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Tom has this memory, this visceral memory, of being ten years old and feeling like the walls were closing in. Physically closing in, not some metaphorical bullshit. He was in his bedroom, going through his dad’s baseball cards, thinking of what he would do at recess the next day, when his throat suddenly pinched up. When he looked up from the floor, desperate to draw in a breath, he saw that the walls were physically shrinking into the room. It looked like something out of a horror movie.
He remembers the feeling of it, the prickly sensation of feeling that something was wrong, the cold feeling deep in his stomach when he realized that something was definitely wrong.
The walls were closing in then, but they stopped a few seconds after they started. Since then, Tom has felt like he lives in a world that doesn’t quite fit him. Like the universe readjusted around the new size of his bedroom and didn't bother to shrink him down with it. Every day feels like putting on a suit and finding that it’s an inch too short in the arms. Like standing on the outskirts of a group, trying to add to the conversation and being ignored time and time again.
----
Every day feels like that now. Like an itch under his skin that he can’t scratch. Except now, he can’t go and run to his mother and cry into her lap. Now, Tom has to swallow it down. He’s been swallowing things down since he was fifteen and realized that he was different, too different, and living amongst corn-fed fucks who would eat him alive. Since he realized that he had to start doing the eating.
Swallowing things down with the Roy’s is absolutely, totally, completely normal. Tom is the sin-cake eater. He’s known it since the start. The thing is, he’s had a bad habit of overindulging in his dessert since he was a kid.
----
The binder is almost comforting to Tom, in a vague, hysterical way. Laminated pages upon laminated pages of potential new homes. When he and Shiv moved to New York, they barely looked at houses- instead, Karolina had some lower assistant curate a few options, and they picked from there. Tom’s a fan of house hunting, actually, and had missed it when buying the penthouse.
Now, he gets to house hunt all day long, weighing the pros and cons of prisons. Kosher vending machines. A nice exercise yard. Which one will I get stabbed at? Which one will I rule at? Does it matter if I pick anything close to home? Will Shiv even visit?
Tom’s not a moron. He knows she won’t. He needs her, in a way that’s different from the way she needs him. He’s pretty sure they’re not going to make it through this, any of this, but what will he be without her? Take away the Roy, take away the title, and all you’re left with is the sad, pathetic ashes.
----
Greg is the ridiculous part of it all, too. Fucking Greg, the gangly Bigfoot who has tripped and stumbled and flailed upwards. The stupid fuck who’s somehow beating Tom. Tom, who’s dedicated nearly his entire life to doing something big, to being something important. And here's the guy who can barely spit out a full sentence, trying to straddle both sides.
Tom wants to push him over, but he’s not sure where he wants him to land. (Yes, he is. He’s positive of it, and he hates the answer.)
And then Shiv commands Tom to push him onto their side, and emasculates him in a way that only she knows how. So he shuts the prison binder, gets chewed out by Ravenhead, and then heads into Greg’s pathetic dungeon office.
The office felt good. Feels good. Tom likes seeing Greg shoved into the proverbial shame dungeon. Locked away in the tower, with no one to rescue him.
And then Tom talks about Nero and Sporus and marriage, and he knows why but he doesn’t know why. By the time he realizes that he’s untethered, totally unhinged, he’s asking Greg to wrestle him to the ground. The slimy eel won’t do it, so Tom storms out and locks himself in the nearest bathroom. He screams into his palms until the feeling passes, and then he washes his hands and looks at himself in the mirror. His reflection stares back, absolutely blank. It frightens him into returning to his desk.
The prison binder tempts him, so he opens it up and keeps window shopping. Who’s going to stop him, anyway? He’s got no one left in his corner. He’s adrift in the ocean, and he’s not even sure if the sharks want his blood anymore.
----
The night of Nero and Sporus and Shiv being unable to hold his hand or offer him even a tendril of comfort, Tom calls his mom. He hasn’t called his parents in a while, because talking to them makes him want to grind his teeth until they turn into a fine powder. They embarrass him in a hot, burning way: trying to fit in, trying to fall into his traditions, trying to understand the fine details of his current life. (At his wedding, Tom couldn’t look at his father without seeing pants that were an inch and a half too long. Before the reception, he had to splash cold water on his face and dribble it over his wrists until the frustration passed.)
Still, he calls her. He sits in one of their multiple, unused guest rooms, runs his sweaty palms over his freshly pressed slacks, and dials his mom.
“Tommy,” she says, answering on the second ring. “Hi, honey. How are you?”
She’s got a slight Midwestern accent, nothing too strong. Tom had one, too, until he realized he sounded like a moron and ironed it out into something smooth, noncommittal, vaguely middle American or east coast. (He modeled his cadence after his freshmen year roommate. He’s not proud of it.)
“Hi, mom.” He watches a shard of sunlight move across the wall. “I’m fine. You?”
“You don’t sound fine. Are you sure everything’s all right?”
Tom’s first reaction is annoyance, because that’s who he is. I’m a terrible, terrible prick, he’d said, and it’s true. He’s not a good person, and he doesn’t bother deluding himself into thinking he is. So, his first reaction is to snap at her, to tell her he’s fine, to quickly change the subject and then end the call.
And then he thinks for a moment. Sand beneath his palms, tossing a rock into the ocean, Shiv’s shocked face. Freshly redone teak decks, frantic conversations in Sarajevo, hours upon hours of prison blogs.
It’s been so long since someone’s told him that he’s doing an okay job. Not even a good job, just an okay one. It’s embarrassing and stupid and childish, but Tom needs it. He’s the shame sponge, isn’t he? He’s got cancer of the career. It’s terminal. What more damage can he feasibly do to himself? What is one shred of honestly really going to do, now that he's already dead in the water?
“Actually,” he says, the leaky sieve of his eyes already running, “I’m having a tough time. Everything’s sort of piling in.”
His mother hums with sympathy, and it’s enough to unhinge the last desperate part of his brain and get him rambling.
----
After the phone call, Tom pockets his phone, dries his eyes, and straightens his clothes. When he goes out to the kitchen, Shiv’s already sat at the island, her dinner before her. She’s poured a glass of white wine for Tom, a clear olive branch, but he doesn’t care about it's blatantness. He’s been in the Flood for ages now. He’s ready to be dry.
“Is everything okay?” Shiv asks, so clearly uncomfortable with the question. She doesn’t move to touch him, but she’s asking him, instead of listening to his word vomit. It’s an attempt, and Tom reminds himself to be grateful.
“What?” Tom cocks his head. “Oh, the phone call? Yeah, yeah. I was just, you know. Checking in on my mom.”
“Uh-huh.” Shiv gives him a look that says: you’re a terrible actor, and we both know I know the truth. “I see.”
And then that’s it. She doesn’t press further, because she gets a call from Logan and scrambles to answer it. Tom watches her walk away to a more private place, and he tries not to get offended. He can't blame her, honestly. No one knows yet if he’s contagious.
He drinks his wine and eats dinner alone, and tells himself to get used to it. At least the walls are still in place.