#uber fluffy

[naughty-bruce-springsteen]

[ofendlesswonder]

Alone Together

Prompt: Since Emily is afraid of horses an emison go horseback riding fic would be so cute

“I really don’t think this is a good idea, Ali,” Emily says worrying at her bottom lip as she pulls into a parking space at the riding school, and she’s already regretting letting Alison talk her into coming out here and she hasn’t even gotten out of the car yet.

“It’s an excellent idea,” Alison replies, smiling reassuringly at Emily from the passenger seat, but it does nothing to assuage the worry gnawing at Emily’s gut. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”

“When I said that you could decide our next date, I didn’t think it’d involve… this.” Emily casts a glance out of her window, sees a handful of horses dotted around the fields and wants to throw up. “Can we please do something else?”

“You don’t need to be scared, Em,” Alison says gently, taking one of Emily’s hands in her own and playing with her fingers lightly.

“Yes I do,” she replies immediately, because how can she not be scared of an animal that’s bigger and wider and a dozen times stronger than her? How can she be told that it’s safe to sit on its back? “Because horses are terrifying.”

“They’re not.” Emily just nods emphatically, and Alison sighs, drawing absent patterns across the back of Emily’s hand. “You’re not… It’s not because of what happened last time, is it?” Emily pales at the memory, the one and only time she’d been around horses before Spencer had dragged her out to that farm in the middle of nowhere a few weeks ago (and she’d nearly been trampled to death). “That was… an anomaly.”

“You could’ve died.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” Alison says with a huff and a roll of her eyes, but Emily can still remember the panic clawing its way up her throat when she’d seen Alison fall from the horse and smash into the ground, can still hear the sound of her body impacting with the earth. “I was fine.”

“You were hurt.”

“But I was fine.” Their eyes lock, and Alison’s gaze turns pleading. “Please, Em, I’ve always wanted this, to share this with someone. Please.” Emily thinks that, were Hanna here, she’d whisper ‘whipped’ under her breath and Emily would roll her eyes but secretly agree, because she finds herself nodding even though she doesn’t want to, even though what she really wants to do is turn the car around and drive back home, but it’s almost worth her fear when she sees the beautiful smile that spreads across Alison’s face.

Almost.

“You’ll have fun, I promise.” Emily’s sure that she won't, but she follows Alison out of the car anyway, allowing the blonde to take her hand and drag her towards the office, letting Alison do all the talking while she jumps at every little noise.  

“Is she okay?” The receptionist asks eventually, eyeing Emily with concern when a horse whinnies on the yard and the brunette nearly has a heart attack.

“She’s fine,” Alison assures the woman, who doesn’t look convinced, but she takes their money and ushers them through the door and onto the yard anyway, and a different woman leads them towards one of the stables.

Emily glances inside nervously as Alison speaks, and the horse within is chomping on a pile of hay, but watches Emily with wise brown eyes. It’s big, the brunette can tell that even from outside, and it has a smooth black coat, a white patch on its head.

“You okay to get him ready yourselves?” Emily tunes back into Alison’s conversation in time to hear her reassure the woman that they’ll be fine, and she directs them to where the tack is kept and Emily is content to just stand back as Alison gets to work, disappearing and re-appearing with a bridle while Emily just keeps peering at the animal in the stable and wondering why the hell she’d agreed to this idea.

“You look like you’re going to pass out,” Alison says with a smirk as she unlocks the horses stable and waltzes inside, and Emily watches as she stretches a hand towards the animal to sniff before patting its neck.

“I feel like I’m going to.” She watches Alison slip the reins over the horses head before pulling on the bridle, moving with sure movements while Emily just watches in awe. “How long has it been since you’ve done this?”

“A while,” Alison shrugs as she does up all the buckles, and then she’s leading the horse out of the stable and Emily flattens herself against the wall as the animal passes and Alison rolls her eyes. “You know they can sense fear.”

“Which is why I’m staying far away.”

“Come here,” Alison says, reaching out the hand that isn’t clutching the reins and dragging a reluctantly Emily over. She has to pry Emily’s hand from her side, where it’s in a fist, to thrust it in-front of the horse’s nose, and warm breath tickles her palm and Emily’s heart is in her mouth. “This is Magic,” Alison murmurs, and Emily reaches her other, shaking hand, to stroke along Magic’s neck. “See? Not so scary, is it.”

“Pretty scary,” Emily squeaks as the horse heaves out a huge sigh, and she quickly snatches her hand back, and Alison laughs. “Don’t,” she pouts at the blonde, and Alison tries to hide her smile instead but just fails miserably. “You’re mean.”

“You knew what you signed up for when you agreed to date me, babe,” Alison replies easily, but she darts forward to press her lips against Emily’s for a brief second. “Come on, we need to find you a hat that fits.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Emily says hastily, “I didn’t agree to get on board. I thought you were.”

“We both are,” Alison says simply, leading the horse over to a nearby wall that houses several dozen hats. “Here, try this one.”

“But I don’t know what I’m doing!”

“You put it on your head and do up the buckle.” Emily glares at her girlfriends joke. “Kidding. I’m going to be right there with you, okay? Don’t you think it’s romantic? A horseback ride through the forest?”

“Romantic? No. Terrifying? Yes.” Alison rolls her eyes, a hat already on her head, and Emily sighs, knowing that she’s gone too far to back out of this now – and besides, she could never really bring herself to disappoint Alison. “Is it even safe to have two people on a horse?”

“Perfectly safe.” Emily finds a hat that fits, and Alison taps the side of it gently. “You look adorable.”

“And I feel ridiculous.” Alison leads the horse away and over to a block on the floor, and nods for Emily to stand on it. “Doesn’t it need something on its back for me to sit on?”

“Usually, but two people aren’t going to fit on one saddle easily, now come on, just put one hand here,” the blonde indicates a spot inbetween the horses shoulders. “And swing your leg over.”

“Like it’s easy,” Emily mutters back as she climbs on the block and looks with trepidation at the height she still has to lift her leg by.

“You’re an athlete, Em,” Alison says with a hint of exasperation, and Emily takes a deep breath before resting her hand on the horse’s back and using it to hold her weight as she swings a leg over his back, and she’s actually kind of amazed that she doesn’t just tip right over the other side. “See? Wasn’t so hard, was it?”

She’s still kind of terrified, because she’s awfully far off the ground, but the horse is a steady and solid weight beneath her, and maybe this won't be so bad after all. Alison is behind her a moment later, her front pressing against Emily’s back as she reaches around the brunette to take the reins.

“Tell me if you want to stop at any point, okay?” Alison asks, her voice in Emily’s ear, and the brunette nods, a little of her nervousness coming back – she nearly stops breathing when the horse moves beneath them, the rocking movement foreign, and it’s only the feeling of Alison wrapped around her, making sure that she doesn’t fall, that keeps her calm.

“How did you even get them to agree to this?” Emily asks as the blonde leads them away from the stables and along one of the trails that spider out from the central part where the horses are kept. “I didn’t even know you could have two people on one horse.”

“Have you never seen a movie?” Alison asks with a soft chuckle, resting her chin on Emily’s shoulder. “And I can be very persuasive when I need to be. You know that.”

“Well yeah, because there’s no way I’d be up here if you weren’t.” It’s actually kind of nice, now that some of her fear is lessened – the movement of Magic beneath her is still a little weird, and she feels off-balance pretty much every other step, but she doesn’t think she’s going to fall, and walking through the woods is kind of cool, the trees pressing on either side of the track and shutting out the outside world.

“Want a lesson?” Alison murmurs a little while later, and Emily tentatively nods, and Alison pulls Magic gently to a stop. “Okay, take the reins from me.”

“But I don’t…”

“Don’t worry,” Alison assures her as she cups her hands around the back of Emily’s, shows her the right way to hold them. “He’s probably done this trail a thousand times; he knows where he’s going.”

Emily threads the reins through her fingers, and Alison’s breath is hot in her ear. “Don’t hold them too tightly,” she says softly, “but you should still be able to feel the contact with his mouth.” Emily nods, and Alison urges the horse on gently with her legs, her hands resting lightly on Emily’s waist, ready to take over if she needed to.

“You need to keep your back straight.” A hand lands on Emily’s stomach and her breath catches in her throat the same way it does whenever Alison touches her, and she can feel the heat from the blonde’s fingertips even through her shirt. “And look straight ahead, don’t keep looking down.”

She isn’t sure how she feels, to know that she’s in control of an animal several times bigger than her, and she can't quite bring herself to relax completely. Alison keeps up a stream of idle chatter in her ear, and it’s nice, to spend time alone with her like this, where she’s so carefree and relaxed and Emily finds herself glad that she’d agreed to this, because it’s worth it to see Alison so happy.

“This is actually kind of fun,” she admits to Alison when she knows that they’re nearing the stable block, their circuit of the woods complete, and she hears Alison’s mock gasp beside her ear and makes a face that she knows the blonde can't see.

“Emily Fields, admitting that she was wrong? Never.”

“Hey, I admit it all the time,” she retorts with a scoff, “it’s you that doesn’t. God forbid Alison DiLaurentis admit that she made a mistake.” When they pass through the line of trees and Magic starts to automatically head back towards his home, Emily’s surprised to feel a tinge of disappointment in her gut. The horse stops outside of the stable they’d gotten him from, and Emily releases her hold on the reins with Alison’s urging, and when she next looks down the blonde’s there, patting the horse’s neck fondly. “Um, how do I get off?”

“I know from experience that you know perfectly well how to that,” Alison says with a wicked smirk, and Emily frowns, confused, before she realizes the double-meaning behind her words and flushes.

“Not like that,” she replies, appalled, but Alison just bites her lip to hide her smile. “Seriously, help me or I’m going to be stuck up here forever.”

“Alright, alright. Lean forward a little and swing your right leg back over his back and just sort of… slide down ‘til you hit the floor.”

“That is not a helpful explanation.”

“Well, it’s the only one I got.” Emily doesn’t move, suddenly scared once more because getting on the horse had seemed easy but getting down does not. “Em, come on. I’ll catch you if you fall, I promise.”

She does nearly fall, forgetting how high up she was – when she hits the floor she’s surprised by the impact and stumbles, but Alison’s there, a hand on her lower back steadying her, and her legs sort of feel like jelly now that she’s back on solid ground.

“So, are we coming back next week?” Alison teases as she takes Magic back into his stable and takes the bridle off, and Emily just shakes her head because sure, she’d had fun but not that much fun, and if this becomes a regular occurrence it might just lead to her premature death.

“Um, no,” she says and Alison laughs, producing a packet of mints from her pocket and holding one under Magic’s nose for him to eat. “And next time we go on a date, I am choosing where we go.”