Greta Van Fleet // Oneshots

The Ghost of You // Danny Wagner

"No way," you said, craning your neck to really look up at him. He looked exactly as you'd remembered, as timeless as the morning sun warming your cheeks. Your body was having a hard time catching up with your brain, still left in its slack state while your mind was reeling fast and hard, trying to make sense of what was happening. So he still had Mondays off. So he still came here. So he was alone.

"Yeah," Danny said slowly, stepping forward without taking his eyes off you. "No way, Y/N. What are you doing here?" It was a gentle question, not accusatory or harsh at all. That made you miss him more.

You weren't sure how to reply without revealing too much. You settled for, "I just wanted to come here. It's been a while."

Danny was right next to you then and you watched him turn to the water, profile strong, shoulders held high. "Yeah. I haven't been here since whenever we were here together."

So nostalgia was running through his veins, too. "Yeah," you affirmed. It was awkward and sad. Every word you'd thought about saying to him for so long seemed moot. Despite all your wanting, you'd never really expected to see him again. Not like this, anyway.

"Can I sit?"

You felt frozen but managed to wave to the grassy space beside you. Danny sat down, almost close enough for your leg to touch his shoulder but not quite. You wanted to touch his hair, play with it like you used to–there was still a dampness to his loose curls, like he'd showered right before he got in the car. You could smell him too, all fresh and woodsy and deep, all so familiar, pulling you right in in a way you couldn't explain.

"How've you been?" Danny asked, a natural question for anyone, but you could hear the slight tension in his words, the awkwardness hanging between you like an invisible string.

"Okay," you answered. A seagull swooped down far ahead, just a triangle of white against the blue backdrop. "You?"

"About the same." Danny crossed his legs and leaned forward, mirroring you except over grass and not over rock. His long fingers started to twirl through the grass between his legs and you had a blip of remembering the feelings of those fingers over your skin, tracing invisible lines, knowing all the most delicate places, knowing the most ticklish spots when he was desperate to make you laugh.

"You know," he said, slowly again, not looking at you but still out at the water. The sun was higher, shimmering beautifully over the surface of it, and once again catching itself in his hair when the leaves of trees sacrificed some shade with the breeze. "I've thought about this before. Not exactly this, not here, but–but running into you somewhere. I was always surprised it never happened."

You felt yourself bristle a little at that, going on the offense. "Well, you said we shouldn't even be friends. So all our friends became your friends again. We stopped running in the same circles."

"Yeah. I thought it'd be for the best," Danny said, plucking a single blade of grass.

"I don't even know what people mean when they say that," you countered. Your whole body was hot with too many emotions hurtling through your mind. "The best for who?"

Danny sighed and took a long, thick moment before replying: "I don't know. Guess I was kind of an ass."

"Yeah," you agreed, straightening up on the rock, placing your hands on your knees. "You were."

Danny turned to look at you then, shifting his whole body to face you. "I really meant to text you. Or call. I didn't like where we left things–"

"Where you left things," you corrected. You moved too, spinning until your shins were touching his knees. Just that contact softened your heated feelings a bit, and you realized being angry would never help anyone or anything. In all your dreams of encountering Danny, anger was not an emotion that bubbled up. You'd expected shock, sadness, relief–never anger. It was fair to feel it, you realized, but you'd table it to salvage something. Anything. Danny wasn't a bad person, just really, really bad at breakups, apparently.