Contact: Collection One
Title: Contact
Author: wareander
Rating: PG
Characters: Tai, Matt, Sora
Author's Note: 100 short shorts featuring Tai, Matt, and Sora in various combinations, because even a diehard Taiora shipper like me has moments of weakness. They're the perfect triangle. First 25 are Taiora.
Summary: #1-5 after the cut.
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I. Summer
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Early July, and Tai was alone with his thoughts and the pounding of his footsteps on a bike path, not running to something or from something for once, just running for the sheer joy of movement and it felt good. He was home on break from his first year of college, badly in need of a haircut, feeling young and wild and wanting to throw research papers into stainless steel trashcans and let them go up in flames.
The summer stretched out ahead of him, and there was suddenly so much time to burn; to live.
He spotted her in an open field of green, just off the bike path, sprawled in the sun, her red hair lit-up-gold and fanned out around her head. Her eyes were closed, and her cheeks were pink with the sun and starting to freckle. As he crossed the short distance between them he stepped over her discarded tank top, a shoe here, socks, another shoe, and stood quietly above her, careful not to cast a shadow on her, trying not to laugh at her purely blissful expression or the way her skimpy red running shorts clashed with her hair. He watched the way her chest rose and fell under a white sports bra.
Tai dropped down lightly beside Sora and stretched out, and after a short while he sensed that she was watching him and turned to see her peering at him lazily through the lashes of a rose-colored eye. He smiled at her, slow and content, and even though it was uncomfortably hot and they were both sweaty and exhausted, Sora rolled and curled against his side, her hand on his solid chest, her knee tucked against his thigh. He sighed and placed a large palm on her back, spreading his long fingers wide against sun-warmed skin and they breathed together in the sun until they both dozed and nothing could have moved them.
Summer was Tai's favorite season. Sora was Tai's favorite season.
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II. Wherever
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It wasn't so much that he couldn't dance…
Well no, that's exactly what it was. But Sora was nothing if not patient, and it was kind-of sweet, watching him trip over his feet in the flower shop after closing, his collared shirt untucked and rumpled and his green blazer tossed carelessly over the register. He got this certain look, so serious, and Sora tried hard not to laugh.
She had turned the lights off so the streetlamps lit the shop through the glass storefront, and switched the radio on so it played softly, providing a beat, even if he couldn't hear it. And then she slipped into his arms, smiled when he blushed, and guided one of his hands to her waist, held the other in her own, felt very small and safe.
"Like this," she said, a little unsteady, carefully leading the dance and feeling him fall into the easy rhythm, tentative. He grinned and ducked his head.
"Follow me," she added, and he looked up at that, gravely. They stopped dancing and just stood there in the smoky light. And that was when Sora lost the upper hand, because all she found in his steady, unguarded expression was the knowledge that she'd never have to tell Tai to follow her anywhere.
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III. Quieter
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"Matt and I are like…fireworks, you know?" Sora said one day, lying on her back in the grass next to Tai. "We're all lightning and explosions. Everything is…blinding. It's so fast and fun it almost hurts."
"Mm-hm," Tai said, his head tucked comfortably against one crooked elbow as he watched the clouds roll by.
"I mean, he's beautiful," she said.
"Sure," Tai said amicably.
Sora rolled onto her stomach and blew her bangs out of her eyes. There was a long friendly silence.
"I love him, Tai," Sora said eventually.
"He's easy to love," Tai said, and then pointed at the sky. "That one looks like Agumon. See there? Next to the big fluffy peanut."
Sora propped herself up on one elbow and stared at Tai until he glanced her way.
"Tai," she said. "Me and Matt, we're like a bomb going off."
"Sora-"
"Just wait," Sora said. "Me and Matt are something on fire, but you and me? I always pictured us in rocking chairs."
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IV. Almost
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Sora watched, amused, as Tai staggered down the steps with the last of his earthly posessions, crammed them hard into the back seat, and then stood back with a look of boyish satisfaction and accomplishment. She wondered how he'd see to drive, but he was so thrilled with himself that it seemed wrong to take him down a peg.
His car was loaded from floor mats to ceiling lights with soccer balls and running shorts, a poster tube, blue sheets, a pile of t-shirts that fit him enticingly over the shoulder blades when he leaned or moved or stretched just right, three pillows, a clock radio, Matt's new CD tucked carefully on the dash, a box of "but I might need that"s, and somewhere wrapped in a pair of jeans, a framed picture of a kiss that caught her off guard at Izzy's birthday party-she was blushing hard, her eyes wide, but Tai was fiercely content, eyes closed, holding on to her shoulders with both hands, everything, every arch and plane and shadow saying this is it, this is it.
"Are you sure you have everything you need?" she said dryly as he leaned hard on the door until the latch caught.
"Almost," he said, and opened the passenger side door, arching a challenging eyebrow.
"Oh," she said, and they stood quietly for a long time, but they didn't say goodbye.
Standing on the curb in front of Tai's house, watching him drive away, Sora was at least comforted by the distinct and painful feeling that she could, without any doubt, feel love for another person.
College was a bitch.
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V. Too Late
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She found him at their old High School's practice field pounding a soccer ball into a faded, sagging net, running to retrieve it, taking another perfect shot. He was furious, that much was obvious from his body language, but at least he was taking it out on the ball instead of her. Of course, he didn't know she was standing quietly in the shadow of the stands, building up her courage, trying to find a way to take it all back.
It wasn't that they hadn't fought before. They had. They'd had worse fights, and they'd definitely had more public fights. It was just that this particular fight was so close to the wedding, and he was scared and hurt and didn't know what to do. She got that. She was scared too.
Tai ran to grab the ball from the net, ran back, dropped the ball and jogged several feet back, preparing to take the shot. He bent his knees, ready to spring forward-and then stopped. He straightened, and Sora watched all of the frustration and anger leave him, watched him scrub a hand across his face, watched him stand there looking very lonely and lost, and that was enough to make her step out from the shadow and cross the field to hug him from behind, pressing her cheek between his shoulder blades. He leaned back into her, and she could hear his heartbeat.
"Do you still want to marry me?" she whispered.
"I don't know," he said, and she started to pull away, but he caught one of her hands and held her in place. "Is it too late to get a refund on the flowers?"
She froze. "Yeah, Tai."
"And the down-payment on the reception hall? What about that?"
"We definitely can't get that back."
Tai turned to face Sora, keeping hold of that one hand, and spun her once, slowly. "Plus, Matt's been working really hard on his speech. He'd be devastated if we told him the wedding was off."
Sora nodded gravely. "He'd probably cry."
"Well then, I guess we'll have to go through with it."
"I guess we will."
They didn't say anything for a long moment, just stood with their fingers laced together, and they both knew that later there would be coffee and serious conversation until the early hours of the morning, but all of that could wait, so Sora shoved him lightly, dodged around him and took off down the field with his soccer ball, but he knew her too well to be surprised and had it back in no time.
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