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"Tom, the bed's on fire." Sybil announced, her tone dripping with boredom. As a result, Tom yelped and sat bolt upright, breathing heavily.
"What was that for?" He cried, after having ascertained that Sybil's bed was indeed, not ablaze.
"I just wanted to get your attention." He gazed at her incredulously for a moment. "And yes, it was the best way."
"Best-"
"Or maybe more effective."
Tom snorted in an attempt to hide the fact that he was actually amused, though had no desire to be at three in the morning. He leaned back into the bed head, and turned to look at her.
"So now you've kicked me half to buggery, and told me the bed's on fire, I'm awake. What's wrong- are you pregnant?" He cried, jumping slightly at the sudden prospect.
"What? No! I want to talk about something!"
"Oh, alright then." She rolled her eyes and poked him affectionately in the side. Shifting onto her shoulder, she looked up at him emphatically.
"You won't talk about personal things. You won't introduce me to your friends, the only family I've met of yours is your no knickers and all knockers sister-"
"What?"
"Are you kidding me? They're enormous!"
"Sybil, I don't even want to think about my sister's breasts, leave alone talk about them!" She couldn't help but chuckle slightly.
"Fair enough. But you, you've met my friends; you've met my parents, my grandmother and been to my family home. I don't know a thing about your family aside from the fact that they're Irish and dedicated science fiction fans, and your brother is really good at voices! You won't tell me about the scar, you won't tell me about your family, your schooling, and only the briefest of hints as to the fact that you even had a child hood, all you ever talk about is work- are you ashamed of me-?"
"No!" He roared, leaping off the bedhead, and perching himself sideways on the mattress, a tender hand resting on her shoulder. "Never," he breathed, caressing her pale flesh with a calloused thumb, the gentle touch sending shivers down her spine. "I could never be ashamed of you, Sybil."
She smiled to herself, and scooted closer to him.
"Okay, so talk."
He chuckled and settled back into his pillows, rolling onto his side to face her.
"Well, as you know, I was born in Ireland. Or, to be more specific, on the floor of the kitchen of our old house in Dowley street. It's one of those old brownstones, always been a Branson in eighteen Dowley street since Adam were a boy, apparently."
"On the floor? Gross!" She remarked in a childish tone.
"Rather. I've got two sisters and three brothers, I'm the youngest of the boys, there's Kieran, Collin, then me, and then there's Sarah and Maggie-"
"Oh my God," Sybil interrupted, pressing a hand to her cheek.
"What? What's wrong?"
"You're Tom, Tom Baker, Sarah's Sarah Jane!"
"And Collin's-"
"Collin Baker?"
"So Ma claims. But she's got a real soft spot for Colin Firth."
"And who's the youngest?"
"Maggie, she's fourteen now."
"And your mother?"
"Brenda. She's amazing."
"Mummy's boy?" She teased.
"Oh, shush, you."
"And your Dad? Philimon, wasn't it?"
"He passed away when I was nine, he was… rather politically active."
"Oh, Tom!" She breathed.
"I didn't want to tell you, I don't really like talking-" It didn't escape her notice that he was gently caressing the scar on his arm, the one she'd seen when they first met. She rested her palm on his cheek.
"It's fine, I would understand why."
"I'm sorry that you've been wandering around not knowing-"
She silenced him with a kiss.
"Don't tell me until you're sure."
"I'm sure."
A hacking cough wracked Tom Branson's nine year old chest. He was a pudgy child, the subject of merciless teasing at school, so he, for one was actually rather glad to be ill. He loved his beanbag. It was cosy and comfortable, and the blanket spread across his legs and cuddled into his chest provided a source of warmth. He was intently watching cartoons, while his brothers were at school, his mother was working and his father was minding him- though he wasn't doing a very good job. He was in his tool shed, working on something that none of the boys were allowed to see. At least he had been- now he was standing in the doorway to the sitting room hefting a gym bag and smelling like pub.
"Tommy! Come with your ol' Daddy!" He said, very loudly and not quite properly. Tom obediently clambered out of his beanbag, and made to pull his coat from the rack, but was whisked out of the door before he could do such a thing. The drive over was frankly dangerous, the car was swerving about and scraping the paint from other cars, until finally it pulled up in the town centre. Da was always a good driver, what was going on?
"Tommy," his father slurred to the worried boy. "Tommy, I'm gone –hic- gone change the fucking world." And with that, he stumbled out of the car, gym bag in tow. Curious as to what he was going to do, Tom followed cautiously. His Dad was scary, and there was something wrong. He sneaked around the car, and slid behind a concrete bollard. Beside the fountain in the middle of the plaza, his Dad was swinging the gym bag, as if to throw it, when suddenly-
The force threw Tom backwards, and he watched in horror as the family station wagon was hurled past him, smacking into some more concrete bollards, one of which toppled over and landed painfully on his arm, effectively trapping him-
"Da!" He shouted. "Da, help me!"
Da's voice didn't reply.
"Da, Da help!" When no response came, he glanced around, and cried out at what he saw. There were upturned paving slabs, and fire, and screaming people, and a figure where Da had been.
"DA!" Tom bellowed, attracting attention. "DA, HELP ME! DA, ARE YOU ALL RIGHT? DA!"
Painfully, he wrenched his arm from the pillar. The pain was intense, and he screamed, blood spurting and dripping as he stumbled towards his father.
"DA!" He screamed, as tears poured down his cheeks. "Oh, god, Da! Da!"
Tom's face was blank, and devoid of emotion.
"Tom…" she whispered, searching his face for feelings, any feeling. "Is that where…?" She asked, gently tracing the outline of the jagged pink line with her fingers. Tom nodded, exhaled shakily.
"I love you so fucking much. You know that, don't you?" She nodded.
"And I love you too."
"It all comes down to love, doesn't it?" He whispered. "The rest, the rest is detail."
They lay in silence for a while, neither really knowing what to say. Sensing that the story was playing on his mind, she decided to hastily change the subject.
"Well, go on the, nieces and nephews? Cousins?"
"None from any of us. Sixteen cousins, twenty four little 'uns." He replied, seemingly glad for the distraction.
Fifty eight friends and relations later, Sybil was content with knowledge, and while it was still dark outside, the rush and bustle of corporate life was rearing its busy head from slumber.
"Thank you for sharing." Their tones had been hushed, smothered by the night and the intimacy of the bed, and now was no exception. "I'm sorry for doubting you."
"I'm sorry for causing-"
"Oh, stop it, you." She teased, before leaning in and kissing him again. He responded only too happily. She moaned longingly as they parted.
"Is it wrong that I really want to shag you right now?" She asked. Tom laughed, and beneath her palms she could feel his chest rumble.
"We've been talking for almost two hours stark naked, I wouldn't say so."
"We're not stark naked! There's the sheet!"
"Ah, the sheet." Tom said, in fondness. "The things it's seen."
Sybil laughed as she slipped her arm around to rest at his lower back.
"Want to add to the pile?" She whispered.
"I like the way you think, Miss Crawley." He replied, rolling over and pressing her into the mattress. "I like the way you think."
"Irish Breakfast, how very fitting." Sybil murmured appreciatively into her mug of tea.
"Mind out of the gutter, you!"
"Not what I was talking about."
"Ah."
Sybil smiled contentedly as Tom leaned back on the pillows, his muscular chest and broad shoulders-
"Stop perving, Sybil!"
She laughed the laugh of a naughty child, and leaned over her handsome boyfriend in order to retrieve her phone from the bedside table, while holding her cup steady, and skilfully ensuring that not a drop escaped and marked the white linen.
"Tom, can you please pass my phone?" He mocked in an extremely nauseating falsetto, before switching to a much deeper version of his usual incredibly sexy Irish brogue. "Of course my dear, here you go." And back to the pistachio cracking pitch "Thank you darling, how positively convenient, and not at all illogical."
"You're very passive aggressive, you know." She remarked, having found her aforementioned phone, swooping down briefly to peck his lips, being met, upon departure of her mouth from his, with her favourite cheeky smirk. Switching her phone on, she drank deeply from her mug, scrolling through her messages and missed calls.
"You reckon that they'd leave me alone once in a while." She murmured, "Is that a splodge of gum?" She asked, showing Tom the received picture on the screen.
"I believe so- where is it?" He asked, frowning slightly.
"…William's arse."
"What?" Tom yelped, leaping away from the phone. "William's ar- why? Who sent- why?"
"Calm down, it's not that unusual of an occurrence!" Tom paused for a moment, a dead silence slamming down about them.
"I'm not sure exactly what's so worrying about that sentence- the fact that, after seeing a purely disgusting image, which, by the way I will not be able to get out of my mind, even when I'm old and wrinkly like Gollum, you expect me to be calm, or the fact that it's a common occurrence!"
"Oh, check your messages." She snapped playfully, tossing him his Nokia.
"Five missed calls from Ma!" Tom groaned, rolling over and burying his face into the pillows, she watched as one muscular toned arm flung itself from beneath his broad form, and groped about on the bedside table for his glasses.
Smart spectacles, he called them. Black, tortoiseshell thick frames- like David Tennant, only more natural. His sister had loudly announced that her brother was loitering in the doorway of becoming a hipster, and promptly proceeded to scream the house down, in a very civilized fashion.
Tossing her own legs over his, and reclining back on the mattress, she heard the noise of the digits being dialled, and the tension as he waited for the receiver to pick up.
"Ma?"
Pause.
"I know you called me, that's why I'm calling you- sorry Ma. Yes Ma. Aw, Ma!" He suddenly whined. "Do I have to? I'm twenty six years old!"
Sybil leaned up on her elbow, and raised her eyebrow at him. He sighed loudly, and nodded. "Oh, fine." He looked at Sybil, pointed a finger and mouthed 'Don't you dare mock me!' before reciting the following: "I must not be rude, for if I am, the spirit of a disembodied old person will rise from the grave and shout at me." She clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle an untimely giggle. His mother hardly needed to know that her son was in bed with a woman, with no clothes on.
The mysterious woman didn't really protest to the latter of these revelations.
"Easter?" More silence, while the voice on the other end of the line garbled a response. "Yes, Ma, I'm familiar with the holiday." He sighed again. "I must not be rude, for if I am, the spirit of a disembodied old person will rise from the grave and shout at me."
"Well, some friends and I were looking forwards to laying an Easter egg hunt for our friend William, but-" He flinched as his mother shouted at him, followed quickly by- "No, Ma! Of course I do Ma! Well- No, he's twenty one- well who doesn't like Easter eggs?" She continued to laugh, stifling her face in a pillow.
"Of course I'll be there. Mmhm. I don't know," He suddenly sat up, and pulled the pillow from Sybil's face. "I don't know," he repeated pointedly, looking her straight in the eye. "Will I be bringing anybody to Ireland for Easter?"
Meet Tom's family? Meet all the Doctors and Companions and the small army of children?
Hell yes! She nodded enthusiastically grinning like a small child on Christmas morning, until her cheeks began to ache, at which point she finally stopped.
"Yes, Ma, yes I will be."
"You're going why, exactly?" Mary asked, in her usual icy tone, handing Sybil an evening dress on a hanger. Sybil's packing for Ireland had been crashed by Mary, and turned into a party- Mary handing Sybil clothing, which was being pointedly put aside from the less ostentatious piles stacked on the bed beside the case (of Sybil's choosing).
"To meet the family of the man that I love."
"Urgh." Mary muttered. "I still can't believe you're already saying it."
"Neither can I." Sybil trilled in a falsely dreamy tone, to which her sister responded by rolling her eyes fondly.
"And where will you stay?"
"At Tom's mother's, where he grew up."
"Will you get mugged?"
"What? No!" Sybil cried.
"No need to shout, I'm just checking- we don't know what it's like around there."
"Oh, Mary." The two sisters continued to fold and pack, then unpack what the other had packed, and pack something else in the previous item's place.
"Mary," Sybil began tentatively, lowering her hands to her lap, and picking nervously at the tag of the tank top she was holding. "Can I ask you something?"
"Sybil, please don't do that!" Mary shrieked, tossing her arms up in the air to emphasize her point. "You just did, why not just ask what you really wanted to ask in the first place?"
"Whatever, look, you and Matthew, and the whole, -" She was cut off by Mary's impatient huff.
"We're seeing a specialist, it's just taken a while to… get up the courage." Sybil nodded understandingly, empathetically reaching out and taking her sister's hand.
"I understand. It'd be a scary thing to go through, such a major part of your lives decided just like that and-"
"What?" Mary cut in. "No, I was more worried about the actual examination, and Matthew really didn't want to fondle himself-"
"That's enough." Sybil broke in. "Let's talk about something else."
"Alright. Did you get that picture last week of William-"
"Oh, yes. How did he get gum there?"
"He seems to think it was a park bench."
A cry of horror tore its self from Sybil's mouth, and Mary nodded in agreement.
"I know!"
"That's disgusting!"
"I know! Some people have no care for council property- spitting gum on a seat! How positively disrespectful!" Sybil's mouth was hanging open in a cocktail of horror and incredulousness.
"William was sitting- for some reason than I both can and will not fathom- on a park bench, a public place, mind you, with his bare butt, and all you care about is that some random spat gum there first!"
"Well, it's William, what do you expect of him?"
"I never thought he'd be one for ditching trousers entirely!"
"Oh, come now, he might not have been taking a leap into naturism, he might have been… well, I don't know, but-"
"But what?" Sybil interjected. "Been wearing a miniskirt? Or trousers with a bum flap?"
They lapsed into silence for a brief moment.
"Is it worrying that that sounds entirely plausible, for him?"
Sybil could barely sleep for excitement.
She'd been to France, Italy, Germany, Thailand, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, Scotland, Sweden, China, India, America, Columbia, Greece, New Zealand, Japan, and Ethiopia.
Travel was possibly the one thing about her parent's wealth and position that Sybil fully appreciated.
Though she'd somehow seemed to have missed Ireland entirely- until tomorrow, that was, when she'd meet all of Tom's family- the mysterious brother with the voices, and the amazing mother, and the swarm of children.
And she was not nervous. Not at all. She was not going to trip over. She was not going to injure anybody else, as she was not going to trip over.
What if Brenda and Sarah and Aunt Delores and Aunt Minerva, and Aunt May, and Aunt Josephine and cousin Lucy and Barbs and Molly and Julia and Clara and Caroline and Mia and the elder nieces Lou and Stella cornered her and started gossiping about sex? Like the others did when Matthew was dating Lavinia, while Sybil had stood on in embarrassed horror.
What if Tom's brother's interrogated him about it?
And then laughed at her?
What if he told them about the first time?
No, he wouldn't tell.
And if he did, she'd cut him.
But he wouldn't.
She rolled over once more, and spied her outfit for their early morning departure hanging from the wardrobe door, though her mood lightened somewhat when she remembered the packing fiasco…
"Mary, no! I don't need those, you weird pervert!" Sybil cried, ripping the more…ostentatious undergarments from her sister's hands, and tossing them across the room.
"Sybil, you never know, they may come in handy!"
"Mary, we're staying in the family home! Where his mother is! And children!"
"But you might… go for a bit of an excursion."
"We're there to meet his family, not the other thing!"
"Haven't you talked about it?"
"NO!"
"Really?" Mary asked, puzzled. "Matthew and I do, when we go places."
"You plan your shags?"
"It only makes sense! That way one can prepare."
"Oh, gross."
"It's always polite to go the extra mile." Mary concluded, fetching the offending garments and patting them bossily between other stacks of clothing.
"No, that's not necessary!" Sybil snapped, attempting to yank them free of the case, only to have the ever-persistent Mary hold pointedly to the other end of the bundle.
"But it is!"
"No, no it's not!"
All most in synchronicity, both sisters pulled both ends of the bundle at the same time, each parting with a separate end of the ensemble. In response, Sybil went to fling the pants at her sister, while Mary, who had never been particularly athletically gifted in the department of flying objects, threw the top half at Sybil, who caught it and threw it back, only to have the underwear thrown back at her.
All too soon, both of them were laughing like mad, throwing the set back and forth between them, too caught up to notice the noise of the key scraping in the lock until-
"Tom!" Mary cried, reeling backwards in horror from her position on the floor, in sight of her sister's beloved, leaning against the kitchen counter and smirking in amusement, the pants having been ferociously hurled in his direction only moments before, and having landed on his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, but you were having such fun, I didn't want to stop you- I wasn't entirely sure if that was a regular occurrence-"
"No, it is not, thank you very much-"
"No, Mary," Tom interjected patiently, "Not the underwear, you."
"Me?"
"You laughed."
Mary scowled, while Sybil (also on the floor) smirked. Tom turned to Sybil and tossed the pants to her.
"Nice hairdo." He teased, as he rounded the bench into the kitchen, while her hands flew to her head and realising that the bra was stuck in her hair. After some struggle, she turned to her sister.
"Mary," she whispered.
"What's wrong, darling?"
"The hooks are stuck." In much vain and chipped nail polish on Mary's part, the mess was still there.
"I'm sorry, but we're going to have to go to the-"
"DON'T YOU DARE SAY HAIR DRESSER!" Sybil screamed, causing Tom to fumble with the coffee canister.
"Tom! Can you help?"
Sybil shrank into the bedclothes as Paulo's judgmental stare passed through her mind's eye…
Eep! It's been a while, hasn't it! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season, we're still off school down here, and I was hoping to update more frequently before we go back.
And that worked out well, hmm? ;)
Thank you for your support, last chapter's reviews and favourites and follows were a wonderful Christmas present indeed!
Speaking of which, you know the routine, please review and tell me what you think, because I'm, reviewing my writing style (a bore beyond all bores, I know), but I want to know if I should focus on more feelings rather than actions, and if I'm being to crass with my language. Thank you lovies! Please review! Xx
