Title: Kiss Me
Author: Belit
Disclaimer: Don’t own the characters, I have no right, making no money…
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU. No aliens. Maria DeLuca is armed and ready for her first kiss…
Author’s Note: Some instant happiness for Giselle ;)
Warning: Not beta’d!
Kiss me beneath the milky twilight
Lead me out on the moonlit floor
Lift your open hand
Strike up the band and make the fireflies dance
Silver moon's sparkling
So kiss me
Maria DeLuca walked through the corridors of Roswell High trying to not hop as the song kept playing in her head.
Her head was held high, and her pouty -too pouty if you asked her- lips were curved up with a dazzling smile. She had worn her pink skirt, the one her mother had always found way too short, to celebrate the occasion. She was 15, and it was time she started to actually pick out her own clothes anyway.
It wasn’t that she wanted to grow up. Who needed maturity? She didn’t. She liked being a teenager. But it felt good to be noticed as a woman. Boys. Yeah, that was what she was talking about. It was all that mattered at that moment.
Okay, she wasn’t that shallow. There were a lot more important things in her life than boys. But right now, she wanted to have fun. It was her turn. It was time.
Doug… She sighed. The guy had never noticed her before. He’d never even glanced at her way once. But yesterday, out of nowhere, he had asked her out! She could still feel his fingers as they brushed her hair away. He was too cute!
“Hey there chica, what’s up?” Liz asked smiling at the bubbly girl. Extra-bubbly at that moment, she noticed…
“Oooh, you know what’s up, so don’t even pretend.”
Liz rolled her eyes, letting out that quiet, shy laugh of hers. “Okay, so are you ready for tonight?”
Maria actually jumped where she stood, her curls flying around. “God yes! I can’t wait! I’m so excited!”
“You finally decided what you want to wear?”
“Yes! No! God! I’m so not ready yet! It’s tonight, and I’m not even sure if I’ll wear a dress or a skirt. I can’t just…”
“Maria!” Liz placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Breathe… You’ll be fine. I’ll help you. Everything will be great.”
“Okay. Okay…” She calmed down with Liz’s words. Her voice had always had that effect on her. “Liz…”
Liz noticed the look immediately. The scared little girl look, Maria usually managed to hide too well behind her façade. Liz knew she was probably the only one Maria let down her guards enough with to show her fear.
“What if he changes his mind? What if he comes and says he had a head trauma or something. What if it was a joke? What if…”
“Okay, stop it right there! It’s not a joke. You look stunning today. He will not change his mind. And tonight will go just perfectly!”
“You know it’s the night, right? He’ll probably…”
Hugging her friend tightly, Liz talked to her ear. “Yes, I know. It will be perfect Ria. Just like you wanted.”
- - -
Sitting in her Biology class with her pen in her mouth, she let the boring voice of the teacher fade away as her daydreams took over her mind.
Tonight, she was going to the movies with Doug. It was still quite unbelievable. Her first kiss was going to be with Doug Sohn. He was really good looking, and had incredible eyes. And a killer body of course… Not that it mattered. She would never make out with him on a first date. She knew what they said about girls who did that.
It was going to be perfect. Romantic, innocent, sweet… He was the perfect gentleman. She knew she was going to have a wonderful time, and she would remember it forever. She could feel the butterflies in her stomach just from the thought of it.
- - -
“Liz, come on, we gotta hurry!” Maria pulled the brown haired girl towards the doors of the school. They had work to do.
She bumped into something in her haste, and let out a small gasp as she lost her balance and fell in Liz’s arms. She felt a sting on her leg, and the first thing she thought was that she would need some serious amount of concealer if it bruised.
“Watch where you’re going Blondie!” said the husky voice she knew too well.
Her anger rose as she scrambled on her feet. Who the hell did he think he was? He had bumped into her, gave her a damn bruise, and was now yelling at her? He was soo in trouble…
“No, you watch where you’re going Guerin!”
She was just getting started when she felt Liz’s hand cover her mouth. She threw her an unbelieving look as Liz offered the monster a small smile, and pulled her away.
“Calm down, think about tonight…” Liz whispered in her ear, and Maria immediately found herself in another daydream about Doug Sohn, the spiky haired monster named Michael Guerin long forgotten.
- - -
“Red dress?”
“Too revealing, I don’t want him to think I’m a slut.”
“Blue skirt and that black top?”
“It’s a date Liz! I’m not going to church!”
“Okay then, pink skirt and white tank top?”
“I wore it today to school! I don’t want to look that casual…”
“Black trousers and pink shirt? Not too casual, not too conservative, not too revealing…”
“Too mature!”
“There’s nothing else! Red dress?”
“Okay…”
- - -
Putting the finishing touches to her make up and hair, Maria was trying not to have a heart attack before her date.
“Liz? Do I smell okay?”
“You smell great!”
“How’s my hair? Should I put it down, or…”
“It’s perfect, stop playing with it!”
“Damn! The door, he’s here. Where are my shoes? Liz! I lost my shoes!”
“Calm down. Breathe. They are right here.”
“Okay, okay, I’m okay.”
Liz helped Maria put on her shoes and hugged her goodbye. It was an important date for the blonde girl, and she was wishing with all her heart that everything would go as planned.
“I told my mom I’ll be staying with you. Just in case, you know…” Maria whispered.
“Just in case what?” Liz shrieked, her eyes wide as saucers.
“Ssshhh! Just in case I come home late! What did you think?!”
“Oh, okay…”
“Don’t worry if I don’t show up though. I’ll probably be home before midnight.”
“Mariiiaaa, your date’s here!!!” Amy’s voice was heard from downstairs.
“Okay, okay, I’m coming!”
Maria took a deep breath and kissed Liz one last time, “Wish me luck Liz!”
- - -
It was almost midnight when Michael heard Hank enter the trailer. He could almost smell the stench of alcohol and sweat from his room. He heard him make his way through the living room, bumping into things, grumbling and cussing to himself. Then he heard the knock and jumped from the bed.
Not again!
“Mickey?! Where the hell are you?”
He looked around aimlessly, not sure what to do. The door was locked, but Hank was a big man, he could break it easily if he wanted to.
“Mickey! I know you’re in there you worthless son of a bitch! Open the god damn door!”
Michael shook his head and clenched his jaw in anger. There was nothing he could do to shut him up. It was no use to wait for him to understand his mistake, and treat him better. He had accepted that a long time ago. He opened the window and pulled himself up to climb through.
Running away again… He was a coward. Maybe Hank was right. Maybe he simply didn’t understand because there was nothing to understand. Maybe he really was a worthless son of a bitch…
- - -
Michael ran towards the wall that separated the trailer park from the main road, and walked to the side of the street. He turned his head to check if Hank was following, but his eyes found something else instead.
Red and gold. Those colours didn’t belong to this place. His home, his life was mostly grey. Grey, black and maybe an occasional brown… He took a step towards the wall and stopped when he realized what that was. A girl… A girl with familiar golden hair.
He took a couple more steps closer to her, but didn’t walk too near. He didn’t want to wake her yet. He just wanted to watch.
He desperately needed his sketch pad. But even that wouldn’t be enough. He needed some paint to catch the way her hair shined in the darkness. Her pale, porcelain-smooth skin contrasted the surroundings so beautifully… Rough against gentle, dark against light, hard against soft… It was magnificent. She was radiant. She was art.
Michael came to his senses when her hand moved, and she stirred slightly. He stood frozen as she raised her head and opened her eyes. Rich green seemed to be pouring out of her eyes to reach him. He knew he was supposed to be talking or something, but it was too hard. His mind was refusing to work properly. It sounded stupid when put into words, but in a matter of seconds, a girl sitting against a wall had changed his day, his mood drastically. A girl he thought he hated. A girl he had been nothing but cruel to. A girl he secretly respected.
“What… What are you doing here?” Maria asked groggily, trying not to shiver from the cold.
“I live here. What are you doing here?” Michael tried to sound a little more sincere than he usually did. Because not only he had just realized how special that girl was, he could also clearly see something was wrong with her.
“You live here?” Maria asked with surprise, and Michael tried to hide his embarrassment. He had never let anyone from school find out about his family and home, or lack thereof.
“Yeah,” he replied, raising an eyebrow to remind her she didn’t answer his question.
“I'm just sitting.”
“Yeah, I can see that. May I ask why?”
“No,” Maria said firmly, holding her head up as she refused to cry in front of Michael Guerin.
Just as Michael was about to open his mouth, he heard a rumble from the other side of the wall. He was tall enough to see the other side and what he saw there made him throw himself down next to Maria.
“S-hit! S-hit, s-hit, s-hit!”
“Mickey? I know you're out there you f-ucking bastard! MICKEY!?”
Maria looked at Michael in shock. It was the first time she had witnessed him show such a strong reaction. It was weird. Suddenly he was more human to her than he had ever been.
Turning her head towards the wall, she found a crack and looked through it. There was a man walking away. A fat, filthy man, the kind of person that would make her change her way when she came across. What could he want from Michael?
“Who was that?” she asked, trying to sound casual. She sounded more like scared to Michael.
“Hank.”
“Hank? Who’s Hank?”
That wasn’t the part of her he respected. She could be so stubborn and annoying. What was it to her? Why did she care who Hank was?
Seeing that he wasn’t answering, she dared to guess. “Your father?”
“No!” Michael said forcefully. Then seeing her wide eyes, continued softer, “Foster parent.”
“Oh… He seems…”
Michael clenched his jaw. God help him, he would kill her bare-handed if she said nice.
Maria continued thoughtfully, oblivious to Michael’s rising fury, “…like a pain in the ass.”
Michael relaxed his fists and let out a breath. Oh yeah, now he remembered what made him respect her.
“He is,” he said with a small smirk.
“I don’t have a father either,” she said suddenly, and had no idea what made her say that.
Was she trying to make him feel better? Michael thought he should be embarrassed, angry… But he wasn’t. He was curious. “Is he dead?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. One day he just left and I didn’t see him again. I was only five.”
They waited in an uncomfortable silence. There was nothing to say. So her dad had left… That was how life worked. It sucked. Being sorry wasn’t going to help anyone.
“Yours?” Maria asked, “Did they die?”
Michael shrugged. “I have no idea.”
Another long silence.
“That should be worse. Not knowing if they wanted you or not… I always knew he didn’t want me. He left because of me. But I still kept hoping he would come back. I knew it was stupid, but I did anyway.”
Michael could hear the things she left unsaid as he looked in her eyes. I know how it must have been for you. I know you dream that they came for you. That they loved you. It was the truth. He knew it. She knew it. And they both knew that it was better left unvoiced.
Tearing his gaze away from hers, Michael cleared his throat. “So, for the last time, why are you here?”
Maria pulled down her dress uncomfortably. “I… I just can't go home right now.”
“Oh? So you decided it would be fun to hang out alone in the middle of the night here, in the trailer park?”
“I didn’t plan it, okay! It just happened that way!”
Looking at her clothes Michael remembered hearing her talk about something in school. Something about tonight? A date? Doug Sohn? He pieced together what he could remember, and hated the way it was pointing.
Doug. That a-sshole.
“What happened?” he asked, his face suddenly serious.
“Nothing.”
“Maria?!”
“Oh, so you know my first name…”
“Stop it! What happened? Did he hurt you or something?”
“Doug? How do you know I was with him?”
“You were announcing it to the whole damn school all day.”
“Oh… He didn’t… Not really…”
He ran a hand through his hair nervously. “Do all girls have to be so stupid?” he mumbled.
“Excuse me?!”
“Can't you see what a jerk that guy is? Why is it that all girls still fling themselves at him?” he asked in disgust.
She looked at him, her mouth opening and closing without a word. “I am sorry, but we humans tend to have crushes and stuff, you would know if you let your shields down long enough to look around for once. And don’t you dare assume you know anything about me! Cause you don’t!”
“Really? What else is there to know? You fell for the typical jock sleaziness and dated him to be his make out buddy for a night. Pathetic.”
“You! How… How dare you? I… I had a crush on the guy since elementary! I just…” Tears streamed down her cheeks from the suppressed anger and hurt. It was turning out to be the worst night of her life. “I just wanted him to be my first kiss…” she admitted in a whisper.
Michael felt a twinge in his stomach. He told himself he had nothing to feel bad about, but her voice was so… hurt. He had hurt her.
“I waited so long for this. It was supposed to be perfect…” she whispered, more to herself than him. She wiped her tears away, but they just kept spilling, running down her cheeks in dirty tracks. They made her feel weak and pathetic.
“Why did you wait? What’s there to wait, it’s just a kiss.”
Maria chuckled bitterly, “You wouldn’t understand. I… I should have known though. Liz was nine when she was first kissed for god’s sake! I always knew I wasn’t good enough for that. But I just wanted…”
“That’s bulls-hit. You just don’t want to face things. You're always hiding behind Liz. You’re not less than her, nobody thinks that, you just don’t let yourself be seen. And that’s your own fault.”
“You don’t know what it was like for me!” she shouted at him. “Don’t pretend to understand! I know I was weak, I know I couldn’t handle things, I know I hid in her shadow… I had to. I had to grow up fast, I had to learn I wasn’t pretty enough to be liked by boys, and I wasn’t good enough to make my father stay… I wasn’t important enough for my mother to take me with her when she left town for days instead of tossing me to some neighbour. And I wasn’t strong enough to handle the cruel comments of my classmates about my appearance, my family, my intellect… Liz was safe. She was nice. She made me feel less lonely, less worthless. So what? I did hide, and I am not lying to myself about it. It is easy to talk about me like that for you, but can you admit why you’re hiding? Can you come out and admit you were afraid? You were weak?”
Michael swallowed the lump in his throat, and avoided her bloodshot eyes.
“I thought so…” he heard her say.
Maria continued, feeling more at ease now with her small victory, “I admit it, I wasn’t that jealous of Liz when she was first kissed, I mean it was with Kyle Valenti…” she made a disgusted face, and Michael found himself smiling. “…but I don’t care if it makes me spoiled, or stupid, or whatever, I wanted mine to be perfect. I wanted it to be sweet and innocent. I wanted to have the perfect night with the perfect guy… I couldn’t just…”
Her sentence was cut short with the feeling of Michael’s lips on hers. His hand was holding her chin gently, and his thumb was tracing her jawline. She closed her eyes in fear. What was he doing? And more importantly, why?
His lips were so warm and soft, she had to hold back her moan. They moved slowly, a little hesitant, but still she admired the firmness of his touch. Her hand reached blindly for him to steady herself and held on to his shirt. It was just a couple of seconds, but it stretched to hours in Maria's head. He pulled away a little scared of her reaction, and licked his lips faintly tasting her lip gloss.
“What was that for?” Maria whispered, her eyes still closed and her hand still clutching his shirt.
“So you can stop obsessing about the first one and move on to second… and third…” Michael said in a husky whisper, finding it too hard to talk properly when they were touching.
Her eyes opened, and the bright green assaulted his senses, making him gulp audibly. They stared at each other wide eyed, their breaths mingling as they panted loudly. Maria bit her lip and moved closer to him, hoping to have made the right decision. Her hands reached up to cup his neck and touch his skin, and her eyes silently begged him to not reject her.
“Okay then…” she whispered and lowered her lips on his.
Once she felt him respond, she let all doubts go. There was no room for hesitation. He tasted so different, so good, so addictive… She didn’t want to ever let go of him. Her hands buried themselves in his hair and she found it so unpredictably soft. She smiled. She had always had a thing for his stupid spikes.
She licked his lips tentatively, searching for more of his taste as her heart pounded in her chest. The kiss deepened when he opened his mouth to her, and she couldn’t stop her body as it melted against his. This was something new to her. He had woken something up inside her. Passion.
They broke apart when breathing became a necessity. It felt so hard, so wrong to be away, not touching. Michael held her tightly on the waist and trailed kisses down her neck, tasting her skin. She tasted so good, so sweet. Maria… His first kiss…
He raised his head, looking in her eyes, and whispered, “I'm sorry…”. A part of him knew he could drown there in the rich green and should be afraid. But he was too far gone to listen to that part.
“Don’t. I don’t mind… you kissing me… anywhere…” she said shyly, trying to clarify things for him.
Michael felt relieved that she enjoyed kissing him, but that wasn’t his main concern. “No, I'm sorry I ruined your first kiss.”
He knew she wanted it to be special. And he definitely wasn’t anything special, and the place was far from romantic.
Maria smiled and shook her head. “Well, technically you weren't the first.”
At Michael's puzzled look, she continued with a glint in her eyes, “Doug did attempt something he thought was a kiss, so I guess technically he was my first.”
“Oh,” Michael said, slightly embarrassed and angry. It was stupid but he didn’t want to think about Doug and Maria kissing. It wasn’t right.
Raising his head with her fingertips, she met his lips and licked his upper lip softly. He groaned in response and held her tighter, pulling her to straddle his lap. Her fingers touched his cheek and he had to close his eyes to control his emotions. So tender…
“I punched him,” she said suddenly, causing him to open his eyes.
“You what?”
“I punched him. He deserved it.” She shrugged, and laid her head down on his shoulder.
Then he laughed. He actually laughed. And it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever heard.
They sat in silence as Maria caressed and kissed his neck, and Michael tried to control the butterflies in his stomach. Just as he thought she was starting to doze off, her small voice reached his ears, “I wish it was you…”
Tears burned in his eyes as his hands travelled up and down her back soothingly. “Why?” he choked out, knowing it would be futile to try to form a sentence.
“You're special…” she said, holding her head up to look in his eyes. “And he’s just a regular jerk.”
She was getting too sleepy to hold her head up, so she dropped it to his shoulder again, and nuzzled his neck. “But it doesn’t matter now. You're here…”
Michael, sure that she was asleep, let one tear fall down his cheek. He held her close and kept her warm until he heard the faint roar of Hank’s truck. Then lifting her up gently, he made his way to the trailer.
Her words echoed in his head. Everywhere her hands had touched tingled.
He didn’t let himself think that she would hurt him in the end. He didn’t fear that he would fail. He didn’t give in to the urge to run and hide.
He entered his room and carefully laid her down on his bed. Then locking the door, he joined her.
He was special.
She snuggled closer to him and mumbled sleepily, “You smell so good…”
He was special and he smelled good…
He smiled to her hair.
As long as she thought so, anything was possible…
THE END
Fic