I'll Protect You (Re-Edit #2, 2016)

We should totally just stab Caesar

dedicated to J E S S I C A, aka little miss pseudonym. ou have no idea how much I appreciate having you as a friend on this site. thanks for the b e a u t i f u l  banner, love, as well as sticking through with me on this site. love -- knee

also, do yourselves all a favor and watch the video, please

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Park

My friends, there are many surprises in the world. They happen every day, every hour, every minute. They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, in different degrees of action, in all lengths of sentences. 

There are good surprises and there are bad ones. 

Good surprises are winning free VIP concert tickets to see Fall Out Boy. You're now engaged to the love of your life. You won a free trip to Disneyland. 

Bad surprises are finding out you had homework and class starts in five minutes. It's your anniversary and it turns out your partner decided to celebrate with someone else. In bed. 

I honestly don't know how to group the surprise of kissing Alec Darkwood but I think I'll chuck it into my pile of Unexpected and Totally Unwanted Surprises. 

My fingers clenched into fists as I prepared to punch him in the eye, but Darkwood murmured against my lips, "Play along."

One of his hands snaked around my waist and tugged me against him while the other came to rest upon my neck, and he tilted his head to deepen the kiss. 

Play along for what? I thought frantically as I tried to figure out what the hell was happening around me. First, Elijah closes down his coffee shop despite the fact that we had a fully functioning espresso machine. That's bad business. Suddenly, I now had Darkwood invading my personal space.

Our little moment ended when we heard the bell attached to the door ring. Darkwood quickly let go of me and we sprang apart, my fingers flying to my lips while he wiped his against the back of his hand. 

"Well," he coughed, "I am never doing that again."

My fist shot straight towards his nose but Darkwood managed to dodge it at the last second, and he grabbed my wrist. Thanks to my traitorous cousin, my arms were pinned behind my back while Darkwood took several steps backward. 

"Don't just kiss me out of the blue like that! You can't do that! I don't know what kind of customs that place had, but there's no kissing here!" I snapped. 

"I did it for you, you bloody idiot," he grumbled. "Is this the thanks I get for being a great friend?"

"I didn't want a kiss!"

"Obviously, Sparrow. I didn't do it because I thought you wanted to have a make-out session with me. I did it show Logan something."

The confusion behind his logic stumped me and my struggle against Elijah's vice-like grip weakened. "Show Logan what?" I asked. "What could kissing me possibly show?"

"I'm showing how much it hurts to see someone you care for be in someone else's arms," Darkwood answered. It seemed hard for him to explain his reasoning for his actions. Judging by the pink on his cheeks and his downward casted gaze, it wasn't just difficult--it was embarrassing. 

"You know," Elijah spoke up, "I'm going to go fix the espresso machine." But instead, he pushed open the door leading up to his studio apartment located above the coffee shop. I sent a silent prayer for Elijah's consideration. Darkwood had a harder time talking when there were people around, so now it was just him, me, and Michael Bublé playing softly in the background.