Can't stay away from Japril for long ;) there is slight canon-divergence regarding their living situation (I know at one point April lived with only Reed,) but for this one-shot, change was necessary. Hope you enjoy! Don't forget to review!
Moving to Seattle from Boston, I always thought that finding housing would be easier than it had proven to be. After weeks of hotel-hopping, though, I finally settled down into a rented house that I share with three of my fellow interns at Mercy West. My bedroom is the bottom floor, Charles Percy's on the second floor, and the two girls' - April and Reed - are on the top. We somehow managed to find a place that was affordable for all of us, though for me it admittedly wasn't that hard because money is not a place in life where I tend to struggle.
It was hardest to convince April, the petite, perky brunette, to move in here with all of us. Namely, Charles and me, specifically because of our gender. When he brought it up amongst the group, I saw her eyes flit to Reed looking dubious. But, monetarily, it was a steal. And she ended up going for it.
For most of the night, I've been alone in this big place, watching TV on the couch by myself. When I hear the front door open, I turn my head to check who it is and see April walking in, looking flustered. There's not many times where she doesn't look flustered; it's just a certain quality that she has about her. She always seems to be carrying too many things, have too much to get done, and not enough time.
"Hey," she says, sounding breathless. She drops armfuls of plastic grocery bags to the hardwood floor and pulls her red notebook out from under her armpit. "Can you help me with…?" She gestures to the mess of bags she just let go of and looks at me with raised eyebrows.
I heave my body up from the couch. "Yeah, yeah, of course," I say, and walk over to her. She's scribbing something in her notebook; that notebook that I haven't seen her without since we started our internship. "You writing a journal entry about the groceries?" I ask, lightly ribbing her.
She looks at me with low-set eyebrows and a grimace on her lips, then pulls the notebook to her chest protectively. "No," she says, glancing repeatedly towards the floor and then back up at me.
"A song about the groceries then," I say, throwing the words over my shoulder as I walk to the kitchen with as many bags that will fit in two hands.
I hear her giggle, though she tries to hide it. "No," she repeats, and sets the bags that she carried on the kitchen island next to mine. "Why are you so nosey?"
"Just a curious sort," I say, pulling a container of hummus from one of the bags and depositing it in the fridge.
"Oh, you don't have to…" she says, tucking the notebook into her purse. "I can unpack."
"I'm here, I might as well," I say. "It's okay."
"I don't want you to feel obligated."
"April," I say, and there's a beat in the homey kitchen where her name just rings through the empty air. I'm sure I've said it out loud before, but I can't clearly remember any time before now. It's a nice name. "You went and got all these groceries for us. Would you relax?"
"I…" She tries to counter me, but ultimately closes her mouth. "Sure," she says, then sits on a stool at the counter to watch me unload.
"And I mean, I haven't moved from that spot on the couch all day, pretty much," I say, leaning on the fridge door to slide yogurt onto the middle shelf. "So my muscles thank you."
"Well," she says, giggling again. It sounded like she was going to start a sentence, but she never finishes.
"Well, what?" I ask.
"Hmm?"
"You said 'well.' Were you going to say something else?"
A violent blush floods her cheeks and creeps all the way to the tips of her ears; the ears that her mahogany hair is curled meticulously behind. I'm not sure why the sudden flush, but it makes me smile nonetheless. "No," she says, looking down at the counter to trace the grains in the wood.
I chuckle out loud and her head snaps up defensively. I put my palms up, showing that I mean no harm, and do my best at a kind smile. I don't want her to feel threatened.
After all the groceries are put away, I sit down on the stool next to her. "I'm starving," I say, my hand to my stomach.
She makes a move to get up. "I can cook," she says. "What sounds good?"
I scrunch up my eyebrows. "No...you're not gonna do that."
"Yeah, I can," she says. "I just got all this stuff. No reason for me not to."
I sigh. "I'm not gonna make you do that. Why don't we just go somewhere? We can go to Joe's and grab something to eat there." She eyes me like she's trying to size me up. "What?"
Her eyes narrow. "Are you playing some sort of joke on me?" she asks. "Because it's not very funny."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
She braces her palms on the counter. "Inviting me out." She sighs. "Look, I get it. I'm like, the neurotic, control-freak, type A kind of person here. People aren't crazy about me. That's okay, all right? I'm used to it. But if you're, like... playing a trick on me by pretending to be my friend to get a laugh out of Charles…" She looks around like she's searching for a hidden camera. "That's not very kind. And it's not funny. I never did anything to you."
"I know you didn't," I say, studying her. "I'm not playing a trick. God, no. That's...really awful."
She purses her lips and tips her head to one side. "Okay, well, you don't have to feel bad for me, either. If you think you're helping out a charity case by, you know, asking me to Joe's. I'm fine just hanging out here by myself. I wanted to be on-call tonight, but Reed and Charles got picked instead. And I already thought ahead and knew you wouldn't want to be here with just me. I tried to make that not happen. But it did anyway. So you don't have worry about it, okay? We can just be in our two separate parts of the house, just existing. You don't have to reach out to me because you feel like you have to."
"April…" I begin, shaking my head. "It's seriously not like that. I was inviting you out so we could both have something to do. I mean, we live together, so I kind of figured that the whole 'friends' thing comes along with that. Kind of by default."
She pinches her lips in a subtle way, and I don't miss the tiny twitch of her right eyebrow, either. "Friends?" she asks, like I've just spoken in a foreign language. "You consider me a friend." There's no upward lilt to her words like that of a normal question, but it's disbelieving all the same.
"Yeah," I say. "Is that so crazy?"
"I…" She looks troubled now and doesn't seem to know what to say. "I guess not."
"Okay," I say, smiling again. "Then let's get out of here."
When we get to Joe's, it's busy and loud, which is just how I like it. I have a grin on my face upon walking in, but can practically feel the tension wafting off of April in droves. She keeps her purse clutched tight to her chest with taut fingers, and keeps looking around like someone is about to jump her.
"Breathe," I tell her once we sit down at the bar. "We're here to unwind, let loose a little. No work tomorrow for either of us. You should order a drink."
"Order a drink?" she asks over the noise, like she's asking for my permission.
"Just relax," I say. "What do you like?"
"Beer," she says off-handedly. "Anything, I guess."
I take it upon myself to order for her and discover that after a couple beers, she finds it within herself to let go a little. She puts her purse on the floor and opens up her body language, then starts joking with me about things that I've never heard her bring up before, like how scary the Chief of Surgery is at Mercy West or how Charles can barely fit through the bathroom door downstairs because of how tall he is.
After four or five beers, she starts laughing at nearly everything I say. Without holding back, either. Before now, I'd only heard her giggle and most of the time, nervously at that. But now, she opens her mouth wide and throws her head back in full-out belly laughs, and I can't help but smile and stare at her as she does so. Seeing her so carefree has definitely made me like her more, that's undeniable. Other people at the hospital wouldn't be so annoyed with her if they could just see her like this.
After she started slurring her words, I decided to lay off the drinks and deem myself her designated driver. "Why don't you have something?" she asks, elbowing her beer bottle out of the way and pointing a finger in my direction. "You told me to drink. And now you're not drinking." Her words become increasingly more run-together, but I'm finding it pretty funny.
"I think you've downed enough for the both of us," I say, pulling her wrist back down to the bar so her finger is out of my face.
"Hey," she says, faking offense. "Can I get one more?" she asks Joe, and when he turns around to grab her one, she shoots her arms up in the air in a victory pose and then falls straight off the back of her barstool.
"Shit," I curse, and then hurry to the floor to pick her up off of it. "Scratch that last beer, Joe," I say, putting down some cash to cover our tab. "She's good."
"I'm fine," she says, dusting herself off, her pride not bruised whatsoever. "Just let me get back up there…"
"No, no, no 'back up there' for you," I say, attempting to guide her by her shoulders. "We're going home. Thanks, Joe."
He waves us goodbye, and April wiggles her fingers at him over my shoulder as I usher her out. "I wasn't really ready to leave, you know," she says, under her breath like she's afraid of someone else hearing. Suddenly, everything is an extremely hilarious secret.
"Well, I didn't want you falling off any more stools," I say.
"Yeah, my ass says thank you," she says, and then busts up giggling. She leans her full weight against my side and although she's being extremely difficult, I can't find it within myself to be annoyed. I've taken care of plenty of drunk people before, and she's nowhere near the worst, but she was right earlier. We hardly know each other. Yet somehow, I feel no remorse for suggesting that we do this tonight, even though I've now morphed into her caretaker. "My ass says thank you," she squeezes out again as best she can through her laughter.
I help her into the passenger's seat. "Tell it that it's welcome," I say, and that gets her even more. I help her buckle in and she doubles over so her forehead hits her knees, hardly able to catch her breath.
"You're so funny, Jackson," she says, and a small buzz courses through me hearing her say my name. "You're really, really funny. Maybe you should not be a doctor. Maybe you should be a...what're they called? Joke people. You know, those joke people."
"Comedians," I offer.
"Yes!" she says triumphantly, pointing that finger in the air again. "You should be a comedian. Yeah, you'd be great. I'd come to your open mics." She gasps. "Oh, no. Do you get stagefright?"
I chuckle as I make a right turn into our neighborhood. "No," I say. "I'm good under pressure."
She scoffs and blows air through her lips. "Figures," she says. "A body like that and a face like yours, I bet you're used to the attention." She leans one elbow heavy on the center console. "I bet you had all the girls in school. Oh, I would've hated you so much. You know that? Hated you, all because I wouldn't have had a chance of you ever even seeing me." She guffaws. "Little nerdy old me. If you even believe it, I was even worse in high school than I am now. Picture it. Bushy, frizzy hair. Wire-rimmed glasses. Acne. Braces." She throws herself back against the seat as we pull up in the driveway and lets out a long wail. "I'm not an ugly duckling anymore!" she insists.
"No, you're not," I say, coming around to her side and opening the door. "Come on. Let's get you inside, swan."
"Swan." She repeats the word and laughs at it. "Swan."
We get inside the house by some miracle, as April can still barely support herself on her own two feet. She sits on the bottom step and works on her shoe, and even after I come back from the kitchen with a glass of water, she still hasn't undone the first lace.
"Here, let me do it," I say, and kneel down. "If you keep at it, we're gonna be here all night."
She laughs. "Your hair is very dark," she says.
"Thank you?"
"Anytime," she says, and lays back on the stairs. As I tug on her shoelace, which she had apparently tied with the strength of ten men, she slips down one. It doesn't faze her whatsoever. Keeping true to form, she laughs at herself and then throws her arms over her face.
Once I get her shoes off, I help her sit up and then hand her the glass of water. "Drink this," I say. "You need something in your system other than whatever that ale was."
She takes a sip. "Strong," she says.
"What, the water?"
"Ale," she says, and glugs down more water. She comes up for air and raises her glass with her eyes closed. "Cheers," she says, spiritedly.
I knock my fist with her glass. "Cheers," I say back, chuckling.
I sit with her on the stairs while she finishes the water, and then help her try to stand. She leans on me for support, her knees wobbling even under her slight weight. "Did you know that this house can actually spin?" she asks, widening her green eyes at me. "Amazing. All for such a low price."
I sigh, albeit good-naturedly. "Okay, sit." I push gently on her shoulders and she goes back down. "Here's the plan. There's no way you can get up to the third floor tonight, even with me helping you."
"You're so right," she says, eyes closing.
"And when Percy gets off work, he's going to collapse on the couch. He always does. He can never make it to his room, and I guarantee you he's not watching where he lands. So if you sleep on the couch, you're gonna get crushed."
She forms her lips into a tight 'O' shape. "Ouchie," she says. "Pancake."
"So I'm gonna go upstairs and get whatever pajamas you want me to, and bring them back down here," I say.
"And I'll sleep in the tub," she says, nodding firmly.
"No..." I say, creasing my eyebrows.
She widens her eyes with fear. "The porch?"
"April, no. Stop," I say, lightly rolling my eyes. "We can share my bed."
Her eyes widen all over again. "Whoa, whoa, big boy."
"Shut up, not like that," I say. "My bed's huge."
"My bed's huge," she imitates, in a high-pitched tone that's meant to be scathing. "No way, Jackson. I can't. Against the rules."
"Against the rules to literally lay next to someone else and shut your eyes for hopefully eight hours?" I ask.
She bites the inside of her cheek. "I can make it upstairs on my own. I promise. I'm fine, Jackson, just watch."
She plants both hands on the railing and starts scaling it like a mountain, but doesn't get far at all before falling right back down on her ass.
"You're not gonna make it anywhere," I say. "I'm not trying to pull anything funny or be gross or anything like that. April, I swear."
She raises her eyebrows and points at me. Her signature move. "Okay. Fine. You better not. Because," she lifts her finger to point up at the ceiling. "The man upstairs is watching."
I look at her confusedly. "Percy…?"
"No, silly," she says, pushing on my chest. "Jesus."
"Oh, right," I say, and then stand. "Anyway, what pajamas?"
She thinks for way too long. So long, that I almost ditch her there and go pick them out for myself. "Long gray pants with pink hearts. Pink long sleeved shirt with gray sleeves. Please and thank you, eenie-meenie-miny-mo."
"Okay..." I say, and shake my head at her where she still lays on the stairs. I repeat the words to myself as I go up two flights of steps, thinking I'll need to dig through her dresser to find long gray pants with pink hearts and a pink long sleeved shirt with gray sleeves, but I find the matching set already laid out on her bed. Figures.
I go back downstairs and see that she hasn't moved. "Time to change," I say, and help her up. "Are you gonna be okay changing by yourself?"
She holds the pajamas close to her chest. "You can't see me," she says, sounding horrified. "I'm going into the bathroom and locking the door, you nasty boy."
After she closes the door, I repeat under my breath, "Nasty boy. Okay."
She comes out looking cozy and smelling like toothpaste. "Even brushed my teeth," she says. "My toothbrush is upstairs, though. So I kind of used whoever's is in there." She stumbles past me and I peer around the corner, not surprised to see that she'd used mine. Great.
I follow her loud footsteps and turn on the light to my room, only to find that she's not in there. "April?" I call out.
"Very dark," she says, sounding genuinely confused. "Also very small. Where's that big bed, braggadocio?"
I have no idea what she just called me, but I flick on the light to the hall closet to see that she's wandered in there instead of one door over, which is my room. "Turn around, dummy," I say, and she does. "This way."
"I almost fell asleep in the hall closet like Harry Potter," she says, whispering again like it's a secret. She sits down on my bed and then pulls back the covers, making herself comfortable on the side I don't usually sleep on. I get changed in the bathroom and come back out wearing sweatpants and a soft gray t-shirt.
My bedside lamp, the only lamp, is still turned on when I lay down next to her. I plunk my head on the pillow and see that she's looking at me; her eyes half-lidded and blinking slowly. "If I hadn't made a promise to Jesus, I'd totally have sex with you right now," she says, her voice still so slurred.
Her words practically gut me. I try not to react, though, because I know it's the alcohol speaking. But against my will, I feel myself start to get the slightest bit hard. No, no, no, I command myself. Do not think about it. Do not picture her. But I'm already there. It takes my brain less than a full second to picture April's body keening under my own, wearing nothing but a black set of bra and underwear. With her hair fanned out on the pillow, I can picture myself pushing inside her and the way her mouth would fall open from the feel of it, the way her soft breasts would feel in my hands fitting just perfectly, the way my name would sound as she forced it out of her mouth when she came…
I shake my head. I'm fully hard now. This is not okay.
"Okay, April," I say, in a tone that lets her know I'm writing her off. I even add an eyeroll in there, too.
"No, I mean it," she insists, rolling over onto her back with her arms splayed above her. No, no, not that position. I will her to move, but she stays. She takes in a deep breath, and I watch her collarbone become more prominent, and then fade away again. I don't want to let myself, but my eyes drift lower and I can see the pricks of her nipples through the thin pink material of her shirt; tiny, but definitely there. "Right here, on this bed and everything."
I dart my eyes away. "That's very nice of you," I say, scoffing.
"I know," she says, and giggles. Her eyes had been closed, but she opens them again to look into mine. "You have beautiful eyes," she tells me.
I close them. With a slight smile, I say, "Goodnight, April."
"Just telling you."
"Goodnight, April."
I keep my eyes closed, but she falls asleep first. I hear her breath start to come easier and deeper when she goes, and then I debate slipping off into the bathroom to get rid of what I did to myself by thinking about her. But how awful would that be? To jerk off to thoughts about April, then come back to my bed that she's innocently sharing with me? No, I won't do it. I refuse to stoop that low.
I roll over onto my opposite side, faced away from her. I'm still hard and nothing about that is changing, no matter what I force myself to think about. The only image that will conjure itself up in my mind is that of her, in much less clothing than her heart-covered pajama set, soberly wanting to have sex with me. The thought won't leave my mind.
It feels like hours pass before I finally give in and get up out of bed. April doesn't so much as stir when I leave and shut the door to the bathroom, and I'm glad for that. I lock it behind me, just in case, and turn the shower on so I can quickly get in. It's a better excuse, at least.
I could have almost any girl I want, but she's the one - suddenly - that's doing this to me? I shake my head and chastise myself for it. I don't want her. Up until today I'd tolerated her at best, and now I can't stop fantasizing about her. What is that? What is wrong with me?
With my forehead pressed against the shower wall and the water beating strong onto my shoulders, I jerk off thinking about how her face would look when she comes. How tight she'd feel as I went inside her. I don't ruin my fantasy by letting reality creep in; I know full well that we'll never sleep together, because of her whole Jesus thing. But even though that doesn't matter in the moment that I come and let out a low moan that I'm hoping can't be heard over the water, it matters a lot the moment I come down from my orgasm. The real world comes rushing back in and I feel instant shame for what I've done. I scrub my body with body wash and dry off, getting back into the same pajamas from earlier before I walk back into my room.
When I see April still sleeping soundly in my bed, I feel the heavy weight of guilt on my back. I just reduced her to a sexual object in the deepest pits of my mind, and now I'll never be able to look at her and not think about that. She will never know, that's for sure, but I always will.
I slide in next to her and curse myself for what I just did. I'm not a pervert. I don't know what's come over me.
When I wake up the next morning, I feel the warmth of a body next to mine. I feel hands on me. I feel soft hair tickling the underside of my chin and soft breath puffing onto my cheek. For a brief moment, I forget what all last night entailed, but when I open my eyes it all comes back.
April has her head on my shoulder and one arm wrapped around my stomach, her fingers loose and lax on my ribcage. Her whole body is pressed up against mine; from her stomach that I can feel moving in and out with her breaths along my side, to her legs which are tangled up in mine under the covers.
My eyes widen as I stare down at her, then I shift my gaze to the ceiling. I adjust my shoulder for comfort, but just that subtle motion is enough to wake her up. I hear her take in a deep breath through her nose and then can feel her eyelashes batting against my jaw as she orients herself.
"Oh…" she mutters, and then says it again. "Oh, my god." Her body separates from mine quicker than if I'd burned her. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Jackson," she says, covering face with her hands. "I have this thing, I always hold pillows at night. I'm always cuddling something. And you...oh god, you…"
I chuckle. "It's okay," I say. "No hard feelings." Hard feelings. Funny. Little does she know.
She looks at me out of the corner of her eye. "Last night…" she begins. "We didn't…?"
I shake my head vehemently. "No. No. Nothing happened. Just… sleeping."
"Oh, right," she says. "I remember." I'm not sure if she's trying to convince herself or me that she remembers, but I know I don't believe her.
She lays there and blinks up at the ceiling fan. I can't help but watch her; usually when I see her in the mornings she's already put together and ready for work with her hair brushed and makeup on. So seeing her like this is completely new for me, and I can't complain. Her hair is mussed, her eyes are bleary with sleep, and she looks more endearing than I ever thought she would. I never thought I'd ever think of April this way.
Even as the thoughts filter through my mind, I try and convince myself that they aren't real. This is April we're talking about. Neurotic, control-freak, type-A April who's a know-it-all and has to be the boss of everything. There's no way I feel anything towards her besides annoyance and slight friendship.
There's no way.
No way at all.