A/N: This is just a quick one-shot that crossed my mind a while back, thought I'd write it out!
Huge thanks to my Beta WalkerTRngr, you've been amazing and your encouragement is everything!
Shoutout to tessafox too, whose support has been epic in some tough times.
This one's for you, Sunshine.
Chapter one: Oceans and Thunder
The first time, her heart had stopped.
Sara Sidle briskly walked through the aisles, skimming her index over the dusty bindings, frowning and rattling off the names of the various authors her fingertip touched. Her face lit up as it encountered the title "Journal of Forensic Sciences" in thin white characters. She tilted her head to read the small print on the bottom of the thin glossy binding, citing the date and number of every issue before flipping through them at an astounding pace.
"Bingo." She whispered, beaming, and slipped her slender fingers between two issues, pulling out the last one on the shelf. The edges were slightly dog-eared and a small tear ran across the cover, yet she still gazed at it with wonder. She checked the edge of the magazine, as if to make sure she had picked the right one.
"1956." She said aloud, in disbelief, "Journal of Forensic Sciences, issue #1, 1956, I can't believe I found it-" she was startled out of her trance as a hand reached out in front of her to grab the next issue over, smoothly pulling it out and manoeuvring it through the gap between her waist and the oak wood shelves.
"Sorry," said a sheepish voice, "I thought you might be taking that one too, I panicked."
She turned towards the man beside her, curious as to who else might be wandering around in an old bookstore, scouting out old issues of forensic magazines.
Then she met his gaze, and her heart stopped.
In the low light of the musty shop, his eyes seemed a clash of blue and green that twinkled with boyish wonder. His dark pupils were bordered by waves of sage and pale green. Light tones of aquamarine shone through and melted into darker streaks of sea green and refracted the warm glow of the lamps hanging from the ceiling. Shades of teal brushed out from the centre of his pupil to the edges of his iris, melding into a deep, dark pine. A thin circle of butterscotch yellow lined the jet-black centre of his eye, its glint lining the gentle ocean of his eyes.
They seemed to ebb and flow gently as he held her gaze, and his pupils dilated slightly. Had they, or had she imagined it? His chin shifted slightly, and his right eye caught a streak of bright sunlight that filtered through a cracked blind. The ripples of green flowing through his iris shifted to teal and lapis tones, suggesting the bluer hue in his eyes was obscured by the shadows cast by the tall shelves surrounding them. His stare was unwavering and she perceived what she could only guess was an endearing combination of curiosity and bashfulness. She was suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to dive into the depths of those mesmerising eyes.
A clambering sound from the front of the shop caused them both to jump and he shook his head slightly, flashing her a small shy smile before gesturing to his magazine.
"I've got some reading to do."
Sara made to stop him before another topple from a nearby bookshelf and a muffled "sorry" made her look away. She turned back, a question on her lips, but he had disappeared as fast as a bullet cut through flesh
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The second time, her heart beat faster than ever before.
Sara cursed as her notebook slid from her grasp and scrambled to pick it up. She glanced at the clock hanging over the wooden double doors in front of her and cursed again; she was twenty minutes late.
She was here by order of her boss, who'd assured her the seminar was "mandatory for all state labs across the country", and she'd had no choice but to drop the high-profile case she'd worked so hard to get.
She shoved open the doors, panting, having sprinted halfway across the complex, only to find a handful of bored looking trainees and novice CSIs. There was a faint snoring from the back row. Mandatory my ass.
Sara hurried down the steps to the front row and dropped her bag, slapping down the retractable table on her chair. She flipped open her notebook and hastily clicked her pen a couple times, fastening her ponytail, before noticing nobody seemed to be lecturing. Confused by the silence that had fallen upon the room, she looked towards the podium and locked onto his gaze.
Her stomach flipped as his steely eyes seem to pierce through her skull like a bullet. Under the bright white glow of the stage lights, they seemed to darken to a deep navy blue. Shades of turquoise enclosed his pupils and pools of sapphire formed capillary waves at the surface of his iris. Streaks of steely blue spiralled outwards in a lightning-like pattern, thundering through the calm sea of his eyes. Grayer tones of stone clouded the very edges of the coloured tissue and folded into a deep Aegean blue. The slight green undertones clashed with the surrounding hues, yet the colours glided together in perfect harmony, seeming to shift and swirl into each other.
For a second time, she was certain his eyes were an organism of their own, thriving and surging with life, a cerulean whirlpool of endless movement pulling her to their depths. And she was powerless to stop them as her own eyes locked onto his dark pupils, their epicentre a pinpoint of glowering white from the overhead lights. Their expression darkened and her pulse raced, though she couldn't quite read the emotion behind them. Shakespeare claimed eyes were the window to the soul, yet his revealed so little, were so carefully… guarded.
The snoring behind her stopped, a trainee beside her cleared his throat, and the moment was lost as his piercing gaze flickered back to his notes.
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The third time, and every time after that, she fell in love.
And as she stared into his deep blue eyes, reflecting the lights of the nocturnal Vegas skyline behind them, and ran a hand through his unruly white curls, she knew she would only fall further every time she met his gaze.
