letters to dan // dan smith

Chapter 9

Most of the drive back to Dan's is spent in silence, because Beth fell asleep. Dan begins to think that maybe Beth can sleep absolutely anywhere and any time, as long as she's tired enough. Although, how Beth can be tired he doesn't know, because she'd basically slept from about four the previous day, and it's now 11 in the morning. Dan plays music quietly, tapping the steering wheel in time to the beat. At one point, about half an hour away from Dan's, Beth finally wakes up.

"Hello there sleeping beauty," Dan smiles, keeping his eyes on the road.

"Hey," she mumbles sleepily, "what's the time?"

"About half twelve, we're half an hour away from my place."

Beth nods, fiddling with her phone.

"Miss anything interesting?" Dan asks, noticing how her eyes are fixated on her phone.

"Oh, not really... Well, Ian and Jon left To Kill A King, but you probably already knew that?" She asks.

"Oh, yeah. They wanted to go solo or something. They've got guys to replace them though..." Dan trails off, switching lanes and narrowly avoiding colliding with another car.

"Are they nice?" Beth prompts.

"Hmm? Oh yeah, they're nice blokes and all but..."

"But?"

"Don't worry."

***

Back at Dan's place, Beth cooks eggs while Dan sits at the table and chatters about some new video the band's working on.

"And we're filming it in an old motel and it's all spooky and it looks like it's gonna be wicked," Dan grins like a toddler who's just been handed a lollipop.

"That sounds pretty great," Beth laughs, smiling at Dan's expression.

"You should come along! Check out the set and everything, it's awesome. And the guys will be there, they really liked you. Woody won't shut up about you, although it's mainly teasing me because I keep talking about you and--"

"Aww Daniel, you cutie!" Beth coos teasingly, placing a plate of eggs in front of Dan, before kissing him on the top of his head.

Dan blushes and looks down at his plate. Beth sits opposite him and starts shovelling toast and eggs into her mouth.

"Hungry are we?" Dan says, wiggling his eyebrows.

"Oh, shush."

Dan's phone starts ringing and he glances at it.

"Sorry, I gotta take this, it's my manager," he says, pressing the answer button, and going out onto the balcony. Beth sits at the table for a while longer, before remembering an event from the previous day. She jumps up and scampers into Dan's room, grabbing her bag on the way.

She sits beside his wardrobe, mentally preparing herself for what she's about to do. It isn't technically stealing, is it? She's just taking back some of what's rightfully hers.

She pulls out the box of letters and starts searching through it, pulling out every letter that was written before March of this year, before she had moved to London with Elsa and started her life over, chosen to forget everything that had happened. She knew that after she'd moved to London, she had never mentioned any of her previous life, using the letters to record her day to day life more than anything. So she was fine with Dan seeing those, just not anything before that.

She hears Dan say goodbye and hang up, and then she hears him enter the kitchen. Estimating that she has about six seconds to put everything away, she stuffs the letters in her bag, shoves the remainder back in his wardrobe and stands up just as Dan enters.

"What are you doing?" He asks suspiciously.

"I, um... I was cold so I wanted to grab a hoody," she says, thinking fast. Thankfully, Dan believes her and nods.

"Hoodies are in the top draw," he tells her, gesturing over at the chest of drawers on the opposite side of the room.

Beth smiles in thanks, crosses the room and takes a hoody. When she puts it on, she realises it goes almost half way down to her knees.

"God, Daniel, you are really extraordinarily tall," she grins up at his, rolling the sleeves up.

"No, you're just extraordinarily short," he pokes her.

"Hey! Don't insult the height issue!" She starts chasing him around the flat, but ends up falling on her face and hitting her chin on the wooden floors. At first, Dan laughs, but when he realises she's hurt, he quickly comes over and helps her sit up.

"You okay?" He asks, looking at her chin, which seems to be bleeding.

"Yeah, I'm okay, just a klutz. I think my chin's bleeding, although it doesn't hurt."

Dan pulls her up and leads her to the kitchen.

"Sit," he commands, pointing at the bench.

Beth obliges and sits swinging her legs. Dan pulls out a first aid kit, and rummages through it, pulling out some creme and a box if bandaids and walks back over to Dan.

"Stop swinging your legs, you'll kick me," he tells Beth, putting a hand on her knees. She does what he says, and when he lifts her head to get a better look at her chin, she doesn't resist.

"This may sting a bit," Dan warns as he dabs the antiseptic ointment on her chin, leaning in close to see what he's doing. He's so close, Beth could pout just a little bit and her lips would touch his nose, which she does. Dan blushes madly, but continues sticking on the bandaid. When he finishes, he puts his thumb under her chin and admires his handiwork, before lifting her head further and pressing his lips gently to hers.

Almost automatically, Beth arm's wrap around Dan's neck and she kisses him back. After only five or so seconds, Dan pulls away.

"Always the tease ey?" She pouts.

"Yeah, you could say that... shorty." Dan smirks, jumping out of the way as Beth's arms swing around, trying to hit him.

"I will tickle you Beth," Dan warns, but she keeps trying.

Dan spreads his fingers and wiggles them, and then Beth realises he's serious and jumps off the bench running in the direction of the bedroom. Dan chases after her, laughing at her squeals of fear. In the bedroom Beth jumps on the bed, hoping to escape Dan's tickling, but to no avail. Dan grabs her and pulls her down onto the bed, pinning her down and sitting on her legs.

"You know what naughty girls get?" He asks lowly.

"Please don't tickle me!" She gasps, trying to escape Dan's grasp.

"I wasn't going to," he smirks, before kissing her once more, harder than he'd ever done, leaving Beth absolutely breathless.