short stories (Tom Hiddleston fanfics)

crybaby

Tom had never thought of himself as a crybaby. He was a quiet, composed kind of guy—at least, that's how he liked to think of himself. But the truth was, she got to him like nobody else could.

The night they met was a haze of strobe lights and blurred laughter. She had a look about her, dark eyes framed with mascara, a casual but magnetic confidence. When she looked his way, he couldn't tell if she was amused or intrigued, but it didn't matter. He felt an instant pull.

He found her again later, outside, leaning against a wall with a cigarette pinched between two fingers. She was almost ethereal, her silhouette cast against the dim streetlights, completely unfazed by the party raging behind them. He walked over, trying to find something cool to say, but she smirked before he even opened his mouth.

"You're staring, Thomas," she teased, and he flushed. She knew his name, of course—everyone knew everyone around here. But somehow, when she said it, it sounded different. Intimate.

Over the weeks, their connection grew into something complicated and charged, intense but undefined. She was magnetic, a storm, pulling him in and pushing him back. When they were alone, she opened up little by little, like a slow confession. He was beginning to see past her armor, past the bold sarcasm and teasing smiles. She had been hurt, he could feel that much, though she never said it outright. But he sensed it in her laugh, that edge of sadness that made his chest ache.

In the late hours, when they were tangled in each other's arms, she would sometimes look at him in a way that was hard to describe. He didn't understand her completely, not yet, but he wanted to. Every piece of her felt like a puzzle, and each time he got close to solving it, she pulled away.

One evening, after another small, pointless argument, she stormed out, leaving him standing in the rain. He waited, hoping she would come back, but she didn't. Instead, she left him there, a "crybaby" in her own words. And maybe he was, because he'd never felt anything so deeply before, never cared this much about losing someone.

Now she was gone. And maybe that was her way all along, breaking hearts and disappearing before things could get too real. He wondered if she'd ever regret it, if she'd ever let herself feel even a fraction of what he felt now.

As the days passed, Tom found himself listening to old songs that reminded him of her, tracing the nights they'd spent together in his mind. In the end, he realized, it wasn't so much that he wanted her to come back. It was that he wanted her to stay—someone who had never stayed for anyone.