a good little boy, so he left the library and went to lunch.
o0o
Tom headed back home when he received word he had the controlling share of the mine. By that time, he had to take more and more pills for them to work, and he was still losing minutes, waking up in places hadn’t gone to.
So when the first murders happened and he woke with blood on his jeans, he knew the pills had failed. But he forgot in a rush of noise, and then Harry Warden locked him in the cage while he killed Red. So Tom kept taking his pills.
o0o
The night he realized he was Warden and that he killed so many people, Tom had a waking-dream of Wade.
“You can be angry,” Wade told him. “You should be angry. It’s not your fault, Tom. They left you behind to die.”
Wade pulled him close. “I’m still waiting for you,” he whispered, pressing kisses across Tom’s face. “Come back.”
o0o
Tom woke gasping, pain screaming throughout his body. He heard dogs barking, men yelling-they’d figured out he survived the explosion.
He rolled over, retching up only bile. He’d never been so exhausted. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, slowly rising to his knees. He had to take a break before he could stand, and then he swayed on his feet.
The faces of everyone he’d killed flashed in his mind. “I’m so sorry.” He staggered to forward a few steps and collapsed. He lay there, face in the dirt, head throbbing, and knew he’d never get a trial. He was no better than Harry Warden, and he’d been put down like a rabid dog the moment he was found.
A dog howled, very close. Tom thought about trying to move, one last attempt to flee.
“Got him,” a man’s voice snarled. “One of Sarah Palmer’s bullets must’ve got him; he’s dead.”
Tom smiled and waited.
o0o
“Tom, wake up,” Wade called. “You’re missing the most beautiful sunrise I’ve ever seen.”
Large hands shook him. “C’mon, man. Get up!”
Tom’s eyes blinked open to see Wade’s face, only centimeters away. “The sky’s on fire, Tom,” Wade told him. “You gotta come see.”
“Okay,” Tom said. “I’ll be right there.”
Wade grinned and pulled back, hurrying out of the shelter. Tom sighed and stretched, then rolled over and surged to his feet.
“Tom!” Wade yelled. “You’re missing it!”
It was a beautiful sunrise.