Work Text:
Grown Up, Responsible ...and stuff.
1996
"Jesus Christ, James!", Erin snapped, feeling more and more like an awkward duckling with every second that passed in silence.
"Would ya stop lookin' so bloody guilty!"
Straightening up her posture in a false show of confidence, she tried and failed to channel the last remaining ounce of feigned worldliness that her teenaged self indulgence would spare her....which, in all honesty, wasn't a hell of a whole pile to begin with.
"I'm not!", James insisted, just a wee bit defensive.
In all fairness, Erin's wee English boyfriend didn't look a whole lot better than she felt. James tugged self consciously at the cuffs of his denim jacket, pale faced and anxious.
"You are yeah", Erin chortled, her nervousness breaking through even though she'd clearly been trying for sarcasm.
She watched as James tore his wary gaze from the entrance of Tesco and found herself, despite everything, fighting her first genuine smile of the day. Somehow James never failed to do that to her...not that Erin was going to make a big song and dance about it.
"Ya know, Love. We're not doin' anythin' wrong, you and me."
Despite the near tangible anxiety of their present situation, she was fully certain of that.
After months of going out (including one very memorable ocassion that saw Erin, James, Sister Michael and a biology textbook open on a very particular page!) and several interesting weeks spent with her tongue periodically all the way down her best mate's throat, they were both ready for more.
But they still needed to buy condoms. REAL ACTUAL CONDOMS!
Therein lay the problem...
"I didn't say we were", James replied gently, believing his own words.
For a change, he truly didn't think they were behaving at all out of line! If anything, James was quite proud of Erin and himself for being so grown up and responsible with their actions.
Like, that was definitely a first for them!
He just wasn't sure that a certain member of Erin's immediate family would share the sentiment...
Discreetly, James scanned the Tesco checkouts for a particular loud bearded man in a brown coat...the scariest man in all of Derry.
"It's just...", he mumbled, fidgeting awkwardly. "Isn't your Grandfather doing the big weekly shop today?"
Erin frowned, not quite catching the drift—or perhaps being too stubborn to. "Yeah, and?"
James gaped at her, waiting for the penny to drop. It didn't.
"Your grandfather is doing the big weekly shop", he clarified, surer of himself this time,"...and I'd rather like my kneecaps to stay where they are!"
A beat. Erin looked up at him, the gears turning inside her head.
"Granda isn't going to kneecap you, James", she insisted, voice trailing off into a higher octave—revealing her own uncertainty. "He'll be far too busy tearin' stripes off Daddy."
James eyed her quizzically, not in the slightest bit reassured by her argument.
Joe McCool's reaction to discovering that a teenaged boy had attended a completely platonic study sleepover in his granddaughters' bedroom was still very much burned into the young English fella's mind.
And this whole hullabaloo had the potential to be worse...much much worse.
"Do you really think Joe would be too busy if he found out what we were here to buy?"
Fumbling awkwardly, Erin flushed scarlet. She tried her hardest not to look too uncomfortable with the idea.
After all, wasn't it a truth universally acknowledged that if you are mature enough to be...doing things that required condoms, then you should be mature enough to go out and buy them.
"Yeah well...", Erin said, feeling James's eyes bore into her in pure disbelief. She plucked up her courage, stretching herself up to her full five feet and three inches. "I'll protect you from Granda."
Despite everything, James felt his insides melt into a proverbial puddle at Erin's words.
It was moments like these when he was reminded all over again just how totally besotted he was with his fiercely chaotic and slightly mad girlfried.
True, Erin was a hurricane in human form—but James loved her to pieces.
"Alright then", he agreed amicably, slipping his hand back into hers.
All suggestions of coming back to the supermarket later died on the tip of James's tongue as Erin grinned smugly up at him.
Together they rounded the corner, their destination finally coming into sight as their intertwined fingers swung gracelessly between them.
"Erin", James asked cautiously, suddenly whirling around to face her.
They'd both seen it! The familiar flamboyantly dressed figure in a feathered hat and a hot pink trench coat, unapologetically dominating the perfume counter inside the door.
"Isn't that the pharmacy your Aunt Sarah buys her tan from?"
Erin's eyes widened almost comically, her mouth dropping—consumed instantly with mortifying, horrifying, terrifying thoughts of her aunt's penchant for gossip and her Ma's wooden spoon.
Their giddy goofy spell was well and truly broken!
"Oh shite!", Erin cursed, seizing James's arm with an iron grip and dragging him towards the nearest clothes shop. "Quick! She's comin'! Hide!"
Ahh well, maturity was overrated anyway...