Tim + Lucy = ?

Revelation

#104daysofsummervacation
#104daysofchenford
#Day5

Tim

He was frozen outside Lucy's door for easily 10 minutes, flirting with emotions of confusion and utter disbelief.
What the hell was that?
Eventually, he collected himself enough to walk out of the building and get into his truck. Where he sat while more time slipped by him.
Slowly, everything came back into focus. Every segment of what had occurred in her apartment played out in his mind.

He'd freeze-frame any particular second, reliving the flurry of emotions. He carefully deliberated each one. He needed to figure this out. He needed to get it right.
Otherwise, it'd hound him.

He'd hesitated at the outset. His initiation of the kiss showed how uncertain he was about the scenario. But why?
. . .

He knew her. She was one of his best friends (though he'd deny it to her face). He could read her like an open book. It had scared him, more than anything else, the idea of kissing her. He didn't know how he would react to it. Though this was more than he bargained for, it was why he'd played it safe. But getting more than he asked for was a trend when it came to Lucy. He hadn't asked for her as a rookie and she ended up being his most difficult, but his best. He hadn't asked for a friend, but she took up that role anyway. He tried not to kiss her right because he thought it would keep him safe (it was a pretty shoddy attempt, even for him). Instead, she had made him take exactly what he didn't want and now he was dealing with the aftermath.

She had shocked him. But it was just like Lucy to be spontaneous and jump into something without question. No part of him found himself resisting once he relaxed under her touch. He was aware of her every movement, her every placement, her every pulse. Everything in that moment had faded away except the feel of her lips moving with his and their bodies drawing closer as if magnetized. Because it was something he did not want to forget. He kept every detail sharp.

Her sweet, full lips on his.
Her soft, delicate hands pressed into his skin.
The curve of her shoulder pressed into his hand.
The way she melted into him as he responded, going deeper.

They didn't pull away in the millisecond for breath.
He didn't know why she didn't.
But he consciously chose not to because...he was completely incapacitated. He could have only dreamed of what this would feel like. Having her up against him, holding her close.
If he were totally honest, he had dreamt about it. Just once and only within the last few months, before Ashley came into the picture. At that point, it felt like he had lost any chance at all to express a desire for more than a partnership.

Because, yes, he admitted, sitting in his truck in front of her apartment complex, he had that desire for more with her. He couldn't say when, but she had meant more to him than anyone else for a long time now. She was the one he found himself telling things, especially when he didn't want to. She was always there for him, and she made him talk, even when he resisted.

He wanted to hold her in his arms and never let her go.
He wanted to kiss her senselessly anytime he wanted to.
He wanted to wake up with her beside him.
He wanted a future with her.

He'd never wanted anything more in his life. But he wanted it because he, he finally admitted to himself, was in love with Lucy Chen.

A/N: I wanted to set up a contrast in their personalities over this chapter (Revelation) and the last one (Reflection). We see in Reflection how Lucy is avoiding confrontation, analyzing her feelings so deeply that she muddles the incident and fails to recognize what is at the root. Tim, however, in Revelation, directly confronts what happened and readily admits what his underlying feelings are. This might sound backward, Lucy not being upfront with her feelings, while Tim is. But thinking quickly back to when Emmet broke up with Lucy, Lucy was blind to some of the aspects of the situation, while Tim easily recognized the issue. My point is, that just because Lucy knows how to analyze her emotions doesn't mean she is honest with herself about them all the time or even understands what they mean in context. Tim, just because he doesn't "talk" about his feelings does not imply that he doesn't understand them. His "issue" is more the fact that he suppresses them. Either way, I'm hoping you understood what my goal was here :)