#tommy conlon

LIVE

You wanted it, you got it!

The obvious, titular song, Paradise Circus by Massive Attack- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEgX64n3T7g&list=RDjEgX64n3T7g&start_radio=1

Everything is Everything by Lauryn Hill- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5ED4_LOeEY

I can’t help falling in love with You by UB40- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUdloUqZa7w

Ex-Factor by Lauryn Hill- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V89ZjRwMlvM

I shall add to the list as I find more fittings songs for it, no doubt. For those not familiar with the story, find the masterlist here! And for those who are, let me know in the comments if you have any songs that remind you of Tommy and Darla.

@darklydeliciousdesires

Fri, 13 May 2022 11:49:34

Big thanks to everyone for your dedication to reading and commenting on this! I’m thrilled by your responses and love that you’re so invested in the story :)

Previous chapters - One Two Three Four Five

Tag list - In the comments

Words - 2,463

Warnings - 18+ content throughout. NO MINORS, PLEASE!

Stunned silence followed her revelation, as Darla expected.

“But, you’re on the pill?” Aimee questioned firstly. “And with a new guy, you always use condoms until you know it’s safe to forgo them!”

“I know, I know,” she began, swiping a hand over her unmade face, sighing. “I slipped up. I forgot to take a couple here and there, and as for the lack of condom, again, I slipped up. I was drunk and ridiculously horny, and I know it was no excuse, but it is what it is. I got wrapped up in the moment, in him, and I know I shouldn’t have been so careless, but I was.”

“Hey, don’t shoulder this all by yourself, my love. He has to take some of the blame too for not wrapping before tapping,” Chantelle was quick to point out, shuffling her chair closer, resting a supportive hand on her thigh. “Have you told him yet?”

“Oh, hell no,” Darla exclaimed, wide eyed. “This is the first time I’ve said it out loud to anyone. I’m just trying to process it all and it’s only really landing on me right now, speaking it aloud. I’m pregnant. Fuck.”

All of her usual sparkle was completely drained from her, her friends noting how daunted she looked by the prospect, both jointly hugging her supportively.

“I know you of course have to discuss it with him first, but do you have any ideas over what you want to do?” Aimee asked gently.

“You guys know my feelings towards abortion.” They did. Darla believed staunchly that it shouldn’t be used as a contraceptive, that the procedure was one that while she would staunchly fight for any woman’s rights to have access to, was not an option to take lightly for herself.

“There’s a pill you can take, you know. It just makes it go away and you get a really heavy period. I took it when I fell pregnant right at the start of my relationship with Adam. I’m unsure whether I told you guys that, we didn’t exactly publicise it but thought it was the most sensible solution at the time,” Chantelle advised softly, stroking the tears that had begun to splash Darla’s cheeks.

“I know, I know there is, yeah. And I didn’t know that, that was a very brave choice. But for me, it just feels wrong. And god, how much I want to be a mother some day! I know at thirty-two now is the time I have to start considering my options, but with Tommy? Oh, man. I don’t even like him that much! We’re not even in a relationship either!”

“You certainly have a lot to think about, but we’ll be here every step. We got you, boo.” Laying a little kiss to her temple, Aimee grasped her hand, Darla feeling warm and supported by the enveloping of love and understanding from her best friends. They took a few silent moments, just hugging her, Darla shedding a few more tears before recovering herself.

“Okay, the weepy, woe-is-me portion of the evening is over,” she began, drying her face and kissing them both. “Let girls night resume so I don’t have to think about this for a couple of hours!”

They were more than happy to help her forget her woes, their night together resuming as they caught up on their lives, both noticing that although she tried, Darla continued to lack her usual effervescence. It was only natural that she would, taking her current predicament into consideration.

After an evening of laughs and fun, everything she needed for a little much required respite, Darla arrived home at just gone midnight, to a very quiet apartment and her thoughts creeping back in, as they undoubtedly would. She knew she had to reach out to Tommy, but in her mind, that made it even realer than it had gotten in revealing it to her friends.

He was just meant to be a fuck buddy, and now look where she was. Carrying his child.

In fact, he was barely even a fuck buddy! They’d had sex twice. Well, there’d been two encounters. She’d honestly lost count how many times they’d done it throughout the marathon that was their first time together.

“But all it takes is one time, you damned foolish woman.” She sighed. Oh, how sorely she needed a glass of wine at that moment. Succumbing to the urge was not an option, though. “It isn’t your fault I’m a screw up, tiny little thing in there.” She spoke, looking down at her midriff.

Yes, she knew she had to act swiftly in telling Tommy, waiting until the morning before calling him.

“You’re about the last person I expected to hear from,” he spoke upon answering, taking a pause between clients at the gym. He expected he might feel mad at her if she ever did get in touch again, but much to his surprise, he didn’t at all. His body remembered well, how good that woman made it feel.

“I know, and I’m sorry I didn’t reply to your message. I’ve had a lot on but I accept your apology and don’t harbour any ill feelings at all. I should have known you might find such topics triggering.” He felt good at hearing that, knowing that while he’d been the one in the wrong, she still wanted to let him know that she saw why he’d gotten so wound up. “Listen, are you busy later? I need to see you.”

“I’m free for a little while this afternoon. Are you alright? You don’t quite sound your usual self.” How right he was there.

“I’m not, no. I have a lot on my plate.”

“Ahh, need me to come distract you?” he laughed softly. “Yeah, I can be at your place at three.”

“Something like that, yeah. Alright, I’ll see you then.”

A guilty feeling crept over her, knowing that he thought he was simply coming round to partake in something much sweeter than the true reason, but selfless as she was, she didn’t want to burden him before she really needed to. Her news would be enough of a catastrophe, a big enough bomb to drop straight into his lap as it was.

In the time between, she threw herself into deep cleaning her apartment for lack of anything better to do, up to her elbows in suds, various cloths, sprays and floor cleaner, even moving the couch out to despair at the state of the dust build up beneath. Also, just under ten dollars in small change, an old chocolate covered raisin, chip crumbs and her wide toothed comb, of which she’d already replaced.

“Mental note; stop deep conditioning and detangling while watching infomercials.”

For the forty minutes left until he arrived, she sat and enjoyed the fresh smells throughout her apartment, lighting her favourite candles and creating an atmosphere of serenity, curling up and reading the poetic verse penned by one of her heroes, Maya Angelou. She sank into an idyllic state of relax, so much so she almost threw her treasured book in the air when a knock at the door disturbed her tranquillity.

“Oh god, oh Jesus, help me.” She whispered, taking a deep breath and shaking her hands around nervously, trying to dispel the tonne of tension that had just hit her squarely. She could relax all she liked, but it was only a distraction from the inevitable, what she had to now reveal to the man on the other side of her door. “Hey, thanks for coming over.”

“I’m sure you’ll make it worth my while,” he replied, winking speedily. “Or, will you? Because right now, you look kinda spooked.”

She nodded, patting the couch. “Take a seat, Tommy. I have to admit, I kinda have you here under false pretences, or rather, I didn’t correct your assumption over the purpose of your visit.”

He sat down, his look of confusion growing, a slight frown denting his forehead. “Okay.” he spoke slowly, wondering what on earth she had to say.

Darla hesitated, having visions of him blowing up at her, knowing that of course, he could sometimes have a very short fuse, much like she’d experienced the last time he’d been there. Equally, she told herself to keep her own feistiness in check, as it seemed to be the thing that caused the clash between them. “Okay, alright. Phew, this isn’t easy, it really isn’t, but here it is. I’m pregnant. You’re the only man I’ve had sex with in months, too, so it’s definitely yours.”

She waited for it, but it didn’t come. Instead, he looked a little wide eyed while he processed the news, Darla watching it sink in as he let out a long breath, reaching to squeeze her arm. “Are you okay?”

“Nope, far from it.”

“We were damned stupid, not using a condom. Twice! It’s as much my fault as it is yours there. Jesus… fuck. Oh, damn.”

She had to let him know something there, so in the interests of honesty, revealed her forgetting to take a few of her pills. Again, she braced for a blow up.

“Darla, if it was down to me to take them, I’d likely be knocking up women left, right and centre, so don’t be harsh on yourself, alright? You forgot, you’re human,” he told her, Darla feeling relieved. He was taking it as well as she could have ever hoped for. They sat silently for a time, both reflecting upon the news, Darla feeling it penetrate a little deeper for telling him, and Tommy letting it absorb fully. “So, what do you want to do? I’m assuming you don’t want to keep it? I’d be on board with that. Kids aren’t in my plan right now.”

“While I think that the time is all wrong, and to have a child with you, someone I’m not even in a relationship with, someone I also clash with as much as I do, I also cannot disregard my own beliefs, and for me, I do not agree with using abortion as a method of contraception.”

“You don’t agree with abortion? What? Sorry, no. No. I’m staunch pro-choice. How can you say that? What about all the women out there who are raped and get pregnant from it? Or hell, just women who deserve body autonomy and to make their own damned decisions?” And there was the blow up.

“No, Tommy, calm down. It’s for me, what I do with my body, not what another woman chooses to do with hers. I’m pro-choice as well, believe me, I am. For me, though, I have a lot to reconcile, before I’m to make the choice to terminate the pregnancy, and the first step of that was telling you. Please, don’t be angry,” she sighed, feeling heavy with it again.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to blow up. I misunderstood, is all,” he began, sighing as he ran a hand down his face. “So, you’re saying there’s a chance you’re gonna want to keep it?”

“There is, but I think now I have your measure on going forward with it, that being a firm no, then I have to begin that reconciliation. Because you don’t want it, do you?”

He sighed, scratching his head, sitting further back against the comfort of the couch. Oh, how he’d had not a care in the world, the last time he’d been upon it. Now, it seemed, he carried the weight of the world upon his broad shoulders. “That’s my immediate reaction, for sure. Also, though, I want to be respectful to you, of what you want. You’re the one who has to either go through something that I can imagine is really unpleasant, or carry it for nine months, whatever we decide.”

“I take from that, you could be flexible, then?”

“I could be,” he began. “We’d be signing up for a fucking tough time, though. We know we don’t really get on, so I have my reservations over bringing a child into that, I really do.”

“You’re not alone there. Let’s be brutal, we don’t really like one another that much, do we? I mean, I don’t dislike you, you’re a good guy, but you’re just not right for me.”

“Same, so that’s where the first big stumbling block would be. How stupid would we have to be to have a baby together, bearing that in mind?”

What he said made perfect sense, all the sense in the world, in fact.

“Perhaps we need to acknowledge our differences head on and actually respect that we’re different. That could go a long way to help, couldn’t it?”

“If we did, would you stop being so goddamned preachy? Not everything you believe is a lesson you need to instil in someone else, you know.”

She nodded, hearing him, acknowledging his words. “I would. I’m actually embarrassed, you know, about our first date. I don’t even get like that with the kids I teach, to literally lecture them, and I know I did with you. I apologise, I think nerves got the better of me, perhaps. I am like that, though, very self-righteous. It’s a fault I need to work on.”

It felt good to hear, that she knew she hadn’t behaved ideally with how forthright she’d been on that night. He felt vindicated somewhat.

“In turn, I’m sorry I blew up at you. I’m bad tempered sometimes and that’s something I too need to work on. It wasn’t your fault, what you said was perfectly cogent, I guess. I might not personally agree, but I can see where you were coming from, and that you really didn’t mean it as a personal attack against me or my experiences with having an addict for a father.”

He paused, carefully considering his next words. “All of that aside, though, is it really a good idea? Say we got on like a house on fire and actually were dating, it’d still be too soon, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, yes it would. And I do see where you’re coming from, about it been stupid to bring a baby into this, but I’m still not too sure about how I feel in terminating. Everything within me says no, says I know I’m going to feel tremendous guilt over it, but yeah, going ahead, it would be the craziest thing I’ve ever done,” she shared, Tommy reaching to squeeze her hand momentarily.

“You can’t be that far along yet, though, so you have time. We have time.”

He was right, they did.

Time was exactly what they would both need, too, in order to make the best decision for them going forward. It wouldn’t be easy, and neither were under any illusions that it would.

A/N - Now, here’s the really, really important part. Did you enjoy it? If so, please don’t just redundantly click that heart. Reblog it. Also, I love to engage with my readers, so a little comment would not go amiss either! Doesn’t have to be long, just reach out. I’m all about building community here and there is nothing more lovely than readers and writers supporting one another!

@darklydeliciousdesires

Fri, 13 May 2022 09:57:33

You guys, I’m still absolutely over the moon at the popularity this has garnered! Thank you so much! Also, because I just began writing chapter twelve so I’m nicely far ahead in the writing, I will be able to bring twice weekly updates for definite, going forward. Looking forward to your thoughts, as ever!

Previous chapters - One Two Three Four

Tag list - In the comments

Words - 2,213

Warnings - 18+ content throughout. NO MINORS, PLEASE!

“My god, you are so aggressive! You’ve completely flown off the handle at nothing here!”

“No, I haven’t! I just called you out on something, exactly like I did before and you don’t like being in the wrong!”

“Tommy, calm down, Jesus!”

“Nah, I’m out. Fuck this. You’re insufferable.”

A simple disagreement in their discussion and once again, things had become heated. Except this time, Tommy was not interested in Darla’s attempt to calm the situation. Oh no. He was done for the night.

“For fucks sake!” she exclaimed, dropping her hands in her lap as he closed the door behind him. Things had actually been going quite well, until that point, until the tainted conversation had begun. They’d fallen into a discussion about the law after Darla mentioned that her university had excluded a young guy who repeatedly found himself in trouble with the police, his issues stemming from alcohol and substance abuse.

She had hoped he could be rehabilitated, Tommy staunchly agreeing, saying that perhaps it would be prudent to offer such to more prisoners within the correctional system, in an effort that not so many people were thrown away year by year to rot. Darla had taken a slightly different approach, believing that repeat habitual offenders, especially those who time and time again failed to clean up their act were truly beyond the help a rehabilitation program could offer.

It was then that Tommy had blown up at her, shouting that everyone deserved a second chance, but it was only in that minute as she sat alone, that she remembered. His father had been an alcoholic.

“Oh lord. Oh, shit!” she hissed, realising too late how her stance could have come off. He’d touched on the fact that he and his dad had still had a strained, terse relationship at the time of his death, Tommy trying to get him to dry out again after he’d fallen off the wagon, but to no avail. It had been alcohol poisoning to claim his life, something Tommy was likely still quite sensitive about.

Sighing, she grabbed the two half full coffee cups and took them into the kitchen, washing them and placing them down on the drainer before finding a wine glass and removing the bottle from the fridge. “Okay, so I could have been a little softer, but he’s so hot tempered! He could have explained better instead of just losing it!” she suddenly fumed, honestly surprised at how much she gave a shit about him storming out. He was only a fuck, after all. If at all, now, as the case may have been.

She knew she’d go back and forth about this in her own mind until she drove herself crazy, so instead, decided on one of her favourite comedy shows on Prime and settled down with her wine. Pretty soon, it was like he’d never been there at all that night, apart from when she got up to go grab a pack of her favourite sweet plantain chips and saw his boxers poking out from beneath the couch.

Picking them up, she threw them into the machine in the small utility room off the kitchen, putting her wash on and filling a bowl with the plantain chips before heading back out, thinking about Tommy all over again as she sat crunching through her first mouthful. She felt a mixture of sad, angry and embarrassed, and none of those emotions sat particularly well with her either. Meanwhile, across town, Tommy sat next to Meadow at her place, watching a movie that he found tame but she had proclaimed to be the scariest thing she’d ever seen, Heather microwaving popcorn.

Whereas Darla felt sad and embarrassed as well as angry, Tommy was just angry, simmering away beneath the surface, incensed that a woman so progressive could be that narrow minded. It had truly ground his gears.

“Why are you frowning?”

He honestly hadn’t been aware. “Am I?” Meadow nodded, all tucked up beside him under her blanket, Heather’s need to have the AC on so cold that it bordered on Alaska driving her beneath the swathe of soft fleece.

“Yeah, you have your angry crease right here.” She stroked the patch between his eyebrows with her fingertip, where indeed he was sporting a frown line. “Why you mad?”

“Nothing, just stuff.”

“I’m not convinced this is mere stuff,” she began, ceasing her chewing of the piece of red rope liquorice she held in her hand. “Someone upset you, you only frown like that when it’s personal.” Shit. She really did know him too well, being able to gauge what had hurt him by how it played across his face. Mildly irritated was a set jaw and a defiantly lifted chin, but whatever this was, he felt it right down to his marrow.

“Yeah, they did.” As usual, he was being cagey, so Meadow didn’t prod him for once. She knew it was an exercise akin to poking a rattlesnake with a stick. When Heather sat down again, though, using his lap as a popcorn bowl holder, it took all of fifty seconds resumption of the movie before he suddenly blew up. “Fucking Darla!”

Bits of popcorn erupted from the bowl as Heather jumped out of her skin upon taking a handful, Meadow squeaking in surprise. Perhaps random outbursts of anger were not entirely appropriate when watching something that some people in the room found to be unnerving enough as it was, he realised about five seconds too late.

Immediately, the TV was paused. “What did she do now?” Heather asked, propping her head against her hand as she turned to look at him, Tommy’s frown deepening more than the average gorge.

“So, I go round there,” he began.

“For your booty call?” Meadow interjected with.

“Right, and afterwards we were just sitting talking, when she brings up something that lead to us discussing rehab for prisoners who have addiction issues. She’s a let ‘em rot type, and I told her for somebody so progressive, I saw that as a very narrow-minded stance to have. She maintained there was only so much you could do in helping habitual offenders with substance abuse issues, and that pissed me off because everyone deserves a second chance, right?”

Meadow and Heather both looked a little uncomfortable, cringing slightly. “Well, she’s kinda right, Tommy. Coming from someone who works within the penal system, I get guys coming through all the damn time who I know are going to fall straight back down and re-offend, and it isn’t through a lack of help. It’s through them truly not wanting to help themselves. It isn’t their second chances either, it’s like, their eighth or ninth, sometimes more.” Of course, with Heather being a probation officer, she was a wealth of information on the subject.

“Yeah, but come on. Those guys often didn’t have the best starts in life, did they? There’re so many social factors and troublesome homelives you have to work through, surely?” he put to her, Heather smiling through thin lips. She admired his nature there, to be so charitable and understanding, but felt it was a little naïve. The distinction was stark to her, between those who intended to get clean and do well against the hardest of odds stacked against them like he’d just mentioned, who sometimes still failed, and those who repeated the patterns again and again, no matter how much help they were offered.

“Yeah, but when it’s guys in their fifties and sixties still repeating these patterns, you have to ask yourself if social factors truly do actually factor in to someone’s decision to keep on indulging in the behaviour that leads to them doing time. Surely just that alone didn’t leave you so pissed off that you’re still brewing over it now though, hmm?” Reaching out, she stroked the side of his face kindly, Tommy suddenly feeling a little embarrassed.

“I kinda yelled at her. It brought up stuff about my dad,” he admitted, Meadow squeezing his arm.

“Your dad wasn’t in an out of prison like a yoyo while continuing to use, or out on the streets dealing poison to kids though, was he? He was an alcoholic who tried to clean up, managed it for a short while too, before he eventually and very sadly lost his fight. Yelling at Darla isn’t going to change what happened, especially when she wasn’t attacking your dad or his attempts at sobriety.”

He sighed, realising that he’d perhaps overreacted a little. “Me and my damned temper.”

“Yes, you and your temper!” Meadow confirmed, poking him gently with her fingernail before taking another mouthful of popcorn. “No but really, Darla isn’t stupid. I’m sure she just saw that you were triggered by it and just lost your head a little. Sending her an apology text wouldn’t go amiss, perhaps?”

He grunted at her suggestion, but it was more of an agreeing grunt than one of petulance. “Yeah, I will. Anyway, you haven’t crapped your pants nearly enough yet. Back to the movie.”

Meadow side eyed him, reaching over to the remote and pressing play, their evening resumed. He left as soon as it had finished, thanking them for their company before heading home, sending Darla an apology text on the short walk. He didn’t expect to get a reply with it being quite late, pulling out his airbed and inflating it a little more before flopping down, looking forward to getting the hole in the bedroom floor fixed the following week.

The house was costing him a small fortune, but thankfully he had a good few grand in inheritance from the sale of his father’s home, Brendan insisting he take his share since the Sparta Tournament winnings had left him and Tess very comfortable. ’It’s time we both put the past to some good, Tommy’ he had said, handing him the cheque despite Tommy’s initial protests borne of pride.

When he hadn’t received a reply to his message after a couple of days, those days stretching into a week and then two, he figured it was her problem if she still continued to harbour a grudge. He continued with life as normal, the renovations to his home taking his main focus around work and going out with his friends, until Darla became a distant memory.

As for the lady herself, Tommy was at the forefront of her mind, something she attempted to distract herself from in the weeks following the last time she saw him, focusing on her work, pilates with Aimee and girl’s evenings with her and Chantelle, one of which she sorely needed after a particularly long, tough week.

Arriving at Aimee’s house, she was greeted on the front step, but not by either of her girlfriends.

“Hello, little man!” she cooed warmly, her squirrel friend darting around excitedly before he ran up to her, awaiting his treats. She retrieved the small container of trail mix she’d packed especially for him in her bag, crouching down to offer him a small handful. “You are so cute, yes! I’m thinking I should give you a name, but what?”

“Hey! Stop feeding the pooper and get your ass back here!” Aimee called, the back gate opening to reveal her, looking unimpressed at Darla’s growing friendship with the small creature she still believed hated her.

“I gotta go, tiny. You take care, though. Avoid cars and big dogs. Cats too!” giving him a little scratch on his back, she emptied out a little more of the trail mix onto the path for him, placing the container back into her bag before joining her friends, greeting Aimee with a kiss, Chantelle too as she exited the kitchen with a large bowl of chips and a charcuterie board, a little section of vegan treats walled off by a bunch of grapes especially for her.

“I had a taste of that vegan brie just now, it’s actually quite good!” she enthused as Darla sat down, nodding enthusiastically.

“It really is! Once you get past the fact it smells like feet, but then again, I think regular brie smells much the same,” she observed, Chantelle crinkling her nose.

“And now I don’t want it any more. My belly thanks you for this!” she laughed, shielding her eyes from the still very bright early evening sun. “Babe, you look tired. Everything okay?”

No, everything was not okay, as she knew her girls would pick up on. “I haven’t been sleeping well of late.” Her confession was met with sympathetic faces, Aimee, pouring out the wine, Darla quick to cover her glass with her hand, shaking her head.

“No, none for me, guys. It ties in with why I haven’t slept all too well in the last ten days.”

Aimee and Chantelle looked between each other curiously, the former setting the bottle down and reaching to rest her hand on Darla’s shoulder as she witnessed her looked more pained by the second.

“Sweetie, what’s wrong?”

Taking a breath, Darla knew it would become real the moment she spoke it to another soul, and she wasn’t ready for it, but if there was anyone she could confide in, it was the women sitting at the table with her.

“I’m pregnant.”