Title; The Furthest City Lights
Word Count; 996
Summary; 'Out of everyone you could have had - and we both know there are a lot - why did you pick me?' A series of single-word prompted one shots, for when 100 words isn't enough.
Relationships; Stevie/Zander, mentioned Zander/Molly, mentioned Zander/Others
Rating; K
Warnings; It's all very deep and meaningful.
Disclaimer; I do not own How To Rock or the characters from it, nor do I own the actors who portray them; this has been written without their knowledge or permission with the intention of entertainment and personal writing practice.
Notes; After writing my short drabbles I decided I wanted to write longer ones; and this will be where they live. Please, please leave me single word prompts; it'll motivate me to write faster, and it's always nice to have proof people are enjoying my work.
stac·ca·to;
1. Music; Cut short crisply; detached.
"Can I ask you a question?" His fingers drum a soft, staccato rhythm against her ribs, every press still warm through the fabric of her shirt despite the hour they've just spent walking through the rain; and he lets out a hum, soft and content and not really awake.
She watches him silently, waiting for some sign he actually heard her; and when an eye slides open and he grins at her, she rolls her eyes, already knowing what is coming.
"Technically you already have done." The smug curl to the corner of his mouth both makes her want to hit him and kiss it – just the corner, turning up in his amusement at his own joke – but instead she just tries again.
"A different question, idiot." He chuckles – low and tired, a rumble against her cheek that makes her smile softly – before letting his eyes shut again.
"Of course you can. Whether I answer it or not depends entirely on the question, and whether or not I've fallen asleep before you ask it." Her quiet huff of frustration makes him chuckle again; but his smile vanishes when she asks her question.
"Why me?" He opens his eyes to frown down at her; and her eyes are open and honest in a way they rarely are.
"Out of everyone you could have had – and we both know there are a lot – why did you pick me?" The question pulls him up short; and internally he remarks that there's no way he's going to sleep now.
He takes the time to study her expression before answering, eyes skimming over the slope of her nose and the soft curve of her jaw, the graceful tilt to the corners of her eyes and the stray curl sweeping across her forehead.
He likes her best like this; soft-eyed and honest, bottom lip caught between her teeth as she waits. Her façade of toughness and aggression is attractive, and endearing at points, and forever admirable; but he likes to see her open like this. It's private and intimate and he wishes moments like this were tangible; that he could take them in hand, lock them away for him to look back on when life gets them both down, and she's buzzing with aggression all over again.
He has days when he wishes he kept up the attempts to make art after the disaster with Kacey and her sculpture; not because of the girl he started it for in the first place, but because he wants a solid reminder of moments like this; her eyes open and tentative in their trust, not narrowed with a grin or a scowl as usual, painted out across a canvas; the grip of her fingers in his shirt represented in clay and silver wire; the questioning curl to her lips sketched in chalk and charcoal. He wishes he'd kept trying, because these moments are uniquely his. She never lets down her walls until faced with moments like this, and if he ever dared to ask she'd bite him in a way that is only one part playful to the other nine serious parts; so he wishes…
That's all it comes down to. He wishes, and doesn't get.
Except that he got what he wished for once; and now his wish is asking him why.
"Because you're everything." It's simple enough for him – she's everything, she's his everything, she holds his life together – but he can see in the way her lips purse that it's not that simple for her.
His breath escapes him in an almost silent sigh.
"You know my track record better than anyone. You even made a chart, once." He can remember Nelson's outrage at anyone approaching things analytically without his consultation.
"Every girl I've dated before you…they've been nice, and I never asked them out without actually liking them and expecting to stay with them. But things would get a week in, and still, every time I looked forward they just…weren't there. There were exceptions, of course – I always knew we were never going to get rid of Molly even if we really tried – but they were never going to stick in a relationship with me." He curls a lock of her hair around his fingers, before releasing it and going back to drumming his fingers against her ribs, the beat uneven and breaking apart every time it sounds like it would settle into a constant rhythm.
"But there was always you; playing your bass, calling Nelson 'Nellie' and grounding Kacey. You were never a maybe. I tried to think of various futures without you, but things always go wrong when you aren't there. The rest of us fall apart, or something pulls us apart, and it's always something you could fix if you were there." His smile is small and private, and makes her heart beat faster; matching, coincidentally, the steady tap, ta-tap his fingertips have settled into on her side.
"You've always been a constant; ever since you ran into me on my first day at Brewster and almost broke my neck." He grins down at her, and she can't help smiling back; before he continues softly, brushing stray strands of wet hair away from her face.
"Having you like this is easy as breathing; it was everything that came before that was hard." His conclusion is quiet and decisive.
"And that's 'why you'; because you're everything, and you're perfect, and because trying to stay away from you was the hardest and stupidest thing I've ever done." He absently thinks that the grin spreading across her face could make anyone do stupid things just to keep her; before she twists free of his arm, and moves to straddle his hips, smirking down at him.
"I don't know. Every time you make a pun it's pretty stupid." He grins up at her while she bends down, resting her forehead against his; and he snaps his teeth at her playfully.
"You laugh anyway."
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