𝐌𝐎𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐄 | a. butler

twenty-eight.

𝐀𝐔𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐍 had thankfully calmed down enough for me to wipe the smudged makeup and tears away; allowing me to get rid of the character and have a glimpse of Austin. Of course, he had the leather suit and sideburns on, but underneath all that was this scared little boy that wanted nothing more than to be comforted. And I was happily the one to bring that sense of comfort to him.

He kept on saying sorry to me to which I threatened to smack him with my shoe if he said it again; that was his last 'sorry' for a while. It was a good decision; don't underestimate the power of being smacked by a shoe. That shits traumatizing.

I sat on the edge of the vanity table with Austin seated between my legs in his chair. I had a black eyeliner pen in one hand with the other delicately tucked under his chin, angling his head toward me so I had a good view of where I was putting the eyeliner.

I managed to not stab him in the eye yet, but I was close to doing so when I felt his hands slowly rest over my thighs; his fingers splaying mindlessly over the clothed flesh. I tried to not let it affect me but I was this close to folding over and disintegrating into thin air. Like a Minecraft character dying-falling over and then turning into the floating white specks as the sound plays out.

It had been quiet between us, no words needing to be spoken as we were comfortable in the tranquillity of the moment. Well, that was until I mumbled; "I want to eat a coconut."

I noticed his gaze drop down from the ceiling to look at me, but I didn't meet his eyes as I was too focused on tracing the black liner over his waterline. He was no doubt amused by the sudden randomness of what I said, but he said nothing about it, thank God. By now he was used to me randomly saying something totally irrelevant, it made me like him even more because he never judged me about it. Usually, I would keep my random thoughts to myself, but with him, I made an exception.

"Have you ever had one?" He asked, his voice soft and tangled with a heavy southern drawl-intensifying it as a way to prepare for filming in a little bit.

"No," My voice was whisper-like.

I noticed his smile return. "Me either," He matched my whisper-like tone.

I grinned and pulled the eyeliner pen away from his face so I could inspect my work. Pretty good. Pretty decent. I'd totally give myself a gold medal for that. My leaning body drew back, away from him to give ourselves some distance since we had been very close.

"Well, Honey, how does it look?" He asked with a lazy smile and his thumb brushed unconsciously back and forth over the side of my thigh.

I couldn't get over the way he said 'honey' with his accent, I assumed it was something he called a lot of women he knew-friendly or romantically-but either way, catch me with a microphone in my mouth saying "Lord have Mercy" at my next concert because that was how Austin made me feel.