"Oh bloody hell Trip what's that smell? Did the cookie monster throw up on you?" Fitz cried out as soon as he passed the door. In retrospect, he probably should have kept his mouth shut but he could never resist making fun of his annoyingly perfect best friend.
"Good evening to you too Fitz!" Trip replied with an annoyed tone and Fitz grinned even wider.
After hanging his jacket on the hook just next to the door, he took a few steps inside the living room to find his friend in a rather unlikely situation that made him chuckle. Trip was surrounded by scraps of bright gift wrapping paper, scotch tape and an insane amount of ribbon.
"What's happening in here?" He asked, smirking as he flopped down on the couch.
"What does it look like I'm doing?" Trip replied as he threw scraps oh ribbon on Fitz's curls from his spot on the small table behind the couch.
"Hey take your hands off me you idiot …" Fitz mumbled as he blindly tried to reach for his friend's wrist to swat his hands away and the more he tried the more it made Trip laugh.
"Do you know how hard it is to tame those stupid curls?" He finally asked as he turned around to see how his friend was doing.
"You're telling me, a black man, how hard it is to have curly hair?" Trip replied, his eyebrows raised up to his hairline and Fitz had the decency to blush slightly. He was so used to seing his friend with his hair completely shaved or extra short that he tended to forget those hilarious photos of him as a kid with an impressive mass of hair on his head.
"Oh yeah … well at least you can have them real short or just shave it all, if I do that I'll end up looking like a hooligan or Lex Luthor!" He let out and they both laughed out loud, letting the conversation die for a moment.
"But seriously man that perfume, don't you think it smells nice?" Trip asked and for a moment Fitz was so stunned by his friend's surprising inability to wrap even a very basic square box that it took him some time to reply.
"Oh no yeah it's fine … if you're a thirteen years old girl … with terrible taste in perfume …"
"Oh come on …" Trip sighed as he let the scissors fall on the table and momentarily gave up on his attempt at wrapping the incriminating object in front of him.
"Who's it for anyway?"
"Your mom ... I'm taking her out on a date tonight, you know how she always said how handsome I am so I thought ..." He replied waggling his eyebrows exaggeratedly and Fitz groaned. "Well Jemma you idiot, who else would I be offering perfume to? it's her birthday in two days …"
"Oh really? Didn't know that …" Fitz let out in his best attempt at an innocent voice.
Of course he knew when her birthday was, he knew where she grew up, where she studied, her favorite authors and tv shows and everything she was working on at the moment. Everything he didn't learn directly from her, he found out when he looked her up on the internet. At first, he genuinely only meant to look up a few papers she wrote like he'd told her he would, and did spend countless hours reading them and realizing how truly brilliant she was, but then he found an old Facebook account of hers and he couldn't resist looking it up. And just like everything else about her, it only made him like her even more. Because after three weeks of seing her almost every night or morning at breakfast, he was now a hundred percents positive that she was perfect and the huge crush he'd developed on her pretty much since he met her was now transforming into something else, something scarily intense. Of course it didn't help that every time she lingered a little longer over breakfast when Trip had to leave early or sometimes looked away blushing when he caught her eyes, made him feel like maybe she wasn't completely unaffected by him either.
"So you think this is a bad idea?" Trip asked and for a moment Fitz was tempted to say that he was joking and it was a great idea and let his friend embarrass himself with such a terrible gift. But the possibility of Jemma being so disappointed she'd break up with Trip and declare her love for him instead was quite low and she'd still be disappointed and they would both be embarrassed and it wasn't a nice thing to wish for your best friend and his girlfriend. After all, it wasn't Trip's fault he found the woman of Fitz's dreams before he had the chance to meet her, he had no reason to punish them for that.
"Well Jemma doesn't even wear perfume …" Fitz said, trying to focus on the fact that perfume was a bad idea in general and not this one in particular even though …
"I know that!" Trip replied a bit defensively and Fitz realized that maybe that wasn't the kind of information he was supposed to know about his best friend's girlfriend, especially after only a few weeks. "So I thought she might want to try one …"
"So she didn't tell you why she doesn't wear perfume?"
"Well no … it didn't exactly come up …" Trip rolled his eyes.
"She's actually allergic to most perfumes, some ingredient they use in most of them …" Fitz replied with his best approximation of a sympathetic smile.
And honestly, something with such a strong smell even through a glass bottle and cardboard box shouldn't be near anyone's skin.
"Oh …"
"Yeah … that's why she only uses this lavender water on her hair and clothes …" Fitz started without really thinking about it and stopped when he saw the suspicious look and raised eyebrows on Trip's face. "What? She told me about it when she sprayed some of it on me by accident the other day …" Fitz said as he took a sudden interest at the invisible lints on his trousers. Also he might have worn the shirt she sprayed it on for longer than it was reasonable to wear a shirt without washing it.
Knowing Jemma was clearly turning him into a masochist. Being around her was a kind of sweet torture. It hurt him to see her with Trip, to see her kiss him and be all affectionate with him and he knew he should just try to avoid her as much as he could but he couldn't. The truth was that he'd never felt so intellectually connected to anyone. It wasn't just that they were equally smart, she understood the way his mind worked, and when they started talking, it felt like they'd never run out of things to talk about, wether it was about science or things as trivial as tv shows or all the places they both went to as a child. If only he could put his pesky romantic feelings aside, she could become such a close friend.
"Ah man … what am I gonna do?" Trip sighed loudly, having definitely given up on his attempt at wrapping the bottle of perfume that was completely useless anyway now. "With the extra shifts I have to cover, there's no way I'll have the time to go shopping in the next two days …" He let out and Fitz replied before he even had the time to think about it.
"I could go for you …"
Apparently making Jemma happy was more important than his own sanity because as he gave a serious thought about what he just said, he realized he really was willing to find a nice gift for her even though he wouldn't even see the smile on her face when she'd discover it and he definitely wouldn't be the one she would thank for it.
"Oh no man, I can't ask you to do that …" Trip replied as he came to flop down on the couch next to Fitz.
"No 's fine … I had some shopping to do anyway …" Fitz lied.
"Okay but … what are you gonna buy? I mean she's my girlfriend and I wouldn't even know where to start …" Trip said a little sheepishly and Fitz chuckled.
Of course the irony wasn't lost on him. Because she clearly wasn't his girlfriend but he could probably find ten ideas for a nice gift for her just from the top of his head.
"Well I'll … manage, I'm sure I'll eventually find something she likes … or at the very least something that will not give her a rash …" He grinned and Trip playfully bumped his shoulder.
"Okay then … thanks man … I'll owe you one! Just ask me anything really …" He said, his voice softening.
How about you break up with Jemma and let me have a chance to ask her out? Fitz thought. If only things could be so simple … So instead he just said: "Sure mate I'll remember that …" and as he turned around to look at the mess Trip left he added with a smirk: "Bloody hell, for someone who's supposed to be able to save lives for a living, you're really terrible at using your hands mate …" and just managed to avoid Trip's stronger shoulder bump.
-0-0-0-
Fitz was just out of the shower and changing into more comfortable clothes in the hope of sitting on the couch to finish that book he'd started reading weeks ago when the doorbell rang. Letting out a loud sigh, he quickly threw a shirt on and walked towards the door.
"Trip seriously mate, if you keep forgetting your keys all around the city for anyone to find, I don't see the point of installing the best security system in the …" He started shouting through the door but cut himself off as soon as he saw who was on the other side of the door. "Oh … Jemma …"
She was wearing a red dress that wasn't especially short or revealing but it hugged her figure much more closely than her usual blouses and with her heels bringing her almost at an height with him and her slightly heavier make-up, she looked breathtakingly beautiful and he found himself speechless for a moment.
"For his defense, YOU let anyone into the building so …" She teased.
"Hu?" He could only answer as he tried his best to stop looking at her like he'd seen an alien or something.
"Cause you let me in the building remember?" She said with a tentative smile, slowing down her words like he'd just lost half of his IQ points and from the way he just nodded dumbly, he might just have. "Fitz is everything alright? Do I look weird? I feel a bit weird all dressed up like that, I know Trip said it was a fancy restaurant but ..."
"Oh no no you don't you ... you look nice is all ..." Fitz finally cut her off, giving her an awkward little smile before looking down at his feet. Nice didn't even begin to cover how she looked to him but it would have to do.
"Oh ... thank you Fitz ..." She answered, blushing pretilly.
"Hum can I ... can I come in?" She asked with an amused lopsided smile when they kept looking at each other without speaking for an awkwardly long moment.
"Trip's not home!" He blurted out and winced immediately. Great. First he must have looked like a pervert, ogling her so obviously and now he sounded like he didn't even want her to come in.
"I know but I hum ... I finished work early and I thought I could come here instead of Trip having to hurry to pick me up ..." She started, blushing a bit more for some reason. "But if it's a problem, I can just wait in his room or at the bar across the street ..."
"No no of course you can come in!" He cut her off quickly. "Sorry I'm just ... never mind it's ... nice to see you ..." He added with a soft smile as he moved to the side to let her in.
"Great 'cause I have something to show you!" She answered with a wide smile as she stepped in and quickly squeezed his arms in excitement.
The contact of her cold hands on his skin sent a shiver down his spine and it had little to do with the coldness of her skin. Fitz let out a silent sigh as he closed the door behind her and followed her in. God, he really had it bad if such a small contact had such an effect on him.
-0-0-0-
"Oh god it's so pompous …" Fitz groaned as he finished reading and fell back into the couch, closing his eyes to try and erase what he'd just read from his mind.
"No Fitz it's brilliant, I loved it!" Jemma objected as she took the magazine back from him carefully, like it was something precious. He'd told her about his paper on space time theory being published when he was only seventeen and she seemed genuinely interested but he didn't think she'd actually go looking for it. Reading it now, he felt more than a little embarrassed by the quality of it but he also found it really sweet that she went through all this trouble to find it.
"Oh please it looks like I used the thesaurus on every single word, it's ridiculous!" He cried out and it brought a grin to her face.
"Okay I'll admit the language is a bit exaggeratedly sophisticated but it wasn't even your main field of study and you were only seventeen, you were just trying to compensate to be taken seriously. I did it too you know, always being mindful of every word I said, even wore glasses for two years without needing it, just so that I would look a little older!" She said, rolling her eyes at herself and they both laughed sincerely. It felt so nice knowing someone who went through the same things he did and was able to understand the quirks that made him strange to other people.
"Yeah I guess you're right …" He said, smiling softly.
"And that's probably why you also went for the ties and old men cardigans …" She added mischievously and his eyes widened in confusion.
"What … How do you … wait … oh no don't tell me …" He started, taking the magazine back from her and turned the pages to find a relatively small but horrible picture of him at the end of the article.
"Oh god!" He cried out, quickly closing the magazine with a disgusted look on his face as he flopped back down in the couch cushions.
"Fiiitz it's not so bad!" She said, barely trying to hide her bubbling laughter and he only grunted in response, blindly grabbing a cushion to put over his face.
"Oh stop being so dramatic ..." She said, trying to sound scolding but was betrayed by the huge amused and fond smile on her face. She seemed to be so used and amused by his antics and softly grumpy moods that sometimes he forgot she was his best friend's girlfriend he'd known for less than a month and not an old friend he'd known for years.
"Oh please will you look at my hair? I looked like a sheep!"
"No I like the curls ... they look so ... soft and ... fluffy ..." She said with a smile that actually seemed genuine.
"Soft and fluffy ... just how a man wants to be described ..." He said sarcastically and she rolled her eyes.
"Not you, your hair and actually ..." She trailed off as she moved forward and quickly threaded her fingers through his still slightly damp curls. He was about to indignantly swat her hand away but then he saw her small appreciative smile and something indefinable in her eyes as she held his gaze, so he was only able to look at her with wide eyes. A warm feeling was spreading through his chest at the touch and the closeness of her face and he thought that, had she not been Trip's girlfriend, this would have looked a lot like a signal that she wanted him to kiss her, even to someone like him who'd always been so bad at detecting them.
"Yeah … really soft … and they smell like a meadow in the spring …" She said with a bold little smile that was a bit contradicted by the slight blush that started attacking her cheeks when she realized they probably weren't supposed to be close enough for this kind of physical contact. "You should let them grow a bit actually, you can barely feel the curls at all as they are right now …" She added as she moved back and he felt at the same time relieved and a little disappointed that the moment had passed.
"Yeah sure and spend hours trying to tame them every morning …" He mumbled, rolling his eyes at her.
"I'm sure it'd be worth it, I would have given anything to have such luscious curl when I was seventeen!" She added, somehow strangely intent on convincing him that thick curly hair was a good thing.
"Oh please, like you needed that, I'm sure you were just as gorgeous back then!"
The words left his mouth without him really thinking about it and it's only when he saw the look of surprise on her face followed by a blinding smile that he realized what he said. It was so obvious to him that it didn't even feel like a compliment, just a simple statement. But she apparently didn't think so because her cheeks took an even more pinkish tint that made her look prettier if such a thing was possible.
After a short strangely tense moment of silence, he cleared his throat, desperate to change the subject.
"So you …hum you really liked that paper?" He asked a little shyly.
"Yeah, most brilliant thing I've read in a long time!" She replied with an enthusiastic smile he would have sworn was also a bit flirtatious if they weren't talking about science.
-0-0-0-
"No I just can't believe that our whole life is planned in advance, you can always do something to change your destiny ..." Jemma declared as she huffed in slight exasperation and slouched down in the couch in a rather ungraceful way that contrasted quite comically with her smart outfit.
"Well that's the thing with the spacetime theory Jemma, if you do something to change what you thought was your destiny, it just means your destiny was to do that all along." He replied with a slightly smug smile.
"Urgh Fitz that's such a depressing way to live your life ..."
"It's not a philosophy of life, it's a scientific theory, it's not like I said I was a buddhist or something!" He replied.
"Exactly it's a theory. I'm a biochemist, we like tangible facts ..."
"And dissecting poor dead animals. .." He cut her off and she rolled her eyes. "Anyway you need to theorize first if you want to prove something and make scientific breakthrough!"
"Well my theory is that you're infuriating!" She replied while grabbing a cushion and sending it to his face with a wide grin but before he had the time to retaliate, they were cut off by another voice.
They were so focused on their conversation that even Jemma barely turned around to acknowledge Trip's presence when he came home, something Fitz had felt childishly happy about -he didn't have her love but he still had all her attention when it came to science- and now, they hadn't even realized he was out of the bathroom, wearing fresh clothes and, at least to Fitz's opinion, a very agressive cologne.
"I'd usually agree with you on principle but what did he do just now to be so infuriating?" Trip asked with a wide grin and Fitz huffed in annoyance.
"Oh nothing, just his obsession with the theory of spacetime, I mean it is fascinating …" She started as she suddenly straightened up on the couch and stood up. He hadn't realized how close she'd gotten to him once more as they spoke and he chastised himself. It was dangerous to let himself get this comfortable with Jemma. Just because she was also being extra friendly to him didn't mean she wanted him to be creepy. With time, he hoped he could get over this really huge crush on her and they could become real friends.
"Oh I'm gonna stop you right there!" Trip cut her off with a chuckle. "Heard this one already, don't want to get into that again!" He added and Fitz rolled his eyes but he couldn't really blame him, that was how most people reacted to it and that was why Jemma was so special.
"Well at least, with the way you two are always bickering and never agreeing on anything, I shouldn't fear you trying to steal my girlfriend!" Trip said as he got closer to Jemma and looped his arms around her waist in a possessive way.
Fortunately, Fitz's coughing fit was almost covered by Jemma's extremely awkward and loud fit of laughter, that got even weirder when their gaze locked on each other. For a second, he thought he saw something in her eyes, some kind of fondness laced with sadness. Was it just Jemma acknowledging Fit's feelings for her and feeling sorry about it because she only saw him as a friend or was there also something on her side? It wasn't the first time he thought he felt a little spark between them but he always convinced himself it was just wishful thinking. He would have asked for another opinion but the only person he knew that also knew Jemma was Trip and it wasn't the kind of questions he could ask him casually.
"Well at least I think we can both agree on the fact that this shirt is bloody ridiculous!" Fitz added with a smirk before Trip had the time to catch up on the awkwardness of the situation he just created.
"Oh please man, what are you wearing right now?" He replied with a raised eyebrow and Fitz noticed that Jemma took this opportunity to turn away from him, apparently to look for something in her handbag.
"First, this Doctor Who t-shirt is awesome and I'm not wearing it to go on a date anyway!"
"I saw you wear a plaid shirt to go on a date Fitz, I don't think I need your advice when it comes to fashion …" The tall man said with a smug grin and Fitz rolled his eyes. Sometimes, Fitz regretted saying that he'd missed having a brother or sister growing up when he saw the way Trip never forgot any of even his smallest mistakes. "I'm going to wear this because that shirt is damn fine …"
"Damn fine if you wanna make a rabbit disappear!" Fitz cut him off and Trip gave him a slightly confused look. "You look like a bloody magician!" He added and his smile only turned wider when he realized that Jemma was just using her handbag as an excuse so Trip wouldn't see her laugh.
"What?! No come on Jemma, tell him that shirt is fine, please!" Trip said as he gently grabbed Jemma's hand for her to face him.
"Hum well it's … yeah I suppose it's …" She started, biting her lip not to smile too wide and Fitz couldn't help smiling triumphantly as he waited for her to agree with him. "It's … I'll have to admit it's a bit … shiny …" She finished tentatively and Fitz burst out laughing. It was actually quite adorable the way she tried not to be too mean about it but seeing Trip's smug smile being wiped off his face was just too funny.
He supposed it wasn't very nice of him but Trip got to take the woman of his dreams on a date so he decided he could at least have a little harmless fun at his expense.
"But hum I don't know, maybe where you're taking me, it's perfectly fine to wear that and …"
"Please say no more!" He cut her off with a gentle roll of his eyes. "I'm going to change shirt, I'll only be a minute …"
"Okay … that's a nice suit though." She added with a soft smile before pressing a soft kiss to his lips. It was almost chaste really but it was enough to remind him that even though she might agree with him on so many things, in the end, Trip was the one to take her on a date. Sighing softly, he turned around and settle back deeply into the couch.
Tonight would be another night of pizza, beer and browsing the web to find the courage to sign up for an online dating site and somehow ending up skyping with his friend Daisy who would try and set him up with all the single women she kept meeting all the time. Fitz considered it a personal victory when he met one new person every few months and managed to see him or her again a second time when Daisy seemed to have at least ten new friends every time he spoke to her. Honestly, he didn't even know how she remembered all of their names.
Lost in thoughts as he was, he didn't hear Jemma come behind him and bend over the back of the couch so her face was really close to his.
"You know, I really like this Doctor Who t-shirt …" She half whispered into his ear, sending shivers down his spine and causing a wide smile to tuck at his lips. "And I really don't see what's wrong with plaid shirts …" She added.
"Oh really?" He asked with an amused tone as he turned around to look at her, realizing too late how big of a mistake it was since it brought his face even closer to hers. Seeing every speck of gold inside her chocolate eyes and feeling her hot breath on his lips really didn't help.
"Yeah … just couldn't say it earlier … was a bit scared that Antoine the magnificent would try and saw us both in half …" She grinned and they both burst out laughing.
Their laughter redoubled when Trip came out of his room with a smart but much less funny white shirt and asked what they were laughing about. She laughed so hard that in the end, Jemma even had to go to the bathroom to fix her makeup before they left for the restaurant. Fitz didn't remember seeing her laugh this hard and freely before and it was at least a little comfort to know that he was the one to share that with her.