Work Text:
1
With photos, it’s always the matter of perspective, you know? How light falls in the shot, on your best side, the side you chose to show to the world, and how the photographer measures the angle, deciding if they want to make you shine or throw mud at your face with a hot headline underneath. It takes time, obviously, to master the first and pick out the ones you need from the crowd. You just need to know the rules of the game that big and grand Hollywood plays, and you’ll be fine; don’t stick out and keep your mouth shut. It’s pretty simple.
Tom does not find it simple. But he plays it, too. When they’re both on the set of a multimillion-dollar superhero movie and act like a wise mentor and a bright protégé. When they attend press junkets and worldwide premieres and play along with the so-called father/son dynamic they and their teams created. When they pose during photocalls and place their hands on each other’s shoulders as a warm and friendly gesture. Simple, right?
It’s mostly exhausting. To always be aware of how you stand and where you look and not let your hands or your mouth run on their own. At some point, it becomes automatic, and then it becomes boring, but still exhausting.
They’re in the middle of the Infinity War press tour, getting ready for the event in Shanghai in their hotel rooms, separate, of course. Tom is in front of the mirror, straightening the lapels of his jacket and checking his hair that, it seems, contains two litres of gel now to look this good, when there is a rasp of knuckles on his door. He thinks it’s Claire again, to scold him for being late, but on the other side is Robert, in his striped suit and burgundy glasses and hair swept back, and he’s so unfairly hot. Tom thinks it must be illegal, at least somewhere, for everyone’s sanity, and so he tells him.
“You want to kill me, or what?”
Robert chuckles, rocking slightly on the balls of his feet. “I would’ve chosen a better place, don’t you think?”
“I learnt not to trust your judgement.”
“Ouch. That hurt.”
“You deserve it, especially after that abomination you called a ‘must-have dish in China’, and it was eggs with clay and ash.”
“Well…” He has the decency to look at least a little remorseful. “Not my best moment, sure. That’s why I’m here, to make amends.”
Tom wants to laugh at the audacity. “Hate to break it to you, but we have a junket in like…” He flicks the watch Robert gave him on their first New Year’s together. “Half an hour.”
Robert chuckles again. “Oh, that’s for later, don’t worry.” He tilts his head towards the elevator area, and Tom finally shuts the door, falling into step with him. He throws his arm around Tom’s shoulders in that infuriating paternal manner Tom starts to get sick of. “With all the flights and junkets here and there, I thought, why don’t we have some… fun?”
They stop by the elevators, and Robert presses on the button, red numbers appearing above the door. Surprisingly, they’re alone, and the corridor with the rows of doors is empty. And yet, Tom says, a bit hushed, “And I think it’s not the best place to have this kind of conversation.”
“Oh, there’s nothing incriminating happening here, is it?” The door slides open with a ding, and they step inside; the cabin is blessedly empty too. Robert clicks on the ‘0’, arm still around Tom’s shoulders. “And it’s not like most people here understand what we’re talking about anyway.”
He wants to tell him that dictaphones and translators exist but chooses not to bother. “So, what fun are you talking about?”
“I don’t know.” Tom raises his eyebrow at him. “Yet. I just wanted to know if you’re on board with it. Give you a heads-up.”
“Gee, thanks.” He stuffs his hands into the pockets to hide the slight tremble he always gets before the events. “You know that Claire will have both our heads if something happens, right?”
“Yeah, one hundred per cent.” The hand slides down his back, stopping at the middle, fingers grazing his waist. Robert leans in a little; they’re both looking at the door. “I won’t do anything over-the-top, trust me. Just need to get you out of that pretty head of yours for one day, okay? You’re in Shanghai, baby. Enjoy it while your body lets you.”
Tom huffs, shaking his head. Age jokes between them never get old. Or young, for that matter.
He opens his mouth to throw a jibe back at him, but his phone buzzes in his pocket, and now, Tom knows, it’s certainly Claire. Thankfully, there are just a few floors left.
Robert is not looking at him, but he’s waiting for some kind of response.
Tom closes his eyes for a second and takes a deep breath. “Okay. I’ll follow your lead, or whatever. Just don’t fuck it up, please.”
The door slides open, and there is Claire with Sarah by her side near the receptionist desk, looking at her phone with a mix of irritation and silent anger. He should give her a raise for everything she puts up with him.
“Me?” They step out, strolling towards the women; the hand remains on his back, if not settling firmer. “I would never.”
Claire doesn’t say a word, hurrying them towards their respective cars; she’s eyeing the hand very obviously but doesn’t comment and only gives him an ‘I hope you know what you’re doing’ look when they’re driving towards the press conference, Robert and Sarah behind them.
To put it plainly, Robert can’t get his hands off of him. They’re on his shoulders, sitting like they belong there, on his back, so low that a tad more and it would be considered inappropriate, on his arms, guiding him to the needed direction, and when they’re occupied, Robert makes sure they stand close enough to always touch each other. And the little beast inside Tom screams from the contact.
His ex-girlfriends (and a boyfriend) were always saying that Tom was too tactile and too clingy, always holding hands and hugging hello and goodbye with a kiss and that it was juvenile and immature and they couldn’t do it, especially in public. Tom thought that they just didn’t like physical touch in general, except for sex, and got used to it, though that little beast whimpered quietly. After this happened several times, he figured it must have been his problem, not theirs, and fully expected the same when he and Robert got together.
Oh, boy, how wrong he was.
When they see each other after a very long time, Robert never breaks the hug first, holding him tight in his arms, lips pressed to his temple. When they’re going to sleep, he lets Tom wrap his limbs around Robert’s body like a koala and never complains about his almost suffocating grip. And when they’re watching another TV show, Tom drapes himself on Robert, head on his chest, arms looped around the middle, and Robert just runs his fingers through Tom’s curling hair. He doesn’t initiate it as much as Tom does but never complains when Tom presses himself into his back while he’s making breakfast.
Tom thought he couldn’t love Robert more, but it only grows with every passing day and especially right now. His fingers twitch when Robert’s hand brushes over his knuckles, and he tucks his clenched fist into the pocket. If it were up to him, he would hold Robert’s hand whenever they go. But it isn’t, so he leans forward, pressing their shoulders together.
Fans don’t seem to notice anything strange in their behaviour, clearly excited to just see them here, or maybe it’s something to do with Chinese mentality; Tom is not completely sure. Their colleagues are the other thing; they’re actors and harder to read. He doesn’t know if any of them picked up on the change in their relationship, and even if they did, nobody has said anything. Except for Mark, though, who came up to them at the Endgame wrap party and wished them both luck with the look on his face that meant he knew. None of them addressed it afterwards.
They’re on a stage, answering questions in an auditorium rammed with people and photographers filling an area under the stage, cameras aimed at them and clicking nonstop. Robert is to his left, his right hand lying securely between his shoulder blades, smiling at the crowd and throwing his usual quips. At some point he leans forward to Tom’s ear, hand sliding a bit lower and sending a shiver down his body, and whispers,
“Just smile for the cameras, baby.”
You bastard.
Out of the corner of his eye, he notices a cameraman at his two o’clock whose lens is solely on them right now. He decides to play a little bit too. He shifts so his back is almost fully turned to the camera and looks at Robert, who hasn’t had time to straighten up, and now his face is dangerously close to Tom’s. Robert knows what he did and how it looks from a certain angle in particular, and Tom knows it too. He just smiles at Robert, pleased with himself, and turns back to face the crowd. The hand comes up to his right shoulder and squeezes. Hard.
For everyone else, it’s nothing much, just a friendly gesture. He knows there are people who, as Claire explained, ‘ship’ them—not Peter and Tony, but Tom and Robert—and what a surprise it was to him. He doesn’t really interact with fans online except for arts and videos they sometimes send him and wasn’t aware of another side of it all. It’s weird in hindsight, but it’s none of his business what fans do in their free time. It should probably worry him and warn him from giving any ambiguous clues, but if he made someone happy with his little shtick that most won’t believe in anyway, what is wrong with it?
He should even find the photo. Maybe it’ll come in handy in the future.
The moment the event ends and they’re completely free, he flags Claire with his hand and drags Robert to the nearest restroom. He pushes Robert against the locked door and falls to his knees, unfastening Robert’s trousers.
“Baby, wha…” He doesn’t listen, tugging them all the way down with the underwear, and sinks straight to the root, not caring about his terrible gag reflex. “Fuck!”
He grips Robert’s hips, pinning him to the surface, and starts moving his head at a measured but quick pace. There’s a heavy exhale and a dull thud above him, and a hand comes to his hair, encouraging him to go faster. Not so long after, he hears Robert’s breath become more uneven, and he tries to push Tom away, but he tightens his grip and hollows his cheeks around the end. A low, muffled moan above his head, and something hot and salty hits the back of his throat. Tom swallows without saying a word (he kind of can’t right now) and slowly pulls off. His knees hurt a bit, and there’s a throbbing strain against his zipper, but he doesn’t pay his mind to it, tugging back Robert’s trousers and doing up the button.
He rises and sees Robert’s eyes closed, head tilted and resting against the door, breathing easing out. He takes Robert’s face in his hands and presses their lips together, opening up with his tongue, a groan reverberating against his mouth at the taste and hands wrapping around his waist. Tom pulls away first, still close enough so their noses touch.
“I’m not complaining, but what was that for?”
Tom smiles softly and places a quick kiss. “A ‘thank you’. I had a lot of fun.”
“You are very welcome.” Robert looks him over, and his hands lower to Tom’s hips. “Do you need a hand?”
Tom chuckles, shaking his head. “Don’t worry. I’ll deal with it later.”
He eyes himself in the mirror to fix his slightly dishevelled hair, rearranges himself carefully and tugs the poles of his jacket lower. His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he doesn’t even need to look at it to know who it is. He definitely needs to give Claire a raise.
He turns back to Robert, who looks more composed and less like he just had a blowjob from his much younger co-star in a public bathroom where anyone could walk in on them. Tom steps forward to brush an invisible speck of dust from his shoulder and leaves one more kiss.
“Shall we? I’m starving, but no more eggs in ash or any other disgusting stuff.”
“Promise.”
2
Throughout his not-that-long career, Tom, it feels, has given like a million interviews, and among all of them, the most memorable is the one he did with Tessa. If someone asked him, he would have never thought that he could bring his dog to an interview. Moreover, that he could bring her to a premiere of his movie. And yet, here they are, at the premiere of Dolittle in London.
When Robert just pitched him an idea of voicing one of the characters, Tom agreed without a second thought. He loves animals and has already had experience in voice-acting, so it wouldn’t have been a problem. But honestly, he just can’t say no to Robert and to an opportunity to work with him, especially after he, well… died in Endgame, but Tom doesn’t like to talk about it. He has done plenty of it during Far From Home, thank you very much.
He sometimes thinks that he was more devastated by Tony’s death than Robert, which is an awful thing to say, he knows, though he told Tom he fought tooth and nail with the Russos on it but, obviously, unsuccessfully. He tried to reassure Tom (or himself; Tom wasn’t sure) that it would be for the better, a well-needed break and time to think about future projects. Tom wasn’t assured, but he was grateful for the heads-up, because he still remembers filming that scene and doesn’t know how it would have gone if he hadn’t prepared. And, apparently, Robert still remembers Tom’s scene too.
Okay, no more depressing thoughts; back to Dolittle.
It’s been quite an interesting experience, voicing an animal and doing it for a live-action movie, not an animated one. Hence, he hasn’t seen much of Robert until they wrapped filming and post-production kicked off. And that’s where he met Susan, who is absolutely incredible, both as a professional and as a person. And she’s also one of the few who knows and has been nothing but kind and supportive. Tom can easily see why Robert married her in the first place; she’s the kind of a woman who will always have your back, no matter what ditch you ended up in.
And Tom feels incredibly lucky that he has found this kind of woman in Z. She’s been there for him all throughout the shooting of Far From Home when Robert’s absence hit too hard or everything seemed like too much at once, and it doesn’t matter that there are eight hours between them. To have this closeness, a confidant you trust unreservedly, the one who understands life turmoil you’re going through, is precious. He hopes he was able to return the favour when she called him the morning after the Euphoria wrap party, nervously pacing around her apartment, and wouldn’t stop saying that she had done something unbelievably stupid. Luckily, he was in LA at that time and, about twenty minutes later, appeared on her doorstep with a big tub of Häagen-Dazs. They ate it on her couch watching Interstellar again, and she told him that she had slept with one of her co-stars. Needless to say, it was a long and tough conversation.
A particularly chilly gush of January wind makes him shiver, clutching Tessa’s leash tighter, and start regretting his decision not to wear something warmer. Maybe he should have taken Claire up on hiring a full team for press events so he would look presentable and not die from hypothermia. Usually, he chooses the clothes himself, and albeit he doesn’t have that specific sense of fashion, or whatever, he looks pretty nice. Just today he’s been… busy and hasn’t had much time. Though Robert looks immaculate as always. In a checked coat, two-piece suit and tinted glasses.
One of the assistants ushers him to a press wall for his mandatory number of photos, and he runs his hand over his grown-out buzz cut, trying to make it look less terrible. Thank God, he finished filming Cherry just a few days ago and didn’t need to keep it short anymore. Yes, he shaved it off completely voluntarily and for the sake of the role, but nothing could have prepared him for how horrendous he would look afterwards. He still remembers the look of utter horror on Robert’s face and the ‘Never do that again. Spare my poor heart.’ He was being over-dramatic, but Tom completely agrees.
For all this time, Tessa has been a calm and obedient girl, following him around or sitting quietly by his side, but as the cameras’ loud clicks and shouts to look here and there fill the area, Tom senses her become more anxious with every passing moment. She doesn’t usually stress around new people, but big rowdy crowds overwhelm her, and Tom crouches beside her, petting her nape in a soothing manner and scratching behind her ear, and she smiles, nuzzling into his touch. They’re posing together in new positions, and photographers love it even more, not that they’ve stopped shouting because of it; Tom badly wants to roll his eyes.
That’s when the man of the hour appears, strolling towards them in his usual confident but leisurely way, and Tom can’t help a grin spreading on his lips. He’s smiling watching Robert do his ridiculous poses and throw jokes, and when he turns and catches Tom’s eye, towering from where Tom is still crouching beside Tessa, a memory from just an hour ago flashes in his mind, and now it feels oddly hot behind his collar.
They’re in Tom’s flat in London. Similar positions, but Robert sitting on the couch with Tom kneeling between his spread legs. Hands secured on thighs and a tight grip on the nape, guiding the motions and keeping the rhythm. Fingers unable to clutch onto the short hairs on the back of the head, and a thumb nudged behind the left ear, pressing right onto a small four-pointed star, matching the one on the right shoulder of the arm. A squeeze on the neck, a fastening pace and a low, throated moan, movements stilling and hands stroking the hot skin. The grip now cupping the sharp jaw, drawing faces closer. A musky and a tad bitter taste on the lips. Perfect.
Another bright flash snaps him out, and Tom sees a small smirk tugging on Robert’s mouth. He sits on his haunches and throws his arm over Tom’s shoulders, pressing into his side, the other hand on Tessa’s back, and she’s leaning readily into the familiar touch. They’re both looking at the cameras with amiable, practised grins when Robert tilts his head towards Tom’s ear and, with a completely straight face, whispers,
“Something pleasant on your mind, baby?”
Blood rushes up to his cheeks, and he hopes it can be blamed on the low temperature. When he became an actor, he thought it would be easier, to control his face and keep emotions at bay. How naive. Recently, he’s been weeping at every even a little sad movie as if it were Hachiko-level drama. And sue him, they haven’t seen each other since the New Year, and Tom missed Robert like hell.
For the first time, he’s glad for how fucking loud these premieres are. He turns slightly, eyes still locked on the lenses, and mutters that only Robert would catch.
“I think you have a good idea of what exactly.”
Robert smiles at him with his eyes, crow’s feet crinkling under the glasses, in that private way that always makes Tom’s stomach swoop, and squeezes the back of his arm gently, off-camera. It means both ‘I got you’ and ‘Not here’. Tom swallows the sour taste in his mouth, now the fully fake grin on his face.
They finish the photocall with a cast group photo and move to an auditorium for the screening with fans and guests. They don’t go to the after-party. Claire puts him into a cab and reminds him about the errands they have the next morning and to keep his phone on. He just nods, bidding her goodbye, and shuts the door. It’s tomorrow Tom’s concerns. Now his main one is to get to his flat as fast as possible, into the big and comfortable bed, with the man a few cars behind him.
It sounds like a good plan.
3
COVID hits, and it feels like the world is collapsing.
They has just started shooting Uncharted when the WHO declares an outbreak of coronavirus as a global pandemic, and almost right after he returns to the UK, the government announces a nationwide lockdown. He left Tessa with his parents, so now all seven of them have to spend the whole lockdown together. At least he can be with his family while people around die from an unknown deadly virus and not alone in an empty flat and unnaturally quiet city, staring at the walls.
He catches up on the well-needed sleep. He watches and reads everything he missed because of his tight schedule or inability to block everything out and simply rest. He talks to Harry about his castings, to Sam about his cooking courses, and to Paddy about his paintings; he talks to them about everything and nothing like they haven’t done in a while, and he missed it so damn much.
He wants to crawl out of his own skin. The little beast inside him is wailing so desperately and so fucking loud he doesn’t know how everybody hasn’t noticed. He calls Robert on FaceTime every day and sees his tired smile and his kind eyes and knows that he wants too. He thinks that how he felt before, the distance and pretended indifference, doesn’t even compare to how he feels now, together but across the ocean. He’s fucking yearning.
After the phone call that’s harder to end with every passing day, he takes Tessa out for a walk and gets some fresh air (as much as possible through these horrible blue masks). He’s thankful that, unlike many, he’s able to do that because if he hadn’t been, he would have definitely gone crazy by now. She senses his foul mood, always does, and puts her muzzle on his knees, whining quietly until he uncovers his face and puts his hand on her nape. She’s a smart and good girl, and Tom doesn’t know what he would have done without her.
He calls Zendaya now and again. They share book recommendations and discuss the movies they’ve watched recently. They talk about their dogs and how their families are doing. He doesn’t ask about Jacob, and she doesn’t ask about Robert. She also pretends not to notice empty beer bottles on Tom’s desk.
One night when he can’t sleep, tossing and turning, unable to shut down his brain, he decides to go down the rabbit hole and redownloads Twitter. He’s scrolling mindlessly, not concentrating on something in particular; people are anxious and lost, not knowing what’s happening around them, and verbalise it in angry and hateful comments. Somehow, he winds up in the Marvel part of it, and people here are different. They make theories about the movies and comics or how this or that character would react to COVID or are simply wishing the actors to stay safe and healthy in their homes, and it’s… uncharacteristically sweet.
When he’s about to call it and delete Twitter once again, his eye catches onto his and Robert’s names and something about them being ‘so like father and son’ and some kind of videos. He rereads it. Twice. He doesn’t know what comes over him, but he finds himself reaching for his laptop and opening YouTube. Eventually, he finds the videos, about ten minutes long, puts on his earbuds and presses Play. It’s a compilation of their moments from different interviews and panels where they’re joking or trying to be serious and answer questions but laughing anyway, just being themselves. All of them were filmed after.
This whole ‘father/son’ thing—they did it on purpose. It was a good PR move for Homecoming and next movies and a matter of precaution, creating a plausible and simple narrative for people to see instead of letting them speculate or suspect something. It works perfectly, A+, the highest score and all that. But he looks at that photo from Shanghai (he himself made a joke about it on Instagram), remembering all the whys and hows, and he can’t understand how people don’t see it because they’re so fucking obvious. And the creator says Robert looks like a supportive and proud father.
An image flashes his mind, something weird squirming in his guts, and he slams the laptop shut and tosses it aside. It’s never, never, occurred to him before, so it’s not real, right? It’s just his lack of sleep and being for almost three months locked in a house, nothing more. Or he has finally gone mad.
It’s almost five, so he doesn’t bother to fall asleep again and takes Tessa out for a morning walk. He deliberately does not think about it. (He has a great relationship with his dad. Just an observation.)
He feels deranged when he lands in Germany, mask and gloves on and a QR code with a negative test on his phone. He shoves everything deep down, texts Robert since he can’t really find time for calls now and dives headfirst into the work.
Mark is an interesting person and a good actor, though far from Jake in both aspects. He and Jake hit it off right off the bat with their joshing and the bromance. Robert was even mildly jealous at the ‘husband’ comment and asked if he was trying to replace him so soon. He would never, and there was no reason to be jealous; all jokes, nothing serious. That’s what he told Robert. What he didn’t tell him is that after one particularly strenuous gym session with Jake, he asked Tom if he wanted to have a couple of beers in his room. In the tone that made Tom think whether it was only a bromance for him. He declined and gave him a look he hoped Jake would understand and walked out of the elevator on his floor. Jake never asked again, and they never mentioned it. He’s now in a relationship with some French model, the last he heard.
Right after the shooting is wrapped and all material is sent to post-production, he flies to Atlanta, and they start filming No Way Home. He’s glad to see Z and Jacob and Benedict and, bloody hell, Tobey and Andrew, and he’s extremely excited to work with all of them, but there’s something he can’t get off his mind. Due to COVID, there are many restrictions concerning the process and production as a whole, and because of them, it’s not recommended to leave the set unless absolutely necessary or the city at all. He’s finally in the States after seven months, and he can’t even leave the fucking city. Robert’s here, not across the ocean, on the same continent, just a few states away, and he can’t visit him because of these idiotic restrictions. He knows they’re not; he’s just frustrated and mad, and the beast is wailing much harder now.
It’s an incredible experience, truly, probably the best Spider-Man movie he has made. He has met so many talented actors that are absolute legends, and he gets to work with them, which feels like a dream come true. And yet, he returns to his place in the evening with a dull and low sensation in his guts and reads through the texts Robert has sent him during the day and tells him about the shooting and the movie and everyone. And when in the morning Zendaya comes to go to breakfast, he ignores the look she gives him for the state of his room and especially his minibar.
The next day after the filming is officially finished, he takes the first plane to LA. The drive to Robert’s house feels longer than the flight from Atlanta, and he never noticed it about himself, but he can’t stop scratching the side of his thumb with his forefinger. It’s the shade of pink that, a little bit more, and he’ll break the skin. The Lyft stops in front of the closed panel gates, and the driver helps him with his luggage before wishing him a good day and pulling away.
He wipes a white plastic card over the scanner and opens a similar panel door. Ten seconds later, he’s in front of another, white with a tinted glass pane on the side, and presses a doorbell. Immediately, there are hurried steps from the deep of the house, and without hesitation, the door is pried open.
And there he is, in sweats and a rock band long-sleeved shirt, with slightly ruffled hair, short stubble and a towel on his shoulder. Hasn’t changed even for a bit.
Over a year. He hasn’t seen Robert over a goddamn year.
A duffel drops from his grip, and in the next moment Tom just falls forward and wraps his arms around Robert. He doesn’t care about the mask still on his face, about the one and a half metres, or about that bloody virus that stopped him from seeing the man he loves. He’s been drowning for over a fucking year, and now, while the familiar arms are holding him so tight his ribs must have cracked, he feels like he can finally breathe.
Hours later, naked in bed, Tom is drawing invisible figures with his finger on Robert’s chest, and Robert is combing his fingers through his hair, nails scratching the scalp lightly. A loose strand falls on his forehead, and Robert tugs it behind his ear, lingering on the star.
“It’s grown since the last time,” he rasps, the voice low and heavy. “Suits you.”
He falls asleep, face pressed into the crook of Robert’s neck, arm swung over the middle and legs tangled. The beast is purring.
He tells Claire in the morning that he’ll be staying in LA and to clear his schedule for the next month. She agrees, begrudgingly, but still sets up a meeting because he’s ‘in the area anyway’, and he gets a role in a TV show about Billy Milligan, or something like that. He decides to put the script off until he returns to the UK and, on his way back, stops by a place that makes Robert’s favourite pasta and orders two to go.
They stay in the house most of the time, lounging on a couch in front of a big screen and cooking and having sex. In the mornings, Robert drags him outside, and they’re doing yoga together, listening to the tides of the ocean nearby, and, apparently, Tom should really brush up on his ballet and gymnastics past and add more stretching to his routine. It looks basically like the lockdown, but the urge to climb the walls never arises.
He visits Z on the set of Euphoria, and he doesn’t even need eyes to see the tension hanging in the air. He feels Hunter glancing in their direction when they leave to grab a coffee. He doesn’t ask Z about it.
On the last day he can’t rip himself off Robert and almost misses his flight. He wishes Robert had dropped him off at the airport, but he probably wouldn’t have left at all. He’s sitting on the plane, thousands of kilometres from the earth, and notices that the dull feeling is still there.
He tries to get back to the normal rhythm, work on the script and the character, keep in shape and spend time with his family, but the feeling is still there, and it only numbs when he goes out with his lads for drinks in the pub. His dad asks if he’s excited about the premiere in December and his mum if he’s thinking of getting a haircut soon. He’s not, on both, and he doesn’t want to unwrap it either.
Robert knows; he more than anyone knows what it looks like. Maybe he has seen it even before Tom did, during those evening video calls. But he doesn’t say anything. He knows that Tom knows, and he doesn’t say anything. Neither does Tom.
The time passes in a blur, and he’s back in the States for the press tour. He’s moving back and forth from LA to New York without a second to take a proper breath, and somehow, it becomes normal to chug a can of beer before starting a day. Robert is busy, researching and preparing for Oppenheimer, and Tom doesn’t bother him except for a text here and there.
With the number of interviews they’re doing and everyone’s attention on the upcoming movie, it’s not surprising that the dating rumours spark again. His and Zendaya’s dating rumours.
At first it was amusing until it became simply annoying, bordering on frustrating. As far as Tom remembers, they’ve never done anything in public that could indicate that they might be. They go out and spend their time off together, and that’s what friends do because that’s what they are. Friends. And also, apparently, social media aren’t concerned by the fact that Z, unlike him, has been seen with her partners on several occasions. And she and Tom have been dating since Homecoming. Sure.
He once asked Robert if it bothered him. He said that back in the day everyone thought that he had slept with half of Hollywood, and that’s just what people busy themselves with: speculating about celebrities’ personal lives. He added that it might even play into their hands, shift the eye of the public, or whatever. Tom didn’t respond, and they changed the topic.
He and Robert are not the first, and definitely not the last, famous queer people to hide their relationship. Some even choose to fake date to keep it a secret; the risks are higher, and your footing becomes unstable because, for some reason, being with a person of the same gender is worse than being an abuser. They want you to be with a person of a certain age, of a certain colour, or of beliefs in a certain god or certain ideology, but not the one you’re ready to die for. And that must totally say something about the state of our society.
On the day of the premiere, Tom gets absolutely hammered and wakes up the next morning in Zendaya’s house with a pounding headache and so thirsty, as if he had been wandering in a desert for a month without a drop of water. He finds the salvatory liquid and two ibuprofens on a nightstand and gulps everything in five seconds. Z is in the kitchen when he finally manages to get up and emerges from her guestroom. She’s still in her pyjamas, hair up in a bun, nursing a cup of coffee with an expression Tom is too hungover to try and decipher now.
She pours him the remnants from the pot and hands him a silly mug they bought somewhere in Korea (or was it Japan?) with a face of some weird anime animal. The first sip feels like heaven.
“It’s…” He clears his throat, his voice so raw, like he’s been yelling for hours. “It’s so embarrassing, but… how did I get here?”
“No wonder why,” she drawls, climbing back on the stool at the island. “You drank two beers and then decided it was a good idea to do shots when you hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. I didn’t count, but Tony said it was about eight.” He grimaces and pinches his nose bridge; meds still haven’t kicked in.
“Claire helped me haul you into a car, you need to call her, by the way, and, thank God, there weren’t any paps at the back exit. Then you threw up in my bathroom and passed out.”
“Fuck.” He swipes his hand over his face and tugs at the roots of his grown-out hair. “I’m so sorry, Z. That you had to see me like this.”
She doesn’t respond, but then, voice quieter and tinged with something like sympathy, she asks, “You do realise it wasn’t okay, right?” Silence; he’s staring at the counter. “Have you ever done this… before?”
“No, no, I swear.”
She inhales deeply and puts her elbows on the island, hands clasped. “Listen, I’m saying this as your friend, but you look awful, and I’m not talking about right now.” Silence again; his eyes are on her shoulder now. “Have you thought about… speaking to someone?”
“I’m speaking to you.”
“I meant a professional.”
A tiny snort. He’s shaking his head. “I don’t need a therapist because I once drank too much, Z. I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. You’ve been like this since COVID. Hell, even earlier. If it’s about you and Robert and—”
Now a full-blown sneer. “Oh, no-no-no, don’t even start. You wanna talk about relationships? What about you and Hunter, huh?” She flinches, a little, but he still notices. Now, she’s not looking at him. “I—I’m sorry, Z, I didn’t mean it. It was—I’m sorry.”
She stands up and leaves her cup in the sink. Her hands come up to his shoulder and squeeze, her eyes kind as always. “I just want to say that I’m here, for you, if you ever need anything. And that I’ll help as much as I can.” She steps out, and Tom hears the sound of her bedroom door being closed.
After staring at the wall in front of him for an indefinite amount of time, he finishes the lukewarm coffee, gets a hot shower and asks Claire to book the nearest flight to London. Robert sends him a message when he’s on his way to the airport, asking whether he wants to stay for a few days. He lies about urgent business in the UK and turns off his phone.
He spends Christmas holidays with his family, brooding and drinking whisky with his dad on their porch; the dull feeling in his stomach has transformed into a bottomless pit, and the whisky doesn’t numb it anymore. He’s looking at the ink-black sky stripped of bright stars, breathing in the remnants of Robert’s cologne on the scarf he took on his last visit, and feels his eyes prickle, a bile forming in his throat. He puts the tumbler down with a loud click. His father turns at the sound, concern visible in his furrowed brows.
“You okay, son?”
He swallows and feels tears finally spilling down. “I don’t think so.”
For the first time, he doesn’t go to LA for New Year’s. He tells Robert it’s better to be safe than sorry and not to take unnecessary risks with public places and the virus still in the air. Robert agrees because he’s reasonable and probably because he knows. But Tom can’t simply look him in the eye right now, fearing that the only thing he’ll see in them will be disappointment. A few hours before midnight, he FaceTimes Z to apologise for what he said, now properly, and to tell her that he wants to try Dry January. She tells him that he loves him and is proud of him, and Tom feels like he might cry again.
At midnight, he gets a Happy New Year from Robert, and eight hours later, eight hours sober, he sends his own. He returns to his flat and gets rid of all booze there.
The first week is a fucking nightmare. He’s sweating as if he has run the whole marathon, and his hands are shaking so hard he can’t hit buttons on a controller, and the edges of the game on his screen are a bit blurry; he decided to lock himself in to finally play the new The Last of Us, but, apparently, it was a bad idea. At the end of the game he’s bawling his eyes out and is one step away from going down to a store. He doesn’t and changes his strategy.
The next day he hits the gym, and even though he’s shaking and sweating even more, he feels a little better. He drinks a lot of water and electrolytes, googles what else might help with symptoms and asks Sam to send him a few recipes. Every evening he takes Tessa out and just walks around the streets for hours in a cap and mask, earbuds on, blending with a crowd, though he notices several phones aimed at him every now and then, but at least no one approaches him. By the end of the month, he feels like a thick layer of something that had been weighing down on him finally peeled off and decides to do it in February too.
He goes on a small press tour for Uncharted, which he almost forgot about, and in the meantime, returns to working on the character because the clock is ticking and the start of shooting is approaching, and somewhere in the middle of the month, while he’s sitting over the script, it hits him again, and the pit in his stomach feels bottomless again. He blames it on the script because, frankly speaking, the story is heavy and grim, and with how thin-skinned he is, the scenes are going to be like punch in the guts. But it’s his job, and he tries to do it well, and so he will.
When he meets Claire in Heathrow to fly to New York together, she doesn’t recognise him because of his hair. He says it’s for the role, but the truth is, he can’t make himself cut it. He might have an idea why.
During the filming he stays in a hotel instead of the apartment Robert gave him keys for and cleans out the room of all alcohol. They were exchanging texts and rare calls until Robert started shooting Oppenheimer (no-phones rules and all that), but Tom didn’t tell him about his little… venture. In hindsight, it looks incredibly stupid from his side. Because it’s Robert, his partner, the man he loves and who will go with him through fire and high water without batting an eye. And because he, unlike many, really understands what Tom has been going through. They’ve talked about it, of course, the rehabs and relapses and how he was afraid to lose Indio, his childhood and his father and bipolar disorder. Yet, the thoughts that he’s failing Robert by letting his vices affect his life so greatly haven’t left him since the morning he woke up in Zendaya’s house.
Hence the genre and plot of their show, there are many psychologists and other behavioural specialists consulting them on the set. He doesn’t want to impose on them with conversations out of respect and simple politeness, but they always seem to be happy to answer his questions, and more and more often, between takes, he finds himself deep in discussion with one or several of them about serial killers and profiling and mental health. And he finds himself ruminating long after a filming day has ended.
After a wrap party, almost nine months completely sober, he’s sitting on a kerb, waiting for a taxi to take him to the hotel. He’s looking at the night sky again, and it’s even lighter here, in the Big Apple, but still no stars, and the pit is still here, but for the first time, he maybe knows what to do. He takes out his phone and dials.
“Hey, what’s up?” He draws in a ragged breath, shivering from a blow of the September wind, and hears the hushed motion on the other end still. “Baby, are you okay?”
“I’m safe, but I… I think I need help.”
Silence. Then he hears the movement, more rushed now. “Are you still in New York? I can pick you up, just need to find my—”
“Don’t. I mean, there’s no need. I’m taking a taxi, and I’ll just reroute it.” He pauses, taking one more breath, his voice somehow tinier. “Wait for me?”
“Always.” He didn’t hesitate, and it makes Tom’s heart pang. “Baby?”
“Yeah?”
“We’ll figure everything out, I promise.”
And Tom believes him.
The driver is grumbling all the way about having to drag through the night Manhattan traffic and eyeing the mask on Tom’s face, but at least he doesn’t recognise him, with a cap on and hair now reaching shoulders. He leaves the guy a huge tip for the inconvenience and receives an approving nod. The apartment Robert owns is in such a big and glassy skyscraper in Midtown that Tom doesn’t remember how many floors are in it. He chose it because he’s often in the city for business and doesn’t mind the noise that much, and Susan took the house in the Hamptons.
Luckily, the concierge is taking a break because if someone had seen him, with bags under his eyes, twitchy and apprehensive, he would have surely been arrested for suspicious behaviour. He’s walking down a corridor along white doors with metal numbers when it hits him that it’s, again, been over a year since he saw Robert in person. And that somewhere down the line the beast stopped making any noise at all.
Finally, he reaches the door and sees it slightly ajar, a warm and welcoming light peaking outside. There’s pacing in the living room that stops the moment the lock clicks in the silence, and then the steps are approaching.
And there he is, the same sweats, unzipped hoodie, hair shorter than he remembers, and brown eyes that always feel like home.
He can’t fight back tears that start trickling under the mask, and in the next moment Robert lunges forward and wraps his arms around Tom’s body, tucking Tom’s face in the crook of his neck. Tom doesn’t notice, but he’s fully sobbing now, hands clutching the fabric on Robert’s back. And Robert just holds him, safe and secured, stroking his back, and murmurs,
“It’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re okay.”
Somehow, they end up on the couch, and when he manages to calm down a little bit, he sees Robert emerging from the kitchen with a glass of water. He extends it to Tom without a word and sits down, hand coming up to Tom’s knee and squeezing. He takes a few slow sips and puts it down on the coffee table beside the cap and mask.
“Better?”
“Yeah. Thank you.”
“Tom,” he starts cautiously, his thumb running over the seam of Tom’s jeans, “what’s going on?”
He tells Robert about getting wasted on the after-party, about being sober since January, about the pit that has been growing—he doesn’t know for how long—and about starting therapy because he doesn’t want to know what is going to happen when it becomes unbearable. The hand on his knee is still and tense. He sees Robert’s eyes glistening, but he smiles, open and kind and hopeful, and reaches with his other hand to Tom’s.
“It’s gonna be alright. Everything is gonna be alright. I’m proud of you.”
The next morning he wakes up with Robert’s arm thrown over his waist, nose pressed into his nape, and he thinks it’s going to be alright. He calls Mary, almost a decade later, and she still remembers him. She helps him make an appointment with one of her colleagues and wishes him good luck. He asks Claire to get a ticket to London in a week and gets his hair cut.
Laura is wonderful, although she knows who he is. She’s patient with him and has a calming energy that helps him open up. She listens carefully and sometimes writes something down in her cream-coloured notebook. She asks him questions that always leave him pondering for a long time and simply waits until he’s ready to talk.
He’s apprehensive when she touches the topic of romantic relationships, and she reminds him nothing that has been said will ever leave this office. She doesn’t jump to conclusions when he tells her about Robert, but even without naming names, he’s sure she knows who he’s talking about. And considering he hasn’t seen any new articles on Page Six, she didn’t lie.
Somewhere along the way he discovers that apart from dyslexia he has ADHD, wondering how Mary missed it, and depression, and Laura writes him prescriptions because, in his state, those can’t be treated or moderated through therapy alone. He doesn’t like the idea, but he remembers Robert still seeing his therapist and taking his pills because BD is something that cannot simply disappear and needs to be monitored. And as far as he understood from Laura’s explanation, ADHD is quite the same, so he stops by a pharmacy on his way to family dinner.
He and Robert are back to the evening video calls because for once both of them aren’t drowning in projects and other matters, except for Robert working on launching a coffee brand with his friend—a piece of cake. After one of the sessions where they discussed his past problems with booze (he doesn’t want to think of it as an addiction), he pitches Robert an idea about making non-alcoholic beers and gets utmost support. He sends him a few contacts who can help with groundwork, and by the end of the year, he has a team of talented and creative people led by the incredible Lily, who is the main project manager. And who somehow appears to be Claire’s ex, but he didn’t pry and let them figure it out on their own. They will have to communicate with each other eventually, and Tom is for a healthy workplace environment.
For New Year’s Eve he flies to LA, and they spend it like they did the first time, on the roof, watching fireworks blow out in a million colourful sparks and then walking across the neighbourhood. At some point Robert tugs him closer and kisses him by a lamppost illuminating them on a dark, empty street like in a cheap rom-com. He thinks it’s bold and that he likes how it feels. They separate and continue walking, now hand in hand. He has heard somewhere once that how you ring in the New Year is how you’ll spend it, and from where he’s looking, it’s going to be amazing.
It’s just a regular day in the middle of February, no different from others, when Laura asks him, “Have you thought about marriage?”
It feels like a smack on the head. “Excuse me?”
“It’s a simple question. When the time comes, everyone asks it of themself once or maybe more. It is considered an important step in a romantic relationship, and I wanted to know your opinion on it, considering your current partner.” She knows who he is; they stopped pretending after the second session about relationships.
“I… honestly, I’ve never thought about it. At the beginning, I was still young and busy building a career, so it was at the back of my mind. Then COVID hit and… well, you know, we spent a lot of time apart and yet—I still don’t know how—kept our relationship in one piece. Now everything is starting to get back to normal, and maybe it’s the time, but… it’s not like it’s possible for us, you know? Keeping it a secret and all that.”
“You don’t seem to like the last part.”
“Ha, who would?” She just looks at him with her usual calm and understanding smile, and he feels like a petulant child for acting out. “Sorry, it’s just—these six years, and when I say it out loud, it seems even longer, but… yeah, not the most pleasant experience. At the very end, it’s simply exhausting and stressful because you have to be aware of everything you’re doing and saying twenty-four seven.”
She’s looking through her notes for a few moments and then closes the notebook, putting her pen between the pages. “We have previously discussed the reasons why you and Robert decided to keep your relationship a secret, but may I ask why you are still doing it?”
It’s again one of her questions that leaves him reflecting on his whole life and staring at the wall like an idiot. She seems to understand the pause as confusion and continues, “You have mentioned you started your relationship shortly after Robert and his ex-wife had a divorce and didn’t want to compromise either of them. Also, you shared your fears about how the fraternising part of your relationship might be perceived in the light of your recently started career. Lastly, as a public figure, you were worried about facing judgement for choosing a particular partner.”
“You could’ve just said for dating an old man.”
She smiles at him again. “What do you think about these arguments now, Tom?”
“The first, invalid. The second, partially, because people will always accuse each other of injustice or bias or nepotism. And the third is permanent. People will never stop judging me or any other famous person for whatever we’re doing, not only for a choice of partner. That’s the bane of our existence.”
“With what you have said, are you ready to answer my question?”
“I’m not. Because I don’t know. It was always just ‘when the right time comes’, and that’s it. We’re waiting for the right time.”
“And when it’s going to be? Tomorrow? In a month? A year?”
“I don’t know!” He runs his hand through his hair and tugs on the roots, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m sorry, Laura, I didn’t mean to shout. I just don’t know, and I’m angry about it.”
“Just angry?”
“Frustrated more. And because of that I got angry.”
“That’s good, you understanding your emotions better. You did a good job today, and as homework, think about what we were talking about today and try to find answers to my questions.”
He does. When he’s driving back to his flat. When he’s having a brunch with his mum. When he’s discussing BERO designs with his team. When he’s doing basically anything. And in the end, he has his answers. It seemed safe and convenient no matter how harmful, and the right time is never going to come. He comes with them to their next session and, right after, opens a site of a jewellery shop.
Maybe it’s a rash and rushed decision, but one more thing he understood looking for the answers: he’s so fucking tired of waiting for the right moment to happen, and, frankly speaking, neither of them is getting any younger. So he will take the bull by the horns and buy the rings, and they’ll figure everything out afterwards. They always do.
He never thought that choosing promise rings, as his initial plan is, could be so hard. It seems like he has gone through every shop in London—digitally—and there’s absolutely no suitable variant. They all just feel… wrong, too bleak, too bright, too simple, too fancy, and no golden, in his case silver, mean.
He’s scrolling through another site during his monthly dinner with Claire when she notices that he stopped responding even with approving or disapproving hums and snatches the phone from his hand. Her face is absolutely priceless.
“Tu te fous de moi ? You’re going to propose? Really?”
He tries to get it back but she lifts it out of his reach, and he doesn’t want to cause a scene. “It’s complicated. And I can’t even choose the right one that will suit both of us.”
“Presumptuous. Didn’t even ask the question and already looking for wedding bands.”
“Again, it’s complicated, and give me my phone back.”
“Shush, Romeo, let me have a look.”
She takes her deal of time, puckering her lips and humming a tone he doesn’t recognise. Their waiter comes with their bill, and she’s still looking, completely unbothered.
“Claire, seriously—”
“Fermez-la, I’m choosing the top three.” He presses his card to a terminal and sees the waiter leaving with a tiny smirk. “Here, they’re in the cart.”
“You put a platinum.”
“And you’re boring for stopping on silver. At least, it’s not gold.”
He ignores the platinum one anyway and clicks on the two left. The first one is simple in a good way, plain silver with short oblique notches in the middle, but it looks too much like a wedding band, which it’s not intended to be, so he moves to the second. And it’s an ultimate winner. A silver ring with two thin black stripes at the edges and a slightly protruding smooth part in between.
“You have a taste after all.”
She huffs, feigningly offended. “The striped one? Knew it.”
“How didn’t I see it the first time?”
“It’s in the regular category, that’s why.”
“Well, it’s not like it’ll have a tag on it, right?”
Claire just looks at him the way that means ‘You’re an idiot’.
“Thought so.”
He places an order on the site and adds an engraving option. He thought about having a piece of Robert with him, even if it were just an initial, for a very long time—hell, maybe even from the very beginning—but when they were picking out a tattoo to add to Robert’s many and to his spider on the foot, they decided on the matching stars, and Tom loves it more than anything, even though it’s particularly hard for him to see.
The ETA is at the end of March because there are no rings left in London or the UK, and they’re being shipped from the Continent and only then resized and engraved, which looks like too much effort, but for Tom it’s worth every second and every penny. When the rings are finally delivered, in a small velvet box, he books a flight on the day before Robert’s birthday.
It feels like the universe tries to give him a sign or specifically doesn’t like him because right on the first of April, there’s a family emergency that makes him stay for two weeks, and then Lily needs his presence because they’re making final decisions on essential parts of the project, and then there are some financial inconsistencies and transfer issues in the Brothers Trust. He really feels like he’s pissed off someone important up there because it looks like a very bad joke. At least he makes Robert laugh, although he didn’t know that Tom was planning to come. When everything is settled and all problems are solved, it’s already May, and he, without much packing, hops on the first plane to LA.
Both the flight and drive from the airport pass in a blur, and standing in front of the panel door, he hears his heart in his ears. He tries the boxing breathing Laura showed him after he told her about his anxiety and panic attacks that are now rarer but still happen. Three series later, his pulse starts slowing down and his vision becomes clearer. He’s clutching the box in the pocket of his hoodie as he walks up the concrete tiles and onto the porch and presses the doorbell, standing right in front of the glass pane. The steps inside are slow and a bit cautious, but a few seconds later, they speed up, and the door flies open.
And there he is, in shorts and a white tank, again with stubble, now more salt than pepper, and almost completely bald. That’s not what he was expecting.
He opens his mouth to say something, clearly startled, but Tom beats him to it. “From now on, there’s a veto on cutting hair short without prior approval. My poor heart doesn’t deserve to be spared, or what?”
“You seriously remembered that?”
“‘Course I did. And that’s what I get for being a thoughtful and caring partner and making a surprise.”
“And I thought you completely forgot about little ol’ me.”
“No, I was trying to prevent Armageddon, and, unfortunately, without Bruce Willis.”
Robert chuckles. “I’m sure he’d appreciate the sentiment. Come in.”
He drops his backpack at the door and stops in the archway to the open double-height space with the ceiling-to-floor windows, slightly dimmed but still lighting the lounging zone and the kitchen, and with the sliding door leading into the yard and the private part of the beach. From the point where he’s standing, the top of the stairs and a part of the corridor leading to the bedrooms are clearly visible. There’s the pole near the shoreline he did a human flag on, and Robert teased him for how much he complained about his arms cramping. He sits down on the couch where he was recording a video on his birthday for the trust, shirtless, in his glasses and the Hello Kitty sweats he stole from the set, and Robert had been laughing through it all from the background. And many, many other happy and funny memories were made here, and Tom hopes, squeezing the box in his hand, that there will be more. Here or somewhere else, it doesn’t matter.
He matters.
“You want something to eat or drink?” Robert asks, opening the fridge. “I think I have your favourite soda somewhere…”
“Actually…” He clears his throat as quietly as possible and takes a big breath. “Can we talk about something? It’s important.”
He turns, the door shutting with a soft thud, and raises his eyebrow, taking in Tom’s expression. “The famous words before something bad inevitably happens, y’know.”
“Depends on the emotional intellect of speakers.” He still hasn’t moved. “Nothing bad, promise. Come here, please.”
He approaches gingerly and sits near Tom, throwing his arm over the back of the couch, their knees touching.
“First of all, I have to say that there are no obligations here. One word, and we’ll forget everything, like it never happened. Second, I understand our situation, and I don’t expect it change right afterwards, and it would—”
“Tom. You’re freaking me out a little bit. What’s going on?”
Okay, straight to the point then.
He takes out the box and puts it in Robert’s hand, lying in his lap. It can’t be more obvious because Robert’s expression shifts immediately with understanding. He doesn’t make any attempts to open it, so Tom lifts the lid himself, and there are the bands with ‘T’ and ‘R’ engraved on the inside. Robert doesn’t say anything, just staring down at the box. Then Tom will do the talking.
“These are promise rings. I didn’t want to appear presumptuous because we’ve never discussed marriage or future for that matter, and the last few years weren’t exactly a smooth sailing, so bringing these I—”
“You shouldn’t be getting yourself into it.” The lid snaps shut, and he puts the box down on the coffee table with a loud clank. He gets up and moves to the windows, arms crossed, back turned to Tom. The sound is deafening in his ears, but the words feel like a punch in the guts.
“Robert, you’ve never disrespected me by deciding something for me. Don’t start now.”
“I just don’t want you to be disappointed and realise you made a wrong decision about such a crucial part of your life.”
“Oh, fucking hell.” He swipes his hand over his face and gets up, halting in a metre, still face-to-back. He takes one more breath and continues calmly, “Can you simply tell me where this all is coming from? Because now I’m the one freaking out and not understanding anything.”
“I don’t want to have more kids, Tom.”
He blinks. Twice. “I thought this talk happens after people get married?” Robert glares at him over the shoulder, and he raises his hands in surrender. “Kidding, kidding.” He stuffs his hands in the hoodie pocket and comes up to the mantelpiece. There are photos of Robert with his sons and with Susan, and a baseball from Exton’s first game.
“You know, when I was a kid, I always thought that after I grew up and got a job like a real man, I was gonna have a family just like my own: a partner, children that are always running and breaking something in the house, and a backyard to play with dogs. That I would settle down somewhere quiet and do what I love with people I love. Then the acting came, constant travelling, meeting with new people every day, and… you. And, turns out, life isn’t that fucking simple.”
He turns his head and finds Robert already looking. “I realised that family isn’t about a household; it’s also friends, and they’re all around the globe, and we maybe see each other twice a year, but that doesn’t make them less family. It’s you, across the ocean.” He takes a slow step forward. “And I fucking hate it. I hate the fact that I have to fly just to see you, to hug you, to kiss you, and I don’t want it to be that way anymore.” He steps again. “I realised I don’t need to check all the boxes on some imaginary list to be happy because I already am, without kids or a backyard.”
He stops in a metre again. Robert’s eyes never left his. His voice grows thinner with every word. “I’m not caging myself by being with you because I love you so fucking much that sometimes it’s hard to believe a person can have so many feelings at once, and I want to be with you for the rest of my life because I don’t think I can bear a thought of spending even a moment away from you anymore.”
There are tears running down his cheeks, but he doesn’t care. Robert’s eyes are glistening as he sucks in the air. “That’s… that’s the sappiest and the most romantic proposal I’ve heard in my entire life.” They chuckle, and Robert finally crosses the distance and takes Tom’s face in his hands. “You didn’t ask, but I say yes.” A kiss on the cheek, right over the salty streak. “Yes.” On the other. “Yes.” On the lips, long and deep and salty, because Robert is crying too. “Yes.” Forehead to forehead, eyes closed. “I love you.”
“I love you.” He wraps his arms around Robert’s waist, bringing them even closer.
He doesn’t know how long they stay like this, but then he hears a chuckle, and Robert says, “I guess I have to cancel the order in the end.”
Tom’s eyes fly open. He pulls back, brow furrowed, until it hits him. “You… you wanted to propose?”
“Mhm. A platinum, custom-made, but you beat me here too.”
“Since when?”
He draws in a rugged breath, eyes darting around until settling back on Tom’s face. His fingers start playing with hair on the nape of Tom’s neck. “After COVID. It’s been… hard, not having you here, and when I saw you for the first time after all these months, I just… didn’t want to wait any longer, didn’t want to be this far away anymore.” His thumb strokes under Tom’s eye. “But then I saw you, struggling, and I didn’t know what to do, and popping the question definitely wouldn’t have helped. So I froze the order and waited. I’m so very glad you got the help you needed, and I’m sorry if you ever felt… left out.” He swallows heavily. “I didn’t want to force you to do something when you yourself weren’t ready to make a step.”
Tom nods, his eyes shifting to Robert’s chest. “I—I needed a nudge, a harsh one, to finally do something about it, and I think Crowded Room was like a bucket of cold water to me.” Back up, and a smile, a bit timid but gentle, blooms on his lips. “And you, just being here, talking and telling me about your day, helped more than you think.” He hooks his chin over Robert’s shoulder and tightens his arms. “Thank you.”
A hand is running down his back while the other is carefully combing through his hair. “I’m here. You won’t get rid of me now.”
“Never dreamt of.” They’re rocking unconsciously, and Tom catches the sight of the baseball. He pulls away, hands now gripping Robert’s shoulders, eyes back on his face. “Wait a sec. If you were so adamant that I wanted kids, why did you order the ring?”
“I—it’s a relatively recent thing.” His eyes lock on something behind Tom’s shoulder and then dart to the side. “It’s… Exton is finishing his sophomore year, and Indio has his own full-blown career, and I hit the fifty-eight mark just a month ago. And it’s… even if we adopted a kid right now, when they graduate, I would be, what? Seventy-six?”
“Hey.” He cups Robert’s jaw, drawing his attention back. “You don’t need to justify it to me. It’s your choice, your opinion, and I respect that.”
Robert smiles, a bit strained, but it still brings out the crow’s feet around his eyes. “You’re so good. You know that, right?”
Tom tilts his head to the side, cheeky. “Good enough to be your fiancé?”
“I already said yes. Four times to be exact.”
He slides his hands down to Robert’s and tugs. “Then let me put that ring on your finger.”
They end up back on the couch, the box lying open between them.
“These aren’t engagement rings.”
“They’re not wedding bends either, but who fucking cares?” He pulls out the one with a ‘T’ inside.
“Aren’t there supposed to be some kind of clergy? I also heard something about vows—”
“I’ve been waiting to do it for more than a month, so just give him your hand, or, I swear to God, Armageddon will happen.”
“And with no Bruce Willis?” Tom just stares him dead in the eye and slides the ring on. He looks at it from afar, rotates back and forth a few times. “Huh, how did you get my size?”
“Surprisingly,” he extends the box, and Robert takes the other, with an engraved ‘R’, “we have the same.”
“Really?” He holds Tom’s wrist from the underside and slips the bend on. “What a happy coincidence.”
Tom just rolls his eyes, fighting a smile. “You knew.”
“Of course, I knew. I ordered you a ring.” He shuts the box carefully and places it on the coffee table. “But this,” he threads their fingers and turns them, looking at the rings, “is much better. I’ll never take it off.”
“Never-never?” Tom chuckles.
“No, you are right. Only one time for you to put it back on, but in a more celebratory atmosphere.”
“I—you want to marry me?”
“Baby, what do you think we’ve been doing here the last five minutes?” He shakes their intertwined fingers.
“No, I mean… officially? Papers, signatures, and all?”
“And a bit of music won’t harm. And a few people maybe, if you want to.”
“I—yeah, of course. I just… how are we gonna do it? Walk into a court together?”
“I need to talk to Sarah. She found how we could do our divorce without leaving a house, so I’m sure the other way around can work like this too.”
“So that’s it? We’re having a wedding?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
Without much thinking, he lunges forward, tackling Robert down, and presses their lips together; their still-locked hands almost send them tumbling from the couch. They’re giggling like a couple of teenagers, and frankly, they kind of feel like one, unbothered, deliriously happy and in love. They finally manage to untangle, and in the next moment, they’re all over each other, touching and tugging and nipping and kissing. Tom is propped on one elbow, mouthing at Robert’s neck and leaving small playful bites on his way down, when he feels a hand on his crotch. He rocks his hips forward, caging the hand between their bodies, and hears a low groan above his ear. He places one more kiss on the exposed collarbone and straightens up, gazing down at Robert’s straining shorts.
“Upstairs?”
“Gladly.” He gets off the couch, letting Robert swing his legs down. “Just need to get up.”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary.” He puts his hands under Robert’s thighs and simply lifts him up.
“Fuck!” Robert grabs onto his shoulders, fingers digging deep and making him wince a little. “Tom, put me down. Now.”
He moves his grip under Robert’s ass and squeezes tighter. “Calm down, I won’t let you fall. See? I didn’t even break into a sweat.” He easily takes a step back, the hands still clutching onto his arms, and rounds the couch. “I wasn’t pumping iron for nothing. Let me show off a little.”
“Don’t tell me you’re gonna carry me up the stairs.”
“I am gonna carry you, my fiancé, up the stairs. Cross your ankles and hold on tight.”
He definitely does, Tom thinks, hovering over Robert’s face, his heels pressing into the small of Tom’s back and his hand grasping the side of Tom’s neck, the smell of sweat heavy in the air, the sheets a mess, and their clothes scattered around the floor. They get up to shower, his thighs slightly cramping from kneeling for a long time, and in the bathroom mirror he notices faint red scratches on his back. They’re exchanging slow kisses, hands wandering without further intent, with warm water running down their bodies, and helping each other clean up. Robert washes his hair, fingers gently massaging his scalp, their rings still on, and the beast is purring again.
“You didn’t bring any clothes?” Robert asks, seeing Tom emerge from the walk-in closet in his shorts and old Metallica tee.
“I was in a hurry.” He leans to gather his sweats and hoodie. “Besides, I can always borrow something yours.”
“Baby, with these muscles, it’s gonna be the opposite way soon.”
Tom laughs, stuffing everything in the laundry basket. “I’ll just ask Claire to bring me something or take something of Alan’s. He has, like, a thousand and one things he bought and never wore.”
“Will you fit? He looks like a lamppost.”
“And hates everything skinny.” He throws his arms on Robert’s shoulders, who is now in a black tank and different shorts, and feels familiar hands land on his waist. “Should we order something? I won’t last on plane food that long.”
“I think I have a salmon somewhere. Is it too soon for a barbecue?"
“It’s never too soon for a barbecue.” He tips his head up and sees Robert already leaning in when there’s a sound of the front door opening, and then—
“Dad?”
“Fuck.” The hands clench the fabric before falling down. Robert rubs the back of his neck, looking at the clock. “I completely forgot Exton was coming over. We were supposed to go out, look for some surfing stuff and—”
“Dad? Are you here? There’s a strange bag in your hall.”
“One minute!” Robert shouts.
“Well,” Tom shrugs, “eventually, we had to meet somewhere.” At first, Exton wasn’t really keen to meet him so they put it off, and later… Tom wasn’t in a good place for it.
“Fuck, I forgot that you haven’t met either.”
“Hey, I’m gonna get a swear jar. And maybe some memory pills too.” Robert just stares at him, unimpressed. Tom nudges him towards the door lightly. “C’mon, it’s gonna be fine. I heard I’m a charmer when it comes to new people.”
They walk down the corridor, Robert first, and Tom didn’t imagine meeting the son of his fiancé right after sex, with the said fiancé, but he learnt recently there isn’t a perfect moment for everything. He just hopes he’s a good enough actor for it to not show on his face.
Robert slightly hesitates at the top of the stairs before calling out,
“Hey, kid.”
He’s propped on the back of the couch when he hears the words, his head shooting up from his phone. “Hi! Are you ready? I thought we—” He cuts himself off when his eyes land on Tom. He looks both stunned and confused, but recognition flashes over his face. He’s watching them both come down the stairs without saying a word.
They stand a bit awkwardly at a metre from each other. Robert clears his throat. “Exton, this is Tom.”
He steps forward, extending his hand. “Hi, it’s really nice to finally meet you. Robert told me a lot about you.” Exton doesn’t shake it. Tom lets it fall and moves back. Now it’s definitely awkward.
“You didn’t mention he was gonna be here.” Ouch.
“Ex—”
“Oh, it’s my fault. I dropped in without notice and didn’t mean to crash your plans. Sorry.”
“Actually,” Robert starts, “we have something important to tell you. No one knows yet.” He takes Tom’s hand and interlaces their fingers. “We’re getting married.”
His eyes dart between them and their hands and widen when he notices the rings.
“You—what? No.”
“No?”
He’s shaking his head. “You can’t. Not you too.”
“Ex—”
He springs toward the sliding door. “Ex, wait!” He doesn’t listen and rushes outside.
Robert wants to go after him, but Tom grabs his shoulder. “He needs a moment. Seeing a guy for the first time and learning that your dad is marrying him, it would shock anyone.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologise.” He runs his hand down Robert’s arm and squeezes his fingers. “Why don’t you find that salmon we talked about? I’m gonna go look for him, okay?”
Robert heaves, eyes closed, and then gives a small nod. “Okay,” he squeezes back. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
He sees Exton on the beach, sitting on the sand, hunched over, elbows on knees. He definitely hears Tom coming closer but doesn’t acknowledge it, staring in front of himself.
“Hey.” Tom settles beside him and notices a lit cigarette in his hand.
Exton turns and demonstratively takes a puff. “Gonna lecture me? Rat me out to Dad?”
Tom huffs quietly. “At sixteen, I was smoking weed with my theatre classmates after school; we thought it would make us cooler and older. But it just gave me terrible headaches, so I quit pretty fast. Nasty shit. Not recommend.”
“You? Really?” Exton laughs.
“So hard to believe?”
“Yeah, you’re always like a goody-two-shoes. Don’t smoke, don’t swear and all that.”
He hums. “I started drinking after I became Spider-Man. Casually with friends or at an event. It was what everyone did and also helped relieve the stress. Take my mind off stuff.” He buries his fingers in sand and looks at the blurred line where sky meets ocean. “Y’know, they say you need to hit rock bottom to finally understand that something is wrong? Once, I got so drunk at an after-party that I still don’t remember anything.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because everyone has their own reasons to do not-really-healthy stuff to themselves. And these reasons aren’t wrong or baseless, but there’s always a way to deal with them without hurting yourself. I don’t know why you smoke in the first place, and you, obviously, don’t have to tell me, but there are people who are ready to help: your mum, your dad. The hardest part is to find strength to ask for it.”
Exton takes a long drag. “You two haven’t even married, and you’re already giving me a talk.”
Tom snorts. They sit in silence, listening to the rustle of coming waves and distant caws of seagulls.
“I don’t need a stepdad.”
“I wasn’t planning to be one. You already have wonderful parents that love you and care about you. I just hope that we can at least be civil with each other because I love your dad and you mean the world to him.” He stands up and dusts off his shorts. “And I know it’s really important to him for us to get along.”
Exton looks up at him, squinting from the sun right above his head. “You’re really hard to dislike, you know?’
“Ha, tell that to people on Twitter.” Tom extends his hand, and this time, Exton takes it and lifts himself up.
He stubs the butt on a small bar hanging from his keychain and stuffs it into the half-full pack of cigarettes. They come closer to the house, and through the glass, Tom sees Robert pretending to busy himself in the kitchen. He nudges Exton in his shoulder, nodding towards the door, and stays outside to prepare a barbecue. After a while, the door slides open, and they walk out, Robert holding a tray with seasoned fish and sliced veggies and Exton carrying plates. They’re laughing about something, and Tom smiles. They spend the rest of the day together, talking like the hang-up at the start never happened. Before leaving, Exton apologises to him for how he acted and says that he’s glad his dad has someone like him. He pulls Tom into a hug and offers to teach him how to surf, and they both pretend Tom didn’t sniff.
The next morning they call Sarah, and she promises to get everything done as soon as possible, and around noon she texts that the certificate will be ready by the end of the month. With their tight schedules for both June and July, they choose early August so they also have time for a little honeymoon, though Robert wouldn’t give away where. When they’re talking about a place for the ceremony, Tom suggests the beach, as it’ll still be warm even in the evening and they want to keep it small and private.
“You said you didn’t want to hide anymore.”
“Secrecy and privacy are two different things. This day is about us, and I want to spend around our friends and families without cameras and people breathing down my neck while I say my vows. Wrong music, shaking videos, mismatched napkins, and all that.”
They choose the beach.
He asks Robert whether it would be weird to have a best woman instead of a best man.
“It’s our wedding. We can do what we want.”
He dials Zendaya. She’s silent for a moment, and then she’s yelling at him for a good five minutes for keeping the whole thing away from her, and then she cries a little but only because she’s happy and, of course, says yes. Later that day, Robert brings up Susan being his best woman, and Tom thinks it’s all kind of hilarious and tells him to go for it. They think about who should officiate, and the only one who comes to mind is Mark. He’s deeply honoured by the request and immediately agrees, although he won’t be able to stay after the ceremony, but that’s more than enough.
The fact that the rings will be their wedding bands goes unsaid.
The first thing he hears when his and Claire’s call connects is a very loud Mendelssohn march. Tom rolls his eyes at Robert cackling somewhere in the kitchen. She helps arrange flights and accommodation for those out of LA and grumbles about it being above her pay grade and him owing her a month-long vacation under the Bali sun. He makes himself a mental note to look through the hotels there.
The only somewhat traditional thing they decide to do is the old, new, borrowed, blue one. They ask Liz and Alan to find something light, loose and fitting for the beach, and a few days later, both drop by with several racks full of clothing. Tom wonders if it was a bad idea after all. After a long and exhausting session of what seems like endless changing, they all settle on white silk-linen shirts and trousers. Alan lends them two pairs of sandals that, for the first time in Tom’s life, don’t look hideous on him. The old and blue parts will be a surprise for them both.
And maybe they’re doing everything in a bit of haste and not in a conventional or proper way, but Tom already loves it.
During press for The Crowded Room, he kind of comes out. It’s intentional, not a slip like it happened many times before, but carefully measured; saying it plainly seems crude and unfair to the show and his colleagues. He shares how the whole experience and some scenes he filmed were new and something he had never done but relates to on a deep and personal level and how it made him take his mental health more seriously. The journalist just nods at him, smiling cordially, and maybe they don’t get it.
Most people don’t get it as well. Later, he sees loads of hate comments about the club scene and people trying to cancel him for it, and though he tries to avoid that as much as possible for his own sake, it still hits him right in the gut. But at the same time, he sees many positive reviews and even fan art of his character on Instagram. Scrolling through his feed, he sees one of himself, with a bi flag on his cheek and a peace sign, and puts a like on it. Maybe some did get it.
He also goes to a podcast and talks about his addiction for the first time. It’s still hard and pretty much embarrassing, but he’s starting a new chapter soon, and he wants to be candid. The feedback he receives afterwards makes something in his chest crack loudly, and when he’s reading through the stories people shared about their own experiences, his eyes are blurry.
Robert, being the man of the word he is, doesn’t take his ring off, not throughout a day, not for public events, not even for the premiere. Tom puts his own on a chain and wears it underneath his clothes when he’s going out for work. Sometimes, he catches himself staring at it for a while and thinking how much they’ve been through together, and when he eventually snaps out, his eyes are prickling a little. And that would be just too hard to explain for an ordinary-looking ring.
Right at the beginning, he asked Claire to keep tabs on news and social media for any mentions or suspicions or even something very minor they could be worried about. But all outlets and users seem surprisingly quiet, and he doesn’t know if it makes him relieved or even more nervous.
On the wedding day, he’s jittery more than usual. Claire and Z try to reassure him that everything is ready and everyone is here and it’s going to be perfect, but that’s not what he’s worried about.
“Then what is it?” Tala asks, scrunching his hair. He jerks when she accidentally tugs on one of the curls, and she smacks him on the shoulder. “Sit still.”
“I can’t choose the blue thing. I looked through all my stuff, twice, and, apparently, I’m allergic to blue because there’s nothing that matches. Unless you think it’s a good idea to wear socks with sandals.”
“No,” the four of them say in unison. Alan is the loudest.
“What about accessories?” Z probes, helping Claire fix her dress. “Or jewellery? Maybe a bracelet?”
“Already occupied.” He raises his wrist with the watch, Robert’s present for their first New Year’s together. “Necklaces aren’t my thing, and I don’t want other rings.”
“Glasses?” Alan suggests, checking his eyeliner in the mirror.
“Also no. I know Robert is gonna wear them, and I don’t want us to copy each other.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Tala rummages through her makeup bag, muttering something in her native language that sounds like curses, literally. She turns swiftly, her white braids flying over her shoulder, and shoves something into his hand. “Here.”
“Eyeshadow? Really?”
“That’s your Hail Mary, babe.”
He eyes the palette uncertainly. On the other hand, he sang ‘Umbrella’ in drag and got fucked against a wall (separately), so just a bit of eyeshadow won’t be something outrageous. “Just… don’t overdo yourself, okay? Keep it simple.”
“Girl, I’ve been doing it for myself and my queens and sisters since I was ten. I am a pro.”
“That’s what I’m talking about.” He gets one more smack and shuts up.
He never thought that he would say it about himself, but he looks… pretty. Tala has kept it simple, a light blue with a little silver glitter in the corner, and when he looks himself over from head to toe, it blends in just right. They’re about to start, so everyone has gone outside to give him a moment. He tugs on his cuffs for the last time, readjusts the watch and fixes the collar and walks out of the guestroom.
Robert is already waiting for him at the foot of the stairs, in the shirt and trousers, blue shades, and with a silver stud in his ear. He turns, and the way his gaze runs over Tom, taking in every tiny detail, makes a ridiculous amount of butterflies flutter in his stomach. He will never get used to it.
They go out through the sliding door, hand-in-hand, slow and serene music playing in the background, and walk down to the beach, past their friends and families, and stop in front of Mark, who is grinning from ear to ear. There’s no arch or flowers or chairs or long-ass carpet—nothing unnecessary, only the people. Mark says a beautiful speech, though he looks a bit nervous and certainly has rehearsed beforehand, which makes it even more genuine.
When Tom finishes his vow and takes the ring out of his pocket, he sees Robert blinking rapidly under his glasses, and during Robert’s, Tom squeezes his fingers so tight he might have accidentally broken a few. They don’t wait for Mark to finish the last sentence and move forward at the same time, their lips finally meeting, and it feels like the sweetest and the softest kiss he has ever had in his entire life. Everyone is clapping, and Sam is cheering, and Harry is whistling, and it’s perfect.
They move back to the yard where buffet tables with food and beverages are set up. Susan and Z give the first toast together, adding embarrassing stories and making everybody laugh, but by the end all of them have teared up at least a little bit. They raise their glasses, some with champagne, some with soda, and Tom looks at his parents and brothers, at his friends and his team—people who have been with him all these years—and thinks it couldn’t have been better.
After the toast, Robert drags him to the centre for the first dance. They haven’t really prepared anything because Robert wouldn’t tell him what song he chose, but Tom thinks they’ll get through it; his dancing and ballet years weren’t for nothing after all. He takes Robert’s right hand in his and places the left on his back, and he’s ready for the start when the first chords of George Michael’s ‘Father Figure’ sound. Tom laughs openly.
“Paddy!”
“My bad, man! Misclick!” It absolutely wasn’t a misclick.
The melody cuts shortly, and then—
Tom freezes. “You—for real?”
“Yeah,” Robert smiles, rocking them slowly in the rhythm of ‘Baby, I Love You’, “for real.”
It was the summer Homecoming came out, and they managed to steal a week to themselves in Robert’s house between all the press and flights. They were trying to cook that pasta Robert likes, listening to the radio for some reason, and then The Ramones started playing. He said that, with no offence to ‘The Blitzkrieg Pop’, it was his favourite song of theirs and that he always wanted to dance to it at the prom, but they were a theatre school, so there were only classics. Without another word, Robert tugged him away from the stove, put Tom’s hands on his neck and his own on Tom’s waist and started swaying them to the beat. When the song ended, Tom rose on his tiptoes and kissed him, long and deep. They burnt the pasta.
And now, six years later, Tom is dancing to it again. But it’s his wedding day, all his favourite people with him, and he’s dancing with his husband. They don’t notice anything—or anyone—around; it’s just them, and their song. They don’t look away from each other, and Tom is staring into his warm and kind brown eyes that always remind him of home, and he thinks he sees the whole universe.
The time passes slowly, unhurriedly, and the sun is starting to roll below the horizon. People are talking, sipping from their glasses and helping themselves to food. Robert is deep in a conversation with his sister and one of their childhood friends, and Tom comes up to Harrison to apologise for falling out in the last few years and promises to catch up when he’s back in the UK.
“Don’t sweat it, mate, I get it. Just… you text me that you’re getting married, and I didn’t even know you were dating someone. Especially someone like Robert Downey Jr.”
“That was the whole point,” Tom shrugs. “Nobody did.”
“And now?”
“We’re working on it.”
Harrison nods and pulls him into a bone-crushing hug.
Later, he’s dancing with Z, and Robert is dancing with Susan. He notices out of the corner of his eye that Claire and Lily are dancing too, with their arms around each other. Tom smiles and turns his head back to Zendaya, but she’s staring somewhere over his shoulder, in the way that means she doesn’t even register what she’s seeing.
“Hey.” He nudges her a little, and her eyes snap back to his face. “You’ve been a bit out all day. Talk to me.”
She’s quiet, thinking and looking over his shoulder again, but then, “Hunter called this morning. She wanted to talk today, but I said I was busy, so we’re doing it tomorrow… I hope so at least.”
“Why tomorrow? Go now.”
“What? No, Tom, it’s your day. I can’t…”
“I won’t be offended, seriously, and neither will Robert. You fulfilled your best woman duties. Now go, have your happily ever after.”
She stares at him without saying a word and then leans forward and wraps her arms around him, squeezing tight. “Thank you.”
“Just make me your bridesman, and we’ll be even.”
She shoves him a little and steps back, smiling.
“You already are the best.” A pause. “Idiot.”
“I love you, too.” He nods at the door. “Go, get your woman.”
After the song ends, Robert comes up to him.
“Where she took off?”
“To the love of her life.” He shakes his head. “I should’ve become a lesbian matchmaker for a living, I’m telling you. Two out of two, a neat score.”
Robert laughs and kisses him on the temple. It’s perfect.
The next day, they’re already at the airport, seated in Robert’s private jet, ready to fly, it turns out, to Singapore, where a helicopter will take them to an island one of his friends owns. There’s a large and absolutely private villa with doors leading right into the ocean.
“How did you pull that off so quickly?”
“He owed me a favour since the nineties, and I’ve been waiting for the right time to take him up on it.”
“Tell me it has nothing to do with drugs or anything criminal.”
“Baby, who do you think I am?” Tom just stares at him. “Okay, point taken.”
The island looks humungous. There are palms everywhere, and the sand glints golden under the sun, and the water is azure and crystal clear, and the villa stands literally on the beach, three storeys high and with a jacuzzi on the roof. He doesn’t know how someone even gets to buy something like this, but thank God his husband and his connections, because Tom doesn’t think he can leave.
It’s just two weeks, but they’re the best two weeks of his life because, apart from the two of them, there’s no one in probably fifty kilometres, and he turned off his phone the moment the jet took off. They wake up when the sun is up high, eat strange bright-coloured fruits for breakfast, swim in the warm and open ocean until their skin is all wrinkly, and fuck wherever and whenever they want. It feels like heaven on earth.
Unfortunately, like everything pleasant, it ends pretty fast. On the morning of the fifteenth day, the helicopter is here to take them, tanned and well-rested, back to the city. They still have an hour before the jet is ready for their flight, so they decide to stop by a traditional coffee shop. Their barista is a girl that looks like she’s still going to school, and he doesn’t know if she recognised them, caps and sunglasses on. She just smiles at them in that typical service way, taking their orders, iced tea for Tom (“You’re boring”) and some pink monstrosity called ‘bandung’ for Robert (“And you’re crazy”), and starts making the drinks.
They walk around the city for a little while (he tried Robert’s drink, and it tasted like body wash, but Robert doesn’t seem to mind) and even find a small temple near the airport, probably just for the tourists like them. They buy two incense sticks to show respect to the spirits of this temple. While lighting them, they’re meant to wish for what they desire most, and if they’re genuine, the spirits will fulfil their wish. Tom looks at Robert and asks for many years together, calm, happy and full of joy. Robert looks at him too, and Tom knows he asked the same.
They’re on board, thousands of kilometres up in the air, when he turns on his phone for the first time in two weeks, and right after it’s connected to Wi-Fi, he gets a message with an attachment from Claire.
It’s a photo, a bit crooked and half-cropped, shot from the side, but clear enough to recognise that it’s them—walking down the street with their drinks in hand, their left ones out of the frame. He doesn’t know where Claire has found it, if there are more or if the person left a caption. He looks up, turning his ring around his finger, and sees Robert in front of him, on his phone too, reading glasses perched on his nose, and he finds in himself, for the first time, that he simply doesn’t care.
Robert notices him staring and raises his eyebrow in silent question. Tom smiles at him and shakes his head. Whatever this is, they’ll deal with it later. Together.
4
They buy a house and move to England. It’s not exactly big but spacious enough to not feel cramped with their belongings, with rooms for occasional guests and for Tom to do carpentering. Two storeys, panel and high windows, and a backyard for Tessa to play and run in, with a small garden where Robert has started growing some tomatoes. It’s a few hours away from London and not that far from his parents’. Quiet, peaceful, a porch to drink tea on in the morning and listen to chirping birds, and a park nearby to walk around in with Tessa.
Most of their work still remains in the US, but one of the few good things that COVID brought is that everything can be done online now, and if it’s urgent, they can easily fly over, no big deal. Tom was worried that by moving across the pond, he was ripping Robert away from his family, from Exton especially, but Robert reassured him that they had talked it over and reached a compromise: daily calls and a lunch when he’s back in the States. Tom has even tugged along a few times; Exton mentioned teaching him surfing again, and they settled on starting after the holidays.
Speaking about holidays, it’s their first Christmas together—not only married but ever—and they’re going to his parents’ for dinner. Tom thought it wasn’t that big of a deal.
His mum loves Robert, and they have a great relationship, except for a hang-up at the beginning when Tom told them during a family dinner, and she compared him to Weinstein; needless to say, the rest of the conversation was pretty ugly. She was worried, clearly, because the world they live in is vile and unjust, but after telling her for a millionth time that he wasn’t being taken advantage of and meeting Robert in person, they quickly melted the ice, and she has adored him ever since.
His dad was worried too but in a more reserved way. They had a talk shortly after their first meeting; his dad just asked him if he was sure about his choice. Tom doesn’t know if he meant Robert’s past or the secrecy or the future or all at once, but it didn’t matter, because Tom was absolutely sure—still is—and now he finds them talking, or more arguing, about cars, British and American. He couldn’t wish for a better dad.
And his brothers, who made fun of him at first, because that’s what brothers do, supported him all this long way and always had his back. Sam even tries to teach him to cook some vegetarian recipes since Robert doesn’t eat any meat except for fish, and Paddy gave them a painting to hang in the house after they moved in.
All in all, his family loves his husband, so why would it be a big deal? Apparently, his mum invited his aunts and uncle, and that meant his cousins are going to come too, and his grandparents from his father’s side decided to visit as well, and in the end it’s going to be a big family reunion. And none of them know that he’s married, or that he’s married to a man, or that this man is Robert. Yeah, no big deal.
He told Robert that they didn’t have to go, or he could go alone (his mum wouldn’t be offended), and that he could celebrate with his sons, but Robert reminded him that if they were hiding from family, then how would they stop hiding from everyone, and, well… he had a point. And also Exton was spending holidays with Susan and her husband Marcus, the company guy, and his family, so it’s not like he had any other options. It’s not like Tom wants to hide, or anything, but he knows they, the Hollands, can be a bit too much, to say the least.
A few days before Christmas when he was out with his mum shopping for everything they would need for the dinner—and a bit more just to be sure—he asked her if she had told anyone about Robert.
“Not exactly,” she said, putting a pack of bacon in their cart. “I said that you got married this summer and will bring them to the dinner.”
“Oh, God, Mum, that’s the worst phrasing you could’ve chosen.” He groaned, covering his face. “That’s gonna be a shitshow.”
“Don’t be over-dramatic, sweetheart.” She slapped him on the shoulder, gesturing to push their cart. “I asked them not to bombard you with questions and to keep their phones to themselves. It’s a family gathering after all.”
“I change that. You’re literally the best. I love you.”
“I know, honey, I love you, too. Now, I think we need one more sack of potatoes.”
On their drive to the house, Robert is nervous, trying to distract himself with his phone, and Tom is nervous too, grasping the steering wheel harder than necessary. They’re coming in a little earlier to help with cooking, though his mum and Sam most likely will just throw them out of the kitchen and send them to set the table. And also they’re the ones providing the drinks, so apart from a few bottles of wine and some soda, he brought the first batch of BERO for everyone to try out. The whole team, and even Robert, who isn’t that keen on beer, loved it, though they’re all probably biased.
When they arrive, no one is there yet, which was partially the purpose, his mum and Sam already busy in the kitchen, Harry and Paddy hanging lights on the Christmas tree and his dad out to buy forgotten cranberries for sauce. In the end, they are setting the table while Home Alone is playing in the background and Harry is telling them about a casting director who told him he wasn’t suitable for the role because he couldn’t jump properly.
“Properly’s how?”
“Hell, I know, man?” Harry looks truly cheesed off.
“Language!”
“Sorry, Mum!”
Tom places the last napkin and looks up to see Robert already looking at him with a fond smile, and his own lips are tugging to the sides.
“What?”
“Your accent comes out more when you’re with your family.”
“Really?” Tom pauses. Yep, it does. “I never noticed.”
Robert snickers. “I’m a bad influence for you, making you forget how to talk in your own language.”
“Nonsense!” His mum emerges with a plate of roast parsnips. Tom scrunches up his nose. “You’ve become more responsible. Your teachers always complained about you being late.”
“I think it’s more to do with Claire. She almost ate my head when I missed a plane.”
“Oh, how is she?” his mother asks on her way back to the kitchen. “Did she go back to France?”
“No,” Tom says, handing Harry a red bauble. “She’s on Bali with Lily.”
“They look so beautiful together!” She sets down roast potatoes now and slightly fixes the napkin. “It’ll be a shame if they break up again.”
“And I hope I won’t die in the middle,” Tom whispers.
The table is fully set, and the turkey is finishing up in the oven, so they’re all in the kitchen now, trying out the beers and waiting for the guests to arrive, and the reviews are positive again, but his family is kind of biased too for that matter. His brothers are arguing about the flavours, and he sees Robert nursing one of the beers.
“You know,” he says, coming closer, “you don’t need to drink it if you don’t like it. It’s fine.”
“I like it.” Tom raises his eyebrow. “Seriously, I do. In fact, I think I changed my opinion after drinking this. The best beer I’ve ever had.”
He rolls his eyes. “You say it because I’m your husband.”
“And I’m proud of it.” Robert tugs him on the sleeve and places a kiss on his temple.
“Jesus.” Paddy’s voice makes them turn. “You two are so sweet my teeth ache.”
“You’re the one to talk, Pads. I saw how you act around Alex. And do I need to remind you how you look when you talk about him?
Paddy is blushing bright red, and he feels Robert’s body shake from how he’s trying to stifle his laughter. The doorbell rings, and Robert stills. Tom sneaks his hand down and interlaces their fingers, giving him a squeeze, Robert’s ring warm against his skin. He squeezes back and lets go but only to set his hand on the small of Tom’s back. Tom mirrors him, and they walk out, already hearing Uncle Jeremy’s groans about poor weather.
Well, the obvious advantage of having Robert as a husband, he doesn’t need to be introduced. Conversation stops the moment they enter the dining room, and everyone’s eyes are immediately on them. Uncle Jeremy and his wife, Aunt Amy, are already sitting, and Elise and Terry are standing near pulled-out chairs, staring at them without saying a word.
God, it feels worse than Exton almost walking on them.
He clears his throat. “Merry Christmas, everyone. This is Robert, my husband.”
Nobody says anything. He sees Robert’s face, neutral and calm, as if nothing is bothering him at all, but he feels Robert’s fingers dig into the fabric of his sweater. His mother is starting to say something to clear the air when the doorbell rings again, and she’s off to greet whoever came now. It seems to snap everyone out, and Elise steps forward and extends her hand.
“Hi! I’m Elise, it’s really nice to meet you!” He always liked her the most.
Robert seems to loosen up a little and smiles at her. “Likewise. You have wonderful earrings.”
“Oh, thank you, they’re nothing special, really.” They’re brand new, but she’ll never say that.
His mum comes back with his grandparents in her tow and claps her hands. “Let’s sit down. Turkey is almost ready.”
They do: Robert to his right and the chair left for Aunt Grace to his left; Elise is right in front of them, smiling timidly. His dad starts talking to his brother about the weather again, and his mum asks Harry to hand her pigs in blankets, and somehow tension seems to slowly dissipate. Paddy bring their beers from the kitchen, and when he puts down Robert’s glass, his grandma asks,
“Tommy, dear, who is your friend?” They both are looking at them now, expectantly and without a sliver of recognition in their eyes.
Thankfully, the conversations continue flowing, though he hears Terry snicker quietly in his wine, and Elise is watching them carefully, pretending not to listen.
Tom takes a deep breath. “Grandma, Grandpa, this is Robert, my husband.”
For people who are nearing their nineties, they’re the most unshakeable and lenient people he has ever met. Maybe, it has something to do with the things they’ve seen throughout their lives, or they’re simply good and kind people. He thinks it’s both.
“Oh, how wonderful!” his grandmother says, smiling. Terry might have choked, but Tom isn’t sure. “Where did you two meet?”
“At work.”
“You’re an actor too, Robert?” his grandfather asks, fixing his glasses.
“Yes, sir.”
He laughs. “Oh, no need for that, son. Call me Stan, or Stanley.”
Robert turns to him. “And all this time I was here, racking my brain on why, in God’s name, Stanley.”
His grandma chuckles quietly. “Oh, I already like him.”
The front door shuts loudly, drawing everyone’s attention, and a few seconds later Aunt Grace comes in, grinning from ear to ear, hair and clothes immaculate as always.
“Merry Christmas, everyone.”
“You’re late,” his mum tries to reprimand her sister.
“No, I’m not.” She is. “Your clock is too fast, I think you need to check it.”
She takes a seat to Tom’s left and immediately ruffles his hair. “Hello, my favourite nephew.”
“Hey!” Three shouts from the opposite side of the table.
“Tsk. You know I love you all the same.” She leans over to Tom and whispers, “But you, a little more.” Then her gaze travels up and lands on Robert. “Huh, that’s the mystery spouse.” She offers her hand without hesitation. “Grace, a pleasure to finally put a face to a name—to a title, better to say.”
Robert laughs, shaking her hand—over Tom’s plate—but he doesn’t really mind. Aunt Grace totally doesn’t. “Robert, and the pleasure is all mine. I’ve been to your gallery recently. The collection is absolutely fascinating.”
She seems a little startled. “I appreciate it, greatly. I’m glad you had a wonderful time.”
A bit later, when they’ve finished and Robert is discussing something about museums with Aunt Amy, Aunt Grace leans towards him again, her voice hushed.
“You must have some good moves here, Tom-Tom, to get yourself such a man.”
“Honestly,” Tom starts, hushed too, “I sometimes still don’t know how it happened.”
“It’s all your irresistible charisma and fanboy eyes.”
“Aunt Grace.”
“Kidding, kidding. God forbid a woman makes a joke.” She’s silent for a bit, sipping on her wine. “He’s doing good.”
“Yeah.” His eyes move to Robert on their own. “He’s incredible.”
She huffs, shaking her head. “Happy for you, kid.” She hums, nodding at him. “You look fine. Better than the last time.”
He turns back, taking his beer. “Yeah, it’s—it’s been quite a lot recently. Now… better. Much better.”
“Cheers to that.” She clinks their glasses.
After a while, when all turkey is eaten and everyone is a bit too stuffed, they move to the couches with their drinks, Home Alone 3 now playing, but no one is paying much attention to it. He and Robert are sitting on the love seat near the electrical fireplace, Robert’s arm on the back, pressing them even closer, and it all feels so easy, so simple now, being genuine and not hiding their feelings from everyone around. The unusual lightness of not being watched by millions of prying eyes is like a gulp of fresh oxygen, a tad unsettling but bringing back the colour to the world. Robert’s thumb is gently stroking his shoulder, and the beast is snoring, quietly and peacefully, finally halcyon.
Uncle Jeremy is telling a story, exaggerating as always, and Tom notices his glass is long empty.
“Hey,” he mutters, making Robert turn his head, “Gonna grab some beer. Want one?”
He thinks for a moment. “Maybe water?”
“Sure.” He leans and presses his lips to Robert’s cheek shortly. “Be right back.”
He’s in the kitchen, cracking open a can, when he hears steps approaching and turns swiftly, thinking maybe Robert changed his mind, but it’s Terry standing in the threshold, with an expression on his face that Tom immediately doesn’t like. When they were kids, he and Terry always fought for toys or over who was faster or who could jump higher. Later, after they both matured enough to stop acting out over stupid things, they buried the hatchet and became somewhat civil. And, listen, Terry can be a jerk sometimes, with or without a reason, but he isn’t cruel. He’s just… difficult.
While he’s pouring his beer, Terry is still silent, and he’s already opening his mouth to start what he knows would be an extremely unpleasant conversation, but Terry beats him to it.
“Didn’t know you were gay and slept your way up.”
Tom doesn’t waste a second. “And I didn’t know you were an arsehole.” He throws the can in the bin, completely unaffected, and turns around, propping himself on the counter. “Guess we both had gaps to fill.”
“Weren’t you dating that girl? Z… something. I thought your mum meant her.”
“Frankly, I don’t care what you thought, or think, for that matter. So better save it to yourself.”
He turns back, hands reaching to grab the glasses, when Terry throws into his back, “Aren’t you ashamed? Bringing him here, parading him in front of your family unabashedly, playing a happily married couple into their faces.”
“Okay, it’s starting to get exhausting.” They’re facing each other again, Tom’s hands gripping the counter. “What’s your point, Terry? What do you want from me?”
“Was it good at least?”
“Was ‘what’ good?”
“Bending over to get the role? And later—or was it not only him?”
“I can’t fucking believe it,” Tom mumbles, shaking his head, his knuckles bony-white. He’s staring at Terry’s smug face, something like triumphalism glistening in his eyes, and an idea flickers in his mind. “Wait… are you jealous?” He starts, his face falling slightly. Tom laughs. “God, you really are! After all these years you’re still competing over something. You just can’t accept the fact that I’m doing something well just because I’m good at it, so you need to find reasons to justify it for yourself. Am I right?”
Terry is silent, and Tom knows he hit the bullseye.
“Before projecting your own issues, try to think at least a little bit. Better twice.”
Terry puffs, visibly annoyed. “I don’t have any issues. Unlike you, or why would you be with someone like him?”
“Don’t know. Heard about a thing called ‘love’? You should try it out.”
He sniggers mockingly. “‘Love’? Seriously? If it had been the case, it would’ve already been all over the Internet because you can never keep your fucking mouth shut.”
“I’ve already apologised to you for it many, many times, and I won’t do it again.” Tom steps forward, stopping right in front of him. “You don’t know anything about me, or him, or our lives, and you never will.”
He pass Terry in the threshold, striding right to the back door without looking back, when he hears,
“I know that you two are shagging. Will that make a good headline on the first page, do you think?”
Tom looks at him over the shoulder, the handle screeching in his hand. “You’re pathetic, Terry.” And shuts the door behind himself.
It was definitely a mistake, rushing out in the cold December night in just a sweater and jeans, but he’s in no place to face Terry again, because if he does, he might do something incredibly stupid. So he stays on the porch, filled with warm light from the lamp above the back door, and leans on the railing, breathing in for four, out for eight. In… out. In… and out. Apparently, it helps dealing with wanker cousins too.
He presses his head to the beam, littered with scratches, letters and dates—their height measurements throughout the years. The sky is still ink-black and stripped of the stars, but he doesn’t feel the same pit in his stomach anymore, hasn’t for quite some time. He told Laura about it on their next session, and she suggested lessening the dose of antidepressants and observing any changes, both physical and emotional. Time passed, and after a while they dropped the pills at all. She said she was proud of him, of their work, and of how far he had come since stepping foot in her office, and Tom has found in himself that he is too, maybe the most he has ever been in his entire life.
The door behind him clicks, and in the next second his coat falls on his shoulders, familiar arms wrapping around his middle.
“Fucking hell, you’re freezing. What were you thinking?” Robert gushes, pressing Tom into himself even more, the soothing warmth radiating from his body.
“I wasn’t. Not really.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
He grabs onto Robert’s hands, tangling their fingers a bit awkwardly, their rings clanking against each other, and squeezes. Robert just places a kiss on his hair and doesn’t say anything.
Later, Tom exhales, sending his breath up in the air, and asks, “How much have you heard?”
“Enough to punch the guy between the eyes.”
“Don’t,” Tom chuckles, shaking his head. “He’s not worth it, believe me.”
“Would he go? To the press, I mean.”
“I don’t know. Would you care if he said anything?”
“I would care how he’d said it. He’s clearly not in the right state to filter his words.”
“He never really was.” They’re quiet again, and then Tom adds, “Elise might talk some sense into him, though. She’s the only one who can.”
“A powerful woman.”
Tom chuckles again, squeezing Robert’s hands, when the door behind them opens and he hears his mum say, “We’re cutting the log, boys. And I made hot chocolate.”
“Be there in a minute, Mum.”
“Thanks, Nikki.” The lock clicks, and they’re alone again.
Tom heaves, turning in Robert’s arms, and clasps his hands behind Robert’s neck. “We can’t have a normal day, can we?”
“Then life would be too boring, don’t you think?”
Tom’s lips tug in the easy and soft smile, and he kisses Robert with it. “Love you.”
“Love you too. Now let’s get inside and warm you up properly, okay?”
Terry isn’t there when they come back, but they don’t stay for long too. The log his grandparents brought is delicious as always, and the hot chocolate his mum makes by her special recipe for a moment brings him back into his childhood, sitting in front of the fireplace with a cup, watching Harry Potter, when he himself was little and Harry and Sam were tiny and he wasn’t allowed to hold them. His mother packs them leftovers and sends them both home with a kiss on the cheek.
In the morning, he doesn’t see any new articles about his love life and makes a mental note to send Elise a box of her favourite chocolates. In this elevated mood and with the weather being much better, they decide to take Tessa out for a walk around the neighbourhood.
He’s outside the place they usually grab their drinks from, waiting for Robert to get their order with Tessa sitting obediently by his side, when he notices a person down the street, a camera in their hands aimed at him. And, of course, there would be paps roaming around in the area, especially during the holidays, and how could he forget about that?
The photo from Singapore, surprisingly, didn’t cause much fuss. It circulated around social media for a few days, too simple and uninteresting for the big news outlets, but fans were excited about the ‘reunion’, wondering what they had been doing in Singapore of all places, and that was basically it. Tom didn’t know what to think about it. On the one hand, that was a perfect cue to make a post where everything was crystal clear and cut all the speculation—and the rumours still going around, although Z is spending Christmas with Hunter and her family, who have no problem filming everything around them. On the other one, despite seven—seven—years, Tom wants a bit of time for themselves, to settle into a new married life in quiet, without people watching their every step. He knows they don’t owe anyone any explanations, and he himself doesn’t want to put their private life out there, for everyone to see and dissect, but he’s utterly sick of the secrecy, and these contradictions he made up in his mind are driving him up the wall.
The media certainly noticed Robert’s sudden absence in the States and launched kind of a guessing game on his whereabouts until paparazzi spotted him in London casually shopping here and there, and people started making theories and looking for reasons why all of a sudden he would relocate to the UK. Some even reached out to his team with direct questions, but they quickly turned them down without further comments. The answer, or the lack of one, didn’t satisfy anyone, but the topic was quickly swept under the rug when more interesting, read more gruesome, things happened. Still happening, and, devastatingly, without a prospect of ending in the nearest future.
The glass door in front of him swings open with a soft chime, and Robert is back, his black coat hanging open, showing the hideous Christmas sweater Tom’s mum gave him, and his knitted hat tucked into his pocket. He hands Tom a cup with ‘Tom Thumb’ written on the sleeve and sips his coffee, grumbling about crazy people who go out this early on a festive day to bump themselves up full of caffeine. Tom chuckles (not wanting to point fingers at anyone) and hides his fond smile in his tea.
He tilts his head slightly, motioning to the right with his eyes to show that they're not alone anymore. Under the shades Robert’s eyes dart to the side, finally noticing, and then they’re back on Tom, calm as before. They stand close, closer to be still considered friendly, and yet Robert leans forward, unnoticeable from afar, looking solely on Tom, and says, voice quiet but determined,
“Let them look.”
It’s scary, sometimes fucking terrifying. To let yourself do what you want, have wanted for a very long time, but restrained yourself, made yourself look distant, uninterested when the only thing you ever wanted was to just stand beside and hold the hand of the person you love. He’s scared, but he decides he needs to try, for his own sake.
The thing about paparazzi is you’re going to be filmed anyway, so at least make yourself look good. They turn towards the person whose camera is still aimed at them and smile, Tom saluting with his cup and Robert throwing a peace sign. After many clicks he can hear even from that distance, he tugs on Tessa’s leash, making her get up, and they start walking up the street, away from the camera. Robert’s left hand settles on his back, and Tom leans into it.
They let people look.
5
Tom likes to think it all begins with Robert receiving an Oscar.
He’s in their house in LA, watching the live translation of the ceremony on the big screen, and he can’t stop twirling the ring around his finger. Of course, he’s happy for other winners, especially for the British film winning in the international category, but, for the love of God, why are the commercial breaks so often and so fucking long? Maybe he should have taken up Susan on her offer to watch it together because a minute more, and he’ll start pacing. Patience is not one of his virtues.
Basic human logic and four statuettes in their home tell him that Robert most likely, ninety per cent chance, is going to win tonight, but the unreasonable part of his brain makes him not think about it, or he’ll jinx it. Yeah, he’s superstitious like that. He’s not afraid of ladders or black cats, but the Scottish play and whistling do it to him. When Robert was leaving, he hadn’t wished him anything and just kissed him. Long enough for Sarah to deliberately clear her throat from across the hall, and she’s the most forbearing of them all.
Before every event, Robert asked him whether he wanted to come as his plus one, and every time Tom declined. Robert wasn’t offended, and Tom didn’t need to explain himself. This isn’t about him—or them, for that matter. It’s about Robert and his colleagues, about their incredible work on the movie, and about all other projects and nominees, so showing up on the red carpet hand-in-hand and, Tom is definitely sure, drawing all the attention to them would have been completely unfair to the attendees. In the end, if they decide on some kind of announcement, they’ll do it on their own. Unless someone outs them, of course.
Finally, the break is over, and Kimmel is on stage, cracking jokes, and fucking finally, it’s the supporting actor category. Presenters walk out to say a few words about every nominee, and then the camera switches to Robert, laughing and throwing a kiss to the audience. He looks absolutely fantastic, in Tom’s humble opinion, clean-shaven, aviators on, the brooch, Tom’s present for the premiere, pinned to the lapel and with only one ring. Tom told him he didn’t have to wear it all the time, out of obligation, or whatever, but Robert said he had made a promise, and he was planning on keeping it. Tom still hangs his on the chain and puts it on only when they’re at home; he’s not ready yet, and Robert doesn’t push.
“And the Oscar goes to…” He’s going to die from all this suspense. “… Robert Downey Jr!”
Tom leaps from his seat, whooping and clapping. He knows how much Robert wanted to win it all these years, from the first nomination for Chaplin to now, the hardest and the most exceptional role he has ever had, in his own words, and after ‘sweeping the season’, it would have been completely devastating to lose again. But he didn’t. He won. He fucking won his first Oscar and now is climbing up the stairs and throwing peace signs to the audience, and Tom’s heart is ready to burst from the immense pride for his husband.
He has crouched down in front of the TV, hands clasped and pressed to his lips as Robert is making a dig at the presenters for flubbing the lines.
“I’d like to thank my terrible childhood... and the Academy, in that order…” Tom shakes his head fondly, his smile growing even bigger. Of course, Robert would say something like that. Social anxiety fears him and his self-irony.
“… I want to thank my dear friend, Susan Walker, for putting up with me all these years and helping me create something meaningful and full of joy.” He continues talking about his team, people who never gave up on him, and Tom laughs when he mentions even Liz.
“And to the love of my life,” he’s looking straight into the camera now, as if he’s speaking to one particular person, and Tom stills, “thank you for having me as I am and making my life better with every passing day.” He sends a kiss with his left hand, and Tom feels like all the wind has been knocked out of him. “Exton and Indio, this one is for you.”
Idiot. Stupid, romantic, the best idiot, and Tom loves him more than the goddamn world.
The commercial break starts again, and he scrambles for his phone on the couch. Still on the floor, propped against the seat, he swipes to the side, their chat with Robert already opened, ready to write his congratulations, when his ringtone goes off and a ‘Boss Man 😎❤️’ appears at the top of his screen. He accepts the call without hesitation and brings the phone to his ear, his face starting to ache from smiling so wide and for so long.
“Hey.” He hears from the other end, a little breathy, but, Tom knows, with a smile too.
“Congratulations! Oh my—I’m so, so proud of you. You did such an incredible job, and you deserve it more than anything, really, I—hey.”
Robert laughs. “Hey. Thank you, baby.”
“How… how are you feeling?”
“I’m taking a breather before all the photo stuff, and I—you know, the odds were high, but it’s still kinda hard to believe, like… it really happen? After… everything, y’know, and I still got it?”
“‘Course, you did. I never doubted that you could, not even for a second. But.” He makes a pause. “You can’t pull shit like that, Robert. It’s unfair.”
“What is, dear?” he asks, amusement clear in his voice.
“You can’t just say things like that when I can’t kiss you right afterwards.”
“So what’s stopping you? There’s, like, a thirty-minute drive. You can drop in before Best Picture.”
“Idiot,” Tom chuckles, shaking his head. “You’re such an idiot, and I love you so fucking much.”
“I love you too. To the bottom of my heart.”
“You know that you’re too, right?” Tom adds softly. “Making my life better, making me better. Every day.”
“Yeah, baby, I do.” They fall silent, listening to each other’s breathing, and then there’s a sharp knock on the other end. “Sorry, but they want me back there. I gotta go.”
Tom climbs back on the couch, new presenters already on the screen. “You going to the after-party?”
“Yeah, but just for a bit. Do the photos, shake a few hands and all that.”
“I’ll wait for you.”
“Yeah?”
“Always.”
The call ends, and Tom stands to grab himself a beer from the kitchen, and when he returns, the winners in the visual effects are giving a speech. He smiles when he sees Z present an award, and he cheers for Cillian and Emma and Chris, and, of course, he’s clapping again when they win Best Picture. The credits are rolling, but he’s watching Robert on the stage, smiling and hugging his cast mates, happy and at ease, and he can’t take his eyes off him.
He’s sitting cross-legged on the couch with his laptop, going through forums and fan pages, a document opened on the left side of the screen, when the front door swings open, and then,
“Daddy is home!”
Tom snorts, shaking his head affectionately, and sets the laptop aside. Robert comes in, a different suit, different glasses, and an Academy Award in hand, and without second thought, Tom rises and pulls him in for a kiss, crumpling the lapels of his jacket in his fingers. He feels a hand settle on his waist and the statuette digging into his back, and he can’t help a moan escaping from his lips.
“Wow,” he breathes between the kisses, “my husband is an Oscar winner.”
“Wanna do something about it?” He nudges his thigh between Tom’s legs, his hand sliding lower and bringing them even closer.
He drags Robert upstairs to celebrate properly. Much later, not ready to get up yet, he lays his head on Robert’s chest, their legs tangled together in the sheets, faint bruises around his hips. A hand is combing through his hair gently as he’s looking at the golden knight standing on the nightstand.
“I wanted to kiss you then.” The hand stills for a second, but Robert stays silent, and his fingers are moving again. “When they said your name, I wanted to be next to you, holding your hand, and kiss you before you went on the stage.”
Robert still hasn’t said anything, but Tom feels a tug on his hair that makes him raise his head, and in the next moment Robert brings their mouths together, long and slow, more intimate than just ten minutes ago. He pulls away, looking right in Tom’s eyes, and tucks a loose strand behind his ear.
“Let’s make a deal,” he says, cupping Tom’s jaw. “When you win, and, yes, I say ‘when’, I’ll be by your side, and I’ll hold your hand, and you will kiss me before going up there and accepting your award. I promise you.”
“Idiot,” Tom mumbles, a soft smile curling on his lips, “I love you.” He leans in and presses their lips against each other, his thumb stroking Robert’s cheek. He leaves one more kiss on the corner of his mouth and lies back, his fingers drawing invisible lines on Robert’s skin. “I still have to ask, though. Why did you say that? I’m not upset, obviously, but if you didn’t, I wouldn’t be either.”
The hand is back in his hair. “I had a thought… if we’re coming out of the shell after all, why not have some fun with it?”
Tom hums. “Fun, huh?”
They return to the UK shortly afterwards and decide to fuck with people a little bit. They take up playing padel together in one of the clubs nearby, and after the third visit there are a few paps lingering near the exit. They don’t shy away, waving and smiling at the cameras, and leave in Tom’s car. They continue coming in for a game or two every other week, and paparazzi are still there, but they don’t care.
They go out into the city more often, alone or with Callie, a Welsh spaniel puppy they adopted some time after Tessa left, and after walking out of another shop or a restaurant, they see phones focused on them, from across a street and from a table nearby, but they don’t pay their minds to it, moving on with their business.
When Challengers is out, they drive to the most ordinary cinema and see people literally gaping at them while they’re coming up to their seats. Z is brilliant, and the movie is amazing, and the crowd that gathered in the hall to ask for a photo is huge. They try to do as many as possible, but traffic is a bitch, so they have to go.
Tom does yoga with Robert in their backyard every now and then, and in return Robert agrees to sometimes tag along to play golf with Tom and his lads. The lads are very much confused but get used to it pretty quickly, and though they get a few glances from other players here and there, nobody approaches them or asks any questions. One time when they are moving towards the next hole, they notice a small huddle of fans with photos and pens in hands and decide to walk up. Robert tries and fails not to laugh at Tom’s face when Tom is signing a picture of himself, a shirtless one, for a little boy.
The media response to their shenanigans is hilarious. Claire sends them articles from time to time, and every new one is more entertaining than before. The outlets call them ‘superhero mates’ now and write that Tom is helping Robert to integrate with British folk and introducing him to the city and culture. There are some issues that, ‘according to a trusted source’, say, Robert had a relapse and moved to the UK because of it, and Tom is supporting him in his recovery by keeping him company and dragging him to do all kinds of sports. And, since Tom publicly spoke about his alcoholism, about them both having a relapse and recovering together. Also, and that’s the funniest one in Tom’s opinion, someone makes a theory about Robert ‘courting’ Aunt Grace through spending time with Tom because they’ve visited her gallery several times and had lunch together, and she and Robert seemed ‘quite affectionate with each other’. Tom wonders what Aunt Yasmin thinks about that.
Actually, speculations about ‘love of Robert’s life’ are Tom’s favourite pulp fiction because the range of women—and only women—they suspect begins with models and co-stars and ends with Kate Middleton. He fell from the bed when he heard the last one. It’s a horrible thing to say, but, thank God, the Queen is dead, or they would have said that he’s sleeping with her too. One of the yellow journals publishes a piece about a mysterious woman who Robert met back in the nineties and who gave birth to his child but kept them hidden until they discovered who their father was and found Robert, and that’s the reason why he moved to the UK, to be with his family. Robert had tears in his eyes when they were reading it.
They’re both having a lot of fun going through these rumours and still not giving any comments, but at the same time, it makes Tom kind of sad. They weren’t planning on going full PDA, of course, and making a show out of it, but they don’t keep a five-metre distance either. They stand close and touch as usual. They hold doors and pull out chairs for one another. They hand each other things without second thought and sometimes even wear each other’s clothes. They act in public exactly the way they would have if everyone had known they were a couple. And yet, people are still calling them pals.
Robert attends the premiere of Romeo and Juliet on the West End with Tom’s family, and Tom goes to watch his debut on Broadway with Robert’s, and everyone sees them in the audience and later leaving together. During one of the times they’re out with Callie, paparazzi catch them playing with her in the park and capture how she easily leaps towards the ball Robert throws and instinctively brings it back to him, leaning into his touch and following him around, exactly the same way she does with Tom. On the BERO launch, they pose for photos together and spend almost all the night joined at the hip, talking to friends and reporters covering the event, and after the party, of course, they get into one car. And yet, people are still calling them buddies.
Well, not all the people. He’s been roaming around Twitter for quite some time now, and recently he has noticed a few posts that start similarly with ‘guys, don’t be mad at me, but what if…’, and their ‘what if’ has been absolutely correct. Apparently, some people have eyes connected to brain after all, but unfortunately, they’re a minority, which isn’t surprising considering what world and time they live in. He has also come across something users call AI slop, and it definitely lives up to its name; he sent Z a few pictures of them making out and received in response a lot of laughing and puking emojis.
At some point, he does another podcast and for the first time mentions his partner. Yes, he calls Robert his partner because he doesn’t like the word ‘spouse’, and he doesn’t say ‘husband’ because where would be fun in that? It’s way too on the nose, and he likes to mess with people’s heads. He’s speaking about his recovery and how his partner and friends and family helped him through it when the host asks if he reached out to Robert, and Tom hides his laugh in a glass of water.
Later, he visits one more podcast, a culinary one, and apart from giving a little promotion to Sam and his book, he brings up his partner being vegetarian and learning to cook meals for them. Since it’s Christmas soon, they discuss different dishes, and Tom tells them about a mushroom Wellington his mum made last year, and though Angela has burnt his favourite pigs in blankets, he promises to send her the recipe. He likes them, and the whole atmosphere feels hospitable and easy-going, so maybe if they repeat, he’ll pay one more visit.
After this one, he goes on social media again and sees more and more posts about a ‘soft launch’, and he wants to start liking them from his main account, seriously. There are still people who believe that he and Zendaya are together, though he has seen a ring she’s going to give Hunter on New Year’s Eve, and the rumours are going to finally die out. There are also those who call the first ones freaks and even perverts, and that’s usually the moment he has the urge to delete Twitter again. He gets the reasons behind it, of course, but he can’t do anything about it—no one really can—and that’s just deeply frustrating.
The next year is a total rollercoaster for both of them, with Tom flying around the world to film The Odyssey with Christopher Nolan and Robert returning on the Marvel set to shoot Doomsday. They’re back to calls every evening—for the one easterner at the moment—and though he can’t show Robert their sets, he walks around their temporary residences and turns his camera to the breathtaking landscapes surrounding him. One day the filming ended later than planned, so Tom dials from his room in Italy, in the robe with the hotel logo, drinking coffee (he needs to fall asleep as soon as possible) from the hotel cup, and Robert jokes about him being a perfect advertisement for the hotel website. His brain is a total mush after all the scenes he has done, but a bulb lights up above his head, and he’s very much alert now. Robert asks him if he has seen a ghost, and Tom tells him he has an idea.
When they started doing this strange going-out thing, they didn’t really think about when or how it was going to end and decided to just go with the flow. That flow led to them being ‘superbros’, or whatever, but Tom has found a perfect coda for their little play. Making a post where everything is written plainly, in black and white, would have been very primitive and too simple. And they’re having fun, right?
As soon as the filming is finally wrapped, Tom returns to London, and during his small break before Brand New Day and one of Robert’s days off, they do a photo shoot. They book a swish and spacious hotel room and ask Tom’s mum to be their photographer. Liz and Alan bring, again, racks of clothes because ‘casual is a broad term’, and Tala and Cass set up a small salon in the corner with so many products and tools they both have. Claire and Sarah help deliver the boxes with their props, and though Lily wanted to wring his neck for such short notice, she and Martin managed to pull it off in time.
Who has ever done a collaboration between their brands to announce a relationship?
It has felt like the perfect variant from the moment it crossed Tom’s mind back in Italy, and the more he and Robert went over the idea, the more fitting it seemed. Quite metaphorical as well.
They divide the whole process in two parts. In the first, they’re in white robes and with towels on their heads, drinking coffee from Happy cups; they sit at a round table near curtained windows, conversing and laughing at what the other has said; they stand on a balcony, hands on railing, and look down at the always-busy city. For the second, they change into clothes the four of them have decided on: black bottoms, white tops, and navy blue outerwear. They’re on a couch now, Robert in slacks, a tee and a blazer, and Tom in jeans, a tank and an unbuttoned shirt, holding BERO glasses—their conversation still going—and then they move to a cabinet for a refill of beer.
It’s easy, surprisingly easy, but maybe that’s the way things have to actually be.
When they’ve finished with promotional photos, they decide to take a few just for themselves. Robert hangs his blazer on a chair, and Tom leaves his shirt on a bed; music starts playing on the low in the background. They make silly faces and do stupid poses, smiling and cracking jokes with each other. Something sentimental gets into them closer they’re to wrapping up, and for the last shot, Robert comes up behind him, sneaks his arms around Tom’s middle, and hooks his chin over Tom’s shoulder. Tom puts his hands on Robert’s, interlacing their fingers, and presses his temple to the side of Robert’s head. They don’t look into the camera and just stay in this moment, in this closeness and intimacy, not seeing all the people gathered around them. His eyes fall shut on their own. He’s smiling. He doesn’t see it, but Robert is smiling too.
They both have been wearing their rings throughout the whole shooting, and Tom doesn’t take his off when it comes to an end.
The day his mum sends him an album with edited photos, he can’t believe it’s actually happening. He and Robert sit on the couch with Callie lying at their legs and look through the pictures, and they are so bright and full of colour and so… alive. As if someone just captured little moments from their everyday life, their lazy mornings when there’s nowhere to be, and their quiet evenings when they’re talking about their days or watching something on the TV. They feel real, so real that for a second Tom is scared again; he wants to back out, to call it off and keep everything securely hidden. But they reach the last photo, and he feels like his heart skips a beat. It’s black and white; they’re holding each other in their arms with their eyes closed and soft smiles on their lips, and he thinks he might cry. He saves the whole album on his laptop, and they start choosing pictures for the post.
They end up with seven, one from every place they shot; two are close-ups of their cups and glasses, and the last one is another black and white, Tom pouting with sad eyes and Robert grinning from ear to ear, their heads tilted towards each other. He finishes the caption BERO SMM sent them with ‘Happy BERO Day! ☕❤️🍺’.
“Ready?” Tom asks, adding Robert’s account.
“Like never before.”
He clicks on Share.
They let people see.
+1
Tom forgot one important thing. People are fucking dumb.
The media writes about a ‘sweet and heart-warming reunion between superhero mentor and mentee’ and an ‘unexpected but absolutely delicious collaboration’, and that’s it. He goes back to Twitter and sees all the same accounts that made theories writing something like ‘I FUCKING KNEW IT’ and all the same accounts calling them freaks and perverts again, and he closes the app and deletes it, this time forever.
He’s done, really. What the fuck do these people want? Apparently, he should’ve just posted a picture of him and Robert kissing and called it a night. Because people stopped understanding everything that’s not written in simple sentences with basic English words, for fuck’s sake.
He wants to be mad, but he can’t. He’s just tired, and he doesn’t care anymore. Let people think what suits their moral paradigm better. It’s not his problem anymore. They did it on their own terms, without taking anyone’s time and in the way they both found appropriate, and if people refuse to see it the way it is, that says more about them than about anything else.
He chooses to just be. To live life with his wonderful and loving husband and their dog and do whatever the hell he wants.
He decides to go to the Doomsday premiere with Robert. He’s not in the movie, or maybe he is; fans aren’t completely sure and are constantly speculating, and he feels like fucking with people’s heads a little bit. It’s his well-deserved retribution.
He has run it through Kevin, of course, but it’s been more of a formality than an obligation. It’s not like he can forbid Tom basically anything now, not after what a terrible success Brand New Day has been. Kevin knows because he has eyes and asked them directly, but he doesn’t poke his nose into their business, and everyone is happy with that.
Robert is fully on board with this because they haven’t been to a premiere together since Dolittle, and they both kind of missed it. And they’re still having fun, right? For the first time, they plan matching outfits with Liz and Alan; they come up with a concept, using both their clothes and the ones brands are ready to provide, and order custom-made pieces. At the end, Tala and Cass join them to coordinate the hair and finish up the looks.
During a final try-on a few days before the premiere, he looks himself over in the mirror and thinks this is definitely worth all the effort. A sleek, total-black, two-piece suit with a double-breasted jacket and a white dress shirt with embroidered, silky black webs. It’s one of the things they had to order because they couldn’t find the one they needed anywhere, and the work this person has done is magnificent. The pattern is different from the one on his Spider-Man suit and looks more like natural webs a spider can create; they’re not symmetrical and ideal, but that’s what makes the whole thing perfect. The last, and the best, part is a brooch pinned on his breast pocket. A silver spider, a very realistic one, with a big bulging abdomen covered in rubies, sapphires and diamonds and tiny onyx eyes—Robert’s present for the premiere of Brand New Day. He fixes the watch on his wrist, the only one he’s been wearing these past years, and goes downstairs.
Robert is already there, doing a spin with his arms raised under the examining gazes of their teams. He halts when his eyes land on Tom, who can’t tear his own from Robert’s body. He’s in a suit identical to the one Tom is wearing, but instead of black, it’s forest green, and his shirt is plain black. He has silver cufflinks on his sleeves in the form of the letter ‘D’ and a silver cape chain on his chest with Doctor Doom’s symbol on the medallions. That’s been a living hell to find someone who could make something like this, but the guy they’ve found, a jeweller and a smith, not even a fan, agreed without a doubt because he had never had to do something like this. And, in Tom’s humble opinion, he’s done a fantastic job. The cherry on top is his slightly dimmed shades and a watch with an emerald green face Robert chose from the ones various brands have sent earlier. He looks incredibly hot, and Tom can’t find any appropriate words to say.
“Wow. You look… good.” Yeah, very clever, Tom.
Robert chuckles. “You’re not that bad yourself.”
Alan groans loudly, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, you’re both fab as fuck, guys, we got it. Now, stop flirting and stand next to each other. We need a final look.”
They both spin a few more times, take photos so Tala and Cass could style their hair in the same way, and pose for a little bit, and after four approving nods, they call it a day. A very successful and very sweaty, but their teams don’t need to know the last part. Robert had a lot to say about how Tom looked too.
On the day of the premiere, everything goes as smooth as butter. Their teams arrive to their house in LA on time, and they’re both ready a good half an hour before the car is coming to take them to the Dolby Theatre. Even though the event just began a few minutes ago, the throng gathered around is already tremendous, and the line of cars dropping people off is growing longer with every passing minute. Thankfully, it starts moving pretty fast, and a while later, they step out, immediately surrounded by the loud cheering of the crowd. Security and assistants are hurrying them away towards the backstage area, where Tom instantly picks out several familiar faces and walks up to say hello.
“My favourite Spidey!” Anthony pulls him into a half-hug and claps him on the shoulder. “How’re you here, man?”
“I just had a free Monday and thought to drop by, say hi, and all that.”
He gives Tom a once-over with a raised, suspicious eyebrow. “You’ve cleaned up too nicely for just a drop-by.” He nudges Tom in the shoulder lightly and lowers his voice as if they’re conspiring about something. “Come on, spill it!”
He is preparing to throw another joke when he hears Robert’s laugh behind him and turns instinctively. He’s with Pedro and Vanessa, talking about something that made them all smiley, and catching Robert’s eyes briefly, he can’t help but smile too.
“Ah.” That makes him turn back, and he sees Anthony’s unimpressed but smirking face. “You with your old man here.” Tom doesn’t respond, and he gags fakely. “Jeez Louise, you even in matching suits. I’m gonna have diabetes because of you two.”
“Well, if it’ll make you feel better—”
“What are we talking about?” Sebastian asks, approaching them.
“Hey, mate. Very belated, but congratulations on your daughter!”
“Appreciate it, Tom.” He clasps Tom’s hand, giving it a firm shake, and looks him over too. “What are you doing here all this fancy? Nice brooch, by the way.”
“Thanks, it’s a gift.”
“I wonder from whom…” Anthony mutters, but in the next moment his manager appears by his shoulder, signalling towards the red (actually green) carpet. “Alright, gentlemen, have fun here. I’m going to do my mandatory session in hell called press interviews.”
“Aye-aye, Cap.” Tom salutes him.
Shortly afterwards, Sebastian leaves him for his own ‘arduous ordeal’, and Tom manages to find Florence and have a quick word before Claire whisks him away to all the cameras and microphones. People are going fucking wild when he steps into their line of sight, so he sees a few heads of his colleagues turn to him. They’re shouting orders to look here and there, and though most of the photos are always good, he hates this part of any event the most. Do all photographers have to be so goddamn loud, or what?
Later, he winds up at the side with a huddle of reporters from different media outlets, cracking jokes about his sudden presence and teasing people with some fake spoilers he came up with on their drive here. He notices Joseph nearby and stops by to finally meet him in person, and somehow he and the whole cast of Fantastic Four end up doing a group photo. He has certainly made some fans happy, considering how much fan material he has seen online, and he should probably pitch some ideas to Destin about it.
He’s talking to a reporter about who he would have chosen for his team to spend Doomsday with while a woman beside her is shooting them with her phone when he hears,
“I’m deeply sorry, ladies, but I have to steal him from you.” Robert stops by his side, his hand landing on the small of Tom’s back habitually. “We have a very important movie to watch.”
“Mr Holland,” one of the photographers starts, “could we take a few photos of you and Mr Downey? It will take just a few seconds.”
Tom turns his head to Robert with a slight humorous tilt. “If Mr Downey is on board with this?”
“When I was not?”
They move to the photo wall and stand in their usual poses, his left hand settled on Robert’s back and his right tucked into the pocket of his trousers, their shoulders pressed close to each other. The cameras are flashing rapidly, and with every second there’s more and more, and the shouting starts once again. He jerks his head a little when light gets right into his eye, and the motion makes one of the curls Tala so meticulously styled fall over his face. In the next moment, Robert turns towards Tom, his back half to the cameras, and, without second thought, sets the strand back in its place.
“Thank you, love.” Robert gives him a smile that brings out the crow’s feet around his eyes, and Tom smiles back, completely unaware of the impending disaster his phrase has caused.
He doesn’t yet know that the video that woman was making is still recording and that later it will go viral around social media and that the #thankyoulove will be trending on Twitter with ten thousand posts in less than twenty-four hours and that people will start digging deep into their pasts, trying to figure out how exactly this has happened and how they all have missed it. But he doesn’t know any of that yet, still standing in front of the flashing cameras with Robert’s hand lying securely on his waist.
They quickly relocate to the auditorium to watch the movie on the gigantic screen Disney invented instead of IMAX, and after three end-credit scenes, the whole cast, with Tom in tow, goes to the premiere after-party. No cameras, no reporters, no shouting. Feels like paradise.
The next morning he wakes up alone but to the smell of pancakes coming from downstairs. Blindly, he reaches for his phone on the nightstand to check the time, and there’s a shit tonne of messages from his family group chat, his friends, a few from Z and just two from Claire, just an hour ago. The last option feels like the safest variant—for the first time in his life—and he opens their chat.
congrats, you broke the internet
Under the texts is a screenshot of Variety’s main web page. It’s a photo of him and Robert from yesterday’s premiere, and Tom wants to kiss the hands of the person who managed to capture this moment from this exact angle because it feels unreal. Robert’s back half-turned to the camera, revealing Tom’s hand lying on his shoulder blades, as he’s holding Tom’s curl between his fingers; they’re smiling at each other softly, their eyes fond and seeing only one another, and the rings on their left hands are fully on display, shining in the flashes of cameras and attracting all the attention. He thinks he’s been staring at it for two minutes straight and doesn’t want to stop. Maybe he should find the original and hang it on the wall.
His phone vibrates in his hands, and that’s only when he notices that there’s a headline above the picture.
Robert Downet Jr. And Tom Holland: The Father And The Son Of The MCU Or The Love Affair Of The Decade?
Fucking Variety.
He looks down and sees one more message from Claire.
btw they found your marriage certificate
“Fucking Variety,” Tom mutters into the pillow. He swings his legs from the bed, rubbing his eyes, and calls out, “Love?”
“Yes?” he hears immediately from the kitchen.
“I think we have a little problem.”