title: my heart stumbles on things i don't know
fandom: the mara dyer trilogy
characters: mara dyer/noah shaw
information: slightly AU | oneshot | 1200 words
summary: Noah and Mara study vocabulary words together. (or: madness is seven snippets)
( they call it a nom de plume )
Mara didn't secure a spot in her already-full AP English class midway through the school year because of her non-existent 4.0 GPA or her ability to charm the pants off the administration.
If Mara had talents other than flunking algebra, making wanton sketches of her boyfriend, and sometimes going completely insane, it would be her mastery of the English language.
Correction––her mastery of the English language when she wasn't in Noah Shaw's bedroom and only two feet away from his face.
Noah invited her over to his house on Friday night under the pretense of studying, and even if they never really get any studying done, it becomes their thing. He picks her up directly after school Friday afternoon and they make half-hearted attempts to study before Noah takes her home around seven in the evening.
If Mara is honest with herself, she would say Friday night is her favorite part of the week, but then she catches Noah smirking at her, and she pretends she never said that in the first place. He would say it was pure madness.
~––––~
magnanimous
Sometimes Noah would randomly show up at her doorstep Saturday morning, the morning after their rather productive Friday night study sessions, with his fancy car double parked on the sidewalk and an early morning appetite. On a usual Saturday, Mara woke up to the smell of bacon and eggs, because Daniel is an excellent chef believe or not, but then she stumbles into the kitchen room and sees Noah's eternally messy hair poking out of her refrigerator. She couldn't help but smile to herself as Daniel fixed her a breakfast plate and Noah complained about the lack of hollandaise sauce at her house.
Noah asked if she has any plans for the day after breakfast, even though he knows if he hadn't showed up, she would otherwise be curled up in her room struggling in the circle of hell known as algebra.
"No, in fact, I find algebra more comforting than your presence," she said and poked at the egg yolk with her fork.
"That wasn't the case when you begged me to tutor you in algebra last night," Noah replied.
Daniel raised an eyebrow quizzically and set down his spatula. "I'm going to leave you two with this. I have to meet up with a few friends for a history project in an hour." He grabbed his car keys and headed for the front door. "Don't do anything you'll regret, and I'll be back before three."
"Okay," Mara called out after her brother and turned to devote her full attention to her boyfriend.
"What was that word we learned last night?" asked Noah, curling around Mara to check on the eggs. He took the spatula and slid the eggs on a plate, arms still caging her against the kitchen counter.
"How magnanimous of you."
~––––~
alternative
"Mara, you always have a choice," said Noah. He was pleading with her and she wasn't listening. He held out his arms, unafraid. "Mara, put the knife down."
Mara looked up through her red-rimmed eyes. Her hands were shaking, the blade of the knife bobbing up and down in the air. "There is no other alternative. I have do this"
Noah shook his head firmly. "Love, there's always an alternative."
~––––~
disturbance
"Am I distracting you?"
Mara made an aggravated noise. "No." She gripped her pencil tighter in her hand and returned to the practice test in front of her.
Noah peered up at her behind his well-worn copy of Nabokov's Lolita. She was trying hard to make eye contact with him.
He smiled impishly and ran his hands through his hair. The lead of her pencil snapped mid-bubble.
"Crap," Mara muttered. She rummaged around her pile of books for a spare pencil.
Noah slipped a pencil from behind his ear and held it out to her. "Here you go."
Annoyed, Mara took the pencil from him. "This wouldn't have happened if you weren't such a disturbance to my studying."
Noah put down his book. "So you admit that I am distracting you?" He moved closer to her, pressed up behind her chair.
"No," Mara replied simply and finished bubbling in her answer. "You're so much worse."
~––––~
nom de plume
Noah retrieved another flashcard from the stack and read off, "nom de plume."
Mara's head snapped up from her notebook. "What?"
"Maybe the girl isn't the walking and talking dictionary she claims to be," he replied teasingly.
Mara bit her lip, her gaze locked on the back of the flashcard. She blinked, once, but the word was still there: nom de plume, black ink and printed in Noah's perfect cursive.
"Nom de plume," Noah repeated again.
Mara gaped at him for a few seconds and deciding Noah would definitely notice the dumbfounded expression plastered on her face, she focused back down on her notebook.
She hastily scribbled down the three-letter word on her notebook page and distractedly motioned for him to continue. "Next."
Noah peered over the flashcard and stared at the scrawled vocabulary word. "Would you like a definition to go with that?"
Mara shook her head and plucked the flashcard out of his hand. She buried it at the bottom of the stack and reached for a new card. "I'll figure it out later. Next one, please."
~––––~
etymology
"It's no surprise that you're atrocious at foreign languages, and one look at your Spanish grade will prove just that, but ––"
Mara elbowed him and Noah made a pained noise.
"It sounds vaguely French in origin," she mumbled.
"In fact, it's not," responded Noah. "Nom de plume is fairly English in origin, but it's more like a divine combination of French and English."
Mara waved him along.
"The next time you get stuck, think of the etymology of the word." Noah ignored her and repeated the information on the flashcard.
"Frenglish, got it."
~––––~
sensible
It had been a while since Mara last picked up her sketchbook. She missed drawing and the feeling of charcoal smeared on her fingers, the rough texture of the paper beneath her palms.
This is the first thing she thinks about when she woke in her hospital bed.
"Sleeping Beauty is awake," Noah remarked. His hands were laced with hers.
"What happened?" croaked Mara weakly.
"Standard check-up. You passed out before the first needle." Noah brushed her hair back. "I don't blame you for that. They probably need to run another round of tests."
"That's stupid," she said. She didn't want more needles, more tests. She wanted out.
Noah's hand squeezed hers tighter than before, a warning for her to not act on her flight instincts. "The sensible thing to do is to stay and get some more rest. I won't let anyone come and hurt you. I will be right here."
She believed him.
~––––~
pseudonym
My name is not Mara Dyer, but my lawyer told me I had to choose something. A pseudonym.
(+ author's note)
found this while clearing out a folder of old drabbles; i apparently wrote a lot of unfinished mara dyer fic back in 2014, and decided this would be better off posted online than collecting dust in a word document. leave it to me to post more mara dyer four years after the fact.