The Swan, Chapter 1
TITLE: The Swan CHAPTER NUMBER: 1/? AUTHOR: Losille2000 WHICH Tom/CHARACTER: Actor!Tom GENRE: Romance/Drama FIC SUMMARY: Sequel to The Ugly Duckling. Astrid embarks on a two-week trip to London to serve as her sister’s maid of honor, hoping against all hope she might miraculously run into her Hawaiian mystery man. When her sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law drag her to a production of Hamlet to meet the groom’s best man, Astrid gets the shock of her life. The situation, though, is anything but perfect. RATING: M (sex, language) WARNINGS: Um, nothing yet. AUTHORS NOTES: There are some difficult issues in here, including themes about body image/self-esteem, mixed in with the family (both well-meaning and mean-spirited) dynamic that make life complicated. Tom is also considered more of a Dominant in this, as he was in TUG, so there will be a play on that. Not full-on BDSM by any stretch of the imagination, just the D/s dynamic. Like… it’s expensive gourmet French Vanilla ice cream, instead of plain generic brand vanilla. This is not a random choice—it is integral to the plot.
All additional warnings will be listed in each chapter, respectively. I encourage you to heed them if any of these subjects bothers you.
ALSO ON AO3!
Chapter 1 – Arrival
Astrid checked off another bullet point on her incredibly long To Do list with a heaving sigh. The list seemed to have taken on a life of its own, growing by the minute with something new to complete, and with too little time to finish everything. In three days, she and her soon-to-be brother-in-law’s best man were set to host a combined hen and stag house party at an idyllic English country estate. She still had three pages of confirmations to make and last-minute reservations to request, and she was already sitting in the hotel in London, days out from D-Day.
Initially, they’d meant it to be a small, nice weekend with old friends and family while getting to know the new. Then the party grew arms. And legs. And a brain of its own, turning into Frankenstein’s sentient monster—the monster of all house parties now slated for a full week with themed days and activities galore from dinners to horseback riding to a rousing game of charades. The charades, of course, was a nod to all the creative people who would be in attendance. They’d undoubtedly be fun to play with, but that, too, had gone from simple after-dinner game to full on production, with props and costumes… that she and the best man had to coordinate renting for the occasion.
Well, that she had to coordinate renting for the occasion, seeing as the best man was apparently a hot commodity in the world of drama and could not spare much time to the planning of this monstrosity. But it certainly didn’t stop him from making plenty of requests and creating more work for her. No problem there. Sure, Hamlet was an intense play to learn, but for goodness sakes, he would have been easier to communicate with if he’d just divulged his phone number earlier on in the process.
Or, you know, given Astrid his email address without her having to pledge her first-born child to him should she somehow become an idiot and let someone else have his private contact information. In fact, she wouldn’t have thought twice about keeping the information private, but after he made such a huge deal about it, well, she was liable to let something slip.
Just to teach him a lesson.
Astrid checked the time on her cell again, deciding she couldn’t make any more calls tonight. It was already six, and no one would be picking up their calls this late on a Saturday anyway. Besides, she had somewhere to be tonight—though she did not want to go. Her loathing of Shakespeare aside, the last thing she considered a fun use of her time was three or four hours in an auditorium watching the reason why she’d been left to do all this damn work on her own flounce around a stage.
She needed time to get ready, in case they ran into anyone important. Mostly, she worried her mother might worm her way into the show and look down her surgically altered nose if Astrid looked anything less than perfect. Even so, Astrid knew she’d never be “perfect” in her mother’s eyes, so long as she carried around a few extra curves. Never mind that Astrid had spent the better portion of the last year and a half at the gym improving her fitness, though not losing the weight her mother considered a family blight. She still hoped motherly acceptance would come eventually, if she tried just a little harder.
The other reason for her attention to detail, though, had nothing to do with that. Astrid applied the extra sassy crimson lipstick and spent more time than normal on her newly dark brunette-colored hair because she wanted to look good should she, by some crazy twist of fate, happen across the handsome Englishman she’d met eighteen months ago in Hawaii. They hadn’t exchanged information to keep in contact—they made sure to limit it to that one wonderfully hot, toe-curling night they spent in each other’s arms—but that didn’t mean she hadn’t thought about him.
A lot.
Okay, like, all the time.
Like while she taught her kindergartners their math lessons. During parent conferences. Making dinner. Cleaning her apartment. Even when, at the nursing home she volunteered at, she watched the cute elderly couple walk down the corridor together with their gnarled hands entwined.
She especially remembered him late at night, all alone in her bed when she touched herself. Or when other men touched her, or at least tried to touch her. None of them made her feel like him. None of them ever would.
In her heart of hearts, she’d known this would happen, even as they had fucked while watching each other in her rental condo’s bathroom mirror. Somehow, she knew he’d spoiled her for any other man, that he’d make it difficult to forget him.
Unfortunately, she had not been wrong.
But what was the probability of running into one man out of about nine million? Not to mention the fact he might be gone, somewhere in some far-flung location, like Hawaii, doing God knew what. He could be fucking someone else right now, for all she knew, with the memory of her nothing more than a fond notch on his bedpost.
Worse, she could be nothing at all.
Astrid grumbled and shut her eyes for a brief moment, pushing away the negativity, giving herself a silent pep talk. She refused to think like that. Doing so would create a huge backward slide into the headspace she’d been in on that slippery Hawaiian cliff two Spring Breaks ago.
She gathered her purse and coat, wrapping the latter around her shoulders and buttoning the buttons. The chill in London had already shocked her this morning when she’d touched down in the foggy city; it was still sitting at the mid-to-high one hundreds back home, drenching everyone in sweat. While the weather was a nice respite, her body had yet to acclimate to the change.
Downstairs at the tiny boutique hotel that sat just across the street from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art—her destination tonight, a pair of female guests stood together at the tiny reception desk, talking animatedly with the uniformed clerk behind the computer. Both women looked well dressed, as though they, too, were preparing for a night on the town, and both turned to glance in her direction as she entered. It was hard to sneak around with the creaky wooden stairs and high heels.
The clerk grinned from her spot and waved Astrid over to them. “Oh, there you are Miss Petersen! We were just having a chat about the show tonight. I was telling them I’ve been able to watch Hiddleston walk up and down the street thousands of times on his way to rehearsals and shows.”
Astrid smiled at them, though they might as well have been talking gibberish. Of course, it made sense he traveled the street into the main business entrance of the building situated on Gower Street, but she couldn’t really see the fuss about this Hiddleston character. From her short association with him, she found him to be quite impossible; demanding and fastidious. It certainly hadn’t made her want to waste more time looking him up for further information.
Even if she had ever wanted to, which she didn’t.
“Let me introduce you to Charlotte and Penny,” the clerk said, first waving a hand to the tall, thin blonde and then the short, curvy brunette. “They’ve come in from the states, too!”
“Nice to meet you.” Astrid smiled for them, somehow relaxed to have fellow countrywomen staying at the same hotel. She wouldn’t see them much beyond tonight, but there was an intrinsic camaraderie borne of patriotism that instantly cemented them as new friends.
Both women gave little giddy giggles and joined her. They were adorable and awkward and reminded her of herself; even though she didn’t understand the fervor about this guy, she knew they would at least get along. “I’m Astrid, by the way.”
“Oh, you have to come with us!” Penny said, linking her arm with Astrid’s. “We’re just headed out now. It’s nearly time! I can barely believe it!”
Penny’s excitement was palpable, but Charlotte seemed a might bit more even-keel, exchanging with Astrid an exasperated roll of her eyes as Penny pulled them both to the front door. Astrid laughed, but followed her new friends out the door and down the street.
“When did you get in?” Penny asked. “We’ve been here a few days already, taking in the sights, and we haven’t seen you at breakfast.”
Astrid smiled. “Just this morning. I’m actually in for my sister’s wedding.”
“Oh, how lovely!” Penny said. “Was it just luck that your entry was drawn so close to it?”
“My… entry?” Astrid asked, frowning at the women.
Charlotte took that moment to speak up, her voice surprisingly throaty for a wisp of a thing. “The lottery for tickets. They held one because it’s such a limited run in a tiny theater.”
“Oh, that entry,” Astrid said, making a mental note to complain to her sister about this. They were wasting a precious ticket on her when another more deserving—and interested—person could have used the seat. “Yes, just luck. The wedding isn’t for a few weeks, though, so I thought I’d make a long vacation out of it.”
It was sort of the truth, but she didn’t want to put Penny or Charlotte off by telling them the whole truth. Especially when they would easily see she wasn’t that excited about tonight.
“We’ve been waiting forever for an opportunity to see Tom live!” Penny said. “So we both put in for it, and lo and behold, Charlotte got an email that she’d been selected.”
Charlotte laughed. “You might have heard Penny’s squeal all the way from Hoboken.”
“Well, if she lives in Hoboken, then definitely,” Penny conceded.
“Las Vegas,” Astrid replied. “And that was you?”
Both women laughed good-naturedly at the joke. Penny stopped when they reached the theater’s business entrance and pulled out her cell phone. “Sorry, ladies, I have to take another picture on the actual day. For posterity.”
“The other side is prettier,” Charlotte reminded. “You know, where we actually have to go in.”
“I know, but I just can’t not take it. My husband is going to be so annoyed looking at all the photos with me.” Penny snapped about five photos as a black sedan pulled up and a suited chauffeur got out of the vehicle. “Oh my god, who is that?”
Charlotte edged closer, bumping into Penny. The street wasn’t a wide one; there really wasn’t a need to get any closer to the curb to get a better look. But they moved anyway, their excited energy palpable, yet they remained respectful to the passengers. Maybe they thought it would be Hiddleston or someone else in the production, but Astrid knew better. With forty-five minutes to show time, the actors were already ensconced in their dressing rooms and in the midst of their pre-show rituals.
A wistful sigh escaped Astrid’s lips at the thought of pre-show nerves and rituals, remembering how they used to make her feel both queasy but elated, back in the day. Back when she thought she’d be an actor. Back when she lived and breathed the stage. Back before those dreams were literally torn to shreds in her mother’s hands.
“We should keep—” Astrid stopped speaking when a blonde head popped out of the back seat, the woman’s arm waving frantically and beckoning Astrid across the street. “Oh! That’s my sister! Tilde! Over here!”
Penny and Charlotte exchanged disappointed frowns, but smiled anyway. She was sure Tilde had said to meet at the entrance to the theater on the next street over, not at this one. So why was she here?
Not that she had time to really think it through as all one hundred pounds of her sister practically jeté-d across the street and threw her arms around Astrid. For such a tiny thing, she had a lot of power behind her, and it took Astrid a step backward to fully steady herself.
“Oh my god, I’m so happy to see you!” Tilde squealed and stepped back, words quickly tumbling from her mouth. “You look absolutely amazing! What have you been doing? And your hair! I love the dark on you! It suits you… oh, hello, there. That was rude of me. I’m Astrid’s sister, who might you two be?”
Astrid introduced them as her new acquaintances who were also going to the play, Tilde each giving them a good handshake. However, Charlotte stared off into the distance, at the car. The other women turned to see what had enraptured her, finding James unfolding from the back seat with a cell phone pressed to his ear.
“T-that’s…” Charlotte said, waving a hand in his direction. “Do you know who that is?”
James absently combed the fingers of his left hand through his hair as he finished the call on his cell and slipped the device into his pocket. Though good-looking in that classically British way, he wasn’t a stereotypically beautiful man. However, the longer she looked at him and got to know him, she found him more and more attractive. What was more, she completely understood why Tilde had fallen in love with him. But he was just that, her soon-to-be brother-in-law. The brother she never wanted, but was stuck with anyway. She adored him, of course, but didn’t get the celebrity hype both Charlotte and Penny had.
Maybe it would help if she actually watched television and saw a movie on occasion?
But then again, she had never understood all the hype and probably still wouldn’t should her viewing habits change. In fact, she made it her life’s mission to avoid anything relating to celebrities, having met too many underwhelming ones in her earlier years. It was, unfortunately, a side effect of her maternal grandfather’s production company, and her mother’s job within the company.
Tilde threw her arm around Astrid’s shoulders and whispered to her, “Security said they’re holding us in a green room until closer to the show, that’s why we came around from the other side. Ben and Sophie are coming tonight as well, so they thought it’d just be easier. And safer.”
Astrid recalled the names, having sent invitations and received acceptances from them for the house party. Clearly, they were also a big deal, if they deserved a holding pen away from the general hoi polloi. She glanced at her companions and gave them a small smile. “I’m sorry you guys, I have to go with them. They have my ticket.”
“Of course!” Penny exclaimed. “We’ll see you inside, though, right?”
“Yes, drinks are on me afterward, okay?” Astrid said. “I’m sure we’ll have a lot to talk about.”
After readily accepting the invitation, both Penny and Charlotte set off down the street, turning back around only a few more times to look in their direction. She watched them go until Tilde cleared her throat to get her attention.
“Tom fangirls?” Tilde asked.
“I think so,” Astrid confirmed, but said no more.
Tilde laughed and shook her head, looping her arm with Astrid’s and looking at oncoming traffic before pulling her across the street. When they reached the opposite curb, James kissed Astrid’s cheeks and hugged her tightly.
“Welcome to jolly old England!”
Astrid laughed. “I know! Finally, right?”
“I knew we’d get you over here eventually,” he replied, motioning for them to precede him up the front steps of the building entrance. A woman dressed all in black and wearing a headset—presumably some stagehand—stood there with the door open for them.
Tilde nudged Astrid. “And it only took a marriage proposal to do it.”
“Well you know me, I thrive on the dramatic,” Astrid said. “I had to have a decent reason to brave the cold.”
“ ‘Cause coming to see your sister and furniece was never a good enough reason.” Tilde had said it as a joke, Astrid knew, but she couldn’t help hearing the edge of unhappiness in it. Truly, this was her first trip to England since Tilde had been over here; with Tilde’s visits home on her off-season months, and Astrid’s job sucking up the rest of the time from August to June, she’d never tried to make it work.
But that didn’t mean they didn’t maintain a close relationship via other sources.
She was here now, though, and more than a little excited about it. Giving her sister away to such a wonderful guy was not an event to be missed—nor to skimp on when it came to celebrating their love at a week-long house party. She planned to use all the time she could with her sister leading up to the wedding in a few weeks. Even if her suspiciously absent partner in crime hadn’t helped much in the planning.
The stagehand showed them indoors to a conference room with a long boardroom table and leather office chairs surrounding it. Water bottles and a basket of snacks were set up on a sideboard, but nothing else that would give away the space as a green room. Which meant this was probably hastily put together for the VIPs in attendance. It was strange to be one of them.
“You really do look lovely, Astrid,” Tilde said as they sat together and chatted. “You always do, but you’re like glowing now. I’ve never seen you like this.”
“Oh, that’s just my tan.” Astrid shrugged out of her coat and slipped it over the back of her chair. To emphasize her point about the tan, she stuck her arm out and placed it against Tilde’s. “See?”
Tilde rolled her eyes. “No, it’s not the tan. I noticed it a little when we came for our visit for Christmas last year, but now you seem… more…”
“I really hit the gym hard,” Astrid said. “Had to get ready to fit into all my dresses over the next few weeks.”
“You know you didn’t have to—”
Astrid sliced a hand through the air to stop Tilde. Her sister had never cared what she looked like, fat or thin or in between, not that Astrid would ever reach the point of thinness that someone would call her thin. But still. She knew she didn’t need to fret over her appearance for Tilde—Tilde would accept her anyway—but Astrid had made the decision a year and a half ago to be stronger, both physically and mentally. That resulted in gym trips and better eating. Not much lost, but things were definitely firmer.
And, if she really wanted to admit it, her eyes and smile seemed more vibrant when she glanced in the mirror. But that, Astrid often fantasized, wasn’t entirely due to the gym. It was due to the man who had literally rocked her world and hadn’t let her go. Too bad he didn’t know it and she couldn’t show him.
“I’m good,” Astrid said. “Just stronger. I figured I needed to make enough of an impression on James that he knew I could beat him up if he ever hurts you.”
James lifted his head from his phone again. “I’d like to see you try, pipsqueak.”
Tilde laughed. “He’s doughy and ticklish in the middle. Go for that.”
“I am not doughy!”
Tilde shook her head and mouthed to Astrid, “He is.”
“I’ve been stress eating, okay?” James interjected. “This whole thing—the house party, the wedding—has a higher production value than a lot of the films I’ve been in.”
Two months ago, Astrid had listened for over an hour as Tilde vented about all the headaches their mother, the de facto wedding planner, had caused them both, from spending money like it was going out of style to making the day a spectacle of Royal Wedding proportions. Money wasn’t an issue since their mother and father were both footing the bill, their mother had reminded Tilde. Astrid was never going to get married, anyway. Why not splurge? Never mind Tilde had suggested a simple ceremony and luncheon; she ended up conceding on everything just to shut Mom up.
Now, at the end of the wedding marathon, Tilde regretted it more every day. Astrid wondered how much longer it would take for her sister to hit the metaphorical wall—or if Tilde’s perseverance could outlast the wedding.
Fortunately, James’ parents were gracious enough to let the bride’s Momzilla have at it. He, however, must have not been so immune, likely from attempting to keep Tilde sane during the process. Like most grooms, James seemed the type to just want the day over—no matter how it turned out—so he could get on living the rest of his life with his beloved.
Before Astrid could reassure him that he shouldn’t worry, the same stagehand popped her head into the room. “We’re going to seat you in five.”
“Perfect!” James called.
“May I use the ladies beforehand?” Astrid asked. “If it’s too much of a trouble, I’ll wait till we get out front and find the public one.”
The stagehand shook her head and smiled. “Not at all, come with me. It’s just around the corner.”
Right around the corner turned out to be backstage, in the middle of all the hubbub of actors and technicians running around finishing their pre-curtain work. The call for positions was close and the creative energy was high and thick, almost making it difficult to move. She wondered if she could siphon a bit of it off for herself to later use when she needed the pick-me-up the most.
Damn, she really missed the stage.
The stagehand cleared her throat in agitation, and Astrid realized she’d stopped moving on their path. Her face warmed. “I’m so sorry. I just miss it, you know?”
“You’re an actor, too?” the hand asked politely though disinterestedly.
“A long time ago,” Astrid replied around the bitter taste surfacing on her tongue.
Thrust in the door of the ladies’ room, Astrid sighed to herself, trying to gather her emotions. It had been a long time since she’d given into the siren’s call of the stage; usually, she could go to performances with no trouble, but this glimpse of the backstage was too much. Just like watching television and movies were too much, always reminding her of something that could have been, but ultimately never achieved. All because she’d let one woman have too much power over her.
From somewhere else, a deep male voice hummed low and full, measuring up a scale and back down. Then he made a series of inconsequential sounds, lips smacking, tongue movements, warming up the mouth and voice. It was a pleasant sound, but it too rattled her to the bones—and not only because it also brought her past back to her. There was something familiar about the voice, though she could not place it.
As she went about her business, she listened to him—in what must have been the men’s bathroom next door—respond to the feedback he received from the reverberations of his voice in the tiled room. He hid it well, but he sounded sick. At least, his throat seemed raw. He stopped once to sneeze and cough.
He sang a few bars of some song as she washed her hands. That definitely wasn’t the best sound, but it had a mournful quality, one so full of emotion that the crackling and breaking in his voice didn’t matter much. Honestly, she was a little impressed as she stepped out the door to the bathroom and looked around for her erstwhile stagehand.
Upon not finding her, Astrid turned on her heels to retrace her steps back to the makeshift green room, only to bang headfirst into an incredibly hard, masculine body. Strong hands encircled her arms to steady her, but pushed her back in haste.
“I’m so sorry!” she squeaked, lifting her eyes to the black-clothed chest in front of her—and up and up to a shaggy auburn beard. Further north her gaze traveled before it landed on a pair of sea-green eyes. Livid sea-green eyes. What was his problem, anyway? Other than being out of place in the artist’s domain, it was an honest mistake. She hadn’t intended to bang into him.
She pulled out of the man’s grasp, rubbing her arms where his hands had singed a print into her skin. Verifying she couldn’t see the outline of his hands, she then glanced back at him to apologize. If he were truly angry, he would have left her. Instead, he stayed. Maybe he wanted to give her the what for. She knew that because she could feel the radiance of his body heat even a few feet apart. He consumed the space between them with his sheer presence.
She opened her mouth to apologize again, her gaze focusing on the man—the whole man—but the words died on her tongue. Standing before her wasn’t just some random guy. This was the man who flipped her world upside down in Hawaii.
This man was… an actor. It made sense, if she thought about it. But then her stomach plummeted all the way down to her feet.
Wait.
This man…
This man couldn’t be…
Oh, fuck!
