Title: Everlong
Author: gihb aka Nick
Pairing: Spashley (urrr duh!)
Spoilers: S2 finale
Disclaimer: not mine, don't sue.
Author's Note: This is a little bit AU, but that only comes into play around the end. Also Zero 7's "Destiny"( and of course Foo Fighters- Everlong acoustic) served as back round music while I was writing this.
She turns 21 a few months before you do, but stubbornly refuses to go clubbing without you. You take delight in the fact that she sneaks chocolate cake made with Khaluha into your book bag for a snack between classes. You share a place but drinking at home has never been your thing, reminds you too much of that night with the Aiden lips and the vomiting and...whatever else happened that night that you're glad you don't remember. She bought a liquor cabinet the day of her 21st, but it lays bare and untouched because she wants to fill it with you. She isn't the perfect girlfriend but the little things like that are the reason you keep falling in love with her again and again. In her own Ashley-way she shows her unwavering devotion.
It's two and a half months into your second year of college when you hear loud music outside your Socialism classroom, hear an unmistaken able voice over the intercom system call everyone out for some fun in the beautiful autumn afternoon. The music starts slowly and when you recognize it you laugh loudly, causing a few people to look at you nutty. She sings her way through three Beatles albums for no reason other than that you've been listening to them constantly for the past two weeks because your Music Theory professor assigned you to do a paper on John Lennon. You're outside and next to the stage by the time she's halfway through, already completed Abby Road and midway through Yellow Submarine.
You stand entranced by the sounds of acoustic guitars and the rustle of fallen leaves as she effortlessly sings her way through a flawless cover of "all you need is love".Her eyes finally find you in the massive crowd, sitting under the shade of a large oak tree. The grin that you can see on her face from there lets you know that the song she's currently singing couldn't have more significance if you carved it into the side of the statue of liberty, that this is her way of telling the world she loves you, that she'd do just about anything for you. She raises the flag at murder though, because prison jumpsuit orange doesn't flatter her complexion and she's far too pretty to get stabbed by some misfit with a handmade shank because she's been refused some ass.
You laugh at her quirky imagination while having daydreams of your own, becoming a modern day Bonnie & Clyde, living on the lamb, kicking ass and taking names. But you couldn't, you know you couldn't harm another human being even if it meant saving yourself. She loves your selflessness, protects your heart as well as she can from the world around the two of you. It works both way because you know now what watching her fall to pieces looks like, what beautiful entropy Ashley Davies can be at any moment and it soothes you more than words can express that she lets you put her back together. You know that you are her strength and she is yours in turn.
So when she takes you to Hunter's Point at 11:35pm on the eve of your big 2-1, it kinda makes sense. It makes sense when she asks you if your gay and you answer her with a heated press of your lips to hers. When you tug the cheeky grin off her lips when she ask you if you 'need to be alone'.
It makes sense when you place your handpicked bouquet of roses next to the small picture of Aiden that leans untouched against the fence overlooking LA.
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