Calum Hood One Shots

Fateful Commute

Summary: There's a handsome man who takes the same commute as her. All she does is stare at him every time until he finally approaches her.

#1: Silent Strangers

There was a man who always took the F train, same as her since she started her new job, without fail, and every time she saw him she wondered if it was possible to fall for someone from a distance. To never have said a word to them, to never have officially met them, but to just see them and deem it normal to feel a thrill run down your spine. She kept these thoughts to herself, feeling as though if she told her friends about the drop dead gorgeous man she saw on the same train every day when she was coming from and going to work and sometimes nearly missing her stop because she was too distracted by him, they would judge her.

So she kept her silent admiration as just that—silent.

She'd see him in the morning when she'd get on the train from Penn Station, always sitting with headphones in and with either a book to read or some kind of leather journal she'd see him write in, ring clad fingers always twirling a pen in between. He'd still be on the train when she got off at her stop on Rockefeller Center, and he'd be on it later in the evening, hopping off on a stop that came after Penn Station, since he'd still be on when she got off.

He was handsome which, admittedly, was the first thing that caught her attention. Dark brown hair comprised of short curls that brushed his ears and forehead, darker eyes that never left the book or journal he held, and full lips that were often victims of his thoughtfully chewing teeth. If he wasn't chewing his lip, he was absently biting on the end of his pen, and there had been occasions where she'd caught him realize what he was doing, scrunching his face in exasperation as he eyed the end of the pen before going back to writing. It was those moments where she'd seen him be the most expressive. Otherwise, his features were delicately balanced in a neutral absentness, sharp eyes too busy tracking the words he was either reading or writing to focus on anything else.

Sometimes she'd sit with some distance between them on the opposite side of the train car, maybe towards the other end. Sometimes she'd end up sitting opposite of him, the music playing loudly through her earbuds to silence the echoing clanking of the subway car. Despite her attempts to look at the advertisements above his head or watch walls whiz by in the underground tunnels, her gaze would often travel back over to him, a magnet demanding her attention. That should be worrying, shouldn't it? How every time they were on the subway together, he's all she could look at, think of? She knew nothing about him and yet he occupied her thoughts more than her work to-do list.

On a Tuesday morning, there were significant delays in the subways, underground construction obstructing people's commute to work. So the F train was packed to the brim, no places to sit and even fewer spaces to stand, but she couldn't risk waiting for another train, so she pushed herself on.

Despite the air conditioning in the car, the packed bodies heightened the heat, and she mumbled soft excuse me's to grasp a pole in the middle so her body didn't jerk with the movement of the car. She found one nearby the door she would exit from, keeping her bag close to her body as she placed her hand right under a tattooed one. When the train started moving, she looked up, and the air rushed out of her lungs almost instantly.

Her handsome subway man shared the pole with her, his tall figure looming over hers, backpack on, headphones in and dark eyes staring blankly towards the window, paying no mind to the dozens of bodies packed around them. It was unlucky that they were crammed in such a tight space; she felt like she couldn't quite breathe at their proximity, the closest they'd been, and she willed herself not to be such a pathetic mess. How could she let a total stranger have such an effect on her?