(no subject)

He should know he can't hide something like this. He should already know better than to be that stupid.

He gets the girls in bed and he reads them a story, and then at their insistence he reads them another one, and then he goes downstairs and he paces. It's so fucking cliche, but it's what he does. He paces and he thinks about too much and nothing at all simultaneously, and he thinks about this home that wasn't built for Tom to be in it and this life that frankly doesn't have much room for him - except maybe it's not Tom who's going to run into issues with space.

And he's still not sure he actually saw anything. Or if what he saw was what he saw. But if he saw something, regardless of what it was Neil needs to know. If the walls in him are starting to crack, Neil needs to know that immediately.

If it's actually Tom...

He goes to the kitchen, pours himself a tumbler of whiskey, leans on the counter and waits, because it's all he can do.