You've Only Just Arrived (a Tom Hiddleston fan fiction)

Part 67

Throughout dinner your stepbrothers are relentless in making it clear that your presence is unwelcome. The swapping of stories across the dinner table is hardly enough to keep the nettle-filled comments from affecting you. As bad as it is to weather, watching the effect it has on Tom is worse. He's putting on a show for the others but the pulsing at his temples is a dead giveaway that he's grinding his teeth. Between that and the way he is licking his lips... for brief moments in time looking as though he's tempted to bite through the tender flesh...

You need to find a way to get the pair of you away from the group and alleviate some of the tension. Being preoccupied with that goal is enough to keep your mind off the wounds Reggie and Joel are trying to inflict. Maybe if Tom knew that your relationship with your stepbrothers wasn't always this complicated? Might that help?

In the early years, when your mother and stepfather had started seeing each other, and even in the first year or two of their marriage, Reggie and Joel were welcoming of their new sibling. It wasn't until you were able to rely on acting as a career, give up the side jobs and focus on the stage full time that things started to devolve. Somehow that small change had been enough to no longer be able to claim you as 'normal' or 'one of us'.

On second thought, explaining all that to him might not change things for the better. Not at all.

Soon after the dishes are cleared Joel announces that it is time to head home for the day, launching Katie into a full-fledged fit. He seems unfazed by her demands to stay, her mother leaning close to try to convince the little blonde to listen. It's when she latches onto the leg of the dining room table, wrapping her arms and legs around the wooden thing that you decide to duck out of the room and leave the warring family to it.

Katie's insistent screams can be heard throughout the house, no matter how many doors are shut between. "I. WANT. TO. STAY. HERE. AT. GRANNIE'S!"

Joel seems to be having no better luck reasoning with her, her mother having given up twenty minutes prior. His tone is becoming increasingly colder as his patience wears thin. "There is nowhere ready for you to sleep, Kathryn Mackenzie."

"I WILL – BUILD A FORT IN THE BLUE ROOM!"

The blue room, which used to be your room before your mother turned it into her home office. You pause lifting your sleep shirt out of your travel bag and stare at the wall across the room, as though you can see through the thing and into the room beyond. Slightly larger than the room you're currently in, the blue room – aptly named for the color of its walls – had been your haven from bickering parents, bad days at school, and all the horrible things that could assail an individual as they grew older. You had also worn the carpet thin for pacing out scenes, and more than once splaying out all your schoolbooks in an attempt to learn by osmosis.

"Let go. Get up. We are leaving."

"NoooooOOOOO."

Katie's howl momentarily gets louder as the door to the guestroom opens and Tom steps inside. You attempt a smile, hoping humor might help. "So about our quiet holiday..."

He nearly laughs. Nearly. His cheeks move, at any rate, and in combination with a huff that visibly shifts his shoulders. It could be another swallowing of words rather than a response to your comment but you're trying to be hopeful. Try to think positive as hard as you like, the fact that he's not his usual cheerful self at the moment leaves your muscles tense in apprehension of the moment when he finally does tell you what is on his mind.

"She might calm down if you went down and talked to her." His face is closed off, no hints to glean from his expression when you look at his face. He ducks his chin, a short nod to you before turning his attention to his duffle and clothing packed within. "Maybe even help things between you and her father."