Despite the fact that I love Deryn to pieces, I keep seeming to accidentally write things in Alek's perspective. How queer. *strokes chin thoughtfully* I must actually love Deryn to pieces. I never really considered myself the lesbian type, but there you are. She's just that cool.
Oh So That's What She Meant By Pear-shaped
He knew. And once he knew, he couldn't un-know. He couldn't look at her and see Dylan, see a boy, see his best friend.
He'd catch her eye in the corridor, snag a glimpse of her at work topside, exchange pleasantries and Good Mornings and Good Nights, but gone was the platonic friendship with a common soldier. Gone was the simplicity, the ease. Gone was Dylan Sharp.
Instead, he would lock eyes with her steady blue gaze, and he'd turn inexplicably to putty. They could chat as casually as they liked, but an undercurrent of something suppressed and strained was always present. Good Morning always sounded like I've Missed You. Good Night sounded like Too Soon. He slipped up. He couldn't control it. In the dim green of the corridor, everything winding down for the night around them, he stood a little too closely to her and he said Sweet Dreams.
She gawked. Then beamed.
Sweet Dreams to you too, your Highness.
The next night, he slipped up again.
Sweet Dreams, Liebste.
Sweetheart. It was automatic. His father had said it all the time.
What's that mean?
Um, nothing…
She grinned devilishly. So if I prance around calling all your Clanker friends Liebste, what kind of reaction can I expect?
Don't—
What's it mean?
He hesitated. He told her. She smiled a beautiful, heart-stopping smile. How had none of the other men noticed? How were Alek's knees the only ones threatening to buckle? How was his the only heart skipping beats?
How had this happened?
His bemused train of thought was swiftly derailed as she enveloped him into her arms, his chin just clearing her shoulder. He could worry about it later.
.
What That Previous Drabble was Actually Supposed to Turn Into Before I Took Off On Some Fluffy Tangent Because in Actuality it Was Intended to Become Quite Racy
(consider this a fanfic of a fanfic of a fan-comic parodying a comic parodying fanfiction! If you've read Goggles by Julia456 you'll be quite in the loop)
He can't look at her in quite the same way. He can try, goddamnit, but it is utterly futile.
He would catch a glimpse of her suited up, striding down the spine towards a waiting Huxley, and imagine the other soldiers sparing a passing Oh There Goes Mr. Sharp, Off On Another Totally Harmless Scouting Mission, when all he could think was How tight was her harness? How sure her steps? How warm her hands? Her feet? Her face? He would worry, and he would not stop worrying until she was safely on the whale's solid body once again.
Which was stupid, he knew. Deryn Sharp didn't need to be worried about.
So, with a little time, he learned not to fret. She was strong. She was sure. If anything did happen, he had no doubt she would find her way safely down. Deryn was amazing.
And brilliant.
And dazzling.
And when he stopped worrying, he saw how much she grinned on the way up to the clouds. And how pleased she looked when she came back down, her cheeks and ears pink, her hair tousled, her goggles buried haphazardly in the blonde mess. She was a vision. It drove him insane.
All he could think about were the ways to prolong that shade of her cheeks (kiss her when—or where—she least expected it) or redden her ears (a gentle bite should do it) or tousle her hair as effectively as a pair of pilot goggles.
Horribly enough, these indecorous thoughts caught him up most when his attention was meant to be directed at other things. While he went mechanically about his engine duties, in his mind, he and her, tangled up, breathless, were crashing to the pillows and sheets. His fingers were knotted up in her windblown locks, her legs cinched around his hips. She would throw her head back, back arched, lips wide around a sound she couldn't make lest they be caught in an act he had no business thinking about in the middle of engine duty. Sometimes in their haste they would have forgotten to remove the goggles entirely.
When they were spent, she would rest that blonde head on his chest, and they would catch their breath and he'd run his fingers through her tousled hair again, smoothing it back out.
She talks idly with him as she pulls the goggles from her head, leaving her hair as is, and (disgracefully, inappropriately, horriblehorriblyhorribly) this is all he can think about.
.
I'm neither a German speaker nor a fifteen year-old boy from the early 1900s, so correct me if you find anything to nitpick about in there.