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sailingintothenight · 3 years

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“DARLING, YOU.”

FutureDad!Tom Holland x actress!reader.

Summary: On a rainy day, (Y/N) broke up with Tom and never looked back. The reason is still a mystery, is a secret you never told anyone. But after 4 years and a hopeless night, you and Tom must face the next 9 months together while you two decide whether you can pick up your life where you left off or the resentment will be too much to forgive and forget. But how easy can it be when there is a new girl in his life and a possible new love in your own?

A/N: Hello everyone.

This is the first chapter of this miniserie, there will be a few but I hope you like it and give it a try. I take this opportunity to thank with all my heart all the people who follow my blog. I just realized that I have over 2000 followers and it's crazy, I know I'm not the best writer or the most poetic one but I'm very happy that you like my stories too. If you want, you can send requests! Thank you♥

PROLOGUE:

It is a well-known fact, a belief or a lie, that you will meet the love of your life only once. One opportunity. One person. One Love. Their story was just like that. This is the story of a girl and a boy who loved each other deeply, the story of their search for happiness, for their own well-being and for the fruit of a love that managed to last through time and distance. But, will that be enough to be together? or will the past be too much to survive the storm? Did you ever wonder... does it make sense to look for the love of your life in a place where you no longer know if there is love, or if there is life?

PREGNANT.

For her, the world is spinning out of control and it feels unstable, as if it's going to split open and swallow her alive, throwing her into a plummet that is as terrifying — as possibly painful. And it is then that the lust of a few weeks ago turns to guilt inside her, hitting her with the hard force and the high speed of a train that hurts her mercilessly right in the place where a life is beginning to grow before she got could decide if she wanted it that way or not.

What (Y/N) (Y/L/N) knows well is that, exactly 6 weeks ago, she was negligent with her own body, losing control of it, because now it belongs to a future person, to an embryo that was the product of a night of much alcohol and sex, the most reckless decision she made in her young, square and narrow life, because the truth was that, her hours, weeks and months to come were already scheduled, and they belonged to her famous life — in past tense, because now, (Y/N) is the home of a new life, according to the doctor, who grew up with every irregular breath she took — they belonged to the movies yet to be filmed and countries to visit on her still long way to the top, while right now, everything seems to turn to ashes as is consumed by a forest fire.

Sitting against her bedroom bathroom door, hands joined in a prayer begging for mercy, she thinks it's funny how a screaming mind can silence the entire world around — a world falling apart filling the void. Because they, she and Tom, tempted fate and ended up burning the hands that held each other's bodies that night, because to make a baby you need two people, but... Would the roots of Tom's love be too deep enough to face the change in their future?

“(Y/N), your mom sent me. Are you alright? You have a while there."

Tom is standing on the other side of the door, and his brow furrows in concern, one hand in the air because he's afraid to knock, because she can't seem to hear him, though he manages to barely hear her, too submerged in her laments to notice that there is someone else in her room, other than her and the merciful God — whom her dear grandfather promised would answer the prayers of a sincere soul — that she wholeheartedly hopes is real and can hear her right now when she need HIM the most.

"He– he said God hears you best when you're on your knees." (Y/N) is crying, and her words are drowning in her tears as her voice cracks when she speaks, her own English accent getting thicker. "But he doesn't seem to hear me."

The desperation in her voice makes Tom's heart break, easily and into little pieces that he tries to hold it in place, because he had never heard her cry like that before — so quiet when there was a party downstairs, so lonely when she has people who love her, so broken when she should be happy about... everything. But his mind is a whirlwind of questions and concerns, and his only clear thought is to keep her safe as his right hand rests on the door at the same time Tom rests his head against it, softly, making the sounds that would calm a baby, ironically.

"Darling, please tell me what's wrong, what can I do for you? How I can help?"

"Nothing. You can not help me. Nobody can."

Her voice starts to sound desperate, while madness and the irrational takes over his mind as Tom waits silently for her to formulate a word, but (Y/N) cries and cries and cries a little more because it's liberating, because she can't run and find a beach that saves her. Because after being the daughter of a marine, it is normal for her to seek refuge in such a place like that. Because (Y/N) believes from her heart that the sea is healing, with its smell, the division between dry and wet sand by the waves that leave their mark on their way to the coast: the sea is a sanctuary for her body and mind, because the sea smells of salt — salt and the freedom that she is looking for right now.

"(Y/N), please come out, darling. I promise everything is fine. Can you tell me what happened? Please? I'm here and I'm not going anywhere."

(Y/N) closes her eyes, but the moment she tries to say something, that day their relationship ended comes back to her mind and annihilates whatever words she tries to say to him. Was it really like that how it all ended? With ugly, harsh words that came from the same person who once swore to be the happiest man in the world by her side, words that hurt more than a punch, that sank into her stomach until she felt nauseous.

Would Tom's commitment, if he wanted to have the baby, be enough to try it?

“I'm giving you a way out, Tom. Okay?" (Y/N) wipes the tears from her eyes, one hand protecting her still flat stomach to give herself the courage she needs, the same courage that seems to have abandoned her right now. “You don't have to stay if you don't want to. Can you please keep that in mind for me?"

Tom's back strains as he nods, although she can't see him.

"Okay, darlin’."

Her mouth is suddenly dry, and the words that (Y/N) still doesn't say aloud are like fire on gunpowder about to explode, or at least that's how dangerous the situation feels, but, armed with nothing but the truth in front of her, (Y/N) ventures out pretending to be brave and puts her God aside, because there are times like this that a person had to face alone, and, taking a step towards the reality that awaits her outside and that engulfs, for a second, the mess created in her own mind, she speaks.

"I'm pregnant, Tom."

For him, it is as if her words were a sharp razor that cuts his breath away, that makes the world stop completely, leaving a great void where silence lies and reigns, without horns to be heard outside in the London neighborhood where they grew up and fell in love, without the singing of the birds that nest in the tree just outside the window, without being able to hear the sound of his own breathing that seems to stop too just like the beating of his weak heart.

His mind runs as fast as possible, registering her words, processing who he is and who he will be in the future: Tom Holland, London's most beloved child, actor, famous, successful, and now, future father?

Does this mean that they should be together? Because finally, Tom had managed to extinguish every feeling he once had for her, as well as the light of their love that once shone and that one was turn off, which trapped them in the shadows of a cold, hurricane and endless night, running in circles far from each other without knowing where they were going, drifting like a lost ship in the ocean and in complete darkness until everything ended. But why did he still want her? Why was he still wishing, stronger than ever, to have a future with her?

"(Y/N), can you come out... please?"

Her head falls as a sudden wave of fear and despair sweeps through her mind.

"Why?"

"Because I want to hug you." Tom says sweetly, so calmly that (Y/N) squeezes her eyes tight as she feels her heart about to explode. This feels like heaven and hell at the same time. He is confused too, and very scared, but he can see it clearly: the weight that (Y/N) must be carrying on her shoulders in these moments, all alone. "C'mon, darling. Please? Can you do that for me?”

Her legs tremble as (Y/N) stands up, ready or not to face the world that awaits her on the other side of the door. The fear of the future is incessant and sounds like an alarm in her head, but like the last move in a chess game, (Y/N) has no choice but to step forward to open the door, only to find that maybe, just maybe, there is a future nothing but bright on the other side.

Tom is standing there, just two steps from her.

His hair, fluffy as a cloud, is combed back, but just like always, because there are few things that never seem to change, he has a rebellious lock falling to the side of his forehead, but he is smiling, and the edges of his eyes crinkle just as adorably as in those old days. And it melts her that silently, Tom extends a hand towards her, in the way he tells her that there he is, that he has not gone anywhere, that in his arms is the place where she should be now, and that it is why still overwhelmed by the news, she approaches him, wrapping her trembling arms around his neck, sinking her face into the crook of his neck to hide herself from the world as he cradles she in his body as she cries a little more.

"It's okay, darling. I'm here." Tom holds her firmly, feeling the fatigue in her body as he thinks of the time she was sitting on that cold floor, again, all alone. "We're going to lay you down on the bed for a bit. All right?"

"Okay."

Separating from him, (Y/N) walks to the bed that is only a few steps away and that receives her as if it were a paradise, accepting the pillow that Tom places under her head before lying down next to her to look at her eyes, so adoringly as his left hand rests on her belly.

"How far are you?"

"6 weeks."

"When did you find out?"

"2 days ago."

"You went to the doctor?"

"Yes."

"Alone?" Tom asks, his brows knitting together in concern.

"Yes."

Tom nods, giving her a moment for her not to think that this was an interrogation, but rather a father's longing to know all that he lost.

“We are going to keep him… Right? I mean... I don't want to force you to do something you don't want to. It's our baby, but it's your body too and I don't want to make you feel like I'm pressuring you… but, (Y/N)...” There's a hint of concern in Tom's voice, and in the way his brown eyes look at her with fear and his forehead wrinkles that she knows he is scared, but there is something more too. "I know I can be a good father."

Tears form on the edge of her eyes, but (Y/N) fights against them, because it's terrifying to think how easy it is to drown in a sea of them, cutting off her words when she has to speak what her heart is dying to say.

"I'm afraid I can't love the baby, Tom. Or be a bad mother." Her voice cracks in embarrassment, but getting those words out of her body is a relief.

"What?!" Tom's brow furrows again, and his whisper is almost high-pitched, which is kind of funny. “Darling, come on, I've seen you with Danielle, Ethan and Julian, your nephews and niece love you and I know how much you love them. I've seen it in the way you look at them, as if they were yours. I know this is scary but we will be fine. Okay? You are not alone in this. This baby has a father and a mother who will love him until the end of the world."

(Y/N) blinks.

"You keep saying he."

Tom smiles apologetically, but in these turbulent and overwhelming times, his smile is comforting.

"Sorry. I don’t want to call him or her, it. Beside, I always wanted to have a boy first."

First, that's the word that makes (Y/N) look away for a moment, because maybe Tom, at some point in their relationship, had imagined them both, married, having a baby: first a boy and then a girl.

Or maybe, no, not with her, not anymore.

"Uh, when is the best time to tell our parents?"

Tom thinks about that, thinks about his mom and dad, how proud they would be to know that the oldest of their sons is about to have a baby, making them grandparents, making uncles to their younger siblings, making their best mate a godfather.

"They say the best time is now."

"Yeah. I was afraid of that." (Y/N) sighs, and with no strength in her body or soul, she sits on the bed, watching the way Tom asks her with his eyes what she's doing. "The best time is now, right?"

(Y/N) stands up as Tom does, smoothing out her jeans, and thanking herself for wearing her favorite sweater before heading down the road to victory — or defeat, depending on her parents' reaction. — towards the door, out of her room and the place that seemed to give her some peace. The walk down the hall is long, suffocating, and overwhelming, but the sudden way Tom takes her hand gives her the courage to move on and just forward, because escaping is not an option, because there is no better time than now. But suddenly, Tom stops her just before she can turn the corner of the first floor and into the hallway that leads directly to the kitchen, only to stand in front of her, looking into her eyes before his hands gently hold her face, as if she were the piece of the most valuable art in this world, only to gently kiss her on the forehead before hugging each other, taking all of the other as they can.

"What are you doing?"

"Holding you is the only way I can hold this angel of my too."

Tom sighs against the edge of her neck, trying to banish all fear in her body. And even though it's overwhelming the way he talks, as if suddenly the baby is his whole world and his reason for living, she hugs him back before letting him go and walking back to the kitchen, but as they both get closer to their families gathered in the around, hand in hand, attracting the attention from the happy chat while they wash and dry the dishes, (Y/N) feels the need, deep in her stomach, as if she has a sixth sense, to have a plan B in case things go wrong.

"What is happening?" Nikki asks, and the smile in her voice and on her pink lips is evident.

"Everyone, (Y/N) and I have something to tell you." Tom smiles, but he's nervous too, she can see it in the way his lips disappear for a second inside his mouth, like he used to do when he was nervous, worried, or distraught.

"Baby?" Her mom asks her, but for some strange reason, (Y/N) feels the need to hide behind Tom's body, or anywhere that would give the baby a safe place.

"Mum, I–" (Y/N) closes her mouth before continuing, before saying aloud the words that would change their worlds forever, too. "I... we…"

"We are expecting a baby." Tom says suddenly, snatching away the words that he knew (Y/N) couldn't say out loud to them. "We are very happy about that, and we hope you are too."

Like being about to touch the sky with her bare hands, (Y/N) can see the way Nikki puts her hands to her mouth to cover her surprise, but not before letting her see the smile that hides behind, or the way Dom grins, because Tom was right: a father would always be proud of his first-born, bringing another new member to the family, but like being at the doors and not being able to get in, (Y/N) feels like collapsing to the ground when there is no reaction from her family.

"Mommy?"

"I thought I taught you better, (Y/N)." Lauren looks away from her baby, who is now about to have a baby. Her gaze is icy on her little girl, but in these moments when the news has blinded her, her mother can see nothing but her own disappointment. "What about your career? You compromised, you had to be responsible. It was the only thing we asked of you, that's why we let you fly free. I thought I taught you better than this. I can't do this. I'm sorry."

The way she apologizes to the guests before leaving, feels in (Y/N)'s heart, as if her mom just apologized for the shame of having a daughter like her. And suddenly, the world is a place as silent as it is sepulchral that could drive the sanest person crazy, leaving her on the edge where her hopes of having someone else support her, love her, tell her that everything will be fine are falling down, but (Y/N) no longer has the strength to even look up from the ground when her father, as strong as any marine, and as cold as a stranger, passes her by, too.

She bites her lips, fighting the rush of tears that follows.

"Hey, don't worry. I got you. We got you."

The moment makes her dizzy and its weight drowns her, but Tom takes a glance at his family before holding her against him, because even though she felt she had no one, she, and the baby, still had him. But in a world full of changing definitions of love, selective memory is capricious, because it only projects memories based on our emotions. So when this haze that clouds their minds fades away and, they return to be who they were that night after making love, what will happen then?

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Tagging people who commented, if you don't want it, you can tell me hehehe

@annathesillyfriend @herondale-snow-carstairs

#tom holland imagine #dad!tom holland #tom holland x actress!reader #tom holland x reader #dad!tom #tom holland fanfic #tom holland

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the-breath-in-air · 3 years

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Fixing "Boy Erased" (2018)

I recently decided to watch Boy Erased (2018) again, now that we're a couple years out from its initial release (and hype). And I came away with some thoughts.

First, something I think worked. You know that scene near the end, when Jared (Lucas Hedges) is trying to leave the conversion camp and he's racing through corridors and whatnot. That whole sequence works, but there's one moment that really stands out.

Jared attempts to get his phone and Michael (one of the 'camp counselors') tries to physically wrestle it away from him. There's a bit of a fight but eventually Jared makes his way to the bathroom and he calls his mom to come take him away. He then emerges from the bathroom and says to Victor Sykes (who runs the camp), "If you, or anyone else puts their hands on me, I have witnesses." Victor puts up his hands and says, "Nobody's gonna put their hands on you. Why would anybody do that? Come and sit. We're gonna wait for your mom, okay?" Then there's a hard cut to this:

Victor Sykes and Brandon literally laying their hands on Jared and praying. And I love that juxtaposition because it brings to light the violence inherent in this situation. They're restraining him through enforced religious acts. There's violence in this prayer.

And on top of that, it serves as a pretty good metaphor for the whole film. Jared's parents (especially his mother) believe they're helping but really they're hurting. They can't see the violence of their actions in sending him to the camp.

If only the rest of the film was working on this level.

Problem the first: Audience as observer. The film is really about observing its subject, Jared, as he experiences these events. But it isn't about giving us any insight into his perspective or interiority as he does so. The camera is looking at Jared more often that it is revealing to us what he's seeing. Perhaps the most obvious example of this issue is with the perfume ad scene. Jared is on a run and he comes across a perfume ad on the side of a bus stop with a bare chested buff guy. The camera shows us the ad, and then the rest of the scene has the camera (and thus, the audience) placed some distance away as we see Jared first touch the ad, then throw a rock at the ad, and then scream "fuck you" at it repeatedly. The ad itself isn't salacious enough to illicit that kind of response in the average audience-goer, and the camera is so disconnected from Jared's experience that we aren't really gaining insight into why this ad is affecting him in such a strong way. It ends up making it so that scene really does not work.

This isn't to critique Lucas Hedges's performance in that scene. It's more to say that all the other elements of that scene make it feel ridiculous - because the audience has not been guided toward viewing that ad in the same way that Jared does in that moment.

The second problem: Casting. To be absolutely clear, this is not a knock against any of the actors performances. On the contrary, I think everyone was pretty dang exceptional. Rather, it's more a conversation about casting choices. Two of those choices really stand out as somewhat misguided: Xavier Dolan as Jon and Emily Hinkler as Lee.

Turns out Emily Hinkler is a nonbinary actress. Lee (the character) is a cis guy who is conspicuously unmasculine. (If you've seen the movie - he's the one who gets hit in the head with a baseball). Casting a nonbinary actress as a cis boy at a conversion camp feels a bit off on it's own in that a conversion camp would be forcing people to adhere to assigned genders at birth. But I could get behind it as a sort of statement, like, a casting decision as direct opposition to the enforced gender binary of a conversion camp. i.e. Why should the movie adhere to the oppressive gender binary that the camp would? However, by casting a nonbinary actress as the least conventionally masculine character - it actually feels like it ends up reinforcing the binary. Lee's defining trait is that he's small and unmanly and, afaik, he's the only one of the male characters who is not portrayed by a cis man.

My issue with Xavier Dolan's casting is much simpler: Jon feels like he was written as a teenager and Xavier Dolan was approaching 30 when this was filmed. Maybe it wouldn't have bugged me so much if I didn't already know who Xavier Dolan was when watching the movie? Like, maybe if you watch it without knowing the actor's age, it works better? But also, the character feels like a teen but isn't explicitly stated to be a teen. So whenever he was on screen I kept wondering if actually part of Jon's situation is meant to be that he is 30 but stuck in a sort-of adolescence due to his relationship with his abusive father. Or did they just cast Xavier Dolan to portray a teenager?

This brings me to the third problem: Not enough of the ensemble. Jared, and thus the audience, spends proportionally, little screen time with the other people at the camp. They are rarely shown talking to each other - especially outside the restrictive observation of the camp's 'counselors.' This could be part of the point - i.e. that the camp is so isolating - but that isolation wasn't really highlighted by the camera/scenes/dialogue...so it really feels more like it's just an oversight. The movie focuses on Jared and his individual story and so the rest just fell by the wayside.

This is really unfortunate because there are some (potentially) great characters in there, especially Jon and Gary. Jon went through the program once before and is now back for a second time. We don't know what happened to make him come back. He appears to be 30-ish but he's staying at a hotel with his abusive father. He is completely invested in the program and treats his sexuality like an addiction. He has even taken it upon himself to forego all physical contact with other men (not even a handshake). His self-loathing is at once horrifying and heartbreaking.

In contrast, Gary (Troye Sivan) knows the entire program is bullshit, but he's playing along for his own survival. He's over 18; he lived with his boyfriend for a year prior to coming to the camp. So that begs the question of how his family convinced him to enter to the program. Also, Gary's so invested in his own survival, that he stays silent and is complacent in the abuse and violence he witnesses against others in the camp. He is both a victim and a bystander (at times).

I think this film would've really benefited from spending more time with these characters (as well as Sarah, portrayed by Jesse LaTourette, and Cameron, portrayed by Britton Sear) in the camp and seeing how they all interacted with each other. Give us a sense of their different contexts and perspectives - and give us a better sense of the ways that conversion camps disempower the people sent there (even people like Gary, who knows it's bullshit). It's the thing that makes all the other movies about conversion camps work so well.

Which brings us to the fourth problem: the ending. If we spend more time with the ensemble, we'd either end up with a really long movie or we'd have to cut out something else. Well, folks, we can cut about 10 minutes off the end. Everything after the dinner Jared has with his mother post-escape can go. The climax of the film is when Jared finally decides to leave the camp. The resolution comes when his mother places herself in opposition to Jared's father (which she had never done before) and decides that she's going to take Jared home. And the emotional resolution comes when she admits to Jared that they made a mistake and that they harmed him by sending him to the camp.

Everything after that is extraneous. We don't really need to see Jared living in a city with a boyfriend, or see him begin to reconcile with his father. His relationship with his father was never the emotional core for the film. Boy Erased is, in some ways, a movie about self-actualization and that's the sort of movie that's best to end with something a bit open-ended. Y'know...a sort of end-that's-just-the-beginning kind of thing. Because the story of Jared falling in love and dating and moving out and gaining the self-confidence to confront his father - well that's a whole other movie. And here it gets shoved into the epilogue, which does the whole thing a real disservice.

Then there are the informational cards at the end. Two stick out as being particularly frustrating. One, "The real Victor Sykes left L.I.A. in 2008. He now lives in Texas, with his husband," feels irrelevant and unnecessary. The audience cares about what happened to Gerrard Conley (who wrote the story and whom Jared is based off of). But why do we care about what happened to the real guy who ran the camp? We don't...except for the jab about him now being married to a man - which feels like it's a more significant point for the cis straight people in the audience than for anyone queer. Turns-out-ex-gay-pastor-was-actually-just-gay-the-whole-time is not revelatory, I gotta say.

Then there's also this:

The emphasis about conversion therapy "practiced on minors," feels a bit disconnected from the film we just watched - which emphasized how abusive and traumatizing it is, even for adults. And in the U.S., all states currently legally allow conversion therapy for anyone 18+. Only Washington D.C. has banned it. And that, to me, is equally egregious, yet it isn't mentioned. The film itself challenges the notion that it's somehow okay for this to be practiced on adults because it's ostensibly their "choice," and then the info cards at the end shy away from that stance by focusing on kids.

I think the thing I find most frustrating about this movie, is the wasted potential. As I said at the beginning of this, there are some moments that really stand out in how they use the medium to convey meaning. There are some choices in how the film uses light and brightness (or lack thereof), that are pretty dang good, too. But ultimately, it's a film I feel so detached from and I think some of what I explained above is part of why.

#boy erased #lucas hedges #xavier dolan #emily hinkler #troye sivan #joel edgerton #nicole kidman #jesse latourette #britton sear

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