Chapter Text
Peter's eyes fluttered open.
He was still on the boat, in his room. And Tom Ripley was cuddled in his arms. They must have fallen asleep together...
A lazy smile came into his lips. Tom was so adorable when he was sleeping.
Then he tried to trace back how they came to that point. But all he could find was... It didn't make sense, did it?
"I just had the strangest dream," he mentioned out-loud.
Tom gasped a bit, and quickly turned around to look at him. There was terror in his eyes, which he tried unsuccessfully to not lock on Peter's neck.
"Hey, Tom?" He asked, nudging him a bit. "What's up?"
"You're..." Tom's voice was weak, terrified. "You're awake." There were dried tears on his face, Peter suddenly realized.
Tom's eyes were still locked on his neck.
Peter raised a shaking hand to touch it, awful intuition rising through him.
It hurt. His neck was painful to touch.
He slowly got out of the bed and looked at the mirror on the other side of the room.
There were huge, purple-black bruises on his neck, as if someone has tried to...
"It wasn't a dream, was it?"
Tom nodded quietly. "Are you going to call the police?"
"I just need to understand some things first," he said. It was true. The pieces were starting to come together now. "You tried to kill me, which means you... Were you the one who killed Freddie?"
Tom nodded again.
"What was Dickie doing in this whole... Thing?"
Tom smiled. It was a broken, lifeless smile. "Half the people in here think I'm him. You know why? Because I've been traveling under his passport for weeks by now. He was dead for over a month."
"So you killed him too." Peter's voice sounded strange in his own ears.
Tom nodded again, a third time.
"Why did you do it? Was there money in it, or..." His voice trailed off.
Tom took a deep breath, deliberately avoiding his eyes. "Okay. Let's start from the beginning."
He explained everything to him. How he killed Dickie in a fight on the boat, in self-defense, and covered it up. How he took his identity to not let the lie slip, and indulged in what he could have from it. How Freddie was catching on, so he panicked and killed him too. And how here, now, on this boat, Meredith appeared, and she thought he was Dickie Greenleaf, and he couldn't kill her, so he tried instead to kill the best thing he ever had. To get away with it. But then he could not go through with it, once Peter lost consciousness, and instead just crawled into his arms and waited for the consequences of everything to get to him, because he could not go through with it. Not now. Not ever.
When Tom finished, tears were once again streaming down his cheeks. "Are you going to turn me in now?" He asked. "To the police, I mean."
Peter was silent for a moment.
"I don't know," he said eventually.
He had to do this, he knew he had to do this, Tom was a killer, he could have hurt other people too, he tried to kill Peter, he tried to kill Peter, he just tried to kill Peter, but...
He somehow found that he could not bring himself to do something like that to the man that was sitting next to him, who called him the best thing he ever had in life, who really seemed like he would like nothing more than to turn back the clock and erase all of his mistakes. The man who could not bring himself to kill him, even after killing two other people. The man who crawled into his arms when he slept, even when all was about to be said and done.
... This was Tom. This was Tom he was trying to convince himself to hate.
Then, suddenly, an idea popped into his head.
"If I pretended you're Dickie for every time you're around her, for this entire ride..." He said, "and then, after this is over, I could get you to another country, where nobody knows who you are, where nobody would recognize you... Could you... Stop killing people?" God, it sounded so stupid to say out loud. But Tom nodded.
"I will, Peter, I swear I will, if only I can get away..." He closed his eyes, then wiped them with one hand. "I never wanted any of this to happen, I swear, Peter, I swear..."
Peter didn't know how to respond to this. To any of this.
Tom shot him a crooked smile. "Basement's pretty damn rough, huh?"
And Peter found himself returning the gesture, against his will. He set down on the bed next to Tom, not daring to touch him, but still desperately wanting to comfort him.
"It'll be okay, Tom. You'll get away with it. We'll... I'll help you get away with it."
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Basically, if you want the ending where Peter helps him get away but can't bring himself to be close to him, and eventually leaves and never sees him again go to Ending 1, if you want the ending where they live (kinda) happily ever after, go to Ending 2, and if you want the ending where Tom kills himself, go to Ending 3.