Summery: Tom and you had been divorced for a few years now. After custody of your shared child was revoked, you fell deeper into depression and coped with alcohol. It gets bad enough that your Ex Husband, Tom Riddle, tries one more time to save the mother of his child.
Warnings: Alcoholic! Reader, alcohol abuse, depression, Divorced AU, comfort sort of?? in his own way.
A/N: Andddd part two is out!!! Hope you enjoy! I listened to Tom Riddle's playlist while I made it, you can find here.
The morning passed by slowly. I was fed a light meal with some oatmeal, mixed berries, and toast. The maid surprised me at first, but quietly left after I had thanked her. I felt different with the morning sun on my skin and food in my body. Warm, cozy, but still weak. Like my body had realized I stopped torturing it and was now punishing me. I didn’t eat much, only about half of it. The weakness of my bones had turned my body into stone. During the day as I lay in bed, I felt unmovable then. As if the stubbornness of my stiff joints had turned me into a piece of furniture. Thoughts of my son encroached upon my every waking thought and dream. I lay half awake staring aimlessly at the ceiling. It was harder not having anything to do when you were sober. Like suddenly every failure and misstep in my life, my marriage, my motherhood, were a crushing weight against my heart. It felt heavy with my hand over it. Like somehow I could suck out every part of me that is weak, but choose to comfort it instead. I couldn’t bring myself to cry in the silence. Not with the shakes wracking through my body in tiny bursts through my tired muscles. At first, I had thrown up, a couple times I had. Each time feeling seemingly worse than the last, as if a part of my soul was drained down the toilet bowl with the rest of my rotted guts and stomach acid. Yet the most putrid taste I had ever tasted was the guilt. Mattheo…my baby boy.
The shakes only got worse as the day went on. When the maid came in to bring me dinner, I was on the floor leaning against the wall with my head in my hands. It was impossibly hot in here, like the sun was personally scorching me. I only wished I could sweat and shed the sins still evident in my face.
“Mrs. Riddle?” The young girl called quietly, I hardly glanced at her. I rolled my head to the side and groaned, fisting my hair.
“Just- just go.” I said with more irritation in my voice than I intended. I wasn’t mad at the poor girl. Not for calling me by a name I no longer possessed, not for being concerned or confused. I was angry at the world, for the pieces of it I had missed out on. My son's life this past year has been a blur of confusion and half drunken memories. Just a little high, just a little something to get through the day, and now I’m supposed to get through a life without it. The maid, Emily, lingered. I angrily glanced up at her.
“Go!” I shouted, a strong tremble going through my body with the velocity of my voice and every injustice in my life that had seemingly become a failure of mine. Emily flinched slightly at my voice, I regretted it. Groaning loudly in frustration, I thumped my head back against the wall as the maid hurried out. The tears came white and hot like a freight train down my pale cheeks. With utter sadness filling the anger inside of me, I was left confused and alone once again. Listlessly, I tucked my knees up to my chest and held myself together tightly. As if I could stop myself from falling through the floor once again. I sobbed into my knees, I clawed at my skin like a possession had taken over me, I closed my eyes and screamed. I broke so loudly and passionately, I didn’t hear the door open. I gasped and pushed at the arms softly pulling mine down from my hair.
“Shh shh sweetheart.” Tom’s soft voice was distant behind the falls crashing around my vision, straight to my heart where it never failed to make waves. I sobbed harder and tried to pull away again, I didn’t want to be seen like this, not by him. To be judged as a useless mother or a full grown woman with the self discipline of a child. I hid my reddening face in my trembling hands until my wrists were softly pulled away. Strong arms wrapped around me and his gentle hand cradled the back of my head despite my messy hair and sweaty frame. He clutched my head to his chest as he muttered soothing words into my ear. My violent sobs turned into broken rasping ones. The kind only true helplessness could explain. I clutched at the soft material of his pristine button up, the material bunching in my hands.
“I’m going to take care of you now. It’s okay baby- breath…breath…” Tom’s voice soothed me while he stroked my hair as I started to calm down. I had been so alone for so long, a hug is what continued my tears. Silent ones like the stillness of death. I nodded against his chest, feeling safe there and hidden. Memories of the willow tree I hid under as a kid resurfacing as he continued to stroke my hair regardless of how long I stayed like that. At some point he had pulled me onto his lap and began gently untangling my hair like we had all the time in the world on our side to stay like this. On this cold wooden floor, messes in our own ways.
“Stay?” I asked in a quiet, raspy voice. The first thing I had spoken to him in however long we stayed like that. Tom sighed out slowly and nodded with his chin atop my head.
“I’ve never been particularly good at saying no to you.” My ex husband's soft confession felt more like a eulogy than a romance. Though it always seemed like every memorable moment between us with either a beginning or seeming end. Yet it seemed despite every attempt at closure or any real end at all, our sick cycle was the ouroboros.
But, he slipped an arm under my legs and tightened his grip around my waist as he pulled me closer and stood.
“What happened to us?” I asked quietly, maybe another hour had gone by by now. He had held me against his chest the entire time, my arm draped across his stomach under the thick blankets he had pulled up over us. When Tom failed to respond, I lifted my head slightly. I searched his face for anything, an ounce of longing or hatred, really…anything. His eyes held something else, something I’d never seen on his face before. Hesitation, shame…sorrow. My breathing hitched slightly as something similar crossed over my features as well. A shared reluctance between us stretching as time skipped a beat.
“Sleep.” He said after a pause, bringing a palm up to smooth my hair back from my forehead. I looked between his eyes for a moment. Then complied. I couldn’t deny time any longer. Mine was up. I hesitated before leaning my cheek back down onto his chest. My lashes fluttered open and closed lazily, as if deciding between consciousness and the gamble of dreams. Yet his hand had moved to lazily stroke up and down my bare spine, having slipped under my shirt, and unconsciousness won. Yet I swear before she took me, I felt a soft kiss against the crown of my head.
The next morning, Tom was gone. This was not something that surprised me, but something that stung just the same. I felt that loneliness seep back into my bones like an inevitable plague. The one familiarity I could find comfort in when everything had suddenly become new. My old flat was a consolation to me, the bitterness of a dilapidating mess that I had come to embrace. This new home, this room, was shiny and pristine. I felt little more than a smudge on my sheets that had been rubbed half away, yet the stain lingered. My body was starting to accept its new circumstances, but the thirst for my destruction was growing. I knew that Tom would not slip up, he would not be clumsy enough to leave anything in the desk drawers or the mostly empty dresser. Yet mid-way through the day, the need for alcohol became insatiable. I found myself searching every crevice, looking through every hidden spot. Anything. I only found emptiness. Except…for a little journal and pencil I found in the desk drawer.
I stared at it, curious why he would leave this and nothing else. No books, no puzzles or newspapers, no movies. Just this journal.
Over the next few days I did not see Tom again, but the journal had become a close friend to me. I wrote about my experiences, my thoughts, regrets and fears. The need that consumes me like wild fire. It was easier to write than to speak, but sometimes I spoke to myself as well. I had never particularly valued my own company, finding it useless and depressing, but suddenly that was all I had. Except for the maid who came to deliver me meals daily. The meals went from light and twice a day, to three times a day and hearty. Today was Thursday, the counselor would be coming. I did not doubt Tom would make due on his statement he had only made once. He was reliable like that, even on his threats. I remember as a girl when he had become jealous of other men who spoke to me. As if being the opposite gender meant instant attraction. I remember the confusion and fear that overtook me as I watched them slowly disappear, the timing was indisputable.
Tom had trapped me into loving him, but I believe I would have anyway. No one was as sure or devoted to claiming me as he was. There were boys back then, and men in recent times, who had claimed to want me. Who would take care of me, and some who would claim to make the pain go away and make me feel good. Yet none of them would have killed for me. They would fail to understand the darker parts of me that were twisted in knots inside of my head. The things I knew were wrong but wanted anyway were a burden on my intelligence. An insult to the women before me who have fought for something gentle and real.
By the time the counselor came, I had changed into one of the few outfits left in the dresser. There were no jeans or leggings or sweatpants. Just pajamas and the style Tom always liked me dressed in. His control over me was an insult stapled as help. Nonetheless I had changed into the white linen trousers and cream sweater. Both were quality pieces as well as the brown flats. I waited on the green velvet couch for him, or her, to arrive.
When she did walk in, I was surprised by the sincerity in her expression. The way she looked around the empty room with a confused look on her face. I suppose the absence of anything sentimental was alarming. Perhaps I could ask Tom to see Mattheo. A rather pathetic thought of mine. The old me would have left this room days ago to find him. The old me wasn’t an alcoholic. Perhaps it is better that he sees me as he remembers me.
“Hello Mrs. Riddle, I’m Mary Wilson.” The aging blonde walked over with the quiet uncertainty of a lost doe and outstretched her hand. I tried to smile at her, but the energy I lacked was far too much effort to mask.
The days started to blend together wonderfully after my ‘therapy’, if you could call it that. I was content to stare out the window for hours, to draw and write, to roll around in bed, anything but actually consider the repercussions of my actions. The journal was the one thing in this dull room keeping me from hanging myself in the shower. A needed distraction from the burdens of my mind and self that I loathed vivaciously. Surely I expected this, the fall out. The withdrawal had been nothing compared to the healing. Waking up choking on my vomit on the floor had been less depressing than this sobriety. This isolation from anything but my thoughts and this repetitive meal plan.
It wasn’t until that night that my door creaked open once more. I had been sitting at the desk with my hand in my hair, listlessly sketching a little sparrow. The candle my only light. I found the buzz and doctrine hue of the overhead light too divulging and offensive to this room. It cast everything into an early dawn, forcing its vibrancy into the space and onto me. This candle cast odd angles and shadows with each quiet flicker, but its shivering flame felt like company in times like these. The light was sparse but at least it was comfortable with the dark.
Tom’s footsteps were easy to spot. He was rarely rushed or careless, always walking with that precise deliberate way of his. When I set down my pencil to look up at him, he was studying the little sparrow with a tilted head. I chose to study him. The candle's soft twilight highlighted the sharp curve of his jaw, the small bump on his nose more prominent like this. His eyes flickered over the page as he stood over me. I slowly leaned back in the creaky wooden chair, wrapping my sweater clad arms around myself as I watched him. The divorce struck through my mind like an arrow that left a hole in any beauty I saw before. My arms wrapped tighter around myself then, shrinking into myself slowly as I ran my gaze over his hair. It was more disheveled than he usually kept it, pieces of it falling into the violent hardness of his eyes.When they flicked down to me at last, I held my breath. His pupils were blown wide like a wild man, and this tortured look crossed his face before his lips tightened. I gazed back at him as my head lolled back against the chair. His eyes flicked over my body in an assessing manner. When he was soft like this, I couldn’t resist him. Whenever he couldn’t bear the silence of my ruination a floor above him, when the mystery goes on for too long, he comes walking back as if unwilling. Always with that same look in his eyes. As if I had carved out his heart and tattooed my sin onto its soft flesh. Pushing it back in to fit, ignoring the muffled lub-dub of his slowing heart.
“Hi baby” My raspy voice was almost a whisper through currents. His sharp blink and the twitch of his lips were the only sign that he heard me. That he saw me sitting here in the dark, calling for him. I furrowed my brows as he slowly dropped onto one knee. My arms unwrapped from around myself to reach out for him on instinct. His eyes flashed down to my arm with alarming speed before he wrapped his hand around my wrist and tugged me to him. I let out a quiet oomph as my face hit the soft material of his linen button up. I didn’t have much time to even think about readjusting before he was wrapping both his arms around me and hugging me tight enough to stop my breath. I wouldn’t pull away even if he had let me, I had missed him. This side of him that considered me a part of him. I awkwardly struggled to free my arms from their prison squished into his chest. He did not let up his hold on me, only tightening it like a cobra once an inch more of space was offered. My arms went around his neck, running through his soft hair as I let my cheek press into his boney shoulder. My eyes focused on the flicker of candlelight over the metal bedside table with too many corners. The odd angles of it a promise of the secrets this house was built on. When I felt the shudder in his body, I held him tighter. As if he were the one thing in the world I could protect. That I could trust to never hate me, to always see me in a light untouched by dark shadows. I let the intimacy of shared insanity consume us.
Part 1
Pt 3? LOLLL
//Masterlist//
A/N: SO- this took me awhile to write lol sorry guys!! I hope this is good, I lowkey want to write soul consuming intimate smut for this lil series. LMKKK
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