Work Text:
They sit on the couch together, it’s the last day of the weekend spent at Tom’s place. They had a lazy Sunday afternoon turning into a lazy Sunday night before work will start for her the next morning.
They watch Jurassic Park, something they’ve watched before. Many, many times.
Tom hears her giggling next to him. Why would she giggle during this scene? She loves this scene. It’s not funny, it’s dramatic.
He looks over and stops. She’s on her phone. During the movie. “What are you doing?”
Her head shoots up, startled. “What?” she asks through a mouth full of popcorn, and he has to stop a smile from forming at how cute she is at that moment.
“We’re watching a movie here.”
“Tom, we’ve seen this about ten times together.”
“Yeah, because we love it,” he replies. They do love it. Well, he hopes she does.
“We do. But sometimes you have to try something new.” What does she mean by that? They watch a lot of new movies. They sometimes even go to premieres together.
“Well… if you love something…”
“I do. Love it. Sometimes something new is exciting, though.” She stares back at her phone, types something and giggles at the obvious immediate reply.
“What are you doing there anyway?” He’s now paused the movie to turn around to her. “Are you texting?”
“I’m texting Alex. It’s Punday.”
“It’s what, now?” And why is she texting Alex? It’s Sunday, or Punday, or whatever, and Alex shares an office with her. They’ll see each other again the next day, Tom is sure.
“Punday. We set this up a while ago,” she explains, but then really explains nothing. At Tom’s raised brow she continues. “We send each other puns. Throughout Sunday. And we talk about it at work on Monday. You know, to make the Monday Funday,” she grins.
“Huh. Well, I thought we always have quite funny days. Monday or not,” Tom answers, desperately trying not to sound affected in any way.
“We do. You’re not with me at work, though.”
“Huh.”
Tom tells himself he shouldn’t feel that niggling sensation of whatever it is that he’s currently feeling. He returns his attention to the movie, unpausing it. He watches it for some more minutes, knowing exactly what scene and line of dialogue follows. The next one is her favourite, and he waits with bated breath for her usual hoot of joy–which doesn’t come.
Sure enough, she’s grinning at her phone again.
“That’s rather rude, darling.” Tom crosses his arms.
“Mhm,” she replies absentmindedly before his words sink in and she stops typing. “What? Rude? Oh, don’t be dramatic, Tom. It’s just a movie.” She leans over and pecks him on the cheek before returning to typing. “It would be rude if I let poor Alex down without replying. Heck, it would be a sacrilege because we’ve been doing this for so long now.”
There’s that niggling feeling again. Tom leans forward to gulp some coke, mumbling into his bottle, “Doesn’t ‘poor Alex’ have a wife to keep him occupied?”
“He does,” she replies. Tom almost chokes on his coke. Well. He didn’t expect that. “Well, not yet. He’s going to ask her.”
“And you know that how?” Oh, he already knows how she knows. ‘Poor Alex’ probably told her everything about every little detail of that super romantic proposal.
“He told me, of course.” She’s still not looking at the movie.
“Of course,” Tom grumbles.
“We share an office, he’s so excited about that.” Yeah, Alex must be really excited about his girlfriend if he doesn’t stop texting Tom’s girlfriend.
“So. Where is that exciting girlfriend now?” He tries to sound casual. He really, really does. It almost works.
“She works as a nurse, she’s at the hospital.”
“How convenient.”
Ah, now she stops typing to look at him. He meets her raised eyebrow with one of his own.
“Are you trying to imply something here, Hiddleston?”
He raises the other brow too. “I don’t know… Am I? What if I am?” Whoops, he sounds a bit bitchy, doesn’t he?
With a groan, she falls back against the backrest and rolls her eyes. Yeah, she can roll her eyes, but god forbid if he were texting a woman like that. He has a mental image of himself like a trussed-up chicken roasting on a spear over an open fire.
“For heaven’s sake, Thomas, I’m exchanging funny messages with a coworker who’s just gone on his knees and proposed to his girlfriend in the hospital corridor, all while wearing a silly costume she’d once mentioned she loved. There is absolutely no reason for you to make those irritating snide little remarks.”
See, he knew it. A super-soppy proposal she has been told all about, probably with ten thousand embellishments and a practical reenactment.
Tom sets his coke bottle down with a clank.
“Are we watching the movie till the end or are you too busy with your puns?”
“I’m kind of not in the mood for the movie anymore,” she sighs. Ha! Well, maybe he isn’t either.
“But you’re in the mood for exchanging puns with a coworker?” Yes, he still sounds bitchy, no, he can’t help it.
“He’s also a friend, Tom. Just a friend.” She has her eyes closed, head leant back, as she crinkles her nose. “I have a few other male friends as well. Just as you have female friends by the way.” She sounds a little tired. Texting must be exhausting.
“Oh. You’re friends now. Nice. I thought you were just coworkers. When did this friendship thing happen? Recently?”
“I don’t even know why I have to explain it to you, but here we go.” She sounds a bit bitchy now, as well. “We’ve been friends for a couple of months now actually. And yes, coworkers can be friends. As you should know.”
That’s something totally different, Tom tells himself. He’s an actor. He… “Well, I have to trust my coworkers.”
“You fake sex with your female coworkers, Tom!” She exclaims, her voice getting a little louder, as her hands fly in the air.
She’s a little dramatic now, Tom thinks.
“Well, yes. With an emphasis on ‘fake’, as you know. Are we discussing my job now or what?”
She sits up straight and glares in that way he finds so cute but also so infuriating - and, dare he say it, sometimes also a bit frightening. “Well, we’re certainly not discussing mine because I’m after all just doing ‘something boring at the office’ all the time. No kissing and fake sex and butt-exposing for me.”
Yeah, definitely more than a little dramatic… Then her words sink in and it’s Tom’s turn to glare. “You’ve never called your job boring before. Why is it you’re suddenly oh so interested in kissing? Are Pundays and Fundays with your Alex not diverting enough anymore?”
Her small fist hits a cushion. “Oh, for the love of god, he’s not ‘my Alex’. And don’t you dare twist every single word leaving my mouth just so your jealous ass can get a bit of satisfaction!”
He splutters. And stumbles over his words, and there may even be a tiny gasp as well. “Jealous?! I’m not… I’m so not jealous. You brought up fake sex, I’m just thinking that it’s terribly rude of you to text while watching a movie. You know how much work they put in this?”
She laughs. She actually laughs at him. How dare she? He doesn’t even care that she looks incredibly lovely when she laughs.
“They made that movie more than twenty years ago, Tom. I think they can handle me texting.” Maybe they can, he can’t.
“I just don’t… how… why did I never even realise you're texting before? Was it secret?” Oh God, it was secretly texting wasn’t it? And he caught it.
“Tooooom,” she groans. “Why are we even doing this? No. I didn’t secretly text anyone. Maybe it was simply less texting, or… I don’t know.” She sighs, then looks at him. “Why are you even jealous?”
“I said I’m not jealous!” Whoopsie-daisy, that might’ve been a bit too loud.
She snorts. Actually snorts! Why is she so childish and impertinent today? Is that…dear god, that man’s influence is already rubbing off on her, isn’t it?
“Tom, you’re practically as green as the Hulk. And let me tell you something.” She stabs a finger at him, poking him in the chest. “Green sure as hell isn’t your colour.”
“Oh yeah? How about Alex? I bet green is his colour. I bet he’s all fancily dressed and owns ten pairs of shoes to impress his nurse fiancee. Or his punny ‘coworker’, pardon, friend.”
“Well, not everyone walks around in the same clothes every single day,” she murmurs, more to herself.
Just when Tom takes a deep breath to ask her, if he isn’t good enough for her anymore, she sighs again. Deeply this time.
“I promise you, he’s not doing anything to impress anyone, least of all me. He has someone, I have someone, we’re friends.”
“You might think that, but the way he texts so aggressively? He wants to be more. I tell you know, he has a crush.”
She flings her arms around again, groans loudly and crunches up her nose. “I’ve literally just told you he proposed to his girlfriend. Why would he have a crush on me?!”
Has she always gesticulated this wildly? Is it because she’s covering something up or is she really this clueless? Yes, yes, it must be that. Clearly that Alex has her so wrapped up in a net of lies that she isn’t seeing the wood for the trees.
“But isn’t that obvious?” He leans forward, holding up a finger and then counting off the points. “Firstly, women love romantic stuff. And what’s more romantic than a proposal? Second, he’s trying to lull you into safety so you won’t realize he’s wooing you until it’s too late. Third…” There’s got to be a third point there somewhere, Hiddleston… “Uh, third, talking about all that gives him more time to spend with you and legitimate reasons to text you.” Hah, there’s the third reason!
For a moment, she just stares. Then she throws her arms up and sighs even more dramatically. “Do you even realize how much you’re contradicting yourself? This is ridiculous!”
So, he’s ridiculous now. “Maybe you’re better off with someone like Alex then,” he pouts. Yes, he’s reached the point of pouting, and Tom has to admit he isn’t above that.
She stares at him again. Sitting up, her eyes searching his. “Are you drunk or something, Hiddleston? What the ever loving fuck is wrong with you?”
Okay. She’s mad now. Tom gets that. He’s mad, too. He just doesn’t know what she doesn’t understand about his logic.
“There’s nothing wrong with me, but maybe something is wrong with your friend. Being engaged doesn’t mean he won’t cheat.”
“But I won’t do that.”
“Ha! So, you’re admitting that there’s the possibility of him having a crush on you.”
“When did I say that?!” She’s screeching now, and Tom winces. She ignores him, though. “Tom, I’m over 30 years old. I know when someone has a crush on me!” She’s still yelling, and Tom isn’t quite sure how this got so out of hand. They were watching Jurassic Park ten minutes ago. Well, he was.
“Yeah? So, before I asked you out, how long did I fancy you?” Goodness, that seems so long ago now.
At least the question has made her stop yelling for a moment. Good, she was going to splinter glass with that screech soon, he’s sure.
“Just because it took you an eternity to muster up enough courage to ask me out doesn’t mean every man is like that. And I totally knew you were fancying me long before you fumbled your way through an - admittedly adorable - declaration.”
“Did not!”
“Did too!”
Childish. Yes, that’s what she is. Funny, she’s never struck him as so naive before. But clearly she neither gets his very valid point nor sees through the bugger’s deception. Time to change strategy. Yelling will only push her further into that man’s arms. Tom hides a shudder.
“Darling, let’s focus on what’s important, shall we? Clearly, he’s using those superficially innocent remarks and punny messages to hit on you without coming on too strong.”
Now she’s back to staring at him as if she’s reevaluating all her life choices AND wondering whether her ears are in working order.
“You know what, Thomas? You can take that patronizing tone and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.”
She’s just positively looking for a fight now, isn’t she? To give her an excuse to leave maybe? He tried to be the calm one here. Also, he’s Thomas now. That shakes him for a moment. He’s only Thomas when she’s mad (he’s kind of glad, she didn’t went full name with him yet), or when they’re in bed together.
“Love,” he tries again, but she interrupts him.
“I said stop. With. That. Tone. Thomas William Hiddleston.” Oh, okay, there’s the full name.
“Well, how do you want me to talk to you then? How does Alex talk to you?”
He admits, she does look a little bit like she’s not sure whether to love, or cry. Are those…? Oh goodness, are there tears forming?
She swallows, then takes a deep breath. “I have absolutely no idea what to say to you anymore,” she whispers. She’s closed her eyes again, her entire body falling against the backrest behind her once more. “Can you please tell me what to say to you? Because clearly I’m doing this wrong here.”
Yeah, well, clearly she is.
But if she’s so clearly in the wrong, why does he feel guilty now? It’s the tears. He can feel each not yet fallen drop like a twisting pain in his gut, dammit. What does that make him - hurting because he hurt her because she hurt him?
Jesus, this has gotten out of hand. Tom feels helpless–and he hates that. He left that feeling behind some ten years or so, or at least he had hoped he’d left it behind.
His hands clench and unclench. There’s a stinging sensation in his eyes that he ignores resolutely (if not entirely successfully).
“So…we don’t even know what to say to each other anymore. Has it come this far?” he asks glumly.
Her eyes shoot open. Yes, definitely glittering with unshed tears. Fuck.
“I didn’t let anything go anywhere, I’ll have you know.” With that, she rises and storms off, one hand reaching up to rub aggressively over a cheek.
Tom sighs, not storming after her yet. Maybe she needs some time to calm down first. He rubs at his eyes, before cradling his head in his hands. That didn’t go well.
He doesn’t even know why he hates that stupid Alex guy so much. He hasn’t even met him yet. Maybe that’s the reason.
She was right. She does have some male friends, just like Tom definitely made female friends. But they never text like that. To be fair, he doesn’t even know how his girlfriend and her co - friend - text each other.
But he makes her laugh. And apparently all that Tom’s achieved tonight is ruining Jurassic Park, and make her cry.
He sighs once more, then stands up to walk in the direction, she left.
“Love?” he asks hesitantly when he reaches the hallway.
“Don’t you dare ‘love, this, love, that’ me!” A sniffle. A slammed bedroom door.
Christ. Tom stares at the door, frowning. He jams his hands in his pockets and paces, back and forth, back and forth.
This calls for dire measures. With a resigned sigh, he pads barefoot into the kitchen and walks to the pantry cupboards. He’s tall enough to open the top left one without that tiny stool she always has to stand on, looking way too adorable. Reaching in, Tom roots around blindly, closing his fingers around a tin he’s using once a month.
He takes it down, lifts the lid and fishes out some wrapped chocolate candy and toffees. The tin holds her ‘shark week treats’, expensive and sinfully delicious sweets with which Tom spoils her when she’s suffering from PMS and what follows after. It’s not that time of the month today, but he hasn’t got the faintest clue how else to get through to her.
Sweets in hand, he walks to the bedroom, then plonks himself down in front of the door with his long legs crossed. He knocks once.
“Go away!”
Ouch. But he’s expected that.
“I’m not even here,” he says sadly, then slides one of the sweets under the closed door, giving it a little push so it will roll into the room.
She must have seen the chocolate rolling towards her in the bedroom, because Tom can hear a little gasp. That’s a good sign. At least he thinks so.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” It’s kind of an angry growl, and Tom shrinks a little bit. Oops? “Do you think I’m hormonal or something right now? I don’t need to be patronised here, you stupid git!”
“Hey now, can we stop with the name-calling?”
“No.” Sniffle. “No, we can’t.”
Tom leans his head back against the door behind him, closing his eyes, and cradling the remaining sweets in his hands. He’s tempted to eat them himself now.
“You can shoot those stupid ‘my girlfriend is overreacting’ sweets up your arse, Tom.”
He almost chuckles at her use of the British slang. But he holds it back, he gets the feeling she can hear everything that goes on on this side of the door.
He also holds back at least a dozen innuendos invoked by her comment.
Careful. He needs to be really careful right now.
“I never said you’re overreacting,” Tom replies before twisting and nudging another sweet beneath the door with a snip of his fingers.
“Damn right you didn’t, because you’re the one who overreacted!”
No, he didn’t. Well…perhaps a tiny wee bit? But how could he not when she was practically flirting with that Alex. Okay, right, maybe not flirting. But still.
He shifts against the door, listening for any updates from inside the room. Nothing. Oh, yes, it’s his turn to say something. But what?! He’s still racking his brain when she half-snarls, “Oh, no clever comeback, Cambridge Boy?”
Tom pouts at the sweets in his hands. “I kind of feel every word I might say will only get twisted and turned around to bite me in that arse you keep mentioning.”
“Hah.” It’s almost a cackle. “Welcome to the club then. That’s exactly how I felt when I tried to have a normal conversation with you a few minutes ago.”
“Hey now! You didn’t do a very good job there either!”
There’s a huff on the other side. “You really should have stayed with saying nothing. Because that really wasn’t helpful. At all.”
He knows. Yes, he knows this. What he doesn’t know is why he can’t let her have the last word in this.
“I know,” he sighs, shuffling another sweet beneath the door.
“Stop with those sweets!”
“But you love them!”
“But I’m not so sure right now that I love the person trying to force them on me.” She says it so quietly he can barely hear it–but hear it he does, and it’s like she’s slapped him in the face.
Tom twists around so fast he scatters the remaining sweets and hears his bones protest.
“What?! I…you…wait, wait, wait… You can’t be serious. I mean, I just…we…we didn’t even have a proper fight, and…” Jesus freaking Christ, he’s really fucked up this time, hasn’t he?
“I don’t care, if we had a ‘proper fight’!” she exclaims. “You don’t trust me a little tiny bit, and all I did was sending puns via text.”
What she says isn’t right like this, but just as Tom wants to start an explanation, she continues, “And don’t tell me anything about ‘I trust you, it’s him I don’t trust’. I’ve told you we’re just friends and I’ve told you I know if someone has a crush on me. You don’t trust my instincts. So. You don’t trust me.”
“But I love you. And…and maybe I can trust him around you.” He scrambles for things to say here. “Maybe I can meet…”
She interrupts him with a sniffle and a sad laugh. “I won’t let you meet Alex. I don’t need a fist fight in the office.”
He swallows, a little out of things to say, sitting on his knees in front of the door. “So, what do we do then?”
“I don’t know.”
She sounds so forlorn. Tom feels his eyes sting again and scrunches up his face. It won’t help if he starts blubbering now. How the hell can they fix this?
“Remember that time I was drunk and you had to struggle with me being an arse at night and the next morning too?” he asks, an idea slowly forming.
Silence. “Yeah?” She still sounds annoyed and hurt, but now also confused.
“You hated me quite a bit then, didn’t you, love?”
A sigh. “Yes.”
Ouch. But they’re getting there.
Tom rubs an oddly clammy hand on his jeans-clad thigh nervously. “But you gave me a chance to make it up to you, and you ultimately forgave me.”
Longer silence, as if she’s trying to process his words. He flinches when something thuds against the inside of the door. “What the hell, Hiddleston, do you think you can be a jealous, hurtful bastard and then mollify me with make-up sex?!” she shrieks.
Fuckity fuck, he’s digging his own grave today. “No! For god’s sake, that’s not what I meant, I swear!”
“What DID you mean then?” Tom sees it as a success she’s giving him a second chance here. She does sound angry, though, but he can work with angry. He can’t work well with tears, and ‘I don’t know if I love you’s, but he can work with angry.
“Just that,” he starts, still incredibly nervous. “Just that I gave you time and you gave me time and eventually you said, ‘I love you’ again.”
He’s met with silence. So he talks on, suddenly afraid that the next thing that happens is her walking out of the bedroom, all her things in hand. “And maybe that works this time as well. I can accept Alex as your friend.” He’s not too sure of that, if he’s honest with himself. “Forgive me sometime in the future?”
“First of all,” he hears behind the door and utters a sigh of relief. She’s not stormed out yet. “You ‘accepting’ Alex as a friend or not wouldn’t change anything. Secondly, this is a different situation here.”
Damn. Shouldn’t have breathed that sigh of relief just yet.
His palms go even clammier. “Why is it different?”
“Ugh.” Now she sounds even angrier. “You just don’t get it, do you? This isn’t me freaking out over a toilet seat kept up, biscuit packets mysteriously disappearing or socks never quite making it to the hamper. It isn’t you drinking a bit too much and pissing me off for a while. Relationships are built on trust, Tom. Has your Double First taught you nothing about that? About what happens when trust is broken or when one partner starts suspecting the other?”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Tom leans his head against the wood, feeling so lost it physically hurts.
“I wasn’t suspecting you. Well, not really. I…I don’t know why I feel…felt…so damn jealous.”
There. He’d admitted it.
“So, NOW you admit it.”
None of them says anything for a while, about a million scenarios going through Tom’s head about what may be going on in the bedroom.
“Yeah,” he finally sighs. “Yeah, I got jealous.”
“And you don’t know why?” she whispers, but he hears her a little closer, like she’s come to the closed door.
“I don’t… I mean… we were watching a movie, and you usually love that. And…” And what else? “And you said, something new is exciting. But WE are supposed to be exciting.”
The sigh that comes from the bedroom definitely is closer now.
“And you don’t think that you might be taking things for granted a bit? That both of us might be?”
Tom blinks at the door, then runs a hand through his hair with a sigh of his own.
“What…what do you mean?”
He hears rustling, then a soft thunk. The door shudders just a little, as if she’s sat down with her back against the other side.
“To be honest, I haven’t got a damn clue what I mean. Yeah, we’re supposed to be exciting. And we ARE, most of the time. But…but we’re also kind of settled in our ways now. And aren’t we also close enough and confident enough of our relationship to be able to give each other a bit of freedom? I let you jetset around the globe and be with some of the most beautiful women in showbusiness. Do I ever throw angry hissy fits and make jealous, hurtful remarks?”
Tom grimaces, his brain trying to keep pace with her logic while his heart is still aching.
“No. No, you don’t. And…I…it’s actually reassuring to know you don’t give me hell for my job…and, I guess, my way of interacting with people.”
“Then don’t I deserve the same courtesy from you?”
He draws a deep breath, mentally kicking himself in the butt. “Yes, you do.”
“So… why didn’t I get it then?” Yeah, well, that’s a good question, and Tom doesn’t know if he has a satisfying answer.
“I’m not… I’m not used to it, I guess.”
“Used to what?” comes the curious reply.
Tom shifts a little bit, and sits back with his back against the door and picks at the wooden floor. “Not being the center of your attention? Maybe? I don’t know.”
“Well,” she doesn’t exactly sound happy about that. “You have to learn to live with that then. The people I work with are my friends, Tom.” He grimaces at that. “And sometimes we have fun together. Hell, they even have more fun together than this little texting. Do you know how many times I canceled on going out with them, because we were doing something with your friends? Or because you were in London just for the weekend? Countless times, because I wanted to spend time with you.”
No. He didn’t know that.
Great, now he feels like an arse indeed. But still…isn’t it only natural that he was a bit jealous? Clearly that proves that he loves her–otherwise, why would he feel like strangling a stranger for texting her? Though he probably shouldn’t mention that. No, sir.
“I’m sorry if that isn’t what you wanted,” he says dejectedly, pushing his other emotions into a corner because for a moment there he really thought he’d lost her.
She sighs, for what feels like the millionth time in the past hour or so. Is she rolling her eyes at him? She does that a lot, and he’s sure she has no idea how cute it makes her look. But that would probably also be the wrong thing to say now, gee.
“I didn’t say it’s not what I wanted, Tom. It was–and is–my choice, and being with you won over being with them. But I do have a life outside this relationship. As do you. Right?”
“Right.” It hurts. To know she’s sacrificing things for making this relationship work. He can and should to do that too. Right? “So…,” he continues.
“So, what?” She asks, and Tom really doesn’t know what to say, or do, or feel. Well, he knows what he feels. He’s sad, angry, still jealous, and probably single by the end of the night, if he doesn’t make this right somehow.
“So, do you think we can work this out? I… I’m sorry that I hurt you, and I didn’t mean to question you. At all.” He’s babbling now, and he knows it. But this shouldn’t be the end of their years together, both sitting on separate sides of a closed bedroom door. “And I will work on that. Of course, you can meet your friends, and coworkers, and friends you work with. And I never wanted to make you feel like you have to give them up for me…”
“Tom, stop,” she interrupts, softly this time.
But Tom is having none of it. Not when he’s trying to fix this. “I will… maybe we can all go together and I can meet them sometime. Or you go alone. You can totally go alone, I’m not there to watch over you, you know?” He chuckles nervously.
She uses his pausing to say something on her own. “Tom, it’s really sweet of you. And maybe you do understand, but let me sleep a night, and let me think about it. This night,” she huffs, “this night was a little more stressful than I’ve thought it would be.”
“I know, I know,” he interjects, turning around to face the door again. “And that’s totally my fault. I take all the blame.”
Another sigh. “I know, Tom. I still need to think. Okay?”
“Well… yeah. I guess.” This time he needs to wipe his cheek as a little wetness escapes his eyes. “Yeah,” he mumbles again.
“Yeah,” she says as well, and that thick, wet, sniffly tone is back in her voice.
God, how did they go from movie night to this?! If this was a movie, Tom would have a word with the director or scriptwriter about credibility. But he knows all too well that life doesn’t go by scripts. Still, he would appreciate a line or two of dialogue just now, to make the despair go away.
He lays his hand longingly against the door, as if he could somehow push it through the wood and touch her, reassure himself that she’s still there and they’ll make it work.
“So…do you want me to…uhm…sleep on the couch?” If she says yes, he’ll have to fold himself into two to fit on that lumpy thing, but if that’s what she needs him to do tonight then he will.
He hears a very soft chuckle behind the door. “I really don’t have any idea what I want, Tom.”
He swallows heavily. That’s not reassuring at all. “Then… maybe it’s better I’ll sleep there.”
“Hm hm.”
Tom sighs and stands up slowly, almost stepping on the forgotten sweets he’s sent flying earlier. He clears his throat. “I’ll be… in the living room then.”
“Yeah.” He really liked it better when she was yelling at him.
With a sigh he turns around, walks slowly back to the living room and stares at the couch. He’s never slept on this thing voluntarily, except for some very lazy Sunday afternoons.
“Guess there’s a first time for everything,” he mumbles to himself.
He sinks down onto the couch and stares blankly at the now dark television screen. It seems like an eternity ago that he sat here with her to watch a movie they both love.
Tom scrubs his hand over his face again, catching a last tear. He shifts on the couch although he knows there’s no way in hell he’ll ever be comfotable enough to seep. And a broken heart won’t help either.
Something hard pokes him painfully in the thigh.
“Ow. What the…?!” He wiggles and finds the culprit: her phone–the gadget from hell that started it all. Or well, partly. He’s probably more at fault than the phone, he knows that now. Almost absently, he taps the screen and it blinks to life. He frowns, fights the momentary urge to check her messages–then feels a million times guiltier for even thinking that. Instead, he opens a note and types slowly, thoughtully.
Perhaps you’d like to share this with Alex? It’s one of my favourite punny jokes. - What kind of concert only costs 45 cents? A 50 Cent concert featuring Nickleback.
With a tired attempt at a chuckle, Tom gets up and tiptoes to the room. There’s absolutely no sound to be heard. Squatting, he softly, carefully lays the phone down close to the door, where she’ll hopefully see it whenever she comes out.
He’s been staring at the blinking digital clock for two hours. It’s 1 am when he hears the bedroom door open.
He hasn’t slept one bit, but he jumps up as soon as he hears the first soft footsteps. They stop for a moment, before she continues.
He doesn’t hear a suitcase, but that doesn’t mean anything. She has bags as well. She’s not leaving, is she?
“Please, don’t leave!” he almost shouts as soon as he can see her shadow in the doorway to the living room. He’s left the door open, in case she wanted to leave without telling him. He might have been a bit paranoid.
She’s in his sleeping shirt, and definitely not dressed for leaving. “Did I wake you?” She doesn’t look better than him, with red-rimmed eyes. “Uh, I just wanted to get some juice.”
“Oh.” She isn’t leaving. “Yeah.” He rubs his neck. “You didn’t wake me, no.”
She just slowly nods her head and says nothing else. Then she holds up her phone. “Found this by the door, did you leave it?”
Tom can’t decipher her tone at all. Has he dug his grave deeper than before by meddling with matters that are only her concern? God, he should’ve left things as they were. What if she’s even madder at him now? His body is all kinds of tense and painful, and not because he’s been cooped up on that bloody couch.
“Um, yeah. Yeah, I did. Sorry?”
“And because you couldn’t tame the beast with sweets, you wrote me a note?”
Shit. There we go. It was totally the wrong thing to do. But then why is she taking some more steps closer instead of ripping his aching head off?
He swallows nervously. “I…wouldn’t quite phrase it like that. But yes, I guess it boils down to that.”
She regards him in silence for a long moment–and then startles him into a very unmanly squeak of shock when she hurls the phone he hadn’t even noticed she’d been holding at him. He doesn’t even feel it thud against his chest because he’s too busy staring at her face.
A face that breaks out into a reluctant grin. “You suck at punny jokes, Hiddleston.”
“Huh. I… I have no idea what to say. I’m sorry?” He’s a little hesitant. This is too good to be true, she can’t grin at him. Or make jokes. He’s not prepared for that.
“Still apologising, hmm?
“Well, yes. Naturally.” He rubs the spot on his chest. “You’re not leaving then?” Is that too early to ask?
She grimaces a bit. “Uhm, I couldn’t even fall asleep without you. So. No. Not today.”
“Tomorrow?” escapes him before he can stop it.
She shakes her head. “No. But you’re not forgiven, yet, Tom. And it’ll take a little time.”
“Yeah.” He nods his head, almost embarrassingly eagerly. “Yeah, I know that.”
She comes even closer, and Tom forgets how to breathe for a moment. “Can you hug me?”
“Can I…god, yes. Yes. Hug.”
And somehow he moves and she too, and then she’s in his arms and the world rights itself. He can almost hear it, something clicking back into place inside him.
She makes a tiny sound, and then her arms come around him and she buries closer into his embrace. Tom tightens his hold and soaks it all up. They still fit together perfectly, even though he feels different, the rift between them still not totally closed.
He breathes her in, nuzzles closer with a small sound of his own.
“I hate you,” comes her muffled voice against his chest. “A little.”
“I guess I’ll just have to live with that,” he says on a chuckle that almost turns into a sob of relief.