Title: Too fast on a slow day
Fandom: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (although it's an AU of an AU, so the link is tenuous)
Rating: G
Length: 555
Content notes: n/a
Author notes: This wasn't what I was going to write, but then I had to go out all day and didn't have the fic with me. So appropriately for the prompt, this is me writing at speed in an AU of an AU.
Summary: Modern AU, William meets Arthur (widower with two children). William's POV.



The party's slowing down and we're still here. Summer evening finally turning cooler and the conversation drifting, but you're sitting there and looking at me in a way that makes me want to keep talking forever. One more drink.
I have to say you aren't my usual type. Nor are you the man Bell well-meaningly introduced me to when the barbecue wasn't hot yet and everyone was mingling over drinks. He was, unfortunately, very pretty but entirely boring. Not like you. Colley didn't even want to introduce me at first. He warned me pretty strongly against flirting but despite that we've been slowly circling one another all day. Always finding ourselves drawn back into talking to one another. Ignoring other people. We even spent an hour violently disagreeing about politics and neither of us walked away, so is it too soon to say I don't ever want this conversation to end?
Maybe it's the sun, or the cider, or too much of Jonathan's cooking. Maybe there's something in the air along with the warm grass and sun cream, and the citronella candles. Maybe it's because I've been lonely for a while now and I think maybe you’ve been lonely too. Maybe it's just an illusion. Only you've just finished telling me your opinions on Disney films and if it was anyone else I'd be rolling my eyes, pretending indifference. But it's not anyone else, it’s you, and I'm telling you that Frozen is overrated, which is something I wouldn’t even confess to knowing normally, and so maybe it’s the start of something good. Easy conversation like this isn't something that you waste.
Half the guests have left already and it's the last dregs of the day, hazy and slow. More than half dark beneath the trees. I don't do complicated, and I don't do relationships with people with kids and messy lives, but is it too fast if I say I want to kiss you right now? At very least I'd like to reach out and take your hand. Take your empty glass away and curl our fingers together. See what you'd do.
You've got that look in your eyes like you know what I'm thinking. The words are almost there on the tip of my tongue, waiting to fall.
Of course that's when you have to go. Babysitters wait for no man. Everyone else wants to hug you goodbye. Bell makes you promise to come back soon and I can't tell if I'm imagining your eyes flicking to mine when you say yes.
It's not subtle to say I'm leaving at the same time. Nobody's fooled but I don't have time. I've been too cautious and it feels like the chance is slipping out of my hands with the last of the light. Is it too short a time to say I want you?
On the drive we hover. Stretching the last goodbyes as long as we can. Eventually the words come too fast: how good it's been to meet, to talk, can I have your number? The smile on your face is the most fucking gorgeous thing I've seen all day.
You have to rush off then but it's alright. I stand on the drive going nowhere and your number burning a hole in my pocket, wondering how soon I get to call.