Thomas Cross/Torn Redemption

From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe

"My name is Thomas, and I'm an addict." He waited for the chorus of 'hellos'. "I've been clean and sober for two weeks." There was applause. "Until today I thought I was the black sheep of the family. My father taught me otherwise.

"My drug of choice was heroin, sometimes speed. I started using three years ago when my mother got sick. No, that's not honest. She had always been sick. I started using three years ago when she was dying. She had a genetic disease that slowly degraded the nerve pathways in her body. The last year was bad. Hard. My father retired just so that he could be with her. Everything else ceased to matter. I ceased to matter. At least thought I did. So when I was diagnosed with her disease in the same year, I never told him. That didn't stop me from blaming him.

"He wasn't there, the needle was. It was as simple as that in the beginning. The more I used, the more the paranoia began to rule my life. I began to believe that he did know I was sick, that he must know, that he just didn't want to tell me because I wasn't worth it to him. I stopped seeing him at all when my mother died.

"Have I mentioned that I'm from a family of heroes? Not the spandex kind. Not in the beginning at least. My older brother is a social worker, works with troubled kids. He's tall and strong and fast and willing to throw himself fearlessly into anyone's problem. My father was a Federal Court judge. Flawless record. I was just an artist, and the H took even that away. It's hard enough to fail, harder still when you're surrounded by success. Then it got worse.

"Something happened to my father. Something amazing. He got a second chance at life. He became the spandex kind of hero. At sixty-two he looked better than me at twenty-eight. That's when I really started to hate him. He could do all of that for himself, win a second life for himself, but he couldn't spare a moment to care - to even know - that I was dying. I hated him a lot, until he came to find me.

"Then he saw me, and he knew, somehow he just knew everything. I couldn't even stand. I collapsed into his arms. I still hated him, but he was my Papa, and I needed him too.

"That doesn't mean I wasn't pissed off when he put me through detox." There was laughter. "Cold turkey wasn't bad enough, he had to make sure I went cold turkey in a house full of cops. Guess he was making sure that my dealer 'friends' couldn't get to me if they wanted to.

"I left that house today. I'll always owe them, Martin and Nadine, Michael, Marty, Nicky. They'll always be my safe place when I need it. When I was packing to leave, saying my goodbyes, my father stopped by with his Commander. We had the conversation that finally let me know that I wasn't the black sheep after all.

"Heroes like him, members of his Legion, get their power from . . . I really don't understand it, but they are crystals. They don't work for everyone. They don't work for many people at all. A crystal has to want you and that is very rare. My father and his Commander had come to tell me that I was wanted, chosen, that I could be a hero. That he had only been waiting for my mind to be clear to talk to me about it, that it would make me well.

"I looked at that crystal, but I didn't see it. All I saw was another quick fix. One more needle to go into my arm. One more try at an easy way out. There's never an easy way out. So that's what I told him. And I told him that I was sorry. I told him that maybe one day I would be strong enough. I told him no. His eyes welled up with tears. I thought . . . I thought I had disappointed him again, failed again. Then - " Thomas' voice began to break. "Then he told me that I was his hero, that he had never been prouder of me than at that moment."

Thomas bowed his head and collected himself. "So I did the only thing I could do. I kicked him out of his house." There was laughter. "He'd been staying with my older brother Christopher in his King's Row flat. I told him it was time to move on, to enjoy his second life. That Christopher and I would be okay. Mostly I told him that I needed his bedroom." Laughter again. Thomas held up a little plastic disk. "Two weeks. It's a start. Thank you all."

Outside in the darkness two men waited. One spoke in a clear, clipped posh accent. "This is it then, you're sure about this?"

The second answered in a voice like a starless night. "The visionary's son is a visionary. The Shards know, they show me. The son will counter the sight of the father."

"Then let's take care of business, shall we?"

Thomas Cross never stood a chance. He was barely two weeks clean after three years of use. He was a physically weak man. His assailants were strong, strong past human limits. They held his arms and his head, clamped his jaw shut. He screamed through a clenched jaw. He cried. He prayed. He called for his father. No one heard a sound. The man holding his arms pushed his long sleeve up, revealing his needle tracks, laughing cruelly. Then he pressed a glowing red crystal to Thomas' forearm and it melted within.

Agony! (Ecstasy!) Fire in the veins! (Tingle in the spine!) The red tore through him and it made him new. Muscle flowed, genes restored themselves, hair now as silver as his father's grew and cascaded over his shoulders. This was power! This was how god himself would get high. He pulled away from his attackers and turned to face them with eyes gone as silver as his hair. A second skin of crimson and black flowed over him.

He spoke only three words as the token he had treasured only seconds before fell forgotten from his hand.

"Give me more."

__________________________________________

Thomas Cross slipped into the second bedroom of his brother's King's Row flat for the last time. He took up pen and paper and wrote a lie. He was good at lying. Anyone who could hide a drug addiction as bad as his for as long as he had got good at lying. The difference was that this time he enjoyed the lie for its own sake. Deception was a childishly simple power, but it was power nonetheless and it was a sweet echo of his new addiction. He wrote.

Now that I can really see again I've taken a good long look at myself. The last three years have wasted me. I look bad. I feel bad. I need to get out of here, out of the dirt and into the clean.

Sorry to do this after pushing you out, Papa, but you belong in your penthouse and your new life anyway. Do yourself a favor and enjoy it. But I can't stay here.

I'm going to stay with Tio Tadeo in Spain. I'm going to lie on the beach in the sun and take my life back. Now that I'm clean, I need to be clean. I know you both love the Row but you still see things here I can't see anymore. All I can see is the dirt and the life I lived here in the last couple of years.

There are meetings, I'll be well. You be well too. I'll write soon. Love you both.

-Thomas

He smiled as he left the note on the mirror. Deception was so easy. Easier still when the object of the deception wanted to be deceived.

He had places to be.