One Shot Requests. [CLOSED]

[ZackMerrick] Light - earthtosierra

Biting down on my lower lip, chewing on it, I tilt my head to the side, sighing softly. Dropping the pencil onto the table, I place my fingertips on the paper and slide it backwards, away from me.

I can’t get the words from my mind to the paper, and it’s frustrating. Everything that I want to say is stuck there; it’s useless trying to make these thoughts into lyrics.

The rain outside is pounding on the ceiling, so loud, so powerful. It’s like the first day that we met, outside, in the pouring rain, only this time the rain is much stronger.

He hasn’t been here in a while, and with Hurricane Sandy on her way, I doubt he’ll be here any time soon, but if something is to happen I want him here.

Not because I don’t think he’ll survive the hurricane, being on tour made sure that he is nowhere near the east coast now, but because I want him around when the power goes out.

At first, I thought he was going to laugh at me when I told him, about my fear of the dark that is. But, he didn’t, instead he bit down on his lower lip, held my gaze with his, and said, “I’ll always be around to be your light in the dark.”

It didn’t make sense at first, and I'm an intelligent person, things like that are supposed to make sense, things so beautifully poetic.

And when he lowered his gaze to my lips, I realized exactly what he meant.

And when he pressed his lips against mine, I knew he was all I’d ever need.

When he said that he wanted to move to California, I thought he was joking. I had no interest living there. There was nothing for me there.

But, then the guys reminded him of how they're all here, in Maryland, that he’d have to come back and visit; it made it easier for me to stay here, too.

Between his touring and living across the country, we rely heavily on electricity – the phone calls, the text messages, the video chats.

Without that, there’s no way of him knowing if I'm okay during this hurricane, and there’s no way I can hear him tell me that he loves me before I go to sleep.

The wind is strong, I can hear it whistling, and suddenly the breeze of the wind is seeping through the shut and locked window beside me.

Placing the guitar down next to me on the couch, the one that Alex and Jack bought me for my birthday last year, I lean forward, grabbing the remote in my hand and turning on the news to try to drown out the shouting wind.

It isn’t until now that I realize I need candles and flashlights for whenever the power goes out. And blankets, because there is no way I'm walking around the house in the dark with only a flashlight to show me what’s in front of me.

As I walk into the kitchen, I stop in the hallway, looking at the picture of Zack and I hanging on the wall. I think Jack took it, simply because it’s slightly crooked, we’re on an angle in the picture.

His left arm is around my waist while his right arm is raised in the air. The small, strip of color hanging out of the pocket of my jeans is limp, pressing against his leg as he pulls me into his chest.

My arms are halfway out, waiting for the football that just so happened to be in the upper right hand corner of the picture. They're bent at the elbows because I can’t stop laughing.

Our eyes, they're the same color in the picture, the same shade of brown, when usually mine are lighter than his, but it makes us look like we’re meant to be together.

Just after the picture was taken, I had the ball in my hands, but only for a few seconds, because he quickly ripped the strip of flag from the pocket of my shorts and we fell down to the ground.

He claims that he wasn’t able to stop running quick enough and that it’s partly my fault because I tripped over my own feet.

I'm not stupid, though, I wasn’t stupid then, so I challenged him, I whispered in his ear, “Are you sure you don’t just like this position?”

To be honest, I don’t know where the confidence came from. I'm shy, that’s how he knew me, but at that point we were together, he was my boyfriend and I was his girlfriend.

The two of us were known for being shy, but for some reason when it was the two of us together no one understood why people called us shy.

“But if we climb this high, I swear we’ll never die.” I don’t know where that came from, or why I'm suddenly hearing voices, but my heartbeat accelerates and my palms are sweating.

Someone is in my house, reading the half-finished, half-assed song that I was trying to write just moments ago.

My stomach flips, drops all the way down to the pit, I feel like I'm going to puke, but I know that I locked all the doors in my house, all the windows are locked.

Lost in my thoughts and only able to hear the sound of the wind, I possibly could have not heard someone smashing a window or picking the lock on my door.

Tip-toeing to the kitchen, not knowing who I'm about to be face-to-face with, what this person, man judging by the voice, wants from me, I grab a knife, knowing that I won’t be able to defend myself anyway, but at least I’ll die trying to survive.

Closing my eyes, squeezing them shut tightly, I inhale as slowly as I can through my nose, trying to lower my heart rate, not wanting to die from a heart attack.

“Shit, Sie, what the hell is that?” Opening my eyes to the sound of his voice, I feel my cheeks burn red with a blush, and watch as he raises his arms over his head as if to say he’s innocent.

Letting out a laugh, a pathetic laugh, one that tells him that I was terrified, I place the knife back down on the kitchen counter.

I place my hand on my chest, just over my heart, and I slouch forward, trying to calm down, not even that excited yet to see him here.

He knits his eyebrows together, waiting for me to relax, he must have just realized that this idea, the idea of surprising me, wasn’t a good one. “Shit, Sierra, I'm sorry.”

Shaking my head, I smile softly, happy that he’s here. “I, you scared me. I'm happy; you, just, holy crap.”

Taking three large steps closer to me, he wraps his arms around my shoulders, pulling my body into his, and he smells so good – like cinnamon and cologne.

“I figured you wouldn’t want to be alone when the power goes off.” His voice sends shivers down my spine as he nuzzles his nose into the crook of my neck.

Wrapping my arms around his torso, I rest my forehead on his chest, feeling so much safer just knowing he’s here, feeling so much more special just knowing he’s here.

“Zack, I really appreciate it.” I look up at him, removing my right arm from his torso and running my hand through my dark reddish brown hair.

Smiling, he rests his forehead against mine. “You don’t have to tell me that. I love you, Sie. I'm not going to let you stay in this house alone in a hurricane without any power.”

Blushing, I bite down on my lower lip, nodding my head. “I love you, too, Zack. And I know, but it’s the polite thing to do. Plus, I do appreciate it, you coming out here, especially during tour, so I'm going to tell you that.”

Laughing, he drops his arms to his sides, his left hand finding my right hand, lacing our fingers together. “Let’s go and look for some flashlights. You bought batteries, right?” He goes off on a tangent, going through a checklist of all the things I need to have and need to have done to prepare for the hurricane.

But, all I can think of it how I now have light when the darkness hits.