#sugar pills hiddlesworth

[windcranes]

Sugar Pills - Chapter 3

Title: Sugar Pills Characters: Chris and Pseudo!Tom Summary: Chris awakens from cryogenic sleep after a cure to his otherwise terminal illness is found. It is the year 2192 and much has changed. To help assimilate into present-day society, the hospital commissions him an AI robot in the guise of his old companion, Tom. But blood runs thicker than ion fluid and 'companion' isn't a strong enough word for a person like Tom. 

---

Also found on AO3. 

Chapter 1: [tumblr] [AO3] Chapter 2: [tumblr] [AO3]

Do you believe in angels?

That was the question he was faced with one day during counselling. The rain outside fell like a shimmering hush and blue sunlight poured into the dimly lit room. He had insisted on keeping the blaring fluorescents turned off this time; he never liked the way how white and painful and stark and white everything in the hospital was. His counsellor had kindly obliged. After all, who would refuse a dying man's request? No matter how menial it was.

"Does it matter?" he had answered in a similarly-toned shrug. "I'll die anyway... whether I do or not. What difference does it make?"

A tentative click resounded through the shadows and there was the dull scratch of a ballpoint against a clipboard. From the harsh taps it made at the beginning of each line, there was about one or two sheets of paper attached. Why so little? Had he been convinced that there wouldn't be much to note down? Or had he thought that there was no point?

"Mr Hemsworth--"

"Chris," he didn't approve of honorifics.

"Chris," his counsellor amended. A pause was allowed for chaste smiles to be exchanged; Chris felt himself doing so more out of obligation than anything. "What makes you happy?"

Well, that was a very vague question.

"Erm..." his voice felt like an incoherent vibration at his throat, foreign and far too loud. There was a high degree of self-consciousness which had asserted itself in the room, latching on to the way he crossed his ankles and toyed with his thumbs. The counsellor's - 'Dr Lewis', according to his well-polished plaque - gaze seemed to have picked this up because there was the sound of his scratchy pen again. Chris winced. The man had PhD's and Master's and papers across his wall, why in God's name was he using such a sucky pen?

"You mean that as in... what way?" asked Chris uncertainly. "'Warm walks on the beaches, chocolates and roses', that sort of stuff?" He allowed himself a bit of light-heartedness. Dr Lewis chuckled.  

"Interpret it however you like," he offered an equally vague answer.

India's laugh. That was the first thing that came into his mind. The corner of his lip perked upwards at the thought; more immediately followed. Elsa's voice. Tom's smile. A round of drinks with Liam and Luke. Summer barbecues by the poolside.

"My family," Chris answered finally.

Something was noted down on the clipboard.

"How have you been recently, Chris?" Dr Lewis asked. "The pain any better?"

It felt as if a gust of wind had pushed a heavy cloud closer because the weighty shower intensified to a full-blown storm, torrents of rain now splashing against the windowpane. A quick glance outside revealed a palm tree's head shakily pointing west.

"A lot better after morphine, yes," he murmured absentmindedly before turning back. "I've been feeling sicker though. I get dizzy whenever I move too much."

"That's a normal side-effect of your medication," his counsellor replied and Chris bit back an instinctive 'I know' so not to rub him the wrong way.

Wordlessness passed between them, with nothing else but the rain and Dr Lewis' scratchy pen. 

"How long do I have to be here?" he found himself restlessly blurting out.

"About an hour." It sounded and felt nonchalant, the way he said it, with his eyes cast downwards and pen still moving across the board.

"How many times do we have to do this?"

"Once a week," Dr Lewis answered calmly. "Are you uncomfortable with our meetings, Chris?"

"I'm not so much uncomfortable as just not knowing the point of it, Dr Lewis."

"'The point'?" he echoed.

"Yeah," Chris nodded. "Don't people who are dying usually get... time away from the hospital? You know, to spend time with their families... things like that. Isn't counselling something more used in rehabilitation?"

"Ah." Dr Lewis leant back on his headrest as if just coming to a grand realisation. "So they have not told you anything yet," he murmured under his breath.

Chris kept silent and allowed the doctor to gather his thoughts. 

"You're not exactly 'dying', and this isn't really counselling."

Now things weren't making any sense. 

"You see, we're wondering if you would be interested in a new programme of ours, Chris," he continued. "It's not widely-available yet... or known to the public, but we're opening it to a few of those in need of it."

"If it's any experimental medication, I thought my doctor said there was none as of yet."

"It's not medication, it's more of... like I said, 'a programme' more than anything."

He took a moment to readjust his glasses and store away the scratchy pen.

"Now I'm sure you've heard of something called 'cryogenic sleep'..."

---

He dreams of ice cold waves and blood red berries. Of brown lines being etched into damp, crystalline sand. His nights are plagued by obscurity, his mornings by longing. And each morning by the time the Sun peaks upon mirror-like horizons, the vague, swirling seas of his mind give way to fragmented memories of Elsa and Indie.

Of Tom and his friends.

Of the fateful day he was told he could live, only to leave everyone else behind. Of countless nights spent arguing with himself, weighing out his choices, deciding that it wouldn't be worth it and then biting back waves of unbearable pain. Of the tender weight of India squirming in his arms and reaching out to grab at her daddy. Of realisation that he wouldn't see her grow up. Of Elsa reassuring him that sleeping wouldn't mean dying early, it would mean waking up to a cure. Of him apologising for being such a horrible, useless father. Of nights spent awake and unmoving. Of the pauses that lasted lifetimes when he broke the news to his parents.

He finds himself torn by the time he wakes.

And grows all the more torn by the familiar face in the room.

"Good morning," it greets.

"Morning," he mutters a reply and faces his back towards it, pulling his blanket all the way to his ear.

It hurts to look at him. It hurts too much to look at him and then be reminded that it wasn't really him. That Tom Hiddleston died decades ago and what stands before him was just a very expensive replica, a glorified training wheel that 'contained' characteristics of him in the form of ones and zeroes. A robot that couldn't feel.

Useless.

---

It doesn't rain here.

There was no need for it. There were no plants, no need for nourishment, no need for a ground made of soil. The hospital wasn't made of wards and surgical theatres, it was a self-sustaining fortress, filtering through only necessary aspects of the outside world for optimum healing. It was an incredibly clean and sterile belief. There were no empathetic notions that little things like fireflies and trees and flowers had any effect on the physical healing process. Those were just petty things painted on walls of the psychiatric wing. 

But that didn't mean that they completely disregarded the need for mental healing; that's what the androids were for.

Chris finds himself peering past ajar doors and glancing at other patients during his walks through the corridors on his floor. Just like him, there was the same distrusting look in their eyes when they faced their robot companion. The glare in response to a smile, the slight retreat when offered their meal. He only ever caught three other glimpses but those were more than enough to unnerve him.

He couldn't help but feel like a mental patient.

And that was the notion that spurred him to do what he did next.

"I want to be discharged from the hospital," he says firmly during his next check-up.

"I'm sorry?" Dr Lewis - the doctoring gene had transcended a number of generations apparently - responds. Chris doesn't repeat his request, he's sure he heard it the first time.

"With all due respect, Mr Hemsworth, you're not quite ready yet," he says after a pause.

"I don't have to jump straight into the city, isn't there somewhere at the outskirts where I can live?" Chris reasons. "Somewhere that's not the hospital, I mean. It doesn't even have to be too far away in case you still need to monitor me."

His doctor considers this for awhile.    

"I'll see what I can do."

Chris manages a smile. "Thank you."

It takes three whole days but a compromise was reached. There was a condominium-esque building a five-minute transit away from the hospital. Its previous function was a temporary living quarters for new doctors and surgeons who have yet to secure permanent accommodation  or for those involved in transfers for special cases. Now, most of the floors cater more to close friends and families of in-patients, though there are still a few hospital staff living on the higher floors. Chris was arranged to live in one of the larger apartments for the time being.

Unfortunately, it was to live with him as well.

---

They were on the way back from the wrap party, after two incredible years of working on Thor.

The journey back to the hotel was a blur, with nothing tangible but the stripes of neon colours from the signs they passed by. Chris had the window rolled down because it was "too stuffy", or something that rhymed with "too stuffy"; Tom wasn't too sure, his alcohol-laden drawl began to sound more and more like a different language with each moment that ticked by. And despite having Greek, French and a lick of Italian tucked under his belt, he could make neither heads or tails of his friend.

Not that he minded, he actually found it endearing.

The smile playing on his lips never left, not even when he volunteered himself as a human walking-stick for Chris to lean on. The struggle up the front-stairs, across concierge, and up to the well-polished elevator doors was challenging, but never a burden. Occasionally, Chris would breathe mumbles of the snow and 'how bright autumn leaves were' into his ear. Tom only laughed and nodded accordingly as his friend rambled on.

But there was one particular thing he had said that would stick with him for the rest of his life. Something that would transcend the years and whose impact would never waver, not even when translated into code only a machine could read.

"Tom," Chris murmured, his drunken drawl dropping an octave. "Tom. Tom," he insisted. 

"Yes, yes, what is it?"

"You're." An ungraceful hiccough interrupted him in mid-confession. He continued regardless.

"You're the only one who understands, mate."

--- 

[windcranes]

Sugar Pills - Chapter 2

Title: Sugar Pills Characters: Chris and Pseudo!Tom Summary: Chris awakens from cryogenic sleep after a cure to his otherwise terminal illness is found. It is the year 2192 and much has changed. To help assimilate into present-day society, the hospital commissions him an AI robot in the guise of his old companion, Tom. But blood runs thicker than ion fluid and 'companion' isn't a strong enough word for a person like Tom. 

---

Also found on AO3. 

---

He was sitting by my bed with his head propped up on one hand. The sunlight was flickering across the back of his head and his blonde hair caught the rays like a fisherman’s net in mid-throw. Occasionally his eyelids would flutter and the corner of his mouth would perk upwards. No doubt he was having a pleasant dream; probably of bright beaches, German chocolates, exotic spices… He always spoke fondly of things like that.

And I spent the entirety of the dream just watching him sleep.

There was no conversation, no heartfelt “I missed you”s, and my vision was blurred, as if shrouded with gossamer white veils. And the stark awareness that I was asleep - that this was all unreal - punctuated each thick second, each muffled heartbeat like a dagger to my side.

But like waves beating upon rock, with each acidic breath came a relieving balmy swirl. The simple sight of Tom by my side, of him being only a tiny whisper, an armstretch away - untrue as it may be - filled me to the brim with an unbearable joy.

Which stung bittersweet like thorns on a rosebush.

And when the drugs roused me from my sleep and I turned to find the chair empty, the thorns then began to caress out an aching, dark quell from my chest.

And I felt soft, warm tears slowly dripping into my sheets.

---

You spend your evenings watching the sunset.

I once came across a book with a similar theme; it was a short one of a prince, a flower and a tiny planet. One particular quote rang loudly through me while I was observing you today:

"'You know— one love the sunset when one is so sad…'

"'Were you so sad, then?' I asked, 'on the day of the forty-four sunsets?'"

And that made me wonder. 

Would I ever be able to make you smile?

---

Next chapter: [tumblr] [AO3]

[windcranes]

Sugar Pills - Chapter 1

Title: Sugar Pills Characters: Chris and Pseudo!Tom Summary: Chris awakens from cryogenic sleep after a cure to his otherwise terminal illness is found. It is the year 2192 and much has changed. To help assimilate into present-day society, the hospital commissions him an AI robot in the guise of his old companion, Tom. But blood runs thicker than ion fluid and 'companion' isn't a strong enough word for a person like Tom. 

---

Also found on AO3. 

---

You don't know me but I have heard about you.

Of your struggles, of your accomplishments, your history... and your sadness.

You're very prone to sadness, I've realised that.

After all, it is my job to realise these things. You see, that was the reason I was made for.

...

Judging from your reaction, I assume I'm not making too much sense.

I apologise. It's a bit of a long story. Allow me to start from the beginning.

---

Morning light glimmers upon soap-slicked metal pots, the thick scent of floral and aerosol lingers in the air. A man sits by an uncurtained window with lines etched deep into his face. He watches the world continue to turn upon its axis, like an ambitious top that only just unwound. As it continues to spin, there will be a point when it will lose its balance, its momentum - and eventually, surely - fall. It is a known fact; everything has an end. But for now, it only spins.

It's been eighteen decades since he last felt it spin.

And in the deep tangle of fatigued synapses and white-blood-cell-rich vessels, tucked into the curved folds of his frontal cortex and past gradually-dying disease, lies the static and colours and smells of the last day of his life.

His daughter's tiny hand clasped over his thumb. Elsa's lower lip, held down with her teeth. The thick pungence of sanitising liquid and disinfectant. An overabundance of white. Parents at the bedside, brothers at the foot. The slow drip of IV and the syringe that will wipe away his consciousness.

Tears.

Many tears.

His mother's. His wife's. His own.

And tucked away in the corner of the room, through tears of his own, Tom offering him one last warm smile.

"See you in the morning, mate," he says. 

See you in the morning.

Chris tastes the words tenderly as he thumbs away at a piece of fraying cloth. And as the dawn's light touches upon the corner of the old 'for luck' handkerchief, a cold emptiness begins to swirl at the base of his throat.

It smells like nothing.

---

Next chapter: [tumblr] [AO3]