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joshsbimbo · 13 days

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clapton davis fic where hes just like, super flirty and its really cute and the reader is oblivious to this but eventually clapton is like "damn it why cant you get the hint" so he opens up to the reader?&;&:& tysmm

━━ SUBTLE UNSUBTILITY

'୧ ‧₊ pairing: clapton davis x reader warnings: swearing, brief depictions of blood word count: 2500+ ⋆ ✩‧₊

The presence of Spring in Grizzly Lake brought a lot of things; including sporadic bursts of heaven-yellow sunlight, greenery spiraled across branches of previously barren tree skeletons, and, most importantly for students of Grizzly Lake High School, the promise of the Spring Fling Formal that was set to occur in the midst of May.

For Clapton, this prom meant one thing; achieving his goal that’s been looming over him since freshman year — ask you out. Theoretically it’s a simple process, but if it was truly as easy as it sounds it would have occurred the very moment his eyes landed on your figure that first day in beginner spanish.

You were the embodiment of perfection, punctuated through your gleaming smile that enraptured anyone in a ten mile radius, and the way the sun seemed to spread across the expanse of your cheeks, soaking you in the rays of heaven itself. Clapton was about ready to propose that day, and he didn’t even know your name.

Now, roughly two years later, he was still amidst the same dilemma, the one in which he actually had to do the asking-out part. He was sure by now you would have picked up on his inherently obvious attempts to entice you, but you remained oblivious, so he decided he’d have to fully commit if he wanted to capture your attention. The art of unsubtle subtility, if you will.

And so, forty three minutes into the depths of an agonizingly dull pre-calculus lesson, he confidently taps your shoulder with a fractionally tense hand, and indulges the tug on his heartstrings when you turn around, framed by the delicate glow of mid-morning spring that he adores so much.

“Something wrong, Clapton?” Your voice cleaves through the classroom ambience of idle chatter and textbook pages being flipped. He flashes a boyish smile in hopes to flutter your heart in the same way you flutter his.

“Do you get any of these questions?”

“Yeah, they’re not too bad,” you reply, offering an ephemeral that renders his throat tight.

He glanced down momentarily at his worksheet, adorned in scrawls and scribbles, yet lacking a single legible answer. His vision trains up back to you though, as it always does. He thought you’d easily detect the unspoken question for your help, but you remained stationary in your seat, as if waiting for him to say it. He couldn’t tell if you were genuinely that heedless, or if you were toying with him. Cat and mouse.

“Seriously? When did they even teach us all this?”

You shrug mindlessly, and a lock of hair shifts from its position on your shoulder. He’d give anything to rope his fingers through it. “A while back. Why, you need some help?”

Yes. He’d like your help, your compassion, your hand in marriage…

“Wanna walk me through it?” He tosses you a hopeful expression, and you answer back with a simple nod, sliding your chair along the cheap linoleum floor with a scrape, until the pair of you are sharing his desk, impossibly close.

Your velvet voice is stringing sentences right down the expanse of his spine, though your attempts to help him understand logarithmic differentiation were ultimately futile— how was he supposed to concentrate on anything when he could feel your words blooming on his skin? See every freckle and divot etched into your face? He could taste his own heartbeat as it melded against his throat.

“So, this helps to avoid complications like the product rule and the quotient rule when— Clapton?”

He cocks his head up, trying to ignore the swell in his stomach when he hears the way his name sounds braided between your sentences, it suits your voice so well.

“Yeah? What’s up?”

“Are you even listening?”

Shit, no he absolutely wasn’t. How could he? Your proximity allowed him to see you. Like, properly see you.

“Yeah. Totally. Logaramic thingyation,” he murmurs with overt certainty, and a puppylike grin.

You snicker. “Couldn’t even get the name right?”

He’s internally collapsing, though he manages to force some words out of his struggling brain.

“Hard to think when you’re here.” He doesn’t dare sever the eye contact between you, hoping to hone the tension as long as possible, until he shatters you. His lopsided grin shrinks in a moment of brevity; you’re so close and he can smell you and your very essence. He’s sure that his ulterior motive is conveyed, through the way his eyes explore the breadth of your figure, never leaving, never faltering— yet to his pure irritation, all he gets is a blank expression and a confused chuckle.

“Why is that?” You ask, and he wants to grab you by your shoulders and shake you. Are you really that dense? Your face is about as expressive as a rock, and you seem not even partially affected by the flirty wink he sent your way moments prior.

“You’re kidding, right? Come on.” He fires back, raising a brow with a daring smirk. He wants you to inquire. You don’t. He realizes that trying to get you to take a fucking hint was about as impossible as teaching him calculus.

You force out an awkward laugh that makes his skin crawl with defeat, but he doesn’t back down. “Come on what?”

He refrains from the urge to say “me”, and instead huffs a sharp exhale through his nose. He’s moments away from spouting some lame compliment when the shrill cry of the bell interrupts his train of thought, and a tide of students eject eagerly from their seats and spill out into the corridor for lunch.

Your friend approaches the desk with a quirked brow, reaching for your arm and mumbling something into your ear that’s intelligible to Clapton, tugging on you to try and steer you away from the classroom. And from him. You nod in response to her comment, before momentarily glancing back over to Clapton.

“I gotta go, Clapton. See you soon though, see you in History!” You send him a parting wave with a gentle flick of your wrist, before turning off and disappearing down the long stretch of corridor beside the classroom. His eyes follow you for as long as possible before your figure is consumed by the wandering horde of students, and he lets a grumbly sigh escape his parted lips before he packs up his belongings. This was going to be harder than he anticipated.

*:･.・゜゜・

Clapton’s second attempt at alluring you resulted in more or less the same outcome. He’d entered the cafeteria, instantly bathed in the overwhelming odor of lysol and lard. His prior plan was to grab a doctor pepper, maybe a sandwich, and head over to his typical table to talk a painfully uninterested Sander’s ear off about you, but he scrapped it upon spotting you waiting in the cafeteria line, immediately changing course and veering over in hopes of a successful conversation.

He cuts in front of an unsuspecting freshman, ignores the irritated “What’s your deal man?”, and ‘accidentally’ brushes up to you until your bodies knock, and you spin around in confusion.

Your face mildly relaxes in recognition, and he takes this as progress.

“Hey. Getting lunch?”

“What else would I be doing?” You ask. Swing and a miss.

He clears his throat a fraction, not allowing this to throw him off his game.

“I dunno, maybe you just really like standing in lines,” he teases, and you laugh back.

“Especially if the line is for overpriced cafeteria food,” you add with a grin.

The pair of you share a laugh, and Clapton marvels at the fact that you can look so irresistible even in the harsh fluorescence of the cafeteria’s artificial lighting. The pair of you fall into a partially awkward silence, and he follows your line of vision, watching as you observe some students hanging a hand painted banner advertising prom for the entirety of the cafeteria to see. ‘Spring Fling Formal, get your tickets now!’ glistens in white gold lettering. He prays he can take the banner up on that offer.

“Are you doing anything for it?” A bit of a jump from the casual conversation, but he was itching to entice you and couldn’t risk missing his chance.

“Hm? For what?” His lips twitch into a gradually familiar downwards smile. “Prom,” he says, gesturing at the banner, obnoxiously pink in hue and decorated with scatterings of hastily painted daisies.

“Oh. Maybe— I’m not sure, it’s kinda ages away.” Yup. An impossibly distant period of two weeks. Clapton’s jaw ticks uncomfortably at the prospect of the narrowing window of time. He can’t afford to screw this up.

“Right. Sure. Are you… interested in anyone in particular though?” He probes, hoping that you notice the searing spark of desperation that lingers in the loop of his irises.

“Eh. Not really. Are you?”

His ego suffers a blow at your total ignorance to his pining. He’s on the brink of combustion; unable to endure the cosmic irony of having you so close yet so far. He pictures you for the umpteenth time, glittering in a dress that matched your eyes and his tie. A slow dance to a Sting song, his eager hands situated either side of your waist. You’d stare up at him with a dazzled guise, illuminated by the scintillation of indigo disco lights, and his tongue would delve into yours as he soaked up the saccharine flavor of the fruit punch lingering on your lips.

“Yeah.” He states bluntly, staring at you as if you hung each and every star. “Yeah, I’m interested in someone.”

You raise a brow. “Oh yeah? Who?”

He clears his throat. “Someone special. Someone super special.”

“You should ask them!” “Easier said than done,” he chuckles humorlessly.

Your lips part as you go to investigate further, but are interrupted by the scowl of the lunch lady barking at you for your order. He notes it, mac and cheese plus a diet sprite— you’re handed it moments later, and your vision is torn from him and towards your small circle of friends seated across the cafeteria, who are waving you down. You’re gonna leave again?

“I better go sit down, but, uh, you should definitely ask that person to prom. Be upfront and everything. Y’know, you only live once, and all that, right?”

He swears he’s going to implode at the unbridled irony of this entire situation. Be upfront. He’s been upfront!

“You know it,” he quips weakly as you slink away.

He’s been showering you in signals for months, and you’d always abandon them, his attempts for your acknowledgement left festering as sour memories in his head, things that made him roll over with shame in bed at night, and all for what?

He brainlessly orders his doctor pepper with a monotone grumble, feeling the frigid prick of the can’s condensation gather in his palm as he wonders what the hell it’s gonna take for you to take a damn hint.

*:･.・゜゜・

After yet another failed interaction, Clapton had spent the span of the rest of the week stripping his words to the marrow. Every conversation he indulged in with you involved his inner thoughts spouted in their rawest form— cocky compliments, lingering touches, looks of intense pining and yet somehow you continued to miss them. Every. Last. One.

He was nearing his wits end, teetering on the cliff of insanity and seconds away from taking the plunge. Maybe he was the one who needed to take a hint. Maybe you were trying to tell him that you weren’t interested and he wasn’t giving it up. It was a sickening notion, one that thrashes wildly in his stomach. He didn’t know much, but he did know that he’d never be satisfied until he knew your stance on him for certain.

He was just gonna say it.

In hindsight, it wasn’t Clapton’s smartest move to deliver the question in the midst of a dodgeball game, but his thoughts were warped and he decided now was as good as ever. His voice was barely even audible beside you over the screech of tennis sneakers scraping the gym floor and the continuous sound of rubber balls coming into contact with student flesh.

“Hey!” He exclaims.

“Hey?” You say back, turning to him momentarily. Yet again, he wonders how you do it. Hair blown back effortlessly, skin glistening with a fragile sheen of moisture that is hardly off-putting, if doing something it aids to soften your otherworldly glow. Meanwhile, he was panting like an old dog, hair matted to his forehead in sodden chunks beneath his obnoxious sweatband.

“I needa ask you something!” It’s sink or swim. His teeth graze the inside of his cheek for a moment, his gaze varying between you and the opposing court, to prevent a dodgeball to the head.

“Yeah?” Sink or swim sink or swim sink or swim. “What’s up?” He melts at the sight of your semi-breathless smile.

“Are you still dateless? Like, to prom?”

Your forehead creases, and you return the sideways glance. “Um, yeah. Why?”

With a delayed exhale that rings heavy in the pits of his lungs, he turns his entire body to face you, which in turn makes you face him as well.

“Look, I’ve been trying to say this for months. Well, not months. Maybe weeks. Whatever– point is, it’s been a while. Like seriously, a long fucking time. And I swear I’ve been so obvious, but clearly not obvious enough because you’re still, like, totally unaware or whatever. But, like, basically, I was wondering— I’ve been wondering if—” “Clapton!” You exclaim hurriedly, splintering his stammered sentence in an instant. He barely has time to cast his visage front on, before a dodgeball with an extremely strayed trajectory soars gracefully through the current of the air and hits Clapton square in the face. Guess he wasn’t paying enough attention after all.

An expletive leaves his lips, muffled by the wail of your gym teacher’s whistle. His head is temporarily a warped whirlwind resembling TV static, though the feeling fades fairly quickly.

You turn to him in a mild panic, noting the faint trickle of glossy crimson that has started to spill from his nose. “Holy shit! You’re bleeding! Lemme take you to the nurse.”

He can’t help but twist his lips up to form a slight smirk as you place a worried hand on his bicep. The touch scars on his nerves, your fingers like an angel’s caress.

In all honesty, he feels fine, but you offered to take him to the nurse— was he going to give up that delightful invitation? No. He was not.

The pair of you are excused from the gym, trekking down the hallway in an atmosphere of silence so thick it’s practically tangible. Upon arrival at the nurse, Clapton’s seated in a shitty plastic chair, holding a paper towel held to his nose and tipping his head slightly backward. He couldn’t believe that his one chance of actually spitting his desperate question out was interrupted by a stray dodgeball. A goddamn stray dodgeball.

You linger in the doorframe, taut as a coiled spring. The nurse, underpaid and painfully unsympathetic, leaves the pair of you once she deems Clapton to be ‘good enough’, in her exact words.

You approach him, taking the scarlet-spotted tissue and holding it to his face for him, a gesture which turns his insides in on themselves.

“Hey Clapton? What were you saying before?”

Shit.

“What?” He croaks gutturally, trying and failing to play dumb. He knew damn well what he was saying. Prom with him.

“You were asking me something. Before you got, y’know, obliterated by a flying dodgeball.”

He snickers feebly, even if for a moment. “Oh, yeah.”

You open your eyes wider as if to say, “Well?”

The climate in the room seems to sink heavier, cradling the scent of antiseptic and drying blood. Clapton’s words fizzle out on his tongue no matter which way he arranges them in his head, but he knows he just has to get it out—- rip off the band-aid, break the ice, all of that.

His eyes, big and wide and drinking in your face so dangerously close to his, melt into an unmistakable question. He counts himself down in his head. Now or never.

“Prom. I was asking if you wanna go to prom.” He takes a staggered breath. “With me, I mean.”

Oh.

The genuine beam you erupt in subsequent to his words is enough to ease his nerves. It’s enough to make him soar, actually.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” That wasn’t a no. That wasn’t a no. His heart hurts with hope.

“I tried to. You’re just… you kinda suck at taking hints.” He chuckles.

You roll your eyes, picturing every moment leading up to this one that you spent with him. Upon further reflection—- yeah. Yeah, you clearly did. People don’t look at friends the way he looked at you.

“Shit, I kinda definitely do,” you murmur.

He doesn’t let the quiet last long.

“So…?”

“Oh. Right, yeah. Clapton, I’d love to go to prom with you.”

The smile he wears is irresistibly contagious. Finally. Finally. Two long years of craving you; two years of memorizing every quirk and curve and contour. He knows it’s sort of ridiculous to get so elated about some forgettable high school dance, but the image he can see so vividly in his head; the lights and the dress and the swarm of butterflies that comes with your killer smile… it’s worth every awkward exchange, every word that’s fallen on deaf ears.

“Seriously?” He asks, reaching for your hand and wallowing in the way you so brainlessly accept the touch.

“Seriously.”

“Good. You won’t regret it.”

And something inside you tells you that he’s absolutely right.

✩‧₊˚

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