Comfort
Shannon let out a huff before falling backwards onto her bed. Things had improved so greatly for her the past few months and now today everything seemed to be falling apart once more. She had just been dumped by Harry Averwood and their breakup just had to happen the night of a fall moon. That meant Shannon was utterly alone. Maddy and Rhydian were off being wolves.
And Tom? Tom hadn't been talking to her lately. He hadn't really been talking to any of them. You figured maybe because football season was in full swing. But in years past he'd still at least eat lunch with them and hang out with them at Bernie's in the afternoons he didn't have a game or practice. This year? This year he never ate with them and he'd barely come to Bernie's with them. He'd claim to have other plans. It was strange that someone she was once so close to barely talked to her. It wasn't sudden either. It had been a gradual change. Started when Harry began to eat lunch with them. Tom suddenly sat with his football buddies a few times a week. And soon enough instead of Bernie's in the afternoon with them he'd be found on the football field or hanging out with Jimi and his crew.
Shannon wished Tom would talk to her again. She wished she could call him up and drag him to do something with her. She didn't want to wallow in the misery of Harry dumping her. She didn't want to wallow in the fact there was no more beast to hunt, no more evidence to collect. That her beast days were officially over.
Shannon was alone at home for the evening. Her parents decided to take her siblings to the movies, and she would've gone had she not felt she had a hole in her life where a lot of things used to be. It was definitely Tom sized hole. Tom had been her distraction from beast hunting, until Harry. And now that Harry was out of her life, she didn't have someone to help fill that void.
She simply wanted Tom back. She wanted his corny jokes back. She wanted to sit and smile and nod her head like she did when he sarge ranting about sports. She wanted someone to sit and watch cbbc with her when she was stuck babysitting her siblings. She wanted someone to drag through the woods, even though she had given up the beast.
Shannon had been too lost in her thoughts to hear the front door opening. Maybe if she had she would've grabbed her little brothers baseball bat from the hall, instead of falling off her bed and screaming when her door opened. Her parents always knocked and she hadn't heard her siblings feet running down the hall, so she certainly wasn't expecting her door to open.
"Tom! What are you doing here? You scared me," Shannon screeched from where she had landed on her floor.
"The guys and I were at the movies. I ran into your folks. Your mom told me what happened. I was worried about you. I knocked and you didn't answer. I mean you gave me an extra key so I just wanted to check to make sure you didn't decide to wander the woods like old times."
"Well I'm fine. You can leave now. That is unless you've decided to be my friend again. You haven't spoken to me in over a month Tom."
"I had my reasons for ignoring you guys."
"Oh really what were they?"
"I can't tell you. Just yet anyways."
"Then why don't you leave," Shannon snapped. She had wanted Tom back. But she also just wanted to know why he left in the first place."
"I'm not leaving, that easily. I asked my mom what to do for a broken heart. She said ice cream and a romantic comedy. I mean you don't do romance movies so I bought the entire series of the 9th doctor on DVD instead," he said pulling the DVD set of Doctor Who out of his hoodie pocket, and tossing it onto her bed.
"You think you can just walk in with ice cream and Doctor Who and expect to be friends again?"
"Well yeah."
"Life doesn't work like that. I'm mad at you. You disappeared from my life. You can't walk in like nothing happened. You can't walk in and not tell me why you left in the first place!"
Silence surrounded the pair. Shannon bit her lip. She had been so angry with him for ditching them. She was so angry he wouldn't tell her why. She was upset he thought things could just be normal with ice cream and Doctor Who.
"You guys didn't need a fifth wheel," Tom spat out suddenly.
"What does that even mean?"
"Well you had Harry and Rhydian and Maddy have whatever they are. I felt like I didn't fit in with you guys anymore. You had each other and I was by myself."
"You were one of our best friends Tom. Just because you felt left out doesn't mean you were being forgotten," Shannon mumbled.
"Well it felt like I was. Even without Harry knowing the secret. I just didn't feel I belonged in the pack anymore. That's why I hung out with the guys more. I felt like I fit in their pack."
"You were still our friend Tom. Why now that Harry's gone did you decide to waltz back in?"
"Because it would be us again. The dynamic foursome."
"There has to be more then you just feeling like a third wheel, Tom."
"There isn't," he lied. He couldn't drop that bombshell yet. He couldn't tell her the truth as to why he really stopped hanging out with them. That he started to cut ties, because it killed him to see Shannon with someone else. That he was jealous of Harry. How he wished he was in Harry's shoes.
"Fine. Don't tell me. Now where's this ice cream. Also if we're watching Doctor Who we're going to stay her. We can watch on my laptop."
"The ice cream would be here," he teased swinging a plastic bag from his right hand. "Don't worry, I brought spoons too."
Shannon took the bag from Tom's hand and pulled out the two pints of ice cream. After setting them on her beds end table she returned her focus to bag to grab the spoons. Once they were pulled out, and after they were set down. She went over to her desk to get her laptop.
Laptop in hands she returned to her bed. She set her laptop down before reaching for the DVD set. She placed it on top of her laptop. Finally she grabbed the pint of cookie dough and one of the spoons before settling onto her bed. Now that she was finally settled with her laptop on her knees and ice cream sitting beside her, she looked back at Tom.
"Are you going to join me? I thought this was a friend night? Are you just going to stand there well I eat ice cream and watch Doctor Who?"
Tom took that as his cue to join Shannon her bed. Tom sat down next to her, and flung his rift arm around her. She moved the laptop so it was sitting between them. A Doctor Who episode was just started. She grabbed for her ice cream and pulled off the lid. Spoon in hand she began to dig.
As she ate her ice cream she snuggled into Tom's side. They had almost always been like this. Comfortable to snuggle like an old married couple. Some people may have found it weird that the two best friends had this closeness. But to them it was normal.
Shannon let out a content sigh. She had figured out what had really been upsetting her about tonight. It wasn't missing beast hunting. It wasn't missing Harry. But most definitely it was about missing Tom.
As you read this is likely going to be a series of tom/shannon oneshots. I can't promise how often I will post. My writing is scattered to just when I feel like it. But this is my newest project side side project.