A/N: This is my submission for @tomsh0lland 5sos writing challenge!! I cannot believe you almost have 11,000 followers, that’s bonkers! My sincerest of congratulations of a goal well met! :)
Warnings: mentions of sex and cursing, there’s angst too but if you listened to the song what do you expect
Summary/Song: My song was “Lie to Me,” which I think we can call agree is tied with “Ghost of You” as the best songs 5sos ever released. / “It does not to well to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”
Tom brought the cool glass of the bottle to his lips, the alcohol burning his throat, and swallowed.
The club was loud, though the shouted words and vibrating walls didn’t touch the pounding inside his skull. The bartender looked disapprovingly at him when he made a motion for another, but Tom just dug into his wallet and slapped a bill on the counter, and his glass was full again.
His night wasn’t supposed to be like this, he was supposed to meet up with some old friends and have a good time. The club was an old favorite, one they’d perused many times in the past. It was usually fun, but this time it was too loud, the lights too bright, illuminating that hair he once twirled around his finger.
Tom didn’t know she’d be here, but that’s how she was. She was a mysterious sort of woman, doing what she wanted when she wanted, consequences and convenience of others be damned. He thought he’d imagined her for a moment, but there she was, clear as day in the dark room. She had a way of capturing people–of capturing him–in that way.
His eyes had simply been scanning the room as he leaned on the wood of the bar, casually talking to a friend when his voice trailed off. His eyebrows furrowed when he saw her, with a man that wasn’t him. Their eyes met across the room, and it was like he was back there again, on that empty street. A drizzle had just begun, like a hundred taps on the shoulder to turn around, to go back to the woman he was walking away from.
“Tom, you have to leave. We can’t do this, don’t deny it.” She whispered against his bare chest, blankets strewn around them. His fingers paused their ministrations in her hair then, his thoughts of nothing and no one but her halting as quickly as a paused movie.
Which, he supposed, was appropriate. He was technically in New York to work, working on Spider-Man: Far From Home. When he’d been adventuring the familiar city with coworkers one night they got let out early, they’d met. Since that night filled with stolen glances and comfortable banter, he’d snuck away as much as he could; pausing his work for the dream walking towards him.
“Maybe we can,” he argued weakly, his fingers lightly twisting through her strands. He was just trying to hold onto this, onto her, as long as he could. “I already moved that one flight to tomorrow afternoon instead of today, right? I can visit, we can try. Don’t you want to?” His words begged in the black of the room, so dark it could only hold their voices and the comfortable silence of shared secrets.
“Of course I do,” she said without a moment’s hesitation. She rolled off him, onto an elbow so he could just barely see those piercing eyes. “But I’m being realistic. This time with you…I’m going to treasure it. But this isn’t possible in the way it should be. You’re leaving in tomorrow and my internship is over in a week. We’ll literally be oceans apart, and who knows when we’ll see each other again?”
“We could at least exchange phone numbers,” he pleaded. The pair had decided against it the night they’d met, daring to go on the fact that the other would actually show up when and where they decided. It had worked so far, and they hadn’t changed it.
“Tom, I don’t think that’s a good idea. I don’t think I could bear to have your name in my contacts, just sitting there when I know this won’t work. That’s not fair to either of us…we should just leave this the way it is.”
“Maybe–” he started again, “If…but I…” He had just stared at her then, eyes saying what he couldn’t. She just nodded, hair tickling his chest in a moment of understanding, and kissed him again.
He forgot who he was with her, running through those busy New York sidewalks as the sky fell down around them. Pushing past tourists and bar hoppers alike, they raced, faces blurring and feet pounding as they tried not to lose the other in the wet chaos.
He forgot who he was with her, attempting to teach her how to dance with no success in the shoe section of a department store. One of his favorite songs happened to filter through the old speakers, and when she caught him moving with more grace than the average man, she had just asked him to drop everything and teach her. So he did, through their fits of laughter as they tried on ridiculous shoes and danced to song after song, the stares of shoppers only egging them on.
He forgot who he was with her, groaning in defeat as she bested him yet again in a game of skee ball. She’d let out a victory hurrah, poking his sides and giggling while he lay his head on this crossed arms, leaning down against the arcade game. The lights were neon and flashing, the bubbling noise of children and the various machines drowned out by her giggle, the one he could listen to over and over again.
He had forgotten who he was with her, the fans and the cheers, the screams for attention and pressures of being the best in front of people he’d never see again. He was just a boy, standing next to a girl, pretending his hands weren’t shaking when she bumped his hip with hers.
Now he felt like he couldn’t remember who he was without her. Who he had been before. Before the laughs, the drinks and midnight stories, the stolen night between scratchy sheets.
No matter how fleeting, how desperate and naīve he had been, she left a permanent mark on him. Straight through his chest, as sure and searing as a burn.
He’d never told anyone about her, though his friends had been concerned about his dip in attitude when he returned home. He wanted to keep her to himself, the memories with a beautiful girl who had stolen his heart despite the odds. Though he told himself he was being dramatic, he couldn’t help but feel that a piece of him had been left with her that day, a part of him that was just hers. He wanted to hold those moments close, and maybe by keeping his silence he’d take a piece of her too, one that was just his.
So his mouth stayed shut, no matter the pestering and side-eyes his friends gave him when New York became a topic. When they joked about how Tom kept disappearing, returning with a shit-eating grin. He kept those days, those secret dreams, in a marked box in his mind. A little ivory box, with silver edges and a useless keyhole.
“Hey, Tom, look at this.”
Walking over, Tom squinted at the small box. Glancing at her, he voiced his confusion. “I don’t wanna sound stupid, but…it’s a box.”
“Yeah, but it’s a pretty box. Plus, it says here on the tag that you have to ask the owner for the key, which means it’s probably holding something valuable. What do you think it is?”
“I don’t know, maybe Polaroids of the owner’s wife in…compromising positions.” She made a face as Tom winked, a strangled noise emitting from her throat.
“Well, I think there’s something of actual value in here. Maybe a brooch that the owner is scared someone will steal, so that only someone who really loves this piece will get the chance to see it.” She got this wistful look in her eye, gaze traveling far beyond the stacked chairs and smell of old wood in the small antique store.
He’d bought that box for her when she went to grab a taxi, obtaining the key from the owner. She squealed, hand on his face and lips on his cheek in thanks. They opened it when they got to her apartment, it was the first and only time he’d been there in the four days they’d been together. Four days and three nights, Tom thought as he swirled the ice in his glass. Short enough to forget, long enough to remember.
Long enough to remember her excitement as he placed the key in her palm, his own imprinted with the outline of it. He’d grasped it so tightly in the cab, afraid it would slip right through his fingers.
She took it with such care, the anticipation killing them both as the lock clicked. Opening it slowly, they sighed in disappointment at the empty velvet waiting inside. She frowned as he patted her shoulder, saying she could just put something else in it, something that was important to her, not someone else.
Standing at the bar, he wondered if she’d ever opened the box again; had seen the slip of paper with his phone number placed so carefully within it. If she kept jewelry from this other man inside, or if she’d simply given it away.
She looked at him, eyes piercing as ever, sparkling in the dim lighting just like he remembered. He felt time slow, his spine tight as a bowstring. And when she turned away and didn’t look back, he snapped in half.
She was his what if, his if only, his missed opportunity and stolen dream. The one that got away, his biggest regret. My other world line, he mused as he watched the man smile, push her hair behind her ear and gaze into her eyes. That man was where he should be, showing her off to everyone. Making the effort and keeping her right by his side.
She leaned into her boyfriend, whispering in his ear. Tom could almost feel her breath, hear her sweet voice talking about anything and everything that last night in the city; before the bed and twisted sheets, before they’d been together in the most inseparable way.
“Do you ever think about the butterfly effect?” she’d asked, the dimmed lighting of the kitchen faintly illuminating their almost-finished glasses next to them on the floor. Hers, tinted pink from her wine, his clouded with scotch.
“The what?” his curls tousled as he turned to face her, arm aching from supporting his head on the thin rug for so long.
“The butterfly effect, it’s like a theory for how one thing affects the other. It comes up in time travel movies and stuff all the time. ‘It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly’s wings can cause a typhoon halfway across the world.’” She quoted, words coming out just a bit slower as the alcohol clogged her memory. “You seriously haven’t heard of it?”
Turning back to the ceiling, Tom shrugged a bit. “Uh, no, can’t say that I have.”
“Oh…well, it basically makes people think about if they had done that one thing that one time that maybe their life would be different. Sometimes they say that each choice you make has an opposite, that the other decision you could have made creates another ‘world line,’ another universe that branches off of that choice.” Her voice floated around the room as he just listened, content with it surrounding him.
“Sounds complicated,” Tom smiled when she scoffed. Waiting a moment, he continued. “What do you think about then…when you think of it?”
“That if I hadn’t bought that horrendous pair of shoes in fifth grade then maybe I would’ve had money now to buy an extra skee ball ticket to really shove my skills down your throat.” Tom laughed, and bumped his shoulder against hers.
But he did now, at least he wanted to. Because she had this hold, this unrelenting grip on him. Years could go by, Tom could be cooking for his kids or laying in bed with his wife, and his mind could still drift and wonder what she was doing. How she turned out, if she liked that song that was always on the radio. She was the kind of person you never really forgot, even if you tried.
So he didn’t, he stopped trying. He couldn’t now anyways, even if she pretended she didn’t know him. He had to sit there, drowning his memories of this beautiful woman that didn’t want him anymore. One that he could’ve loved, if the universe had allowed it.
But it hadn’t, it decided to mock him. It let him sit there in a bar and watch his best friend dance and kiss the woman he thought was only his, if only in a memory.
Harrison had been sneaking around with a girl for a month, neglecting to share details until everyone got to meet her. Tom was excited to meet this girl who had so quickly entranced his friend, causing even his best mate to keep her a secret. She just had that sort of effect, he supposed. One as delicate and powerful as a butterfly’s wing.
He thought she’d acknowledge him, a piece of him dared to hope she’d leave his best friend and come running back to him. Thought she’d tell Harrison she had had something special with him, maybe even love. But she didn’t. She lied.
So Tom brought the cool glass of the bottle to his lips, her memory burning his mind, and swallowed.
You guys I’m ngl I’m actually quite proud of this, please let me know if you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. :)
Tagging some people who have like my fics in the past (please lmk if you do/don’t want me to do this):
@choke-me-sweet-pea @bluelalal @tomsh0lland @blackberrywidow@urbanhaz @joycelovedorial @ellaorelizabeth @mothergriever@fireboltrose7559 @parker-peter-parker @oh-balls-you-idjits @peterplanet@thatonepersonyoumightknow @thegirlwiththestories @uwu-peter-parker-uwu@lovedrunk-babe @thothollandd @kylokayd @screamholland
areudirty
jbbartram-illu
kianamaiart
