Disclaimer: Power Rangers SPD is (was?) the property of Disney Entertainment shareholders.
Author's
Note: Extreme fluff ahead. You've been forewarned.
- -
Youth
"What about that one?"
"I don't know."
"I think it's a turtle. How about that one?"
"Uh…"
"A cat. A very round one. What about this one?"
"A cloud."
She elbowed him in the ribs hard enough to make him cough.
"Spoilsport," she grumbled.
"Well, you asked what they look like to me."
"You're supposed to use your imagination." She studied the fluffy cumulus clouds drifting by overhead. "A lot of it."
He sighed. "It's a stupid game, Syd."
She tried to elbow him again, but he caught her arm in time. "Take that back!"
"No. I meant what I said."
"You're such a wet blanket. And a mean one at that."
"Why are you out here with me then?" Oh sure, now he sounded amused.
"Because!" Her retort died out when she felt his fingers catch one of her blonde curls and tweak it. "How come you seem so annoyed until I get annoyed, and then you start lightening up?"
"I don't know." She wished he would play with more of her hair. "I like to annoy you."
"That's real mature."
His head rolled on its side to look at her, his eyes seeming brighter and as green as she'd ever seen them from mirth. His smile was worth all the annoyance in the world.
"I like annoying you, too," she confessed, leaning in closer so that their noses just barely touched. Green eyes to blue eyes. Chiseled dimples to rosy cheeks.
She had to resist a bone-deep urge to kiss him. They hadn't gotten around to anything more serious than token pecks yet, despite the fact that they were laying—quite closely—side by side on a picnic blanket in the local park, a wicker basket full of fruit and crackers by their feet. Sky was nothing but professional when they were working, which was most of the hours of the day and most of the days of the week. In the evenings, they were usually too tired (or had seen too much of each other in professional mode) to want to do more than to just sit together and commiserate a little, maybe nestle a bit if it was discreet, for the sake of their friends.
Now they were close together and alone, their lips just a hair's breath apart—she only had to pout a little harder make actual contact. But she refrained. It had taken all afternoon to get Sky to relax this much, and she didn't want him to tense up again, in case he wasn't in the mood.
Something moved by her foot at the end of the blanket, startling her enough to make her look down. Sky was using his foot to move the basket behind her back, so he could reach over her—leaving a maddening single inch between their bodies—and extract a cluster of grapes. It turned out Sky enjoyed feeding her Cleopatra-style, and queen treatment she was always amendable to, but…the man was a tease. A damnably oblivious tease.
She rolled onto her back once more as Sky propped himself up on an elbow and dangled the grapes over her mouth. A cool breeze blew by, making the corners of their blanket curl upward. She sighed contently, marveling at the utter peace that they rarely experienced in their hectic lives. It was an almost perfect day, relative to all other days, with just a few glitches she'd have to work on, mostly with the man beside her. For example, when the last grape was eaten, he tried to feed her the stem, and she had to capture his hand and scowl at him menacingly to get him to stop. He grinned at her displeasure and threw the stems back into the basket.
"Now what?" he asked after a long pause.
She hid a groan. Was the man just utterly incapable of relaxing, of giving over to laziness and inactivity for a rare day off like normal people?
"Here." She reached behind her into the basket and pulled out the last bunch of grapes. "Let me return the favor."
But instead of holding the fruit for him, she plucked one off and held it between her teeth, a seductive glitter in her eye that said 'come and get it'.
He raised an eyebrow, obviously surprised, and for one moment she worried he wouldn't go along with it.
He leaned in and retrieved the grape, with a little bonus. Their lips—and their tongues, just a little!—met in a delicious little kiss. It made her giggle, a pleasurable shiver dancing down her spine as he licked a dribble of grape juice from her lower lip. But all too soon he pulled away, looking thoughtful as he chewed the fruit.
"Am I going to have to start everything between us?" she whined, frustrated that their moment had ended so abruptly, and worried it wouldn't start again.
"Maybe," he said, for the sheer purpose of exasperating her, she could tell. He let it draw out a little, until he had to know that she was going to hit him again for being such a brat. But, among other things, Sky was an ace at self-preservation, and he touched her cheek in an uncharacteristically intimate gesture that made her pause.
"Now there's nothing in the way."
She didn't need to be told twice to close the microscopic gap between their bodies. "I'll say!"
Their mouths met halfway this time, and they kissed, sometimes sweetly, sometimes like oxygen didn't matter, oblivious to everything but each other and the heady feeling of a blossoming romance, with a splash of hormones thrown in.
Meanwhile, overhead, their forgotten cumulus clouds rose higher in the sky and thinned out into wispy trails, their undersides blushing pink in the sunset at the sight of this young couple taking advantage of a public park.
