➳ jerrie tumblr oneshots

Read Between The Lines

Summary: Based off the prompt "AU: every time someone falls in love they get a red line on their wrist".

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Jade Thirlwall has a clean left wrist when she meets Perrie Edwards, who happens to have two red marks on hers, during The X Factor. It's proper to shake someone's hand when you meet them and almost everyone shakes with their left hand so that they can check out how many tallies are on their new acquaintance's wrist. It's just one of those things. People will always be curious. Most of the time this is never a conversation starter, unless someone has lots and lots of red marks, or none at all. Jade has gotten used to people commenting about her "misfortune" of not falling in love yet, so when Perrie's eyes trail to her wrist, then back to meet her gaze, Jade is completely shocked that she doesn't say anything about it. Her face must have shown that she was expecting something though, because Perrie lets out a laugh, "Did I miss something?"

Jade quickly drops her hand and stutters, "No, no, I just - I'm just used to people giving me crap for not having any marks."

"I think you're lucky."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Love's complicated. You should keep it that way," Perrrie responds, nodding at her wrist.

Jade notices just how pretty Perrie's eyes are and then she wonders just how easy its going to be to keep her wrist blank during this competition.

...

They go back to South Shields before the live shows start and the day after they fly in, Perrie calls Jade.

"What are you doing?"

"Um, honestly? Or should I make up an exciting lie?"

"Truth," Perrie's voice echoes out of the earpiece.

"Sitting on Tumblr," Jade mumbles, laughing to herself at how boring her ilfe is at home.

"I'm picking you up in literally five minutes. Come outside."

Perrie's there in four minutes and fourty-three seconds, actually, but its not like the younger girl was counting in her head or anything.

"You're early," Jade comments when she hops into the passenger seat.

"Surprised to see me?"

Perrie's joking when she asks, but the other girl's response is serious.

"Yeah, actually."

"Really?"

"I mean, I figured you would have cooler people to hang out with once you got home. I kinda thought you might just be friends with me because we were stuck on a TV show together," Jade says nonchalantly.

Perrie frowns, "Seriously? That's ridiculous. You're honestly my best friend, you're stuck with me."

Perrie reaches over and squeezes Jade's hand, without removing her gaze from the road, and the older girl squeezes back.

...

After they win, the girls spend a lot of time in London and every time they are there, they rent the same four-bedroom house in the hills. Perrie has the room in the very back of the house, so naturally, Jade picks the room next to hers. When they have days off they usually spend their time reading, sprawled out on Perrie's bed, stealing glances at each other over the tops of their books.

Well, maybe Jade is the only one stealing glances, but sometimes she's met by blue eyes and it makes the butterflies in her stomach even worse. She really, really likes Perrie. There's no denying that. But the fact that she still doesn't have any marks on her wrist is both comforting and disappointing. Its comforting because she's not like, secretly in love with her best friend or anything, but its disappointing because she's never felt this way about anyone before, but apparently that's not even love. She doubts she's ever going to get a red line at this rate.