First off, thank you to everyone who reviewed: anonymous reviewers, Kiauna Grey, Finchy Benedict, Annabelle, karu52, Swetcang, Robyn & JustAnotherFanGirlingBookworm (I loved your poem). This chapter is for you- I love reading every single one of your comments, you're all so lovely, and I hope you like this chapter. It wouldn't be up if it weren't for you guys, so thank you. Enjoy! x
Here we go… chapter 33! You've waited long enough, so here it is…
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33:
I woke with a start, clutching Flounder to my chest. I could hear the rain smattering against the window pane in tandem to the deafening roar of thunder echoing around the city; the weather had definitely got worse since we'd got in. Looking at the clock, I saw it 2.10 am- the thunder must have woken me. From my bed, I could see the lightning flickering through the curtains. Rolling back over, away from the window, I gripped Flounder tightly and snuggled deeper into my duvet, hoping to drop back off to sleep. We had a busy day ahead, and I didn't want to be tired.
"Alexis!" I heard a strangled cry coming from somewhere in the flat, and I sat up.
"Will?" There was no response.
"No, no, no!" He shouted again, sounding more urgent this time. Worried, I headed towards his room, keeping Flounder tucked under my arm.
"Will?" I knocked on his door softly, but didn't get a reply.
"No, Alexis, no!" He screamed, tormented. Deciding to forgo convention, I opened his door and walked in, despite not being asked. Will was asleep, the duvet in disarray as his limbs thrashed around.
"No, no!" He sobbed again, a light sheen of sweat covering his chest and face, making his hair stick to his forehead.
"Will?" Walking closer, I perched on his bed, letting Flounder fall onto the pillow he wasn't using. I grabbed his shoulders and shook him gently. His thrashing increased then, the dream or whatever he was suffering from, had obviously gotten worse.
"Will, wake up!" I pleaded, shaking him urgently. "You need to wake up!" His eyes snapped open then, his face a mask of fear.
"Alexis." He croaked, not noticing me at first.
"I'm here, Will." I responded. His head snapped towards me in shock, his face disbelieving. I didn't have chance to even blink before his arms were around me, and I was lying against him.
"I thought you were dead." He choked out, burrowing his face into my hair, and crushing me tightly to him. "The car was going too fast- I couldn't get to you."
"Shhh." I soothed, managing to extricate one of my arms from his vice-like hold to wipe away some of the strands of hair plastered to his face.
"It's okay, I'm here. It was just a dream." We lay silently for a couple of minutes until he stopped trembling, loosening his hold slightly.
"Sorry." He mumbled, breaking the silence. "I shouldn't have grabbed you like that."
"Don't worry. Do you want to talk about it?" My face was pressed against his chest once more, his head resting atop of mine, meaning I couldn't see his face.
"Even Xav couldn't save you." He sobbed. "And it was my fault."
"I'm safe, don't worry." His breathing was still ragged, he still hadn't completely calmed down.
"What can I do?" I asked, pressing a kiss to his skin.
"Just let me hold you."
So I did.
XXX
We woke up in the same position, still curled up tightly around each other. I could feel Will shooting little puffs of air our from his nose like a slumbering baby dragon. It tickled. I stayed still, watching him sleep undisturbed for a while; he needed it after last night. Without thinking, I traced patterns on his bicep, watching as a trail of goosebumps were left in my wake. When his breathing stuttered, I pulled away, worried that I'd woken him.
"Don't stop, I like it." His eyes stayed closed, his voice hoarse from sleep.
"I didn't realise you were awake." I ducked my head back into his chest, embarrassed I'd been caught.
"Well, I've only just woken up, to be fair." He unwound his arms, stretching them above his head to work out the kinks from a night spent in the same position. Now free, I too had a little stretch, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and rolling my shoulders.
"Thank you for last night. I don't usually get nightmares, but that one was so vivid; I was convinced it was real life." He propped himself up on his elbow so he could see me more easily, brushing a couple of curls away from my eyes. My hair was even more unmanageable in the mornings than it was in the day.
"Anytime. It's nice to be your knight in shining armour, rather than the damsel in distress for once. Did you sleep okay after?" I asked, looking up at him.
"Like a baby. So you'll come into my bed whenever, then?" He grinned cockily at me.
"Only you would get just that from that sentence! I did not mean it like that, and you know it!"
"Innocent until proven guilty; you didn't specify terms!" He argued, grabbing Flounder from where I'd left him last night and pulling him to his chest.
"Hey!" I yelled, fumbling for him.
"Agree, or Flounder gets it!" He replied playfully. "Poor, little, innocent Flounder…" He trailed off, holding him aloft above his head and making bobbing movements with him, as if he were swimming.
"Will, give him back!" I cried, sitting up on the bed, arms flailing, trying to re-capture my beloved new toy. He wrestled me away, laughing manically at my efforts, before I finally managed to snatch Flounder, leaving me lying on his chest once more. When I'd got Flounder safely back under my control, I turned my attention back to Will, who was looking at me intensely. Without warning, he leaned up and kissed me, catching me by surprise. Flounder lay forgotten as I wrapped my arms around his neck, kissing him back deeply. We pulled away breathless.
"Sorry. I couldn't resist." He mumbled, running his thumb along my now slightly swollen bottom lip.
"Will, what are we?" I asked, placing my palms against his chest and leaning on them, so I could look at him properly. He'd propped his head against the headboard and was using his arm as a pillow.
"What do you want us to be?"
I pondered that for a moment; I wasn't totally sure. Being soulfinders didn't automatically make us a couple- something I'd assumed from the off. Yet, we weren't just friends either. My heart didn't stutter when Sam rang, and I certainly didn't make a habit of kissing my friends or sharing a bed with them either.
"What do you want us to be?" I retorted. He shook his head.
"No, I asked you first."
"You are so difficult!" I huffed and he smiled, refusing to say anything else.
I stayed quiet for a minute too, contemplating how to voice my thought effectively and inoffensively. His thumb rubbed the slither of exposed skin between my top and shorts soothingly.
"I want…" I paused before trying again. What did I want? I took a deep breath.
"I want… I want us to try. I want us to try this." I used my hands to motion between our bodies, explaining my point. Will rolled us over, pinning me underneath him. His placed his forearms either side of my head, keeping his weight off me, and caging me in. His face broke out into a broad grin before morphing into his signature cocky smirk.
"Are you asking me out, sweetheart?"
"Yes, I think I am." I smiled back.
"It would be my pleasure." He kissed me again, for longer this time, rolling us over so I was on top, our mouths still connected. He grinned when we broke apart.
"Wait 'til everyone finds out you asked me out!"
I threw Flounder at him.
XXX
It was eight before we made it into the kitchen for breakfast. I was still in my pyjamas, but Will had slipped on his trackies and a t-shirt. Trying to cook whilst he was still just in his boxers would not have ended well for either of us, or the flat. I could do without setting the kitchen alight because I couldn't stop gawking at him. We had both brushed out teeth, mind- I couldn't believe we'd chatted so for so long this morning with morning breath!
When I came out of the bathroom, he was already weighing out the ingredients to make pancakes. After all his bragging yesterday I was eager to see if the pancakes lived up to expectations.
"Anything I can do to help?" I asked, heading over to the counter towards him.
"Nope. You sit right there." He pointed to one of the stools. "I'm sorry sweetheart, but only Benedicts can know the Benedict family recipe."
"You take it that seriously?" He nodded, as if such a thing were perfectly normal.
"Yep."
"Okay, I'll leave you to it. But am I allowed to set the table?"
"Sure." He replied, tipping some of his ingredients into a big glass bowl and mixing them together. Smiling, I grabbed what we needed, before sitting back down as instructed.
XXX
"These are so good!" I moaned, savouring the forkful of chocolatey covered goodness I'd just stuffed into my mouth. Will had already used half of the mixture to make a stack of pancakes, and we'd nearly eaten most of them already.
"I told you: you haven't truly had pancakes until you've tried the Benedict recipe."
"You have got to tell me the recipe! Seriously, I'm begging you here, Will!"
"Sorry, only Benedicts- that's the rule."
"But that's so mean- I'm not a Benedict!"
"No, but you could be." He smiled toothily at me.
"Please tell me that was not a proposal." I groaned. The pancakes were ridiculously good, but they still weren't quite good enough to convince me to walk down the aisle.
"You only asked me out an hour ago, Alexis. Let's not jump the gun here."
"You are never going to let me forget that, are you?"
"Never." He promised, helping himself to the last pancake and smothering it in Nutella.
Thankfully, there had already been Nutella in the cupboard, so I hadn't had a meltdown. The cupboards were actually extremely well-stocked, especially considering that no one actually used the flat as a permanent residence.
"Right. It's time for your first lesson, teach." Will said, standing as he spoke and moving to the stove, bringing our dirty plates with him.
"What?"
"Your first telekinesis lesson. Today, Alexis, we'll be using pancakes as our levitation objects of choice."
This could not end well.
XXX
As predicted, chaos promptly ensued. Will had me levitate a ladle-full of mixture into the pan, flip the pancake once it had cooked enough on one side, and transfer it to the plate; all using just the power of my mind. Half of the remaining mixture had managed to make its way onto the counters, the worktop, the floor, my face, my hair, and my pyjamas. Will hadn't fared much better; he too had mixture all over himself, but he remained a patient teacher.
I still thought we should have gone for something else for me to levitate- maybe an empty bottle or a tennis ball would have caused less damage. My current attempt (I could not remember exactly how many previous attempts there had been, but there had been a lot) was, so far, going quite well. I'd managed to successfully transfer the mixture into the pan via the ladle, and was now on to the flipping stage.
"Now concentrate, Lex: you can do this." He muttered, watching anxiously as a pancake hovered dangerously above the pan. I turned it in mid-air cautiously, before letting it float neatly back into the pan.
"Did you see that?" I cried, looking at Will for confirmation that I'd really flipped it.
"Good job, sweetheart." He clapped, smiling happily at me.
"Now let's get it onto the plate." Waiting for the the other side to cook, I carefully transferred the pancake from the pan to the plate, hopping from one foot to the other when it landed successfully.
"I knew you could do it, sweetheart." Will smiled, opening his arms for me. I snuggled into them happily.
"It was all down to my teacher." I grinned, looking up at him.
"Of course it was." He bragged, teasingly. "Now I do believe you need to pay for your tuition."
"Right away, sir." I smiled, leaning up on my tip-toes and paying off my debt.
Will made the rest of our pancakes, since it took nearly fifteen minutes to make just one. We wolfed them in down in next to no time, ending up feeling rather sick once we'd finished. Tidying our stuff away, we showered and dressed quickly, eager to head off and make the most of our day. Will, in order to save both time and water, or so he said, had cheekily offered to shower with me. I declined with a laugh. Somehow, I doubted his main intentions were to help preserve the environment. Still, we made it out of the flat by 9.30 and headed off to Madam Tussaud's by ten, managing to beat most of the tourists.
It only took us a couple of hours to go round, although we managed to get photos with practically all of the big stars. Will wasn't impressed when I insisted on him snapping a picture of me kissing Benedict Cumerbatch on the cheek, but he took it anyway. In all honesty, though, if will weren't a savant, I could imagine him being famous enough to be a waxwork model, not that I'd tell him that. His head was big enough already.
"Hey, Lex, let's get a photo with Brangelina." Will said, ushering me towards Hollywood's biggest power couple. I followed his instructions, standing by the pair of them whilst he managed to find someone to give his camera to to take our picture. Some unsuspecting tourist fell for his charm every time, and he had a reel of photos of us taken together by strangers to prove it. This time, he managed to befriend an elderly lady, who lapped up his attention, and eagerly offered to take our picture.
"You have a thing for Angelina?" I asked as he came to stand by me. The old lady was now fiddling with the shutter on the camera, unable to manage the complexities of a simple push button.
"How do you know it's not Brad?" He replied, still grinning at the camera. The granny had now managed to work out how to use the camera, and was happily clicking pictures of us. He went over to take the camera from her, and thank her for her time before returning back to me.
"I know it's not Brad." I disagreed.
"Maybe not. I just thought they might like to be photographed with another power couple."
"Will, we are not a power couple. We've only been a 'couple' as of a few hours ago."
"Sure we are. We just need a couple name." He argued.
"Like Brangelina?" He was ridiculous. We did not need a 'couple name'- we were not A-list celebrities, nor would we ever be.
"Yeah, something like that. How about Wexis?" I let out a groan; that was an awful couple name, even worse than Brangelina if that were even possible.
"I'll keep thinking." He promised with a wink. What was I to do with him? Sighing, I followed him to look at the rest of the waxworks.
Once we'd finished at Madam Tussaud's, we headed onto our second stop of the day: the zoo. Will had, thankfully, dropped his quest to find us a 'couple name'. I was hoping he'd permanently forget about it.
We managed to get to the zoo for about half twelve, so had the rest of the day to look round. Since we were both still full from breakfast, we decided to skip lunch, and instead shared some chocolate covered strawberries on a skewer that we bought from a van inside the park. Most of it managed to end up on Will's face, rather than in his mouth, and I managed to get a few photos of him on my phone which I'd later print and frame for posterity.
"Come on, Will! The penguin show's about to start!" I yelled, grabbing his hand and dragging him to the penguin enclosure.
"Okay, okay, I'm coming." He laughed, jogging a few steps to pull level with me.
We made it to the penguin enclosure in time to see the keepers feeding them, and we got to listen to their talk. Well, say we, but I meant me. I listened intently to the talk, whilst Will spent it taking photos of the penguins. He'd told me earlier that he wanted to take plenty of photos to document our first day together as a couple, which was also why he insisted on buying all the official photographs in the gift shop later that evening, once we'd seen all the animals.
Whilst he was paying, I was studying their vast cuddly toy collection- there were all manner of animals on the shelves, but they weren't anywhere near as cute as Flounder. How could they be? Flounder was one of a kind, and the cutest toy around.
Will's arm slipped around my waist before I'd even realised he'd left the counter. He pushed a leaflet into my hand.
"Meet Ricky!"
"Ricky?" I studied the leaflet he'd given me. There was a picture of a penguin on it.
"Yes, Ricky. We've adopted him."
"What, really?" I asked, glancing up at him for confirmation.
"Yep. You can adopt any animal here, anyone can, and the money you use to pay for the adoption helps to conserve penguins in the wild and in captivity. We can come and visit him whenever we like, a monthly email to keep us updated on his progress, and free admittance twice a year. They're going to send you the adoption pack in the post."
"Thank you, Will!" I cried, wrapping my arms around his middle and squeezing him tight. I'd always wanted to 'adopt' an animal at my local zoo as a child, but my Mum had always insisted it was a rip-off.
"I'm glad you like it, sweetheart. You ready to head home?"
"Definitely." I replied, pulling back from him, and looking at my photo of Ricky once more. "Let's go."
We ended up in the little Tesco near to Will's flat. Since we hadn't felt like going out for dinner, I'd offered to cook tea for us. I'd decided on fajitas, and was currently tossing ingredients into the basket Will insisted on carrying.
"Lex, I could just get Estelle to bring this stuff up for us, you know?"
"Estelle?" I asked, selecting three peppers and dropping them into a little carrier bag.
"Yeah. She looks after the flat for me; she cleans it, gets my food, does my washing, my ironing-"
"Are you serious?" I placed the peppers into the basket, and turned to look at him.
"Yes." My, how the other half lived! Employing someone to do your shopping for you seemed rather unnecessary, but it did explain why the cupboards were so well stocked.
"Well, you don't need to bother Estelle tonight, Will. We can manage just fine." I did not need Will to drag poor Estelle away from her plans to go shopping, when I was perfectly capable of doing it myself.
"Okay." He shrugged. "Can I choose what we have for dessert?" He asked, eyeing the frozen aisle hungrily.
"Yes; go!" I laughed, taking the basket from him, and watching as he tore off in search of some frozen treat.
Will decided on chocolate ice cream with strawberries for pudding, something I definitely approved of, even if I didn't like that he insisted on paying for everything. Still, as he reminded me, I had agreed to allow him to pay for food in exchange for me buying the tickets, so I didn't have a leg to stand on in an argument.
When we got back to the flat it was six, so I began cooking straight away whilst Will chopped the peppers and set the table for me. It didn't take us long to prepare or make, so we were sat eating it less than twenty minutes later.
"These are so good!" Will exclaimed, as he prepared his last wrap. I'd made a lot of mixture, but we'd managed to eat it all easily.
"I'm glad you think so." I smiled. "Even though there's no secret recipe for them." He shrugged at that.
"They're still good. So, what's the plan for tomorrow?"
"There is no plan for tomorrow." I replied, eating the last piece of my wrap. Will raised an eyebrow at that.
"How come?" He asked curiously, taking a bite out of his wrap.
"Well, I wasn't sure how you'd take to me coming to visit you for a start."
"Sweetheart, you know you can come surprise me whenever. I like my girlfriend coming to see me."
"I know that now, Will, but I didn't know that at the time. I figured, if you hadn't wanted to see me, then I could get an earlier train home tonight, after spending the weekend here doing my own thing. Besides, I wasn't your girlfriend then."
"But you're not going home tonight, are you?"
"No." I agreed. "I'm not; I'm going home tomorrow afternoon. So I figured last week, that if you wanted me to stay on the Monday we could do something random, go sight seeing somewhere, or to the park or something. The ball's in your court William." I smiled at him. "We can do whatever you like." He grinned cheekily.
"So if I suggest that we stay in bed all day?"
"I was thinking more that we walked round Covent Garden." I laughed.
"I don't think that answers my question, Alexis." He teased.
"You're rather forward, aren't you, Mr Benedict?" I countered.
"That's why my girlfriend loves me." He grinned wolfishly.
"I did not say I loved you, don't get ahead of yourself, mister." I waggled a finger at him as if reprimanding him.
"You know you do, Alexis." He slid off his stool and prowled towards me; his steps slow and deliberate.
"Oh really?" I arched an eyebrow at his confidence.
"Want me to convince you?" He was level with me now, we were face to face.
"I'd love to see you try."
"Love. See, there's that word again! You know you love me, Lexie." He grinned smugly, pressing our lips together before I had chance to defend myself. He was good, very good. It was a kiss that claimed me, branded me as his. I couldn't even think straight by the time I pulled away for air; I just wanted more.
"Bedroom?" He asked, pulling me into his arms.
"Bedroom." I agreed.
We didn't even get chance to open the ice cream.
YAY! After 33 chapters, they're officially together at last! Please leave a review to tell me what you thought- I hope the wait was worth it! #lill