Ship: Spanna (Spencer Hastings x Hanna Marin)
Description: The difference that one moment can make. SPANNA.
And Maybe
It happens almost six months after Alison disappears. Six months after Aria leaves for Iceland. Six months after their entire friend group disbands. It's hard to believe that it has only been half a year since she was having slumber parties with these girls, sharing drinks, sharing secrets. It feels like years, sometimes almost like it never actually happened at all. They pass each other in the halls like they are strangers.
She doesn't talk to Emily very much anymore, who has completely thrown herself into the water in an attempt to forget the girl she was so blatantly in love with. Everyone bites their tongues and pretends that the wetness on her cheeks is from the pool.
She fucking hates Rosewood.
She's spoken to Hanna a few times, but the 'hello's' and 'goodmorning's' and 'what was the homework on again?' are different and it hardly feels like they were once best friends. Like they know everything about each other. Or maybe used to.
She supposes it is because she's always been semi-popular, in a jock-ish, mathlete sort of way (on committees and sports teams and country clubs and whatever else Hastings with a capital 'H' are supposed to be involved with), and that is all Hanna is concerned with these days. She's finding it harder and harder to reconcile the girl she knew with this person, who is confident and blazing and different but the same.
It happens one Saturday night. Spencer doesn't go to parties too often these days but she is definitely not unwelcome.
Her house is achingly stuffy and the weight on her chest that is imploring her to leave is not one she can refuse. She supposes that it is always like this – entirely suffocating and toxic, the air so thick a person can only take so much of it. She feels herself shaking and it's not from the cold or how little she's been sleeping lately and wonders if somebody can overdose on something so intangible as negativity.
It leaves her stumbling out of the front door in the middle of the night, hitching a ride to a party she did not intend to go to and drinking more in the first half hour of arriving than she has in months.
Her fine motor skills are quickly dulled but her eyes are as sharp as ever. Still, she finds herself questioning what she sees for months after.
She has been stumbling around the edges of the wooded area in an attempt to avoid conversation with any of the endless rowdy teenagers that are supposed to be her peers, body buzzing and warm but most of all numb. Behind her, lost in a cloud of smoke that is sure to be against some regulation or another, she hears shrieks of terror or perhaps excitement and she can't bring herself to care which.
She takes another sip and steps further into the darkness.
It is then, as she slowly walks around the outside of the clearing, that she hears it. A low moan.
Maybe it's the alcohol or her curiousity or perhaps it is the ever pressing need to feel something other than annoyance and anger and like she is being spread out between two points that cannot meet, but she finds her feet leading herself towards the sound.
She comes close to gasping.
They don't see her – Hanna pushing someone up against a tree and violating their mouth so thoroughly she wonders if they taste like salvation, hands slipping up under tops and tangled in hair and touching places that she cannot see. All she can hear is moans and gasps and heavy breathing and Spencer suddenly feels so hot and out of breath and she doesn't think that it is the alcohol this time. She doesn't know why she can't look away and why her mouth is so dry and who knew that Hanna could do that to somebody? She wonders who she is kissing.
It isn't until she takes a half step forward that she realizes it is another girl.
She doesn't know why she can't get the image out of her head for months.
. . . . . . . . .
Ali is dead.
. . . . . . . . .
They are friends again. Aria is back and Emily is starting to act like herself for the first time in the longest time and it seems so close to normal that she can almost feel her heart squeeze.
They've started eating lunch together in the courtyard, and it's not the same spot as they used to sit a year ago and maybe that's better. This normal is similar but things are very different.
She is late. She isn't usually, in fact tries quite hard not to be, but that doesn't stop one of her many teachers from holding her back and attempting to discuss something or another that is probably relevant to her academic career. She finds that she has to fight herself to stop her mind from drifting away somewhere else, and the second she can fit a word in edge wise is out the door and on her way to the table. Their table.
They are already waiting for her. Emily has enough food on her plate to feed at least two but is barely touching any of it, while Hanna, who doesn't seem to have much of anything, is chewing on something contentedly. The brunette is watching her with some kind of semi-annoyed but mostly fond expression.
"Just take it." Emily says with a roll of her eyes and a push of her tray which Spencer notices is hardly very much of a push at all because they're sitting very close aren't they?
She isn't sure why her eyes are narrowed and lips pursed when she slips in her chair, why her heart soars when Hanna moves nearer to ask what in the world they were supposed to have done for next period, why she can't think straight anymore when she gets close enough that she can smell her perfume.
. . . . . . . . .
Palms on hot flesh and she can barely speak and blonde hair tickling her neck, lips carving out a place of their own on her collarbone and her thoughts feel jolted and hazy but encompass her in such a way that it surrounds her.
She never knew what people meant when they said that their blood was rushing to their ears until she sat straight up in her bed, damp hair stuck to forehead and the pounding of her heart reverberating through her entire body.
. . . . . . . . .
They are sitting on her bedroom floor, textbooks sprawled out across every open surface and loose sheets haphazardly laying on top in no particular order. Spencer sits with her knees tucked up near her chest, her own book open in front of her as she tries to explain the difference between some idiosyncrasy in the French language or another.
Aria is perched on her bed cross legged, failing to seem attentive as she tries to text some guy she's been seeing back without Spencer noticing. She smiles at something she reads and lets out a soft noise of laughter, but quickly smothers it at the annoyed glance that is sent her way. Emily is downstairs getting a drink and Hanna is stretched across the floor with her head propped up on laced fingers.
A quiet sigh falls out of Hanna's mouth as she makes a move to switch her position, eyes still trained on the brunette as she stretches her entire body and arches her back. Her top is riding up a bit and her legs, which were quite bare as Spencer suddenly becomes all too aware of and–
"Spence?" Aria says from the bed, and her eyes snap upwards. The look that Aria sends her way is a mix of confusion and curiousity and maybe some concern.
She hadn't even realized she had stopped speaking.
. . . . . . . . .
"Spence!" Hanna cheers, and she is tipsy and laughing and her cheeks are blushed pink. She throws her arms around the brunette and pulls her close and all Spencer can think is wow.
Lips touch the place between her chin and her cheek and when they disappear it burns and scalds and leaves a stream of fire in their wake that stretches through every tendon in her body and laces the soles of her feet. I think I could like you, is brought to the forefront of her mind and she hates that she puts the feelings into words because it suddenly becomes so undeniable that her heart aches.
She watches the blonde disappear into a crowd of people and she wonders if she knows that she is left frozen behind her.
. . . . . . . . .
"It's just a hypothesis though." Hanna says, putting more emphasis on the individual syllables than needed but is nonetheless correct.
Spencer, who is sitting on the far corner of the table with another textbook open in front of her, trying to add the finishing touches to some essay that nobody put all that much effort in, smiles briefly and looks up to meet the blonde's eyes. "Nice word use, Han." And Hanna smiles like she has complimented her on something much more impressive than her vocabulary.
. . . . . . . . .
They are at the school dance and Hanna has a flask and a dress that is a little too short and a smile that is a mix of allure and cheerfulness and laughter. It makes Spencer forget that she doesn't really like the taste of alcohol and she hadn't wanted to come tonight at all.
All of their friends have paired off on the dance floor, and they are left sitting at a table with punch too strong to do anything but sip and a weird silence that has settled around them. She can't stop looking at Hanna and she thinks that she's noticed because how could she not? She has never been all that subtle.
It stays silent until a new song starts playing, another slow ballad that has more couples joining the floor. The blonde turns towards her, all brash and forward and Hanna, "Dance with me," she says, standing up and pulling the brunette to her feet by her hands. She laughs, "Boys are stupid anyways." And that makes Spencer laugh too.
They're still laughing when they reach the floor, giggling about nothing and Spencer does a half bow when Hanna curtsies and awkwardly uses her arm to twirl her. They settle into a pose that is at first meant to be a joke, some parody of a middle school dance with Spencer's hands on her waist and Hanna's arms on her shoulders. They find a funny little rhythm and as their conversation lulls Hanna begins to play with a piece of the brunette's hair at the nape of her neck.
Even with her heels that are taller than should be permitted, Hanna only just reaches below Spencer's height. It's strange to be able to look into each other's eyes almost evenly, and Spencer finds that she can't turn away once she does. Hanna looks up at her under her lashes and her fingers still for a moment. "Spencer… do you think–"
And there is a tap on her shoulder that cuts her off. Little Aria is standing there in her dress and her heels and her best smile. "May I cut in?"
She wonders what she was going to say.
. . . . . . . . .
She almost hates being infatuated with someone. Hates the way that her heart stutters every time she says her name or looks her way or exists beside her, how her every thought is always intertwined with pieces of her. She feels so out of control and lost and unlike herself. She has never understood the meaning of 'falling for someone' so thoroughly until now. Drowning in someone.
But it also feels like she's floating, exhilarated and giddy and like a constant adrenaline rush is being knitted through her veins, tingling at her fingertips.
She thinks that it's strange the way that her perception of someone can change in what feels like overnight, because she sometimes has to remind herself that this is Hanna, this is her best friend, but it is hard to keep in mind because she is also beautiful and loyal and brave and she would walk through fire for her.
She thinks it's strange that she didn't notice before.
. . . . . . . . .
"Hanna, do you… like Caleb?" Emily asks after another story about Rosewood's token bad boy that's been crashing at the blonde's house.
She looks at Spencer, why does she look at Spencer, biting her lip softly and looking away. She answers, pushing a smile to her face that looks awkward, "Oh my god… Caleb? No way. We're just friends. Ew."
. . . . . . . . .
They are at a party again, and they are drunk. It feels achingly similar to that night almost a year and a half ago, people littered across the open area, most encircling a bonfire furthest from the outlying forest.
They have taken refuge on a log that has been laid on its side, far enough from the fire to be able to breathe and close enough to still be warm, although the alcohol that burns in their chests probably would have guaranteed that anyways. Emily is sitting on the ground with her back against the wood and Aria is beside Spencer, who's on top of it, arms stretched behind her to support her weight. Hanna is lounged across the length, her head resting on the taller brunette's lap.
She tries to pay attention to the conversation, to pay attention to anything other than the girl below her, who is fiddling with the zipper on her jacket while they all speak. They seem to be looking both only at each other and anywhere else.
The bark scratches the bottoms of her thighs.
They've been dancing around each other. Spencer feels like she is doing most of the dancing, feels more like prey than anything. She doesn't know what Hanna is thinking, what she's feeling. Hanna, who is usually some kind of open book, so explicitly emotional that you would have to be blind to not see. She hopes. She tries not to think about it too much.
They've both always been very good at flirting, and so that's what they do. It's subtle at first, a light teasing that is slightly different than what they do with their other friends, morphing into lingering touches and hidden compliments.
Aria walks off to talk to her boyfriend on her cellphone and Emily has wandered away to speak to some girl on her swim team.
Hanna stops playing with her zipper long enough to reach up and tug a piece of the brunette's hair. She looks down, leans closer when the other girl motions for her to do so. Hanna is serious for a moment, firelight creating stars on her face. "I have a question," she whispers, and Spencer hums in response. She is tugging a strand of blonde hair back when she speaks again, "Would you kiss me, if I asked?"
She must have hesitated too long, hand frozen mid-tug, eyes wider than they'd been before, because Hanna is suddenly slipping off of the log and out of her lap with a quiet, "I was just kidding," and a laugh that is louder than it should be. She is gone with hurried mumbles about being thirsty and that omg this bark is so scratchy and she'll find them again later.
They don't see each other for the rest of the night.
. . . . . . . . .
They are at Hanna's, only this time it's just the two of them. They haven't been alone since the party and they are nervous, or at least Spencer is, and the silence is both awkward and filled with forced rambling.
They're watching some movie that Hanna picked, because neither are really in the mood to pay attention to hardly anything. They don't speak very much for a while, eyes glued to the television in front of them, too aware of the other person to breathe.
It goes on for a while, until Spencer feels like she might snap in half if it's quiet for another second longer.
Her fingers clench the blanket she is wrapped in. She exhales.
"I would." She says quietly, and Hanna still hasn't taken her eyes off of the screen, "Kiss you, I mean." A sharp intake of breath is her only reply. "I…" she trails off, and looks down at her hands, which are still strangling fabric, "I would like to."
The silence carries on for another moment more, and she is afraid to take her eyes off of her fingers, knuckles stretched white.
"I… I wasn't joking before."
They both don't say anything for a moment, sitting on Hanna's living room floor in their pajamas, half-eaten popcorn on the floor beside them and some romantic comedy creating quiet background noise.
Hanna reaches and drags her fingertips across her hand. Spencer's grip loosens, and they both watch as the blonde flips it over, begins drawing circles on her palm.
Their eyes meet. The brunette brings her other hand up, cups the side of her face. They're still looking at each other as her thumb runs across her lips, still absorbing each other as Hanna moves forward. She stays there, for a few seconds, close enough to feel each others' breaths on their faces, before pressing a soft butter-laced kiss to the corner of her mouth. Spencer's lips part, just a little, and she lingers for a moment, a second light kiss, her lips pulling into a small smile, before she presses forward, hands still tangled, legs intertwined.
. . . . . . . . .
She tastes like something impalpable, indescribable, like through her kisses alone every single one of her nerve endings are teased with fire, like electricity is bouncing between them. The sensation when they touch is like warmth and softness and as her fingertips grace her hipbone, flutter across her side and lay rest on her jaw, caressing it, cradling it, she feels a different kind of weight on her chest, a fullness in her ribcage, of eagerness and giddiness and home.
. . . FIN . . .
AN: I haven't done a final edit of this yet, just wanted to get it up, so sorry if there are any errors or if the flow isn't quite right.