Brand of Kisses That I'd Die For

Forehead: Friendship

(For the premise of the story...the deleted scene in Flynn's room didn't happen.)

"You don't want me to dance," Lucy shakes her head with a nervous smile. She fidgets with her 40s pocketbook. "Not with me."

"Ah, last time I checked...you are not me," Garcia Flynn's signature rhetorical sass. "And yes... I do."

He held out his hand. His hair was falling from its 1940's style. (Which looked very sharp, Lucy thought, but that was neither here nor there. She clears her throat.) With the forelock and suspenders, he looked like Superman. Clark Kent. He looked down at her—as always—but through his lashes. Pulling a puppy face. Lucy squinted her eyes. Don't do that to me.

"I'm going to—break your toes or something."

"Lucy Preston." His tone was that of a parent scolding a child. She smiled, despite herself. "I taught my five year daughter to dance." He rubbed his temple with his hands like he was warding off some sort of headache. "...I think I can handle it."

She felt a twinge of a bittersweet memory. She internally smiled at the image of Big Bad Flynn teaching his little girl to dance.

He held his hand out again. "Please?"

She closed her eyes and sighed. Another smile crept upon her lips. She took his hand, "Fine."

His eyes lit up like a boy in a candy shop but his lips only turned up a little. "At least it's not a jive...it's more of a sway really. You've got it easy. This time."

She snorted. "Yes. Yes, thank God." She looked around at all the other couples dancing. Slow dancing. Heads on shoulders. Gentleman's cheeks to the lady's crown. Under her breath, she muttered, "This is so much better."

He led her straight to the middle of the floor. She groaned internally. Couples surrounded them quickly—all in their own worlds.

"You're hands here," He put her left hand gently on his shoulder. Then her right in his left. "My hand goes here..." his hand hovered over her lower back as if asking for permission. She nodded her head.

(She knew how this part worked. It was her feet that got all messed up. But she smiled at his efforts to literally teach her to dance.)

"Just..." he shrugged the shoulder her hand was placed upon. "Follow the music."

Lucy hasn't danced with Flynn before. She hadn't really thought about before but she probably would have thought with their height difference, it surely would've made things...difficult. But it was good. Really good. It was a comfortable fit.

They started with a simple box step. 1-2-3-4. She looked down at her feet a few times to make sure she didn't step on him.

"So," Lucy started once she felt comfortable enough with where her feet where going. "You and Iris danced?"

"Ah," He smiled fondly. "Yes. She's always been a dancer." He chuckled. "She came out of the hospital dancing."

Lucy smiled. She titled her head, waiting—and wanting—to hear more.

"When she was three we enrolled her in a studio in LA. She danced there for a year and a half before we moved to Croatia. She was adamant she didn't want to go back to dancing." Lucy smiled. She imagined she was as stubborn as her father. "So we didn't enroll her again. But she was always dancing around the house.

"One night, Lorena and I had just put her to bed and decided to watch something," he shrugged. "We watched Dirty Dancing—" At Lucy's raised eyebrow, he made a quick reply, it was a favorite of hers. "—and apparently Iris hadn't been in bed but was sitting in the hall watching the movie."

Lucy laughs. "Oh, Amy and I did that so many times."

"I still don't know how much she saw but she saw the dancing and decided she wanted to do that. She asked if I could teach her."

Lucy bit her tongue and her lip.

Flynn scrunched his nose at her, "Obviously I couldn't do that. But I could show her how to box step. Maybe a very simple waltz."

Lucy realized just then that their own box step had turned into a sway. Their feet hardly moved. She just listened to his story.

"Of course it was a challenge—me being, you know. A giant." They both laughed. "But somehow we made it work."

"Mom made Amy and I take a dance class when we were little. I was not talented in that area. I'm not very graceful so I quit. Amy did it a little longer. She was actually really good but she hated it. She'd rather do something like Girl Scouts—where she would be outside."

"Amy was the opposite of Lucy, then?" Flynn smiled curiously.

She nodded. "Yep. Mmhmm. Pretty much. I was the oldest. The...I was expected to at least do something with my life. I was always studying. Working hard. Trying to be my mother." She looked over his shoulder. "Recent turn of events...I'm glad I'm not."

Flynn sought her eyes but she melting looking away. "And you're not."

"So, you've told me before." The corner of her mouth lifted a little and she finally looked at him.

"Making sure you know," He said honestly. She nodded.

"I do."

Two songs have played now and as the third one started, they continued dancing. Well, swaying.

This was nice. Comfortable. It felt like home. Something she hadn't felt in two years. And she was with Flynn no less—the last thing she would've expected to happen. She chuckled.

"What?"

"It's just—" She looked away for a minute. "Don't take this the wrong way—but out of everyone in my life right now...you're actually the easiest to talk to."

(Flynn's heart swelled.)

He nodded a small, shy smile twitched in his lips. "I'm glad I could give back."

"What do you mean?"

"When you gave me the journal...I wasn't sure what to do. Where to go. When to go...but your writing, kind of brought me out of myself. Reading your thoughts kept me away from mine. Which ultimately saved my life."

Lucy didn't really know what to say. She gripped his hand a little tighter and laid her head against his shoulder.

"Anyway." He took a deep breath. She could hear his heartbeat.

"We are friends by now, right?" Lucy didn't lift her head. She kept it where it was.

He didn't answer for a minute. Wondering if he imagined what she just said. His breathing quickened just a little. "What?"

"Are we friends? Can we be friends?"

"Yes," He breathed out. He turned his head and kissed her forehead. (And lingered. She didn't mind.) "Yes. Yes, we're friends."