Something, Silent Witness fanfiction, 3/5 and 4/5
Title: Something
Rating: T
Summary: H/N fluff, on a conference in Scotland.
Chapter Three
Nikki takes two steps out of the car, dragging the suitcase behind her, and slips up in her decidedly impractical shoes.
Her arse makes contact almost instantly with the snow, and her gloveless hands sting instantly when they feel the cold. She looks up to see Harry offering her a leather-gloved, warm looking hand, a smile and a mocking glint in his eye.
“Enjoy the trip?” he remarks sarcastically, and takes her hand firmly, without giving her a second to think, pulls her upwards. Again, neither of them account for the snow, and she slips forward slightly and overbalances, finding herself lunging forward, a clumsy freezing cold pendulum only stopped by her friend’s arms wrapping themselves around her shoulders.
She finds her face so close to his that she can only just see his breath clouding in the cold air if she half crosses her eyes. His eyes are darker again, and her breathing is suddenly near to impossible. She watches him swallow, visibly, and his eyes are flickering all over her face, and then he steps back, the eye contact lost, and takes her suitcase in his spare hand.
They’ve got to stop doing this.
She isn’t quite sure what’s happening as she trots slightly vacantly after Harry, who is pointedly carrying both suitcases with an unnecessary spring in his step, and, she suspects, also rather pointedly not looking at her. She’s not sure where she is, not sure where they are, and wonders briefly if there’s something in the Scottish air that is magnetising the pair of them together enough to get her heart racing.
***
“How may I help?” The girl at the front desk recites, as if she’s said it a thousand times, and she makes the pair of them smile, she can only be about sixteen.
“We’d like to book two rooms for the next two nights… adjacent rooms if you’ve got them?”
Her eyebrows rise straight away, first at the English accent coming out of Harry’s mouth, and then at his request for two rooms. “Two rooms?” she asks, looking slightly bewildered, “Are you sure?”
Harry nods, a slight smile reaching his lips. “Sure.”
She bends down for a moment, rattling around in some cupboard, and Nikki finds the clock on the wall of the lobby intensely fascinating - she can’t meet Harry’s gaze right now, she just can’t, the girl’s disbelief at the two rooms is still running through her mind, and her fantasies are crossing her thoughts… fantasies she’s normally brilliant at keeping just to when she’s at home, alone, perfect for shutting away somewhere when she’s anywhere near him, but that girl’s comment and the - she can’t even think what to call them, so she’s gonna go with moments - moments in the car, and after they’d just got out… the sexual tension that she’s always known is between them is rearing its ugly head, and now is not the time…
The girl stands up again and puts two keys on the desk, “Can I take your details… erm… both your details if you’re paying separately?” she flushes a little in her cheeks, as if considering that they might not be a paying couple is something she’s embarrassed by. Harry smiles fully then, and turns to Nikki for a moment.
“I’ll give her the company’s details… Shall we meet down here for some dinner in half an hour?” That grin on his face is contagious, she can’t help smiling back.
“Half an hour, then.” She smiles, lifting one of the keys off the desk and heading towards the lift.
“Third floor, to the left when you’re off the lift…” the serving girl recites, and Nikki hardly hears her. She needs that half an hour of alone time, half an hour to recover, to quell these feelings that are rushing through her. The minute the lift doors close she puts her head in her hands, rubbing at her temples slightly, trying to calm the thoughts in her mind. This is nothing new, she’s been having these thoughts for years, she’s looked on Harry that way for almost as long as she’s known him, but there’s something less manageable about it tonight… there’s something about those moments in the car, just outside the car, there’s something about the look she’d caught in his eyes in those seconds, something that’s making what she can normally push away, force to the very back of her mind, come forward, loom in front of her, take control of her, make her not a hundred percent in control of her actions. She takes a deep breath, and steps out of the lift slowly and calmly and into her room as she reaches the third floor. She’s been very good for a long time at ignoring this sexual tension, failing to acknowledge even its existence, anywhere other than in her dreams, she’ll have to find a way of recalibrating herself and getting onto more even ground. It isn’t like this is original; she’s been dealing with sensing there’s something there between them for years. Her only problem’s ever been that he’s shown no sign of noticing.
***
When the door into the small dining room opens and she walks over, he has to catch his breath for a moment. She’s only in jeans and a jumper, and she looks hardly any different to the way she did half an hour ago, but there’s something about having Nikki Alexander walking towards a table, dedicating a couple of hours to solely him - he takes a deep breath. This is somehow too like that dates he takes her on in his dream world, the place of imagination he doesn’t even dare let himself think about very often…
She sits down opposite him, giving him a small smile - that smile, the one he’ll never stop falling victim to - and taking a sip from the large glass of red wine he’s already taken the initiative of ordering.
“I let Leo know we’re here and didn’t die…” he smiles, “He’s getting like our grandmother, that man…”
She grins, thinking of how Leo’s changed slightly since Janet’s near miraculous pregnancy, if you didn’t know him well, you wouldn’t even notice. “Leave him alone. He’s starting to get back into the attitude of being a parent again… he’s not sure about it… I don’t think he knows if he’s ready to do that again, not after what he went through…”
“He’s gonna do it well again, though…” Harry says softly, looking out of the window, and for a moment Nikki’s unsure of whether it’s aimed at her, or if he’s really just talking to himself, “He’s going to be brilliant…”
There’s a silence for a moment, and Nikki knows they’re both thinking about the horrors that Leo’s suffered, and the bravery it must be taking in every second to put yourself into this again, when you’ve seen literally the worst outcome the first time through.
Nikki orders haggis, she’s always been one for doing things the local way, trying to seem as cultured and brave as possible, and she ignores Harry as he shakes his head and tells her he’s tried it once, and he doesn’t like it. When it’s served, it looks nice, and it smells nice, but she takes one mouthful and he sees her wrinkling her nose almost instantly, and a pout that makes him grin unnecessarily crosses her face.
“Ok, I should have listened to you.” She frowns, and he can’t stop the laugh then, but he pushes the plate of haggis to the side and his own plate of fish and chips in the middle of them, smiling, watching her eyes.
“It’s alright, we can share…”
There’s the most part of an hour of small talk, harmless conversation, and they’ve finished the fish and chips and are putting some more Merlot away, when Nikki’s face turns slightly whiter, he notices her hand on her glass slightly shaking.
“I can’t get his face out of my head.” She half-whispers, as if it’s something she’s embarrassed of, “He’s sometimes in my dreams…”
And Harry doesn’t need to ask, he somehow knows she’s talking about the killer they just put away, the man imitating Jack the Ripper, murdering the prostitutes in London. He gives a slight shudder himself; there was something about the man that turned his stomach as well, somewhere between the cold indifference in his voice, the complete detachment from the murders, and the look in his eyes as he’d finally confessed to it all, as if he was almost proud of what he’d done.
He doesn’t give himself time to think about what he’s doing, he reaches out and wraps his own hand around Nikki’s, as if merely holding her hand could protect her from the thought of that man. She gives him a slight smile, and he considers himself proud of that.
“It’s alright, Nikki… sometimes there are those cases that will linger on our minds… it’s just because we’re not the kind of people we put away, we can’t be that detached…”
She doesn’t reply, but she squeezes his hand slightly, and that’s enough.
***
They’re going to bed, maybe an hour later, and they’ve taken the lift up together, in comfortable. His room is right next to hers, and as he turns to leave, he catches her hand in his again, and gives her a smile that makes her heart thump a tiny bit faster.
A thousand things flash across his face, through his eyes, in that moment, like he’s got so many things he’s thinking of saying, but he can’t bring himself to. And there are, there are a thousand things he wants to say to her, thousands of things he’s been trying to bring up the courage to say for years, but he never has… He leans forward, silently, and presses a kiss to her cheek, and somehow that says slightly more to both of them than so many of the things he’s denying the need to say could.
“Night, Nikki.” He says softly, “See you in the morning.”
He turns and walks into his room like none of it happened, and she has to keep herself in check for a second, to be sure that any of it did, that she read all that on his face, that his lips just brushed her skin.
She stares at the closed door for minutes, thinking of all the things she has to say to him. All the things she doesn’t know if she’ll ever have the courage to say.
Please review if you’ve got five minutes.
Chapter Four
There’s a knock on his door, and he’s there almost instantly, he’s been unpacking a few of his things from his case, he hasn’t had time to sit down yet.
It’s Nikki, and he has to hold his breath for a moment, because though she’s wearing a dressing gown, and she’s perfectly decent, those long legs, slightly golden brown, are descending endlessly from the bottom of it, and he has to keep himself in check for seconds. He can’t think those thoughts, not when she’s in the vicinity.
“My shower’s stone cold.” She smiles, and she’s gone a little pink, like she’s embarrassed about her faulty shower. “Could I use yours quickly?”
“Of course.” He grins back, and she smiles even wider, and he’s sure she must be deaf if she can’t even hear slightly the difference in his voice, the slight strain that’s there as he’s trying to calm himself down. Bloody hell, it might be that this is getting to a level of too far if a dressing gown’s having this reaction on him. His bathroom door shuts, and he grips onto the side of the bed, trying to calm his breathing, trying to quell his arousal. He can’t help but think about her in there, as he hears the water turn on, and he’s imagining everything that’s going on in that room - he just can’t stop himself - she’s shedding that dressing gown now, and she’s completely naked underneath it…
He has to sit down. The thought of Nikki, completely naked, maybe two metres away from him, is physically hurting. It’s not something he can handle standing up.
And she’s stepping into the shower now, the water pouring down over every inch of her skin, maybe she’s flushing slightly red in places because it’s a little warm… all that peachy pale skin, the hot water coming into contact with every tiny aspect of it. It smells so good; he knows that, he hasn’t been able to escape the smell of it in their years of friendship, and it’s all so soft… so soft it’s almost impossible to find anything softer…
His mind’s getting ahead of itself now, he’s imagining completely naked Nikki, and every centimetre of that skin, and now he’s imagining what it might taste like, how beautiful it would be to hold her entirely naked in his arms, kiss it all, lick it all, and he’s imagining what places he would find that would make her moan, make her scream… he imagines she’s got a spot it’s difficult to find just below her ear, and it’s a rarity, finding it, but when you do, and you devote your attention to it, she literally comes almost instantly, moaning in your arms, and for moments she’s not quite herself, she’s entirely yours and yours alone, and completely at your bidding. He can’t help but start imagining it the other way, as well, Nikki kissing every inch of his own skin, finding those places that are so sensitive, driving him mad. And dear God, she needs to be out of that shower in a second, because he really needs a stone cold one now, he really does.
When he thinks it couldn’t get any worse, he couldn’t get any closer to the edge; she steps out of the bathroom.
And she’s wearing just a towel. And that leaves even less to the imagination than the dressing gown.
***
He’s in the shower now, the freezing cold water pouring over him, and his mind’s clearing slightly. It was completely awkward, when she came out, just in that towel, because it was making all his inappropriate thoughts solidify in his mind, come nearer to the surface, and he’d managed a gabbled ‘Good night’ before heading into the bathroom himself, taking as many deep breaths as possible, turning the temperature of the shower right down. The cold water’s helping him clear his mind now though, and he’s getting a lot of his common sense back, a lot more into the world of reality… he’s Nikki’s best friend, they’ve known each other for years, they couldn’t have a better friendship, but those thoughts he’s having… they’re something that’s devoted just to him… he’s alone on that front. He sighs slightly, wishing for the hundredth time in the last years that she could see what he saw in their relationship, but he’s knows he’s fighting a losing battle and always has been - he has to calm himself down and find someone else - Nikki’s not someone who’ll ever be his.
He turns the shower off, and steps out, towel-drying himself briefly and then wrapping it around his waist, cleaning his teeth and looking for a few extra seconds in the mirror - he always does that, he always has to check, when his feelings are getting this strong, that the thoughts he’s having about Nikki aren’t readable on his face. He’s all clear though, it’s something that’s entirely in his mind, not on show, and so he steps out of the bathroom, ready for a long night… he already knows he’s going to find it difficult to sleep.
What he doesn’t expect is for Nikki to be sat on his bed.
“You’re still here?” he jokes, mock-groaning slightly and smiling at her, suddenly painfully aware that the only thing he’s wearing is a towel around his waist… though she’s in her pyjamas now, which he thanks any God that might be listening for, because he just can’t concentrate on any form of conversation with her when she’s in that towel…
“Yep.” She laughs lightly, and then her voice gets lower, quieter, and there’s something in her eyes that tells him she’s got something important to say.
“Nikki?” he responds, unsure why he’s trying to make her laugh, trying to keep the situation light-hearted when he can sense she’s going to say something big, but he’s never really been in control of what he says. He’s always been the person that says completely the wrong thing in every situation.
She takes such a deep breath it’s visible, and looks right up at him, so their eyes meet, and she doesn’t break the gaze.
What she says next makes him think for a moment maybe she’s had more wine tonight that he had thought, maybe he’d underestimated her alcohol capacity, and then when he registers it, it makes him speechless, it holds a silence between them for a moment.
“In the car… earlier… there was something, right?” she whispers, and she looks so scared, as if she’s terrified of what she’s doing, and she is… she’s fearing that she’s bringing up something that was mainly in her own mind, that she’s made it something more than it was, that she’s about to ruin a friendship.
For a moment they stare at each other in silence.
Please review, the last chapter will be up tomorrow.
Rating: T
Summary: H/N fluff, on a conference in Scotland.
Chapter Three
Nikki takes two steps out of the car, dragging the suitcase behind her, and slips up in her decidedly impractical shoes.
Her arse makes contact almost instantly with the snow, and her gloveless hands sting instantly when they feel the cold. She looks up to see Harry offering her a leather-gloved, warm looking hand, a smile and a mocking glint in his eye.
“Enjoy the trip?” he remarks sarcastically, and takes her hand firmly, without giving her a second to think, pulls her upwards. Again, neither of them account for the snow, and she slips forward slightly and overbalances, finding herself lunging forward, a clumsy freezing cold pendulum only stopped by her friend’s arms wrapping themselves around her shoulders.
She finds her face so close to his that she can only just see his breath clouding in the cold air if she half crosses her eyes. His eyes are darker again, and her breathing is suddenly near to impossible. She watches him swallow, visibly, and his eyes are flickering all over her face, and then he steps back, the eye contact lost, and takes her suitcase in his spare hand.
They’ve got to stop doing this.
She isn’t quite sure what’s happening as she trots slightly vacantly after Harry, who is pointedly carrying both suitcases with an unnecessary spring in his step, and, she suspects, also rather pointedly not looking at her. She’s not sure where she is, not sure where they are, and wonders briefly if there’s something in the Scottish air that is magnetising the pair of them together enough to get her heart racing.
***
“How may I help?” The girl at the front desk recites, as if she’s said it a thousand times, and she makes the pair of them smile, she can only be about sixteen.
“We’d like to book two rooms for the next two nights… adjacent rooms if you’ve got them?”
Her eyebrows rise straight away, first at the English accent coming out of Harry’s mouth, and then at his request for two rooms. “Two rooms?” she asks, looking slightly bewildered, “Are you sure?”
Harry nods, a slight smile reaching his lips. “Sure.”
She bends down for a moment, rattling around in some cupboard, and Nikki finds the clock on the wall of the lobby intensely fascinating - she can’t meet Harry’s gaze right now, she just can’t, the girl’s disbelief at the two rooms is still running through her mind, and her fantasies are crossing her thoughts… fantasies she’s normally brilliant at keeping just to when she’s at home, alone, perfect for shutting away somewhere when she’s anywhere near him, but that girl’s comment and the - she can’t even think what to call them, so she’s gonna go with moments - moments in the car, and after they’d just got out… the sexual tension that she’s always known is between them is rearing its ugly head, and now is not the time…
The girl stands up again and puts two keys on the desk, “Can I take your details… erm… both your details if you’re paying separately?” she flushes a little in her cheeks, as if considering that they might not be a paying couple is something she’s embarrassed by. Harry smiles fully then, and turns to Nikki for a moment.
“I’ll give her the company’s details… Shall we meet down here for some dinner in half an hour?” That grin on his face is contagious, she can’t help smiling back.
“Half an hour, then.” She smiles, lifting one of the keys off the desk and heading towards the lift.
“Third floor, to the left when you’re off the lift…” the serving girl recites, and Nikki hardly hears her. She needs that half an hour of alone time, half an hour to recover, to quell these feelings that are rushing through her. The minute the lift doors close she puts her head in her hands, rubbing at her temples slightly, trying to calm the thoughts in her mind. This is nothing new, she’s been having these thoughts for years, she’s looked on Harry that way for almost as long as she’s known him, but there’s something less manageable about it tonight… there’s something about those moments in the car, just outside the car, there’s something about the look she’d caught in his eyes in those seconds, something that’s making what she can normally push away, force to the very back of her mind, come forward, loom in front of her, take control of her, make her not a hundred percent in control of her actions. She takes a deep breath, and steps out of the lift slowly and calmly and into her room as she reaches the third floor. She’s been very good for a long time at ignoring this sexual tension, failing to acknowledge even its existence, anywhere other than in her dreams, she’ll have to find a way of recalibrating herself and getting onto more even ground. It isn’t like this is original; she’s been dealing with sensing there’s something there between them for years. Her only problem’s ever been that he’s shown no sign of noticing.
***
When the door into the small dining room opens and she walks over, he has to catch his breath for a moment. She’s only in jeans and a jumper, and she looks hardly any different to the way she did half an hour ago, but there’s something about having Nikki Alexander walking towards a table, dedicating a couple of hours to solely him - he takes a deep breath. This is somehow too like that dates he takes her on in his dream world, the place of imagination he doesn’t even dare let himself think about very often…
She sits down opposite him, giving him a small smile - that smile, the one he’ll never stop falling victim to - and taking a sip from the large glass of red wine he’s already taken the initiative of ordering.
“I let Leo know we’re here and didn’t die…” he smiles, “He’s getting like our grandmother, that man…”
She grins, thinking of how Leo’s changed slightly since Janet’s near miraculous pregnancy, if you didn’t know him well, you wouldn’t even notice. “Leave him alone. He’s starting to get back into the attitude of being a parent again… he’s not sure about it… I don’t think he knows if he’s ready to do that again, not after what he went through…”
“He’s gonna do it well again, though…” Harry says softly, looking out of the window, and for a moment Nikki’s unsure of whether it’s aimed at her, or if he’s really just talking to himself, “He’s going to be brilliant…”
There’s a silence for a moment, and Nikki knows they’re both thinking about the horrors that Leo’s suffered, and the bravery it must be taking in every second to put yourself into this again, when you’ve seen literally the worst outcome the first time through.
Nikki orders haggis, she’s always been one for doing things the local way, trying to seem as cultured and brave as possible, and she ignores Harry as he shakes his head and tells her he’s tried it once, and he doesn’t like it. When it’s served, it looks nice, and it smells nice, but she takes one mouthful and he sees her wrinkling her nose almost instantly, and a pout that makes him grin unnecessarily crosses her face.
“Ok, I should have listened to you.” She frowns, and he can’t stop the laugh then, but he pushes the plate of haggis to the side and his own plate of fish and chips in the middle of them, smiling, watching her eyes.
“It’s alright, we can share…”
There’s the most part of an hour of small talk, harmless conversation, and they’ve finished the fish and chips and are putting some more Merlot away, when Nikki’s face turns slightly whiter, he notices her hand on her glass slightly shaking.
“I can’t get his face out of my head.” She half-whispers, as if it’s something she’s embarrassed of, “He’s sometimes in my dreams…”
And Harry doesn’t need to ask, he somehow knows she’s talking about the killer they just put away, the man imitating Jack the Ripper, murdering the prostitutes in London. He gives a slight shudder himself; there was something about the man that turned his stomach as well, somewhere between the cold indifference in his voice, the complete detachment from the murders, and the look in his eyes as he’d finally confessed to it all, as if he was almost proud of what he’d done.
He doesn’t give himself time to think about what he’s doing, he reaches out and wraps his own hand around Nikki’s, as if merely holding her hand could protect her from the thought of that man. She gives him a slight smile, and he considers himself proud of that.
“It’s alright, Nikki… sometimes there are those cases that will linger on our minds… it’s just because we’re not the kind of people we put away, we can’t be that detached…”
She doesn’t reply, but she squeezes his hand slightly, and that’s enough.
***
They’re going to bed, maybe an hour later, and they’ve taken the lift up together, in comfortable. His room is right next to hers, and as he turns to leave, he catches her hand in his again, and gives her a smile that makes her heart thump a tiny bit faster.
A thousand things flash across his face, through his eyes, in that moment, like he’s got so many things he’s thinking of saying, but he can’t bring himself to. And there are, there are a thousand things he wants to say to her, thousands of things he’s been trying to bring up the courage to say for years, but he never has… He leans forward, silently, and presses a kiss to her cheek, and somehow that says slightly more to both of them than so many of the things he’s denying the need to say could.
“Night, Nikki.” He says softly, “See you in the morning.”
He turns and walks into his room like none of it happened, and she has to keep herself in check for a second, to be sure that any of it did, that she read all that on his face, that his lips just brushed her skin.
She stares at the closed door for minutes, thinking of all the things she has to say to him. All the things she doesn’t know if she’ll ever have the courage to say.
Please review if you’ve got five minutes.
Chapter Four
There’s a knock on his door, and he’s there almost instantly, he’s been unpacking a few of his things from his case, he hasn’t had time to sit down yet.
It’s Nikki, and he has to hold his breath for a moment, because though she’s wearing a dressing gown, and she’s perfectly decent, those long legs, slightly golden brown, are descending endlessly from the bottom of it, and he has to keep himself in check for seconds. He can’t think those thoughts, not when she’s in the vicinity.
“My shower’s stone cold.” She smiles, and she’s gone a little pink, like she’s embarrassed about her faulty shower. “Could I use yours quickly?”
“Of course.” He grins back, and she smiles even wider, and he’s sure she must be deaf if she can’t even hear slightly the difference in his voice, the slight strain that’s there as he’s trying to calm himself down. Bloody hell, it might be that this is getting to a level of too far if a dressing gown’s having this reaction on him. His bathroom door shuts, and he grips onto the side of the bed, trying to calm his breathing, trying to quell his arousal. He can’t help but think about her in there, as he hears the water turn on, and he’s imagining everything that’s going on in that room - he just can’t stop himself - she’s shedding that dressing gown now, and she’s completely naked underneath it…
He has to sit down. The thought of Nikki, completely naked, maybe two metres away from him, is physically hurting. It’s not something he can handle standing up.
And she’s stepping into the shower now, the water pouring down over every inch of her skin, maybe she’s flushing slightly red in places because it’s a little warm… all that peachy pale skin, the hot water coming into contact with every tiny aspect of it. It smells so good; he knows that, he hasn’t been able to escape the smell of it in their years of friendship, and it’s all so soft… so soft it’s almost impossible to find anything softer…
His mind’s getting ahead of itself now, he’s imagining completely naked Nikki, and every centimetre of that skin, and now he’s imagining what it might taste like, how beautiful it would be to hold her entirely naked in his arms, kiss it all, lick it all, and he’s imagining what places he would find that would make her moan, make her scream… he imagines she’s got a spot it’s difficult to find just below her ear, and it’s a rarity, finding it, but when you do, and you devote your attention to it, she literally comes almost instantly, moaning in your arms, and for moments she’s not quite herself, she’s entirely yours and yours alone, and completely at your bidding. He can’t help but start imagining it the other way, as well, Nikki kissing every inch of his own skin, finding those places that are so sensitive, driving him mad. And dear God, she needs to be out of that shower in a second, because he really needs a stone cold one now, he really does.
When he thinks it couldn’t get any worse, he couldn’t get any closer to the edge; she steps out of the bathroom.
And she’s wearing just a towel. And that leaves even less to the imagination than the dressing gown.
***
He’s in the shower now, the freezing cold water pouring over him, and his mind’s clearing slightly. It was completely awkward, when she came out, just in that towel, because it was making all his inappropriate thoughts solidify in his mind, come nearer to the surface, and he’d managed a gabbled ‘Good night’ before heading into the bathroom himself, taking as many deep breaths as possible, turning the temperature of the shower right down. The cold water’s helping him clear his mind now though, and he’s getting a lot of his common sense back, a lot more into the world of reality… he’s Nikki’s best friend, they’ve known each other for years, they couldn’t have a better friendship, but those thoughts he’s having… they’re something that’s devoted just to him… he’s alone on that front. He sighs slightly, wishing for the hundredth time in the last years that she could see what he saw in their relationship, but he’s knows he’s fighting a losing battle and always has been - he has to calm himself down and find someone else - Nikki’s not someone who’ll ever be his.
He turns the shower off, and steps out, towel-drying himself briefly and then wrapping it around his waist, cleaning his teeth and looking for a few extra seconds in the mirror - he always does that, he always has to check, when his feelings are getting this strong, that the thoughts he’s having about Nikki aren’t readable on his face. He’s all clear though, it’s something that’s entirely in his mind, not on show, and so he steps out of the bathroom, ready for a long night… he already knows he’s going to find it difficult to sleep.
What he doesn’t expect is for Nikki to be sat on his bed.
“You’re still here?” he jokes, mock-groaning slightly and smiling at her, suddenly painfully aware that the only thing he’s wearing is a towel around his waist… though she’s in her pyjamas now, which he thanks any God that might be listening for, because he just can’t concentrate on any form of conversation with her when she’s in that towel…
“Yep.” She laughs lightly, and then her voice gets lower, quieter, and there’s something in her eyes that tells him she’s got something important to say.
“Nikki?” he responds, unsure why he’s trying to make her laugh, trying to keep the situation light-hearted when he can sense she’s going to say something big, but he’s never really been in control of what he says. He’s always been the person that says completely the wrong thing in every situation.
She takes such a deep breath it’s visible, and looks right up at him, so their eyes meet, and she doesn’t break the gaze.
What she says next makes him think for a moment maybe she’s had more wine tonight that he had thought, maybe he’d underestimated her alcohol capacity, and then when he registers it, it makes him speechless, it holds a silence between them for a moment.
“In the car… earlier… there was something, right?” she whispers, and she looks so scared, as if she’s terrified of what she’s doing, and she is… she’s fearing that she’s bringing up something that was mainly in her own mind, that she’s made it something more than it was, that she’s about to ruin a friendship.
For a moment they stare at each other in silence.
Please review, the last chapter will be up tomorrow.