They were an unexpected couple.
When they stood together, they didn't quite look right. Mismatched might be the term. Like the result of a little girl indiscriminately playing with her toys from different series together.
Holly was tiny, with a face that looked impossibly young for how old she actually was. Her dainty features and wide blue eyes made her look like a doll come to life. Her hair was thin but wild, too soft to hold a shape. Thus her golden braids were always on the brink of falling apart, stray strands sticking out in every which direction, still failing to fall in an array anything less than perfect. She radiated warmth.
Ford was tall and straight, his body a matrix of harsh angles giving the appearance of a villain stepping out of a super hero comic. His sharp eyes and long face had always aged him. Every detail of his appearance was meticulously well-kempt and his analyzing stare unintentionally carried a cold and unfeeling air.
When they walked down the street together, they looked mis-aged, mis-sized, mis-shaped. A farmer and an academic, worlds and universes apart. At the very least, they were never mistaken for father and daughter. They didn't look remotely similar enough for that.
She held his hand once while they were out on a walk, he questioned it of course. He told her it wasn't logical to hold hands, the ground was even so there were no tripping hazards, their different strides would make walking in sync more difficult, and the width they took up side-by-side on the narrow walkway was awkward for others to maneuver around. She got what she wanted by completely ignoring him. She had an undeniable talent for selective deafness and he almost always let her get away with it.
People from out of town looked at them, he noticed their glances flick away as soon as they were caught, a telltale sign they weren't thinking anything kind.
The townsfolk watched much more unabashedly, with amusement. Holly and him were a spectacle. A hilarious oddity. It's not like he didn't understand where they were coming from, he didn't know why she had picked him either.
Someone like Wayne would have matched her perfectly, they looked like they were made to be sold as a set- and he knew the mailman had been interested in her since day one of her moving into town.
Holly walked with her chin-up, grinning that look of pure sunshine she had whenever she was feeling cheeky at getting away with one of their rare public displays of affection. He thought she just didn't notice the stares. In actually, she did, she just didn't care.
Before they had started dating, she had fainted and was brought to his clinic. That was the day he had unwittingly fallen in love with her. When she couldn't sleep, she had asked him to hold her hand. He hadn't quite understood it. Actually, she had completely baffled him, but he complied. He retrieved a book from off of his desk and brought up a chair to her bedside.
Then he did something he hadn't expected of himself, he removed his glove before extending his hand out. He ordinarily wouldn't have even done that for a healthy person. He looked at his own outstretched hand almost as surprised as she was. Then he quickly became self-conscious. He knew what they looked like, dry and rough from all of the excessive, almost neurotic, washing- One of his many bizarre little quirks. He had always been moderately repulsed by the prospect of touching something that he didn't know where it had been, or other people who didn't put in near the same attention to cleanliness that he did. He hadn't considered until then how disgusted other people might be by the notion of touching him.
He was about to retract his hand when she took it, a ghost of a laugh on the corner of her lips. "Well doctor, I'll be sure to give you five stars on rateMD, I can't say I've ever gotten this level of bedside attention."
He looked at her curiously, he couldn't say he had ever given this level of bedside attention to a patient before.
He mostly read his book, but every so often would migrate his gaze to his long-fingered hand completely enveloping her own.
Maybe he had missed human warmth after all. He paused to think, maybe he had never experienced human warmth in the first place.
It could have been partially due to the fact that he hadn't touched anyone in a long time without gloves, but he didn't remember anyone's hand being so soft and delicate. No, not delicate. Holly had proven again and again that she was far from that. Somewhere hidden in those wisp thin arms and tiny hands was the strength of a talented farmer. He hadn't been fair to her on that first day, she turned out to be an unstoppable force to be reckoned with, the pride of the town.
Unstoppable... yet there she had been, collapsed in the town square. The image was... upsetting.
He focused his attention on his book and let the time tick by.
When she had fallen asleep, he pulled his hand away almost regretfully and returned to his research. He oddly didn't feel the need to furiously wash his hand. She hadn't seemed that dirty.
He soon regretted it though, a warmth in his chest remained for the rest of the day and he mistook it for sickness. Maybe he had caught something from her after all.
Before they had started dating, she had fainted and was brought to his clinic. That was the day she had realized he was a complete dork- and was surprisingly charmed by that fact. She had always had a bit of mischief in her, something masked by her angelic face. When she couldn't sleep in her sterile hospital bed, something she didn't think she could ever do in such an open and public place, he had asked if there was anything he could do for her.
Sarcasm bubbled up. "Could you hold my hand?" She joked, expecting the question to get written off and for him to saunter off back to work.
He looked at her blankly a little longer than she expected.
"What?" He finally asked.
Right, this was Westtown's very own robot doctor, she had forgotten. She was about to explain that she had been kidding but he quickly unravelled into a rambling mess. She just watched dumbly as he tried to rationalize her question, even put it into a scientific light.
She had clearly broken him, her statement was not computing at all. She had never seen the doctor like this; his thoughts all out of order.
She glanced over far across the room at his study and realized maybe this is just how he always is internally. She had dismantled his sleek surface for the moment and was peering at his mess of a mainframe. As immaculate as the clinic was, the desk was a juxtaposition, strewn with papers and books, the blackboard behind a disjointed collage of formulas. The true reflection of his mind, laid out bare to anyone who wanted to understand him. Yet no one bothered looking.
She felt a little bad for him, she knew what it was like to be typed by appearances alone.
Ultimately, he concluded that he would in fact hold her hand until she slept, and she made a pained grimace as he momentarily departed from her bedside. Now she really wasn't going to be able to fall asleep. Who on earth would be able to in this situation? Especially next to the robot, who now wasn't going to be able to work until she had successfully nodded off.
He returned with a book, pulled up a chair, and removed his glove before extending out his hand. This surprised her, she had always gotten the sense he was sort of a germophobe.
His hand looked dry, in desperate need of some moisturizer but she took it anyway and got ready to endure the most awkward hour or so of her life. She cracked a joke and then laid her head down on her pillow.
It wasn't as awkward as she had guessed. It was almost comforting actually, suddenly that big open room didn't seem so wide and exposing. She didn't feel rushed to fall asleep because he didn't look at all in a hurry to leave. She hadn't taken him as a patient man. He had one long leg crossed over the other, sitting slightly angled away to give her her privacy. The only sound in the now-peaceful clinic was the occasional flip of the page of his book which he did so seamlessly even with just one hand available.
A little flutter erupted in her chest while watching him, he was such a weirdo. A thought that surprisingly held nothing but affection in it.
She started to seek him out unconsciously in town a lot more. She would always find him in the crowd at festivals, or accidentally stare when he and Wayne were sitting at a different table in the restaurant. She took shelter from the rain one spring day in his clinic, even though she had to run all the way across town passing every other building on the way to do so.
Of course, she knew she had it bad when he served her elephant poo and she hadn't held it against him.
It was a surprise at the end of the season when he confessed his love for her at the side of the canyon.
It was a surprise to everyone when they had begun dating.
It was a surprise to both of them that the one had any interest in the other.
He thought he was too old for her, too boring and unadventurous. Pained looks of self-deprecation stained his face when he thought she wasn't looking.
To the contrary, she thought she might be too experienced for him, she began to worry that if he knew her history that he'd be disgusted.
If adulthood was a series of steps reached through life experience, in a lot of ways Holly was actually a lot older than him. He wasn't the solid and perfectly sculpted block of ice people seemed to think he was. He was broken, parts of him having never truly left his childhood, the classic fragmented psychology of someone who grew up in a house of neglect and abuse. An unhealthy work-ethic and a genius IQ does not make you a functional and mature adult. He had thought he had skipped his childhood, having locked himself away in his study since age eight. She saw him as someone who, in some aspects, was never really able to emotionally grow from that lonely child. Parts of him were still that kid in his study, parts of him would probably always be.
It almost annoyed her how emotionally immature he was. Seriously! When he had mistaken his powder of truth for sugar she had thought she was finally about to see that spicy side of him that he seemed so ashamed of. As it turned out, all his deepest darkest unmentionable thoughts ended up amounting to was a sugar sweet soliloquy about her eyes. Thank the stars that she hadn't drunk that coffee first. She couldn't even begin to imagine how he'd react to what she thought about him. To the things she wanted to do to him.
Well, there was no way she was going to have drunk that coffee in the first place, so it wasn't really worth worrying about. She had known right from the start that he had mixed up the sugar. There was that impish personality again. She wasn't such an idiot that she didn't recognize a unique container he'd shown her moments before but like heck she wasn't going to use the situation to her advantage.
Yes, Holly wasn't quite as innocent as she appeared.
Although she grew up in an affluent family, she had lived her whole life in a small town and attended that classic rural public school where she was every bit the typical small-town country girl. She was independent and tough, but a romantic grown into womanhood far too fast for her poor family's liking. She had shed her innocence with the indifference of shedding an outer layer of clothing in a warm room during freshman year of high school in the cab of the quarterback's father's truck. Her resume of amourous experience only began there.
While oddly flattered by Ford's flowery compliments that day as he had her pressed up against the wall of his apartment, a dark feeling of self-doubt began to bubble up in the pit of her stomach and never quite went away. What would he think of her in he actually knew half the things she had gotten up to before?
The whole town was far more conservative than she had first guessed. Even the resident 'playboy' was a virgin who had never so much as dared reach second base with a girl.
People looked at Ford in disgust as if they thought he was going to ruin her. Again, the mature supervillain with the defenceless doe-eyed doll.
She felt a bit like a witch secretly living in a pilgrim village.
Well, she didn't really care what they all thought, it was their own fault for judging her on what she looked like alone. All that mattered to her was his opinion…
A soft chime rang as she entered through the front door.
Ford glanced up from his desk which was covered in the usual myriad of papers and thickly bound books that were so complicated she got a headache just reading any of their first lines.
She glanced at the chalkboard, he must have been up late the other night, it was all new scribbles.
"Holly, I didn't expect to see you," he said, looking quite pleased, one of the few almost-warm expressions he had. "Are you here to visit or are you sick?" His voice picked up a hint of worry at the end, a gloved hand rose to his chin.
"Visiting," Holly grinned, "I was passing by and felt like seeing you…"
He glanced at the clinic's front door ruefully. "Unfortunately, I have another patient arriving shortly. Could I ask you to wait upstairs? You could read a book, my collection is free for your perusal."
She thought for a moment and nodded, she could afford to wait for a bit.
Halfway up the stairs, the door chimed again and a beautiful buxom woman entered.
He didn't even give her a second glance. "Ms. García," he said, "you're here for a breast exam?"
Holly paused in her ascending. 'Sorry, what now?'
To his credit, he didn't seem to have a single impure thought. That actually bugged her more than the prospect of her boyfriend fondling another woman's breasts.
She'd always wondered if male doctors were immune to women's sexy bits. Television suggested definitely not but Ford was an odd case. He lived his whole live neglecting everything but his studies and his only exposure to the female anatomy was with a clinical eye.
It seemed like an odd thing to worry about- that your boyfriend is NOT ogling the other girl, but she wondered fearfully if he was even capable of it.
Obviously, she wanted him to someday cherish every aspect of her body, when that time came.
She continued up the stairs, she didn't want to watch the examination.
She wondered how she'd feel if she found out he was asexual… sex was always the driving factor of all of her past relationships but then again, none of those boys gave her the other things that Ford did. She felt more excited just holding his hand than any of what she felt and experienced that weekend Jimmy Smith invited her to stay over at his place while his parents were out of town.
She almost regretted now that she hadn't saved herself for him. Well, a moot point if he was never going to be interested. Maybe it was okay then, she sincerely doubted even something like that would cause her to leave him. She was committed to seeing this relationship out with Ford the whole way.
It didn't mean she didn't want the intimacy though. Come think of it, clearly none of what she had done before could be called making love, she had thought so at the time but there was obviously a whole other realm of intimacy she still had in store for her. If his stare could do as much as it did to her, what could his body do? She felt herself get hot under the collar at the notion.
She glanced over the titles in his bookshelf and the familiar headache returned and any impure thoughts were squashed. She didn't want to read any of those, they looked really boring.
She noticed a letter on the table instead and decided to snoop.
It was written in a pretty cursive and she squinted to read it. She read through the content and felt a lump in her throat.
There was the sound of shoes on the stairs up to the apartment.
She quickly put the letter down and turned around.
"How was your examination?" Holly asked as Ford entered the room, cursing herself for asking the one thing she didn't want to know.
"It wouldn't be appropriate to discuss patient information," he scoffed.
She should have seen that coming.
He paused a moment to think. "However, I will say this. Many doctors hate women performing breast self-examinations as they can often misdiagnose themselves but I personally believe it's better to have a false alarm and come to me than miss an important early diagnosis."
So it had clearly been a false alarm, that other woman better not have just been trying to seduce her boyfriend. Clearly, some of his patients had that motive. She resisted sending an accusing look back at the letter on the table.
"If you aren't already doing them I highly recommend you start," he said. "I can lend you some pamphlets on how to perform the procedure properly."
She sighed, probably the first time he's ever thought about her boobs and it was while imagining them with cancer, not the first image she'd want in his mind.
"Maybe you should perform my first one," she said, hiding a smirk, "I'll learn what to do from watching."
He shook his head, "I don't think it would be appropriate."
Well at least he had that much sense.
He noticed the letter open behind her.
"Did you read that?" He asked.
She was at a loss for words for a moment, "um, yes, sorry…"
"No, I should apologize for leaving it out." He said, "I never meant for you to see that. I get them from time to time. Women thanking me for my care and… expressing their…. Uhm… admiration."
He walked over and gently picked up the letter with unexpected care, folding it back up along its creases. "I used to just throw them out, but recently, I've realized how rude the action was. I didn't understand these women, I thought their letters were nonsense and a complete waste of my time" He gave her a meaningful look. "Since I met you. I understand now what an impulsive emotion love is, and the courage they must have mustered to write such things to me."
She gave him a pained smile. To be honest, she wouldn't mind him throwing out love letters from other women. Did that make her a bad person?
He placed the letter in his pocket and stepped closer to her and her pulse quickened, it had been a while since she had seen that look in his eye. He brushed her bangs out of her face and tucked them behind her ear. His hand lingered. "I've learned so much from my time with you, I truly have been a fool." His eyes sparkled with admiration and she wanted to curse anyone who had ever said that his eyes were soulless.
His hand finally rested on the nape of her neck, not ready to retreat. "I had never imagined wanting to share my life with another so completely… but if it was with someone like you who can engender these new emotions and realizations…it might not be so bad."
How on earth could she feel this conflicted right now? Every vein in her body was humming but her heart felt heavy.
"Holly," he said gently pulling her gaze back up to him, she hadn't even realized she let it drop.
He began to lean in and she hadn't realized what was happening at first because such an action seemed so inconceivable from him. As it dawned on her, she rose up on her toes eagerly to assist him. Just as their lips were about to touch, he pushed her away.
She just stood there, confused and hung out to dry.
"I was so caught up in the moment I almost did something irrevocable!" He said in disbelief. He adjusted his glasses, "That sort of behaviour without the proper agreements and blessings first is lewd and improper."
Her heart sank again. To think he thought a chaste kiss was lewd. There were many things about her life she was never going to be able to tell him.
He opened his mouth to say more, probably to give her permission to think less of him or something again. Annoyance welled up inside her, a welcome change to the nagging guilt. What a friggin' doofus.
She grabbed his collar and pulled him in for a quick kiss. Her gaze was challenging as he pulled back to look at her in dumb shock.
She crossed her arms, holding her ground.
"Highly improper," he finally said disapprovingly. "I never expected such audacious conduct from you."
She felt sick. The first time she tried to really bare a little piece of herself to him and he rejected her.
He was just one more of them. Those people who thought they knew her based off of nothing other than her face. What did he even love about her? What did he even know about her?
She felt anger, then grief, then finally heart break.
She pushed past him and began to leave without a word.
"Wait," he said calmly.
She hadn't planned to stop but she did. Of course she did, she was a lovestruck fool.
He looked at her for a moment in thought. "Why is it that the touching of lips causes such excitement in a person?"
She looked at him in despairing misunderstanding, so he hadn't felt anything at all.
"We touched lips for only a moment, but my heart rate is already highly elevated."
Or maybe not.
"What would happen if we continued the activity for a more protracted length of time?" He mused.
She liked where this was going, she needed to stay silent, if she opened her mouth she was going to end up teasing him and this might all fall apart.
He sighed. "This warrants further investigation, I suggest we repeat the action so I might acquire adequate data."
His dirty talk was awful but it was sure doing it for her anyway.
"What?" She asked in pleasure, goating out more of this unexpected dialogue.
He walked over, standing to close for an ordinary conversation.
"I want to do that again," he said, with a very focused expression. "Close your eyes please."
She couldn't do anything but comply, then wait,
His lips brushed hers again, and he experimented with the pressure, pressing his lips a little deeper. She felt her breath hitch as the fabric of his glove grazed under her chin.
He pulled back and her eyes fluttered open like a darned Disney princess. Such a simple kiss but she was melting. Seriously, what was this power he had over her?
"Hm.." He said thoughtfully, not a trace of emotion on his expression. "Puzzling. It's still elevated. However, I'm not sure if it is so much from the lip contact as the look on your face."
She flushed a deep red, she had not realized she was making any sort of expression.
"I suppose that will do for now. I will continue to think about it," he said.
With that, he was lost into his mind, she knew he was impossible to disturb when he got like this. "Ok then… uh, bye," she said with a shaky voice.
He scrunched his brow as he continued to shuffle through his thoughts. She just sighed and left the clinic's upstairs apartment.
Honestly, he was too dammed innocent, it was eating her alive, she was tired of feeling so guilty. She had never hated herself before and she didn't like how she had started to now.
On the other hand...
Whatever just happened was the first encouraging sign she'd seen. She had shown a glimmer of 'lewd' behaviour and had gotten an unexpectedly positive response.
It had felt liberating to finally share a part of herself with the man she loved. She paused outside the clinic doors and glanced up at the second floor. She couldn't go on anymore feeling like she was lying to him. She wanted him to know her, every part of her, even the parts he might not like.
She needed to pull the band-aid and see if this relationship could stick its's own. He was going to have to accept all that she was of he was getting none at all.
She headed back home with renewed determination. It was going down tomorrow.
A plan developed. Oh she could make this work, she just needed to learn to speak a bit of his language…
Well this was just going to be a little one-shot after I got hit with some writing inspiration but then I decided to write some lead up and suddenly we were already 4,000 words in and I was like, dang, guess this will be a two-shot. More to come...