School Photo

[glorfinniel.livejournal.com]

Written for the lotrpschallenge  #16.  A tricky challenge for me, but one that I tried my best at.

Title: School Photo

Author: glorfinniel

Rating: G - very mild.  No swearing whatsoever.

Pairings:  DM/BB (obviously!), and one other that is mentioned but I'm not going to say who.  It'll (hopefully) be obvious once you read the fic :)

Summary:  A/U fic.  A school photo.  That's it.

Feedback: Yes please.  Most welcome...as welcome as Dom'n'Billy in wet suits.

This is A/U, so doesn't actually have any chance with these challenges!  But I wanted to write it and so did.  Writing is my therapy.

Click.

 

‘Just a couple more.’

 

Click.

 

‘After three.  One...two...three.’

 

Click.

 

‘One more.’

 

Click.

 

‘Ok, silly photo now!’

 

Cheers of delight erupt from the crowd.

 

Click.

 

*

 

Oh, this was going to be a classic.  Most definitely the best year photo she’s taken for the school yet.  Every year, at the same time (the end of May, one week before the exams start), she visits this school and has to take formal photographs of the head year. 

 

And every single year, without fail, she does the same thing; she takes about four sensible photographs and then one of the 50 or so students doing whatever they wish.  Never before has the result been so fantastic though.

 

She locks the door to her shop, turns the sign round so it reads ‘Closed’ to outsiders and then steps back and studies the photograph displayed on her wall.  As is the custom, she’s put the 'silly' year photo up behind the counter so that pupils can come and go as they please, take a look at the picture and laugh at the faces that their friends have pulled for the camera.

 

*

 

The first person to catch her eye is the teacher, seated on the front row in the centre.  Glasses, crisp suit and the most lovely of smiles.  Laugh lines and cool blue eyes and a transparent affection towards his pupils.  His arm is slung casually around the shoulders of a small and slight boy. 

 

This boy is obviously the same age as the other kids in the picture but his smile holds an incredible innocence.  His eyes, shockingly and beautifully blue, behind glasses also, shine with delight and contentment.

 

The next row up, and a little to the right of the photograph, a tall and slim girl is laughing.  Her head is thrown back so that her long dark hair is flung behind her shoulders.  At first, it is difficult to understand the source of her amusement but when her gaze is followed the reason for her merriment is obvious:

 

Her eyes are looking upwards, to the top row where the tallest pupils are standing.  There a boy (hair dark and curly, teeth brilliantly white) is on the back of another, seemingly perfectly happy, lad.  The one suffering from this strange (but admittedly funny) attack looks a little stunned but still smiles a gappy grin.  His fingers, however, are clutching for dear life to a small camera of his own.

 

After a little searching the class lovebirds can be found.  There’s one in every class – always has been and always will be.  This particular couple are as lovely as they come.  The boy and girl are standing right behind their teacher and the lad of the pair has his hand placed protectively on the shoulder of the aforementioned ol’ (young) blue eyes.  Even when kissing his girlfriend with a smile playing on his lips his hand rests there, reassuringly.

 

*

 

For several minutes she studies the picture, chuckling to herself whenever her gaze falls upon a humorous pose or a silly hand gesture.  It really does seem a shame that their fun cannot last a while longer.  Right this moment they’ll be (or should be) studying for their up coming exams and if they were anything like she was, they’d have little time to do anything else.

 

She begins to wonder, as her eyes continue to scan the image, whether it has sunken in for them yet.  Have they realised that their childhood is almost over?  Have they made the most of their school years?

 

She didn’t know it at the time but when she thinks back, she realises that, no matter how cliché it sounds, her school days were the best days of her life.

 

A fleeting look at her watch indicates that she’s been standing here for over half an hour.  It doesn’t really surprise her though, despite the fact that she should be back home by now.  The pictures keeps drawing her in and she wants to take in every little detail she can.

 

*

 

It is because of this insistence that she finally spots something that she had not noticed before.  It’s small, ever so subtle and at a quick glance can be overlooked completely.

 

But she sees it.

 

To the left of the picture, in the middle row, stand two boys.  They’re not particularly tall, one slightly taller than the other but being shorter than the people around them they blend in easily.

 

She’s amazed that she’s missed them for this long though because the pair of them are the most intriguing and interesting pupils out of the whole class.  She can tell that in an instant.

 

The shorter one of the two is wearing a wide smile and a look of sheer geniality.  His boyish features and sandy hair look stunning in the sunlight.  The taller one, hair a streaky blonde, is grinning cheekily.  Both are incredibly attractive and if it weren’t for those little giveaway signs, one would be forgiven for believing that they were both very much attached and with just as beautiful girlfriends.

 

Only they’re not.  She can tell that quite easily.  It’s the little things that prove this, such as the way their shoulders touch, or the fact that they are standing much closer to one another than is necessary.

 

Or maybe, just maybe, it’s because of the look of adoration in the cheeky boy’s face.  It could even be the way that they both lean inwards towards one another.  Or, quite possibly, (and most like, she muses) it is because the taller one’s hand is being held ever so tightly, his ringed fingers intertwined - interlaced - with his partner’s.