Chapter Text
“You. Want. A. Story.” Tom rolls his head back to look at the ceiling before snapping it forward again for the delivery of the fourth and final word.
He’d walked in the door a little stiff and you thought that you could cheer him by distracting him with his newfound favorite thing – reinventing segments of Shakespeare with you. It had worked in the past – the pair of you had had a blast modernizing select scenes from Twelfth Night. Your love of it stemmed from the fact that he was so turned on by the process. He certainly loves his Shakespeare, this one. Your thoughts for the evening are no longer on making it to the bedroom, unless it is to somehow barricade yourself in.
What had happened during the day to incite such anger?
And why had a simple playful request triggered it?
He snarls, “You always want a story, want something. Want. Want. WANT.” You’re backing steadily away from him. No sudden movements or he might pounce. He has you on size and muscle mass, no contest. “Let me tell you what I want. I want you out of my house!”
This makes you pause your retreat. What? He’s throwing you out? “What? Tom?”
What had happened today?!
You have your hands held up in front of you, your palms facing him as an ineffective barrier to the words. Your confusion and submissive behavior does nothing to deplete the anger he’s exuding. You’ve never seen him like this, not even when he was supposed to be summoning up such rage for a character.
“Tom, I don’t understand.” Rather than continue to storm closer to you he bypasses you entirely to walk into the bedroom the pair of you have shared for nearly a year now.
He starts banging around in the room. It takes you a second to build up the courage to peek through the doorway to find him going through the dresser drawers, pulling clothing out. He tosses pieces over his shoulder without watching where they fall… onto the floor, onto the bed. They’re all your things. Mostly your things, at any rate. He’s too mad to notice that he’s picked up and tossed one or two of his own belongings.
“Journalist.” He spits the word out. “I knew better. I knew better than to get involved with a journalist.”
He hates your profession now? The very reason you even know each other? He doesn’t pause throwing things when you take a brave breath and step into the room. “Tom? What’s going on?”
“I can’t even look at you right now.” He hisses at you. The piece of clothing he had in his hands comes hurling at you, whapping into your chest. You cling to it so it doesn’t fall to the ground. You have a second to discover the thing in your arms is a shirt before something else comes hurtling at you and you are forced to drop the shirt to catch the next article of clothing.
“I don’t understand.” You let the lacy bit of clothing fall to the floor to join the rest of your wardrobe. He’s making quite a mess of your things, but you can’t worry about that right now. “Tom! Talk to me! Stop… stop whatever this is.” Another something gets thrown at you and you bat it down to join the rest of the items on the floor. You raise your voice to break through his muttering, “Stop throwing things!”
He listens, to your amazement, holding a t-shirt loosely between the fingers of his left hand. You’ve always loved the way his fingers curl into fabric. His costumes, the bedsheets... It takes effort to keep your eyes from drifting to the bed as the thought occurs.
Everything about him always seemed so graceful… though maybe not in this moment. Right now he’s all jerky movements and ragged breaths. “You want to understand? Where is your mobile?”
“What?”
“YOUR PHONE?!”
If he hadn’t thrown clothing all over the room maybe you’d be able to find it faster. “It’s um… it should be in my bag.” You spot your bag near the bed. You have to bypass Tom to get to it. He doesn’t budge and the anger you feel radiating off him when you squeeze past him makes you flinch away.
Your phone isn’t there. “It’s... oh fuck I left it at work.” Out on your desk. And you haven’t gone in for two days, finally taking the vacation time you’d been amassing ever since starting at the magazine.
You slowly turn back to face Tom. If it’s possible he looks even angrier than he had been when he first came home and started shouting. “I’ve been getting calls. All. Day. To my unlisted number.”
Oh. Fuck.
His number was out there now. Someone had unlocked your phone – how hard was that these days, after all – and … Oh. Your eyes widen. The photos!
“Yes. She gets it now.” He swivels and turns to head to the closet to continue his rampage.
You can’t quite catch your breath as you sink down onto the bed. It is part of life in this technologically intense age – forgetting your phone somewhere isn’t something unusual. Sometimes things are just forgotten in the rush of things, or misplaced. You'd left it right beside your keyboard - it's usual home. You'd been so excited about finally taking a few days...
Your phone had been locked so it shouldn’t have mattered, but the fact that you were dating Tom Hiddleston… well obviously someone amongst your coworkers found it too tempting to just let the opportunity pass them by. All it took was the right code to gain access to Tom’s unlisted number. From there they had probably clicked to scroll through the texts exchanged… and therein found the photos.
The photos! Oh - the photos.
It was stupid to keep them on your phone. You knew better. You should have deleted them immediately after receiving them. You usually did. Even after deleting them a truly digitally savvy person could track them down. Once things like that are out there, they’re out there. The both of you may be consenting adults but that won’t do a thing to repair the damage the lewd photos will cause to his character and status.
“Oh God, Tom.”
He spins on you, “Don’t. Don’t use that tone. Don’t even think about trying to apologize. Get out.” He takes a step towards the bed before shouting again because you haven’t moved. “Get out. Get out. I said get out!”
You’re undoubtedly going to lose your job over this. What magazine will trust sensitive data to someone who is involved in such a breach? And you’ve clearly lost Tom. You can feel the prickle of tears starting to burn at your eyes. You fight against the surge of emotion. He’s so angry now his face is fully transformed into a sneer of disgust.
You’ve lost nearly everything else – you won’t lose your dignity as you flee from his anger. You won’t cry. You scoop up your bag from the spot where you’d dropped it and hurry towards the door. The clothes? He can burn them, if he chooses.
Where the hell are you going to go?
The sound of him digging about in the closet, the noise of hangers knocking together as he pulls clothing out, stops you. You haven't quite made it to the doorway to the bedroom. Your brain has finally had time to process through the shock of the moment and is finally starting the process of responding. He’s angry about the loss of privacy – ok – but honestly… while embarrassing to have them leaked the photos just showed him as human. A very well endowed human at that. Hell his attire sometimes showed more than certain photos that had been on your phone.
You wipe the beginnings of tears from your eyes and drop your bag with a loud thump. The noise brings his attention around to find you turning back around to face the bedroom, to face him.
“I said get out!” He roars. The armful of clothing, hangers and all, come flying through the room in your direction.
“No!” The mass of dresses and shirts land just at your feet, falling short of his target. You bend down to pick up the top thing on the pile and the hanger falls free – it’s a favorite shirt of yours – a soft something by a band the pair of you had gone to see together. You toss it at his head, causing him to duck to avoid it. “Stop. Throwing. Shit. At. Me! It’s just photos!”
You’ve seen it before with celebrities, they issue a public statement about the incident and then everything breezes over. It sometimes takes a little while but it breezes over. People like being reminded that celebrities are human, too.
You snag yourself on a hanger jutting out from the pile as you step forward, saving the stumble by scooping up something from the floor. It happens to be a stocking and strap sans garter belt, something you yourself have been photographed in for the exchange of pictures. You shake it at him before throwing it at his head, as well. “It’s just photos, and we’ll get you a new fucking number.”
Even mostly catching the stocking, part of it hits him. The silky fabric drapes across his neck and over the opposing shoulder. You watch as he reaches up to grasp the material, curling his fingers down one by one until the stocking is clutched in his hand so he can rip it away. To your surprise it doesn’t come flying back at you. Nor does he toss it aside, but lets it rest in his hand. Is this progress?
“That’s right. Spin the story. Dance little journalist. Dance.”
That’s a no on progress.
“Oh GOD you can be such an asshole! I didn’t send out the pictures, Tom! Just left my locked phone at work!” Your eyes stray down from his face before you force them back up again. Damn his proclivity for wearing tight clothing. “Like you have anything to be embarrassed about anyway. You’re probably getting cheers.”
Why are you standing here arguing with him? You’re invested. You love him. But if he’s willing to throw you out over this how much can he really love you in return? Well fuck him. Fuck him and his beautiful fucking face.
You throw up your hands in the air, “You know what? FINE – hate me. Blame me. This is bullshit, Tom.”
Fuck it all, you’ve started to cry.
Leave. Leave quickly. You spin again and grab your bag. It doesn’t matter what he’s yelling at you now. You’ll find someone else. It’ll hurt for a while but you’ll get over him. You’ll survive dear monsieur Hiddleston.