One Shots #VariaSquad

Destined

The two actors get to the studio at the same time. He sees her before she sees him - he chuckles at the lost in the clouds expression on her face - but he doesn't have the chance to sneak up on her. Not realising that there's a twig on the path, he steps on it, the sound of it snapping drawing her attention. She turns, offering him a smile that both reaches her eyes and has something lacking. 'If you want to sneak up on me, you're going to have to do better than that.' she teases, correctly guessing his intentions.

'Me? Sneak up on you? Never.' he scoffs, putting a hand to his heart as he pretends to be offended.

'Sorry, I forgot, it's your judwaa bhai who does that kind of stuff right?' she jokes, stopping to wait for him to catch up so they can continue walking to their trailers together.

'Of course it is, I would never even dream of doing such a thing.' he agrees, not missing a beat as he quickens his pace ever so slightly to catch her up. 'I mean, if I were to sneak up on you and scare you, you might just end up falling and hurting yourself and we can't be having that now can we?' He earns an elbow to the stomach for his attempt at a joke and he groans but he can see that she's trying to hold back a smile and he laughs, straightening quickly, the pain already having faded; she never hits him too hard.

'Good thing you're always there to catch me then right?' she shoots back, turning to grin at him as he throws an arm over her shoulders.

'Well, I do have my uses.' he muses, getting himself an eye roll.

They walk a few paces in comfortable silence before he decides to broach the subject that's been bothering him. 'Als,' he begins, thinking how to go about this. But he can't find the words quick enough and they get to the door of her vanity before he knows what to say. She pauses outside the door, ducking out from under his arm and standing in front of him, looking at him as she waits for him to continue. A minute passes and he still can't think so he sighs. 'Never mind, it's not important.' he dismisses. She looks at him, partly confused and partly curious. 'I'll see you on set.' he tells her and, before she can say anything, ask him what's wrong, he's already walking away.

***

The day goes by quickly and the chances present themselves for them to have the conversation. He tries, he really does, but he keeps chickening out.

If it was just a matter of him wanting to talk about what's bothering him, he would be able to do it without a problem but, over the course of the day, he's begun to worry less and less about his own problem and more about the way he sees Alia going off into her own world more and more. He doesn't know how to open that subject, how to ask her what's going on in her head, because he knows that it's not a simple matter, can tell it from the complexity of the thoughts he sees running through her eyes and the fact that she's hiding. If it were something simple bothering her, she would have told him by now, they would have talked about it by now.

He thinks maybe she isn't ready to talk about it yet and he doesn't want to push her but, at the same time, he knows that she needs to talk, that there's something eating away at her. He debates all day and then, when he finally decides he needs to just go for it, blurt out exactly what he's thinking, it's too late because the day is over and they're leaving for home.

She hugs him bye before they head out and he can't help but notice that she holds him a little tighter than she usually does, stays in his arms a little longer. It's the perfect chance to ask her what's bothering her and he almost does but when he opens his mouth, he feels her bury her head in his chest, her hands gripping his shirt and the words get stuck in his throat because now is not the time to talk, it's the time to tell her it's all gonna be okay, even when he doesn't know what the problem is.