hello jasmines i fear the new trailer got me bad and the deleted scene from Pride and Prejudice lives in my head rent free with an ocean view
「 mrs. darcy, mrs. darcy, mrs. darcy 」
with
#zayne // 1.4k // ☁️
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The first time Zayne calls you something other than your name, you freeze. (He'll always be the expert in that respect, but you have your days every now and again.)
The words tumble from his lips as he steps in from a late surgery and sets on untying his shoes. My dear, he said, when he asked why you were still awake. It is, in your opinion, the least certain you have ever heard him. Surely he isn't addressing you, is he? He's only ever called you by your name, even told you that it's the most intimate way he could ever think to address you.
He's quite serious. The look on his face is near-expectant as he hunches over in the doorway, eyes flashing faintly, clothes stretched taut with the tension in his muscles. You're afraid you might be disappointing him when you nearly drop the daily crossword he had yet to finish, when you raise your eyebrows and point to yourself.
Next is the tie, once the shoes are set aside. He loosens it with one hand but doesn't bother to fully undo it, and he shuffles into his house slippers. "Who else would I be talking to, dare I ask?"
Your stomach roils as you rest the puzzle and the pencil in your lap—some things are best done the old-fashioned way—and you make room for him in the couch out of instinct. "You've never called me that before. Trying something new?"
The space beside you sinks under his weight as he takes a seat, and he stretches his arm along the back of the couch. It's his subtle way of inviting you to lean on him, even when he's the one who ought to be doing the leaning. "Do you dislike it?"
"I…" You've been working on not answering so quickly, really taking the time to think without jumping to appeasement or assertion. "No, it isn't that, I don't think. I was only taken aback, that's all."
Zayne has since coaxed the puzzle out of your lap, twirling the pencil between his fingers as he fills in one of the columns with ease. It really has astounded you, in these first months of your relationship, how readily you complement each other with what little time you have. In day-to-day tasks, in leisure, in care for one another. He fills in the columns and you fill in the rows.
"And would you prefer it," he asks, poring over another clue, "if I called you something else?"
Finally, you take his invitation, relaxing against the expanse of his chest. "Something else like what?"
In the quiet, his arm coils all too easily around your waist, inviting you to a softer, gentler intimacy. He has always excelled in the unspoken things; it's just taken you far too long to learn how to listen. He takes the hem of your pajama top between an idle thumb and forefinger, and he crosses one leg over the other in a makeshift desk. "A nickname," he suggests among the tapping of the pencil. "'My pearl,' perhaps. Or, what was that other one? 'Goddess divine?'"
Your face grows hot, and you hide it behind your hands as he chuckles into the night. "You promised you weren't paying attention to the movie."
"My apologies." The smile in his voice and the lips he presses to your hairline are anything but apologetic. "It's just that you watched that scene so many times that I couldn't help but overhear."
If the couch could swallow you up, you wouldn't object in the slightest. You hadn't meant to distract him from his work, honest. It was only that you had so little time to spare earlier, and you'd both agreed that it would be better to be independent but in the same space, he at work and you at play. It was no romantic candlelit dinner, but it was a compromise you treasured all the same. You wouldn't be so opposed to more of them.
"I'm sorry," you tell him. "You could have told me if the movie was too loud, or if I rewound too many times."
Quietly, he sets the pencil down in favor of brushing his fingers over your fist. Your fingers flex, blossoming open at the touch, and he traces patterns over your palm that are at once precise and aimless. "It upsets me when you worry that you might be too much."
"I don't mean to be."
"You aren't," he murmurs. Refuses to let you make yourself small. "You never have been."