Title: ‘Someday’

Fandom: BBC Robin Hood

Pairing: Will/Djaq

Rating: 15/T

Genre: Romance, Humour

Warnings/Spoilers: no spoilers; modern AU, some language, some sexual content
Disclaimer: I suppose I should put in a disclaimer three chapters in. I don't own any of the characters here, the BBC owns them. I mean no harm or copyright infringement.
 

 

 

o…o

He couldn’t remember a time in his life when he was this concerned with his appearance or clothes. Ever. It just wasn’t like him. Normally Will was content to wear anything he picked up off the floor provided it didn’t smell bad. But as he stood in front of his open closet gnawing on his fingernails and surveying his clothing, he was agonizing over what to wear tonight. He held the bath towel around his hips, fresh from the shower as he stood there quietly dripping on his bedroom carpet.

Whatever he decided on wearing, it would have to be something that would survive the whole day rolled up and bunged in a knapsack. He was going straight from work to their date, and he certainly wasn’t going to go in his work clothes covered in sawdust or stains. He could sneak out early and change in the back room.

He settled on the new pair of trousers that didn’t have holes in them yet and the black-and-gray striped shirt. And a belt—he needed a belt. Was it supposed to match his shoes? He didn’t know. He could have asked Allan, but he was afraid Allan would laugh himself sick. It didn’t really matter, anyway; he’d have to wear his work boots out. At least he’d cleaned them so they were presentable, and they were warm for the cold.

Oh, no, he still had to tell Allan. He hadn’t actually said anything when he came in last night, and instead came home with a rather silly smile on his face from what’d happened on the train. He couldn’t believe that Djaq had asked him to go out with her. It was a little backwards, but it was good that Djaq had made the first move. Again. He just hadn’t the guts to do it himself.

Of course, Allan was probably going to have a laughing fit about it when he told him. That was just Allan.

He’d been shocked when she asked him—so shocked that he couldn’t remember how to speak in order to answer her. Though it might have had a bit to do with the fact that he was staring at her legs the entire journey and the question had taken him aback. He’d never seen her in a skirt before, but he rather hoped that she’d make it a more common occurrence…

It was freezing rain outside and cold in the flat—the heating was never good here—and he quickly hopped out of the towel and into his work clothes. He rolled his other clothes up and put them into his knapsack before heading into the kitchen for breakfast.

“Look who’s finally dressed!” Allan drawled from the table. “You were standing in front of your closet longer’n most girls do!”

“Shut up,” he growled as he sat down.

His friend was already up to his elbows in his morning coffee. The black eye he’d earned at the beginning of the week was fading and the cut on his cheek was healing nicely.

“So what took you so long?” Allan asked. “Not like you to worry about how to dress.”

He hesitated before he answered. “I’ve, uh… got a date tonight.”

Pause.

“What, you?” He asked in apparent astonishment. “A date?” His eyes were wide and he looked undeniably amused.

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Yes!”

“A date?”

“All right, Allan, I get it! You’re shocked!”

“Yeah, really. Who’s it with?”

“With Djaq you ninny!”

“How’d you manage that?”

“I, uh… to be perfectly honest, she asked me out.”

“Of course.”

“Look, I’m just not gonna be home normal time tonight, all right?”

Allan waggled his eyebrows at him cheekily. “Is that so?”

Will shifted nervously. “What?”

“Well, you know how it goes, eh? A nice dinner out in a poorly-lit restaurant watching the candlelight glint off of her silverware while you’re frantically trying to keep the conversation going by coming up with topics that make you look more interesting and also manage to hide the fact that you’ve been mentally undressing her for the last hour, and then you take the scenic route back to the car park by way of Bournemouth in order to keep the night going as long as possible, and you kiss her goodnight but it goes on a bit and you end up going back to her place for a nightcap, and the next thing you know you’re walking back to your place at around midday the next morning in yesterday’s clothes with her knickers stuffed in your pocket.”

Silence.

“Spoken like somebody who’s been there,” Will said.

“Often.”

“Whatever. It’s not gonna happen that way, anyway. It’s just dinner.”

“Way to set the bar low, there, mate.”

“You actually look forward to the walk of shame?”

He didn’t say anything to that. He just grinned from ear to ear as only he could. After a moment he went on. “Doesn’t do much good for you to tell me that—I’m not gonna be home tonight, either.”

“Why not?”

“Got a date.”

Will snorted into his coffee. “Aren’t you still recovering from the boyfriend you broke up with on Monday?”

“Naw. Life’s too short for that. And anyway, this time’s gonna be a bit different.”

“Oh, really? What makes you say that?”

He had a great big stupid smile on his face. “I don’t think Sarah likes me.”

Pause.

“What?” He sat there, dumbfounded. His friend really was impossible to figure sometimes.

He was still grinning. “We got into an argument in the queue at the coffee place, and she slapped me. I offered to take her out to apologize.”

“Yeah, that makes it pretty obvious. But tell me—I mean, I know I’m not really much into the dating world and I’m a little naïve about the whole thing, but how the hell is that a good thing?”

“It’s different. It’s a challenge. And, you know, I like a woman who can kick my ass.”

Will shook his head. He loved Allan, but he was the oddest person he knew. He didn’t feel like enquiring any further, so he said, “All right then, if that’s what you want. Just keep your thumb on the ‘9’ button on your mobile in case you have to ring for an ambulance tonight.”

Allan smiled.

And that was that.

Will looked at the kitchen clock and then immediately sprang into panic as he realized that he was running late. He’d spent much more time than he realized trying to pick out his clothes. He grabbed his knapsack and dashed out the door. He hadn’t even thought to grab an umbrella before leaving, so he walked the whole way to the bus stop through the driving icy rain.

He was nervous on the train—too nervous to nap like he normally did. He kept waiting, waiting, waiting for the train to get toe Djaq’s station. He kept checking his appearance in the darkened window, like it could have changed appreciably in the twenty seconds between looks. Anticipatory pins and needles prickled in his chest more and more as the neared. He was almost too nervous to say hello to her when she sat down with him.

“Hi,” she greeted him first.

His throat constricted and he could barely manage to squeak out a stuttering, “H-hello.”

“Are you all right?” She asked, concerned. “You do not look so well.”

“No, I’m fine. Really.”

“Are you sure? Are we still on for tonight?”

“Yes!” He said, quickly and a little to eagerly. “Yeah, yeah—we are. I’m fine, really.”

She smiled, broad and radiant and melting his heart.

“Good,” she purred.

The entire day at work, he had even more trouble concentrating and was even more distracted than usual. The only thing that made him force himself to pay some attention to what he was doing was the fact that if he injured himself today, he wouldn’t get to go out with Djaq tonight. He didn’t want to ruin his evening with a trip to hospital with a severed limb.

But his mind was still on her, coming up with a number of permutations of the possible outcomes of the evening. He imagined what the might talk about, what they might do, and hoped that he could keep calm. Though even the most optimistic side of him couldn’t fathom more than an unusually long and passionate goodnight kiss. In his mind, her lips were warm and soft—she put her arms around his neck and pressed herself to his chest while he wrapped his arms around her waist, tight and protective and crushing her to him.

She would probably be the one to start the kiss, since she’d proven to be the more bold of them and a little more apt to making the first move. Or maybe he’d start the kiss, and he’d back her into a dark doorway and kiss her as fiercely as he dared.

The daydreams were vivid, so much so that he could practically feel her warm body against his and smell her uniquely spicy-sweet scent.

He came back into the real world just in time to stop from stapling his thumb.

This was getting dangerous. He’d already chosen to do paperwork today, so the most violent physical activity he might participate in was chewing, having decided that working with tools was absolutely the last thing he should be doing while he was so caught up in daydreams like this. But even that proved too dangerous with far too much potential for physical harm to trust himself with it.

He sighed. It was only two; still a long, long time before tonight. He didn’t know how—or if—he was going to make it until then.

o…o

She starting to wish she’d picked a better night than this one. It was freezing cold and it had been raining all day; by now the rain was freezing into watery sleet and the wind had picked up. The word on the weather report was that it wasn’t going to let up until the end of the weekend.

She’d also been willing to put up with remarkable discomfort in the name of aesthetics. Her clothing was dark jeans and red blouse, white shirt, and fuzzy lined boots. She spent longer picking these clothes out this morning than she felt comfortable admitting, worrying about her clothes like she used to make fun of her friends for doing. When she changed after work for her date, she stood in front of the streaky fingerprint-covered mirror nailed to the back of the door for several long moments while she assessed herself.

Not bad, Djaq thought.

And then she saw Will waiting for her on the train. He looked very handsome with his hair combed and slicked back with water and in his nice clothes—this was the first time she’d seen him in anything except for his working clothes, most of which were sloppy and stained and full of holes. She liked him in his working clothes, but these were different. Different and nice. She liked it.

Once again, she just wanted to climb into his lap and snog him. She thought fleetingly of suggesting they just skip dinner and go right to her flat and she could let him go home again next weekend when she was finished with him.

“My car’s not in the garage,” she said as they left the train at her stop amid the exhausted Friday workers. “I park it up the road to avoid the craziness at the end of the day.”

“Clever,” he said.

“It is not far. This way.”

Instinctively, she reached out and took his hand to guide him through the crowds—his hands were warm in the cold air—and she hardly realized what she was doing and didn’t think anything of it until she’d propelled him out of the station and onto the pavement. Then she realized that she was holding his hand and her face prickled with heat and she dropped it quickly in favour of plunging her hands into her warm coat pockets.

“Sorry about that,” she said with a nervous smile. “Sometimes it is easy to get lost in all the people.”

“It’s fine,” he said. He was looking at the hand she’d held as if it was something special. “Don’t worry about it. I’d rather not get separated from you.”

He smiled and she smiled. It was awkward, but sweet.

They made their way along the wet streets, crowded under her umbrella to escape the freezing rain. They were forced to walk side-by-side and close together, and she was quietly loving it. His cheeks were going all pink from the cold and the wind, and there were flecks of sleet and snow stuck in his dark hair and clinging to his clothes. It made him look… pretty. She clenched her hands in her pockets so she wasn’t tempted to reach up and touch his pink cheek.

She led him to the side-street where she always left her car and showed him where she’d parked. When he saw what she drove, he grinned hugely.

“You look surprised,” she said.

“I dunno why, but I expected you would have something adult and sensible,” he remarked.

“I suppose I should, but I like my Beetle. It’s little, and cute.” She patted the round top of the little black car like it was a pet.

She could swear he’d murmured, “Just like you,” but she wasn’t sure if she’d heard him properly and she didn’t want to ask.

“I hope you fold up nicely—you may have to sit in the boot so you fit.”

Will laughed a little bit. “I think I’ll manage. I’m used to being too tall for things.”

She’d worried—indeed, sort of expected—that their dinner would be awkwardly quiet, with neither of them feeling quite brave enough to do anything more than their usual morning train ride conversation. And for a while it was, and she kept trying to steer the conversation to territory that would make him a bit more talkative. Eventually, she found something, and the floodgates opened.

“I don’t suppose I ever really wanted to do anything else. I’ve always done woodwork, ever since I was a kid.”

“Sounds like a funny hobby for a small boy,” she remarked. “How did you get into it to begin with?”

“Well, my dad did woodwork all the time when I was younger. You could say he made an impression on me. He called it ‘making sawdust’. Used to bring me into the shop with him to be his little gofer as soon as I was big enough to carry things. As soon as I was old enough to be trusted with a hammer, I was making things. We had a wood shop in the basement,” he recalled with a smile. “Mum hated it. She said that having a shop down there kept her from being able to have a washer and tumble dryer.” Pause. “That’s one of the only things I remember about her.”

She knew that his mother was gone—it came up in conversation once, very briefly, some time ago, for which she felt incredibly guilty—but she didn’t know any details beyond that. She wanted to know, but didn’t dare press it. It wasn’t appropriate. “I am sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be. It was a long time ago—it wouldn’t’ve been much of a life for her if she’d lived.”

Nod. She knew that—it was all about quality of life. After a few second’s pause, she tentatively asked, “How old were you?”

“I was seven. Guess that makes me lucky,” he said. “I remember some things about her—my little brother doesn’t really remember anything since he was so young. All he knows is what we tell him. Though… I guess it’s all right, since he doesn’t remember how sick she was.”

He looked down into his partially empty plate, and for a moment she wondered if perhaps she hadn’t caused some lasting emotional trauma by bringing it up.

“What about you?” He asked. “I’ve never heard you talk about your family—except your uncle.”

“That would be because I do not talk to them anymore,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Why not?” He asked, astonished. It seemed like he couldn’t fathom a circumstance under which somebody might cut their family from their life.

“Because they were… toxic,” she said, spitting the last word out like it burned. “You might say we did not get on very well.”

“What happened?”

“Are you sure you want to hear about it?”

“Sure I do—it’s you—” he stopped and cut himself off, blushing pink and looking away. Then he began again slowly, “I just… I’m interested in you.”

She grinned slightly. He was sweet. “Well,” she began. “My family were very traditional. There was always a set pattern of behaviour for good little Muslim girls, and I did not fit into that pattern no matter what they did.”

“What sort of pattern?”

She sighed. “Oh, all sorts of things. Good little Muslim girls are not supposed to be argumentative or independent. Good little Muslim girls are not supposed to have high ambitions and they are not wilful.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste at the memories of all of the fights she’d had with her father and the family of patriarchs, even with her brother, who was once on her side but had grown apart from her as he grew older. She had been completely different from her family.

“What do good little Muslim girls do, then?” He asked.

“They do as they are told. They go into professions suitable for women and then leave them as soon as they get married, which they do young, and then immediately start popping out babies. Boy babies.”

He snorted; the couple at the table next to them looked over at him with looks of distaste on their faces.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh,” he said. “It just sounds… funny.”

“How so?”

“Because that’s nothing like you. At all.”

“I know. I suppose it is a bit funny, but you did not have to live it. I spend much of my life gnashing at the bit. I was… I was so lucky to have my uncle take me in.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“No, do not apologize. It is all right. We have known each other a long time and we do not know much about each other.”

“True,” he said. “So… did you always want to be a doctor?”

“Not really,” she said. “I know some people say when they are seven years old that they want to be doctors and stay with it, but I don’t think that I really thought much about it until I was older.”

“How much older?”

“Not until after I came to live with Bassam—my uncle. I was fifteen.”

“Was it his idea?”

“No. He just wanted me to be happy, which is more than anybody else ever wanted of me. I don’t think I really knew where I wanted my life to go before then—I just wanted to be out of my father’s house. Medicine sounded like an interesting thing, and distinctly un-good-Muslim-girl-like—blood and diseases and naked people and all.”

He raised his eyebrows. “So you chose your profession out of rebellion?”

“I suppose you could say that. It worked out well in the end, though, because I love what I do.”

They went on and on. They talked for hours, and they covered… everything. The conversation went from their jobs to their families, to their friends, to their school years, recounting stories from years past and amusing each other with them, and learning everything they’d ever wanted to know about one another. Anything they hadn’t learned through three years of brief conversations during commutes, which in fact was a lot.

She learned for the first time about his father and his brother, and the eccentric aunt who’d lived with them since his mother died. She sounded like a character right out of Auntie Mame, and it made Djaq laugh until she had to lean on the table to keep from collapsing into her tomato soup. He talked about Allan, the friend he’d known for most of his life—she hadn’t known that their friendship was so strong. For all she’d ever known, Allan was just a roommate that he got on very well with.

She didn’t have quite as many colourful characters in her life, but he still hung on her every word when she spoke. The new lack of shyness surprised even her; she had no idea whether because she was crazy about him or because she was just flat-out tired of being unsure of herself or what.

It was hours that they sat there, leaning across the table, and chatting over their cold coffee while their waiter was standing in the corner and alternately shooting them dirty looks and looking at his watch. They were his last customers of the night, and he couldn’t leave until they did. Normally, she would have felt quite badly about it, but she was so absorbed in her date that she couldn’t find it in herself to care.

When the waiter’s nasty looks and loud throat-clearing became too much to ignore, they left the restaurant and walked out into the shockingly cold night air. It had stopped raining, but the ground was covered everywhere in a dangerous sheet of invisible ice. They had barely taken three steps onto the pavement when Will slipped quite spectacularly and had to grab onto a post box for dear life to keep from falling.

She took his arm and tried to help him, but she was giggling helplessly at his misfortune and couldn’t hold him up.

They took the longest and slowest route back to the car park—neither of them wanted to part company and go home, so they braved the cold and the dark and the wind and the ice to enjoy each other’s company as long as possible. Her hands were numb and she was shivering and she noticed that his teeth were chattering as he talked before they finally relented and—slowly and very, very reluctantly—went back around to find her car.

o…o

This story is crossposted to my journal--I forgot to post the second chapter here (d'oh!) but I'd feel like I was spamming if I posted two chapters at once in the comm. Chapter two is right here.