Work Text:
At a quarter past seven on a Thursday, you were sitting on a train heading down to London. You’d been on this train for 120 minutes and your only reprieve from absolute and utter boredom came in the form of a phone call from your boss, the principal investigator of the lab you work at. You had forgotten your earphones at home and the train had no Wi-Fi, so when that marvellous woman asked you to go ahead with the introduction of your upcoming paper, you were over the moon. So absolutely thrilled that you barely registered the fact that someone, a man, had sat down across from you, even though he had uttered a small polite greeting to you, his fortuitous travelling companion. However, once you disconnected the call and set about getting your laptop out, the look you chanced at his handsome face left no room for doubt about the identity of that man.
Red curls accompanied by an equally red, well-groomed beard, made to appear charmingly unkept. Black-framed glasses partially concealing a multitude of soft freckles. Slim nose, high cheekbones, piercing blue eyes. That trademark navy blue sweater with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows.
This man was Tom Hiddleston. The object of your romantic (and not so romantic) fantasies. But you, a well-educated young woman, refused to succumb to the insistent urge to let your chin drop and hang unceremoniously, to babble and stutter like a love-struck school girl. You were no such thing. Your face remained impassive, your hands steady, your dark shrill gaze trained on the task at hand. Once your computer was out, you went to work, roaming over your notes of the enormous amount of papers you had thoroughly studied, commencing your exposition of speciation and hybridization, your chosen topic of study. While you were working, you could not help but wonder. Imagining. Envisioning that intelligent gaze returned to you in another kind greeting, focused. A question about your state, apropos your name. Bea, you would answer him with one of your soft smiles, the ones that gave little away. Tom, he would reply, as if he did not know that such an introduction was superfluous. You would say that it was nice to meet him, and you would not be lying. Maybe you would ask if he was returning home to London, where he was from, if it was a trip for business or pleasure. Perhaps you would forego the social norm of small, convenient, talk and question him of his inspiration towards the character of Coriolanus, for you had seen his performance many a time and the text alone would not suffice for such brilliance.
Maybe he would inquire about what you do for a living. Once you told him about the wonders of Evolutionary Biology, he might have smiled his mischievous, the one that made his eyes light up with unconcealed mirth, in recognition of a passion akin to his own towards his craft. You would return his smile with acute intensity.
You would engage in conversation further, not noticing the ticking of time as you approached your destination. Your work forgotten on the table, along with your long dormant computer. You would ask about his siblings, he would return the question. Of course, you already knew quite a bit about his sisters, but you still enjoyed hearing him speak about them with blatant fondness. You would speak about your own sister and her husband, your brother in law, and their cat, that used to be yours as well. But once she moved away, her husband, then fiancée, went along, with the cat accompanying. You would talk about how you missed them all terribly, but failing to share the lasting heartbreak over loosing the cat, not having her to come home to everyday, awaiting you with a quick brush of a greeting and absentminded aloofness that had become extraordinarily companionable long ago. Before you had moved out of your parents’ home and to England, you would either come home to an empty apartment or to progenitors that would be either too tired or too mad to care about your arrival, about your state, about your day. The cat always cared. She would always lightly run across your legs on the sofa, dropping one of her toy mice for you to throw repeatedly for her to catch. Once she got tired, she would curl up against your thigh, purring away at your soft caresses to her charcoal fur.
But you would tell him none of that. You would, howbeit, tell him about your move to England, the cosy little flat you had found online, where they would not let you keep a pet, but you couldn’t maintain one either way. Too little time, too much work. You would tell him of when you enlisted the help of your co-workers to carry your couch up the stairs, as your building lacked an elevator. It was an admittedly old building, as declared by the lack of an elevator and the rusty plumbing, but it was charming. It incited in you a strong feeling of melancholy and belonging, similar to a dream state. He would laugh with unabashed humour. He would not be coy, neither would you. There was no reason to.
Without notice, your journey would draw to a close. London was upon thee. You would put away your computer, chancing a small smile in his direction, and stand up, collecting your belongings. He would do the same, his sweater riding slightly up his stomach as he stretched his arms in the air. Standing up, you would understand why every fan who had met him in person would speak about how tall he was so feverishly. You know he was tall. You had looked up his height on the internet. You had looked at pictures of him alone. At pictures of him standing next to other people of known height. You had thought him to be deliciously tall. But actually standing next to him would only cement that fact and elicit in you a feeling of dauting, comforting overbearingness. In such a small space, he would be everywhere around you.
You would both make your way to the door of the train, awaiting its stop. Once the doors opened, he would defer passage to you. Then, standing on the platform, you would smile at him. A genuine smile you reserved for those you trusted, for those you were connected to. He would return it. With only a parting word, you would go your separate ways, never to meet again.
Fortuitously, as you finished writing about how the demographic history of populations impacts the effects and efficiency of natural selection, your stop rang out across the train, announced for all passengers. Quickly saving your work, you put away your computer and gathered all your belongings. Swiftly getting up, you looked at the man you were just sat across from. With a dip of your head and a parting word, you walked away from him. Exiting the train, you allowed for one more look, never to see him again.