Take Flight

The Garden

If anything about and around Angelina had amazed you before, what you open your eyes to goes even beyond. You take a step back, your eyes wide open and you lips slightly parted as you break the kiss.

Paradise. A paradise of colors. The most luxurious yet wild and beautiful landscape you have ever seen. The red, the yellow, the green explode in front of your eyes, the most beautiful colors dancing in harmony in this Safe Heaven. The flowers and leaves seem to fly around you, teasing you, and you can almost hear the exotic birds singing, ready to pass you by any second. The magical feeling that invades you is ineffable, this perfect mix of reality and imagination, however real it all seems.

Only now you realize exactly what you are standing on and under. You take a few careful steps towards the closest barrier just as if you were too scared to break the marble-like floor. Your fingers linger on the white material for a few seconds before you turn around to face Angelina again, your amazement painted all over your face, if not on your whole body.

"You like it ?" she asks teasingly.

"This is why you said you weren't proposing and I shouldn't worry ?"

"I remember saying I wasn't proposing today," she answers, emphasizing the last word with a grin.

"You also said murder would come in time," you nervously joke, trying to ignore your heart stopping in your chest, "I don't know how I should take this."

Angelina's jaw drops just a bit, showing her slight disconcertment, before she bursts into laughters, walking straight towards you to hug you and softly kiss your forehead.

"I was only gonna murder you if you didn't like my garden."

"I only like the gazebo. Now I'm gonna fear a proposal every time I'm gonna come under this."

"Don't be scared of it honey, marriage isn't that terrible I promise."

She makes you spin so as to hug you from the back and rest her head on your shoulder.

"Thank you," you whisper in a breath.

"What for darling ?"

"For warning me that this wasn't a proposal. I would've thought so if you hadn't. I mean, just open your eyes being in the perfect gazebo to..."

She cuts you off by putting her hand on your mouth, making you both laugh uncontrollably. You turn around and try to get rid of her but she's stronger than you and her fingers seem to be glued on your face.

"Don't mess with Lara Croft," she very much seriously drops out of nowhere, making the two of you laugh so much that she can't help letting you go.

"I'm sorry Miss Croft, this won't happen again."

Angelina's face yet not sad or angry gets serious back again, and you expect another joke after the laughs you just shared but she asks you again :

"What for ?"

Your own jaw drops and you shake your head, unsure of what to answer.

"I know you were serious when you thanked me, I can tell now, I didn't always but now I can. It's okay, it's me, you can tell me."

Her eyes are bewitching. Begging for truth and trust.

"Just for everything. No, don't talk Angelina. I mean it. You changed my life, I... Just thank you for being here, for being by my side, for loving me, I... I never thought I would find someone for me, I didn't even want to, and I didn't even know you, and now..." you choke as tears start filling your eyes.

Angelina puts her hands on your face, cupping your cheeks, caressing your skin, her fingers ready to wipe out the tears threatening to roll out of your eyes. She has this warm smile plastered on her face that makes your heart melt in less than a second and you almost give up on keeping the tears from flowing.

"I love you."

You nervously chuckle through your tears and she softly laughs back, stroking your face with her finger, her eyes planted in yours

"I do, I love you. I will never leave you. You make my life better. You make me better. I should be the one thanking you. I would've never thought I'd let anyone meet my son so fast, because yes it still seems fast to me, but you just feel so right... I feel like this was meant to be. I was meant to be completely wasted and you completely sober that night."

"I was stoned," you answer in a shaky laughter.

"Right," she laughs back, "But you could walk straight without puking every two steps."

"I could yes indeed."

Your laughters are louder now and your tears are drying. You feel warm and beyond happy in Angelina's arms. She the first one to come down and rests her forehead on yours.

"I love you."

"I love you too. But I love your garden more."

She steps away from you with a fake shocked look on her face, but the beginning of a laughter already peaking through her throat.

"Don't say things like that or you're gonna get wet real quick. And I don't mean that in the way you just thought of your fucking naughty girl, I mean dropped in the swimming pool over there that you can't see."

Your heart races in your chest when you hear the word pool come out of Angelina's mouth. She picks you up from the back and you try your best to get rid of her embrace but in vain. Being skinny might look good, being toned is more useful, which Angelina obviously noticed earlier than you did.

"You're Lara Croft, this is cheating !"

The only answer you get is a laughter.

"Mama !"

A small voice make both of you shut up and Angelina gets you back on the ground not without a chuckle.

"Well. Time's up."

She walks towards her son and picks him up, making him fly around before holding him close to her, looking right at him, in his small brown eyes.

"Y/N loved the garden honey. Isn't that great ?"

"This is paradise," you whisper.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
IK IK I SAID ID WRITE MORE
well sorry but lockdown is way different this year lmao but yeah i'm maybe just lazy a trying to find an excuse
also it's working out w this girl i like- i'm just- okay bye-
hope you liked this shit i wrote it so that you can imagine your own paradise exotic garden, unlike the apartment i had described pretty accurately
-lou~