the first red light - part one
hello babies! here is a little new shenanigan i've been working on. initially, it was going to be a one shot but i feel like a multi-parter fits it. this will at most be like four parts, i think. either way, i hope you enjoy!
rowaelin // 2.4k words // masterlist // ko-fi
May
For reasons unbeknownst to him, Rowan Whitethorn had been watching Aelin Galathynius all night.
They had never been very close; all of their hangouts included their entire friend group. The two had never been alone for more than a handful of minutes, and their conversations usually leaned more toward bickering than anything else. They did, however, have a tendency to meet each other’s eyes across the table when someone said something particularly stupid, resulting in the two of them hiding secret smiles into their cocktails or behind their hands. It was one end or the other with them: vague annoyance by the other’s presence or secret jokes meant only for them.
Aelin had been a wildfire when they first met. The energy she radiated seemed to glow and was contagious to everyone in her vicinity. Even if you didn’t like Aelin Galathynius, you couldn’t deny the pull toward her. Rowan could speak on this from personal experience. In the beginning, he had found her boisterous personality irritating, yet he would find himself stifling laughter at her jokes or watching her dance from across the room.
It didn’t matter if she wanted it; the woman was almost always the center of attention. It was always Aelin dancing on the bar and pulling Lysandra up next to her or Aelin smothering Elide in New Year’s Eve kisses the year Manon didn’t make it home. Everyone had pictures of and with Aelin crowding their camera rolls, and in most of them, she was dead center with something wicked in her smile and embers crackling in her eyes.
Lately, however, she had fallen into the edges of the group. Rowan wasn’t sure how everyone else failed to notice how she had withdrawn into herself, how she was no longer screaming the lyrics to Don’t Stop Me Now while twirling on the bar, inches away from falling into a heap on the floor. These days she was too damn quiet, and it bothered Rowan more than it should have.
Being her twenty-fifth birthday, he had expected her to be difficult to tame all night. Last year she drone on and on about how over the top she would be on this day. He distinctly remembered her and Lysandra scrolling through various clothing sites once they were too drunk to dance anymore, loudly declaring “That’s the one!” more than once.
On his way to their favorite bar, he had been turning over images of Chaol or Aedion carrying her to the car, thrown over a shoulder while she giggled wildly one minute and complained about the stars spinning the next. That was exactly how last year had ended, everyone cheering when Chaol drove out of the parking lot with the golden blonde blowing kisses from the passenger seat.
Tonight she had a hot pink banner declaring her the birthday queen draped around her torso. Instead of being in her usual get-up of an ostentatious sequin mini dress and six-inch heels, she wore ripped jeans and a white blouse with wing-like sleeves. It wasn’t even too deeply cut; hardly any cleavage could be seen. Not that Rowan was looking– last year’s dress had her chest on such display that he had only been able to say “Wow.” Aelin had winked, shimmying her shoulders, and said, “I’ve got it, so I’ll flaunt it.” And then she was sashaying through the crowd to reach the bar, her entire back exposed. Rowan had spent too much time performing the mental gymnastics to figure out how a dress could stay on her body when it was made of so little fabric.
It was beyond him how nobody else had picked up on this shift in demeanor. Or maybe they had and were ignoring it until it became an issue large enough for an intervention of sorts. Everyone was allowed bad days, after all. Maybe it was just a bad day.
Her dazzling blue and gold eyes were focused on the ring on her left hand, her thumb moving back and forth over the white gold band. The single stone glittered as she wiggled it about. It looked like she was nearing a frown, but was holding it back. Everyone was a few drinks deep, Rowan himself on his third beer, but Aelin had been nursing the same cocktail from an hour ago. The ice was almost completely melted down, and she grimaced with each little sip, lips pursing around the little black straw. When he glanced back up at her eyes, they were on him. They were slightly narrowed, and her brow was furrowed, silently asking him what the fuck he was doing staring at her.
Rowan merely shrugged, bringing his glass to his lips and taking a sip as he leaned back in his chair to survey the crowd. Most of the girls were dancing, save Lysandra, who was perched at Aelin’s side. Aedion was kicking everyone’s ass at darts, save for Lorcan, who wiped the floor on a nightly basis. Nobody has ever beat him except Aelin, but she claimed it wasn’t her cup of tea. Rowan knew it was probably because of the satisfaction of beating him one single time, never giving him a chance at a rematch, and it drove the dark man absolutely insane.
With one last glance at the birthday girl, Rowan left the table and approached his friends to, hopefully, give Lorcan a run for his money. He was feeling lucky, but that could have been the whiskey talking. The neon lights shone down on them, bathing them in hues of white, blue, red, and green. A single warm light was pointed directly at the dart board, making it easier to find the mark. For the first time in a while, Rowan managed to beat Lorcan in the first round, which led to the brute demanding more, more, more.
The hours passed as quickly as the darts they threw, surprising him when he checked his phone and saw it was nearing four a.m. The sun would soon be cresting over the eastern skyline again. Still, the parking lot was completely dark except for the single shoddy light that flickered in the corner. Rowan’s buzz had faded, but as he neared the table, he realized that Aelin’s had not. At some point, she had taken to drinking again, several cups in various shapes and sizes littering the table. Her golden hair was splayed across it, probably soaking up bits of alcohol and food crumbs. The thought made Rowan frown, an expression Aelin returned without lifting her head from where it lay.
“My legs don’t work,” she informed him, words slurring together beneath a heavy sigh. A dark red fingernail swirled invisible pictures over the wood, occasionally catching a bit of condensation from a glass to leave a swirling path behind.
“At all?”
“Barely,” she grumbled, propping a squished cheek on her fist. As much as he hated to admit it, she looked adorable. And nothing like her usual drunk self.
Rowan couldn’t help but notice that Chaol wasn't anywhere to be seen. He had been on Aelin duty for the last several years when everyone got too drunk. Now was about the time he was usually wrangling her into the front seat of the car, tucking her feet in before closing the door while she tried to yell out the window.
“Where’s–”
“Never showed up.” Aelin huffed, a tuft of her hair blowing up and out. She sat up and propped her chin in her hand. The gesture made her cheek squish and her lips pout out. Golden strands of her were messy around her face. Her eyes dimmed as she eyed the table, tapping a fingernail against the rough surface. “Can you just take me home?”
“Do you want to say goodnight to everyone?”
“I’m just tired,” she said, grabbing her purse and shoving her phone into it without a second glance. “I’ll send Aedion a text.”
“I– yeah. Okay. I’ll take you home.”
Aelin struggled to stand, her feet wobbling and her knees locking up. Rowan swooped in with an arm around her waist, her’s immediately falling around his neck. Her fingers tangled into the air at the nape of his neck for a brief moment. The fingernails against his skin sent goosebumps all over his body, a shiver running up and down his spine.
Nobody seemed to notice as they left, slipping out the door as the bartender shouted for last call. Several groans chased them out of the building before the early morning silence encased them completely. The only sounds to be heard were bugs chirping in the woods surrounding the bar and a random car speeding down the street. Rowan rolled his eyes while he helped her to his car, opening his Jeep door and helping her inside. He took care with her head, covering it with his hand while he nudged her in and buckled her seatbelt. Aelin gave him a forced half-smile, slouched down a bit in the chair and rested her head back against the seat.
By the time he got to the other side and started the car, her eyes were closed. Even the closing of his door, the starting of the engine, nor the music flowing through the speakers almost too loud roused her. Rowan reached over and shook her knee a bit to get her attention, but her head just rolled the other way and she sighed. This girl that was merely an acquaintance on a good day was snoozing in his passenger seat, and he had no fucking idea where she lived.
Despite knowing that she would kick his ass for it, he felt bad for her. There had been such a heavy sadness in her eyes when he found her at the table. He hadn’t ever seen her like that. Of all the people in the world to be sad on their birthday, Aelin Galathynius didn’t even make the list. Yet tonight she hadn’t been dancing, hadn’t been singing the songs at the top of her lungs, and hadn’t been the usual cheery drunk he knew her to be. Instead, Aelin had been a shell of herself.
Rowan was still contemplating if anyone had noticed or if they were choosing to ignore it. Maybe they had all been threatened by the blonde to carry on as usual. It was the only thing that made sense. The only other person Rowan really noticed watching Aelin, from a distance so she wouldn’t yell at him most likely, was Aedion. Everyone else seemed too lost in their alcohol induced haze, partying like they did on every other occasion. Surely they’d all noticed that Aelin wasn’t spinning in circles with them, her bright laughter carrying over the music.
Sighing, he turned out onto the street and began to drive. He didn’t know where he was going, just up and down the familiar streets of the city he had lived in his entire adult life. Before pulling out of the parking lot he’d shot off a few texts to their friends. No one had responded with her address yet. It wouldn’t surprise him if their phones were dead from all the pictures they’d taken into the wee hours of the morning. He fully expected to see his instagram littered with party posts, yet doubted he would see Aelin front and center in any of them.
As tired as his eyes were, he kept driving. Left at the green light, right at the red. It had rained at sojme point in the night and his tires slicing through the damp street was the only sound after he muted the radio. He slipped between lanes and a handful of straggler cars either on an early commute or heading home from a late night. Yellow lights winked at him in areas he needed to slow down and watch for pedestrians. There weren’t any, but he yielded all the same. Driving with Aelin asleep in the passenger seat was the most careful he had driven in a long time.
It must have been over an hour before the sun began to rise while he drove east. Dusty blue hues changed to golden light and he turned around to drive the other direction, desperate to get the sun out of her eyes, but it was too late. With a heavy inhale, Aelin brought her hands to her eyes to rub the sleep away. She looked over at Rowan and gave a sheepish smile, one that told him she was definitely still drunk and insanely tired.
“Where are we?”
“I know you live downtown, but I didn’t know where. So I’ve just… been driving until you woke up.”
“Why didn’t you just wake me?” There was amusement and a tinge of laughter in her sleepy voice. He wasn’t sure why but it soothed something inside of him, like maybe she was still in there after all.
“I tried. No dice, clearly.”
“You’re actually not too far. Take a right up here. It’s the Staghorn building on the left.” Now that she said it, something flicked in his memory about his friends mentioning she lived there. Rowan had never been to her place, though.
They were, in fact, just around the corner. It took three minutes to pull up in front of her massive apartment building. Aelin took a moment to gather her purse off the floor, sifting through it to make sure she had everything. Then, when she looked over at him, she grinned widely. It was so blindingly beautiful that he almost looked away, but couldn’t. That was the golden thing about Aelin.
“I’ve never been able to handle beer. That’s why I stick to mixed drinks. Beer makes me such a sad drunk,” she laughed, smile no longer reaching her eyes. He wondered if she knew that he wasn’t buying it. Most likely not. Aelin was a chameleon, extremely good at showing people what they wanted to see. But Rowan also knew that Aelin hadn’t had a single beer all night. Instead of pointing it out, he smiled softly at her and nodded. As she opened the door she paused, looking at him over her shoulder and said, “Thank you for this. Next one’s on me.”
And before he could say anything else, she was slipping out of the seat and shutting the door behind her. His car idled softly while he made sure she got inside the front doors okay, the doorman smiling and greeting her like they were old friends. Aelin dug through her purse for her keys as she crossed the threshold, grasping the correct one like it was her lifeline.
Rowan didn’t miss that once she was inside, she paused, shoulders sagging like her mask slipped off and she carried the weight of the world.
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