Authors note: Here is the second oneshot of the night. Also, if you've been following my posts you'll know that all of the oneshots I've posted for this fandom were written two years ago, but I totally forgot how fun this oneshot is. Enjoy.
"Ugh," I groan, flopping down hard against the bed, letting my eyes fall closed as I throw one arm up over my face. Silent seconds tick by as my eyes shut out the world, allowing me to be alone with my thoughts. I feel the mattress dip slightly beside me, but despite the weight of another presence on the bed I am still unmoving, it isn't until the other person speaks that I convince myself to open my eyes.
"Don't feel too bad love," Warner says from his perch on the edge of the mattress, dropping one hand to my thigh in what he hopes is a gesture of comfort. "It was your first one, you will get better at it."
"I know," I sigh miserably, peering up at him through one eye, the other still covered by my arm. A heavy sigh squeezes its way past my lips and I wish that it could take the humiliation of the past hour with it. My cheeks still feel tinged with pink and I am fighting a strong urge to bury myself under the covers for the rest of the day.
"Please do not let today dishearten you," He continues, and I know there's no point in lying and saying that I'm not at least a little bit disappointed with how this evening turned out because he would be able to tell. Instead I settle on placing my arm back down by my side and sitting myself up, dragging my legs up the bed until they're folded in front of me and crossing my arms over my chest as my hair falls into my face. I don't bother moving it.
"I won't. It's just," I say, stumbling over my tongue to find the right words without getting any more frustrated with myself. I can already feel heat rising on my face, my arms unfold swiftly and land in my lap, fingers interlocking awkwardly. Warner shifts his frame to the side to face me, his eyes watching me intently, holding a strange sort of comfort as I fight to find my voice. "How hard can it be to put the right amount of pressure on a freaking pedal?"
My exclamation is followed by another heavy sigh, hair falling freely into my eyes. While staring down at my lap I feel a hand tuck my hair out of my face and behind my ear, before gently touching my chin and tilting my head up. I reluctantly meet Warner's gaze.
"Driving is much more complex than that," he says softly. "It takes most people months to be able to drive well. You will only get better."
"Well I can't get much worse," I mumble, reflecting once more on this evening's disastrous lesson.
"Juliette," He sighs, his voice urging me to stop doubting myself.
"We're lucky we were on turf that's not being tested, I could've hit someone," I exclaim, still considerably annoyed with myself. I look away and try to force my cheeks not to redden. "I could've driven us into a ditch."
"And did you?" Warner counters after catching my attention again, his concerned stare holding me in place.
"No," I answer quietly, completely deflated. He scoots across the bed and moves closer to me, cupping my cheek delicately in his warm hand.
"Exactly," He whispers, leaning in to place a soft kiss on my cheek. I inhale sharply when his lips brush my face, my heart skipping for that for the split second of contact before stepping back in line with the rest of my organs, marching to the same slow rhythm that keeps my body functioning. When all contact with Warner is pulled away from me, my thoughts come back into focus, filling me with the miserable reality of my dangerously bad driving, like someone emptied a jug of mortification into my brain. I sigh out the breath I had inhaled.
"But I could have," I respond flatly, still clinging on to any possible negative feelings left from this evening for a reason that I don't quite know. Maybe I'm not done being angry at myself just yet, maybe I feel like I need to hold on to the humiliation for a little bit longer, although I can't quite understand why I should. I'm running out of reasons to keep mad at myself and Warner knows it.
"That is not the point," He states, shooting me a pained look, his eyes searching my face for a smile that doesn't exist yet.
"Then what is?" I grumble, my eyes dropping to the bed briefly before bouncing back up. I want to sleep for twelve years.
"The point is, love," He starts, the beginnings of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "That I remember the two of us having a similar conversation to now when first you started your training, and look how quickly you progressed then."
"We were on a time limit," I mumble, dismissing his attempts at encouragement. He lets out a subtle sigh, shaking his head at me.
"Come here," He whispers, beckoning me over with his fingers. I do not hesitate in crawling over to him and climbing in his lap, wrapping my legs around his hips as his arms fall into place around my back, encircling me, trapping me against him. I relax into the familiar comfort of his body, resting my chin on his shoulder and inhaling his scent, feeling his warmth flood against my skin, his hair tickling the side of my face. I almost forget the reason I was feeling so terrible. He runs his hand down my back once, before gently kissing my hair and nudging my face until our noses were inches apart and he's looking me straight in the eye. A shared breath passes between us before he opens his mouth to speak.
"You are not as terrible a driver as you are telling yourself that you are," Warner assures me, his voice laced with tenderness and his lips dangerously close to grazing mine as he talks. He pulls away, just an inch, I feel a quick flare of disappointment. "And actually I was rather impressed."
"You were," I stammer, losing the war with the beaming smile that has decided to conquer my face. Just like that, those two words have driven out every feeling of humiliation from my chest, have dug their way into the hole of humiliation I had forced myself into and wrenched me free. I find myself blinking in disbelief, like I can't believe the words left his mouth. The smile on his face quickly parallels mine, his eyes gleaming brightly as he studies the look on my face. It isn't until that grin morphs into a smirk that I fall back to reality, my eyebrow automatically raising in question.
"Yes, it appears that Kishimoto greatly exaggerated your incompetence at controlling a car," He explains, and I'm suddenly hit by a million different emotions with the force of a tidal wave. I must find out what he means.
"What did Kenji say?" I ask him immediately, making the determination for answers clear in my voice.
"I'm afraid I can't tell you," He teases, pulling his face further away from mine, traces of a smirk still lingering. My eyebrows arch skyward as I look at him sternly.
"And why not?" I demand.
"Because he's proving to be very useful at the moment and it would be most impractical if he were murdered," He explains. I start to imagine what Kenji must have said, knowing that predictably it would be a comment which would cause me a significant amount of irritation. Several different scenarios play out in the back of my mind of what Kenji might have said and what I'm going to yell at him when I find out. A few seconds later I notice Warner looking at me from the corner of my eye. I try to squash my frustration.
"If you tell me what he said then I will try to restrain myself," I attempt bargaining with him, but he just laughs at me.
"Why don't you ask him yourself?" he counters, deflecting responsibility off of himself.
"Oh believe me, next time I see him, I will," I say sternly, and this time he laughs even louder, his body shaking gently underneath mine.
"I don't doubt that," Warner sighs as he attempts to slow his breathing, pulling me down towards him for a kiss. His lips touch mine gently, soft and sweet. I tear away for one quick breath before his hand cups my cheek, drawing me back against him so he can kiss me again, this time harder. It takes all of one second before I'm returning the kiss with equal urgency, raking my hands through his hair and tracing his lips with my tongue. After deepening the kiss even further, it becomes hard not to moan as our mouths crash dizzyingly together. His hands find their way up my shirt as he drags his mouth from mine, moving it instead down my jaw before reaching my neck. I gasp loudly as air pours into my lungs.
"What's all this?" I ask breathily as his lips start to move down my neck, almost huffing in disappointment when my question causes him to stop.
"You needed cheering up, is it working?" Warner murmurs hoarsely into my shoulder.
"Definitely," I gasp as his teeth graze my neck. He laughs low in his throat before continuing kissing me, sucking on the sweets spots he knows too well. My brain is slowly turning to mush, it's been put in a simmering hot pan and melted down to a puddle like the rest of my organs so the only thing I can think about are the shivers racing up and down my spine and the rapidly strengthening tension pooling in the pit of my stomach. All of the humiliation I felt over my driving lesson, all of the anger I felt over one of Kenji's stupid comments that I hadn't even heard.
It takes me a second to register that Warner's lips are no longer on my neck, which causes me to fall back to reality fast. Thin strands of my unconscious thoughts are pulled into focus, and I remember that I was last contemplating Kenji's supposed comment, which in turn causes me to consider something I was far too angry to even acknowledge when it was first brought to my attention. I don't even realise that I've started laughing until Warner pulls away from me, looking up at me slightly concerned.
"What is it, love?" he asks, to which I first respond with another round of giggling, before calming myself down enough to answer him properly.
"Earlier when you mentioned…" I begin, still kicking out the last of the giggles hidden in my voice box.
"Yes," He prompts me to continue, staring up at me with intrigue. I almost start laughing again when I think of how he managed to cheer me up the most when he wasn't even trying, and also mentally chastising myself for being too emotional to notice this the first time he said it, I'd been waiting for this to happen for too long, how could I have missed it?
"Did…did you say something good about Kenji?" I say. His eyes widen, and I can practically hear the penny dropping in his thoughts as he remembers our previous conversation. A quick look of panic flashes through his eyes before his face sets to stone, classic denial behaviour.
"What are you talking about?" he replies, far too hastily. If I rolled my eyes now, they would probably get stuck.
"You said he was useful," I remind him, silently revelling in the look on his face. "You did say something good about Kenji."
"That is what you're thinking about right now?" he tries to counter, raising one eyebrow into the perfect arch. But he should know that I know better than anyone that his first avoidance tactic, past denial, is to change the subject, and that I'm not going to be letting him forget this easily.
"You did," I grin.
"No, I-" he begins mumbling, but I cut him off.
"You said something positive about Kenji," I say triumphantly, looking him in the eye, remembering a distant conversation the two of us had months ago in which he claimed he would never have anything positive to say about Kenji. A split second of silence ticks past us before his eyes break contact from mine to roll, then he pulls me flush against him, his lips hovering just below my ear.
"Tell anyone and I will vehemently deny it," He whispers, his breath hot against my skin, causing me to bite my lip in order to supress a shudder. Somehow I manage to pull back.
"I'm not sure I'll be able to keep that secret to myself," I tease, grinning sweetly down at him. Warner's gaze drops swiftly towards my lips and before I can even register what's happening I'm flipped onto my back and he's hovering over me, his eyes studying me beneath him, dark and unyielding. The air is knocked out of my lungs, my heart is suddenly beating like a caged bird in my chest and the only thing I can manage to do is blink at him, slowly, letting our change in positions sink in. His lips move back under my ear and my breath catches.
"Oh I think you will," he murmurs wickedly, drawing out each word as his lips purposefully graze my skin so lightly that it drives me insane. My eyes are closing and I'm trying not to gasp and all of the tension floods back into my stomach with the force of a waterfall. I don't even remember wrapping my legs around him. He shifts himself more comfortably over me, dipping his head towards the curve of my shoulder.
"I can be very persuasive," He says, and right now I hate him. Hate that his lips only just brush my skin, in a way that it's so frustratingly not enough and he knows it. The way he kisses everywhere but my lips, rendering me incapable of doing anything but whimpering. The way he torturously draws out everything, how it feels like a million years have been and gone before his fingers find the hem of my shirt. Coherent thought is now a foreign concept, I can't even string a single band of letters together to form words, everything has been long forgotten except him, and his hands, and his lips. Time has collapsed and everything is blurring together, and now the absolute last thing on my mind is one less than successful driving lesson.