This is my November Rock the Hollywood AU, and I'm really proud of it. I really like the story, and I think my writing is the best it's been in a while. I hope you like it. Please leave a review if you do - I swear I live off reviews.
"Come to the premier with me," Tom said to Sybil across the table.
"Come again," Sybil said, unsure if she had heard him right.
"Come to the premier with me," he repeated, more slowly this time, and with an added lopsided smile of endearment.
Sybil stared at him, not knowing what to say.
"Go on, Syb, we've all been to one event or another with Tom," Thomas, a mutual friend of Sybil and Tom said.
Sybil, Thomas and Tom were all having an evening of dinner and catching up. They'd been friends since university when Tom was studying English, Thomas business and Sybil medicine. Since their university days, Sybil had qualified as a doctor specialising in rheumatology, Thomas had gone into marketing, and Tom had made a splash in Hollywood, starring in some of the biggest hit movies of the last five years or so.
Because of this Tom spent his time split between England, where he had lived during university and in the years immediately after, and America, where he spent a lot of time while he was working. The nature of his job meant that a lot of his work consisted of events; movie premieres, awards ceremonies, talk shows and various other things to promote whatever was next to come out or had come out most recently.
His most recent acting endeavour, Rising, was a historical drama based on the true events of the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland. His own great-grandfather had taken part in the event, so it was a film very close to his heart – possibly the film he was proudest to have been a part of. Its imminent release was a popular topic with the entertainment press, thanks to its all-star cast, despite the fact that its premiere was yet to happen.
Over the years, Tom had developed somewhat of a policy for himself when it came to big Hollywood style events. He was lucky enough to go to all of them and be immersed in the glitz and glamour as part of his job, and at each one he had the opportunity to take a plus one. He wasn't in a relationship and hadn't been in any serious relationship since stepping into the world of fame (his last had ended when he was eighteen in his final year of school), so there was never one go-to person to be his plus one. Instead, he had decided quite some time ago that he would take a different person each time. Most of them were friends from his childhood in Ireland or his early adulthood in London – people who otherwise wouldn't ever get to experience these sorts of events. He wanted to share his life with the people that he loved, and since they couldn't see him whilst he was filming, this seemed to be the next best thing.
He'd taken his mother to more events than anyone else (she was so proud of him), but he'd also taken other family members and some of his closest friends. Sybil seemed like the next obvious choice to accompany him. Thomas had gone with him to a red carpet event about a year ago, and at subsequent events he'd taken mostly family members. But this time, he thought that perhaps Sybil might like to join him. She was interested in politics and historical politics, and he fancied having someone with him who could appreciate the film not only for its artistry, but also for the history itself.
"When is it?" Sybil asked, after a moment of thinking.
"Thursday night," he said.
"Go on then," she said. She had a night shift on Wednesday, but then didn't have a shift until the Sunday morning, so a night out on the Thursday was definitely doable. She had always enjoyed nights out with Tom when they were at university together – he knew how to have fun – but she didn't know what he'd be like at a movie premiere where he was technically working. There was only one way to find out.
-ooo-
Sybil and Tom stepped onto the red carpet to be met immediately by a sea of camera flashes. Tom was very used to the feeling of being looked at from every angle at events like this, but it was an entirely new feeling for Sybil. After a brief moment, Tom leant towards Sybil and whispered,
"Relax."
Sybil smiled a nervous smile at Tom. It was all very well for him to tell her to relax, but it was difficult when her heart was beating so fast. With the constant flashing lights she didn't know where to look, but she tried to smile and present herself in a reasonable manner.
When she was used to scrubs and trainers in a hospital with her hair thrown up any which way, her current attire was a bit of a shock even to herself. She was wearing a velvety dark green dress with a square neckline and long sleeves. It was body con, but the fabric had a stretch to it so that it wasn't difficult to walk in. She wore plain nude heels, but they were only about three inches. Heels was not her normal footwear of choice, and she'd decided that a high profile premiere event where she couldn't escape the cameras was not the place to practise walking in six inch stilettos. Her hair was curled and left loose around her shoulders, her make up was subtle, and she wore delicate silver jewellery to match the silvery tone of the clutch bag which was big enough to hold only the essentials.
Tom's outfit was almost as boring as every other man's on the red carpet. He was wearing a navy blue suit, white shirt, burgundy bow tie and matching burgundy shoes. They'd considered matching their outfits, even if only with a green pocket square, but decided against it. Sybil was just his guest. They weren't a couple.
As Sybil and Tom made their way down the red carpet, inch by inch, making sure to smile at all the cameras pointing at them, Tom kept giving Sybil encouraging words to try and put her at ease. He remembered how terrified he was when he'd gone to his first big event, and figured she must be feeling similar. Perhaps even more so because she'd never actually signed up for this life. She just happened to be the friend of a man who'd signed up for this life.
Unusually, there were no interviews being given on the red carpet at this premiere, for which Sybil was immensely thankful. She didn't want to deal with the questions asking who she was and why she was there. The thing she was most looking forward to was the film rather than all the other messing around that came with a premiere. She did, however, have to admit that being involved in this part of a premiere was interesting. It was probably the only chance she'd ever get, so she was taking in as much as her nerves would allow.
Once they'd got to the end of the red carpet, they were taken into a room with no cameras or reporters. The only people allowed in this room were those working for the cinema that was hosting the premiere, and those who had worked on the film. For Tom it was like being back on set, being able to catch up with the people who'd filmed with him months ago, but for Sybil the whole thing was a bit daunting. Small talk was something she could do fairly well – as a doctor she met new people all day every day whom she had to be able to talk to – but this was different. This had the added element of fame. Everywhere she looked she saw people in person whom she'd seen on screen countless times before. She knew that they were just normal people, in the same way that Tom was a normal person, but it didn't stop her from looking wide-eyed around the room at all the famous faces.
"Sybil, come over here," Tom ushered. She followed him to one side of the room to meet Dame Elsie Hughes, who starred alongside Tom in the film. Sybil remembered Tom saying to her during filming that he'd got on surprisingly well with Elsie. She had become a bit of an on-set mother figure to him when they'd shared scenes together.
When Tom and Elsie got to each other they hugged and said a brief hello.
"Elsie, this is Sybil," Tom introduced.
"Hello, pet," Elsie said to Sybil as they kissed each other on the cheek. "You look gorgeous tonight."
"Oh, thank you," Sybil said with a wide smile. "As do you."
"I'll bet you don't need a whole team of people to make you look like this, unlike some of us," she said in her melodious Scottish accent with a laugh.
"Oh, I don't know," Sybil said, conforming to the stereotype that the English are no good at gracefully accepting a compliment.
"Syb, you always look great, even in scrubs, and you know it."
Sybil smiled at her friend.
"Even in scrubs?" Elsie asked, surprised at the comment.
"I'm a doctor," Sybil said. "You're far more likely to find me in scrubs than all glammed up for a premiere."
"A doctor?" Elsie said. "My, my, you must be clever. You've done well there Tom, getting yourself a girlfriend who's clever and beautiful."
"No, no," Sybil and Tom both said over one another.
"We're not together," Sybil said.
"Just very good friends," Tom said.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, do forgive me. I just assumed you were a couple. I thought perhaps Tom had finally got himself into a relationship."
"Unfortunately not," Tom said.
"Don't knock it. You being single means I get to come to a movie premiere!" Sybil chuckled.
"She's got her priorities straight," Elsie said to Tom with an eyebrow raised with years of wisdom behind it. Elsie was one of those women who had learned a huge amount from a long life and wasn't afraid of talking about the parts of life that many would shy away from. She had offered Tom many pieces of advice when they were filming and Tom had needed some support. It was because of this, Tom thought, that he and Elsie had got on so well. They were close enough that although they didn't talk much between meetings, when they were together they treated each other like family, offering words of kindness and support one minute and mocking and joking with each other the next.
"It was lovely to meet you Sybil, and I'm sure we'll talk more later, but I must go and see how much damage my dear husband is doing."
"Lovely to meet you too," Sybil said, a wide smile on her lips.
Elsie gave a quick goodbye to Tom and Sybil before leaving them alone.
It was about half an hour, though it felt like only five minutes, before they were told that the film would be beginning soon. Anyone in the room who wasn't a cast or crew member from the film was escorted into the movie theatre to take their seats, each of them leaving space for the people who had brought them to the event, whilst the cast and crew prepared to go on stage to introduce the film.
Sybil waited patiently, not sitting quite near enough to anyone to strike up a conversation, but she wasn't waiting for long before the film was introduced. The director, producer and four of the main cast, Tom and Elsie included, introduced the film from the front of the movie theatre before coming to sit in the audience to watch the film.
Sybil was absolutely captivated by the film, and Tom caught himself on a few occasions looking out of the corner of his eye to see her reactions to some key scenes in the film. He knew that she'd watched his films before, but he'd never watched his own acting with her, and he was curious to know how she responded to it. Where there was supposed to be lightness, she smiled, and where there was solemnity, she shed a tear.
When the film finished, everyone of particular importance who had gathered in the room before the film went back to the same room to mingle briefly.
"What did you think?" Tom asked when they were in a corner on their own, out of earshot of most.
"Some of your best, I think," Sybil said.
"Do you really think so?" Tom asked.
"Absolutely," Sybil said, bringing Tom into a hug. "You've outdone yourself with your acting this time."
Tom couldn't help a smile from forming at her kind words, a smile which kept reappearing throughout the evening's afterparty. It was astonishing the effect a few kind words from someone close could have.
The afterparty went without a hitch, and after a few drinks Sybil relaxed and stopped thinking of everybody in the room as celebrities, and started thinking of them just as people who were here to have a good time. She had a lovely long conversation with the wife of one of Tom's co-stars, danced a conga line right behind Dame Elsie Hughes (that was one to tick off the bucket list that she didn't know she had), and almost lost her heels after she took them off and completely forgot where she'd put them.
At the end of the night, Tom accompanied her in a taxi back to her modest apartment before carrying on to his own home.
"Thank you, Tom," she said, hugging him in the taxi before getting out. "That was the best evening I've had in a very long time."
"I'm glad," Tom said. "I have to say it was one of the better events I've been to."
"Must be the good company," Sybil said, bigging herself up. She had a tendency to do that when she'd had a few drinks.
"Must be," Tom said, going along with her self-confident remarks partly for the fun of it, and partly because he actually believed it. If he'd invited somebody else to this premiere, he may well not have had quite such a good time.
He watched her get out of the taxi and walk up to her building. It really had been a brilliant evening, and a lot of that was thanks to having Sybil as company.
-ooo-
The following morning, Sybil got a text from Thomas.
Did something happen last night with Tom that you need to tell me about?
Sybil frowned when she read the message.
Wtf are you on about?
He replied only with a link to an online report from the previous night's premiere. It looked just as Sybil would have expected a report of a movie premiere to look until she scrolled past the paragraphs about the film itself and the evening as a whole and reached the part of the article that focused on the celebrities in attendance, and more to the point, their plus ones. Some of the celebrities were given no more than a line or two, but Tom was given considerably more. Whoever this journalist was seemed to think that Sybil and Tom were a couple and was speculating wildly about the two of them as a romantic pairing.
Sybil wasn't entirely sure what to think of it, but if anything, she found it funny. They'd done nothing to give the impression that they were in a relationship other than turn up at an event together. If that's all it took for the media to latch onto something and make a rumour out of it, Sybil could understand why some celebrities had a reputation for hating media attention and tried their hardest to keep their private life private.
Sybil brushed it off as nothing and didn't think anything of it until a few days later when she was back in work. While on a break from running around the hospital one of the nurses with whom Sybil was quite friendly asked if she was going out with Tom Branson. She'd clearly been reading the celebrity news over the weekend.
"No, I'm not," Sybil said. "He and I are good friends. We met at university."
"But surely if he invites you to a premiere…?" she questioned.
"Not in Tom's case," Sybil said, shaking her head. "Trust me, he thinks of me and I think of him as nothing more than good friends."
The nurse was called out of the room and Sybil found herself wondering. Tom had taken other female friends to events and as far as Sybil knew, nobody had ever reported Tom as being in a relationship with any of them. What was it that had given the reporters at the Rising premiere the strong impression that she and Tom were an item?
They'd been standing together on the red carpet of course, but there was no particularly friendly touching. He'd perhaps put a hand on her waist once or twice, but that was more as a way to guide her forward since he had known what he was doing and where he was going more than she had. It certainly wasn't a sign of wanting more than just a friendship.
He had been whispering in her ear when they were on the red carpet to calm her down. He'd tried to make her laugh so that she relaxed. Sybil could see how that could have been seen as a display of more intimate affection. Whispering close to someone always was intimate, especially considering that they'd had so many people looking at them, watching them closely.
Now that Sybil was thinking about it, there were a few moments from Thursday evening that could be construed by an outsider as a bit too intimate to be just good friends. He had passed comment on how she looked in scrubs. She never considered how she looked in scrubs because she knew nothing romantic could come out of wearing scrubs, but that didn't seem to stop Tom from complimenting how she looked in her work clothes. And then he'd said he was "unfortunately" single. Was that a general comment about being unattached or was that intended as a subtle pointed remark that he was unhappy about being unattached to Sybil specifically?
Thinking back, Sybil remembered that at the afterparty she'd got a bit tactile with Tom. She did tend to get tactile when she'd had a bit to drink, and getting tactile was one of the tell tale signs that she was flirting with someone. She'd never consciously thought about flirting with Tom, about trying to take it any further than friends, but perhaps subconsciously she was curious. And then on the way home, he'd got a taxi with her when usually he'd have sent her off on her own and he'd have got a separate ride home, since they didn't live incredibly close to one another. But he'd made sure he saw her home safe. Perhaps just a gentlemanly gesture, perhaps more.
She suddenly felt a lot of feelings for Tom coming to the surface all at once. She would need time to process everything, but now was unfortunately not the time. She had the rest of her shift to complete and she knew that thinking about personal issues while she was meant to be working never ended well. She'd have to put it to the back of her mind for now.
-ooo-
Sybil had invited Tom round for the evening. They tended to go months without seeing each other, and then would see each other a lot whenever Tom was back in London. This particular meeting was partly just because Sybil and Tom got on very well and took as many opportunities as they reasonably could to see each other, as they always had done since university, and partly because Sybil had an alternate agenda. She wanted to talk to Tom about them. As friends. As a couple.
"Did you see all the news about the premiere?" Sybil ventured when the conversation allowed her to. The two of them were sitting on the sofa, close as friends would sit, but with a respectable distance between them.
"Aye," Tom said, letting his Irish upbringing slip out. "Some not bad reviews, I gather."
A pause.
"Do you ever google yourself?" Sybil asked.
"Haven't for a long time."
"Or the films you've been in?"
"I try not to," he said. "Why?"
"So you won't have seen what people have said about the premiere?" she said.
"Only what my colleagues have told me."
"Right," Sybil said. "It's just," she paused. "Thomas sent me a link to an article about the premiere that was written by someone who seems to think that you and I are a couple."
"Really?" Tom said, a small smile on his lips that didn't escape Sybil's notice. "A lot of journalists speculate about that sort of thing."
"So you've never been accused of dating anybody else you've taken to events?"
Tom thought for a moment.
"I did once take a friend from school who was wearing an engagement ring at the time. That led to a few questions. But on that occasion we actually spoke to the press at the time, so we could shut down any rumours before they happened."
He paused and then said,
"Sorry. I wasn't particularly expecting that sort of reporting. I'd have warned you if I'd known."
"No, no," Sybil said. "It's alright, you weren't to know. What did you think would happen when you took a beautiful woman to a premiere?"
She was only half joking. Tom looked at her, deep into her eyes. Deeper than he'd ever looked at her before.
"It got me thinking," Sybil said, holding her breath, "what if?"
"What if?" Tom asked.
"What if we were a couple," Sybil clarified, tentatively, slowly.
"You know, I've been thinking along similar lines recently," Tom said, looking into his lap and then at Sybil.
Sybil's expression said it all. It was an expression of shock and happiness and disbelief.
"I've never been sure though. I mean, I'm sure that I like you. I just was never sure if you liked me the same way. Or if you'd even be willing to entertain the idea of… us."
"In all honesty," Sybil said, "I hadn't thought about it until after the premiere. It hadn't even really occurred to me as an option. But once I'd thought about it, I couldn't shake the feeling that maybe I liked you. And I've been thinking about how you treat me, how you've treated me for a while now, and I think perhaps I've been a tad blind."
"I hoped you'd notice," Tom smiled.
"Why didn't you ever ask me? You know it wouldn't have changed anything between us, whether I felt the same as you or not."
"Fear of rejection," Tom said plainly. He'd clearly thought about this before. "If I were to get rejected by a woman as beautiful and clever and lovely as you, what hope would there be for me?"
This time it was Tom who was only half joking.
The air between them suddenly thickened with tension. Sybil couldn't stop her eyes from darting between Tom's eyes and his mouth. She noticed his eyes doing the same to her facial features.
Sybil smiled a small delicate smile and leaned in to kiss Tom. He met her halfway. As they pressed their lips together, they knew that things would change between them. There was a chance it wouldn't work and their friendship would be irreparably damaged. But there was also a chance, a bigger chance, that it would work wonderfully and they'd be happier together than they'd ever been or ever would be apart.
Sybil knew in that instant when their lips touched that they'd have to take it slowly. They had known each other for so long, but in this case, it didn't mean they could just fall into bed together or fall into a relationship and expect everything to be perfect. Being such good friends might complicate matters somewhat. Sybil was hyperaware of this, and she was sure that Tom was too. They'd have to be careful. Have fun, of course, but be careful.
But a kiss couldn't hurt. In fact, the pair of them were rather enjoying it. The first of many, they hoped.
The media had latched onto a non-existent relationship between them. Now to see what they would do when they realised that they were right all along.