Authors note- please leave comments!!!! I LOVE to read them and it really makes my day. <3
The air was cold but still and the leaves that scattered the ground before him was layered with fresh frost.
"Winters finally here." He grimaced to himself as he huddled up in the warm, grey parka that his mother had always told him brought out the blue in his grey eyes.
He decided to go with a pair of old battered trainers that had good grip so he wouldn't slip in the ice and a huge tartan scarf that he made sure was wrapped tightly around his neck.
He didn't want to catch a cold on Christmas Day.
As soon as a quarter to twelve struck, he had practically flown out of the house after kissing his mamma goodnight. She had no idea what he had discovered the night before.
He had no idea what he was planning to do tonight but he knew he had to do something.
Parker was aware that it was Christmas Eve and that Harley would probably be spending time with her family but he prayed and prayed that just maybe she'd be there in their spot, waiting for him.
He had his present for her tucked neatly inside his coat, wrapped up in the finest wrapping paper he could find as he trudged through the snow. He had been working on this project since the day he met her. It was the biggest surprise and he couldn't wait to show it to her... that's if she even came tonight.
Which he wasn't sure she would.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he spotted her white, woolly hat poking out of the top of the old sofa. Parker's heart rate quickened when he remembered that night they had laid here together. The night when they spoke about the things that they'd been so scared to tell each other. The things they had been too afraid to admit to themselves.
He remembered how soft her body felt on top of his as she slept. He remembered the fear in her eyes when she told him about her condition. He remembered the fear he felt when he told her how he felt about love and the effect his father's absence had on him. He remembered her acceptance and the way she made him feel like everything was going to be okay. Looking at her now made him wish things would just go back to the way they used to be.
He approaches her warily, still scared that she hated him because of that dumb kiss with Crescent. She had her head pointed down towards her lap, eyes fixated on the camera that she took everywhere. Her little nose was red and rubbed raw and her hands were covered in plush white gloves that matched her hat. He noticed how even though the jacket she was wearing wasn't any near warm enough she still didn't look cold as she also had a massive scarf wrapped around her tiny body.
"Hey." She says coolly, without looking up.
He stands in front of her, awkwardly. He didn't think it could be so hard to say a single word but in this very moment it was taking all of his strength.
"Hey." He finally says. He was quite taken aback, he didn't expect Harley to speak to him after all these months of no contact.
She doesn't say anything more as she goes back to tapping away at her camera. Usually, she'd show him all the new photos that she had taken and squeal about how excited she was to edit and frame them but this time she didn't offer.
Parker stuffs his hands back into his pockets and begins to rock nervously on his heels. What should he say? He had no idea what he expected to happen. For her to run into his arms again the moment she saw him? Yeah right. Not what after he did.
Her large brown eyes look almost the same as the time she spoke to him in the school toilets when they first became friends. She always looked so sad back then.
Her soft brown skin still seemed to glow even in this dull weather. You couldn't see her thick hair today due to the hat but Parker just knew it was still amazingly beautiful even concealed away.
He found himself longing to run his fingers through it, wanting to hold her face in his palms and kiss her just like that one scene in the Spider-Man movie. That famous upside-down kiss.
He'd always vowed to himself when he was a kid that he'd kiss his girlfriend the same way. There was no doubt in his mind that there's no one else he'd rather do it with than Harley-Blair Marie Thompson.
"You can sit down, you know." She says finally, as if she could sense his silent need for validation. "I'm not mad anymore."
It was like an anchor had finally been lifted from his heart. "You're not?" He says as he cautiously sits down next to her on the sofa.
"I'm not." She turns to face him completely, putting her camera back in its case. Those eyes. She couldn't help but swoon when she looked into them. She didn't realise how long it had been.
She didn't want him to see how nervous she was. How her hands kept shaking and how her lips were quivering. "I shouldn't have been mad in the first place. She's your ex-girlfriend and us... I mean, we're just friends, right?"
He scoffs and rolls his eyes. "Come on, Harley. You and I both know we're far from being 'just friends'." He uses his fingers to make air quotations around the words 'just friends'.
She bites her lip, still not sure what to say. She felt bad for not speaking to him but she just couldn't. Her heart ached for him all these weeks that they were apart but it hurt even more when she remembered that he had kissed somebody else. What if she just wasn't the one for him and all she had felt was just a figment of her imagination.
He looks at her incredulously, he really couldn't believe she had said that. Did she not feel what he felt? "You know how much I like you."
"Do I?" She asks, watching him carefully. "If you liked me so much you wouldn't have..."
"...kissed Crescent." He can see the hurt in her eyes. He knows. He knows he truly hurt her that night and there is nothing he can do to take it back.
She felt her eyes starting to sting and she immediately rubs them to prevent herself from crying. "Just fuck, Parker! Why would you do it? Why would you kiss her and not me?"
She immediately felt stupid for asking such a question but she couldn't help it. Just why why why would he do this to her? Why would he shatter her heart into a million pieces with just a single action?
It's her fault anyway. She should've just walked away the moment he first spoke to her.
He grabs her by her shoulder and forces her to look at him. "Wait, Harley. She kissed me. It didn't even last for a second, ask the boys, ask anyone." He pleaded but by looking in her eyes he could tell she still needed convincing. "She was drunk, Harley. Crescent doesn't mean anything to me. She's... She's not you and she never will be."
"But how would I know that?" She whispers, a tear rolls down her cheek. "Huh? How would I know that, Parker?" She was angry, hurt and disappointed. She wanted to believe the words he was saying so badly but the little voice in her head was telling her to push him further away. "You should just let me go, Parker..."
"You and I both know I can't do that. I can't just let you go. What about me, Harley? Huh? What about my feelings?"
"You don't have feelings. You said it yourself. You don't believe in love." It felt as if Harley had shoved a spear through his heart. She shakes her head at him. "No, and you don't even know me."
He tries to take a step towards her but she moves backwards.
She raises her hands and lets them fall to her side. "I don't even know me!" She shouts, her face flooding with slow-running tears. "Nobody does!"
"I do." He takes a step towards her and rests his hand on her cheek, gently wiping her tears away. "You're Harley-Blair Marie Thompson. My girl. You love those weird sweet cherry things that will definitely make all your teeth fall out if you're not careful. You ate bagels every day for a week even though you hate them just because you didn't want to hurt my feelings. Who does that?" He chuckles.
"You sing like you've got two left feet and that doesn't even make sense. You can name any Shakespeare play in the world just by hearing a few lines and maybe you're a little too obsessed with Disney movies."
She laughs a little in between crying and he holds her in his arms with his chin resting on top of her head. "I know you, Harley, even if no one else in the world does. You're my dream, Harley-Blair. Is that enough for you?"
"Why are you doing this, Parker?" She sniffles into his shoulder. "Why do you still want me?"
"Because you're worth fighting for, Harley-Blair." He simpered. "And even though you push me away, I can't let go. I want to be there. To hold your hand. To dry your tears. To take away the pain and the anger that I know you hide... We'll be there for each other."
"You know, I felt like I was drowning until the day I met you but then you rescued me, Parker, and brought me back to shore." She finally allowed herself to look into his eyes. "You showed me how to find beauty in such a cruel world."
"Hey, I got you something." Finally, they break away from their embrace so he can pull out the parcel from inside of his coat. "Merry Christmas, Pencils."
He hands her the present and watches her as she gently tears open the packaging.
Her teary eyes light up in surprise and astonishment. "That's me!" She points down at the cover page of the comic book he handmade for her. It starred her in the same costume she was wearing at the Halloween party. Inside it detailed almost every notable moment they had together from when they first met to what he imagined would happen now.
Parker chuckles as she blushes. "It is you."
The front cover showed her running out of a burning building piggybacking a scared Parker in a Spider-Man suit. She giggled in awe at the caricature of a drawing.
She flicked through it and saw eloquent drawings of when they both painted each other in the art room to when they slept on the very same sofa that they were on now all to the last page which showed Parker hanging upside down from a tree...kissing her.
She blushed instantly.
"Parker, this is amazing! She looks just like me." He blushes under her gaze. He was happy she liked it. "You're so talented, it's crazy!"
"Thank you, that means a lot to me, HB. Nothing makes me happier than seeing you happy so I'm glad I was able to do that."
"Oh! I almost forgot," She turns around and reaches into a bag on the ground. She lifts up a shiny silver photo book that had been decorated with pictures and hands it to Parker. "I made something for you too, although it's probably not as great as a comic."
Parker clasps his hands over his mouth and squeals like a little girl. "Omg for me? Oh, you shouldn't have!"
Harley giggled at his normal goofy behaviour and he was relieved that the tension in the air was now breaking apart.
He felt a sudden flare of joy when he opened up the book to see tons and tons of photos of the both of them doing silly things and just being them.
Just being Spidey and Pencils.
He let his eyes roam freely over the pages, over their smiles, over their stuck out tongues, over her sleeping face, over his sleeping face. The love in these photos was so eminent, it's a shock they took this long to tell each other how they felt.
"This is the best gift in the world, Haemoglobin. I'm going to cherish it forever." He clutches the book against his chest and holds it tightly.
"Likewise. Wait... did you just call me haemoglobin?" She raises her eyebrows at him in wonder. That has to be the oddest thing that's come out of his mouth and he says a lot of odd things.
"GCSE Biology? Hb is the symbol for Haemoglobin." He shrugs. "Thought this special occasion called for a new nickname."
"Yeah, no." She rolls her eyes at him. "Pencils is absurd enough as it is."
Just then, Parker felt a wet snowflake fall on his face. They both looked up and noticed that snow had begun to fall.
"Wow." She breathes in awe. "It's so beautiful out here."
"One more surprise," He pulls away and races to the old oak tree, making sure the thick branch didn't break when he put his weight on it. He pulls the Spider-Man mask he was wearing that Halloween from his pocket and puts it on concealing the huge smile on his face. "C'mere, let's finish what we started."
He gestures for her to come closer which she does. She cocks an eyebrow up at him. "What're you up to now, spidey?"
He then swings upside down from the tree and says, slightly out of breath and muffled by the mask, "I can express no kinder sign of love, than this kind kiss," He looks at the mistletoe hanging above the tree he had placed there when he came here earlier, in hope that this would happen.
Harley couldn't help but chuckle. Another Shakespeare quote. Did she want him to kiss her? What if she wasn't as good a kisser as Crescent?
Fuck it. She pushed all those thoughts down and grabs his face with her gloved hands.
"Cymbeline." She smirks. She lifts down the mask only to reveal his lush pink lips and places her own lips on them. Their mouths merged as if Parker was a lock and she was the key. Moving in sync with each other.
The next few seconds felt like bliss. It was as if all time stopped and they were the only beings left in the world. She leans in closer and she could taste the apple pie he had eaten earlier. The familiar scent of paint and cinnamon filled her nostrils and made her want to swallow him whole.
He knew that whatever this feeling was, whether it was love or not. He knew he never wanted it to end.
Eventually, they pull away to catch their breaths, both of them rosy cheek smiling at each other.
Finally, he rips his mask off and bites his lip happily, "Remember how I said I didn't believe in love?"
"Ugh, don't remind me." Harley rolls her eyes. She definitely didn't want to remember that.
"Maybe I was wrong," he jumps down from the tree, landing perfectly on his feet with a sheepish smile on his face. "Maybe, this is love."
She looks up at him, taking in all the features on his face. The way his long slender nose slightly curved at the end. The way his cheeks had gotten slightly chubbier since the day they first met. The way his grey eyes twinkled every time he looked at her. The scattered freckles under his eyes and his nose which were starting to disappear as the weather grew colder. And lastly, she stared at the lips that just told her the words she'd been dying to hear.
"I- I think I love you, Harley-Blair."
She shakes her head at him. "You don't even know what love is, Parker."
He scoffs. "Maybe I don't, but I'm willing to find out, I don't want to hide away anymore. I don't want to deny my feelings for you."
She shakes her head at him. "Don't look at me like that."
"You don't understand what you do to me, Harley. Just looking at you makes my heart beat a thousand times." He could sense her apprehension but deep down he knew she felt the same way about him.
"I don't trust anyone but I trust you. Why can I trust you?" She looks at him intently but more so whispering to herself. "Why can I talk to you?"
He shakes her head at her, confused. "I don't know, Harley."
"Before I met you I was so alone, so so alone." She bites back her tears. She thinks about all the times where she felt like it was just her against the world. She thought about the days where she thought that the grief would swallow her whole and she would be nothing. She never wanted to go back. Parker gave her hope.
"You'll never feel like that again, I can promise that. Not with me around." He holds hers close to him and she immediately relaxes. As soon as he said those words, he knew the mistake he had made. How could he forget he wasn't always going to be around? How could he forget his plans to go to Italy next year?
"I'm going to see my dad." He reveals, finally. He's made the decision. He won't tell her about Italy just yet but he will later. He promises himself. He can't keep secrets from the girl he loves.
She raises her eyebrows at him. He never really mentions his dad and from the little he told her before, she knew they were not in contact with each other and now all of a sudden he wants to go see him? Something's up. "Does he know you're coming?"
He pretends to think for a while before he comes out with "...No." He winces at the thought of just showing up unannounced on Christmas day but maybe his dad would view it as the best present ever, finally being reunited with his long lost son...maybe?
"I'll come with you." She decides grabbing her bag.
Parker stops her and sits her back down. "No, you shouldn't. It's basically Christmas Day, don't you want to spend it with your family?"
"You are my family." She says softly into his skin as they nuzzled in closer. She could feel his body relax as she pressed her cold chest against his.
"Okay. Let's leave in a bit. It's a few hours drive away but I want to stay with you in the snow for a little longer, we could stay at a B&B for the rest of the night and leave again in the morning." He kisses the top of her head, grateful he didn't have to do this alone.
"Okay."
"Okay."
He smiles down at her appreciatively. He had no clue what he was even going to say to his father when he saw him. He hardly remembered how he looks like but he knew he had to do it now or he'll regret it forever.