Title: Your Kind of Love Part 3
Character(s): Actor!Tom, OC named Kris, and OC named Andrea
Genre: Angst, Drama
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Tom tries to persuade a weary Kris to stay with him.
Warnings: Continuation of Your Kind of Love in Tom's point of view. Be ready for the level of emotions. Hope you enjoyed it. Please be sure to comment.
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He couldn't breathe, let alone speak. So when she thought he hadn't heard her, she started to repeat herself. But, no, no he couldn't hear the words again.
"Did you hear me, Tom? I said, I want a—"
"Stop!" He hadn't meant to shout, but he was finding it difficult to hear over the sudden ringing in his ears. Taking in what felt like a lungful of air, Tom tried to piece together what was happening. "Just stop, just wait for a moment, alright?"
To his surprise, Krista did wait, her silence punctuated by the long drags she took from the fag between her fingers as she filled the dense air with smoke. Momentarily mesmerized by the action, Tom vaguely recalled Krista's habitual, stealthy trips to the balcony of her old place in the wee hours of the morning. He'd caught her once sneaking out of bed, realizing her secret when he saw the box of cigarettes she'd forgotten to hide on the kitchen counter the next day. He remembered wanting her to keep believing he didn't know, thinking it was important that she kept some secrets to herself.
It physically hurt him to know they were about a million miles away from the innocent secrets they used to keep.
"Maybe we should talk to someone. A professional."
The blank look on her face was killing him. When she just rolled her eyes, he raked a hand through his hair. Tom, what have you done? he thought, not quite believing his was happening to him.
"And I know you love me, too! Please, just tell me what happened. Tell me what you need me to do to fix this."
He started walking toward her, looking like he wanted to hold her. Kris' skin practically burned at that. And somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that if she let him touch her, if she let him kiss her, she'd never stick with this, and she'd end up getting her heart cut out of her again and again. She backed away from him once more, using her hands as a shield.
Tom somehow caught her wrist and she ripped out of his grasp violently, making him flinch. "Baby, please! " He begged.
Kris literally felt revolted at the term. All she could think of was how he had probably called that Andrea girl that same thing just a few hours earlier.
She couldn't even remember the last time she'd been called 'baby' by Tom before this.
Rom reached out for her again and she quickly shoved him out the way.
"Don't you dare touch me. And don't you DARE say that you love me. You don't love me. What you loved is having someone here to do all your cooking and cleaning and to screw when you couldn't get hold of one of your other whores."
That stopped him in his tracks. I was careful. I know I was careful. How did she find out?
"Oh, you didn't think I knew, did you?" Kris asked, genuinely baffled.
She caught the look of confusion on his face and pulled her phone back out of her pocket, pulling something up on the screen.
"My friends were at the club tonight. They saw you there, and here's the photographic evidence. You can't really deny it."
Tom recoiled from the pictures, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. Dear God, he thought. How was all this happening?
"Maybe I should let you frame this, yeah? So you can remember this...the night you left your girlfriend for that whore. Remember? The one you said you wouldn't see again?" All the anger that Kris thought was gone was coming back in full force. Her voice got louder and she strode up to him with the screen in his face.
He winced at the acid in her voice, looking at the photo that she had on the screen. It was of him and Andrea, wrapped in each other's arms, kissing, with his hand on her ass. It was dark, but it was very clear that it was him.
She laughed, a cold laugh that told him she was completely done with his bullshit and walked back away from him, grabbing her coat and walking to the door.
"See ya, Hiddleston." She said cooly, starting to open the door.
His body jolted back into action and he ran, trying to block her path to the door, closing it back.
Kris' green eyes flashed with anger before she looked away from him.
He grabbed her by the upper arms and pulled her close, resting his forehead against hers. His hand came up to cup her cheek and the other wrapped around her waist. She groaned, annoyed, as she struggled against him.
"Get off me, you big liar!!" She shoved against his broad chest, making his eyes water.
"No, no, no, baby, please don't leave. Please, I'm so sorry. I swear to you, she means nothing to me. Please. I love you. I only love you. All those times I was with her, it was just sex. I'm so sorry, I made a mistake."
Kris kept her eyes down and away from his, not trusting herself to keep her resolve if she looked up into those beautiful blue eyes. Her struggles to release herself from his hold intensified, but his grip on her arms only intensified.
"Stop it, Tom! Get away from me!"
"Please, Kristy, honey, look at me. Please. Just look at me." His voice sounded so pitiful, so sad.
But that was how he reeled you back all those other times, wasn't it? After you caught him in your bed with that woman. All he had to do was open that mouth of his and she would come crawling back to him.
No more.
She finally managed to yank herself away from his body. Her body burned with disgust. He was probably with her tonight. And he couldn't have had enough time to shower when he got back.
"I told you not to touch me! How the hell can you tell me that you love me and then come back and try to hold me after you just got through fucking that slut?!"
Her voice stung more than a slap would ever have. Tom held his hands up in a gesture of surrender.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry darling." Tears were starting to flow down his face, mirroring Kris'.
"Listen, I know I hurt you. I know I let you down. But I swear, my love, I'll do whatever it takes to make you trust me again."
His voice broke as he spoke and it was all Kris could do not to rush to his side and hold him and comfort him. But she was done. She brushed her hot tears away with a quick flick of her hand, pushing her short black hair behind her ear.
"I just want to know one thing. Why? Why would you throw away everything we had just managed to get back? How could you do that? Do you realise how close I came to just walking out last time? I stayed because I loved you."
The past tense of the word caused a twinge low down in Tom's stomach. To know that in addition to her trust and care, he'd also lost her love, ripped at his heart.
He swallowed hard, his Adam's Apple bobbing painfully in his throat.
She went on. "Wasn't I enough for you? I mean, I know that I'm not like the girls you were used to having when we met, and whenever I heard about you having some quickie with a fan girl or found one of your shirts with her skanky lipstick on it, I told myself it was my fault, that I wasn't keeping you happy at home, that maybe it was something I had done to make you want her instead of me, that if I tried harder, you'd stop."
He wanted nothing more than to reach for her, but he knew that would only push her further to leave him.
" But I thought I could trust you now. You swore to me it was over! And now to find out that not only were you with her while I was here waiting for you, but that it's been going on for a while? Do you know how that makes me feel? I don't think I've ever felt so stupid in my whole life." Her throat closed, cutting off her words as her tears intensified.
Memories came flooding back to her, of his tall ginger whore running into them at a bar, of her eyes looking Kristy up and down, and then a look of pity and disdain crossing her face as she said "Oh, dear, work must be so busy for you. I mean, you didn't even have time to get properly dressed to come here."
The whore had then had the audacity to lean up and kiss Tom on the cheek, leaving a mark with her lipstick and then walking away in a cloud of cheap perfume. And he had ignored it completely. And Kris had said nothing. She was used to being the plain girl at the party, but it didn't matter then, because she had so successfully deluded herself into believing that he loved her and belonged to her. Only her.
And she knew that he did love her. But for him, it wasn't enough. And it would never be enough. There would always be other women, and Kris did not want to wait for him to home anymore. She was tired and could not handle all the psychological damage this was doing to her self-esteem.
It was just the way Tom loved, his own way of loving Kris.
But she was done.
Tom's heart broke completely at her words. He wanted nothing more in the world at that moment than to take her in his arms and make her understand that none of them had ever meant anything to him, that it was just sex.
"Kris, you've always been enough for me. I promise you, you're the only person I have ever really loved. You're the only person I could see spending the rest of my life with. It was just sex with those other girls. Even with Andrea."
So the ginger whore has a name. And those 'other girls'. Not that it matters now how many of them he fucked, she thought.
She woke up long enough to realise he was still talking. "Darling, I just got caught up with everything that's been happening. I swear, I never meant to hurt you."
He took a step towards her cautiously.
Kris couldn't help herself. She started laughing, really laughing, collapsing onto the sofa.
"You never meant to hurt me?! Oh God, that's rich! You stayed out all night fucking Lord knows how many girls and you have the balls to tell me you didn't want to hurt me?!"
Tom just looked confused. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do when she started laughing. So he just waited until she calmed down enough to listen and stepped towards her, kneeling in front of her where she sat on the sofa.
"Kris, please. You have to believe me. I can't live without you. You're my whole world. I can't wake up in the morning without you in my bed, wearing my shirt and curled up next to me. I can't come home and not find you dancing around the kitchen singing along to whatever song you've picked that day. I can't live without your smile in my world and your laughter and the way your nose crinkles up when you're irritated, even though I'm the only one who notices it."
She watched him, dubious. Her eyes tried to search his for some sliver of truth in his, but she couldn't find any.
"Please. One more chance is all I'm asking for. I love you. "
His head dropped onto her lap, his arms holding onto her thighs like she was his only anchor to sanity. And in that moment, Kris felt a sense of calm wash over her, relieving her of her own hateful feelings.
Her voice was calm and quiet as she talked, thinking.
"I love you Tom, I do. And I know you love me. But that isn't enough anymore. Your kind of love is killing me. I just...can't keep living like this. I'm so tired. I'm tired of being the only one fighting for this relationship. I can't keep being your maid and your lover and your cleaner and your good little girlfriend that you trot out to premieres whenever you need to make a good impression. I can't keep waiting for you to leave some other woman's bed and come home to me. I wanted to build a life with you, one that we could be equals in, that we could enjoy together. I wanted to have a family with you and raise them in a lovely house with a garden and a dog. Sounds cliche, but I did."
She chuckles softly and Tom's eyes burn with tears, shaking his head
"It doesn't sound cliche. It sounds wonderful." He reassured her. But she only ignored him.
"But clearly, you don't want those things yet, even if you aren't aware of it. And if waiting for you means that I keep being insulted at events by your other girls or keep getting my heart ripped out of me, then I'd rather not wait. And trust me, saying this to you hurts me, because I love you so much more than I ever thought I could love anyone. " She pushed him back a little so she could stand.
She ran her hand through his hair, one last time, feeling the softness against her fingers. His eyes closed against her touch, his hand reaching up to clasp around her own, keeping her hand on his face. Kris wiped some of his tears, trying to cry when even more spilled over.
The fact that he was still kneeling made it easier for her to reach and her heart warmed a little when she remembered their rather severe height difference. But the warmth faded and left...nothing. Just cold, empty nothing. "Goodbye, Thomas."
Tom stood up straight, feeling every bit of light he had in his life crumbling.
The parties and the booze and Andrea were fun, but none of them had given him the life that Kris had. And now it was over. But he had to try, one more time. He took her face in his hands, and this time, she looked straight at him, a sad look in her eyes.
"Tom, don't."
He pressed his forehead against hers, holding her close to him, and she let him this time.
His left hand held the small of her back, pressing to him, while his right went to her hair, his thumb grazing her cheek.
"Kristy, please don't leave me, love. I want all those things too. I want to have a family with you, to grow old with you. Please, you can go home tonight, just please tell me there's a chance to fix this."
She stayed silent and just shook her head. "There isn't."
She carefully removed his hands, which fell limply at his side.
"Kris." He begged.
"I have to go. My sister's waiting for me. Take care of yourself, Tom." And with that, she kissed Tom's lips one last time before she walked out the door.
He stood in the door as he watched his love, his best friend, get into the car, holding himself. He bit his lip to keep from sobbing. He waited until her could no longer see her car. Then he went back inside.
Tom sagged down against the door after she left, his head in his hands.
It was my fault. It was over.
She was gone.