Is this possible!? |•|Tordtom|•|

Gotta be merry. There are kids. (Trigger warning)

A/N: just so you guys know, there will be mentions of abuse, suicide, self harm, blood, depression, PTSD, dissociation and Christmas in this chapter. (Yes those are the things I relate the holidays with. I just,,, hate it.) But because it feels right to give a Christmas thing so, have a depressing christmas special chapter.

11 pm, December 24th. Tom sighed. All those years ago, when he was just sixteen, laying under a park bench, trying to stop himself from getting hypothermia. The memories of that night and the following morning always flooded his brain at this time of year. In fact, those memories always returned in the dark of Winter. He could feel the cold air on his skin, hear staggering footsteps of some probably doomed drunk. He swore he was laying on the ground, trying to use the minimal barrier of his thin and worn clothing to stop the freezing cold from stealing his life.

The reason he had been fighting hypothermia that night instead of huddled on his bed, trying to stay warm, was a simple one. His mother. His drug addict, alcoholic of a mother. She had taken his childhood from him. Taken the chance to live a normal and happy life from the poor boy. Tom hated her. He also felt sorry for her. He himself knew the trapping cage of alcohol and addiction. But for what she did to him there was no excuse.

He wasn't just being an overreacting teenager. Far from it. He was laying under this bench to avoid being murdered. Or at least that's what he believed.

Just two hours before his mother had gotten a knife. Her black eyes contorted into rage. She had swung it at Tom. Missing. Then swung again. Red hot pain flashed through Tom from his left shoulder. He didn't let this woman get the satisfaction of knowing that she had caused such pain for him.

Clasping his hand to the wound Tom ran from the messy house. He stumbled a bit on the snow. Anger boiled in the small sixteen year old. He knew he should go to a hospital or a friend's house, but the idea of them finding out about the hell he lived in scared him. So instead he tore the fabric of his dark skull t-shirt and tied it about the large wound his mother had inflicted.

Warm tears slipped from his eyes as he sat on a bench in the dark. He didn't know he was crying. He didn't know he was. He just stopped. Everything just stopped. What little of the world he could see turned grey. The sounds were like someone had turned the volume down on the world. The pain in his shoulder stopped. He was slow. He was numb. It was a different kind of numb to the numb of depression. That numb blocked emotion, but not pain, if anything pain got worse, he just couldn't care.

No. This numb blocked everything. This numb blocked thoughts, it blocked hurt, it blocked everything. It blocked reality. Tom liked this numb. It was a more extreme numb than was gifted by alcohol.

Tom didn't know how long he sat on the bench. Tom didn't know much really. But after a while he began to return. The biting cold forcing him to curl under the bench and sleep. Part of his brain knew this was an absolutely awful idea, but he just couldn't care. He was tired and hurt and numb. Sleep would help.

When he woke up Tom blinked. The sun glittered off the snow, footsteps showed the paths of people living their own lives. He stumbled out from under the bench, stretching his sore muscles. He let out a cry of pain as he moved his left arm. Blood had stained his blue hoodie and the snow around where he slept.

Tom decided to head back to his personal hell. It didn't matter to him that it was Christmas. He didn't celebrate it.

His footsteps crunched the snow as he trudged back to his house, his wounded arm held close to his body. He knew he probably looked both high and hungover, but he didn't care. All he wanted was to be warm.

Opening the front door and entering the dark hallway, kicking aside a binbag of empty alcohol, Tom made his way into the house. Then up the stairs.