so since we have no indication as to the actual grade they're in or birthdays, I wrote as close to the years as I could. especially when we might have a season 5 renewal coming *fingers crossed*!
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girl you could be my once in a lifetime.
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he's six when he meets dez.
he has shocking red hair and an easy smile and his shoes are two different colors.
austin holds out an open palm for a high five. the other boy looks at it kinda confused and raises an eyebrow before hugging austin instead. he can't really breathe and dez is giggling and shimmying up and down and he kinda thinks that they'll be best friends forever.
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he's twelve when he realizes that girls aren't so gross.
(he can't tell but girls haven't thought he was so gross for a long time.)
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he's fourteen and a half when he barges into sonic boom and plays the drums with two semi-eaten corn dogs.
he's fourteen and a half when he meets ally dawson.
he's fourteen and a half when he realizes that she definitely most certainly totally is so gross.
(not really, but he's not fifteen yet.)
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he watches her write in her book in the practice room.
he watches her write in her book behind the cash register.
he watches her write in her book at the food court while she's eating ice cream.
he never watches the way she watches him as she scripts lines and lyrics in her book.
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sometimes their fingers touch when they play piano and he thinks that ally isn't so gross after all.
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he's just turned fifteen when he meets kira. he knows that she definitely most certainly totally is so not gross.
but she also doesn't correct his grammar. or brush their hands together. or smile in a way that makes his heart beat like a hummingbird. or hear him speak even when he hasn't opened his mouth.
he's just turned fifteen when he realizes that he's in trouble.
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surprisingly enough, dez figures it out long before hand when they're fourteen and a half and playing drums with corn dogs in sonic boom and ally dawson yells at them to stop it.
he looks at austin and how he watches ally and how he lets her correct his grammar. or how their hands brush together when playing the piano. or how when she smiles he looks like he's been whacked on the head. or how they talk with their eyes over loud noises.
(trish figures it out too. they decide not to tell austin or ally. not just yet anyway.)
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dez tells austin he's made five hundred "team ally" shirts. his best friend grimaces and runs off.
(dez doesn't bother telling austin that he had them made two weeks after ally wrote his first song.)
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he's fifteen when he realizes that he's been in love with ally since, well, kinda sorta maybe
forever.
(though he guesses a small part of him knew since fourteen and a half and corn dog drums because after all they're his words: "we're a perfect match.")
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so he breaks up with kira and chooses ally. again.
so he ruins more instruments for grand gestures. again.
so he steals her song. again.
(so she steals his heart. again.)
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he's fifteen when he asks ally dawson to their first date.
he's fifteen when he asks ally dawson to their second date.
(he's fifteen when he realizes he's really been dating ally dawson since the first day he strolled into sonic boom and stole her song.)
dez laughs the day he learns they broke up and takes trish to the movies to see zaliens. trish laughs the day she learns they broke up and buys dez popcorn at the movies. honestly, it's just getting started.
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he's fifteen and a third when he writes the first real song without ally's help.
(it's awful.)
he's fifteen and a third when he writes the second real song without ally's help.
(it's everything he's wanted to tell her since he was fourteen and a half.)
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trish tells cheetah beat austin's second song was about ally. dez confirms it and shows the video tape of the courtroom performance. they're paid for their "responsible journalistic tendencies".
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when he wakes up three centuries later, he' still fifteen and a third.
and he's still hopelessly, hopefully, never, always looking for ally dawson.
(past, present, future, in any lifetime, he'd find her.)
(okay, so in any dream she'd find him.
they're timeless, you know?)
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he's fifteen and a third when they have their first fight.
they don't fight and they're like two little kids in the sandbox arguing over toys. he does kinda wanna laugh when she starts lalala-ing all around the mall though.
but he's angry with her for lying to him. and she's angry with him for lying to her.
and their whole world is this close to collapsing underfoot, until it he remembers why he needs her in the first place.
(there's no way I could make it without you, do it without you, be here without you. it's no fun when you're doing it solo, with you is like—
whoa. yeah, like whoa.)
and scene.
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he's fifteen and a half when he books his first tour.
he's fifteen and a half when ally gets her first record deal.
he's fifteen and a half when she doesn't get on the bus with him.
he's fifteen and a half when he realizes that ninety four days is a really long time.
he's fifteen and a half when he chokes on an i love you because he doesn't even have the strength to say it to her without begging her to stay because ally, there's no way I can make it without you.
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(he's fifteen and a half when he feels himself ache for the first time for something he finally understands:
austin moon isn't austin moon without ally dawson.
it's the forty seventh day into the tour when he sees her smile at him that he finally feels whole again.)
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ten thousand people a night, fifty states in three months, three thousand miles?
it's nothing when she leaps into his arms.
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he's fifteen and three quarters when he tries to kiss ally under the mistletoe.
(trish and dez barrel through the door and ruin it, but that doesn't mean he isn't going to try again.
he has the beach club rigged with it around every corner.)
he's fifteen and three quarters and twenty four hours later he tries again.
(dez and chuck barrel through the door and ruin it, but that doesn't mean he isn't going to try again.
he figures that new year's eve is right around the corner.)
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what'dya say we get back together, he asks her and smiles out the corner of his mouth, holds out his hand, closes his fingers around her own.
(dez gives trish a twenty outside the doorframe, yeah as if they'd ever break up, god I TOLD you, dez.)
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he's fifteen going on sixteen in nineteen days or so when ally gets the call that, yeah, she can't write with him anymore—
no more late nights on the piano bench, hands crossing over the keys, and him counting the swirlies that her curls make on her shoulders.
no more ordering way too much Chinese food with the dumplings that she likes best and actually doesn't use a fork to eat.
no more falling asleep together on the pull out couch with the sun coming in early and her glazed over bedroom eyes.
no more austin. no more ally. no more austin and ally.
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he's fifteen going on sixteen in nineteen days or so when he realizes he doesn't know why he worries, she's always going to have a back up plan. even if it involves pink checkered hair and taste testing Swedish meatballs.
(there are certain things he can't ever go without: pancakes, music, trish &dez are on that list, but ally is always going to be at the top.)
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he doesn't trip over chelsea's feet and she can spin really well too.
on his left he sees ally step on dez's feet, and his best friend screeches in protest. austin stifles laughter and listens to Chelsea talk about how much her boyfriend helps endangered animals. it was so nice of him to let austin take her dancing, and his feet thank him the next morning when they're not purple and swollen like he knows dez's are going to be.
(he does kinda miss the way she elbows him in the chest when she tries to spin though.)
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he's sixteen when he tells ally that he wants her to be happy no matter what.
(it's the first and only lie he's ever told her.
it breaks his heart.
if he's supposed to be with someone, anyone, for the rest of what feels like forever, it's ally.)
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when you're in love you'll know it.
(he steals a glance.
so does she.)
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he's officially sixteen when he accidentally steals ally's fear.
so she steals his confidence. and does what she does best:
austin moon isn't austin moon without ally dawson.
(he's officially sixteen when he tells her the same thing, different verse, but still no different from the first. just you know, forgive him for doing this all wrong, he's just trying his best in this song to tell her, what can he do?
girl, I'm stuck on you.)
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he's still officially sixteen when another boy makes ally's eyes light up and nervously twirl her curls around her fingers. stupid farmboy accent.
he's still officially sixteen when he realizes this is what jealousy feels like for the first time.
(and he's still officially sixteen when he realizes that he's not just depending on her for his career, but just plain depending on her.)
(and again, he's still officially sixteen when he realizes that, he's still stupid in love with ally dawson.)
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dez and trish high five under the table at shredder's while pretending to roll their eyes. thank you farmboy.
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he's officially sixteen and some change when he lies to ally for the second time ever.
(she knows it too. he can tell by the way her eyes widen and her fingers slightly squeeze his as she walks away.)
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piper is beautiful and funny and he maybe kinda could like her, but with her has stuff to prove. he's never had to prove anything to ally. she's just always taken him the way he is: immature, silly, arrogant, ridiculous. he knows they aren't the greatest attributes, but he's never had to pretend with her. she just makes him feel like he's doing his best by being his immature, silly, arrogant, ridiculous self.
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he actually enjoys cloud watching club, but not because he is watching clouds.
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he sees dez ask carrie to prom. he sees trish ask chuck to prom. he sees himself ask piper to prom. he sees gavin ask ally to prom. two of these occurrences matter: piper says yes. ally says no.
he spends over two hours in the flower shop with dez mulling over choices of wrist corsages before settling on a cluster of pink roses.
settling.
(it didn't help that dez kept waving bouquets of daises in his face and saying things like wow, I thought you hated pink and roses are so not what I had in mind and didn't you think you and ally would always go to prom together.
he buys some daises anyway and leaves them on the front counter at sonic boom with no note.)
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i should be here with ally is out of his mouth before he even knows what he is saying.
carrie gasps and narrows her eyes and stalks off to find her sister the same time that ally walks through the door. it's like a cheesy romantic comedy or a line of one of his songs, but he can't catch his breath. all he knows is she looks beautiful and piper looks pissed.
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he's almost sixteen and a half and it's still prom. ally's still beautiful and piper really isn't angry at all.
his crown is crooked on his head and ally is smiling at him in a way that makes his stomach cartwheel under his tux and then when he kisses her, his heart drops out of his chest and bottoms into his feet.
(his head fits perfectly in the swish of her shoulder and her heart beats like a hummingbird against his chest and she's so small that she puzzles well into his frame and he just feels like there will never be another perfect match for austin moon besides ally dawson.)
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trish and dez make moony noises in the corner and toast with a glass of punch. ah prom miracles do happen.
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the austin moon special is like watching every single step that they took to get to where they are now.
(he can see himself searching for her in every video. eyes scanning for ally and when he finally sets his sight on her it's just so—
she's like a beacon in every crowd, the single thing he is always looking for, what anchors him to the music and the lyrics.
to everything.)
of course, he catches it on the practice room couch three hours afterward with ally sitting between his legs, tossing popcorn in his mouth and pelting him with loose kernels from the bottom of the bowl. her curls rest in his lap.
the number one video makes him turn tomato red and dez and trish catcall and make kissing faces. he buries his face in ally's curls and runs a hand over her neck. her lips vibrate against his cheek.
this is better than seeing it live anyways.
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they don't get the lead roles in the school play, but ally holds his hand during the stage production.
he already got the beauty. he's all set.
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(he's really glad they're a couple again too.
he'll never get sick of how her hand feels in his.)
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one day they will be old, and he wants his memories. the ones where they write with their fingers brushing together on the piano keys, her curls resting lightly on his shoulders as they lay on the couch in the practice room singing fragments of notes, perching on the counter with his fingers nimbly running over the small of her back and her grinning out the corner of her mouth, dez and trish busting in the door and ruining a million moments.
her hand is warm and tiny and he can feel it contract between his fingers as she holds on for dear life. he feels the weight lift when they get sonic boom back, but not without some damage.
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he's sixteen and a half and a little more when he realizes that he should've stood in front of sonic boom when the wrecking ball slammed through the front door.
he wouldn't be austin moon without ally dawson.
and he wouldn't have ally dawson without sonic boom.
he wouldn't have anything without sonic boom. they should really turn it into a church or something.
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he's just turned seventeen when his heart breaks three times over.
once when jimmy takes away his music.
twice when ally takes away his heart.
and three times when dez takes away his other half.
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it's a swooping hot flush in his chest as he stands in front of the whole damn world and says those three words he was never able to before where there was another boy and other girls and lifetimes of lyrics and bad timing, and now—
I love you, ally.
his entire world stops until she kisses him with the weight of something he could only count as eternity.
(he remembers being fourteen and half and seeing this brown eyed girl and never could have anticipated this, but he wagers that I've always liked you, I guess I never stopped started the moment she whistled at him and he noticed she was wearing a flowered vest and her knees were knobbly in her boots and her smile made him feel like he had been punched.)
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he's seventeen and it's a new beginning because music has always and will always be his love, his life, his dedication, but ally, well she's his once in a lifetime, his one in a million, his perfectly fated, and if he's being honest, he's always been willing to make this choice since there's no way he can make it without her.
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