Set within Season 1.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
What was supposed to have been a group study session for the three of them one Tuesday evening, had quickly dissolved into more beast talk from Shannon once Maddy had called to cancel on them yet again at the last moment. She seemed to have been doing that rather a lot lately, always blaming it on her parents. It had been annoying the first few times it had happened but her friends had almost learned to expect it by now.
It was thankfully only ever a little tense the first time their plans had fallen through and left the two of them alone. Tom wasn't even sure that Shannon had picked up on anything out of the ordinary.
He had just come back from the summer holiday he'd spent at his dad's house; a little older, a little taller. She'd laughed at his voice the first time he'd spoken to her on their trek across the school yard and his stomach had flipped for the first time at the sound of her familiar giggles. She'd worn her hair down that day for a change, slightly wavy, with it dancing into her face with the movement of the crisp autumn air. For the first time that day he had acknowledged, if only to himself, that Shannon Kelly was beautiful.
But now, months later in her living room, Tom hadn't taken his eyes off his book all evening because to be honest it was too dangerous sometimes to do that when Shannon wasn't aware of the way her face lit up when she was talking about something important to her. And anyway, he didn't really care anything about the beast…he was only in it for the company it constantly provided him. He didn't need to know all the details, only listening to her ramblings just enough to form one word replies to make it sound like he was still paying attention.
"Oh, shoot! I was hoping to run out and grab a few photos while we took a break from revisions, but the battery in my camera has died." She made her way toward the kitchen where he had left the rest of his things on the counter, "No matter, I suppose I could always just borrow yours, yeah?"
"…cool, yeah…" was his distracted reply as he stared hard at his paper, mentally willing the letters to make sense because the one thing he wanted to hide more than his nerves around her was the fact that he was dyslexic. Shannon would never go for a guy at their age who couldn't read properly. Alongside her physical attributes, he also fancied Shannon's intelligence but sometimes it just got a bit too intimidating for his confidence.
"Ugh, Tom! You don't have any memory on your card!" she shouted, "How could you possibly…"
His card.
"…I mean, it's 8GB!" she continued as he hopped over the arm of her couch and bee-lined toward the sound of her voice. "What have you been photographing?"
"No, don't look at my photos!" it had come out as a pathetic plea as he burst into the room where she was already beginning to swap his card out for hers. The thought hadn't crossed her mind to do so until that very moment.
Shannon raised an eyebrow at his bazaar behavior, sliding his card back into the camera without breaking eye contact with him, "Why?… Have you been using the school's camera for nefarious purposes?"
"No! Shan, please. I just meant…you can't look at them because it's embarrassing…they're not very good."
He reached for his camera and she snatched it away from him, taking a few steps back out of his reach. They continued this little dance until she had cleared the corner of the island.
Her stern look over her glasses, he guessed, wasn't meant to be as cute as he found it to be, "Have you not been trying out the techniques and tricks I taught you…"
"Shan…" he warned when she waved his camera at him, but it was too late…she was already bolting out of the room. With an annoyed huff he took off after her, chasing her all around her living room. "Give it back, Shan. I'm serious!"
"Come on, Tom! They can't be all bad! Just a little peek…"
Two infuriating laps around her couch and he finally managed to get her cornered by the fireplace.
She wasn't about to give up that easily, holding the camera hostage behind her back. Without even thinking, Tom reached for it on one side and then the other, now toe to toe with Shannon Kelly, arms all around her. It was all happening so fast, he didn't even realize this was the closest he'd ever been to her until a small cold hand shoved at his stomach and she playfully shrieked his name between bouts of laughter, holding his camera even further behind her back when he nearly retrieved it.
That's when he gained a full assessment of the situation. He hadn't known her to ever wear perfume or anything that girly but with his face near the crook of her neck—how had he even gotten there?—he could detect the slightest bit lightly placed behind her ear. It was subtle, but it suited her.
"You are acting like a crazy person! Are you sure I should even look at these?" she teased.
His mouth had dried up so quickly, he couldn't answer, couldn't come up with another lame excuse. And that's when his arms recoiled back to his sides. She hadn't yet removed her hand, raising an eyebrow as if to test him to see if it was safe to do so. Not that she was even doing much to restrain him that way, other than freezing him in place via his nerves.
He wanted to object when the camera surfaced between them and she began to power it up but he could barely breathe from the way she'd looked up at him much less form words. He didn't think he'd be able to stay in the room—but how was he going to tell his feet that?—to watch her react to the whole card until he noticed that her face had softened after only a few photos.
"What's all this?" she asked quietly, surprised, a hint of fondness in her voice.
"Shan, I can explain—" he tried, finding his voice at last.
"Wh— A lot of these are of me? …and Maddy?" she decided to add after a small pause, sounding unsure.
"I—" he croaked, unable to form anything more.
His feet finally caught up with his thoughts, bringing him a few steps back as he helplessly watched her continue click though the tens if not hundreds of photos he'd been taking every time they'd gotten together on top of the photos he was actually supposed to be taking for class. Every so often she would look up at him, almost as if she had caught on to the trend of her always taking up majority of the frame. But then she would study them a little closer, as if judging them on their composition and focus and not trusting what she believed to be seeing.
"Is this why you've been acting so weird when we hang out now?"
With that once sentence, any of his nerves that had calmed were thrust right back into a frenzy. This is how it was all going to go down. It's not exactly the way he pictured it to happen but he'd take it. He didn't even consider the possibility of getting rejected until he'd already opened his mouth.
"Sort of…I-I mean, yeah?"
"You have a crush on…Maddy?"
"Maddy?!"
A/N: I'm sorry if this is similar to anything in the archive already. There wasn't one like this when I started writing it but I've been sitting on this for soooo long, probably like 2 years. With Shom leaving the show, I felt like I should finally finish it up.