Summary: "Last time I checked, that was my sweater you're currently wearing. Which I think should automatically make you mine." Austin likes Ally wearing his sweater more than he should. One-shot.
A/N: So I wrote this like a month ago but never uploaded it, so here it is now. I'm not entirely sure it worked the way I wanted it to, but... Either way, I think it's alright. Then again, if I didn't, I probably wouldn't even be bothering to publish it, so...yeah.
Disclaimer: I don't own Austin & Ally or "Sweater Weather" by The Neighbourhoods (title).
Ever since she joined them on tour, she almost always seems to forget where she is when she wakes up. She's not sure if it's because being with them again feels too good to be true or if she just suffers from slight short-term memory in the morning when she wakes up.
She likes to think it's the short-term memory. It makes what happens next seem a little less out of character.
Most mornings on the tour bus are fine for her, as she's loves them. This morning, however, it feels colder on the bus than usual. Luckily, she remembered to bring a few sweaters with her, and left one hanging next to her bed. Without really paying attention, she grabs for it - not even questioning that she doesn't own any grey ones - and walks out into the kitchen area of the bus.
She assumed everyone was still sleeping (she's almost always the first one up, except when Dez wants to do something crazy), so she's a little surprised to find Austin sitting in the kitchen, quietly eating his cereal. She also doesn't expect the look he gives her when he sees her. It's casual at first, the kind you give a friend upon first seeing them, but then his eyebrows go up in surprise, and she's not sure why.
He points his spoon at her and says, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but...is that my sweater?" he asks.
So that explains the look. And why the sleeves are slightly - okay, a lot - longer than she's used to.
She looks down at the sweater, fully taking it in and remembering that her's was not where she usually kept it. She also vaguely remembers Austin wearing this once before, which would explain why it looked familiar to her.
She looks back at Austin. "I guess it is. Sorry about that. I can go grab a different one -" she starts, turning around in the process.
Austin stops her. "No, it's fine. You should keep it on," he says. "It looks nice on you."
"Oh," she says, ignoring the faint feeling of her cheeks heating up from his comment. "Thanks."
He just nods, and she can't help but notice this slight redness on his cheeks before he looks back down. She grabs a bowl from the cupboard and joins him at the table for breakfast. The whole time they talk about his show that night, and not once does she fail to miss his eyes flickering from her face to his sweater on her.
He knows right after he told her she looked nice in his sweater it was the wrong thing to say.
Not that she took it the wrong way - she seemed really appreciative of the whole thing. It's just... him. And his feelings. And they're confusing relationship. He's not sure where the friendship line stops and the more-than-friends line starts. It's making his brain fuzzy, especially when around her, and then he ends up saying stupid stuff like that.
Of course there's nothing wrong with her wearing his sweater. He quite likes it, honestly. But other people might get the wrong idea. Which is kind of exactly what happens later that day when the gang are hanging outside the tour bus before heading inside the building for his show that night.
Trish says something first. "Ally, where did you get that sweater?"
Ally looks down, almost like she keeps forgetting the sweater she's wearing isn't actually her's. "Oh, this? I, uh, found it. On the bus."
"Oh. It's just that it looks like a guy's sweater." Suddenly Trish's eyes widen in realization. "It is a guy's sweater!"
Ally crosses her arms, as if it'll hide the sweater or something. Instead it just makes it more noticeable that it's not her's, since the sleeves are so long. "So what if it is?"
"What are you doing wearing Austin's sweater?"
She looks shocked at the sudden accusation. Austin doesn't blame her. "What makes you think it's Austin's?" she asks.
"Because that's such a couple thing to do," Trish replies.
Now Austin's confused. "But we're not a couple," he says.
"I wasn't suggesting that you were," Trish says. "But now that you mention it..." She trails off.
Ally just shakes her head. Austin's pretty sure the only reason neither one of them are asking her to continue is because they themselves haven't even discussed their relationship yet. He knows they have to, and probably sometime soon, but it's a little hard to fit in when he has a show nearly every day and the rest of that time they're either writing or site-seeing.
As he goes on stage, he thinks that as soon as possible would be his best bet.
Everyone went to bed early that night except Ally. At least, she assumed she was the only one still up.
She doesn't even think about it when she grabs Austin's sweater from where she left it to go into the kitchen and grab something to eat. She's up and hungry, might as well not ignore it.
When she gets into the kitchen, she doesn't even bother checking to see if anyone else is in there, and immediately reaches for one of the higher cupboards where she thinks one of the guys put the cookies (she knows they like to put them so high only to bother the girls since they're so much shorter than them).
"Need some help?"
She jumps at the sound of a familiar voice behind her and turns to see Austin standing there, a smirk on his face. He must've been here before she got in and watched her struggle to open the cupboard.
"That would be nice, yeah," she replies, setting back on her feet and watching Austin reach into the cupboard with ease, pulling out what he knows she was after.
As he hands her the box of cookies, he says, "You're so short."
She takes the box from him and lightly hits him with it. "Maybe you're just really tall," she replies.
"That may be, but you're also just really short." To prove his point he rests his arm on top her head casually. She laughs, then goes to push it off, but instead ends up messing up her hair due to the fact he lifts his arm away, and drapes it around her shoulder. She chuckles to herself but doesn't attempt to move it, and just takes the cookies she wants and closes the box. As she sets the box down on the table, Austin's gaze trails to the sweater again.
He chuckles. "You know you don't have to keep wearing that if you don't want to," he says.
She looks down at the sweater. As big as it is on her, she enjoys wearing something that's not technically her's. She looks up, shrugging. "I want to," she replies. "It's comfy."
"Oh, yeah?" he asks.
She nods. "Yeah."
She takes a bite of one of the cookies to pass time, taking a minute to speak again. "So. You're tour's almost over. How does that feel?" she asks.
Austin shrugs, removing his arm from around her and stealing one of her cookies from the table. "Kind of weird. Feels like it just started."
"How so?"
"I don't know. I guess I just spent so much time during the first two months missing you that the tour itself sort of flew by," he answers casually.
She smiles, looking down. "Missing me?"
He nods. "Of course, Ally." He pauses. "Remember when Dez said he might not have been able to come on tour, and I told him I couldn't imagine going on tour without my best friend? I wasn't lying."
She nods. "I couldn't imagine it, either."
He takes a step closer to her, but not looking at her. "But we had to, didn't we?"
She faces him. "I guess so. For the most part, really. I'm here now." She smiles up at him shyly.
He returns the smile. "Thank goodness for that. And for the rest of this tour together, you're mine, okay?" He lightly boops her nose on the word 'mine'. She scrunches up her nose from it.
"I'm yours?" she replies. She laughs. "Pretty sure you don't own me, Austin."
"Well, last time I checked, that was my sweater you're currently wearing," he says. He turns his body to face her completely, reaching out to tug on the bottom of the sweater. "Which I think should automatically make you -" He takes the edges of the sweater to pull her closer to him. "- mine."
"I'm also pretty sure that wearing someone else's clothes doesn't mean they're part of some package," she replies, placing her hands on his chest, as if planning to shove him away. She doesn't.
"We'll see about that," he says, and then he begins to lean down. She tilts her head up and starts to move her hands around his neck, anticipating a kiss. They're barely an inch apart and she can feel his breath on her lips when a sound erupts from the room behind them, causing them to jump apart.
"What was that?" Austin asks. His question is immediately followed with the muffled sound of Trish yelling - and most likely at Dez, from the sounds of it.
Ally looks back at Austin, the moment between them gone, and nods toward the room. "We should probably split that up, huh?"
He looks at her like he wants to say something more about what just almost happened, but it quickly disappears. "Yeah, that's probably a good idea," he replies, then follows her into the room.
Almost kissing your best friend sucks.
It's all Austin can think about that night as they head back to bed, the situation with Dez and Trish fixed and forgotten. He just can't get the moment out of his head. He wanted to kiss her, and she wanted him to kiss her, too. But fate just won't let him have his way yet, and is making him wait until what's probably a better time. But what was so wrong with tonight? Couldn't Dez and Trish have waited even five seconds later to start fighting? Or, better yet, another day? They even could've talked about everything, too, and he could be sleeping right now to wake up tomorrow to a better life. Instead, he's forced to wake up to another complicated day. He's just glad he doesn't have to perform tomorrow. Maybe him and Ally can have some alone time while they write and he can squeeze the conversation in then.
He attempts exactly that the next day.
When everyone gets up the next morning, Dez suggests exploring their rest stop, wanting to get some exciting footage for his videos of their tour. Trish decides to come, having nothing better to do. Ally -
"Ally and I should get some writing done today," Austin says. "Maybe you guys should go without us."
Ally looks up at Austin in surprise - and his sweater - and says, "Austin, are you sure? It's your day off, maybe we should all just hang out."
He shakes his head. "No, I just really wanna work on some music today."
Ally shrugs. "Okay." Turning to Dez and Trish, she says, "You guys can go on without us. We'll be in here."
As rude as it is of him to think, he kind of hopes they stay outside for the time being. At least until he can figure out his situation with Ally.
Once alone, Ally turns around and starts walking away, prepared to grab her songbook. "Let me just grab my songbook and we can start."
Austin takes a hold of her arm to stop her. "No, stay."
Her gaze follows his arm to wear his hand is holding her. "Austin, I kind of need my songbook to write."
He pulls her to the couch behind them, sitting down. She sits next to him reluctantly. "I know."
"Then why can't I go get it?"
"I just wanted to talk," he says slowly.
Now she looks concerned. "Okay. About what?"
The hand that still has a hold of her arm slowly trails down until her hand is resting in his. He takes her hand and starts absentmindedly playing with it, not sure what to say. She keeps her gaze on their hands, confused.
"Austin?" she asks quietly.
"Yeah?" he says, not looking up from their hands.
"What did you want to talk about?"
He doesn't look up when he responds. "You're still in my sweater, you know."
She looks down at it. "Yeah, so?"
He shrugs. "It's just...I have yet to make you mine as well."
She chuckles. "Then why don't you?" she says.
He finally looks up, no longer playing with her hand. She's leaning in a little closer than usual. And that look in her eyes - he can't help it, feeling pulled toward her. Not to mention the fact she's still in his sweater and her hand's still sitting in his and suddenly he just wants to kiss her so badly that he's not even really thinking about it until that's exactly what he's doing.
He can tell he caught her by surprise, but only a second after his lips touch hers does she ease into the kiss, wrapping her hands behind his neck and in his hair to pull him close. He moves his own hands to place them on her waist, deepening the kiss as he does so. She starts to pull away, but he hasn't had enough and pulls her back to him. Her lips part and he knows she's willing to continue, to keep going, but he's able to gain enough self control to pull back slowly.
Her eyes flutter open and at first he's afraid he was wrong and she, too, was getting lost in the moment, not thinking about who she was with. But then a small smile tugs at the corner of her mouth, and he knows it's alright. "Wanna tell me what that was for?" she asks.
He smiles. "You're still wearing my sweater," he says again. He's not sure if that's a valid answer, but it seems to be the only thing he can think about lately.
She laughs lightly. "That's it?" she asks, but he knows she's only playing. "That's the only reason you kissed me?"
"I mean, it's part of the reason, yeah," he says. "Why? Is that not a good enough reason to kiss you?"
She pretends to think about this for a minute, then shakes her head. "No, I don't think it is."
"Oh. Well, I guess you're gonna have to jog my memory then, because I can't seem to remember myself," he says.
She smirks. "If you say so." And then she's pulling his lips back on hers, kissing him strongly. And when she parts her lips again, he doesn't even question it. He pulls her closer to him, until they can't get any closer and she's practically sitting in his lap. Her hands move down his neck, chest, then trail back up to his hair, all the while he tightens his grip on her waist, scrunching up the sweater - his sweater - in the process. He's so sure he could get lost in this forever when he swears he hears someone clearing their throat behind him, and then:
"If all you're gonna do is make out, the least you could do is get a room where no one might walk in."
They part slowly, not quite meeting each other's gaze as they turn around to see Trish and Dez standing behind them, looking quite pleased with themselves to have caught the duo in a bit of a personal moment.
And then he sees what Dez is holding.
"Dez!" Austin exclaims. He points at the camera. "Were you filming us?"
Dez nods. "I told you, I need more footage of our adventures on tour. This isn't exactly the adventure I had in mind, but you two seem to be enjoying yourselves just fine."
Austin just shakes his head at Dez, while Ally does her best to hide the increasing redness of her cheeks. She rests her head in the crook of Austin's neck, but once he turns to look at her, she sits up quickly, like she didn't know if it was okay to do that. Austin answers this question for her by putting his arm around her shoulder again, and her head drifts back to its previous spot, a small smile on her face.
"So did you guys wanna come outside with us now or are you planning to spend the rest of the trip inside the tour bus?" Trish asks.
Austin glances over at Ally, who shrugs. As much as he'd love to stay inside (and he'd really like to stay inside), he figures they might as well make the best of the tour. Besides, if things go right, he can have all the time in the world with Ally.
He stands, then holds his hand out to Ally, who takes it and follows suit. Taking this as a yes, Trish and Dez head outside, Austin and Ally following behind. They don't let go of each other's hands once.
She wakes up in the middle of the night for the second time in a row, and she's not sure if it's fate that she happens to find Austin up as well or maybe he was making just enough noise to wake her up. She thinks it might be the latter, as she walks into the next room to find Austin sitting on the couch and strumming on his guitar just a little louder than necessary, especially considering what time it is.
"Hey," she says when she sees him.
He glances up at her before looking back at the guitar. "Hey," he replies.
She's not sure if it's safe to sit down beside him, considering last time that happened they ended up making out until their friends caught them, and she's pretty sure she doesn't want that to happen again (the being caught part, she means. The making out part, however...she'd be lying if she said she didn't love that). So she leans against the counter across from him.
"So what are you doing up this late?" she asks him.
He shrugs, still fooling with the guitar. "Couldn't sleep. You?"
"I woke up and heard the guitar," she replies.
He smiles a little. "Whoops. Didn't mean to wake you," he says, but she can tell from the way he's smiling that that was pretty much his intention.
"It's okay," she says. She stays silent, the only sound between them the guitar Austin's still playing. He still doesn't have much of a tune going, but every once in a while he seems to find a melody he likes and plays that, until giving up and moving on to another one.
After some time she moves from the counter. "I think I'll just head back to bed now," she says, turning around to walk back.
"Wait," Austin says, and she turns again to see him setting down his guitar and getting up, walking towards her.
"What is it?" she asks.
"It's just...we never really got to talk the other day," he says.
Her cheeks flush from the memory, and she hopes he doesn't notice.
"About what?" she asks.
He doesn't say anything at first, and just lays a hand on her arm. She watches as he slowly slides it down to rest at her hand. She's still in his sweater, and because the sleeves are still too long on her, the edges end up brushing his hands as he takes a hold of hers.
"I think it had something to do with the fact that you are still continuing to wear my sweater," he starts.
She nods. "And?" she prompts.
He pauses. "Would I be able to call you mine as well?"
She laughs lightly, before tightening her grip on his hands. "Yeah."
I know I already uploaded a fanfic that took place during the tour, but as you can see (if you read the other one as well), they ended pretty differently. I liked both ideas, though, so I uploaded both. Why not, right? Anyway, thanks for reading, and reviews are pretty cool. :)
