Day 3 of Sybil x Tom Romance Week has arrived. I've gotta say, today is one of my favourite themes, because modern AUs are sort of my thing, so writing this came pretty easily to me. Anyway, I hope you like it!

Their First Chapter

Sybil and Gwen had been best friends since they were in their mid-teens. Gwen was a year and a half older than Sybil, but that had never stopped them from looking for excuses to hang out. The two of them had studied at different universities, but they were now living together in a small flat.

Gwen's boyfriend, John Harding, lived close by and the couple would often spend time with Sybil and John's flatmates in the evenings or at weekends. Sybil sometimes felt as though she was third-wheeling, as Gwen and John were clearly so hopelessly in love with one another, and Sybil was so hopelessly single. Despite Sybil's feelings of intrusion, Gwen and John always insisted that they enjoyed having her around and that she shouldn't feel like she was out of place.

Friday night and the three of them were at John's flat. He shared it with two of his closest friends, Tom Branson and Alfred Nugent. Sybil knew Alfred well. He was a brilliant chef and he had often cooked fantastic meals for them all to enjoy. Tom, on the other hand, was a different kettle of fish altogether. He kept himself to himself, spending a lot of his time working. Whether he was in his own room or in their communal open-plan kitchen-dining-room-living-room, you could almost always guarantee that he would have books and notes spread around him with his laptop centre stage, and him typing away. He was a journalist; one who seemed to lack a social life.

Sybil and Gwen had been in the boys' flat for about half an hour. Alfred was the only one with them. John was going to be home in about an hour, and Alfred had just started cooking. It was a tradition that on Friday night, as long as they weren't all going their separate ways, they would have all have a meal together. Ideally, they would rotate who was cooking, but realistically, Alfred took more than his fair share. Not that he minded at all. Sybil and Gwen often joined them for their Friday night meals. It gave the girls something to do on a Friday night and it added structure to Sybil's often erratic shift-pattern weeks.

"Do you need any help Alfred?" Sybil asked as she approached the kitchen.

"Don't take this the wrong way Sybil, but you aren't the best at cooking," Alfred said with a smile.

"No offense taken," Sybil said, frowning at his words. "But I could chop up potatoes or something. How can that go wrong?"

"Oh, actually," Alfred said, directing his instructions at both Sybil and Gwen, who had come in behind her, "could one of you get me a few oven trays from the cupboard? There's some butternut squash in the fridge. Can you chop that up to roast it please?"

Sybil and Gwen looked at each other.

"No, no," Sybil said overdramatically. "It's fine. I see where I stand!" She plodded over to the cupboard, knowing full well that she had the reputation as the one who couldn't cook. The general rule of thumb was to not let Sybil near the food unless it's already cooked and there's no room for error.

Gwen laughed inwardly at her best friend's dramatic words.

"Syb, it's not that we don't trust you to cook," she said across the small kitchen. "It's just that there are others around who are more trustworthy."

"Hey!" Sybil shrieked, playfully threatening to hit Gwen with an oven tray. "I don't claim to be the best cook in the world, but I can cook well enough to survive. I cooked most of my own meals at university."

"Which is why," Gwen pointed out, "you lost weight while you were there. You only really know how to cook a couple of meals."

"Which was plenty enough for me to survive!" Sybil protested.

By this point Gwen had started to chop up the squash and place the cubes on one of the trays Sybil had delivered. Sybil resigned herself to the side of the kitchen, leaning back against the side, occupying herself with her phone.

"How much of this am I using, Alfred?" Gwen questioned.

"Oh, at least half," Alfred said. "Actually, you might as well do the whole thing. And probably best do some roast onions too if you've got space. We're feeding us three, John, and Tom."

Sybil involuntarily sighed. She barely even noticed herself do it.

"What's wrong with that?" Gwen asked.

"Nothing," Sybil said, clearly lying to appear nicer than she was feeling.

"I know Tom's not your favourite person, but you should give him a chance. He's lovely once you get to know him properly," Gwen said.

"But I don't think I'm ever going to get to know him properly," Sybil whined. "He's always working. I reckon I've seen him not working fewer than five times in all the time I've known him."

"You've only known him for a little over a year," Gwen protested.

"Who works solidly for a year?" Sybil questioned. "Nobody has the energy to do that!"

"When you first met him he was trying to change jobs," Alfred said.

"I know, but that was a year ago," Sybil said.

"When he got his new job he started working towards a promotion pretty quickly. He's had a few recently."

"Really?" Sybil said, surprised. "He's hardly been there five minutes."

"His boss told him that he could progress quickly if he put the time in, so that's what he did. That's why for the first six months or so he didn't stop working. He was trying to work his way up the ranks. And now he's got a position he's happy with, but he's been working long hours to make sure he's the best he can be so that he's respected. He's young for the job he's got and he wants to be taken seriously."

"And I am," Tom said, rounding the corner. "Over the past few weeks, I've started really adjusting to normal office hours and not bringing everything home with me."

Sybil felt her face on fire. She wasn't proud of her judgemental side. She wasn't proud that she had been speaking unkindly about Tom behind his back.

"Sorry, Tom, I just–"

"Don't be," Tom said. "I get it. We see you guys all the time, but I'm never really there with everyone else. I know."

"I didn't mean it like that," Sybil said, desperately searching for a silver lining.

"I know I'm not the most sociable person around, but I'm trying to be," he said.

"Excuse me," Sybil said quietly, walking towards the bathroom where she could be on her own.

"I'll be back in a minute," Gwen said, chasing after her best friend.

-ooo-

Gwen followed Sybil into the bathroom and questioned her. "What's going on Syb?"

"I'm such an idiot," Sybil said, feeling anger towards herself.

"No, you're not," Gwen protested.

"Yes, I am!" Sybil insisted. "I couldn't have judged him harder if I had tried. He was only trying to get a better job and I accused him of being anti-social. What sort of person does that make me? Oh, Gwen, I'm mortified!" She buried her face in her hands and shrunk into herself.

"Oh, Sybil," Gwen said, wrapping her arms tightly around her best friend. "You didn't know. Neither did I. How could we have done when nobody ever told us?"

"I can't believe I'm that person," Sybil berated herself.

"What person?" Gwen asked.

"The one who judges people unjustly without having enough information to make it a fair judgement. I basically said he was a horrible person because he's not talked to us much. And behind his back, no less. And he didn't find out because someone else told him. He found out because I don't know when to shut up! And when I'm in his house, too!"

"Sybil, it's not the end of the world," Gwen said.

"Yes it is," Sybil said. "I can't stay for dinner."

"You have to," Gwen said sternly. "We've made a commitment and I'm not letting you back out of it now."

"But–"

"No buts!" Gwen said, speaking to Sybil as if she were a child. "We need to go and finish making dinner and enjoy the rest of the evening."

"Gwen…" Sybil moaned.

"Trust me, Tom won't be affected by this," Gwen said. "I know him well enough to know that he doesn't really get offended. Not by this sort of stuff. He grew up being taught to brush it off and not hold a grudge. He'll be fine."

Sybil reached out to hug Gwen one last time and mumbled a small "thank you" before the girls headed out to join the boys again.

-ooo-

Despite Sybil's own self-loathing, dinner went off without a hitch. Good food, good company and a copious amount of alcohol. Perhaps more alcohol than advisable on Sybil's part. She had drunk more wine than she normally did. Almost more wine than she could realistically handle.

After they had finished the meal, the group settled on the sofa to continue their conversations in a more comfortable environment. As per, Gwen was curled up beside John and Alfred took the chair in the corner.

Sybil went into the kitchen to find her phone. She was sure she had left it in here before they had started dinner. She found it on the side near the sink and unlocked it to see her messages. One from her phone company. How boring.

At that moment, Tom walked in, carrying dirty dishes, which he started to load into the dishwasher.

"Tom, I'm sorry about earlier," Sybil said, approaching him slowly and wishing that she could take back her words from a few hours ago.

"It's fine," Tom said sincerely, continuing his chore. "Really, I know I've been pretty distant for the past year or so, but I can't change the past, so–"

Sybil stopped him by placing her lips over his. One hand cupped his cheek, covered in a dusting of stubble, the other wrapped around the back of his neck to pull him down to her level.

Tom momentarily froze when Sybil's lips made contact with his, but his body quickly melted into Sybil's touch. His hands instinctively settled on her waist and he deepened the impromptu kiss, opening his mouth enough to tease, but not enough for their tongues to collide.

When they broke apart Tom's heart was galloping, and Sybil's was entirely still.

"You're drunk," Tom said, not wanting to take his hands away from her, but knowing that he should.

"You kissed me back," Sybil said, frozen in place.

Their breathing was unsynchronised and heavy. The air between them was thick and still.

"Sybil!" Gwen called, walking round the corner to see the two in the kitchen.

Sybil and Tom instantly instinctively stepped apart. Sybil picked up her phone and Tom quickly returned to filling the dishwasher.

"Did you find your phone?" Gwen asked, unaware of what had just happened between her best friend and her boyfriend's flatmate.

"Yep," Sybil said, waving it at Gwen. She walked towards the red head and followed her to the living area, not taking in any of what she was saying on the way. She turned enough to be able to see Tom in the corner of her eye. He was packing the dishwasher. To anyone who didn't know what had happened, nothing looked suspicious.

Sybil's cheeks had previously been pink from her alcohol consumption. Now they were pink from her encounter with Tom. Not that Gwen could tell the difference. Thankfully. Sybil wasn't sure what to think about all that had happened in such a small space of time. She didn't want to be confronted about it. Not by Gwen at any rate.

Gwen settled beside John again and Sybil sat beside her on the small sofa. Tom returned from the kitchen and settled on the one spare chair in the corner. He looked sideways at Sybil. She looked back at him, holding his gaze across the room.

The conversation flowed around them. Their friends had no idea what had happened. The two who had been involved weren't entirely sure what had happened. But each of them knew that they wanted to do it again. And they could each sense that the other wanted to do it again. They were on the same page. For the first time in their lives, they were on the same page. The same wonderful page that they wanted to last forever.

Today was the start of a new chapter. A new, glorious chapter that would lead on to the rest of their lives. Together.