One of the best things of reading the tainted cup is slowly realizing just how batshit Din seems to everyone else. Like he thinks he’s a normal, upstanding engraver, if a bit green and uncertain of himself, but to everyone else he’s almost as bad as Ana once he gets going
Our of curiosity how many parts do you think Instead Of You will have? Also I need you to know that since I read breaking curfew last summer I have not been the same and my friend knows too because I info dumped and he’s always like ‘that damn camp counselor fic man’ I’m like I know dude I’m a changed woman after it
i think around 35-40 parts at this point 😭 but i’m not totally positive… i told y’all it’s a slow burn!!!
and omg that makes me so happy to hear and also is wild for me to think about!! like ppl talking about my fic to their friends is something i never even considered a possibility when i started posting my writing but whenever someone tells me this i’m just aksjdhshsh
When you got the job to be a counselor at the summer camp you’d grown up attending all your life, you expected to see some familiar faces. But you certainly hadn’t counted on having to work alongside the boy who had made it his life’s mission to make your life a living hell every summer. In fact, you thought you’d never have to see Tom Holland again. But he’s is in the cabin right across from yours with campers of his own- smirk, jawline, and all. If you didn’t know any better you might’ve thought that he applied for the position just to spite you, but who were you kidding? What kind of asshole would do something like that?
Prologue | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine💦 | Part Ten💦 | Part Eleven💦 | Part Twelve | Part Thirteen | Part Fourteen | Part Fifteen | Epilogue 💦 | completed on 07.08.2020
Summary: When you got the job to be a counselor at the summer camp you’d grown up attending all your life, you expected to see some familiar faces. But you certainly hadn’t counted on having to work alongside the boy who had made it his life’s mission to make your life a living hell every summer. In fact, you thought you’d never have to see Tom Holland again. But he’s is in the cabin right across from yours with campers of his own- smirk, jawline, and all. If you didn’t know any better you might’ve thought that he applied for the position just to spite you, but who were you kidding? What kind of asshole would do something like that?
Warnings: swearing, fear of heights
What I listened to while writing: the breaking curfew playlist by @cinnamon-roll-peter!!
Word Count: 2.5k (updated)
Series Masterlist
Tom gulped nervously like he was suddenly reconsidering having to spend an undisclosed amount of time stuck in a small space with you.
“Tom,” you growled and he took a step back. “What did you say?”
“I was just kidding,” he tried, but you didn’t buy it.
“No you weren’t, asshole. Who told you that?”
“I- um I just overheard your campers talking at dinner the other night?”
“Bullshit, what does ‘overheard’ really mean?”
“I may or may not have talked to them in passing...”
“What? When?”
Tom rolled his eyes. “You were preoccupied.” You still didn’t know what the fuck he meant. “With Ying,” he said like it should’ve been obvious.
“So you think it’s okay to just take that opportunity to talk to my campers?”
“They called me over!”
You went on the offense. “What?! What did they want? What else did they say?”
“I don’t think I should-“
“Tom!”
“They were just asking about why you didn’t like me...”
Thunder crackled in the distance and you narrowed your eyes at him, wondering if the flush on his face was from sunburn or nerves. “And? What did you say?”
“I just said I didn’t know! That you just haven’t liked me since we were kids.”
“Of course you made me look like the bad guy, Tom. Typical.”
Tom scowled, licking his lips. “What did you want me to say? That you’re still pissed about breaking curfew one time eleven years ago?”
“Fuck you, is that really all you remember from that night? From all those years?”
“Do you always live in the past?” He asked, seeming bored.
“Do you always use humor to compensate for your tiny dick?”
“You know what, y/n, maybe if you weren’t such a bitch all the time, your campers might actually like you and wouldn’t be asking why you can’t be more like me!”
You watched his eyes grow wide with shock as yours did in turn. Your jaw went slack and your mouth fell into an o-shape. Whatever insult you had been about to hurl next dissolved on your tongue and turned bitter. It didn’t matter now.
Tom was quiet, standing with his arms crossed in front of you, offering no apology. Your eyes burned and you didn’t even try to blink the tears away. It was your fault for pressing him into telling you what your kids really thought of you, it was your fault that they felt that way about you in the first place. But to compare you to Tom of all people, that cut deep. What had you done in a past life to deserve that blow?
“I’m requesting a transfer,” you decided simply and turned on your heel to leave.
“Wait-” Tom stuttered. You were surprised he was saying anything at all. “What do you mean transfer?”
“I mean I’m transferring to another daytime activity, if they’ll let me. I’m done with Arts and Crafts.”
“You mean you’re done with me.”
Your hand on the doorknob was the only answer you gave, but Tom reached out to stop you again, placing his hand over yours.
“It’s still storming,” he said in a tone of annoyance tinged with concern. “The campus is locked down.”
“Are you going to stop me?” you challenged, sniffling.
He looked back down at your hands still touching and considered it, but ultimately let go, choosing to watch you run off into the rain instead.
-
You tossed and turned in your bunk that night, unable to fall asleep. The camp beds were uncomfortable already, the added stress of the day was only making it more difficult to drift off. Tom’s words played on repeat in your head as you laid there in the dark.
Your girls lay sleeping silently in their bunks around you, unaware of what you’d learned. In all honesty, you had thought about quitting. Packing your bags and driving home and spending the summer working retail in the city. As miserable as that sounded, you felt like you had let your campers down, and that they deserved better. Zendaya had quickly talked you out of that and insisted that even if the things Tom had said were true that there was still time to turn things around.
The summer wasn’t even close to being over, and it wasn’t that the girls didn’t like you, they just... “had a few critiques about your counseling style” as Z had put it gently.
“No first-time counselor’s perfect,” she had assured you. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve forgotten my campers names already.”
“Yeah, but have they said they wished you were more like Tom?!” you had groaned back, flopping back onto her twin-sized bed.
“Um, no. But they’re young, y/n. They probably just think he’s cute and meant it as a compliment- not an insult to you.”
“But what about when they said I’m no fun?”
Zendaya took a deep breath. “You have been a little distracted lately,” she admitted. You made a face. “Tom threw you off, I know. You weren’t expecting him to be here and he’s a dick, trust me, I get it. But at the end of the day you have to put that aside so you can do your job and be the best you can for these kids, you know? I think they probably just want you to be more engaged. Less focused on some boy, and more focused on them.”
You knew she was right, but it was still hard to hear. Zendaya wasn’t the kind of person to be brutally honest for no reason. No, she was kind and compassionate. But sometimes she would tell you what you needed to hear- always with your best interest in mind.
When your alarm went off from under your pillow the next morning you had barely slept three hours altogether. You considered snoozing it and getting up when your campers did, but you knew that the only time you had to get ready was right then so you pushed yourself up and out of bed like you were being played back in slow motion.
You went through your routine on autopilot. Brush teeth, shower, awkward half-naked conversation with Fy, get dressed, wake kids up, help them get ready for the day. It was honestly a blur up until breakfast when you were standing in line with your cabin for pancakes.
“Are you guys excited for the competition today?” you asked them. “It’s a lake day.”
“Yes!” Amalia exclaimed immediately. “I hope it’s a swimming race because I’ve been practicing at free time!”
From the corner of your eye you saw Grace shrink a little bit into herself and tried to smile reassuringly at her.
“There will be some swimming,” you admitted, just so that they could all be prepared, “but not everyone will have to swim.”
You were ambushed with rapidfire questions next, but you stubbornly refused to tell them anything about the competition. Everyone else had to wait until the afternoon to learn what it was going to be, you weren’t going to give your campers an advantage by telling them what the activity was. Plus, it would ruin the fun.
You smiled when the nagging subsided and they knew they weren’t going to get anything else out of you, but teased them with your superior knowledge about the activity all morning.
By the time the actual event rolled around you were a little worried the hype wouldn’t live up to the actual activity. But as soon as your campers saw the pool inflatables they took off at a sprint down the hill towards the lake without warning, leaving you chasing after them with all of their backpacks and water bottles.
For once you were early and had to wait for the rest of the camp to arrive before the competition could start, but your girls were already ready to go. It hadn’t even been explained yet, but there was a collection of fun pool floats down at the shore of the lake including, but not limited to: a flamingo, a popsicle, a watermelon slice, a shark, a pizza, a swan, a turtle, a unicorn, an iphone, a car, a rainbow, and a cat.
They were scattered along the shore and were to be used in a partner race. Each camper would partner up with another and choose a float. One camper would get on the float and the other would be in charge of navigating it. The camper in the water was supposed to do all of the pushing and kicking while the one on top of the float could help with paddling.
Since your cabin had five campers you teamed up with Grace. It was perfect because you knew how nervous she got around water events and could let her be the one on the float no problem.
When Lorraine blew the whistle for the event to start chaos broke loose. You were going to let Grace pick your team’s float, but she was too slow so you grabbed the first one you could find- which just so happened to be an orange creamsicle with a bite taken out of it.
Grace hopped onto the float and you pushed it out into the water, kicking as hard as you could. Three minutes in your stupid, ill-fitting swimsuit was riding down and your lungs were burning, but you still went as hard as you could until you reached the finish line.
When you finally came up for air and rubbed the water from your eyes you saw Grace laughing along with the other campers who had finished around the same time.
“What’s so funny?” you asked, putting your hands on your hips even though they couldn’t seem them under water.
“You ran right into Theo and Amalia!” Grace snorted.
“I did?” You had absolutely no recollection of doing that, you must’ve truly been going buckwild if you didn’t even notice you had run into your own campers. You felt terrible until you saw them all giggling about it and decided to play along. “Well maybe you two shouldn’t have been in my way!”
“You’re the one who can’t swim straight!” Theo argued defensively.
You shook your head. “I don’t know about that, I think we’re going to need to watch the replay to see who’s right.”
It wasn’t much, but they were laughing. You knew you wouldn’t be able to turn things around between you and your campers completely right away, but it was a start in the right direction.
After everyone finished racing the winners were announced and then there was a little extra free time to spend at the lake before dinner. Cabin 11 ended up coming in third place which the girls were completely over the moon about, mostly because they beat a lot of high schoolers- which you thought was completely valid.
When event cleanup was finished and everyone was chilling by or in the water, a handful of counselors suggested cliff jumping from a wide ledge that overlooked the lake. You were going to decline the invitation when Harrison asked, but Tom said “nah, y/l/n won’t come she’s not a fun counselor”. The way he said it in front of your campers with his stupid smirk and stupid friends all watching made your blood boil.
Obviously that was a dare and obviously you had to take it, because you weren’t going to look like a pussy in front of all of your peers. And you weren’t about to let your campers down either. What’s the worst that could happen?
The cliff was a good bit higher than you were expecting, but you still told yourself you could do it. Everyone else up here was going to jump and they’d all be fine so you could too, right?
Wrong.
The ledge was probably only forty or fifty feet from the water’s surface, but once you were actually up there looking down it seemed miles away. Your campers looked like tiny dots bobbing in the water below, and you couldn’t even make out who was who. You gulped, and took a step back, pressing yourself up against the sturdy wall of the mountain for balance.
You could hear Zendaya’s voice in the back of your mind, scolding you for giving in to peer pressure- from Tom of all people. You knew she was down there too, probably biting her nails ragged like she did when she was nervous.
A cool breeze was making your wet swimsuit cling to your skin even more than it already was and you wrapped your arms around your shoulders in an unsuccessful attempt to fend off the chill.
Unaware of you cowering in the corner, Harrison volunteered himself to go first. Taking a leap of faith off of the cliff, he spread his arms out like a bird and flipped into the water, shouting and screaming the whole time.
The rest of the counselors took turns jumping, running, and pushing each other off the edge before plunging into the murky lake while you hung back. There were only a handful of jumpers left when Tom finally noticed you hiding behind everyone else.
“You look like you’re about to puke.”
“I might,” you admitted, but shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal.
Unexpectedly, his face softened and his eyes crinkled with worry. “You know you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, y/n.”
“Why, so you can make fun of me for chickening out later and hold it over my head for the rest of the summer?”
“I mean that would be a bonus, but-”
You took a shaky step forward towards the jumping point. “You’re the one who said I’m boring, okay? I know you wanted me up here just so you could get back at me for transferring and prove to yourself I’m a quitter or whatever you need to tell yourself. Don’t try and backpedal now.”
You were the only two up there now, and you could hear confused shouting from
“So what if I didn’t think you would do it?” Tom argued. “It’s just not like you!”
“You don’t know anything about me, Tom!” you shouted back. “And you don’t even like me so why do you care?”
He scoffed and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t.”
You pushed past him to the rocky drop-off of the cliff, pausing to take a deep breath when your toes were dangling over edge. You heard Tom shout something as you fell, but it was lost in the wind whistling past your ears.
The impact on the water knocked the air out of your lungs and made your vision go cloudy fast. You were still falling, deeper and deeper into the water, the glassy surface disappearing out of reach above you as you sunk.
When you finally had the sense to try and swim towards the sunlight, pain tore its way up through your right arm and you tried to scream out in agony, but were suffocated by the water around you, pulling you deeper still.
You were forced to use your left arm to try and claw your way to the surface, ignoring the way the pain from your other arm was making you feel lightheaded. Black spots danced in your vision and you were so far gone that you didn’t even notice someone swim up behind you and grab you by the waist to pull you to safety.
breaking curfew [part fifteen teaser] || th x reader
A/N: not tagging bc it’s rlly short!!
Summary: When you got the job to be a counselor at the summer camp you’d grown up attending all your life, you expected to see some familiar faces. But you certainly hadn’t counted on having to work alongside the boy who had made it his life’s mission to make your life a living hell every summer. In fact, you thought you’d never have to see Tom Holland again. But he’s is in the cabin right across from yours with campers of his own- smirk, jawline, and all. If you didn’t know any better you might’ve thought that he applied for the position just to spite you, but who were you kidding? What kind of asshole would do something like that?
Warnings: swearing, angst
What I listened to while writing: the breaking curfew playlist by @cinnamon-roll-peter
Word Count: 492
Series Masterlist
“How’s it look?” Tom asked from his spot on your cabin floor, moving the bag of frozen peas from his eye so you could see.
It was much more swollen than it had been just a few hours ago and already purple around the edges.
“Uh, not too bad.” You winced.
He chuckled. “Thanks for the honesty.”
He put the peas back on his eye and leaned back on his other hand, watching you on your bed with a sort of lopsided smile.
“What?” you asked pointedly, wondering what could possibly be so funny right now.
“Look at us,” he said and gestured at your broken arm. “We’re falling apart.”
You snorted and shook your head. “We’re predictable.”
Tom shrugged and laid back on the floor, sprawled out like a starfish. He looked exhausted, and you knew the black eye had nothing to do with it. He was always so... tense, so energetic, but now... the energy seemed to have dissolved and given way to emptiness.
You could tell he was deep in thought and you wondered what he was thinking about. Was he thinking about you?
“You’re really not mad at Fy?” you asked to break the silence, needing to get out of your own head.
“Nah, I deserved it,” Tom replied.
Despite his response, he had seemed pretty angry at the time. You’d recognized the flush on his face and neck, his set jaw. The tone of his voice when he spoke to you. But here he was denying it.
Neither of the boys had said much else to you about what had happened that morning. You didn’t want to push it, but it seemed like there was something you were missing and they were purposely leaving you out of the loop.
“But, he hit you pretty hard,” you tried, hoping he’d open up a little more.
“I was a shitty friend,” he said, as if that somehow explained everything. “We’re even now.”
He looked away off into the corner of the room and you knew he was done talking about it. You pulled your knees up to your chest and sighed, nestling your head in between them as you gazed at him from the bed.
The silence was charged with tension. Not for the first time this summer you found yourself wishing Tom would be vulnerable with you. Like he had been last night. What had changed in a matter of hours? He was closed off now, with that guarded expression on his face you’d grown so used to. You thought you’d gotten so good at reading him, at seeing under the surface, but maybe that was only because he let you.
What had really happened at breakfast? What were he and Fy not telling you? Then it dawned on you. Had Fy told Tom that you and he-
Tom cleared his throat suddenly. "About Fy...”
“We kissed,” you blurted before he could even finish the thought.
“Wait, what?”
sorry to delay the update again but thanks for being patient with me!!! lmk what you think i always appreciate feedback!!
