becoming beatrice // t.h. ✔️

irl

i awoke to the sound of a camera clicking and jensen mumbling happily to himself. i kept my eyes shut and strained to hear what he was saying. all i could decipher before tom shot up in the bed was "oh they are going to love this!"

tom was across the room in mere seconds, attempting to grab the phone from my older brother, but jensen laughed manically and i heard his phone start to ding. oh no. he's sent it to someone. what if he posted it on social media? i get called a whore enough as it is for "going through guys like an alcoholic goes through a case of beer." with this thought going through my mind, i find myself running towards where the two boys are wrestling, throwing myself onto jensen's back. he grunts and topples forward, taking me with him, and tom grabs his phone as it flies through the air.

"how long has this group chat been going on?" tom asks lowly. i roll off of jensen, allowing him to stand back up and move over towards where tom is silently fuming.

"since that night out on the porch. i sent a video of you two singing together to jared, and he made this whole group chat with the whole marvel cast and some of the supernatural cast," jensen says carefully. tom looks like he's going to take his head off.

"what's your problem, dude? you guys are making bets about whether bea and i are together. that's sick," tom scoffs, tossing the phone in my brother's direction.

he brushes past me out of the room, storming down the stairs, and then the screen door slams shut. i glance back at jensen before i'm shooting down the stairs after tom. i knew i should have gone back to my room last night, but after we'd gotten back from the tour of our property that i took tom on, it'd been practically midnight. almost as soon as i had gotten comfortable in my bed, it had started storming, and i knew tom was the only one awake, so i went to him and we talked until we fell asleep.

i found tom in the barn, sitting in the stall where his dog tessa had been staying since my nephew was allergic to dogs. tom was cooing at tessa and rubbing her belly, a small smile playing on his lips. i plopped down beside him on the hay, sighing quietly. tom's free hand found its way to mine, intertwining our fingers, his thumb rubbing soothingly over the back of my hand.

"are you okay?" i asked him. tom glanced at me and shrugged.

"maybe i overreacted. i just, i don't know. i'm so used to people prying in my personal life, but it was different here. i felt like i could do what i wanted without worrying about someone snapping pictures," tom mumbled.

"i get what you mean. trust me, i do. eventually i'll have to address the situation with haz, and then talk about whatever this is," i motioned between the two of us, another sigh leaving my lips.

tom opened his mouth to say something, but we spun around when someone gasped behind us. my mom was standing in the open stall door, a hand over her mouth and her eyes flicked from my face to tom's and then down at our hands. she squealed and spun around, walking back towards the house. we looked at each other and shot up, chasing after mom. tessa was running with us, ready to take on whatever the threat was.

as we stood outside the house on the porch, listening to my mom explaining how she'd found us holding hands in the barn through pants, i looked to tom. "how do you feel about riding the horses a little bit?" i asked him. he nodded, and we slipped on the muck boots beside the front door.

after about thirty minutes of riding aimlessly, i began to better realize our surroundings and motioned for tom to follow me on his horse. if my calculations were correct, there should be a small waterfall that me and my siblings used to swim at when we were younger. we rode another ten minutes before the flowing water could be heard, and we maneuvered through a thicket of trees and there was the all too familiar swimming hole from my childhood.

"this place is so beautiful," tom says quietly. i nod, looking at his awed expression with pride.

"jensen found this place when he tried to run away one time—long story, don't ask—and we've been coming here ever since. we stopped going as much now that we're all grown and have to work and stuff, but sometimes we all get together and just come chill out here," i explained.

we both agreed that a little swim wouldn't hurt us, so i tied the horses securely to a tree and we stripped down to our underwear. i made tom look away until i was safely in the cold water, shivering and yelling at him to just jump in. he finally cannon-balled in from one of the cliffs, swimming over to where i was floating on my back. it was so peaceful out, and the birds were chirping as the sun moved higher in the sky, and then tom splashed water at me. a huge splashing fight ensued, and our laughter floated along with the sounds of nature.

"enough, enough!" i cried out, laughing so hard i could barely breath as tom splashed me one last time. he grinned at me before diving under the water, and i knew i was in for it.

i was flying above the water. and then i was belly flopping back down. tom burst into laughter once more and i screamed, diving under the water and trying to attack him, to no avail. he was too heavy to throw and his arms were wrapped tight around my waist, holding me in place against his chest. we looked at each other, the laughter dying on our lips as i slowly pushed tom's hair off his forehead. he began backing us up towards the bank, legs kicking until he was able to stand.

it happened so fast. one second we were just standing there and the next we were kissing. it was deep, and full of all the emotions that we'd bottled up. his hands moved from my waist to my hair, fingers threading through the wet locks as i ran my fingers down his back. and then someone coughed.

"come on jensen!" tom shouted, glaring up to where my brother was smiling sheepishly, phone in hand.

"i needed proof!" he yelled back. oh, we were never going to live this down.