Riding My (t.h. x female reader)

Ten - Away (T) - part 1 / 2

11k, warnings: fluff; angst: longing; mentions of smut

summary: Tom tries to find a way to cope with distance (part 1)

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Late November

Tom flicks his left wrist instinctively before he washes his hands in the sink. The clattering of his watch is monotone. His eyes follow the sound by instinct, but he tears them away at the memory it evokes.

You. Obviously. You, lying carelessly on his bed, shoulders slumped forwards. You, running your fingers across the face of his watch. You, making a joke about stealing his watch. Then him, retorting with something just as cheesy.

The smile in his reflection softens. Tom chuckles to himself at the thought of your unending tendency to roast him. Some days you're just as bad as his brothers.

He hoists his backpack onto the sink and rummages through its contents. His fingers soon find something heavy, a soft cover binding many, many frayed pages that he knows are filled with your words and anything else you might have deemed meaningful enough to keep.

Tom smiles again.

It's your journal. The one you willingly put in his hands after he suggested he wanted to read it. That had been a heat-of-the-moment confession, fueled by Tom's curiosity since the day he first found it on his armchair. And yet, unsurprisingly, you took it to heart and let him bring it with him.

Touching it now makes him feel closer to you. At least existentially.

He's used to being gone from his hometown, from his family and from you, but things are different this time. They're so much different even though technically his life barely changed at all.

The thought scatters when his hand bumps into something sharp and light. It rattles in the bottom of the backpack. Tom chuckles at what he threw blindly into the bag earlier. It's not a big deal, it's only a packet of condoms, and it's nearly empty anyway. However, it brings back another memory.

After breakfast, you followed Tom back upstairs so he could finish getting ready to leave. He needed a quick run to freshen up, get dressed, and grab his stuff, and then he had to be on his way out. You, however, had another thought. You stood against the doorframe to the bathroom and said you wanted a good, proper goodbye kiss. And you got one. Except, instead of pulling away, you grabbed at his sides hard and stepped towards the bed.

"Do we have time?" you checked with him right before you wrapped your arms around his neck. Tom wanted to say that you didn't, but you looked way too beautiful and sexy.

There was only one thing he could do. He pulled you by the waist until you were flush against him and whispered into your lips, "Can't get enough of me now, can you?"

The filthy whine of his name that followed was proof enough. Tom would have been fine with a quick work of both of your hands, but you whimpered and shuddered when he guided you to the bed, and he was too damn weak. For you. For your smell. For the taste of your moans under his tongue.

Not wanting to deal with clean-up nor to leave it to you after he left, Tom rushed to get the condoms he knew he still had in his walk-in closet. He looked laughable in the full-size mirror. His hoodie was bundled up over his belly, hard cock coming out of his clothes as he rushed through the contents of the top drawer of his dresser. A hand scratching his cheekbone as he clasped the box and scanned the tiny lettering for the one detail that could have sealed the fate of that moment.

It might have been sheer luck that the expiration date was in less than two weeks. Perfect. This had to be some sort of sign that he was meant to use them now since he wouldn't be home for a while, but he put that all aside and walked back into the room where he found you naked from the waist down. Feet propped on the mattress, your knees up. Nipples hard under the fabric of your jumper.