Chapter 7

/EPOV/

The last few days have been a blur. All the little thoughts, the maybe-he-likes-me-maybe-i-like-him-too that have been occupying my mind the whole Christmas break, are now at least five times stronger, ten times more certain and a whole galaxy more confusing. It's all happening way too fast, and I'm still not sure what it is going to be like, and when, and if.

We haven't talked much after the cemetery episode, but he smiles at me whenever he sees me, and I wave, sometimes smile. It's... new. Not necessarily bad, but still weird. Grima isn't normally a guy I would like, and even less one I'd fall into. I wouldn't say I like him that much, not yet, but I can see myself growing fond of him.

Which could be good but also really, really bad.

Reservoir meeting is tomorrow and Elrond wants us to discuss whether it's okay to refer to a seemingly female person we do not know with female pronouns just because we assume the person is indeed a female, and same thing for males. Grima asked me to help him construct his statement in case his turn to speak came, so he should be coming over in about five minutes; as a result, my room is so tidy I feel out of place. He's supposed to bring ice cream and I made pancakes. For no reason whatsoever I felt the need to braid my hair, and now, adding my dark blue highwaisted shorts and my snow-white top, I'm afraid I look too plain. So I'm painting my nails black now, to keep my punk name unstained. I decide on putting my choker on as well. It's a black-cord one with a tiny moonstone heart.

The doorbell rings as I'm trying to find my Bikini Kill badge; and my blood freezes as I hear someone open the door.

Oh, fuck, I completely forgot Eomer's home! Great. "The fuck you doing here?" I hear him say, and I want to thrust my head against the wall. Of course he's here, there's this soccer game on. How has this fact managed to escape my mind? Am I really this much into Grima? Wow. I run to the door just in time to see Grima blush, gazing at his creepers. "I, um," he stammers and I interrupt him, reaching by my brother's annoyingly muscled figure to grab Grima's hand. "We're studying, jerk," I give Eomer a cold look and drag the disoriented piece of cuteness to my room. I close the door behind my back and let out a sigh. "He wasn't supposed to be here," I smile apologetically at Grima and he smiles back, one of his shy smiles, then hands me the box of ice cream. He got Nirvana. "I thought it held enough symbolism, as each of us listens to a band with this in its name," he's blushing again. I simply smile, then hesitate for a second, then decide that meh, what the hell, and lean up to kiss his cheek. "Help yourself, I'll get the rest," I wave at the bed and head to the kitchen.

I take the plate with the pancakes and place two bowls and a pair of spoons on top of them. I somehow manage to carry them all back to my room, and I find Grima observing my wall. He turns around and looks at me so weirdly; I couldn't even begin to understand what his eyes are trying to tell me. "You look like a shieldmaiden with braids, Eowyn," he finally sighs out, and I can bet I'm smiling too wide at his words; little does he know how flattered I am.

We eat ice-cream-filled pancakes and discuss the debate subject. He suggests using gender neutral pronouns unless the person asks us not to, I suggest always asking a stranger about their pronoun of choice. He suggests using "ze" and "hir". I inform him these could also be inconvenient or offending to some people, he silently agrees. We finally settle on the "always ask people which pronouns they prefer" option as it seems to be the least harmful one. He then starts walking around in my room, pointing at things, asking me to tell him more about this and that, and I'm just sitting on my bed with my legs crossed and a huge smile. I tell him about all the photographs; he says I look like my mother and laughs a little at the photo of a 15-year-old Theo going through his scene phase, full purple fringe and all. He sees all my summers, the two dogs I had when I was little, that ridiculous picture of me and Eomer eating pasta with no forks when I was five. And he smiles all the way. And he turns to me and says, "I wish I had such memories."

And maybe, something inside me wants to make memories with him. Happy, carefree memories.

He envies my poster wall, too. "You know, that kind of thing? I'd totally have it." "Why don't you?" I ask, and he just laughs. "Well it's not everyday I find posters of decent bands to use, having in mind what I call decent." Oh. "And what is that exactly?" I ask out of curiosity.

And with this question I unleash The Wave Of Band Names, none of which is even merely familiar(except for Nirvana 2002 as he's mentioned them before). In exchange, I tell him about my personal golds - which are somewhat more popular than the ones in his playlist so he's heard of some of them, but he's never listened to them. I decide he could use some musical education, so I play him my Runaways tape.

And he likes it.

So here we are, as unbelievable as it sounds, jumping on my bed to the sound of „Black Leather" – me shouting my lungs out, Grima simply jumping and headbanging as he doesn't know the lyrics(silly black metalist), I can't recall having this much fun since quite a while ago. Then our legs manage to get tangled and we fall on the bed, me lying on my back and him on top of me. I burst into laughter the moment he does, and we laugh and laugh without changing our position. Then, our laughter dies out, and he lifts his right hand and cups my cheek with it, and I'm gazing at his usually cold eyes which are now... warm, somehow. He shyly smiles, and I smile back before I slightly lean up. I close my eyes and lick my lips and just as I am about to kiss him, my brother shouts from the living room, „WHY IS THIS IMBECILE EVEN ALLOWED TO BREATHE OH CHRIST," and we laugh, and I playfully punch his shoulder, then I grab his hair and bring him closer to me and finally, we kiss. Which is great because „You drive me wild" starts right then and I can whisper the lyrics right in his mouth. I kiss my way to his collarbones, and he blushes and does the same after admitting he hadn't kissed anyone before Theo. But we kiss and giggle and play with each other's hair, and eventually end up laying next to each other on our backs, my hand in his, his thumb stroking my palm. He leans to kiss my nose and I chastely kiss his lips, then I bite mine. His eyes are shining now. „Hey, this band is good," he whispers. „Better than I imagined." I slap his cheek and he pretends I hit hard, then kisses me again, and as much as I'm loving it, he has to go home as it's getting dark. So I kick him out of bed and help him to the front door. He hugs me goodbye and I stand on my toes to kiss his forehead as he giggles.

In half an hour, he calls me to say goodnight.

We get off the phone at about four.

Okay maybe this happened too fast but.. let me know what you think ^_^