Fic: Free Fall With Me (Bandom, girl!Tom/Sean, 9500 words, Adult/Explicit)
Summary: It only happened once, when they were still learning to live together, still getting used to sharing the same space. Sean reached around Tom into the fridge, and she flinched, jumped, pushed him away hard enough to send him careening into the counter. They both apologized, and Tom laughed it off, sounding strained. For the sake of harmonious living, Sean didn't call her on it.
Notes: Many thanks to siryn99 for encouragement and talking this out with me. Any remaining roughness is due to me, not her. Title from Empires' "Spit the Dark."
Warnings: Past domestic violence and discussion thereof. Past abortion and discussion thereof. Villainous Mike Carden.
Story on AO3
It only happened once, when they were still learning to live together, still getting used to sharing the same space. Sean reached around Tom into the fridge, and she flinched, jumped, pushed him away hard enough to send him careening into the counter. They both apologized, and Tom laughed it off, sounding strained. For the sake of harmonious living, Sean didn't call her on it.
He hasn't even thought of it since then, but he just saw her make the same movement, without the shoving, and it's Mike standing next to her by the keg. Sean is putting two and two together and coming up with a four he doesn't much like.
He's trying to decide if he should intervene - and figure out what the hell he can he do - when Danielle steps between Tom and Mike, her back to Mike. Danielle takes Tom's hand and leads her away from Mike. Tom doesn't date, and most people think it's because of Danielle, but Sean lives with Tom, and he knows that while there's something there - something strong and intense - it's not sex.
Wherever Danielle leads Tom is deep enough into the party that Sean loses sight of them. He catches up with Tom later, approaching her carefully, so she sees him, before he sits down on the floor next to her.
"I'm pretty drunk," she says.
"Yeah, I can see that." Sean's a little drunk himself, but not as much as her. Not so much that he can't control himself when she leans on his shoulder.
"You should take me home."
"Yeah, alright." It takes a moment to get himself up - maybe he's a little drunker than he thought - and offer his hands to pull her up. "You need to find Danielle?"
Tom sways against him. "Yeah." She fumbles with her phone before giving it to Sean.
Sean scrolls through to Danielle's number, hits send, and hands the phone back to Tom.
"Sean's taking me home."
Sean's close, but not close enough to hear what Danielle says.
Tom giggles. "Yeah, okay." She clicks her phone off and puts it back in her pocket. "Danielle's coming. She's by the keg." She leans on Sean while they wait for Danielle to join them.
*
Tom comes home out of sorts and scowling. She joins Sean on the couch with a joint already rolled, flopping down onto it with her feet over the arm and her head in his lap, taking a steady drag before offering him the joint.
They smoke in silence for a while, until the front door opens. Sean's not in the least surprised that it's Danielle. She leans over them, and Sean has a sudden paranoia that he's been wrong about everything when she says, "Hey, baby," and kisses Tom's cheek as softly as she spoke.
"Sean's taking care of me," Tom says, and that doesn't do anything to put Sean's world back on its proper axis.
Danielle picking up Tom's feet and sitting down, taking the joint from Sean, helps. It's more normal, and she passes it back to Tom, and from there Sean gets it again, and he mellows out in no time.
"It would've sucked not to have this," Tom says, sounding for all the world like she's continuing a conversation, even though it doesn't follow from anything they've talked about since Tom got home.
It's not for Sean, though, because it's Danielle who says, "You always made the right decision." When Sean looks, Danielle's hand is under the hem of Tom's jeans, rubbing her ankle, and he still doesn't know what they're talking about.
*
Past midnight outside a bar, taking drags off of Tom's cigarettes so he can still say he doesn't smoke, and a familiar figure cuts through the night toward them. Sean's fine with Bill, will be loyal to Tom but doesn't hate Bill. Tom's uneasy, still, polite but not happy to see him. Usually. Tonight, Bill comes with Mike, and Sean's stomach drops at the way Tom stifles her flinch, takes a step away from Mike.
Sean puts the cigarette back in Tom's hand. She needs something to hold onto, and if things get really bad, she can jab it into Mike's eye. Sean doesn't think things will get quite that bad, but he remembers the way she jerked away from Mike that time at the party, knows the way she accepts Sean and Max now but sometimes puts herself in a place at practice where she can always see Ryan and Al.
Tom doesn't shrink, after that first step back, and she and Sean tell Bill how recording is going, and he tells them, over the moon about it and only encouraged by their attention and Tom's slight smile, that his daughter is the most amazing thing ever.
"Jesus, Bill," Mike says, "you know she doesn't give a fuck about that." It's wrong, too nasty for the situation, and, fuck, Sean wishes he'd had one less beer.
Bill stops midsentence, and they're all silent, holding their breath, waiting for what's next.
"She's a selfish bitch who doesn't give a shit about kids."
"Just because I didn't want to have yours," Tom says, hisses, and Mike's hand comes up before she even finishes that half a sentence.
Bill pulls Mike back at the same time Sean steps forward, sliding between Tom and Mike and wishing he had Danielle here for backup, because he's adding two to the four he's already come up with and, oh, fuck, does he not like that six.
"Don't," Sean says. He's not a violent guy, as a general rule, but his hand is curled into a fist at his side, and he's not going to regret it if Mike comes closer and gives him a reason. "Do not even think about laying a hand on her."
"Mike," Bill snaps without losing any of the consonants. "Let it go. We can't afford this, not now."
Mike spits out, "Fucking cunt," but goes into the bar with Bill.
Tom's cigarette is on the ground, forgotten. Sean steps on it, grinding it out under his heel, and opens his hands, holds them loose at his sides and waits for Tom to notice him.
"I need a shot," she says. They both look at the bar, but Bill and Mike went in there. They walk until they find another one, and Tom downs four shots in quick succession before Sean cuts her off.
"You can't choke on your own vomit and die," he says. "I need you to pay the rent and play guitar."
Tom laughs a little, until it turns into a sob, and Sean shells out money he doesn't really have for a cab to take them home.
*
Danielle shows up early afternoon with saltines and ginger ale. She and Tom cuddle on the couch, relegating Sean to the chair, the floor, or his room. He picks the floor, for a while, head leaning back on the couch where he can just feel the heat of Tom's body, before he goes to his room. The something that's there between them doesn't need him in the room, not today.
Tom comes to his room anyway, after Danielle leaves. "He hit me," she says from the doorway.
Sean forces himself not to tense, not to do anything that could scare her. "I guessed."
Tom doesn't say anything for a while, and when she does, it's, "It took a while before I left," and, fuck, Sean is sorry he didn't take a swing at Mike last night.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Tom shakes her head and sits down, as far away from him as she can be while still being in the same room. "Play me what you've been working on."
*
When Tom tells him the rest, it's a night when Danielle's there too, the three of them passing a joint around, Sean and Danielle on the couch, Tom slipping down onto the floor in front of it.
Tom finishes off the joint and says, "I had an abortion," on her exhale. "Without telling him."
Jesus fucking Christ. That six is more like a seven, and worse than Sean thought.
"And that was when he hit me the first time, and then it all went to hell and Danielle had a black eye too from when she helped me move out."
Sean slides to the floor. Even if Tom won't look at him, he needs to be closer to her. "Tom," he says, "baby," and that slips out without him meaning to, and she turns her head to look at him, jaw set and eyes fierce.
"I don't regret it. Mike turned out to be a shitty choice, but I don't regret for one second having an abortion."
"No," Sean says. "No, you shouldn't." He reaches for her slowly, and she lets him, lets him pull her close, lets him tuck her head under his chin.
"I might want kids someday," she says, "but not then, and not with him."
Danielle slides to the floor too, kneels next to them, leans on Tom's back, arms around both of them. "Baby," she says, "that was always your choice."
*
So now he knows, what secrets Tom and Danielle are keeping, why Tom doesn't date. He knows, and he's in love with Tom. He knows, and she stops making sure she can always see Al and Ryan at practice.
And then she comes out of her room one day and asks, "Do I look okay?"
As far as Sean's concerned, she always looks okay, but he can tell she's put some effort into it. "Yeah," he says, "you look nice. What's up?"
"I have a date." Tom fiddles with the buttons of her shirt, buttoning and then unbuttoning one of the higher buttons on the flannel over her t-shirt.
"With who?"
"His name's Josh. He came in to hang up some kind of men can stop rape posters." Tom buttons the button again, then lets it go. "Danielle has all his information. I promised to call her later. I'll call you or be home by midnight."
Sean watches her leave, and declines every invitation he gets to come hang out.
Tom actually gets home just after eleven and says, "Yeah, it was nice," when Sean asks if she had a good time.
*
Tom goes out with Josh three more times before Sean meets him. He's a nice guy, warm and caring, and hard to hate, no matter how much Sean wants to.
Tom never stays out later than two.
And then, on a Saturday, when Sean's looking at a text from Ryan, trying to decide if he'd rather go out or invite Ryan over, Tom comes home at nine-thirty.
"You're back early," he says.
"Josh and I broke up."
Sean puts his phone down. "You okay?"
She nods. "Yeah. It just wasn't working." She smiles at him a little. "I'm going to bed."
Sean picks up his phone after he hears her door closed. He thinks about texting Danielle, but in the end he just tells Ryan, Not tonight. Maybe next time.
He stays up for a while longer, but Tom doesn't come back out of her room.
*
Sean's hanging out on someone's couch, talking Radiohead with a guy who's actually read Pressfield, when Ryan wanders up to him and says, "This is hilarious," low enough that no one else hears him. "There's this guy talking to Tom, and he's about two minutes away from asking if she wants to see his etchings."
Sean cranes his head, looking around all the people between him and Tom, and sure enough, there's a guy talking to her. They don't really look like he's about to make a move on her, until the guy takes a step closer and puts his hand on her arm.
Sean doesn't know the guy, but he doesn't like the look of him, doesn't like the way he's looking at Tom. Really doesn't like the way he doesn't look like a nice guy. (He didn't need Danielle saying, "Like Tom was ever gonna stay with a guy that nice," to know that, no matter how much she regrets Mike, Tom likes guys with a little more edge than Josh.)
Tom is a grown woman, and she knows he's here somewhere and that he'll leave with her if she wants to go home, and he has to just accept that and let her do whatever she wants to do.
Ten minutes later, whatever she wants to do is crawl into his lap and lean in close and whisper, "This guy won't leave me alone. I told him I was here with my boyfriend," just before she kisses him.
Sean kisses her back, not even trying to pretend to himself that he's doing it for her, and keeps his hands light on the middle of her back instead of holding too tight to all the other places he could touch her.
It's a good kiss, even though it doesn't go very far and Ryan is laughing himself sick somewhere to their left. Tom smiles at him when she decides she's done, moves so she's more sitting on his lap than straddling him, and holds his hand for twenty minutes before laying her head on his shoulder and saying, "I'm tired. Can we go home?"
She doesn't let go of his hand until they're inside their apartment.
*
A couple of weeks later, after Sean sees Tom flirting with some guy who looks less like an asshole than the guy at the party but more dangerous than Josh, he knocks on her door. It's open, so it's mostly to get her attention, and she does look up from her laptop.
"What?"
"Nothing." Sean leans against the edge of her doorway, making sure there's enough room for her to leave if she wants. "Just, you seem better."
He's watching, he's watching her carefully, so he sees it when her hands tighten around the laptop for a moment.
"Yeah," she says. "Yeah, having someone else know. I'm glad it's not just Danielle and me."
Sean should probably say something helpful or supportive, but instead he says, "I wish I'd hit him, that night at the bar."
Tom scrunches up her face for a moment. "I've never figured out why Danielle didn't, when I was leaving."
Sean's pretty sure he knows why, the same reason he didn't: because taking care of Tom was more important than anything they could have done to Mike.
"Are you busy on Friday?"
Sean gets off work at three so, "No."
"Want to get a drink?"
Sean's about to say yes because they go out all the time, but there's something about the way she says it that makes him pause.
"A drink?"
"Yeah." She's a hell of a lot braver than he is, because she says, "Go on a date with me."
"Yes," he says, the moment she's done speaking.
She smiles at him. "I'll pick you up in the living room at seven."
*
On Friday, Sean's in the living room at six-fifty. Tom didn't even get home until six-forty-five, and she comes out to get him at seven, still pulling on a flannel shirt Sean's pretty sure is his over her t-shirt.
One drink turns into two turns into dinner turns into another drink, and then they're arguing about Pearl Jam and they go home where they sit on the couch with Tom's laptop, Sean's arm around Tom's shoulders and Tom leaning against his side, and take turns finding videos to prove their respective points.
When Tom yawns for the third time and says, "I had to work the early shift this morning. I should probably go to bed," Sean stops her before she can get up. He puts his hand on her cheek and leans in slowly enough that she could stop him if she wanted to. She doesn't, so he kisses her, soft and barely dipping in to taste her.
"I had a good time," he says, after that one kiss. "We should do this again."
Tom closes up her laptop, smiling the whole time. "Yeah, we should."
*
Dating someone you live with is weird. They go out for dinner on Tuesday, have coffee before band practice on Thursday, go to a movie on Friday, and in between they're just their normal selves, Tom drinking the last of the orange juice without getting more, Sean making her stay up late to work out the bridge to what might be a good song for the album, passing each other in the living room and the kitchen.
They tell the rest of the band, and promise it won't fuck anything up.
Sean's expecting something the next time Danielle comes over and Tom leaves them alone while she gets something from her room, but Danielle just says, "Hey, I know you're not going to hurt her," and that's that.
*
They go on a lot of dates, and sometimes they stay in and make out on the couch for a while.
It's a day after one of those nights, when Sean had bitten his lip so she wouldn't hear when he jerked himself off in the bathroom later, that Tom comes into his room. Sean's writing, sort of, sitting in the chair, guitar in his lap and feet up on his bed. Tom sits at the other end of the bed and starts out with, "I haven't had sex in a really long time."
Sean thinks this is probably the kind of conversation he shouldn't have with a guitar in his hands, but she knew he was playing when she came in, so he doesn't put it down. "Okay."
"A lot of guys don't get that I don't want to be knocked around or hurt just because I don't mind it being a little rough sometimes."
Sean gets hard so fast he's glad he still has the guitar in his lap.
"I'm not going to-" he tries to say.
"Sean," Tom interrupts, "you are. You're not a nice guy."
"I'm-"
"No, you're not. I know you're not gonna hurt me, but you're dark. What I'm saying is that mine are going to be the only clothes among yours on the floor."
That hits him like a punch to the gut, or a hand on his cock, Tom using his own lyrics to say she can keep up with him. He opens his mouth and says, "I love you."
Tom gets up and comes to Sean's end of the bed to lean over him. "Yeah," she says, "yeah, I love you." She kisses him, and it's not close enough because of the guitar, but she didn't come in here for anything else, so he doesn't try to change that.
"Do me a favor," he says, thinking as fast as he can, making a plan.
"What?"
"Go somewhere else on Friday afternoon, hang out with Danielle or something, just for a couple of hours. Come home at six."
Tom says, "Okay," easy and trusting, and Sean kisses her again, slower this time, appreciating her.
*
Tom comes home on Friday, and Sean knows she really did go to Danielle's because she comes home wearing a dress.
He almost doesn't want to wait, but he made her dinner, so they eat that and share a giant slice of the chocolate cake he bought at the grocery store.
After they finish the cake, Sean takes Tom to his room. He doesn't have sheets, but he straightened up the blankets and put a box of condoms on the floor next to the bed.
"We don't have to," Sean says into Tom's mouth.
"Yes, we do." Tom steps back and pulls the dress over her head. "I've been wet for you for so long." She comes back to him, and she's not wearing a bra, just panties and a whole lot of bare skin Sean gets to put his hands on.
"You're beautiful." Sean runs his hands down her back, brings them around to cup her breasts. "Beautiful," he says again, bending down and nuzzling into her breasts. He licks over her nipple with the flat of his tongue, comes back to flick at it until it hardens into a point that he sucks into his mouth.
Tom's hand guides his downward, and he keeps going even when she stops, until he can slip his fingers under the edge of her boyshorts and down, until he can feel her wet on his fingers.
"Sean." Her hands skim over his back, pull at the hem of his shirt. "You should get your clothes off."
By the time he gets out of his clothes, she's lying back on his bed, underwear still on and waiting for him. She takes Sean's breath away. He's not too stupid not to take advantage of it, though, so a moment later he's spread out on top of her.
"This okay?"
Tom says, "Yes," and puts her hands on him, touching him everywhere.
Sean does the same, getting his hand back down her boyshorts and kissing her for so long that his lips are going to be chapped later. He wants to fuck her. He's hard and rubbing against her hip, cock dragging over cloth and skin.
Tom makes the decision. One of her hands leaves his body, and he doesn't know what she's doing with it until she slips it into his, the foil of a condom packet between them.
"If you ask me if I'm sure one more time," she says when he pulls away to do just that, "you're never getting laid."
So he doesn't. He watches her squirm out of her underwear while he rips open the condom and rolls it down his cock.
"Beautiful." He says it against her cheek, the bridge of her nose, her mouth. He says it before he sinks down, before the heat of her cunt around his cock takes away all his words. It's not like it's going to take long, with how much he wants this, how long he's wanted this.
Sean gets his hand between them, fingers nudging at the place where his body joins Tom's. "Tell me what you need," he manages to say.
Tom doesn't tell him; she twists her fingers with Sean's and shows him what she likes. They're going to have to do this again, when he's not so close to coming, because he's not going to remember any of it. It's enough, though. It's Tom breathing hot against his cheek and all of her skin under his. It's her breath catching on moans and her cunt tight around his cock. It's his name on her lips and her fingers digging into his back. And then it's her whole body tensing under him as she comes. He doesn't have to hold back anymore after that, and he doesn't, thrusts into her and comes with her voice urging him on.
He sinks down onto her, kissing her and stroking his hands over her face, down her sides, until she says, "Condom," and he has to stop to take the condom off before he can go back to kissing her like they have all the time in the world. She kisses him back the same way.
They do that for a long time, long enough that Tom starts twisting against him and Sean gets hard. She gets on her hands and knees for him and he puts one hand on the bed for balance and one under her to get her off.
*
Over the next week, Tom sucks him off twice, he goes down on her three times, they have sex in his room three times, hers four, once in the shower, twice on the couch - once with Tom bent over the arm of it, once with Sean sitting on it and Tom riding him - and once in the kitchen, which is mostly the two of them laughing as they try to figure it out until Tom turns around, spreads her legs, and braces herself on the counter.
*
Their band and Danielle spread out over their living room, taking up most of their couch, a couple of chairs, space on the floor. They don't own very many chairs, but it's their place, so Sean's claimed a corner of the couch instead of a patch of floor.
Tom rolls the joints, doing two at once while she's relatively sober and setting the second one aside for later. She sits on Sean's lap, lights the first one, and exhales her second hit into Sean's mouth. It's the only hit he gets, because while he's kissing her around it, someone else takes the joint away from them.
"Oh my God," Ryan groans. "Please tell me you're going to get this out of your system before we go on tour."
Tom breaks away from Sean and laughs hard enough that Sean starts worrying about her breathing. "I think you're forgetting that I've actually been on tour in a van with someone I was sleeping with." She grins down at Sean. "I know how to make that work."
Sean winds his hand into her hair and takes her mouth, harder than before. When they're on tour, he's going to replace all of her memories with new ones.
*
The rest of them don't leave until late, and they're both drunk, both a little high since the joints did come back their way eventually. Sean steers them into his room, gets Tom's clothes off and pushes her down onto his bed.
"It wasn't all bad." She puts her arms around him when he gets in bed with her, leans over her to get at the box of condoms on the floor. "With Mike. It was fun for a while."
Sean doesn't want to hear about it, ever. He tears the condom wrapper open.
"You and me. We're going to have so much fun." Tom takes the condom from him and rolls it on, the touch of her hands on his dick almost enough to make him come right then.
He fucks her instead, hard, slamming into her. He doesn't try to do anything to get her off, but she never stops urging him on, never stops saying, "Yes," and "Sean," not until after he comes, and then she says, "Goddamnit, Sean," and shoves at him.
Sean pulls out of her, kisses her mouth once, then skims kisses all the way down her body. He mouths and licks and sucks at the soft, wet folds of her cunt until she comes with his name on her lips.
Sean gets up and takes his clothes off before he gets back in bed with her. He's sobering up a little, and, fuck, he hopes this didn't fuck things up. "You okay?"
Tom's arm wraps around his neck. "I'm great. That was great." She mouths at his jaw. "You can fuck me through the mattress any day of the week."
*
Tom's experience comes in handy on tour. They have sex in bathrooms, storage closets, the van when everyone else is partying, someone else's bed when they stay at a friend of a friend's. Once, they have sex in the van while they're driving, Al and Ryan in the front, Max sleeping just behind them where he was involved in their conversation.
Tom and Sean are supposed to be sleeping, all the way in the back, her sleeping bag under them and his over them. Sean rocks into her, biting his lip and hand over Tom's mouth to keep them quiet. His other hand rubs her clit, and she bites his hand when she comes.
After, she kisses his palm and whispers, "Sorry."
Sean kisses the back of her neck. "There wasn't anything about that I didn't like." He straightens their clothes, tucks the used condom into a fast food napkin into his bag. "Nothing."
*
It all goes to hell on the last night of their tour. Sean crosses the green room when they're almost ready to go and puts his arms around Tom.
She shoves him away, yells, "Don't touch me!"
Sean takes three steps back, hands out and up, fingers spread wide. Tom looks as shocked as he feels.
"Sean," she says, her mouth tight.
Sean shakes his head and steps back again. Their band is staring at them, a couple of people from the venue still hanging around.
When they get everything packed up, Sean climbs into the driver's seat. His turn, and Ryan next to him to keep him awake. They're barely five miles down the highway before Tom says, "Switch with me," and sends Ryan into the back.
They drive in silence for a while, only the low hum of Sean's driving playlist run through the adapter into the speakers making any noise, the occasional shift of one of the others in the back.
"I don't want to be like this," Tom says. "I don't want to freak if you sneak up on me."
"Tom." Sean hates that she starts these conversations when he's doing something else, when he can't touch her. Hates that she needs to do it that way.
"I hate it," she says, swift and fierce, and still too low to carry into the back. "I don't want you to stop fucking me."
Sean grips the wheel and stares out at the almost empty highway. If he looks at her, he's going to do something stupid. "I don't think," he says, "that anything could make me stop loving you."
She's quiet for a while. He glances over at her when he thinks he can without having to jerk the van to a stop at the side of the road. She doesn't need him touching her right now. She doesn't want him touching her right now.
"I don't want you to stop fucking me," she says again.
Sean stares at the road, looking out into the darkness. "I'll fuck you just inside the door when we get home if that's what you want."
"Yes."
She said it, but she's still tense, and Sean knows, he knows, because he knows her and because she's not the only one who can use the internet, how what Mike did to her can fuck a person up, but he doesn't know what to do to make it better, to make them better.
"I don't know what you want from me," he says.
She takes in a breath that he hears, over the low sound of the music, over the sound of the road rushing by below them. "Sean." Her voice breaks on his name, and it takes everything he has not to stop the van.
"I love you," he says, "and I want you and I don't know what to do."
"Don't stop fucking me," she says. "Don't decide I'm not worth it."
It takes everything Sean has in him not to pull the van over and yank her into his arms. "Jesus fucking Christ, Tom," Sean swears. He keeps his voice low, even though he wants to shout it. They don't need to be overheard, and he doesn't want to scare her. "You are worth everything and that bastard never deserved you."
"I should have told him."
Sean's heart is breaking for her, and he can't do anything about it because they're hurtling down a dark highway at sixty miles an hour. "It was your choice."
"I would tell you," Tom says as if he hasn't said anything. "I might not do it if it were you."
"It would still be your choice. I would rather you tell me, but it would be your choice." Sean wants to take her hand, wants to have his arms around her for this, wants to be able to still the tremor in her voice. "You're worth it, and I'm not going to stop loving you."
"I'm messed up."
"And I'm not a nice guy." Sean glances over, and this time he does reach for her hand. "I wouldn't know how to not be in love with you."
She lets him take it, curls her fingers tight around his, and they drive through the dark for another ten, twenty, thirty miles before her grip loosens, like she knows she doesn't have to hold that tight to keep him.
*
They drop off Al, Max, and Ryan and take the van home with them. Most of the crap can stay there until they get around to it, so they just grab their duffels and sleeping bags and head up.
Sean unlocks the door and lets Tom go in first. She stops just far enough in for both of them to drop their stuff and Sean to close the door.
"You still want-" Sean starts to ask, and Tom turns and throws herself into his arms.
"Yes," she says. She kisses him hard, plastering herself to him.
"Okay, okay." Sean takes charge of getting them undressed, letting her be in charge of rubbing up against him and getting him hard. A condom is easy; one of the things Tom learned from experience was to always have one on hand. Sean grabs the one from his pocket.
"Now." Tom wraps a leg around his hip. "Now, come on."
Sean slips a finger into her to make sure she's wet. He'll do this if it's what she wants, if it's what she needs, but he's not going to hurt her to do it. She's slick around him, and she whines and squeezes around his finger even as she growls at him.
"Just fuck me."
Sean spreads her slick around a little as he takes his finger out of her, so it'll be a little easier for her. There's lube somewhere in the apartment, in their bags too, which makes the going easier when they want to fuck all day, but he promised to fuck her right inside the door, so that's what he's going to do.
He's still trying to figure out how this is going to work when she gets on the floor, one of their rolled sleeping bags under her hips holding her up. Sean puts the condom on and yanks at the elastic around the other sleeping bag so he can push it under her knees.
"Sean, fuck." Tom reaches back for him. "Just, please."
Sean curls over her, his knees inside hers, his chest flat over her back, his hand joining hers on the floor. He uses his other hand to guide himself into her, then it goes onto the floor too. And then Sean fucks her, hard and fast. They've both been thinking about it too long - hours of driving down the highway - for it to last. Sean comes, but she doesn't, so he sinks back on his heels, pulling her with him, and works his hands over her body until she does.
They leave everything where it is, and Sean flips the light out before he takes her to bed in her room, the one with sheets that might be clean if Danielle changed them while she was picking up their mail.
He wants to lay Tom out and spend some time, slow, soft time, working her over, showing her what he's not sure she believes when he says it. He's too tired, though - they're too tired - so he settles for kissing her, long and slow and deep.
*
"You don't have to," Tom says when he takes his time with her after they wake up.
"I know." Sean trails his lips down her shin. "I know I don't." He makes her come over and over again, with his mouth, with his hands, with his cock, until they're both exhausted.
"You didn't have to," Tom says after, when they're lying sticky and sweaty in bed.
"I know." Sean would back that up with something physical, but he's too tired to move.
"It wasn't all bad." Tom turns, so her face is tucked into his neck, right against his skin. "You don't have to show me what it could be like."
Sean wraps his arms all the way around her, holds her close. "I don't want you to decide I'm not what you want either."
Tom's quiet for a long time, her breathing going even and relaxed, but not all the way asleep. Sean's starting to doze off when she speaks again.
"He didn't fuck me again after he found out."
Sean's wide awake now, and they're having one of these conversations while they're touching. While they're naked and Sean's arms are tight around her.
"Okay." He's awake, but he's still exhausted and not functioning on all cylinders, and he has no fucking idea what to do with this.
Tom exhales a sigh into his neck. "We might have been okay if he did."
That snaps the moment into full focus, and Sean rolls them over, careful in the limited space of the bed, and pins her down with his weight. "No," he says. "No. He hit you. He hurt you. That would never have been okay."
Tom looks away from him. "He loved me first. We were supposed to talk about things."
Sean wants to fucking kill Mike, but he holds it together enough to say, "Then he should have talked to you instead of hitting you."
Tom's gaze snaps back to his face, her eyes wide and her mouth dropping open just a little, like she'd never even thought of that.
Sean cups her cheek, so she won't look away from him again. "Don't ever think you can't talk to me because of him. I'm not him."
"I know. I know you're not." Tom's mouth twists. "I don't want you to be careful with me. I don't want you to have to be careful with me."
Sean slips his hand down her side, cups one of her knees. He knows from his careful exploration of her body that they're still red, and probably a little sore when he squeezes.
"I'm not always." He brings his hand back up, cups her cheeks and rubs a line under her eyes with his thumbs.
"But you are sometimes." Tom wraps her hand around one of his. "Don't be."
Sean pulls their hands up and kisses hers. "All right. As long as I can, I won't be." He taps her face with his other hand. "But I won't do anything to hurt you. Tell me if I need to be and I'm not."
"Yeah," Tom whispers. "Okay."
*
Sean stops being so careful, starts treating Tom exactly how he would treat any other woman he was dating. Well, not exactly, because she's Tom, but he stops being careful.
They have music together. Sean can wander from his room with a guitar and a notebook and wherever she is, she'll listen to him, and half the time she takes the guitar and makes it better, or gets her own so they can play together.
They have sex. Oh, do they have sex. Tom jerks him off unprompted in a bar bathroom. He goes down on her in the practice space after everyone else has gone home. They fuck in his bed and hers and inside the doorway.
They have a life.
*
Sean wanders out of his room and into Tom's, joining her on the bed. "If we get a one-bedroom, we can move to a nicer place." He's not really suggesting it, just speculating out loud. "Somewhere there aren't knife fights in the alley outside our window." He rolls over to look at Tom, and she's sitting up, stiff, her back against the wall. That's not good. "Tom?" Sean asks, staying still and relaxed. Not a threat.
"No." Tom scrambles off the bed and around him. "Your window." She crosses her arms across her chest. "I'm fine."
Sean makes the mistake of letting out half a laugh. "You spend as much time in there as in here."
"It's your room."
"They might as well both be both our rooms." Sean stays out when she wants him to, but otherwise, they go back and forth whenever they feel like it, or when one of their beds is too much of a mess to fuck in comfortably.
"No," Tom says, voice straining toward a breaking point. "That one's yours and this one is mine."
He shouldn't, he really shouldn't, but Sean lets that get to him, because she's talking boundaries, and that's not what they have. They share, everything from music to space to beds.
"That's bullshit and you know it." Sean sits up so he can see her better. "They're our rooms."
Tom sets her jaw in the way she only does on those rare occasions when she's about to be really stubborn and really mad. "This one's mine. Stop telling me how to live my life."
"I'm not telling you how to do anything." Sean has to fight not to shout at her. This is their life, and he thought they were both in it together. "I'm just describing how you're already living it."
"No, you're not. You're telling me what to do." Tom points at him. "You don't get to do that."
"Yeah, and if I were you could yell at me, but I'm not. They're both our rooms." Sean points around the room. "That's my notebook. Those are my shoes. That's the box of condoms I bought. You want to go into the other room? Because I know what's in there. One of your cameras. Your bra. The box of condoms you bought."
After a moment, Tom moves around the room, following the direction of Sean's pointing, and picks up the notebook, the shoes, and the condoms, and chucks them all out of the room and across into the other one where he can hear them clatter against the floor.
Sean clenches his jaw, and makes himself unclench it to speak. "That doesn't change anything. This is still our space."
"This is my room!"
"It's mine too!" He probably shouldn't shout at her, but he's so angry that she won't just see what they have. "This would be a lot easier if we had just one!"
"No! You know who else used to want me to do things his way? Mike! You're acting just like him." Tom's eyes go wide after she says it, and she takes a step toward him. "Sean."
"No." Sean sucks in a breath and holds up a hand to make her stay back. "No. I need to not be here." He doesn't touch her when he goes around her to get out of the room, and he loves her enough to say, "I'll be back," before he doesn't quite slam the front door behind him.
He walks for a while. A long time, going by the passing of the sun into night into street lights coming on. Long enough that his legs and feet are tired. Long enough that his anger burns down. Long enough that he stops walking aimlessly and starts walking with a purpose.
Danielle opens her door when Sean knocks on it. Either she figures it out from context or Tom called her because she just lets him in without asking any questions.
"What he did to her," Sean says, saying out loud the thing he didn't want to think about while he was walking. "He didn't just hit her."
Danielle scrubs a hand over her face. "No, I don't think so." She sits down.
Despite how tired he is, Sean doesn't.
"They were traveling so much," Danielle says. "It made it easy not to notice when she didn't call as often."
"And then they came back," Sean says.
"And then they came back," Danielle repeats. "And things were so bad with the band that I didn't see it, until she called and asked me to drive her to the clinic."
Sean paces back and forth across the living room a couple of times, then crouches down, runs his hands through his hair. He wants to beat Carden's face in. He stands in one movement, hands pushing on his knees to provide leverage.
"Thank you," he says, meaning it for more than just the confirmation of everything he doesn't want to be true.
Sean waits outside the door until he hears Danielle turn the lock and put the chain on, and then he goes home.
He makes enough noise for Tom to hear him, and she's waiting for him by the time he gets to the living room. They look at each other without speaking for a long time.
"I'm sorry," Tom says first. "I shouldn't have said that to you."
Sean slides down to sit on the floor, his back against the wall. "No, you shouldn't have. I'm sorry I yelled at you." He won't say he's sorry for pointing out that both rooms belong to both of them.
Tom says, "You left," and now Sean can see how wretched she looks.
Sean catches and holds her eyes. "I just needed some space. I didn't leave you. I won't. I love you."
Because he's looking right at her, he can see her blink away tears, even from across the room. "I love you too," she says.
Sean opens his arms. "Come here."
There's an agonizingly long moment when she doesn't, before she comes across the room and lowers herself into his arms, her knees on either side of his hips and her head on his shoulder.
"I don't know what to do," he says, and she looks up at him. "I don't know how to help you. I don't know if I can."
"We can't-" Tom looks away. "I can't afford therapy."
"We can't," Sean says, and she looks at him again. "We." Sean cups her face so she can't look away again. "There's a we, and this is our life. I'm not trying to control it, but it's not just yours or mine. It's ours."
"We can't afford it," Tom says.
Sean slips his hands under her shirt, feeling her skin and cupping the familiar jut of her shoulder blades. "We'll figure it out."
Tom rests her forehead on his. "We?"
"We."
Tom tilts her head to kiss him. "Sean," she murmurs after a bit. She shifts a little, takes one of her hands away from him, and comes back up with a condom.
"You," he says, something like a question hovering over him.
Tom pushes the condom into his hand. "Please."
Sean curls his fingers around the condom and kisses her.
*
Tom tries three different support groups before she finds one she likes. She goes once a week and comes home thoughtful or tearful or calm. Sometimes she comes home and they have sex wherever she finds him. Sometimes she doesn't come home at all, and Sean gets a text from Danielle: Tom's staying with me tonight.
Once, Tom doesn't come home for three days. She slinks in, when she finally does, wearing her own jeans and shirt Sean's seen on Danielle.
"Do you want me to leave?" Sean asks, and Tom's attention snaps to him.
"No!"
"I don't want to." Sean can't stop looking at her, drinking her in. It's the longest they've been apart since they started sleeping together. "I don't want you to feel like you can't be in your home."
"No." Tom shakes her head, then comes to sit with him on the couch. She tucks herself under his arm, leans into his chest. "I'm working on it. Just love me."
Sean kisses the top of her head, the only place he can reach without moving her. "I do."
They sit there in silence for a very long time.
*
Sean lasts the better part of a week before he says, getting into bed with Tom one night, "I don't want to sound like the kind of asshole who's only after one thing, but I miss the sex."
"My group thinks I need to prove to myself that I'm good for something other than sex." Tom doesn't look at him when she says it, but she doesn't get out of bed or push him away either.
"You're good for a lot of things." Sean kisses her shoulder. "Making music, taking photos, paying half the rent."
Tom laughs and rolls over to face him. "I miss the sex too. If I suck your cock, will you reciprocate?"
Sean kisses her, lightly, and then deeper when her hands find the waistband of his underwear. "When have I ever not?"
Tom's smile is joyful and a little wondrous. "You really are an incredibly good boyfriend."
Sean has to kiss her for that. "It's not going to fuck with your-" Sean makes a gesture, not even knowing what to call it.
Tom shakes her head. "No." She slides down Sean's body, pushing the the blankets down with her until she's between his legs.
Sean helps her wriggle his underwear off, and then he can't do anything but try not to thrust too hard because Tom doesn't bother with foreplay. She takes him in and sucks hard. One of her hands cups his balls while the other finds his hand and holds on. It's been a long time, for them, since Sean last got off to anything other than his own hand and Tom's lips stretch into a smile around his cock when she notices him looking. Sean comes hard and almost embarrassingly quickly.
"My turn." Tom strips and lays herself out on the bed.
Sean doesn't waste any time returning the favor.
Tom's already wet. Sean licks into her to to taste it before he licks more of her, soft folds of skin and up to her clit, finding all the places he knows she likes. He does what she did and uses one hand to make it better for her and the other to hold hers.
Tom's not always loud, but today she is. She says, "Sean," and, "Yes," and, "There," before her words collapse into formless sounds. She says, very clearly, "I love you," and then shudders almost silently into her orgasm.
Sean pulls the blankets up with him, draping them over both of them while he hovers over Tom. "Do you know how much I love you?"
Tom smiles up at him, sleepy, relaxed, beautiful. "I know how much I love you."
*
Tom goes to her knees for Sean on stage, spends half of "My Poor Lover" right where he can see her hair, head bent over her guitar, every time he looks down.
The crowd yells for them, he can practically feel Ryan's smirk from behind him, and he's pretty sure Max is hiding behind his hair.
Tom gets up, one fluid motion from knees to feet, and steps back to her part of the stage, guitar under his words with no hesitation.
She chooses to do this at a goddamn hometown Chicago show, which means they spend the next four hours talking to fans, hugging everyone they know, and going out for drinks, when all Sean wants to do is take Tom home and fuck her. By the time they get to the stage of drinks with slightly less than half of Chicago, he's ready to settle for the bathroom.
Tom keeps smiling at him, her eyes meeting his over her drink, whether she's right by his side or halfway across the room talking to Danielle.
Sean's at the bar, taking a shot with Ryan, when Tom sidles up next to him and puts her drink down. She wraps her arm around his waist, puts her head on his shoulder. "You should take me home."
Sean almost chokes on his shot, glares at Ryan when he starts laughing, and puts his arm around Tom. He wants to keep her close before she can change her mind.
It still takes twenty minutes to get out of the bar, and it's followed by an even more interminable bus ride that means the moment Tom gets their door unlocked, Sean pushes her through it and slams it behind him.
Tom reaches past him to flip the locks, and goddammit, she knows exactly what she's doing to him. "In a hurry?"
"Yes." Sean takes her mouth, kissing her hard, and harder and deeper, as long as she lets him. "You can't do that when I can't do anything about it."
"Can't I?" Tom grins at him, ducks out of his arms, and unbuttons her flannel shirt while she walks backwards. There aren't any lights on, but it's their apartment, their space, and there's nothing to trip on until she drops her shirt on the floor, and the t-shirt she was wearing under it after that.
Sean follows her and her trail of clothes like breadcrumbs into her bedroom. He leaves his own trail behind him, shoes and hoodie, shirt and socks. Tom's the one to reach for his pants when he meets her in the bedroom. Her hands unbutton, unzip, push them down, get him all the way naked and push him onto the bed.
Sean sits up on his elbows and watches her take off her jeans. He wants to touch, wants to pull her right into bed with him, but she wants something, or has a plan, and he's going to let her have her way. Will always let her have her way, and more because he loves her than because someone else hurt her.
"Condom," Tom says, so Sean leans over the side of the bed for the box. He's hard enough that touching himself as he puts the condom on is almost torture, and it gets worse when Tom lowers herself onto him with no more foreplay than what she's already done to him all night.
Sean gets his hand in her hair, tips her head back so he can suck a mark onto her neck. "I can't believe you did that," he says.
"You liked it." Tom grinds down onto him. "You liked me on my knees."
"Yes," Sean hisses. He bites at her shoulder, hard. "Yes, I fucking liked it." He keeps one hand in her hair, grabs at her ass with the other one. "What do you want?"
"This," Tom gasps. "But like that time on the floor."
Sean knows what she means, and it takes a moment for him to find the coordination to draw his knees under himself, so he's kneeling with her draped over him.
"Yes," Tom says, and again when Sean uses the leverage he has now to thrust up into her. She keeps saying, "Yes," and she looms over him, hands on either side of his face, watching him, making him watch her mouth form the word over and over again.
Sean can barely manage words, her name sometimes, and a muttered, "Fuck," but nothing else, nothing of substance. All he can do is feel the way she takes him in, touches him, shares her breath with him.
Tom takes over, moving on him with enough determination that he doesn't try to counter her rhythm. He lets her have it, have him, and she does. She might come from what she's doing; he will.
"Tom," he says. "I'm-"
"Yes," she says. One of her hands has slipped to his shoulder for leverage, but the other is still on his cheek. "Now." Her thumb pushes between his lips.
Sean opens his mouth when he comes, so he doesn't hurt her, and closes it again after to taste her skin.
By then, Tom's eyes are starting to go hazy and unfocused. "Sean," she says.
He spent so much of the evening on edge that his orgasm has drained him to the point that he just wants to lie down. He doesn't. He finds her clit with his fingers and stays there until she comes and folds over him. Then he makes her lie down with him. She stays on top of him after he takes care of the condom, her hands touching his face, his hair, her fingers running over the sensitive skin of his lips.
"I don't need space," she says.
It takes a moment for Sean to track the conversation. He's expecting a little making out before they fall asleep, not a readjustment of their whole life together. Their life together, that's what Tom's talking about. She's talking about being his in a whole other way, about choosing that. About being safe with him.
Sean smiles at her, runs his thumb in a line over her cheek. "You're not going to make me look at Craigslist listings right now, are you?"
Tom laughs, her face turning bright with it. There are no shadows there. "No." She slides off of him, still touching him, but at his side. "Tomorrow."
"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow," Sean says.
Tom makes a face. "I'm not dead yet."
"No." Sean squeezes her to him reflexively. "But until you do." It's too much, but he means it.
Tom meets his eyes, looks at him for a long time before she nods. "Til death do us part," she says. "Okay."
"Okay," Sean says back to her, binding as any vow.
Notes: Many thanks to siryn99 for encouragement and talking this out with me. Any remaining roughness is due to me, not her. Title from Empires' "Spit the Dark."
Warnings: Past domestic violence and discussion thereof. Past abortion and discussion thereof. Villainous Mike Carden.
Story on AO3
It only happened once, when they were still learning to live together, still getting used to sharing the same space. Sean reached around Tom into the fridge, and she flinched, jumped, pushed him away hard enough to send him careening into the counter. They both apologized, and Tom laughed it off, sounding strained. For the sake of harmonious living, Sean didn't call her on it.
He hasn't even thought of it since then, but he just saw her make the same movement, without the shoving, and it's Mike standing next to her by the keg. Sean is putting two and two together and coming up with a four he doesn't much like.
He's trying to decide if he should intervene - and figure out what the hell he can he do - when Danielle steps between Tom and Mike, her back to Mike. Danielle takes Tom's hand and leads her away from Mike. Tom doesn't date, and most people think it's because of Danielle, but Sean lives with Tom, and he knows that while there's something there - something strong and intense - it's not sex.
Wherever Danielle leads Tom is deep enough into the party that Sean loses sight of them. He catches up with Tom later, approaching her carefully, so she sees him, before he sits down on the floor next to her.
"I'm pretty drunk," she says.
"Yeah, I can see that." Sean's a little drunk himself, but not as much as her. Not so much that he can't control himself when she leans on his shoulder.
"You should take me home."
"Yeah, alright." It takes a moment to get himself up - maybe he's a little drunker than he thought - and offer his hands to pull her up. "You need to find Danielle?"
Tom sways against him. "Yeah." She fumbles with her phone before giving it to Sean.
Sean scrolls through to Danielle's number, hits send, and hands the phone back to Tom.
"Sean's taking me home."
Sean's close, but not close enough to hear what Danielle says.
Tom giggles. "Yeah, okay." She clicks her phone off and puts it back in her pocket. "Danielle's coming. She's by the keg." She leans on Sean while they wait for Danielle to join them.
*
Tom comes home out of sorts and scowling. She joins Sean on the couch with a joint already rolled, flopping down onto it with her feet over the arm and her head in his lap, taking a steady drag before offering him the joint.
They smoke in silence for a while, until the front door opens. Sean's not in the least surprised that it's Danielle. She leans over them, and Sean has a sudden paranoia that he's been wrong about everything when she says, "Hey, baby," and kisses Tom's cheek as softly as she spoke.
"Sean's taking care of me," Tom says, and that doesn't do anything to put Sean's world back on its proper axis.
Danielle picking up Tom's feet and sitting down, taking the joint from Sean, helps. It's more normal, and she passes it back to Tom, and from there Sean gets it again, and he mellows out in no time.
"It would've sucked not to have this," Tom says, sounding for all the world like she's continuing a conversation, even though it doesn't follow from anything they've talked about since Tom got home.
It's not for Sean, though, because it's Danielle who says, "You always made the right decision." When Sean looks, Danielle's hand is under the hem of Tom's jeans, rubbing her ankle, and he still doesn't know what they're talking about.
*
Past midnight outside a bar, taking drags off of Tom's cigarettes so he can still say he doesn't smoke, and a familiar figure cuts through the night toward them. Sean's fine with Bill, will be loyal to Tom but doesn't hate Bill. Tom's uneasy, still, polite but not happy to see him. Usually. Tonight, Bill comes with Mike, and Sean's stomach drops at the way Tom stifles her flinch, takes a step away from Mike.
Sean puts the cigarette back in Tom's hand. She needs something to hold onto, and if things get really bad, she can jab it into Mike's eye. Sean doesn't think things will get quite that bad, but he remembers the way she jerked away from Mike that time at the party, knows the way she accepts Sean and Max now but sometimes puts herself in a place at practice where she can always see Ryan and Al.
Tom doesn't shrink, after that first step back, and she and Sean tell Bill how recording is going, and he tells them, over the moon about it and only encouraged by their attention and Tom's slight smile, that his daughter is the most amazing thing ever.
"Jesus, Bill," Mike says, "you know she doesn't give a fuck about that." It's wrong, too nasty for the situation, and, fuck, Sean wishes he'd had one less beer.
Bill stops midsentence, and they're all silent, holding their breath, waiting for what's next.
"She's a selfish bitch who doesn't give a shit about kids."
"Just because I didn't want to have yours," Tom says, hisses, and Mike's hand comes up before she even finishes that half a sentence.
Bill pulls Mike back at the same time Sean steps forward, sliding between Tom and Mike and wishing he had Danielle here for backup, because he's adding two to the four he's already come up with and, oh, fuck, does he not like that six.
"Don't," Sean says. He's not a violent guy, as a general rule, but his hand is curled into a fist at his side, and he's not going to regret it if Mike comes closer and gives him a reason. "Do not even think about laying a hand on her."
"Mike," Bill snaps without losing any of the consonants. "Let it go. We can't afford this, not now."
Mike spits out, "Fucking cunt," but goes into the bar with Bill.
Tom's cigarette is on the ground, forgotten. Sean steps on it, grinding it out under his heel, and opens his hands, holds them loose at his sides and waits for Tom to notice him.
"I need a shot," she says. They both look at the bar, but Bill and Mike went in there. They walk until they find another one, and Tom downs four shots in quick succession before Sean cuts her off.
"You can't choke on your own vomit and die," he says. "I need you to pay the rent and play guitar."
Tom laughs a little, until it turns into a sob, and Sean shells out money he doesn't really have for a cab to take them home.
*
Danielle shows up early afternoon with saltines and ginger ale. She and Tom cuddle on the couch, relegating Sean to the chair, the floor, or his room. He picks the floor, for a while, head leaning back on the couch where he can just feel the heat of Tom's body, before he goes to his room. The something that's there between them doesn't need him in the room, not today.
Tom comes to his room anyway, after Danielle leaves. "He hit me," she says from the doorway.
Sean forces himself not to tense, not to do anything that could scare her. "I guessed."
Tom doesn't say anything for a while, and when she does, it's, "It took a while before I left," and, fuck, Sean is sorry he didn't take a swing at Mike last night.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Tom shakes her head and sits down, as far away from him as she can be while still being in the same room. "Play me what you've been working on."
*
When Tom tells him the rest, it's a night when Danielle's there too, the three of them passing a joint around, Sean and Danielle on the couch, Tom slipping down onto the floor in front of it.
Tom finishes off the joint and says, "I had an abortion," on her exhale. "Without telling him."
Jesus fucking Christ. That six is more like a seven, and worse than Sean thought.
"And that was when he hit me the first time, and then it all went to hell and Danielle had a black eye too from when she helped me move out."
Sean slides to the floor. Even if Tom won't look at him, he needs to be closer to her. "Tom," he says, "baby," and that slips out without him meaning to, and she turns her head to look at him, jaw set and eyes fierce.
"I don't regret it. Mike turned out to be a shitty choice, but I don't regret for one second having an abortion."
"No," Sean says. "No, you shouldn't." He reaches for her slowly, and she lets him, lets him pull her close, lets him tuck her head under his chin.
"I might want kids someday," she says, "but not then, and not with him."
Danielle slides to the floor too, kneels next to them, leans on Tom's back, arms around both of them. "Baby," she says, "that was always your choice."
*
So now he knows, what secrets Tom and Danielle are keeping, why Tom doesn't date. He knows, and he's in love with Tom. He knows, and she stops making sure she can always see Al and Ryan at practice.
And then she comes out of her room one day and asks, "Do I look okay?"
As far as Sean's concerned, she always looks okay, but he can tell she's put some effort into it. "Yeah," he says, "you look nice. What's up?"
"I have a date." Tom fiddles with the buttons of her shirt, buttoning and then unbuttoning one of the higher buttons on the flannel over her t-shirt.
"With who?"
"His name's Josh. He came in to hang up some kind of men can stop rape posters." Tom buttons the button again, then lets it go. "Danielle has all his information. I promised to call her later. I'll call you or be home by midnight."
Sean watches her leave, and declines every invitation he gets to come hang out.
Tom actually gets home just after eleven and says, "Yeah, it was nice," when Sean asks if she had a good time.
*
Tom goes out with Josh three more times before Sean meets him. He's a nice guy, warm and caring, and hard to hate, no matter how much Sean wants to.
Tom never stays out later than two.
And then, on a Saturday, when Sean's looking at a text from Ryan, trying to decide if he'd rather go out or invite Ryan over, Tom comes home at nine-thirty.
"You're back early," he says.
"Josh and I broke up."
Sean puts his phone down. "You okay?"
She nods. "Yeah. It just wasn't working." She smiles at him a little. "I'm going to bed."
Sean picks up his phone after he hears her door closed. He thinks about texting Danielle, but in the end he just tells Ryan, Not tonight. Maybe next time.
He stays up for a while longer, but Tom doesn't come back out of her room.
*
Sean's hanging out on someone's couch, talking Radiohead with a guy who's actually read Pressfield, when Ryan wanders up to him and says, "This is hilarious," low enough that no one else hears him. "There's this guy talking to Tom, and he's about two minutes away from asking if she wants to see his etchings."
Sean cranes his head, looking around all the people between him and Tom, and sure enough, there's a guy talking to her. They don't really look like he's about to make a move on her, until the guy takes a step closer and puts his hand on her arm.
Sean doesn't know the guy, but he doesn't like the look of him, doesn't like the way he's looking at Tom. Really doesn't like the way he doesn't look like a nice guy. (He didn't need Danielle saying, "Like Tom was ever gonna stay with a guy that nice," to know that, no matter how much she regrets Mike, Tom likes guys with a little more edge than Josh.)
Tom is a grown woman, and she knows he's here somewhere and that he'll leave with her if she wants to go home, and he has to just accept that and let her do whatever she wants to do.
Ten minutes later, whatever she wants to do is crawl into his lap and lean in close and whisper, "This guy won't leave me alone. I told him I was here with my boyfriend," just before she kisses him.
Sean kisses her back, not even trying to pretend to himself that he's doing it for her, and keeps his hands light on the middle of her back instead of holding too tight to all the other places he could touch her.
It's a good kiss, even though it doesn't go very far and Ryan is laughing himself sick somewhere to their left. Tom smiles at him when she decides she's done, moves so she's more sitting on his lap than straddling him, and holds his hand for twenty minutes before laying her head on his shoulder and saying, "I'm tired. Can we go home?"
She doesn't let go of his hand until they're inside their apartment.
*
A couple of weeks later, after Sean sees Tom flirting with some guy who looks less like an asshole than the guy at the party but more dangerous than Josh, he knocks on her door. It's open, so it's mostly to get her attention, and she does look up from her laptop.
"What?"
"Nothing." Sean leans against the edge of her doorway, making sure there's enough room for her to leave if she wants. "Just, you seem better."
He's watching, he's watching her carefully, so he sees it when her hands tighten around the laptop for a moment.
"Yeah," she says. "Yeah, having someone else know. I'm glad it's not just Danielle and me."
Sean should probably say something helpful or supportive, but instead he says, "I wish I'd hit him, that night at the bar."
Tom scrunches up her face for a moment. "I've never figured out why Danielle didn't, when I was leaving."
Sean's pretty sure he knows why, the same reason he didn't: because taking care of Tom was more important than anything they could have done to Mike.
"Are you busy on Friday?"
Sean gets off work at three so, "No."
"Want to get a drink?"
Sean's about to say yes because they go out all the time, but there's something about the way she says it that makes him pause.
"A drink?"
"Yeah." She's a hell of a lot braver than he is, because she says, "Go on a date with me."
"Yes," he says, the moment she's done speaking.
She smiles at him. "I'll pick you up in the living room at seven."
*
On Friday, Sean's in the living room at six-fifty. Tom didn't even get home until six-forty-five, and she comes out to get him at seven, still pulling on a flannel shirt Sean's pretty sure is his over her t-shirt.
One drink turns into two turns into dinner turns into another drink, and then they're arguing about Pearl Jam and they go home where they sit on the couch with Tom's laptop, Sean's arm around Tom's shoulders and Tom leaning against his side, and take turns finding videos to prove their respective points.
When Tom yawns for the third time and says, "I had to work the early shift this morning. I should probably go to bed," Sean stops her before she can get up. He puts his hand on her cheek and leans in slowly enough that she could stop him if she wanted to. She doesn't, so he kisses her, soft and barely dipping in to taste her.
"I had a good time," he says, after that one kiss. "We should do this again."
Tom closes up her laptop, smiling the whole time. "Yeah, we should."
*
Dating someone you live with is weird. They go out for dinner on Tuesday, have coffee before band practice on Thursday, go to a movie on Friday, and in between they're just their normal selves, Tom drinking the last of the orange juice without getting more, Sean making her stay up late to work out the bridge to what might be a good song for the album, passing each other in the living room and the kitchen.
They tell the rest of the band, and promise it won't fuck anything up.
Sean's expecting something the next time Danielle comes over and Tom leaves them alone while she gets something from her room, but Danielle just says, "Hey, I know you're not going to hurt her," and that's that.
*
They go on a lot of dates, and sometimes they stay in and make out on the couch for a while.
It's a day after one of those nights, when Sean had bitten his lip so she wouldn't hear when he jerked himself off in the bathroom later, that Tom comes into his room. Sean's writing, sort of, sitting in the chair, guitar in his lap and feet up on his bed. Tom sits at the other end of the bed and starts out with, "I haven't had sex in a really long time."
Sean thinks this is probably the kind of conversation he shouldn't have with a guitar in his hands, but she knew he was playing when she came in, so he doesn't put it down. "Okay."
"A lot of guys don't get that I don't want to be knocked around or hurt just because I don't mind it being a little rough sometimes."
Sean gets hard so fast he's glad he still has the guitar in his lap.
"I'm not going to-" he tries to say.
"Sean," Tom interrupts, "you are. You're not a nice guy."
"I'm-"
"No, you're not. I know you're not gonna hurt me, but you're dark. What I'm saying is that mine are going to be the only clothes among yours on the floor."
That hits him like a punch to the gut, or a hand on his cock, Tom using his own lyrics to say she can keep up with him. He opens his mouth and says, "I love you."
Tom gets up and comes to Sean's end of the bed to lean over him. "Yeah," she says, "yeah, I love you." She kisses him, and it's not close enough because of the guitar, but she didn't come in here for anything else, so he doesn't try to change that.
"Do me a favor," he says, thinking as fast as he can, making a plan.
"What?"
"Go somewhere else on Friday afternoon, hang out with Danielle or something, just for a couple of hours. Come home at six."
Tom says, "Okay," easy and trusting, and Sean kisses her again, slower this time, appreciating her.
*
Tom comes home on Friday, and Sean knows she really did go to Danielle's because she comes home wearing a dress.
He almost doesn't want to wait, but he made her dinner, so they eat that and share a giant slice of the chocolate cake he bought at the grocery store.
After they finish the cake, Sean takes Tom to his room. He doesn't have sheets, but he straightened up the blankets and put a box of condoms on the floor next to the bed.
"We don't have to," Sean says into Tom's mouth.
"Yes, we do." Tom steps back and pulls the dress over her head. "I've been wet for you for so long." She comes back to him, and she's not wearing a bra, just panties and a whole lot of bare skin Sean gets to put his hands on.
"You're beautiful." Sean runs his hands down her back, brings them around to cup her breasts. "Beautiful," he says again, bending down and nuzzling into her breasts. He licks over her nipple with the flat of his tongue, comes back to flick at it until it hardens into a point that he sucks into his mouth.
Tom's hand guides his downward, and he keeps going even when she stops, until he can slip his fingers under the edge of her boyshorts and down, until he can feel her wet on his fingers.
"Sean." Her hands skim over his back, pull at the hem of his shirt. "You should get your clothes off."
By the time he gets out of his clothes, she's lying back on his bed, underwear still on and waiting for him. She takes Sean's breath away. He's not too stupid not to take advantage of it, though, so a moment later he's spread out on top of her.
"This okay?"
Tom says, "Yes," and puts her hands on him, touching him everywhere.
Sean does the same, getting his hand back down her boyshorts and kissing her for so long that his lips are going to be chapped later. He wants to fuck her. He's hard and rubbing against her hip, cock dragging over cloth and skin.
Tom makes the decision. One of her hands leaves his body, and he doesn't know what she's doing with it until she slips it into his, the foil of a condom packet between them.
"If you ask me if I'm sure one more time," she says when he pulls away to do just that, "you're never getting laid."
So he doesn't. He watches her squirm out of her underwear while he rips open the condom and rolls it down his cock.
"Beautiful." He says it against her cheek, the bridge of her nose, her mouth. He says it before he sinks down, before the heat of her cunt around his cock takes away all his words. It's not like it's going to take long, with how much he wants this, how long he's wanted this.
Sean gets his hand between them, fingers nudging at the place where his body joins Tom's. "Tell me what you need," he manages to say.
Tom doesn't tell him; she twists her fingers with Sean's and shows him what she likes. They're going to have to do this again, when he's not so close to coming, because he's not going to remember any of it. It's enough, though. It's Tom breathing hot against his cheek and all of her skin under his. It's her breath catching on moans and her cunt tight around his cock. It's his name on her lips and her fingers digging into his back. And then it's her whole body tensing under him as she comes. He doesn't have to hold back anymore after that, and he doesn't, thrusts into her and comes with her voice urging him on.
He sinks down onto her, kissing her and stroking his hands over her face, down her sides, until she says, "Condom," and he has to stop to take the condom off before he can go back to kissing her like they have all the time in the world. She kisses him back the same way.
They do that for a long time, long enough that Tom starts twisting against him and Sean gets hard. She gets on her hands and knees for him and he puts one hand on the bed for balance and one under her to get her off.
*
Over the next week, Tom sucks him off twice, he goes down on her three times, they have sex in his room three times, hers four, once in the shower, twice on the couch - once with Tom bent over the arm of it, once with Sean sitting on it and Tom riding him - and once in the kitchen, which is mostly the two of them laughing as they try to figure it out until Tom turns around, spreads her legs, and braces herself on the counter.
*
Their band and Danielle spread out over their living room, taking up most of their couch, a couple of chairs, space on the floor. They don't own very many chairs, but it's their place, so Sean's claimed a corner of the couch instead of a patch of floor.
Tom rolls the joints, doing two at once while she's relatively sober and setting the second one aside for later. She sits on Sean's lap, lights the first one, and exhales her second hit into Sean's mouth. It's the only hit he gets, because while he's kissing her around it, someone else takes the joint away from them.
"Oh my God," Ryan groans. "Please tell me you're going to get this out of your system before we go on tour."
Tom breaks away from Sean and laughs hard enough that Sean starts worrying about her breathing. "I think you're forgetting that I've actually been on tour in a van with someone I was sleeping with." She grins down at Sean. "I know how to make that work."
Sean winds his hand into her hair and takes her mouth, harder than before. When they're on tour, he's going to replace all of her memories with new ones.
*
The rest of them don't leave until late, and they're both drunk, both a little high since the joints did come back their way eventually. Sean steers them into his room, gets Tom's clothes off and pushes her down onto his bed.
"It wasn't all bad." She puts her arms around him when he gets in bed with her, leans over her to get at the box of condoms on the floor. "With Mike. It was fun for a while."
Sean doesn't want to hear about it, ever. He tears the condom wrapper open.
"You and me. We're going to have so much fun." Tom takes the condom from him and rolls it on, the touch of her hands on his dick almost enough to make him come right then.
He fucks her instead, hard, slamming into her. He doesn't try to do anything to get her off, but she never stops urging him on, never stops saying, "Yes," and "Sean," not until after he comes, and then she says, "Goddamnit, Sean," and shoves at him.
Sean pulls out of her, kisses her mouth once, then skims kisses all the way down her body. He mouths and licks and sucks at the soft, wet folds of her cunt until she comes with his name on her lips.
Sean gets up and takes his clothes off before he gets back in bed with her. He's sobering up a little, and, fuck, he hopes this didn't fuck things up. "You okay?"
Tom's arm wraps around his neck. "I'm great. That was great." She mouths at his jaw. "You can fuck me through the mattress any day of the week."
*
Tom's experience comes in handy on tour. They have sex in bathrooms, storage closets, the van when everyone else is partying, someone else's bed when they stay at a friend of a friend's. Once, they have sex in the van while they're driving, Al and Ryan in the front, Max sleeping just behind them where he was involved in their conversation.
Tom and Sean are supposed to be sleeping, all the way in the back, her sleeping bag under them and his over them. Sean rocks into her, biting his lip and hand over Tom's mouth to keep them quiet. His other hand rubs her clit, and she bites his hand when she comes.
After, she kisses his palm and whispers, "Sorry."
Sean kisses the back of her neck. "There wasn't anything about that I didn't like." He straightens their clothes, tucks the used condom into a fast food napkin into his bag. "Nothing."
*
It all goes to hell on the last night of their tour. Sean crosses the green room when they're almost ready to go and puts his arms around Tom.
She shoves him away, yells, "Don't touch me!"
Sean takes three steps back, hands out and up, fingers spread wide. Tom looks as shocked as he feels.
"Sean," she says, her mouth tight.
Sean shakes his head and steps back again. Their band is staring at them, a couple of people from the venue still hanging around.
When they get everything packed up, Sean climbs into the driver's seat. His turn, and Ryan next to him to keep him awake. They're barely five miles down the highway before Tom says, "Switch with me," and sends Ryan into the back.
They drive in silence for a while, only the low hum of Sean's driving playlist run through the adapter into the speakers making any noise, the occasional shift of one of the others in the back.
"I don't want to be like this," Tom says. "I don't want to freak if you sneak up on me."
"Tom." Sean hates that she starts these conversations when he's doing something else, when he can't touch her. Hates that she needs to do it that way.
"I hate it," she says, swift and fierce, and still too low to carry into the back. "I don't want you to stop fucking me."
Sean grips the wheel and stares out at the almost empty highway. If he looks at her, he's going to do something stupid. "I don't think," he says, "that anything could make me stop loving you."
She's quiet for a while. He glances over at her when he thinks he can without having to jerk the van to a stop at the side of the road. She doesn't need him touching her right now. She doesn't want him touching her right now.
"I don't want you to stop fucking me," she says again.
Sean stares at the road, looking out into the darkness. "I'll fuck you just inside the door when we get home if that's what you want."
"Yes."
She said it, but she's still tense, and Sean knows, he knows, because he knows her and because she's not the only one who can use the internet, how what Mike did to her can fuck a person up, but he doesn't know what to do to make it better, to make them better.
"I don't know what you want from me," he says.
She takes in a breath that he hears, over the low sound of the music, over the sound of the road rushing by below them. "Sean." Her voice breaks on his name, and it takes everything he has not to stop the van.
"I love you," he says, "and I want you and I don't know what to do."
"Don't stop fucking me," she says. "Don't decide I'm not worth it."
It takes everything Sean has in him not to pull the van over and yank her into his arms. "Jesus fucking Christ, Tom," Sean swears. He keeps his voice low, even though he wants to shout it. They don't need to be overheard, and he doesn't want to scare her. "You are worth everything and that bastard never deserved you."
"I should have told him."
Sean's heart is breaking for her, and he can't do anything about it because they're hurtling down a dark highway at sixty miles an hour. "It was your choice."
"I would tell you," Tom says as if he hasn't said anything. "I might not do it if it were you."
"It would still be your choice. I would rather you tell me, but it would be your choice." Sean wants to take her hand, wants to have his arms around her for this, wants to be able to still the tremor in her voice. "You're worth it, and I'm not going to stop loving you."
"I'm messed up."
"And I'm not a nice guy." Sean glances over, and this time he does reach for her hand. "I wouldn't know how to not be in love with you."
She lets him take it, curls her fingers tight around his, and they drive through the dark for another ten, twenty, thirty miles before her grip loosens, like she knows she doesn't have to hold that tight to keep him.
*
They drop off Al, Max, and Ryan and take the van home with them. Most of the crap can stay there until they get around to it, so they just grab their duffels and sleeping bags and head up.
Sean unlocks the door and lets Tom go in first. She stops just far enough in for both of them to drop their stuff and Sean to close the door.
"You still want-" Sean starts to ask, and Tom turns and throws herself into his arms.
"Yes," she says. She kisses him hard, plastering herself to him.
"Okay, okay." Sean takes charge of getting them undressed, letting her be in charge of rubbing up against him and getting him hard. A condom is easy; one of the things Tom learned from experience was to always have one on hand. Sean grabs the one from his pocket.
"Now." Tom wraps a leg around his hip. "Now, come on."
Sean slips a finger into her to make sure she's wet. He'll do this if it's what she wants, if it's what she needs, but he's not going to hurt her to do it. She's slick around him, and she whines and squeezes around his finger even as she growls at him.
"Just fuck me."
Sean spreads her slick around a little as he takes his finger out of her, so it'll be a little easier for her. There's lube somewhere in the apartment, in their bags too, which makes the going easier when they want to fuck all day, but he promised to fuck her right inside the door, so that's what he's going to do.
He's still trying to figure out how this is going to work when she gets on the floor, one of their rolled sleeping bags under her hips holding her up. Sean puts the condom on and yanks at the elastic around the other sleeping bag so he can push it under her knees.
"Sean, fuck." Tom reaches back for him. "Just, please."
Sean curls over her, his knees inside hers, his chest flat over her back, his hand joining hers on the floor. He uses his other hand to guide himself into her, then it goes onto the floor too. And then Sean fucks her, hard and fast. They've both been thinking about it too long - hours of driving down the highway - for it to last. Sean comes, but she doesn't, so he sinks back on his heels, pulling her with him, and works his hands over her body until she does.
They leave everything where it is, and Sean flips the light out before he takes her to bed in her room, the one with sheets that might be clean if Danielle changed them while she was picking up their mail.
He wants to lay Tom out and spend some time, slow, soft time, working her over, showing her what he's not sure she believes when he says it. He's too tired, though - they're too tired - so he settles for kissing her, long and slow and deep.
*
"You don't have to," Tom says when he takes his time with her after they wake up.
"I know." Sean trails his lips down her shin. "I know I don't." He makes her come over and over again, with his mouth, with his hands, with his cock, until they're both exhausted.
"You didn't have to," Tom says after, when they're lying sticky and sweaty in bed.
"I know." Sean would back that up with something physical, but he's too tired to move.
"It wasn't all bad." Tom turns, so her face is tucked into his neck, right against his skin. "You don't have to show me what it could be like."
Sean wraps his arms all the way around her, holds her close. "I don't want you to decide I'm not what you want either."
Tom's quiet for a long time, her breathing going even and relaxed, but not all the way asleep. Sean's starting to doze off when she speaks again.
"He didn't fuck me again after he found out."
Sean's wide awake now, and they're having one of these conversations while they're touching. While they're naked and Sean's arms are tight around her.
"Okay." He's awake, but he's still exhausted and not functioning on all cylinders, and he has no fucking idea what to do with this.
Tom exhales a sigh into his neck. "We might have been okay if he did."
That snaps the moment into full focus, and Sean rolls them over, careful in the limited space of the bed, and pins her down with his weight. "No," he says. "No. He hit you. He hurt you. That would never have been okay."
Tom looks away from him. "He loved me first. We were supposed to talk about things."
Sean wants to fucking kill Mike, but he holds it together enough to say, "Then he should have talked to you instead of hitting you."
Tom's gaze snaps back to his face, her eyes wide and her mouth dropping open just a little, like she'd never even thought of that.
Sean cups her cheek, so she won't look away from him again. "Don't ever think you can't talk to me because of him. I'm not him."
"I know. I know you're not." Tom's mouth twists. "I don't want you to be careful with me. I don't want you to have to be careful with me."
Sean slips his hand down her side, cups one of her knees. He knows from his careful exploration of her body that they're still red, and probably a little sore when he squeezes.
"I'm not always." He brings his hand back up, cups her cheeks and rubs a line under her eyes with his thumbs.
"But you are sometimes." Tom wraps her hand around one of his. "Don't be."
Sean pulls their hands up and kisses hers. "All right. As long as I can, I won't be." He taps her face with his other hand. "But I won't do anything to hurt you. Tell me if I need to be and I'm not."
"Yeah," Tom whispers. "Okay."
*
Sean stops being so careful, starts treating Tom exactly how he would treat any other woman he was dating. Well, not exactly, because she's Tom, but he stops being careful.
They have music together. Sean can wander from his room with a guitar and a notebook and wherever she is, she'll listen to him, and half the time she takes the guitar and makes it better, or gets her own so they can play together.
They have sex. Oh, do they have sex. Tom jerks him off unprompted in a bar bathroom. He goes down on her in the practice space after everyone else has gone home. They fuck in his bed and hers and inside the doorway.
They have a life.
*
Sean wanders out of his room and into Tom's, joining her on the bed. "If we get a one-bedroom, we can move to a nicer place." He's not really suggesting it, just speculating out loud. "Somewhere there aren't knife fights in the alley outside our window." He rolls over to look at Tom, and she's sitting up, stiff, her back against the wall. That's not good. "Tom?" Sean asks, staying still and relaxed. Not a threat.
"No." Tom scrambles off the bed and around him. "Your window." She crosses her arms across her chest. "I'm fine."
Sean makes the mistake of letting out half a laugh. "You spend as much time in there as in here."
"It's your room."
"They might as well both be both our rooms." Sean stays out when she wants him to, but otherwise, they go back and forth whenever they feel like it, or when one of their beds is too much of a mess to fuck in comfortably.
"No," Tom says, voice straining toward a breaking point. "That one's yours and this one is mine."
He shouldn't, he really shouldn't, but Sean lets that get to him, because she's talking boundaries, and that's not what they have. They share, everything from music to space to beds.
"That's bullshit and you know it." Sean sits up so he can see her better. "They're our rooms."
Tom sets her jaw in the way she only does on those rare occasions when she's about to be really stubborn and really mad. "This one's mine. Stop telling me how to live my life."
"I'm not telling you how to do anything." Sean has to fight not to shout at her. This is their life, and he thought they were both in it together. "I'm just describing how you're already living it."
"No, you're not. You're telling me what to do." Tom points at him. "You don't get to do that."
"Yeah, and if I were you could yell at me, but I'm not. They're both our rooms." Sean points around the room. "That's my notebook. Those are my shoes. That's the box of condoms I bought. You want to go into the other room? Because I know what's in there. One of your cameras. Your bra. The box of condoms you bought."
After a moment, Tom moves around the room, following the direction of Sean's pointing, and picks up the notebook, the shoes, and the condoms, and chucks them all out of the room and across into the other one where he can hear them clatter against the floor.
Sean clenches his jaw, and makes himself unclench it to speak. "That doesn't change anything. This is still our space."
"This is my room!"
"It's mine too!" He probably shouldn't shout at her, but he's so angry that she won't just see what they have. "This would be a lot easier if we had just one!"
"No! You know who else used to want me to do things his way? Mike! You're acting just like him." Tom's eyes go wide after she says it, and she takes a step toward him. "Sean."
"No." Sean sucks in a breath and holds up a hand to make her stay back. "No. I need to not be here." He doesn't touch her when he goes around her to get out of the room, and he loves her enough to say, "I'll be back," before he doesn't quite slam the front door behind him.
He walks for a while. A long time, going by the passing of the sun into night into street lights coming on. Long enough that his legs and feet are tired. Long enough that his anger burns down. Long enough that he stops walking aimlessly and starts walking with a purpose.
Danielle opens her door when Sean knocks on it. Either she figures it out from context or Tom called her because she just lets him in without asking any questions.
"What he did to her," Sean says, saying out loud the thing he didn't want to think about while he was walking. "He didn't just hit her."
Danielle scrubs a hand over her face. "No, I don't think so." She sits down.
Despite how tired he is, Sean doesn't.
"They were traveling so much," Danielle says. "It made it easy not to notice when she didn't call as often."
"And then they came back," Sean says.
"And then they came back," Danielle repeats. "And things were so bad with the band that I didn't see it, until she called and asked me to drive her to the clinic."
Sean paces back and forth across the living room a couple of times, then crouches down, runs his hands through his hair. He wants to beat Carden's face in. He stands in one movement, hands pushing on his knees to provide leverage.
"Thank you," he says, meaning it for more than just the confirmation of everything he doesn't want to be true.
Sean waits outside the door until he hears Danielle turn the lock and put the chain on, and then he goes home.
He makes enough noise for Tom to hear him, and she's waiting for him by the time he gets to the living room. They look at each other without speaking for a long time.
"I'm sorry," Tom says first. "I shouldn't have said that to you."
Sean slides down to sit on the floor, his back against the wall. "No, you shouldn't have. I'm sorry I yelled at you." He won't say he's sorry for pointing out that both rooms belong to both of them.
Tom says, "You left," and now Sean can see how wretched she looks.
Sean catches and holds her eyes. "I just needed some space. I didn't leave you. I won't. I love you."
Because he's looking right at her, he can see her blink away tears, even from across the room. "I love you too," she says.
Sean opens his arms. "Come here."
There's an agonizingly long moment when she doesn't, before she comes across the room and lowers herself into his arms, her knees on either side of his hips and her head on his shoulder.
"I don't know what to do," he says, and she looks up at him. "I don't know how to help you. I don't know if I can."
"We can't-" Tom looks away. "I can't afford therapy."
"We can't," Sean says, and she looks at him again. "We." Sean cups her face so she can't look away again. "There's a we, and this is our life. I'm not trying to control it, but it's not just yours or mine. It's ours."
"We can't afford it," Tom says.
Sean slips his hands under her shirt, feeling her skin and cupping the familiar jut of her shoulder blades. "We'll figure it out."
Tom rests her forehead on his. "We?"
"We."
Tom tilts her head to kiss him. "Sean," she murmurs after a bit. She shifts a little, takes one of her hands away from him, and comes back up with a condom.
"You," he says, something like a question hovering over him.
Tom pushes the condom into his hand. "Please."
Sean curls his fingers around the condom and kisses her.
*
Tom tries three different support groups before she finds one she likes. She goes once a week and comes home thoughtful or tearful or calm. Sometimes she comes home and they have sex wherever she finds him. Sometimes she doesn't come home at all, and Sean gets a text from Danielle: Tom's staying with me tonight.
Once, Tom doesn't come home for three days. She slinks in, when she finally does, wearing her own jeans and shirt Sean's seen on Danielle.
"Do you want me to leave?" Sean asks, and Tom's attention snaps to him.
"No!"
"I don't want to." Sean can't stop looking at her, drinking her in. It's the longest they've been apart since they started sleeping together. "I don't want you to feel like you can't be in your home."
"No." Tom shakes her head, then comes to sit with him on the couch. She tucks herself under his arm, leans into his chest. "I'm working on it. Just love me."
Sean kisses the top of her head, the only place he can reach without moving her. "I do."
They sit there in silence for a very long time.
*
Sean lasts the better part of a week before he says, getting into bed with Tom one night, "I don't want to sound like the kind of asshole who's only after one thing, but I miss the sex."
"My group thinks I need to prove to myself that I'm good for something other than sex." Tom doesn't look at him when she says it, but she doesn't get out of bed or push him away either.
"You're good for a lot of things." Sean kisses her shoulder. "Making music, taking photos, paying half the rent."
Tom laughs and rolls over to face him. "I miss the sex too. If I suck your cock, will you reciprocate?"
Sean kisses her, lightly, and then deeper when her hands find the waistband of his underwear. "When have I ever not?"
Tom's smile is joyful and a little wondrous. "You really are an incredibly good boyfriend."
Sean has to kiss her for that. "It's not going to fuck with your-" Sean makes a gesture, not even knowing what to call it.
Tom shakes her head. "No." She slides down Sean's body, pushing the the blankets down with her until she's between his legs.
Sean helps her wriggle his underwear off, and then he can't do anything but try not to thrust too hard because Tom doesn't bother with foreplay. She takes him in and sucks hard. One of her hands cups his balls while the other finds his hand and holds on. It's been a long time, for them, since Sean last got off to anything other than his own hand and Tom's lips stretch into a smile around his cock when she notices him looking. Sean comes hard and almost embarrassingly quickly.
"My turn." Tom strips and lays herself out on the bed.
Sean doesn't waste any time returning the favor.
Tom's already wet. Sean licks into her to to taste it before he licks more of her, soft folds of skin and up to her clit, finding all the places he knows she likes. He does what she did and uses one hand to make it better for her and the other to hold hers.
Tom's not always loud, but today she is. She says, "Sean," and, "Yes," and, "There," before her words collapse into formless sounds. She says, very clearly, "I love you," and then shudders almost silently into her orgasm.
Sean pulls the blankets up with him, draping them over both of them while he hovers over Tom. "Do you know how much I love you?"
Tom smiles up at him, sleepy, relaxed, beautiful. "I know how much I love you."
*
Tom goes to her knees for Sean on stage, spends half of "My Poor Lover" right where he can see her hair, head bent over her guitar, every time he looks down.
The crowd yells for them, he can practically feel Ryan's smirk from behind him, and he's pretty sure Max is hiding behind his hair.
Tom gets up, one fluid motion from knees to feet, and steps back to her part of the stage, guitar under his words with no hesitation.
She chooses to do this at a goddamn hometown Chicago show, which means they spend the next four hours talking to fans, hugging everyone they know, and going out for drinks, when all Sean wants to do is take Tom home and fuck her. By the time they get to the stage of drinks with slightly less than half of Chicago, he's ready to settle for the bathroom.
Tom keeps smiling at him, her eyes meeting his over her drink, whether she's right by his side or halfway across the room talking to Danielle.
Sean's at the bar, taking a shot with Ryan, when Tom sidles up next to him and puts her drink down. She wraps her arm around his waist, puts her head on his shoulder. "You should take me home."
Sean almost chokes on his shot, glares at Ryan when he starts laughing, and puts his arm around Tom. He wants to keep her close before she can change her mind.
It still takes twenty minutes to get out of the bar, and it's followed by an even more interminable bus ride that means the moment Tom gets their door unlocked, Sean pushes her through it and slams it behind him.
Tom reaches past him to flip the locks, and goddammit, she knows exactly what she's doing to him. "In a hurry?"
"Yes." Sean takes her mouth, kissing her hard, and harder and deeper, as long as she lets him. "You can't do that when I can't do anything about it."
"Can't I?" Tom grins at him, ducks out of his arms, and unbuttons her flannel shirt while she walks backwards. There aren't any lights on, but it's their apartment, their space, and there's nothing to trip on until she drops her shirt on the floor, and the t-shirt she was wearing under it after that.
Sean follows her and her trail of clothes like breadcrumbs into her bedroom. He leaves his own trail behind him, shoes and hoodie, shirt and socks. Tom's the one to reach for his pants when he meets her in the bedroom. Her hands unbutton, unzip, push them down, get him all the way naked and push him onto the bed.
Sean sits up on his elbows and watches her take off her jeans. He wants to touch, wants to pull her right into bed with him, but she wants something, or has a plan, and he's going to let her have her way. Will always let her have her way, and more because he loves her than because someone else hurt her.
"Condom," Tom says, so Sean leans over the side of the bed for the box. He's hard enough that touching himself as he puts the condom on is almost torture, and it gets worse when Tom lowers herself onto him with no more foreplay than what she's already done to him all night.
Sean gets his hand in her hair, tips her head back so he can suck a mark onto her neck. "I can't believe you did that," he says.
"You liked it." Tom grinds down onto him. "You liked me on my knees."
"Yes," Sean hisses. He bites at her shoulder, hard. "Yes, I fucking liked it." He keeps one hand in her hair, grabs at her ass with the other one. "What do you want?"
"This," Tom gasps. "But like that time on the floor."
Sean knows what she means, and it takes a moment for him to find the coordination to draw his knees under himself, so he's kneeling with her draped over him.
"Yes," Tom says, and again when Sean uses the leverage he has now to thrust up into her. She keeps saying, "Yes," and she looms over him, hands on either side of his face, watching him, making him watch her mouth form the word over and over again.
Sean can barely manage words, her name sometimes, and a muttered, "Fuck," but nothing else, nothing of substance. All he can do is feel the way she takes him in, touches him, shares her breath with him.
Tom takes over, moving on him with enough determination that he doesn't try to counter her rhythm. He lets her have it, have him, and she does. She might come from what she's doing; he will.
"Tom," he says. "I'm-"
"Yes," she says. One of her hands has slipped to his shoulder for leverage, but the other is still on his cheek. "Now." Her thumb pushes between his lips.
Sean opens his mouth when he comes, so he doesn't hurt her, and closes it again after to taste her skin.
By then, Tom's eyes are starting to go hazy and unfocused. "Sean," she says.
He spent so much of the evening on edge that his orgasm has drained him to the point that he just wants to lie down. He doesn't. He finds her clit with his fingers and stays there until she comes and folds over him. Then he makes her lie down with him. She stays on top of him after he takes care of the condom, her hands touching his face, his hair, her fingers running over the sensitive skin of his lips.
"I don't need space," she says.
It takes a moment for Sean to track the conversation. He's expecting a little making out before they fall asleep, not a readjustment of their whole life together. Their life together, that's what Tom's talking about. She's talking about being his in a whole other way, about choosing that. About being safe with him.
Sean smiles at her, runs his thumb in a line over her cheek. "You're not going to make me look at Craigslist listings right now, are you?"
Tom laughs, her face turning bright with it. There are no shadows there. "No." She slides off of him, still touching him, but at his side. "Tomorrow."
"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow," Sean says.
Tom makes a face. "I'm not dead yet."
"No." Sean squeezes her to him reflexively. "But until you do." It's too much, but he means it.
Tom meets his eyes, looks at him for a long time before she nods. "Til death do us part," she says. "Okay."
"Okay," Sean says back to her, binding as any vow.