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Dating was a two way street. Everyone told him that. Hell, Harry had told him that, and Tom felt that he’d been told it enough to start repeating it himself.
There was just one problem: whilst Harry told Tom every awful secret, shared every bit of gossip, and murmured how much he was lucky to have such a supporting partner, Tom lied.
“Have you ever done anything awful, or was it just me?”
“You couldn’t have known that there were animals in the building when you lit the fire.”
“I didn’t need to light the fire. And don’t think I don’t notice you avoiding the question.”
It would be nice to tell the truth for once. To reveal what he had done, what sins weighed down on his shoulders. “No.”
Tom knew that what he had done was unforgivable. There was no way anyone, even someone as lovely and as forgiving as Harry, could forgive him – nobody could replace the trail of dead bodies that lay in his wake, nobody could replace the churning guilt that lurked with in his stomach with anything nicer, nobody could replace the people that had existed before Tom had snuffed them out.
Nobody could replace them, but Tom could do the right thing for once in his goddamn life and tell Harry.
Right on cue, the door unlocked with a click, and Harry’s cheery voice came floating down the hall. “Tom, I’m home!”
It was time for a reckoning. For Tom to tell his deepest secrets, the one that sat, stale, inside him for too long and curdled, the one that rotted him from the inside out. For Tom to see if Harry could still love him, even knowing what he’d done.
Sometimes, Tom wondered if Harry could taste the decay and the poison on his lips when they kissed, if the darkness inside of him tasted bitter, soured their love. Tom wondered if Harry already knew, or at least suspected, and still loved him.
Tom hoped that Harry could still love him, even knowing the truth.
“Hello, darling,” Tom replied, slipping a smile onto his face, injecting warmth into his eyes, like the fear and worry and distress hadn’t tainted that love in his expression already. “I’ve missed you.”
Harry frowned. “Are you okay?”
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
“This isn’t where you tell me that you’ve cheated on me, is it?” Harry joked, despite the concern and anxiety brewing behind his eyes.
Tom licked his lips. “No, of course not.” He interwove his fingers, then unlaced them, then back again, before finally gathering the courage to look Harry in the eyes. “It’s worse.”
Harry sat down on chair opposite him, car keys dropped without care onto the table.
“Do you remember a serial killer called Vol De Mort?” Tom asked, and then, without waiting for an answer, told him everything. It spilled out of him like he’d gutted himself and his story was his blood, pouring onto the floor with the ferocity of a waterfall. He recounted his motives, his impulses, his victims, how he killed them and when he completely lost control. He whispered about his sins like they were the very antithesis of what they were; reverently, as though reading a message from God.
It wasn’t until he looked up that he saw the disgust etched into Harry’s face.
“Harry?”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I love you,” he said, honest as he could. “And because I trust you.”
“Trust me? Trust me with what?”
“My heart. To remain silent. To love me despite everything I’ve done.”
The silence was deafening, but Tom kept the eye contact until he no longer could, until Harry closed his eyes and shook his head.
“And what happens when I tell someone else?” Harry asked. When, not if. “Do I break your trust? Will you kill me, too?”
“No. Never. Not you, never you.”
“Why am I different from all your other victims?”
“I love you, Harry,” he said, and it was barely even a breath. “I love you with the fury of a thousand suns.”
“Your love,” Harry spat, “Is not enough to protect people. I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not. You’re a monster, Tom, and monsters have to be put down.”
“I’m sorry, Harry. I’m sorry I burdened you with this knowledge.”
“I’m sorry, Tom. I’m sorry I ever bothered trying to love you. I should’ve known there was something wrong, that something was irreparably broken within you.”
“You couldn’t have known. It’s not your fault.”
“You’re right. It’s yours.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t fucking apologise to me again. We both know you don’t mean it, the same way you lied every time you said you loved me.” Harry let the door thunk shut behind him, and Tom could only watch in despair.
“But I do mean it,” he murmured. “I meant it every time.”
Six hours later, Tom sat in cuffs, a single tear trailing down his face.