Love, Don't Wait till the Finish Line
by: singyourmelody
Author's Note and Disclaimer: Title belongs to Nada Surf's song "Always Love" which is absolutely amazing. I do not own any of the Switched at Birth characters. I've only seen this show a couple times since it hasn't been on very long, but I've really enjoyed it so far. I know that the show is currently headed in a Bay/Emmett direction, and I'm on board with seeing where that could go, but I also could see this scenario playing out in the distant future. I love the friendship Emmett and Daphne have and it could be fun to see where that relationship leads as well. I've never written a story where two characters are deaf before and sign most everything, so I tried to convey as best I could that they are signing. Hope that's not too confusing. The section in italics is a flashback.
It happens when they are in college.
She lifts her head and squints, her eyes trying to adjust to the darkness as she looks for her shoes. And her jeans. And, she reaches down, oh yes, and her bra.
His arm is slung loosely over her waist, his fingers settled comfortably against her hip bone. She doesn't want to wake him, not sure of what to say or how to act. It's funny. She's known him for what, fifteen years, and has never felt shy before. But now. . . well, now everything's different, isn't it?
She shifts a bit and he sits up, his arm sliding over her skin, leaving a trail of goose bumps in its wake.
He turns on the lamp next to his bed. "What's wrong?" he signs, still half asleep, rubbing his eyes.
"No-nothing," she whispers, halfheartedly signing the word.
He opens his eyes fully and looks at her skeptically. He was always good at telling when she was lying.
"Nothing. Go back to sleep," she responds.
But he knows her too well, has known her too long, so he ignores her and props up the pillows. He's ready for a talk or a fight or whatever comes next.
She clutches the sheet more tightly around her as she too sits up. It's 2:30 in the morning and she's really not sure about anything, but she owes him this. Owes herself this.
"Daphne," he starts, his fingers moving gracefully around the space in front of his heart, "tell me what's wrong."
"We just slept together," she signs back.
He grins an almost-shy grin and she realizes she's not the only one who has no idea what to do in this situation. "I know," he responds.
She shakes her head. "And?"
"And what?"
"And what the heck were we thinking?" she questions, her fingers moving more quickly as she signs each word.
He shrugs. "I was thinking that you look really beautiful when you're mad and that I've wanted to kiss you since forever, so I did" he signs, as if his answer is the most obvious thing in the world.
She blushes when he says she's beautiful. "Inevitable," she says and he nods.
"But not out of our control," he adds.
She tilts her head in confusion, so he continues.
"Inevitable makes it seem like we have no choice. I definitely had a choice. So did you."
She thinks back to just a couple of hours earlier when they had been studying for their physics exam. Yes, she definitely made a choice. One minute she was pressing him for information about his roommate, Jonathan, a lacrosse player at their small university and the next he was kissing her and she wasn't even trying to stop him. She might have even started it. Did she? Did he? Did it even matter?
"You can't be serious," he signs, the expression on his face unreadable.
"Why not?"
"Because he has the IQ of a banana," he says back.
"And he's very attractive, so I'm not seeing the problem here," she says.
"Daphne, no. Just don't do it."
"Why not? He's always very friendly when I'm here."
"He's friendly with every girl. You've got breasts, therefore he loves you," he snaps.
She looks down at her chest and then back up at him, at his challenging eyes. It feels like he is tiptoeing up to the invisible line they never cross.
She sits down on his bed and sighs. "Why do we always do this?"
"What?" he questions.
"Become interested in people that are somehow connected to the two of us?" she asks, waving her hand between the two of them, finally meeting his eyes.
"You mean Bay."
"Of course I mean Bay. You only dated my sister for like a year," her fingers feel angry as the motions flow out of them.
"And that was what? Four years ago now? I guarantee you she's over it," he signs back.
"Are you?"
"That's not fair."
"How is that not fair?"
"You know how everything happened with that."
"Of course I know. Toby and I call it the 'Great Implosion of 2012'."
He smiles as she says this. "It was pretty bad at the end, wasn't it?"
"And the middle. And a little bit in the beginning. . ." she smiles back.
"You were just jealous," he signs, gently nudging her shoulder. The line makes a reappearance once again. It seems closer this time.
"Was not," she signs, stepping closer to him. He's taller than her, she notes, but she has always been better at the stare-down.
He doesn't want to engage in a staring contest, however, and steps away. "I saw her when she came to visit you last month."
"You did?" she asks, surprised. Bay hadn't mentioned anything about seeing him. Daphne had made plans for the two of them that specifically left him out.
"Yeah, she knocked on my door late one night," he says.
"Booty call?" she asks, laughing.
He doesn't respond, so she stops laughing. "Eww. Tell me you didn't."
He holds his hands up in the air.
"No, no, no. That's just awful," she signs, before punching his arm several times.
He grabs her wrists, pinning them together and forcing her to look at him. He's smiling.
"Hey!" she signs. "That wasn't funny." She pulls her hands away.
"It was a little," he signs back.
"How did she take it?" she asks, mentally making a note to question Bay later.
"It was fine. She didn't really want to do it, either. She was just lonely and needed someone to talk to," he responds.
"Yeah, well. . ." she signs, not completing her thought. She was lonely too. She looks at him and he doesn't say anything for a minute. Suddenly she's very aware of the way his chest moves up and down rhythmically. It's almost poetic in the way that it moves in different ways than her own, at its own pace, always at its own pace.
"Do you ever think about it?" he says, eventually.
"What?" she questions.
He moves his pointer finger back and forth between the two of them.
"Me and you?" she asks.
He nods.
"What's there to think about?" she signs, but the look he gives her tells her that's the wrong answer. He is not going to let her off the hook that easily. He has grabbed her hand and has pulled her right up to the line, but is waiting to see which way she wants to go.
She narrows her eyes and looks at him, this boy who knows everything about her, who somehow manages to bridge her worlds of deaf and hearing and makes her feel at home in both.
So she says, "Yeah."
"And?" he asks, taking the smallest step closer to her.
"And I don't know what to think, ever." He takes another step closer to her, but she continues. "We're together all the time. I've known you since I was a little girl. You're my best friend and I love having you in my life, but sometimes, like right now for example, you get this smug little look on your face that makes me so angry because you think you know what's right about everything, all the time."
"You finished?" he signs.
"Not yet," she responds. "You can be the most arrogant person on this planet and also the most humble which doesn't make any sense, but I guess that summarizes you up pretty well. You're this person who is constantly in my life and I cannot seem to make you fit in any of the places you are supposed to fit. You keep breaking out of the boxes I put you into. Friend? Nope, that doesn't work. Brother? Even worse. So then what's left?"
"I don't know. What is left?" he asks, the look on his face the most serious she's ever seen.
She sucks in a breath, but won't let herself exhale. "I guess all that's left is you and me."
She's not sure who moves first or who moves last, but the next moment her lips are on his and her hands are tangling in his hair and she knows that all this time they were supposed to be studying physics, but maybe she's getting a lesson in chemistry instead.
She's a little cold so she pulls the sheet closer around her and buries her head in her hands.
He reaches out and brushes her hair out of the way, before taking her right hand in his.
Rolling her head over in her palm to face him, she says, without signing, the one thing she's been dwelling on. "Did you really want to kiss me since forever?"
He nods and looks down at their fingers. She can't tell which ones are his and which ones are hers.
"So why didn't you before now?"
He gradually pulls his hand away. She had forgotten for a second that he needs it. "The timing never seemed right."
"And what makes now right?" she signs.
He doesn't say anything at first. "We're older."
"Okay. . ." she signs, not understanding.
"Older means wiser. More mature. . ."
"More capable of handling sex?" she asks.
"You make it sound like I seduced you!" he exclaims, a look of mock-shock on his face.
"Didn't you?" she asks back.
"Yes, I said, 'Daphne, please explain Newton's Third Law of Motion to me but watch out, you better not come too close or my inherent magnetism might be too much for you to withstand,'" he signs quickly. She laughs as she realizes that she loves his sarcastic sense of humor.
"So now we're older and we've slept together and everything's supposed to be perfect?" she questions, but he shakes his head.
"No, now we're older so we'll know better how to navigate all of the hard stuff."
Oh. She blinks once. Twice. Looks down at her hands and then raises them. "You wanted to wait so that we'd have a better chance of making it."
His cheeks turn a light pink as her meaning dawns on him, and he nods.
"And you think now we're at a point where we could make it? Where we could last," she questions, her fingers cutting through the invisible space separating them.
He looks directly at her and slowly signs, "I'm ready if you are."
She exhales before leaning in to kiss him, her fingertips lightly touching his face.
Two months later, she's bringing home her new boyfriend for her mother to meet during Christmas break. It is clear that Regina has been cleaning and decorating all day for their arrival and as soon as she swings open the door, her mother rushes over and embraces her. It feels good to be home.
"Where is he?" her mother says, looking directly at her. She's in her third year of college and this is the first boy she's ever brought home.
"Mom, you know Emmett," she says aloud as she motions for him to follows her into the Vasquez apartment.
Her mother's eyes widen. "You mean . . .?"
She smiles a big grin, a stupidly big grin that she hasn't been able to get off of her face since the night of their study session. She looks over to where he is currently being squeezed to death by her mother and his eyes meet hers. She's not the only one grinning.
Telling Bay is a little awkward. She seems happy for them and her own relationship with Emmett was a long time ago but it's still just . . .
"Weird?" she asks him as they sit together on a bench at a nearby park. The river moves slowly in front of them.
"Yes."
"I'm sorry. I don't want it to be weird. Bay and you are two of the most important people in my life," she signs.
"I don't want it to be weird, either. It will probably just take time," he signs back.
"I'd tell you you are smart, but that would just give you a big head," she says.
"True. It's already pretty big. I'm not sure it would be worth the risk of it getting any larger" he says, smiling at her. They sit in silence for a moment, but something in his expression changes. Every so often, she notices, when he looks at her, he'll get a certain expression on his face, as if he's recognizing something for the first time. Something that amazes him.
She loves that look.
And today she decides to ask him about it.
He shakes his head. "It's nothing," he signs.
"Tell me," she says, expectantly, her eyes wide and pleading.
"I don't know exactly what look you mean, but sometimes when I'm with you, you'll do something cute or something infuriating or you'll call me on my crap or you'll say just the right thing at the right time and I make a note in my head that that is something else I love about you," he says, his hands dancing around the open air. She loves watching his hands when he's signing and particularly when he's talking about the two of them.
"Oh?" she asks. "And what were you thinking about right then?"
"How it's going to be really hard not to sleep next to you for the next three weeks," he says, grinning a crooked grin.
"Emmett!"
"Alright, I was thinking about how your eyes get this certain mischievous glint when you are teasing me."
She thinks about that for a moment. "I make notes too, you know."
"Yeah?"
"Yes. About how you must be the most loyal person I know to wait all these years. About how graceful your hands look when you sign. About how you love comic books even though you'd never admit that to anyone," she leans closer to him. "About how it will be hard for me to sleep without you next to me, your arm around my waist, your fingers resting right here. . ." she signs, before taking his right hand and placing it on her right hipbone. "I've kind of gotten used to you, you know," she says, without signing, meaning every word.
He kisses her then, slowly and softly, his hand never leaving her hip, as she tries to memorize the feeling of his fingers on her skin, the smell of the river air, the way the wind tickles her hair against their faces, the promise of tomorrows.
Thank you for reading and reviewing. Love to all.