Without You

Austin/Ally

.

Austin Moon was not jealous. And especially not of stupid Elliot. He definitely didn't care about his stupidly perfect hair or the way Ally smiled around him or the way that every girl - including his current girlfriend - seemed to think he was positively adorable. In every way that mattered, Austin was better than that dumb Elliot, so what did he care if Ally went out with him?

Truthfully, he really shouldn't.

But there was just something about Ally. There had always been something about her, about the way her brown slash caramel curls fell into her dark, intriguing eyes, about the way her mouth curved up into a smile and her eyes fell, downcast, whenever she was embarrassed. There was something about her that captivated about him, held his attention, made him laugh when he was feeling down. She was his best friend, but there was something more; on some unconscious level they had never been merely friends.

There were those moments when he knew it was true. There were moments when he touched her and some inexplicable spark ran down his arm, when he danced with her and never wanted to let go, when she smiled at him and his whole world lit on fire. This made him think Dez was right; was this merely a crush? He'd found girls attractive, of course, had childhood crushes that he winked at and smirked at, but never someone who turned his life completely upside down, never someone who had entered his life subconsciously rather than as a result of automatic attraction. Ally Dawson had weaved her way into his life, found her way through all the threads, centered herself right at the middle - and the worst part was that she didn't even know.

No, the worst part was that he couldn't even admit it to himself.

She was smiling at him and their lips were about to touch. Their lips were about to touch. They were approximately 5 centimeters apart; he had never been so hyperaware of distance before now. But she was so close and so intoxicating and -

Oh. Disappointment. She turned away and smiled, looking down as her fingers began to play the chords for the song they were working on.

It was awkward, sort of, but it shouldn't have been. They'd written songs together before, so many songs, loads and loads of songs, but now they couldn't even look at each other, could hardly speak without it being awkward, and why should it be? Just because their feelings for each other were different than before? Was he in love with her? He didn't know, couldn't tell, since he had never been in love before. He wasn't really sure what the word entailed.

But he did know that he had feelings for the girl, feelings that ran deeper than simple friendship. Friendship was what he had with Dez and Trish, not Ally, never Ally; Ally was different, Ally was special, and Ally was unique.

Was that love?

He told himself it wasn't a date when he took her out, claiming they needed a break from their half-finished song, but probably in some twisted sort of way it was. They ended up going to some ramshackle diner halfway down the street, choosing a solitary booth and ordering a plate of waffles despite the fact that it was nearly one AM and no sane person was out at that time of night. Austin promised in a joking manner to protect her from any bad guys, which made Ally just look down and blush. He admittedly found it sort of cute, but he didn't want to embarrass her.

"I love chocolate chips in my waffles" Ally raved as she dumped a huge amount of syrup onto her mound of waffles. "It's kinda funny that I have a craving for these at one AM, but whatever." She went pink and her mouth curved up into a smile. "I just have a lot of, um, idiosyncrasies. I mean, I guess you know..."

"Yeah, I do," he said with a chuckle, spearing one of her waffles with his fork and making her glare at him. He just grinned in response. "I have to say I've got a weakness for these things too. So hey, though, that song we were working on... until we decided to take a break, you know... it sounded really good."

"Thanks." Another blush. He kind of wondered what he'd done to warrant so many blushes from her tonight.

And then he looked down. "I know I probably don't say it enough, but what I wrote on the card, on those flowers - and I've gotta tell you that all those were actually courtesy of Trish who clearly doesn't know what a small gift means - I can't make it without you. You, Ally Dawson, you've gotten me to where I am now, and I guess I don't really thank you enough." He smiled then, the corners of his mouth curving up. "And don't be modest, please, for once. You deserve all the praise in the world."

"Hey, hey, we're getting deep now," she teased, but she was blushing for what felt like the millionth time that night. "But thanks, Austin. Really. I wouldn't change anything - I don't regret any of this. Not that I would. But you know. I mean just that I'm glad I've had this journey with you." Her cheeks were a deep scarlet, and even though she had grown more confident as of late she was still the same old Ally Dawson that she had always been, and he admired that about her, that she didn't cave to peer pressure, that she was still the same adorably innocent girl he'd met when he entered her father's store all those years ago, albeit a bit more sassy and, well, daring.

"You're amazing," he whispered, and he was staring at her, eyes bright, smile on his face, and before he could stop himself he planted a tiny kiss on her cheek, a light one, his lips barely brushing the soft skin of her cheek. Then they were staring at each other again, eyes locked, lips coming closer and closer, and -

"Ahem." The waitress was staring at them, an impatient look on her face. "You gonna pay this check or what? I ain't gonna be here all night!"

He couldn't sleep that night. His mind was fraught with images of Kira, and Ally, and Kira, and Ally and Ally and Ally. Perhaps, considering the fact that the brunette beauty hadn't left his mind all night, his choice should have been obvious, but he did, after all, still enjoy Kira in some capacity, still have some sort of feelings for her, and it was, after all, sort of hard to sort out what exactly was going on in his mind. He didn't even know what his feelings for Ally were; they seemed to have come on in a rush, or perhaps it was a buildup that he had been completely oblivious to; he had always been the oblivious sort of guy. But then had he ever really been interested in Kira? Yes, of course, however flirty he might be, he wasn't the type to lead a girl on just to break her heart. How could he be interested in Kira, then, while he was falling in love with Ally? Was that even possible? None of it had been honestly voluntary, and he felt an awful lot like a jerk, like a player, but what could he do?

He found himself in front of the mirror, eyes wide, mouth curved up in a subtle smile. He had found, oddly enough, that talking through his problems helped him to sort through them, and so he decided to talk to himself, an odd sort of therapy, find out what was going on in his head.

"I like Ally."

Yes, that much was obvious; he did, in fact, like Ally.

"But I might like Kira too. I don't even know. I mean, Kira's pretty and nice and she makes me smile. But she, we, I don't know. It doesn't feel like we have that much in common, and sometimes when I'm with her there are these awkward silences, and I don't know, sometimes I just feel uncomfortable, and I don't know why. But with Ally, she's pretty and nice too, but she makes me laugh and there's this spark, this weird spark, with me and her, and we are never quiet when we're together. We have so much in common even though our personalities aren't all that similar but I think I'm rubbing off on her and it's nice, it really is, and also she laughs more now, and I like when she laughs because she looks so pretty and free and daring and - oh my gosh."

It hit him then like a tidal wave. Kira was nice and pretty and all those other things, but she was not Ally, she could never be Ally. Try as he might, he would never be really rid of Ally Dawson. She would always be there, invading his thoughts, creeping into the center of his mind, and not because she was evil or because he wanted to stop thinking about her but just couldn't, but because she was unforgettable. And he was just sort of falling in love with her. But mostly the second.

Love was, he thought, complicated, but also inexplicable; love was the need for another's happiness, so much that you'd be willing to sacrifice your own; love was the smile on Ally's face when he kissed her cheek.

"I think, Austin, that I am falling in love with Ally Dawson," he said to his reflection, and it sounded right.

He felt bad - just as he should. After all, how many times had he reassured Kira that he and Ally were strictly platonic? But she knew, Dez knew, Trish knew, probably even the random baker who stayed halfway down the street knew that it was never a platonic sort of thing. It was always her, could never be anyone but her, and how could he have been so incredibly dumb, so very stupid?

He crept out of his house at the break of dawn, guitar in hand, careful not to wake anyone. Her room was on the second story, and it felt kind of weird to be serenading her from the second floor, but he decided he could take a risk and hope that her father wouldn't totally murder him.

The song he played was soft and slightly quiet, but it woke up Ally anyway (or maybe she was never even asleep). She crept to the edge of her balcony, eyes narrowed and mouth curved down. "What are you doing, Austin?"

"Serenading you," he said with wide eyes. "Hang on, I'm going to climb up."

"You are not," she hissed, but that didn't deter him from doing just as he'd said and climbing up to her balcony with all the ease of, like, Spider-Man, even though he wasn't all that muscular. She just rolled her eyes. "You're so stupid, I swear."

"Just daring, that's all," he said with a grin at her. "Look, Ally, I've been really dumb lately, so I guess you're kinda right. I mean, the whole thing with Kira - I like her, I really do..." ("This is going nowhere," Ally muttered, eyes downcast) "... but not the way I like you. And I like you a lot, a lot, and I'm not going to freak you out by dumping a bunch of nonsense feelings on you but I was hoping you'd go on a date with me. Not to Trish's restaurant, preferably, I'd hate to get sauce on my new pants, but to somewhere nice and... yeah." He grinned even wider, hands shoved in pockets, hoping she'd accept - please please please -

She grinned back. "You know, Austin, it's weird seeing you so nervous. I never, uh, thought... yeah. I'll go with you. Like, a date. But, uh, are you sure you don't, like, want to date Kira?"

"Kira who?" he questioned with a quirk of his eyebrow. And sure he felt bad, but Kira knew, Kira had to understand; she was a nice enough girl, after all. Maybe he could fix her up with Dez... but then again, probably not.

There was no time to dwell on that, though, because Ally was standing in front of him, eyes alight with happiness, cheeks rosy, and all he could do was lean in and press his lips to hers, slowly, carefully, but then not slowly or carefully at all, and smile as she kissed him back, both of them delirious with happiness, because wow why hadn't they been doing this forever. Those sparks, the ones that flew when their hands simply touched, were back tenfold, and maybe this was the stuff love songs were made of.

There's no way I can make it without you.

He'd written those words ages ago. Now he finally understood what they meant.

A/N: I'm really so sorry if I got any details wrong or the characters are totally OOC because I really haven't watched much of this show in ages but I saw the most recent episodes due to my sister and I had a lot of feels so I wrote this.

This is for Pearl and it's kinda an incredibly late birthday fic but this is one of the pairings we have in common and I finally have inspiration to write something that we both like and yeah I'm excited and she's amazing yay.

Also for my friends that watch it too - there's no way I could make it without you.