Fic - This Might End Up a Story (Nina Dobrev/Ian Somerhalder, RPF) pg, 1/1
Title: This Might End Up a Story
Summary: The most amusing part to all of this is that he knows better.
Rating: pg
Author's Notes: 1,409 words. It's all lies - as far as I know. Don't read if RPF is not your thing, please. For badboy_fangirl . I blame this entirely on you, bb. All mistakes are mine. These people, however, are not. Con-crit is both welcome and appreciated.
The beginning of this story is buried somewhere under the soft smiles and handshakes, the polite nice to meets yous that engulf that entire first week.
Ian meets Paul first and Nina last with everyone else somewhere in-between. There is a bright smile, her hand fitting so perfectly in his, and there is a moment that lasts too long where they just sort of stare at each other, smiling too tightly.
She’s nothing to him then, just a nice girl with a pretty face, a costar, and if he weren’t with Meghan maybe there would be a maybe, a possibility, but he is, so there isn’t.
Ian is a lot of things, but he’s never been that guy.
Candice throws a get-together the night the pilot airs and he finds himself enjoying it more than he thought he would. There’s poker and beer and after he is too drunk to drive home so he sticks around until eventually it’s just he and Nina, camped out on Candice’s couch, an ancient episode of Law & Order on in the background.
Nina yawns sometime after one, scooting to the far corner of the couch and stretching her legs to get more comfortable. She kicks him as she crosses her ankles. Ian raises an eyebrow, but follows suit not even five minutes later.
“Ten bucks says it’s the ex,” she says half-way through the episode, wiggling her toes near his thigh and Ian can’t help but laugh.
“Eh, my money’s on the partner.”
Nina grins. “You’re on.”
Ian has the Saturday morning after the party off and he had grand plans to spend it in bed with Meghan. Meghan, however, does Yoga on Saturdays and he’d forgotten, so he spends what will most likely be his only free morning for the next year on the couch watching ESPN and eating Captain Crunch in his boxers.
Sometime after ten his cell phone vibrates on the table next to him.
You still owe me ten bucks. Buy me a coffee and we’ll call it even?
He meets Nina at the only Dunkin Donuts in Covington and they spend most of the morning there, Nina teasing him for ordering his all egg white, wheat toast sandwich while she devoured a doughnut with strawberry icing and sprinkles. They talk until they’re half-past late to the set and she’s laughing over nothing in particular when he walks her to the car, fingers hovering over the small of her back like they belong there.
“This was fun,” Nina sighs, pausing before sliding into her car. She slides her too-big sunglasses on to her face and smiles up at him. “I had fun.”
“Me, too.”
They share a moment, a stretch of time that doesn’t last nearly long enough where he thinks, for just a split second, about leaning in and closing the distance between them. Where he wonders what it would feel like to kiss her right then and there, fingers in her hair, body flush against hers.
It passes too soon.
There is a routine established after that.
Early mornings when it’s just the two of them, coffee and breakfast and the progression is natural, subtle even though neither one of them is paying the least bit of attention.
Things between he and Meghan start to shift, she goes back to LA for weeks on end and he stays in Georgia even when he has the free time. He never fooled himself into believing whatever they had between them was forever, but he never expected things to fall apart this quickly.
“So,” Paul starts one night, beer in hand as Zach flirts with some locals near the bar. “You and Nina,” he punctuates the end of her name with a tsk and Ian rolls his eyes, palms the half-empty beer bottle between his hands.
“Nina and I, what?”
Ian averts eye contact and Paul laughs because he already knows the answer, but asks the question anyway. Fast friends is a such a rarity in this business, and Ian hasn’t felt this sort of camaraderie with a costar since he stepped foot in Hawaii all those years ago, so he gives Paul some leeway even though he normally would have already changed the subject.
“You sleeping with her?”
“No,” Ian says firmly, taking a swig of his beer.
In his head, though, he already is.
Meghan moves permanently back to LA a few weeks later.
Her choice, not Ian’s, although he finds he is not too terribly heartbroken about the whole thing.
There are drinks that weekend, naturally, and Ian spends too much time staring at Nina’s smooth legs because finally, finally he can. He feels guilty for about five seconds because he’s been single for all of a day, but as soon as he downs his first shot he’s devising a plan in the back of his head that concerns getting her out of her too-short skirt and into his bed.
Nina catches him eyeing her legs and there is a grin (hers) and sheepish smile (his) and he shrugs his shoulders as if to say what do you expect?
She just laughs.
Later, Ian will swear that she crosses and re-crosses her legs, skirt sliding up that much farther, showing that much more skin, just for him.
It starts to drive him crazy.
The most amusing part to all of this is that he knows better.
Ian’s done this before, remember - the whole meet-cute with the costar, the instant connection, the long-winded attempt at making it lasting and meaningful. He’s done this before and he knows that who you are on set in that tight, pseudo-familial atmosphere isn’t always who you are off set when the lights are dim and there is nobody else around. Ian knows better than anyone that the initial shimmer that is so beautifully blinding eventually fades along with everything else.
But it’s been a while since Hawaii and blondes with legs for days and the memories are too far behind him to read cautionary.
Besides, Nina does this thing when she laughs, really laughs where she throws her head back and closes her eyes so tightly the edges crinkle, and it is so oddly familiar that Ian can’t ever bring himself to look away.
He spends a great deal convincing himself this time will be different.
There is a party sometime in early winter to celebrate the full season pick-up and there’s too much tequila and too little food and Ian’s always had quite a fondness for José.
Nina has a shoulder against the wall and a beer in her hand when she smiles at him, bottom lip between her teeth and Ian’s fingers tighten around his glass on reflex, skin humming with anticipation. He hasn’t felt this way in years - since Maggie, if he’s being honest with himself, and all he can think about in that moment with Nina staring up at him with her bright, big eyes is how the funny feeling in the pit of his stomach is most definitely not the alcohol.
She reaches for him and he watches the way her fingers twist into the cotton of his t-shirt and steps closer purely on reflex.
“Okay,” he breathes, as if they were ever any question, as if he hadn’t been thinking about this for months.
It’s her who kisses him first, fingers still fisted into the cotton of his shirt, pulling him closer and down towards her.
Nina’s smile is wide and beautiful just before and he can feel it against his lips as his eyes fall closed, and before he knows what is happening he has her up against the wall of some dimly lit hallway in some old, run-down bar. She’s moaning into his mouth and he is swallowing it whole and this is better than any fantasy, any scenario he has been running over and over in his mind for months.
“Take me home,” she eventually breathes, cheeks flush with color and it’s more of a command than a request.
At some point in the very near future he will pinpoint that as the exact moment he fell in love with her.
“So, Ian,” the reporter starts, fake smile stretching across her too-large lips and he knows the question before it even leaves her mouth. “Are you dating anyone?”
There is a grin and he rocks back on his heels as Nina giggles softly next to him.
They laugh about it later.
Summary: The most amusing part to all of this is that he knows better.
Rating: pg
Author's Notes: 1,409 words. It's all lies - as far as I know. Don't read if RPF is not your thing, please. For badboy_fangirl . I blame this entirely on you, bb. All mistakes are mine. These people, however, are not. Con-crit is both welcome and appreciated.
The beginning of this story is buried somewhere under the soft smiles and handshakes, the polite nice to meets yous that engulf that entire first week.
Ian meets Paul first and Nina last with everyone else somewhere in-between. There is a bright smile, her hand fitting so perfectly in his, and there is a moment that lasts too long where they just sort of stare at each other, smiling too tightly.
She’s nothing to him then, just a nice girl with a pretty face, a costar, and if he weren’t with Meghan maybe there would be a maybe, a possibility, but he is, so there isn’t.
Ian is a lot of things, but he’s never been that guy.
Candice throws a get-together the night the pilot airs and he finds himself enjoying it more than he thought he would. There’s poker and beer and after he is too drunk to drive home so he sticks around until eventually it’s just he and Nina, camped out on Candice’s couch, an ancient episode of Law & Order on in the background.
Nina yawns sometime after one, scooting to the far corner of the couch and stretching her legs to get more comfortable. She kicks him as she crosses her ankles. Ian raises an eyebrow, but follows suit not even five minutes later.
“Ten bucks says it’s the ex,” she says half-way through the episode, wiggling her toes near his thigh and Ian can’t help but laugh.
“Eh, my money’s on the partner.”
Nina grins. “You’re on.”
Ian has the Saturday morning after the party off and he had grand plans to spend it in bed with Meghan. Meghan, however, does Yoga on Saturdays and he’d forgotten, so he spends what will most likely be his only free morning for the next year on the couch watching ESPN and eating Captain Crunch in his boxers.
Sometime after ten his cell phone vibrates on the table next to him.
You still owe me ten bucks. Buy me a coffee and we’ll call it even?
He meets Nina at the only Dunkin Donuts in Covington and they spend most of the morning there, Nina teasing him for ordering his all egg white, wheat toast sandwich while she devoured a doughnut with strawberry icing and sprinkles. They talk until they’re half-past late to the set and she’s laughing over nothing in particular when he walks her to the car, fingers hovering over the small of her back like they belong there.
“This was fun,” Nina sighs, pausing before sliding into her car. She slides her too-big sunglasses on to her face and smiles up at him. “I had fun.”
“Me, too.”
They share a moment, a stretch of time that doesn’t last nearly long enough where he thinks, for just a split second, about leaning in and closing the distance between them. Where he wonders what it would feel like to kiss her right then and there, fingers in her hair, body flush against hers.
It passes too soon.
There is a routine established after that.
Early mornings when it’s just the two of them, coffee and breakfast and the progression is natural, subtle even though neither one of them is paying the least bit of attention.
Things between he and Meghan start to shift, she goes back to LA for weeks on end and he stays in Georgia even when he has the free time. He never fooled himself into believing whatever they had between them was forever, but he never expected things to fall apart this quickly.
“So,” Paul starts one night, beer in hand as Zach flirts with some locals near the bar. “You and Nina,” he punctuates the end of her name with a tsk and Ian rolls his eyes, palms the half-empty beer bottle between his hands.
“Nina and I, what?”
Ian averts eye contact and Paul laughs because he already knows the answer, but asks the question anyway. Fast friends is a such a rarity in this business, and Ian hasn’t felt this sort of camaraderie with a costar since he stepped foot in Hawaii all those years ago, so he gives Paul some leeway even though he normally would have already changed the subject.
“You sleeping with her?”
“No,” Ian says firmly, taking a swig of his beer.
In his head, though, he already is.
Meghan moves permanently back to LA a few weeks later.
Her choice, not Ian’s, although he finds he is not too terribly heartbroken about the whole thing.
There are drinks that weekend, naturally, and Ian spends too much time staring at Nina’s smooth legs because finally, finally he can. He feels guilty for about five seconds because he’s been single for all of a day, but as soon as he downs his first shot he’s devising a plan in the back of his head that concerns getting her out of her too-short skirt and into his bed.
Nina catches him eyeing her legs and there is a grin (hers) and sheepish smile (his) and he shrugs his shoulders as if to say what do you expect?
She just laughs.
Later, Ian will swear that she crosses and re-crosses her legs, skirt sliding up that much farther, showing that much more skin, just for him.
It starts to drive him crazy.
The most amusing part to all of this is that he knows better.
Ian’s done this before, remember - the whole meet-cute with the costar, the instant connection, the long-winded attempt at making it lasting and meaningful. He’s done this before and he knows that who you are on set in that tight, pseudo-familial atmosphere isn’t always who you are off set when the lights are dim and there is nobody else around. Ian knows better than anyone that the initial shimmer that is so beautifully blinding eventually fades along with everything else.
But it’s been a while since Hawaii and blondes with legs for days and the memories are too far behind him to read cautionary.
Besides, Nina does this thing when she laughs, really laughs where she throws her head back and closes her eyes so tightly the edges crinkle, and it is so oddly familiar that Ian can’t ever bring himself to look away.
He spends a great deal convincing himself this time will be different.
There is a party sometime in early winter to celebrate the full season pick-up and there’s too much tequila and too little food and Ian’s always had quite a fondness for José.
Nina has a shoulder against the wall and a beer in her hand when she smiles at him, bottom lip between her teeth and Ian’s fingers tighten around his glass on reflex, skin humming with anticipation. He hasn’t felt this way in years - since Maggie, if he’s being honest with himself, and all he can think about in that moment with Nina staring up at him with her bright, big eyes is how the funny feeling in the pit of his stomach is most definitely not the alcohol.
She reaches for him and he watches the way her fingers twist into the cotton of his t-shirt and steps closer purely on reflex.
“Okay,” he breathes, as if they were ever any question, as if he hadn’t been thinking about this for months.
It’s her who kisses him first, fingers still fisted into the cotton of his shirt, pulling him closer and down towards her.
Nina’s smile is wide and beautiful just before and he can feel it against his lips as his eyes fall closed, and before he knows what is happening he has her up against the wall of some dimly lit hallway in some old, run-down bar. She’s moaning into his mouth and he is swallowing it whole and this is better than any fantasy, any scenario he has been running over and over in his mind for months.
“Take me home,” she eventually breathes, cheeks flush with color and it’s more of a command than a request.
At some point in the very near future he will pinpoint that as the exact moment he fell in love with her.
“So, Ian,” the reporter starts, fake smile stretching across her too-large lips and he knows the question before it even leaves her mouth. “Are you dating anyone?”
There is a grin and he rocks back on his heels as Nina giggles softly next to him.
They laugh about it later.