title: freeze dried conversations
inspiration/playlist: drops of jupiter- train, your song- elton john, a thousand years- christina perri, you and me-lifehouse, loud-r5
disclaimer: I don't own a TV show I am thirteen all I own is an Algebra book.
Wait no I'm borrowing that.
He loved how much she loved Valentine's Day. Year after year, she'd hang up little heart shaped lights and cupid mobiles and little rose cutouts and it just made her so happy.
(It made him happy, too. Not that he'd admit it.)
Every year, she'd make cupcakes or brownies and pass them out to anyone who wanted them, and then she'd drag her three best friends over to her condo to watch romance movies like The Notebook or The Vow, and Trish would groan and he and Dez would pretend they hated it but then Ally would melt them all with her big brown eyes and pout and but guys, it's also my birthday, so they'd all go along with it and pretend they weren't crying.
She'd never had a valentine, though. He guesses she didn't care about things like that, unlike the other three, which he actually thought was kind of cool.
In sophomore year (two months after they met), Dez and Austin both had dates to the Valentine Ball (always held on the fifteenth, for some unknown reason) and she and Trish had gone stag (we're each other's dates, they'd laughed).
And Ally had danced (badly, very badly) with a few of her friends from CloudwatchingClub and laughed like she had no inhibitions (he realizes later that she probably didn't) and screamed loudly when Double Take boomed through the speakers.
"That's our song!" She laughed, beaming radiantly at him.
"I know!" He'd smiled.
He had pulled Cassidy close (but not too close) during the slow songs and watched his new friend sipping punch by herself (she was very much a wallflower, but that was okay) and had fought his urge to go over there and dance with her instead.
/
In their junior year (two months after their first partnership anniversary), the movie selection was Love, Actually and even though they all told her that it was a Christmas movie, she'd told them to hush and not ruin her birthday.
That year, they'd all had dates except for her. She'd smiled and told them that she didn't care, she was just going to have fun, anyways and they'd pretended to believe her.
(He'd also pretended that her red dress didn't complement her skin tone perfectly and hugged her curves in all the right places and that he wasn't attracted to her at all right now.)
"You look beautiful, Ally." He'd choked, trying to sound as platonic as possible and resist his raging hormones that were telling him to kiss her right then.
"Aww, thanks! You're sure it doesn't look too...promiscuous?" She'd whispered.
And he'd laughed, because this was Ally, pure little (beautiful) Ally and the thought of her being anything but innocent was preposterous.
And dangerously sexy, but he tried to block that part from his mind.
"Nah. It's perfect."
They both blushed a bit, remembering the pretend date that was also perfect.
She'd squeezed into the limo with everyone, laughing and joking and looking so gorgeous that he kept having to force himself to stare at Kira and listen to her seemingly never ending stories about her childhood cat.
She was pretty, but God, she was boring.
Apparently, he wasn't the only one who appreciated Ally's dress (of course not, he thinks, she looks absolutely radiant.)
Suddenly, all these guys are approaching her and asking her to dance and he's not very used to having other guys dominating Ally's attention and why the hell is she actually dancing with all of them?
He watches bitterly as guy after guy- Elliot, Ethan, he's starting to lose track- holds her hand and pulls her close and suddenly he regrets teaching her to dance, maybe if he hadn't, these douchebags would be repelled by her (adorably) horrendous dance moves.
Kira keeps pulling him back to reality, the one where Kira is his girlfriend and Ally is his best friend, except those lines are starting to get really blurry.
But either way, Ally is not his, she is free and independent and he is stuck with a girl who's a ten in appearance but a three in personality.
(And that was being generous.)
They don't interact much on the dance floor, except for when she yells "Austin!" when she hears Can You Feel It? being played.
He nods at her and smiles. "It's our song!"
And he realizes something right then. No matter who they ended up with, they'd always have their songs, their late nights at the piano, their different adventures of trying to collect inspiration.
And those were things they'd never have with anyone else.
He smileed serenely, glad to have become aware of this special bond he and Ally would always share.
"Austin. Austin!" Kira exclaimed, waving her hand in his face.
He blinked. "Oh. Sorry. Did I zone out?"
Kira rolled her eyes. "Yup."
"Oh." He repeats.
"Okay guys, we're gonna switch things up a little right now! Kinda like the characters of Switched at Birth!" The deejay yelled enthusiastically, waiting for the laughter he wouldn't get.
"No? Okay. Anyways, I know a lot of you came with dates, but right now, I'd like you to grab a partner you haven't danced with tonight!"
Inevitably, Austin looked at Ally and Ally looked at Austin. Kira frowned slightly, but then went off to join Elliot for a dance.
A Thousand Years played, and he swayed his best friend while holding her (maybe a little too intimately) to his chest.
She started humming along to the song, and he followed suit.
"Beauty in all she is" He sang softly, looking down at the top of her head.
"I've loved you for a thousand years, I'll love you for a thousand more..."
The sang in unison, their voices meshing together in some stupidly beautiful harmony.
She looked up at him for the first time since they'd started dancing with her stupidly beautiful brown eyes. (Kira's are sparklier, he told himself. They weren't.)
"Austin, I..."
"Ally.. don't say anything."
It was February 15, 2013 that he'd taken Kira Starr to the dance.
It was also February 15, 2013, that he'd first kissed Ally Dawson.
/
Let's just pretend that never happened, okay?
/
Their senior year, they pretend like nothing's different now, but truthfully, everything is.
Ally actually lets them choose the movie this year, and Trish chooses The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
Dez and Austin don't protest. Dez actually likes this movie, and Austin's just too busy stealing secret glances at Ally from the other end of the couch.
He holds her when she cries (which is many times, but this is still a best friend thing to do, right?) and after the movie is over, Trish and Dez leave and he stays.
"Ally... I wanted to give you something. For your birthday. Not Valentine's Day." He flusters.
"Just.. here."
He shoves a red-and-yellow, sloppily wrapped package at her.
"You got me a set of your albums?" She smiles, a little confused as she held the two discs.
"They's autographed." He smirks.
"But, ah, no. I mean, yes, they're my CD's , but I'm giving them to you for a reason. It's just... y'know, it's our last year of high school. And because you're Miss Brilliant over here, you're probably going to go to college and I'm going to work on my career, and I just want you to remember, wherever we end up, whatever great things you end up doing, I want you to remember our songs."
She's tearing up.
"Austin, that's so sweet. Thank you." She throws her arms around his neck.
"But, by the way, I don't plan on leaving you anytime soon. And, you're going to do some great things yourrself, Austin Moon."
He wraps his arms around her waist and grips her tightly.
"Happy Valentine's Day, Ally."
/
That year, they all have dates.
Well, actually, Trish and Dez have dates. Austin and Ally have each other.
"We're going as friends!" They'd convinced themselves, though the truth behind that was debatable.
And when they were there, he questioned why he'd ever bothered to take anyone besides her.
She fit perfectly in his arms, and she just generally fit perfectly in his life.
Had he really ever lived without her?
Once again, she yells happily when Who I Am comes on, but this year he's finally close enough to hug her.
A bittersweet feeling kind of hangs in the air for the seniors, being that it was their last year and college letters were starting to come in, but Austin and Ally wouldn't let themselves think about that.
"Do you think we could do this?" She asks quietly during a slow song.
"Do what?" He dips her, determined not to let her fall this time.
"Be..us."
He laughs. "Have we not already been doing that?"
"No." She frowns. "I mean be together."
"Like.. together, together?"
She sighs exasperatedly. "Yes, together together! Is that not what you want? Because I know that's what I want."
"No, Ally, of course that's what I want. I love you, and I love being with you, and I've wanted to be with you for a long time now!"
"Then why aren't we? Why didn't we? Why, even last year, when you kissed me, why didn't we just go for it then?"
He thinks about it for a moment, trying to come up with an answer.
But apparently, there isn't one.
"I don't know. We were scared? But Als, don't you think this is incredibly bad timing? I mean.. it's our last year."
"Austin, I already told you. I'm not leaving you. And if we're going to be together, that'd just be another reason to stay. So, if you're going to be here in Miami, I'll go to the University of Miami. If you're going to go to L.A, I'll go to UCLA! It doesn't matter. I just want to be with you."
He intertwines their hands. "Then.. should we do this?"
She kisses him in response.
"Yeah. We should do this."
.fin.
A/N I don't even know what this is is this real life ok I don't know don't hate me.
This originally was going to be a whole other story but apparently this happened and I don't know how to feel about that.
The ending in inconclusive and sucky, ik, ik.
But, uh, Happy Valentine's Day y'all!