easier - tom holland

// 39 \\

real life

"Oh yeah, so I probably should've told you, but I have to help set up for the party."

"Cool. Can I help?" Kellan asked, swinging their locked hands.

"Of course, but only if you want to."

"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want to."

They stopped at Tom's front door, having to unlock it, before they stepped inside. Tom tossed his keys in the little dish on the end table next to him while Kellan stood there in shock. The living room was filled with bags of snacks and party supplies. The kitchen counters were covered in bottles of all sorts of alcohol and a few bottles of margarita mixers.

"Um, have I stumbled into heaven?" Kellan asked when he spotted multiple bags of balloons.

Tom laughed.

"We were gone for like an hour. Where did all this come from?"

Zendaya peeked out from behind the couch. "We bought the supplies while you guys were screwing. We just got back a little while ago."

Tom shrugged his denim jacket off of his shoulders and hung it on the hook on his left. Kellan of course made a beeline for the balloons while Tom moved the bags of snacks to the kitchen.

"Did you guys get helium? Or are we blowing these up ourselves?"

"Both." Zendaya picked up the red tank of gas from her feet and set it on the coffee table. "Which one do you wanna handle?"

Milana walked in at that exact second and chimed in. "Do not under any circumstances let Kell touch helium." She quickly wrapped her hair up into a bun and went straight for the kitchen to help Tom, who had already started chuckling, knowing there was a story behind that.

"Lana, come on, it was one time."

Tom raised his eyebrows at Milana, expecting her to explain. Which she did.

"Alright, so listen."

Tom grinned like a child and sat on the only empty counter space. "Yay, story time."

"We're on tour with Joey, right? And it's the very first show. We had an after party to celebrate how successful it was, and Kellan found the leftover helium from the balloons almost as soon as the party started. I'm not quite sure how much he got in his system, but his voice was insanely high all night long."

"Technically we were all high in some form or another."

"Yeah, but you were high on marijuana, and your voice sounded like a goddamn whistle."

Tom cackled and said through bursts of laughter, "Okay, I vote we let Kell use the helium because I really want to see that."

Kellan pumped his fist and jogged over to his boyfriend. He kissed him once and went back to the helium canister. "He's the birthday boy, so it's his decision." Kellan shrugged with a wicked grin on his face.

Zendaya muttered under her breath, "Thank god I bought two of those things."

While Kellan got started on filling the balloons, Zendaya unpacked all the supplies, Milana moved the alcohol to various places around the main room, and Tom moved all the snacks to the countertops.

"So where's Haz and Jacob?" he asked.

Zendaya spoke up from her spot on the floor. "They're picking up the twins and Tuwaine. And your cake."

"I get a cake?"

Milana narrowed her eyes. "Dude, it's your birthday. Of course you get a cake."

"Hey, does anyone wanna get in on the helium before I inhale it all?"

Everyone turned toward the high-pitched voice and found Kellan holding a partially full green balloon.

"Seriously. I just filled like a shit ton of balloons," he inhaled some more of the gas, "and I plan on using the rest of this to sound like, as Lana so graciously put it, a goddamn whistle." He then sucked in the last of that balloon and went to fill it up again.

Tom's shoulders were shaking as he laughed. "Wait, wait, wait," he said as he jogged over to Kellan. "Gimme some."

"You think we can shotgun it?" Kellan giggled, hearing his own voice.

"I highly doubt it."

"I'm gonna try it anyway." His voice was already starting to drop back to his normal level, so he inhaled quite a bit and pulled Tom in for a kiss. Zendaya and Milana both grimaced and looked away as the kiss got heated.

"I don't think that worked," Tom said in a mostly normal voice when he pulled away.

Kellan winked at him. "Worked for me, baby."

His voice was back to sounding like a chipmunk, which made all of them laugh. Tom grabbed a bright pink balloon and filled it completely with helium, then proceeded to inhale the majority of it. "How do I sound now?"

Kellan snorted and inhaled some more. "Oh yeah, it definitely worked that time."

"Alright, idiots. The party's in an hour and we still have a lot to do." Milana grabbed a large bag of gold glitter and sprinkled some over the counters.

Tom's eyes went wide. "Uh, Lana? Where else are you putting that glitter?"

"Everywhere."

"Why?"

"Because now that you have a boyfriend, you've graduated from 'baby gay' to...something else. Now you get rainbow everything and and glitter everything. Which includes your floor." She was clearly about to dump the rest of the bag out everywhere, but Tom stopped her.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'll be cleaning that off my floor for months."

"Okay, yeah, that's a good point." She took the bag over to the coffee table and dumped it over some of the bottles of wine.

Kellan inhaled even more helium and made an 'oo' sound. "That looks really aesthetic." He ran to Tom's bedroom, where his duffel bag was, and yelled back, "Babe, do you remember if I brought my camera?"

Another inhale. "I don't know. I think Harry left one of his cameras here last time he was over, though."

"I'm not gonna use your brother's camera. That's like...weird." He came running back in with a small camera bag and proceeded to quickly take a picture of the glitter-covered surface.

Until the other five boys showed up, the two boyfriends continued to get way too much helium in their systems while the girls actually finished setting up. True to what she'd said earlier, Milana basically covered the room in rainbow streamers and balloons until Tom's guests would either think he suddenly loved colour or that he was gay. And he was pretty cool with that.