"The Sound of You and Me"

by: singyourmelody

Disclaimer: Don't own Austin & Ally characters. A few musical disclaimers: story title is from "The Sound of You and Me" by Yellowcard. This section's title is taken from "Next To Me" by Sleeping at Last and the song Austin and Ally sing is One Republic's "If I Lose Myself Tonight." This picks up right after the most recent episode, "Partners and Parachutes."

I'm trying something kind of different for this story: a series of short ficlets about different parts of Austin and Ally's relationship now that they are together. Some may be longer than others and I'm not sure how many there will be, but we'll see! I'm always really interested to read stories about couples who are together. What does their relationship look like? How do they solve problems? Falling in love is great, but what is it that keeps them there?

I. Our Futures Were Written With Crayons In Coloring Books
(misspelled and outside the lines and we loved how it looked)

The first song they write after they get together is absolutely, completely and utterly . . .

"Horrible," she says as she sets her head down on the piano.

"It's not that bad," he offers from the chair next to her, his fingers mindlessly wandering over the strings of his guitar.

"Not that bad? That chord you just played sounds better than this entire song."

He grimaces a little, but eventually nods in agreement.

"I know, I know," she says, throwing her hands in the air. "What is our problem?"

He shrugs. "Maybe we're putting too much pressure on ourselves?"

"But you've got that big awards show performance coming up and I know Jimmy's going to start talking about your sophomore album soon and-"

"And we've got your music to be thinking of too," he interrupts.

Her worry lines smooth into a small smile as he says that.

"That too," she says.

"So maybe we just need to take it back to basics?" he suggests. "This song we're trying to write is what, like eight minutes long? And has three variations of the chorus and two bridges and a key change and maybe it's just too . . ."

"Complicated," she finishes for him.

"Right."

"Right. Basics." She starts playing an all too familiar melody. "They wanna know, know, know your name, name, name. They want the girl, girl, girl with game, game, game. And when they look, look, look your way, way, way ,you gotta make, make, make 'em do a double take," she sings.

She turns and grins at him.

"Very funny."

"What? It's the theft that started it all."

"Are you ever going to forgive me for that?" he asks.

She pretends to think about it for a moment. "Nope."

He laughs and she laughs and it's kind of perfect.

They sit in silence for a moment before he has an idea. He sets his guitar down and moves next to her on the piano bench.

"Okay, let's stop stressing about our own songs for a minute. Why don't we play something we're listening to right now?"

"That could work. What's currently on the iPod of the great Austin Moon?" she asks, moving to the couch where his cell, keys, and iPod are sitting.

She scrolls through his top songs. "Imagine Dragons, Bruno Mars, Calvin Harris, Rihanna?" she asks, surprised.

"Hey, that 'Stay' song is perfect. Chris Brown really did a number on her emotionally," he defends.

She laughs. "Did Dez tell you that?"

"It's there in the lyrics and the way her voice cracks and the raw emotion she shows, Ally," he states.

"Okay loverboy," she concedes as she continues looking. "Oh, I love this song. I actually just downloaded the sheet music for it yesterday." She sets the iPod down and rummages through her backpack.

"Got it!" she says as she returns to her seat next to him. Slowly, she begins to play and on cue, he begins to sing.

I stared up at the sun
Thought of all other people, places and things I've loved
I stared up just to see
Of all other faces, you are the one next to me
You can feel the light start to tremble
Washing what you know out to sea yeah
You can see your life out of the window, tonight

As he begins the chorus, she starts to sing with him. Effortlessly, he slips into the harmony part.

If I lose myself tonight
It'll be by your side
If I lose myself tonight

If I lose myself tonight
It'll be you and I
Lose myself tonight

She holds the last chord and turns to look up at him.

He's staring at her intently and in the past, it would make her feel awkward and uncomfortable and thrilled and nervous but now . . . well now she still feels all those things but she feels something else too. He's allowed to look at her like that now. And she's allowed to look at him. It's not unspoken or unrequited. He doesn't belong to someone else. And they are on the same page, finally.

"I'm glad you're the one next to me, Ally," he says.

"Me too."

He leans closer to her and she can feel his breath on her lips when Dez opens the door.

They spring apart.

"Dez!"

"Ally, your dad wanted me to let you know that the new shipment is in," he says and then he's gone just as quickly as he appeared.

She sighs and her eyes flick down to his mouth, back up to his eyes. "Finish this later?"

He nods and follows her out the door.

They unload boxes for the better part of an hour and collapse on the couch in the practice room afterwards.

"I can't feel my arms," she murmurs, burying her face into his shoulder.

He shifts so that he can lean towards her. "Can you feel this?" he whispers, his eyes slowly closing as he comes closer.

She pulls back, laughing. "Really, Austin? That was so so bad."

"What? I thought it was kind of smooth," he defends, but soon he's laughing too. "Okay, okay, I should know by now that my usual lines don't work with you."

She shakes her head. "Nope. You're gonna have to work much harder than that."

He raises his hand and she thinks he's going to tuck some hair behind her ear or run his hand down the side of her face, he's started doing both of those things more now, but instead he uses his pointer finger to tap her on the nose. "Challenge accepted."

She scoffs and stands up. "Well then. Back to work, hmm?"

He groans a little, but follows her back to the piano.

"What if we take it line by line?" she suggests. "We cut out the parts that just aren't working and see if we can salvage something. If not, we cut our losses and start from scratch."

"Sounds good."

He picks up the guitar and they argue over word choice and chord progression and tempo and how many bridges the song really needs, but three hours later they have one verse completed and most of the chorus created.

"Ugh, why is this so hard?" she says as they walk out of Sonic Boom and she turns off lights behind her.

"Because you're a perfectionist."

"And you're a slacker."

"I'm here now, aren't I?" he asks.

"And I'm letting this song go for now, aren't I?" she counters.

He looks down, a small smile tugging at his mouth.

"We're learning, huh?" he says and she shuts the door behind her, turning the key in the lock.

"I guess we are."

She drops the keys into her bag and grabs his hand as they walk towards her house.

He's humming the song from earlier and she takes a deep breath. The sky is cloudless and the moon is full, making everything seem a bit brighter. She's not even sure they need the streetlights to see where they are going, and in the clearness of this night she can see the various shades of his hair and the glint of his brown eyes and that tiny scar on the left side of his nose.

And she realizes that it wouldn't matter even if they were in darkness because she trusts him. She knows that this person holding so tightly onto her right hand isn't leading or following, but walking right beside her as her partner, her match.

She stops walking then but doesn't let go of his hand, so he sort of swings around and faces her.

"What-" he starts, but doesn't finish because she steps forward and kisses him and doesn't let go.

Thanks for reading and reviewing. Love to all.