901_freeatlast (901_freeatlast) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2017-06-09 21:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, spencer hastings, toby cavanaugh |
Who: Spencer and Toby
When: After these text messages
Where: Toby’s place
What: Studying and Coffee, avoiding the Star Wars crazy
Rating/Warnings: It's pretty PG
Status: Complete when posted
They arrived at Toby’s place without any run-ins with Orange County Crazy. Spencer climbed out of the car and onto the curb, bringing her gargantuan bag of study supplies with her. (She’d shoved a toothbrush and change of clothes at the bottom of the bag, too. Not that she was expecting anything to happen, but to be prepared. Right. In case of more Crazy. Not *cough*other things.)
She turned to give Toby a smile. It was a nervous one. There were a lot of things about today that made her nervous. “Ready to show me your cave of solitude?”
Toby wasn’t entirely sure what he’d been doing offering to let Spencer come over and stay at his place. He was pretty sure it was some form of madness setting in. Still, he was glad it hadn’t been the creepiest invite he’d ever given to someone and that she’d agreed to come over. He Smiled a little when she turned around. His wasn’t any less nervous, but then he had a feeling he always had that look of uncertainty about him.
“Oh yeah. It’s very cave-like actually. I only have rocks to sit on.” He led her to his apartment. It wasn’t exactly impressive, but it was his. He didn’t have a lot of furniture, but what he had, he’d made. He didn’t mention that. He wasn’t sure if it made him weird or not, but he was proud of it. Also, being that he was the only one that lived there, it only mattered if he liked it for the most part. And it had taken him a long time to actually get them in place and a lot of work. There’d been some hit or miss at first with making sure he could make everything comfortable. He had two loveseats in lieu of a couch and a couple chairs. “Welcome to the cave?”
He did always have that look of uncertainty about him. But Spencer liked it. It was endearing. Anyway, the gentle nervousness in it matched her own as they headed up toward his place. She still hadn’t decided if their feelings in this world were caused by their feelings in the Dreams, or if this was something real. Something true. Or, if one of them was the former and one was the latter. She’d talked about it with Will, and briefly mentioned it to Joe, but… that was a completely different story. Joe was a good guy, and probably good for Spencer, but he was definitely temporary. Was Toby more permanent?
“I knew I should have brought my rock sitting cushions.” Spencer teased, then stepped into his home. It was an honor to be here, really. She took a slow loop of the living room, examining everything. “It’s definitely not as cave-like as I’d expected,” she added, giving him a grin. “I think it’ll do.”
Toby smiled a little. Maybe Spencer couldn’t figure out where her feelings came from, but Toby was fairly certain that his feelings were real. But maybe that was because he’d been aware of them from before the dreams started. Maybe the dreams bled into it a little, but he didn’t think that it made what he felt any less true. Still, he wasn’t sure what made Spencer like him here or there. He didn’t know what that meant for here either.
“I’m always forgetting to warn people ahead of time about that.” When she complimented his living space, however, his smile grew. “Well, I try not to be the man cave stereotype, so I’m glad you approve.” He gestured to the furniture. “If you want to take a seat, I’ll get you some coffee and the wifi password.”
“You’re the best.” Spencer said, giving him a grin. She moved to the loveseat and sat down, then dug around in her backpack for some study materials. She had finals coming up after all. Hopefully spending time with Toby would be good for her studies, and not a distraction… though, she might welcome a distraction, to be honest. “I wouldn’t complain if finals get pushed back due to Storm Trooper interference.”
As promised, Toby had a book sitting on the coffee table. He’d try not to be too distracting. He seemed to manage it in the dreams anyway. He took a moment to fix her coffee, writing the wifi password on a piece of paper he found. When he came back out, he placed both things down on the coffee table in front of her before picking up his book and sitting down in the chair. “I don’t think anyone would mind if that happened. I know I wouldn’t mind a day or two off due to Storm Troopers, but that probably won’t happen. I guess that’s what happens when no one but us knows what’s really happening.”
“Well, regardless as to what’s happening,” Spencer reached over and picked up the mug of coffee. The mug warmed her hands as she brought it to her lips. Knowing that he’d made the coffee just for her warmed her insides as well. She gave him a smirk. “I’m glad to be with you while all this stuff goes down.” Then she set the coffee down on the table and reached for one of his hands to squeeze it.
There was an awkward, happy smile formed at her words. “I’m glad you’re here. It’s nice to have someone around when things get weird.” He glanced up at her when she took his hand. It was strange, really, to know that outside there were Storm Troopers and all kinds of things going on, but they were sitting there reading and doing homework. It was such a normal thing to be doing when the world outside of this room was so abnormal right now. “But too much more of this and you’re going to be accusing me of being a distraction.” Which, if he was honest about it, wouldn’t have bothered him. But he would do his best not to distract her from her work.
“Yeah, it is.” Spencer agreed. Okay, so, maybe she was looking for more distraction than she could admit. She broke into a little smirk herself when he mentioned being accused of being a distraction. “I might be disappointed if you don’t distract me a little,” she flirted.
Toby studied her for a moment, trying to decide what he was supposed to do. “So am I supposed to distract you or not? And be mindful that you can’t blame your final grades on me unless they’re good.” He smiled at her opening his book. He didn’t start reading it, though. He was waiting to see what her response was.
Poor Toby. Spencer really did fuck with his head. The problem was that Spencer didn’t know what she wanted. She knew what she should do, but what she wanted contradicted it. And right now, she wanted Toby to distract her from her studies. She glanced at his book, then back up to his face with a really? sort of look on her face.
“I think my grades can handle one day’s worth of distractions.” Even though she had all of her school stuff with her, that was mostly for show.
Toby noted the look from Spencer and carefully closed the book before putting it on the table. Only now he wasn’t sure what to do. Distraction could be any number of things. It could be simply talking or...well...anything else but talking. He just wasn’t sure what Spencer was looking for.
He took a deep breath, letting it out slow. “So...is this a scrabble distraction sort of night or something else?” He didn’t care if all that happened was her falling asleep in his arms again. That was good enough for him. He’d know better how to react when she responded. Even if he seemed like a complete idiot for asking.
Spencer’s eyebrows bounced up gently when he mentioned Scrabble. She couldn’t help the smile that tugged at the corners of her lips. “You’ve got a Scrabble board? I could have a game of Scrabble.” She could pretty much always play Scrabble. It was one of those games that she was particularly good at, and she fondly remembered playing with him in the hotel room in their Dreams.
He’d actually gone out to get one after the dream about the hotel room. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with it at first, but he’d gotten it anyway. Now he was glad that he had gotten it. “Yeah. It’s umm...in my closet.” He got up to go get it and carefully took the outer packaging off of it, throwing it into closet and shutting it. He’d clean that up later. When he walked back out, he put the game on the table. “It would have been kind of embarrassing if I hadn’t actually had Scrabble around.” Offering her a small smile, he moved things around a little to give them space. “Think I’ll destroy you again?”
Well, that was certainly a thought. She couldn’t help but laugh at that idea as they sat, setting up the Scrabble board. “You might get lucky again,” Spencer winked at him. But after a moment of collecting tiles and settling them on her little, wooden board, she paused. She took a deep breath. She glanced up at him with round, brown eyes. “Are you having weird, Dream deja-vu?”
“It’s a little deja-vu. But this is a little different.” He shrugged. “But it doesn’t feel too weird.” He’d gotten his things set up as well, but the moment she looked up at him, he wasn’t focused on Scrabble. He’d make a point not to let that break his streak of beating Spencer at Scrabble, however. He had a streak to hold onto. “Is that an okay thing or a bad thing?”
“It’s okay.” Spencer kept her eyes on his, gazing deep into the startling blueness. His eyelashes were wonderful. And she thought she could see something incredibly meaningful there. Something powerful. She felt herself blushing a little. “It doesn’t feel weird, and that’s a good thing.”
It still felt a little weird to have Spencer staring at him, even if he could admit to himself that he was staring also. He had a feeling it would always be surprising to him that she noticed him at all. But it was a good surprise. “Good. That’s…” he paused, searching for the correct word, but instead finished lamely with, “Good.” The sure sign of his excellent ability to talk to people. “Sometimes I still don’t get it. Everything about the dreams.” About us. But he kept himself from saying that. “It just feels so...surreal most of the time.”
“Great vocabulary there, Toby,” Spencer teased with a huge smirk on her face. “You sure you’re gonna beat me at Scrabble?” She lifted a tile to place on the board, though she wasn’t really watching where she was putting it. And she wasn’t really thinking about the game anymore. She was thinking about his thin lips, and how much she wanted them against her throat. “It is surreal. It’s other-than-real. It’s very much not real.”
“I have it on good faith that I’ll win. I did it before, didn’t I?” But things were different, both more and less complicated then. His attention shifted for a moment to look at the letters, slightly amazed that she managed to get a couple good letters. She wasn’t even trying. Which meant he was going to need to try even more to make sure that he won. If he was to keep his streak intact. Not that he really cared that much, but still. “So what is real, then?” Which could have meant a great many things. He just had to hope that whatever was happening with them was real on both sides because it felt real to him, but the dreams didn’t feel less real.
Spencer finally tore her eyes from his face so she could look down at the tiles, and put a couple more on the board. She finished her word, but paused with a finger on the last tile. What was real? It was an excellent question. If she knew the answer, wouldn’t that make so many things so much simpler?
“I don’t know.” She said, and flicked her eyes back up to his again. “What is real?”
He shrugged slightly. “I guess it’s hard to say sometimes. Playing scrabble is pretty real...even though we did it in the dreams. This is still a new game and the words will be different. We might have a few overlaps, but there’s nothing really not real about it.” Once she was done with the word, he carefully chose his, hoping that it would get a little better. If he was going to beat Spencer, he had to be at his best.
“And I like spending time with you, so you can count that as real. And not just because you’re excellent dream company either.”
“It feels real.” Spencer said, watching him put the letters in place. And it did--it felt real. There was still that lingering doubt, though. How much of what she was feeling was real, and how much was residual from the Dreams? On top of that, how much did it matter if it was?
She put some tiles down on the board, spelling out her next word. There was a blush on her cheeks, though, as she let her eyes flicker up to his again. “...I like spending time with you, too.”
Spencer was beautiful. Toby really had no idea how or why she liked him, but whatever it was that caused it...he was glad for it. The blush really only made it more profound. He wanted to kiss her in that moment, but he wasn’t sure if he should. They hadn’t exactly done a lot of kissing. There was that time around Halloween, but he wasn’t sure if that actually counted.
“I was wondering…” He studied the board for a moment, placing tiles once she was finished. Do you remember Halloween. That was probably awkward. “I was wondering if it would be okay to kiss you.” He glanced up at her after a brief moment. “Or if that’s...awkward.”
Spencer’s blush deepened considerably at his question. It was quite the feat, considering her cheeks had already been plenty pink. The truth of the matter was that she’d been waiting for things to move forward with Toby for a little while now. She was far from virginal, but starting new things with someone she cared about so much? It made her feel like a giggling teenager all over again. Especially with him. Hadn’t they just been through this?
“It’s not awkward.” She said, and smirked as she looked up over at him. “I’d be a little offended if you didn’t want to.”
There was a hint of a smile and he very nearly laughed (though, that was mostly at himself). “And we wouldn’t want to offend anyone.” Especially not when it was in regards to kissing Spencer. Which he wanted to do. But he felt nervous about it now that he’d asked. But he still leaned in for a kiss. Okay, so this was definitely not helping him to win their Scrabble game, but he had a feeling this was a much nicer way to spend time anyway.
Spencer leaned in, too, and tipped her face toward his. “No, we wouldn’t.” And then she kissed him. Or he kissed her. She wasn’t sure who started it, but she enjoyed every second once it started. This was an excellent way to keep their minds off the crazy of Orange County.