Disclaimer: The characters, and the premise upon which they are based, do not belong to me. If they did, I wouldn't be stuck here scraping pennies together while I wait for ABC to broadcast this fantastic show.
Author's Note: This is more of a personal challenge, than anything else. I used a random word generator to create a list of one word prompts using the alphabet, A-Z. What comes out is nothing fantastic, but a mind exercise to keep myself encouraged [read: frustrated] when it comes to my writing. These stories will vary in length, but are meant to be relatively short one-shots. Enjoy!
In the hushed tones of an overcast evening, the room is bathed in gray as she blinks through the dust of night. With no clock in sight and no watch at her wrist, she thinks about how easy it would be to let this day blend into the endless ones before. Her mind should be hazy; the late hour clouding over her mind in exhaustion, yet every nerve is on guard as she awakens in the depths of twilight.
For the first time in days, months, years, she isn't startled awake by the obnoxious intrusion of an alarm or call as it edges its way into her dreams. She can only just make out the brush of his fingertips as he maps the constellations on her skin, faint freckles luminous as they're strewn across the sky of her back.
Within the cocoon of soft sheets, she's hesitant to greet the impending daybreak, when the dark finally gives way to the light of dawn. Tugging the covers higher, the corners of her lips turn up gently as she turns her head to meet the reason as for why she would give anything to stay in bed all day; wayward brown tufts edging out of the pale comforter.
Underneath the comforter, she feels his motions stop briefly before he continues as if he's charting the stars. When he brushes over a particularly ticklish spot under the backside of her ribs, she bites down on her lip to stifle a giggle as she quickly flips over to face him.
Rolling herself on top of him, her hips settle just above his as she drapes herself over the length of his frame. She can feel the tendons and muscles working in his calves as they loop around hers to still her fidgety limbs, meanwhile the pads of his fingertips skim the flesh of her back softly as she settles her ear down against his chest.
Although she can feel him press into her hip, she knows the reaction is purely instinctual as his embrace is not of primal desire, but comfort. If this were any other man, she'd be devising some scheme as to why she couldn't stay; she's not sure whether it's the steady thrum of his heartbeat, or the downy warmth, that begin to lull her towards sleep when she notices his fingers still.
"Ang?"
"Hmm?"
"Be here -,"
"Mmm...am'ere..."
"No," he mumbles tiredly, "be here tomorrow."
She realizes, as her eyelids remain closed, it is at this point in every other story of her life she's cast as the runaway, always leaving before she's left. For the first time, she doesn't feel the need to leave, to protect herself from being hurt. Her last coherent thought is how voices that tell her to flee, normally keeping her wide awake, have silenced as the motions of his fingers begin again.