the stars in your eyes | t.s. one shots

full eclilpse

A little giggle escapes Taylor's lips as she looks to Travis, his glasses positioned on his nose as he peers out from under the blacked out lenses. "Do I look good?"

"They match your shirt," she says, placing her hand on his chest and tugging at the place where the two sides met with black buttons. The woman eyes the fabric hanging loosely off of his chest, a yellow and orange paisley decorating the cream colored linen.

He smiles at her. "Yeah, I guess they kind of do."

"You look cute," she giggles. "The glasses suit you."

"I don't like them," Travis shakes his head, snaking his hand around her waist. "They make it difficult to see just how beautiful you are. Radiant. Glowing."

She smiles up at him. "It's only because it's darker than it usually is in the middle of the afternoon. It's like an extra golden hour."

"I don't care what it is," he tells her, pulling his glasses off of his face and pointing his phone camera toward his girlfriend. "You look gorgeous. Just like always, but especially right now. So, smile."

A blush creeps across Taylor's face as she grins for his photo, then places her own glasses on her face. "Now, put those back on before you accidentally stare at the sun."

With the solar filters covering her eyes, Taylor can't see Travis. But, she doesn't have to. She knows him well enough that she can perfectly envision the twinkle in his eye as he shifts his weight from one leg to another, standing on the rooftop of her New York City apartment, making his next cheeky remark. "Maybe I want to live life on the edge a little bit, Swift. Your security guards won't let me ride in the car with no seatbelt, but there's not much they can do about me staring at the sun, huh?"

"Oh, shut up," she shakes her head. "Put your glasses on."

"No, I'm too curious. I'm gonna look at it. There's gotta be some sort of eye surgery or something that I can get if I have to."

"Trav!" she exclaims. "No, you can't look at it." She pulls her glasses off of her face and looks at her boyfriend, who is slowly and dramatically tilting his head upwards, grasping his glasses between his fingers, several feet from his face.

He's got a big smile on his face as he's doing so, and Taylor lunges toward him, reaching up and placing her fingers over his eyes.

"Man, you really think it's a bad idea, huh?" Travis asks, looking to Taylor and raising his eyebrows.

"Yeah, I really do," Taylor laughs. "Put your stupid glasses on and look. It's cool."

He does as he's instructed, and his mouth falls open. "Whoa. Man, the video you made me watch earlier wasn't lying. The sun turns into a crescent. That's super cool, Tay."

"My PBS video made to explain an eclipse to a child would never lie to you," Taylor smirks.

If it were up to Travis, he probably would've stayed in the apartment with the curtains drawn for the eclipse, but Taylor was insistent. She said, there wasn't going to be another eclipse like this in the United States for twenty years, so they had to catch it.

She had some secret motivations too. Ones she didn't even reveal to Travis. She remembers the last time she heard about a total solar eclipse, remembers it a little too well. It was a sleepless night for her, early in the morning of December 4th, 2021. She'd been up, her eyes red and puffy with tears. The actual eclipse was nowhere near her- it was down in Antarctica. But it felt symbolic to her.

Just hours prior, she'd had her heart shattered into a million pieces. Joe hadn't even known it... but he'd broken her. For what felt like the millionth time, he'd let her down without even trying.

She'd really thought that it was going to happen. That he was going to propose to her that evening. He'd told her to go get her nails done, something cute and Christmasey, before the party that they were hosting that night. It was a Saint Nicholas Day party, a few days early. Taylor loved any excuse to celebrate around the holidays, especially with the people who were special to her. Joe loved any excuse to pop open a bottle of wine with his friends. So, they threw the party every year on the Friday closest to the holiday. It was one of their favorite days of the year.

When he'd sent her off to the nail appointment he'd made her, she thought for sure that it was coming. They'd been together for so long; they'd recently celebrated their five year anniversary. Truth of the matter was that they weren't getting any younger. But the night came and went, slipping through Taylor's fingers without even the slightest hint towards a ring.

She was devastated that he hadn't proposed, but even more, mad at herself for letting herself think that he might. It felt like every few months now, there was a day where it felt like it might be the right time for him to get down on one knee, and yet, he never did.

That night, long after he'd fallen asleep, she'd stayed up, tears running down her cheeks for what she suddenly knew would never be. It was around 3:30 in the morning when she'd seen the pictures from NASA on her Instagram feed. The eclipse in its path of totality, from Antarctica, stealing away the daylight at the time of year when the continent never experienced the dark of night.

She'd sucked in a breath of air as she'd realized the irony. She hadn't been happy for a long time with Joe, waiting around for even the slightest whiff of an intention to take the next step in their relationship. He'd stolen her daylight. He wasn't letting her shine like the sun.

The very next day, she'd shown up at Jack's apartment. She'd wordlessly gone into his kitchen, set a bottle of her favorite wine on his counter, and taken a container of raisins out of his pantry, popping a handful into her mouth.

It wasn't the first time that Jack had seen her do something like that. In fact, he was quite used to it. So, he wasn't surprised at all when she'd looked at him and finally said, "We need to write a song." That was the day they'd written 'You're Losing Me.'

The memory of those few days was burned into her brain. Being on this rooftop with Travis, laughing as he threatens to throw his glasses over the ledge and look the sun in the eye is rewriting some pretty bitter memories.

Travis would probably never have any idea how much this means to her, standing in the rays of sunlight, wrapped up in his arms as they both watch the moon pass in front of the sun. But he would still cherish the moment for years to come. It's a day that neither of them will ever forget. And that's exactly what Taylor needs.

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short but sweet <3 leave any requests in the comments!