Work Text:
Daring was still elbow-deep in soapy water when Lizzie passed again between classes. There wasn't a wink this time, as she simply brushed the back of her hand against his neck as she walked by - the softest touch, almost accidental. He felt the cool of her painted nails and the faint, impossible race of her pulse. He kept scrubbing Sparrow's uniform so no one would see the smile he couldn't stop from spreading across his face.
Students still lingered to point and laugh at him, but Daring barely heard them. His mind was fixed on that brief, deliberate touch: the edge of her painted nail, the fluttering beat beneath her skin that no one else would have noticed. One-two-three, too fast of a heartbeat for a girl who would claim to everyone else that she felt nothing.
Daring had spent his whole life measuring his worth in reflections and applause. A perfect smile. A perfect jawline. A perfect destiny waiting somewhere in a storybook.
None of it ever made his own pulse stutter the way hers just did.
When he finally stood, hands dripping, he pressed two soapy fingers to his own wrist and counted.
His heart was racing too.