Disclaimer: Without Prejudice. The names of all characters contained here in are the property of Michael Crichton, Amblin, Constant C, Warner Brothers and anyone else involved in the making of ER. No Infringements of these copyrights are intended, and are used here without permission.
Rating: FRT – If you can watch, you can read.
Spoilers: None!
Content Warning: In a strange way, inspired by the "April Showers" challenge over at the Neela/Ray LJ community, but not a direct answer to that challenge. Just unadulterated fluff, because I can…! Also to assure folk that I haven't in fact dropped off the face of the earth and that I plan on updating Secrets and Lies eventually.
Also, was having a few formatting issues - so in case my divisions don't work - the bigger spaces indicate where there is a jump forward in time.
April Fool
She extended one leg, rotated the ankle slowly clockwise, idly watching the dim light in the apartment shatter into a million fragments on the diamante attachment. She scowled at the shoe, suddenly bitter.
Her hand reached towards the buckle, yanking the completely impractical item from her foot, and in a fit of pique she hurled it across the room. It skittered across the floorboards, the buckle scratching the polished surface, and stopped, with an impeccable sense of timing, at his feet.
He flicked his gaze between the offending item and his flatmate, hunched on the couch, only her head, and bare shoulders visible. A thousand flip responses jumped into his throat, but he swallowed them all with difficulty, bending to retrieve the footwear.
The shoe was expensive, he thought, turning in over in his hand. Brand new, and he noted with some amusement, still with the label attached to the sole. Not, he noted again, very Neela like. Not that he knew much about shoes, obviously, but this wasn't the kind of shoe you bought for daily wear.
He crossed the room silently, stood behind her, and dropped the item back into her lap. She jumped practically out of her skin, twisting her head to look at him, eyes wide, appealingly shocked.
"Nice shoes,"
He remarked offhandedly, eyes caught inadvertently on the shoe's partner, which still encased her right foot. The delicate strap showing off her perfectly formed, remarkably tiny ankle, drawing the gaze up the expanse of bare, coffee coloured skin. This was cut off, frustratingly he thought, mid thigh by the black hem of her dress.
"Yeah. Some good they did me,"
She scowled again at the shoe as it sat in her lap, a blinding beacon of her complete stupidity. What the hell had possessed her? She wondered. She wasn't the type that bought expensive clothes on a what? A whim? She felt so utterly, hopelessly stupid.
With a worrying amount of difficulty, he pulled his eyes away from the hem of the dress, and met her petulant, disappointed gaze. Her face was scrunched, nearly childlike.
"Get stood up?"
He asked bluntly, moving away from the couch, and hopefully out of range should she turn to violence.
"In a manner of speaking,"
She snatched the expensive looking, cream invite from the coffee table in front of her, waved it disdainfully at him. He took it from her hand, and she sat back, eyes aside as he read the inscription.
"You turned up and…?"
"Complete wind-up. The hotel doesn't exist."
He pressed his lips together tight, stifling his desire to laugh. She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously.
"Go on, laugh, tell me how stupid I was,"
He allowed himself only a half-smile.
"You didn't notice the date?"
"No…obviously not…"
Her hand gestured at her attire, to dismiss the question as completely irrelevant. She'd fallen for it. He had to smile.
"Don't tell me no-one's ever fooled you…"
"Never quite this elaborately,"
He answered instantly. She scowled again; her dark brows furrowed together, eyes almost black.
"So it's just me…do I have "gullible" tattooed across my forehead?"
Her tone was edged with bitterness, backed by just a hint of self-deprecation. He crossed to stand beside her.
"Oh come on. It's a joke. See the funny side,"
"The funny side? Of a $200 dollar dress I could ill afford? Of these stupid damn shoes?"
His eyes were drawn magnetically back to her ankle again, and he bit his lip hard.
"Well, I appreciate the effort, if that's any consolation,"
It escaped before he thought about it, snapping his eyes back up and focussing on a point just over her left shoulder in a bid to rediscover his composure. He thought he saw her begin to flush slightly pink at what was a backhanded kind of a compliment.
"Thanks, I think,"
She answered eventually, something forced out of her tone by her effort to stay neutral. There was a somewhat awkward pause that just seemed to hang between them.
"You aren't doing anything tonight then?"
She asked, carefully steering the conversation onto safer ground. He shook his head, took his cue to move away.
"Nope,"
He spoke with his head halfway in the fridge. After a minute of searching, his hand closed around the item he'd been looking for.
"So, looks like it's just you, me and this remarkably unopened bottle of wine tonight then, roomie,"
He beamed broadly at her, noting the suspicious look on her face, and started a hunt for the corkscrew and hopefully at least two clean glasses. She shrugged eventually; keen to appear indifferent to the idea.
"He didn't…"
Her mouth gaped in disbelief; her cheeks flushed rosy by the effects of nearly three glasses of wine. Her roommate nodded quickly, overtaken by a fit of laughter.
"Morris is such an idiot,"
She managed, before collapsing into a fit of hysterics herself, only coming to 5 minutes later when she realised she was unable to breath anymore.
"Didn't think it was quite that funny,"
A hand made sharp contact with his upper arm, and he flinched.
"Don't mock me,"
"Oh, but it's so easy,"
She scowled playfully at him, before pointedly turning her head away, reaching for the half-empty wine glass.
"So, this evening hasn't been a complete bust after all now, has it?"
She kept her body angled away from him, giving him only a slight shake of her head in answer.
"Its not quite dinner and dancing at the Ritz,"
She said after a few seconds. With a sudden burst of enthusiasm, he threw himself up from the sofa and crossed the room a man possessed. She threw a suspicious glance over her shoulder as she saw him fiddle with the stereo.
"The dinner I'm afraid I can't do anything about…"
The soft music filtered into the apartment, pervading the atmosphere with warmth and just a hint of sophistication by its mere presence. Must be one of her CD's she reasoned, this couldn't be in his collection, but she couldn't instantly place it.
"Dance with me,"
He offered suddenly.
"What?"
She looked up, seeing him beckoning to her from across the room.
"Hey, I may not be Prince Charming or anything…"
"Got that right,"
Her wine glass deposited, she crossed her arms severely, and regarded him with a heightened level of suspicion. His expression never faltered. Wow, the wine must have really gotten to him.
"But, hell, you are Cinderella and you should…"
He continued, apparently undeterred by her stance. She uncrossed her legs, kicked off the remaining shoe, and began to rise from the sofa.
"Stop talking before that analogy really dies on its feet,"
She crossed the room towards him slowly, enjoying every step, savouring how his expression changed the closer she got to him. How his nerves began to show just ever so slightly from below his normally so-cool exterior.
"Yeah, OK, it was a bit tenuous, but…"
He offered her his hand again, body bent in a mock bow. She couldn't help but smile, a deep, glowing, and genuine smile.
"Can you dance?"
She asked. He scrunched up his face boyishly, almost sheepish.
"No…I can shuffle though,"
She laughed despite herself, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"That'll do."
The CD ended, the last notes died around them, and they were left in the silence. They weren't dancing, they were barely moving, but even that stopped. Her eyes opened unwillingly, glancing over at the wall clock. It was just gone midnight. A long sigh passed her lips.
"Alright, Prince Charming, don't get too comfortable. It's time for this Cinderella to change back into her plain old frumpy self,"
She said wearily, her body unwilling to leave the safe circle of his arms. She lifted her head away from his chest, and found him looking directly at her.
"Plain & frumpy? Boy, did you get that bit wrong,"
He looked slightly nervous, biting at a corner of his lip. He let the silence hang a second, feeling out her reaction to what he'd said.
"If you could only see what I see…"
His words trailed off, as a hand came to the side of her still slightly upturned face. She didn't know what it was, but she felt slightly giddy, her whole body quivering just ever so slightly. Fingers tenderly tucked the one stray tendril of jet black hair behind her ear.
"April Fool's day is over, you have to be serious again,"
The glib response came far too easily, threw up a defensive wall between them. He deconstructed her hasty barrier with worrying ease, his words smooth, slipping in between the layers of her self-doubt.
"It's not just the wine talking, and it's not just that dress,"
She noticed him flick his eyes away from hers just briefly, down to the neckline of the aforementioned garment. Her skin prickled just beneath where his eyes fell, and she couldn't shake how pleasant a sensation it was.
"You are beautiful, Neela, always…"
The world felt like it had drifted away, and all there that existed was the two of them, caught in this…this moment. Her heart began to race, and her face flushed uncomfortably hot, this was their moment. Words floundered in her dry mouth, sinking without trace in the intensity, seeming somehow insignificant.
The three glasses of wine made her altogether bolder than she would otherwise have been. Standing on her very tiptoes to bridge the considerable height difference, she brushed her mouth very lightly over his, fleeting, tantalising.
She pulled back, fluttered her eyes open, and couldn't help a smile when she saw the shock on his face.
"Did you just…?"
He managed eventually.
"Uh-huh,"
The words were barely a hum through closed lips, low and thoughtful.
"Do you mind if I…?"
His intentions were clear in his whispered words, the rush of his breath hot over her cheek. Her next words were lost, as she gave herself up to the kiss with no more than a soft moan. She wasn't quite seeing stars, but she imagined she might later.
If the world had ceased to exist before, she wasn't even standing on solid ground now. It was dizzying, intoxicating. Her body sealed itself so hard to his, moulding perfectly to him as they'd been born to fit that way, she thought they would simply melt together and never be separated.
She practically fell away from him when the kiss was broken, their need for oxygen suddenly greater than their need for each other. Her heart was beating a military tattoo against her ribcage, and her chest heaved with the effort of breathing. She steadied herself, then took a small step backwards.
"Well, goodnight then,"
Her words came suddenly. She forced her breathing back under control, turned from him, and began to walk away. When she reached the open doorway of her room, she twisted back to him and put her hands sternly on her hips, being as much of a tease as she dared.
"Well, are you coming or not?"