#love this invasive bitch. put off removing it and now it's took over the whole container

[clorofolle]

Mint

[cali-holland]

How Perfect You Are- Tom Holland One Shot

Pairing: Tom Holland X Reader

Prompt: After a rough day, Tom’s there to cheer you up.

Word Count: 1600

Warnings!!: cyberbullying, mentions of anxiety, self-image issues/slut shaming

Masterlist   Tom Holland Masterlist

*Gif is not mine*

A/N: This has been sitting in my drafts for a couple months now, and it was written way before the rumors (because nothing has been confirmed by him yet) of Tom having a girlfriend. Respect Tom’s privacy and do not send hate to him or any of the people he is connected to, romantically or otherwise.

~~~

It was a rough day. Like a really rough day.

It seemed like every single uni assignment was due this week, and work was just the worst. You had a raging migraine, and your boss even offered to call someone in early to cover you, but you refused. You needed the hours, you needed the money, you didn’t need the constant searing pain on the top of your skull like someone was trying to pierce through it with a knife.

But you pushed through until you got home. The house was silent, just like the past few nights whenever you arrived home. Tom knew you had a lot of school work to do, so he tried to stay clear of your way. Earlier this week, he attempted to keep to himself in the living room while you worked in your shared room, but he found himself wandering into the bedroom periodically. He had been away filming for months, only to return during one of the most stressful parts of your school year- midterms. He just wanted to hold you, be with you in any way he could, but that was just distracting you and he knew it.

So he made himself busy at Harrison’s place for a few hours every night. It gave you enough time to buckle down and focus on your work, with him coming home shortly before the two of you went to bed. It was hard, but midterms were a bitch and Tom wasn’t about to help you with your fifteen page paper among other essays. 

When the clock struck 11 pm, you knew Tom would be home soon and that you should probably stop working in a sad attempt to help your migraine. You changed into your pajamas (which consisted of one of Tom’s t-shirts and your own pajama shorts) and continued to go through your nightly routine. Laying down in the king-size bed, you snuggled down into the warm sheets. As tired as you were, you couldn’t fall asleep until Tom came home, knowing he’d be on his way shortly- after all, Harrison’s home wasn’t far from yours.

Waiting in your comfortably warm bed, you began to scroll through Instagram, wondering what you could have missed in the endless hours of you being offline for studying and work. You smiled to yourself when you realized Harrison had a saved Instagram live posted. Your smile grew even wider once you clicked on it and Tom appeared on the screen beside him. The time stamp of the video showed it was from an hour ago.

They were goofing about, being their normal selves and answering some questions from the comments. One question in particular caught your attention as a fan asked if you and Tom were still together- wow, so much for privacy.

“Yes, we are. She’s studying right now, working very, very hard. I love her loads, so yeah, of course we’re still together.” Tom laughed, almost disbelieving a fan would actually ask such an oddly invasive question. As Harrison continued on and answered another question, you began to read the comments that were drifting over the screen.

‘Can’t believe Tom’s still dating her’,‘They’ve got to be fake- there’s no way Tom would date someone like her’, ‘Tom’s really got bad taste’, the comments kept coming through for the next few minutes. Your eyes shifted to rest on Tom’s face, who seemed rather unbothered, like he hadn’t been reading those hurtful words that not only mocked him, but you and your relationship as a whole.

The live didn’t last long after that. You were grateful that there were no more questions about you specifically. Tom would mention you here and there, but he always did that. You were his favorite thing to talk about (except maybe, you were tied with Tessa) and so he struggled to not constantly gush over you. 

You both knew when you started dating, almost 2 years ago now, that you’d be opening your life up to criticism. You were all for bettering yourself and hearing the opinions of other people, but that was with constructive criticism to help you become a better person, not crazy fans that hated you for no legitimate reason. It was definitely a challenge, but you kept your social media all private, only allowing people you know to follow you, like any normal 23 year old would do. Tom tried to keep his posts of you to a minimum, just sometimes he couldn’t help it. He loved you, and he wanted to show you off to the world; however, he did acknowledge the uncomfortable position it put you in.

It wasn’t like you hated his fans, no you loved them. There were some, though, that you didn’t appreciate, and you felt justified feeling that way. They were just upset over seeing their idol be “taken” by you- at least, that’s what you told yourself. You constantly had to remind yourself that no, you were not fat like they said; no, you were not stupid like they said; no, you were not ugly like they said; no, you were not undeserving of Tom like they said. You were you, and you were a great person, you liked yourself.

That was the mindset most nights, but tonight was not one of those nights.

Everything was stressing you out, your anxiety certainly was not in check. Those comments did nothing to improve your mental state, and yet you still found yourself on Tom’s account, looking at the pictures he had up of you, looking at the comments underneath them specifically.

‘Attention whore’, ‘cover up slut’, ‘her dress looks like vomit’, ‘why is Tom dating her’, ‘she doesn’t deserve him’, ‘their relationship cannot be real’. Each comment stung, yet you couldn’t pull yourself away from reading through them over and over again. Your vision began to get blurry from the tears that had welled up in your eyes. You rubbed your eyes, trying to hold yourself together, and threw the phone away from you- you didn’t care where it landed, it just couldn’t be near you.

“Ow!” Tom shouted, and you immediately removed the hand from covering your eyes.

“Tom?” Your voice came out as more of a pathetic squeak. He turned on the light and you could see he was rubbing his knee, where you assumed your phone had hit him.

“I didn’t mean to scare you. I just got in.” He said, placing your phone on the bed and beginning to change into his own pajamas.

“Oh, no, it’s fine. My bad.” You mumbled. You picked your phone up and took one last look at the Instagram comments.

“Is everything alright?” Tom asked. He turned off the lights and got into bed beside you under the covers. You wordlessly shrugged a little and set your phone on the nightstand beside you. Tom wrapped an arm around your waist, pulling you closer into his warm, bare chest. His brown eyes softened, sensing something was wrong. “What’s going on, love?”

“I’m just stressed.” You replied quietly.

“I know when you’re ‘just stressed’. Something else is bothering you. What is it? You can tell me.” He frowned, his hand coming up to move a few loose hairs out of your face before he rested it on your neck with his thumb gently rubbing your jaw.

“I feel like the whole world hates me. School’s awful, work’s awful. And you get to go hang out with Harrison while I’m drowning in just work, and I feel like a bad girlfriend because you want to spend time with me, but I don’t have time for anything. And then, I go online and I just see all this hate. I know that they’re your fans and you love them, but it’s just so draining. I can’t handle it.” The tears were freely flowing from your eyes at this point. Tom shifted so that you could cry into his chest, and he held you tightly, reassuringly caressing your back as he did so.

“Hey, I love you, more than anything in the world. Don’t feel bad that you can’t spend time with me right now. Midterms and work- that’s your life right now. You’ve always waited for me, so I’m going to wait for you. As long as I get to come home and see your beautiful face every night, I’m perfectly content.” He paused and let out a small sigh, “And as for my fans, I’m sorry. I wish they could just understand. I love you, you are my girlfriend, our relationship is real, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Nothing that they say about you is true. Now, who is the most beautiful, kind-hearted, mesmerizing, brilliant woman I know?”

“Your mum.” You said, muffled by his chest.

“Who? I can’t hear you.” Tom teased. You pulled back to look at him. Despite the dark room only being illuminated by the moonlight creeping through the window and the alarm clock perched behind you, you could still see his kind smile as he looked at you. “Don’t say my mum. Come on, who is it?”

“I am.” You replied, unable to stop the small smile that crept its way onto your face as Tom nodded encouragingly.

“You are the most beautiful, kind-hearted- what else did I say?” He paused with a laugh, realized he’d forgotten his own words.

“Mesmerizing, brilliant?”

“Mesmerizing, brilliant woman I know. There’s just too many adjectives to describe just how perfect you are, darling.”

“I love you.” You smiled softly, leaning in to kiss him.

“I love you, too.”

~~~

Tag List: @viagracex​ @theamazingtomholland​ @hellomoveonby​ @heyitsshrez @tomkindholland​

Tom Tag List: @quaksonhehe

[amunetred]

Black and Blue

A/N: T rating.  I’m writing my seven days in the form of a continuous short story, so here is chapter 1, Black and Blue.

Break down, tears fall to the ground

Tell myself: “Damnit, nothing can be found”

When you’re a fighter

You’re a fighter, fight on baby - Sia, Black and Blue

Chapter 1

Black and Blue

I’d seen dark. If one could say they’d looked into the abyss, into the endless nothing, the obsidian trap where hate could swallow you whole and hold you captive, I’d faced that many times.  That kind of darkness was no stranger to me. I’d looked it in the eye, and fought it with a vengeance, one that threatened to consume me along with it. But Leo’d always been there to pull me back, save me from the brink of any and everything, including myself.  

During the Kraang invasion my mutation was a fresh hell, my life collapsing in upon itself as the world outside appeared to be doing the very same thing.  Most nights in that time I’d spent coiled tight beneath a billboard, wishing the power might be restored that the giant bulbs should illuminate and warm me, lest I learn to self-regulate my serpent body heat. I wasn’t sure I could-- then I did.

This time was different.  Not the body-heat part, I’d had many years to become one with my mutant side.  It was the invasion that was different and it wasn’t the Kraang.  

I dropped to my belly, willing myself to transform enough that my tubular form permit me to slither along the dank, narrow passage. I halted as the last remnants of the sun’s warmth faded from my tail, the darkness swallowing me whole as I looked back to the last slivers of a melancholy blue sky.  How far we’d fallen, each and every one of us.  My heart clenched. Perhaps it was because I’d spent so much time walking the grey line between black and white, right and wrong, good and evil, that when the Unnamed invaded, ripping apart the veil that separated the two worlds, black and white, right and wrong, good and evil, I remained unchanged.  Because, I’d lived my life that way all along.  That and whoever my otherworld counterpart had been, she was dead before they came.

But that blurry high wire I danced upon, that wasn’t so for Leo or his brothers.  They had boundaries they did not cross.  At least they hadn’t at the time.  

Moisture seeped from the ground beneath, water dripping from the low ceiling above.  I should hate tight spaces, but I’d been locked in a cell enough times that I was capable of shutting that part of me off.  The fear of the walls crumbling, collapsing and closing the passage, trapping me along with it, what should be terror was merely a faint whimper inside me. The most prominent emotion I carried, I’d hesitated to name.  It was what drove me forward, kept me searching... kept me breathing. No.  The only fears I bore were either faced or yet to come.  The first had been loving him, for in those moments of peace, true bliss, those fleeting moments we cannot keep and do not last, they leave a burn, something precious covered with the scar you wear after they’ve gone.  The only thing I truly feared was losing him. But, in a sense, I’d lived through that too.  Though I did not fearing dying at his hand, because I would die knowing I’d done all I could to save him.  

“Don’t do this, Karai.  He ain’t the same.  If I can’t save him, you can’t.”

I would’ve laughed at Raph’s warning, were the scar skipping across his upper lip to dash his brow not still sutured, purple and hopefully not infected.  The bruises on his body, black and splotchy, his arm in a sling, his ankle wrapped. He’d almost lost an eye, by his brother’s doing.  I might lose my life.  But if I’m to die at the end of anyone’s sword, let it be Leonardo’s and I’ll die heartbroken but honored.

“If he-- kills you-- and ever comes out of this—if he remembers, he’ll never forgive himself.” Donatello put his hand on my shoulder.  “Think of how April feels, knowing they used her the way they did.” He glanced toward the end of the hall, a full tray of food from the morning still outside the door. “Don’t put this on him, Karai.”

I squeezed deeper along the passage, my forked tongue tasting the air, searching for him.  What had Donatello thought I would do?  Not go for him?  Not fight for him?  The universe and the Unnamed knew his brother’s had tried.  We tried.  One by one we’d saved all that remained from their brainwashing, from the spell they’d used April’s mind to cast over us.  One by one we’d died.  Shini, Jones, and so many others...  Strange how the two worked together, an alien sentient being possessing a psychic half alien human, to unlock a terrible door that left us twisted and broken, facing our polar opposites, left to destroy ourselves… or to struggle to get back to who we were.  

Clumps of mud sprinkled my back like spit before a rain shower.  I should be afraid.  Fear should course through my tepid blood, chilling it with icy pinpricks.  Thought I could not see, though I could feel the instability of the earth surrounding me, I feared nothing, not even the blade of my lover’s sword—should I ever find him.  

“I can’t give up on him, Donatello.  He never gave up on me, and I’ll go for him again and again until I either bring him home or die trying.”  I adjusted the strap on my backpack, stepped out onto the rickety front porch, paint peeling beneath my boots, waved to Raph and left the Hampton’s house.  Without a radio.  Without a phone.  Without back up.  Because there was no power in this hell.  Because there was no one to spare that was not needed elsewhere.  April was a complete mental case, Donatello’s hands full just trying to keep her from starving to death as she recounted all she’d been used to destroy. This left Raphael working to be sure Donatello ate, and that the unconscious Michelangelo didn’t fade away.

The mouth of the tunnel widened as I flicked the air, tasting sediment, mold, something metallic….steel!

Steel and— my heart fluttered— sandalwood!

My body transformed, the starving mouths of my hands dissolving into the curling fingers of my palms.  He was near, I could taste him.  He was near and soon I would look into those hard blue eyes and search for the soul I loved inside him.    

A cold laugh carried along the tunnel running vertical to mine.  A chilling, shrill sound that hurt like a blade to the gut.  Because it was his, and yet it wasn’t.  “You back again?  I thought you would’ve learned.”  

I didn’t need to close my eyes for the darkness enveloping me, not to see, to recall the last time I’d heard this sound…

It, the sentient leader of the Unnamed possessed April, much like that ancient Aeon bitch.  Only this creature didn’t need her for long, using her like a key to unlock the veil between two worlds, us and our polar opposites.  Only not all of us had them.  Or if they’d existed there, in that other world, they were already dead. 

 A white bolt split the sky, one half a brilliant summer blue, the sun bright and shining, though it was muggy and hot, nothing was perfect.  The other a starless, moonless black, with crumbling buildings that looked as though they’d dissolve to ash if one touched them.  And the split remained, even after the battle, both seeming both lost and never-ending.  

The people from the Night, that’s what we’d called the dark side, wanted to live in the Day, our side.  And the war began.  The problem was when Light destroyed Dark or the Dark murdered the Light, the soul left without a vessel was absorbed into the surviving body.  Leo was the first to make that mistake.  We lost him first.  He’d been gone the longest.  And what he’d become was—

Steel cut the air before me and I flinched back into my tunnel.  Transforming again, I coiled as tight as I could in the tight space then sprung forward launching myself at him, returning to my human form as I wrapped my arms and legs around his body.

I’d tasted the rope he dangled from.  Knew he held it, supporting his body with one hand.  It was nothing for him to add me to that burden, but it was unexpected and he flailed.  Though he did not complain, no cry of surprise, not in pain, nor distress. He made no sound at all.  And that terrified me.  

Rather than struggle to be rid of me, he wrestled an arm free and began climbing.  

“What- what are you doing?” I managed, though it was stupid for me to speak to him unprepared.

“Climbing.” His voice was a cool, detached thing, lacking the warmth-dashed-with-arrogance that I enjoyed.  I longed for the voice he used to tease me with when we sparred.  A flash of steel, a bead of sweat glistening his brow, or beading on the bridge of my nose, his reflection and mine blurred and stretched in the cross of our blades.  He’d back me into a wall, I’d drop him to the floor.  A roll.  A twist. A thrust.  My match.

As we ascended my mind caught up to the present, to the scent that was still him, clung to his skin and oozed from his pores, that he could not wash off and I was glad of it.  Though the warm, spicy aroma seeping from his flesh stirred my insides it also brought pressure to my chest for I missed the touch that had always accompanied it.  For right now he was rough as he drove his free hand into the soft tissue surrounding my shoulder blade.  “Gah! Leo, stop! Please, stop!” My arm went numb, dropped limp and useless to my side.

“You came back.” He clucked his tongue as if I’d asked for the pain.  He clipped something to my belt.  Oh no. I struggled with my one arm, desperate to remove the metal binding, though I couldn’t see to understand how the clasp worked. Then he released my shoulder, thrust a hand into my chest, at the same time he lifted his knee and drove his foot out sending me flying into the wall.  I bounced off, tumbling down the shaft, clumps of dirt and loose soil falling into my eyes.  I met the end of the rope, bouncing and dangling beneath him as he hauled us both up.

There was no point talking to him now.  Not until we were on solid ground.  I took a deep breath, clearing my mind on the exhale. I’d planned to find him.  Step one complete.  I’d planned to convince him to take me in.  Step two… in progress.