▷ Do I wanna know? - Arctic Monkeys

«If this feeling flows both ways»

___

[DON'T PLAY THE SONG YET!]

___

RACHEL LYNDE was the one to break the news to Anne that cold December morning.

Yes, Anne remembers it all too well.

It may be her particular lullaby blasting through her Walkman's headphones, or the tranquility of the night, or the fact that she feels relieved, free, and honest for a change.

But everything surrounding her makes her remember the events of that fateful winter evening.

That Christmas break was the beginning of the end.

It all started that December morning.

December 23rd, 2018

Anne Shirley-Cuthbert had woken up later than usual — it was around eleven in the morning when she opened her eyes to the sound of an incoming text on her phone. It was Diana Barry, telling her all about some Netflix show she had been watching over the past few months.

One eye open and the other still closed, Anne managed to text back a reply.

It was her first day back home since her first three months in New York. That could probably explain the reason why she had overslept — no bed in the world could ever compare to her bed at home. Could it be the way her old blankets wrapped around her figure or maybe the personal decoration of her room?

The thing is that Anne had overslept, and all she could hear then was the sound of two people talking downstairs and the smell of strong coffee and home-made bread filling her nostrils.

It was this sensorial stimuli what finally got her out of the comfortableness of her bed.

Hair tied into a top knot and still wearing her warmest pajamas, she walked down the stairs. The muffled voices coming from the kitchen getting more and more audible as she got closer.

That was when she found Marilla enjoying her tea with the company of Rachel Lynde, her all time best friend.

Anne was one to think about the future very often — especially her profesional future. She wanted to become a writer, but that's the only thing she knew for certain.

She was unsure about other topics, but some days, Anne wondered if her life would be like Marilla's when she got older. Maybe forty years from then, she would be inviting the older versions of Diana Barry and Ruby Gillis into her kitchen. Maybe Fred Wright, as a famous and successful songwriter, could be there too. And her brother, Jerry Baynard, could come along as well, perhaps as Ruby's husband.

Maybe even Gilbert Blythe, prosperous and wealthy doctor, could be in her vision of a far future.

"Good morning, Rachel!" Anne greeted cheerfully.

It wasn't usual for her to get up in such a good mood in the mornings, but the prospect of Christmas break felt exciting some how.

She stopped being a fan of Christmas holidays ever since Matthew passed away, but this was different. She'd been away for three months and now she was back home in Avonlea. She could see her friends again.

"Morning, Anne" Rachel said, enjoying a slice of toasted bread with butter and home-made jam. The corners of her mouth were stained with blueberry jam — it made Anne smile. "I was just updating Marilla on the latest gossips"

"I see" Anne chuckled as she poured coffee on her favorite mug on the kitchen counter. Her back was turned to the older women sitting on the kitchen table.

As Rachel rambling monologue kept going, Anne couldn't help but eavesdrop.

"As I was telling you, Marilla, I saw John with his son and the other kid he seems to have adopted, isn't he Diana Barry's boyfriend? Well, they were at the supermarket with this other man and-"

Anne turned around, her coffee half-prepared. Of course she knew who they were talking about.

"Is he back?" Anne asked, blinking twice, almost in disbelief. "Gilbert Blythe is back?"

"Well, yes" Rachel replied. "I saw him with my own eyes early this morning"

"Oh"

That was all Anne managed to say. Perplexed, she blinked again. Gilbert is back? she thought as she went back to the task of preparing her coffee. As she poured some oat milk in her mug, she wondered why he hadn't tell her he was coming back for Christmas.

Truth is they hadn't really talked over the past month and a half or so. Anne figured he must have been busy with exams and school projects. At least that was what he used to tell her whenever they FaceTimed.

"Medical school is the thing for me, Shirley, I'm telling you!"

"I know, you asshole! You've been telling me for months"

"We studied the lungs and the pulmonar system today in class — you won't believe how difficult that is! I'm gonna be stuck in the library for months"

But those conversations faded away weeks ago. Anne missed them, but she understood that Gilbert needed to focus on his future, so she decided to give him the space he needed.

That's why she didn't even know he was coming back home for Christmas.

"You're good friends with the boy, aren't you?" Rachel asked, snapping Anne out of her trance of not-so-old memories.

"Yes!" Anne beamed excitedly. "I can't wait to see him again"

Last time she saw Gilbert Blythe —physically, at least— was after graduation. She'd visited him at his house before he went away for the whole summer. She gave him one of her most treasured belongings — her first edition of The Great Gatsby. The boy, thankful, watched her walked away under the sheet of stars of that summer night.

Hopefully, he didn't get to see the tears that stained her freckles face as she got in her car and drove away.

Anne remembered that night with such perfect ease. She had lingered under his porch, right in front of him as they stared into each other's eyes, waiting for something that didn't arrive.

Yes, that was the last time she'd seen Gilbert, and the prospect of seeing him again made something down her stomach move nervously.

"Seems like he's gotten himself a girlfriend as well! His father told me"

Anne inevitably frowned at the thought of his new girlfriend. Oh, yes, she knew. Gilbert didn't tell her much about her (or anyone in the gang) but social media spoke for itself. Christine Stuart was obsessed with Gilbert Blythe, and the boy seemed to reciprocate the feeling since she was all he ever posted about on Instagram.

How could someone be so damn cheesy?

That relationship made Anne go insecure and question that maybe Gilbert wasn't that busy with school — maybe he was just busy with his new girlfriend.

Anne tried to shake that thought out of her head. That couldn't possibly be the reason why Gilbert's been so... quiet for the past few months, right?"

He promised to never forget her.

Their friendship-

their bond was stronger than that, wasn't it?

Rachel Lynde cleared her throat, snapping Anne of her thoughts once again. Marilla glared at her friend, but didn't say anything at all.

"Um, yes" Anne said, trying to cover her annoyance but failing miserably. "She's from Philadelphia"

"Well, poor girl" Rachel says, buttering a fruit scone. She hadn't stopped eating since she arrived over an hour ago and this was annoying Marilla, who drank her tea in silence.

"Why?" Anne asked with curiosity before taking the first sip of her coffee.

"Because everyone knows that if you asked him he'll leave her for you right that second" Rachel said, matter-of-factly. "You've got that boy wrapped around your little finger"

Anne almost choked on her coffee. Her pajamas was now covered on dark stains.

"Rachel!" Marilla gasped. Even though they'd been friends for fifty years, she was still shocked at the other woman's boldness sometimes.

"It's true — That Blythe boy's dead gone over your Anne" Rachel added with the raise of an eyebrow.

Marilla, completely embarrassed, returned to her task of drinking in silence as she shook her head lightly.

"W-why do you say that?" the redhead asked, her body leaning against the kitchen counter.

"Well, Josie Pye has a special liking for gossips, dear!"

"I see"

Anne thought about what Josie could have told Rachel for her to believe with full certainty that Gilbert would leave Christine for her.

Would he?

"Well, Anne, if you do see him, tell me everything about it!"

Thoughtful, Anne held her fingers tighter to her mug before heading upstairs to her room.

"I will" she said.

But Anne didn't tell Rachel Lynde a single thing.

___

Anne tried to focus on something else that afternoon. Books, video games with Jerry, homework... even knitting! But nothing worked.

Her mind was somewhere else and she knew why.

She knew exactly where her mind was.

The memory of a dream that she had not so long ago — it was just weeks ago, really — popped into her brain.

As she reminisced about the events of that dream, starred by familiar dark curls and hazel eyes, she lied on her side in bed.

When she spotted her phone resting on her night table, she knew what she had to to.

Just be casual, she mentally told herself as he searched for a name in her contact list.

AnnE
gilburritooo you didn't tell me you were back
wanna hang out?

A few hours went away and Anne got no reply. She scrunched her nose in confusion a maybe a bit of annoyance. He was online. Why wasn't he texting her back?

She typed another text.

AnnE
are you busy decorating the christmas tree or?

"Okay, enough!" she grumbled under her breath as she lied in bed.

In a terrible temper, after another hour of waiting for a reply that never came, she closed her eyes in frustration. "No need to think about him anymore! I've wasted quite enough energy on some dumb boy!"

Ironically, as she was telling herself those words, she thought of him.

Gilbert. Gilbert Blythe, with his stupid dark curls and ridiculous hazel eyes, dumb yet witty sense of humour...

with his completely unnecessary book references and his Walkman.

Seriously, who uses a fucking Walkman these days?!

"I'm not going to think about that careless asshole of Gilbert Blythe for one more second..."

Oh, but she did think of him again.

In some sort of movie-like way, memories of Gilbert and her — together, flashed rapidly through her mind.

She could hear with perfect ease the echo of his voice singing to one of their favorite songs in her car. It was the day she visited him and his dad in the hospital.

She could even recall the sound of his quiet snores the night she took care of him when he got drunk. Or his non-sensical mumbling as he cuddled up in her car's passenger's seat.

There's no way she could possibly forget the way his body towered over hers that one time they got stuck in an elevator.

This last memory brought a smile to light up her face.

Fucking Gilbert Blythe.

"Brain... stop it!"

___

It was around eight in the evening when Anne decided to go for a walk, just to clear her mind.

Avonlea was covered in the whitest snow she'd ever seen. There was something so familiar about the gracious way the snowflakes fell down that made Anne wonder how winter could feel so different there.

She'd experienced a winter in New York — one of the most beautiful places to be this time of the year, according to many popular opinions. But nothing felt like Avonlea.

Nothing felt like home.

The sound of her own feet cracking against the snowy pavement brought back so many memories — making snow angels with Diana and Ruby, building snowballs with Jerry...

She didn't have to close her eyes to visualize the reminiscence of past memories.

Decorating the Christmas tree with Matthew, the smell of Marilla baking cookies and gingerbread men in the oven...

And then, the snow again.

snowball fights with...

[PLAY THE SONG!]

with...

"Gilbert?" she said to herself, under her breath.

Then she saw him. She saw him in the same exact spot where they met over a year ago.

It was near his house. There was a block of buildings and a few dark alleys surrounding the place — it was a nice neighborhood, but very quiet at this time of the evening.

A perfect scenario for a reunion that seemed to have been caused by pure fate.

"Gilbert?" she said, louder this time, as she approached him taking quicker steps towards him. "Gilbert Blythe!"

Anne quickened her pace, careful enough not to trip down her feet. She got to him in a matter of seconds.

He was walking down the white pavement, wearing his usual woolen coat, jeans, boots. Nothing had really changed. She would've recognized him anywhere. And that beanie he was wearing...

Was it...? — Yes, it was a present. She gave it to him for his birthday. She remembered.

"A beanie, Shirley? Could you be anymore hipster?"

"Shut up, you idiot! You always complain about how cold your ears get!"

Remembering the same events as her, he turned around with a surprised look on his face.

Gilbert Blythe clearly wasn't expecting, not planning to see Anne Shirley-Cuthbert that Christmas break.

"Anne, uh, hi" he managed to mumbled.

It didn't sound like him at all. It was way too polite, a tone that he might have used to talk to Miss Stacy or probably Marilla, but not her — not Anne.

Have you got colour in your cheeks?

The original, the true Gilbert would've chosen the teasing yet soft tone that he had reserved for Anne and only Anne.

It was not only the tone in his voice but also the fact that he called her "Anne" what made the redhead's eyebrows frown in both concern and annoyance.

Have you no idea that you're in deep?
I dreamt about you nearly every night this week

At first, she didn't know how to approach him. He had been avoiding her for a over a month and she didn't know how to cope with that.

How many secrets can you keep?
'Cause there's this tune I found that makes me think of you somehow and I play it on repeat until I fall asleep

A smile could work.

Yeah, a smile will work.

"Long time no see" she said with a nod.

"Yeah, I've been busy" he shifted awkwardly in his standing position. His hands were safely shoved in his black coat's pockets.

Anne tried to be nice. Really, she did. But it was really difficult when she knew he was lying.

Do I wanna know?
If this feeling flows both ways?

His lips just quivered and his jaw was clenched — that's a lie, she thought.

"Busy with...?" she crossed her arms over her chest.

Her face looked like an interrogation mark at which Gilbert stared, blinking twice before wording his answer.

We both know that the nights were mainly made to say the things that you can't say tomorrow day

"Uh, school. Listen, I gotta go" he said, again, with a voice that was not his. "It was nice to see you"

With a polite nod, he turned around and started walking towards an unknown direction.

Anne didn't think twice when she pulled at his sleeve, making him turn around and forcing him to face her.

Crawling back to you

"That's it?" she asked.

"I'm sorry?"

Ever thought of calling when you've had a few?

"That's all you're gonna say?"

"Yeah?"

"Bullshit" she said, still holding onto his sleeve. "Cut the crap with me, Blythe"

"I really have to go"

Anne didn't know where her words came from, but she said them anyway.

"Dude, I understand that your new girlfriend's great, but you've been ignoring all of us ever since you two got together!"

Maybe I'm too busy being yours to fall for somebody new

"I haven't. I talk to Fred every day" He said calmly. One of his eyebrows was raised but Anne couldn't quite figure out if it was in expectation or incredulity. Maybe both.

"So? What about me?"

"What about you?" he said, casually letting her go off his sleeve. He stood in front of her, crossing now his arms over his chest.

"I mean, what about us? You can't forget about what we had!"

Gilbert tried not to think about how beautiful she looked under the falling snow. Her red hair complemented her also red nose and freckles. Last time he saw her she wore a summer dress, and now the almost entirety of her was covered in clothes, yet her long, auburn hair cascaded wildly down to her back.

His mind went back to all of those times in school where he'd get mesmerized by the movement of her red curls, bouncing up and down her body as she walked through the hallway or twirled it around her finger trying to concentrate and focus all her attention in some mathematical problem or Shakesperian sonnet.

Gilbert let out an exhausted yet silent sigh. He reminded himself then why he'd been avoiding her for this past month and a half or so.

"And what did we have exactly, Anne?" he said, not completely hostile but not calm either. "Tell me"

"Our- our friendship!"

The mere mention of the word "friendship" made Gilbert's expression shift completely. Even the tone of his voice got angrier, more tired even so.

"A friendship, really?" he snapped. "A friendship in which we almost kissed, twice?"

Wide-eyed, Anne went silent. Never in a million years she would've thought that he'd bring that up.

She swallowed the lump in her throat before answering.

"I never wanted any of that to happen"

"Any of that?" He took a step closer, even more aggitated. Anne feared that she'd triggered something in him. "Is that what I am to you?"

Anne furrowed her eyebrows.

"No, Gil- Gilbert, it's not like that" she said defensively. "But... you said it was all forgotten-"

"All forgotten? Did you really buy that bullshit?" he spoke brusquely. "I haven't forgotten" he emphasized the "I".

What Anne wasn't expecting were his following words:

"I haven't stop thinking about you" he said, louder than he should.

Anne Shirley-Cuthbert was a difficult individual. And if there was something that she despised with passion was people yelling at her.

And Gilbert Blythe had just yelled at her, so what was her response?

She did exactly the same.

"Then stop thinking about me!" she said, staring straight into his eyes.

It was strange — no matter how angry they were at each other, there was something so magnetic about each other's eyes that neither of them could stop staring.

"I CAN'T!"

Anne paused to breathe properly — she'd been holding her breath for a couple of seconds.

"Well... that's not my fault" she said coldly.

"Not your fault?" Gilbert asked, perplexed. "How could you be so selfish?"

"I'm not selfish!"

Gilbert eyed her, up and down. There was, though, no sign or spark of adoration as it used to be before.

He was frustrated.

"How- you-?" he mumbled, not fully believing what he was hearing.

"What's wrong with you?!" Anne asked sharply, noticing his difficulty with words at the moment.

Gilbert ran both of his hands through his dark curls in complete desperation.

"God,  fucking- fucking hell" he hissed, biting his bottom lip. "You drive me nuts, Shirley"

She looked at him — but she was not angry anymore. That instantly faded away the second he said those words.

"You drive me nuts, Shirley".

Her previous irritated look had then been replaced by one of curiosity. She looked up to him, taking in every single detail of his face.

Seeing that she didn't speak a single word, Gilbert spoke again after taking a deep breath.

"You're driving me insane, Anne, and it's not fair. Do you even know what it's like to spend my nights lying awake thinking where I stand with you?"

She didn't answer.

Lying awake...? What...?

"Because some days it feels like you felt the same for me, that maybe you want to be mine just as much as I want to be yours. But there are other days, when I question whether or not I ever cross your mind,

cause you're always on my mind, Shirley.

Always."

Anne felt dizzy, as if she was trapped in some sort of nightmare... or maybe one of her dreamy fantasies. Was this really happening? Going unnoticed by him, she pinched her palm.

Yes, she was awake. This was real. Gilbert Blythe was standing right in front of her under falling snow as he opened his... heart? to her.

"Why... are you telling me this now? You have a girlfriend" Anne pointed out, confused.

Gilbert took his beanie off and saved it safely in his coat's pocket.

"I'm telling you now because if I keep it to myself any longer I'll go out of my fucking mind. Don't you understand?" he looked at her, bewildered. His expression was an unusual fix of despair, anger and melancholy. "Having feelings for you is one of the hardest things I've had to deal with. I can't control them. You're all I think about, Shirley — every second of the day. You shouldn't be, but you are and it's killing me."

Maybe we both know that the nights were mainly made to say the things that you can't say tomorrow day

Anne was at a loss of words.

"I never wanted to...!" she started to say.

And then she muttered the words that would haunt Gilbert Blythe forever.

Do I wanna know? If this feeling flows both ways

"You're just my friend"

"Friends my ass!" he yelled again. "You don't look at a friend like that! You knew it from the beggining, Anne! You knew that we could never be friends".

His eyes were narrowed at his irritation as he looked down to her. "Stop playing the fool here — you know and I think you've known for a while" he added.

Crawling back to you

"I, I just"

"Let me finish!" he shouted. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, caused by the impact of his raised voice. He'd never spoken like that to her before. "You played with my feelings all along. And you know what the worst part is? I fucking let you do it! You know why?"

Anne opened her eyes, meeting his again. They were filled with bitterness and resentment. He was angry. Furious. She'd never seen him like this.

Petrified, terrorized and half in love with him, she looked at him expecting his following words.

"Because I'm fucking crazy for you" he whispered under his breath.

Anne didn't have time to answer — Gilbert kept rambling.

"Yes, yes, there you go, I've liked you since the moment I saw you with your stupid cute The Smiths t-shirt, okay?" He said, irritated with both her and himself. "And I have never stop liking you ever since" He took a brief pause of perhaps two or three seconds after that. "Never!"

He took a deep breath to process what he had just said. The girl looked at him, speechless.

"And then, when I thought that you couldn't possibly like me back, you dropped all that- all that soulmate bullshit that one night, remember?" He kept yelling at her. She tore her then open eyes away from his — she was already tearing up and she didn't want to seem vulnerable around him. Not him. "And not long after that we almost kissed! TWICE! And what did you do? Did you break up with Charlie?"

No.

"NO, of course you didn't!"

He was right, and she knew. Maybe that was why she was at the verge of tears — because he was telling her everything she'd done wrong (which was a long list, by the way).

Or maybe it was the fact that one of the people she cared about the most in the whole world was yelling at her. Who knows.

Still, she didn't reply — she allowed him to continue with a speech that caused her such an intense pain that she couldn't even look at him.

Anne stood there, like a fool, in the middle of the street, under falling snow and in front of a boy who was opening his heart to her in the least appropriate way.

She felt miserable.

"And now, after having played with my feelings all along, making me feel like a complete idiot, do you really want me to stay single? To wait for you to take a fucking decision after a whole year of me pining for you, Anne? Really? Did you really think that I would never move on with my life?" he said. Anne could see his anger by the look of his clenched fists. "Well, you thought wrong. Because I like Christine. She's a really cool girl and she wants to be with me. I'm her first choice. If you're mad about me being with somebody else then you should stop being so damn selfish and sort your fucking priorities out for once!"

There was a moment of silence. She hadn't spoken for a while but he'd kept rambling about his feelings.

Anne decided to talk then.

"I'm sorry"

"That's it?" he asked.

Anne couldn't tell if he was simply angry or just in a state of disbelief.

"What else do you want me to say?"

She looked at him then — he hadn't stopped staring at her the whole time. Hazel met blue and that's when he asked her a question that she'd been fearing to be asked.

And that's how it came, in the middle of a winter evening.

"How about you tell me how you feel?"

Somewhere in the back of Anne Shirley-Cuthbert's mind lived the awareness that this was bound to happen one day.

One day, this question would come.

"You're my friend, and Charlie..." she mumbled.

Maybe I'm too busy being yours to fall for somebody knew

"Yes, I know" he said, exasperated. "Charlie is your boyfriend, alright. Those are facts, now, tell me. How do you feel about me?"

Gilbert took a step closer to her, pointing a finger to himself. He eyed her up and down, and for a second it crossed Anne's mind that his vexation was gone.

"I don't like you back" she whispered, looking not into his eyes but his dark curls covered then with snow. Then his nose, his light freckles splattering over his cheeks, a few moles down his jaw, and finally,

his lips.

Liar, she mentally told herself.

"Liar" Gilbert worded her own thoughts out loud.

"I'm not lying!"

Ah, there it was. Again, for a second, she could've sworn they'd gotten back to their usual dynamic — contradicting and teasing each other.

He took another step closer.

"Yes, you are" he said, more calmly this time yet with a spark of irritation in his voice and his face as well. "You do this weird thing with your nose when you lie"

"I don't do anything"

"See? You're lying again — it's so ridiculous it makes me sick"

"I'M NOT LYING"

"Do you want me to prove you wrong, Anne?"

She hated it when he called her Anne. She absolutely hated it. But he'd just challenged her, and Anne Shirley-Cuthbert could never say simply "no" to a challenge.

"Fine" she said.

"Fine"

It all happened too fast.

One minute he was just there and next thing she knew was that his lips are pressed against hers.

His strong hand gripped her wrist until he let go of it and wrapped her figure in his arms instead.

Anne didn't react at first, she was too shocked for that. But seconds later, almost guided by pure instinct, she kissed him back.

Her hands tangled in his curls and Gilbert's groans at the contact of her hands in his hair made her get lost in the moment.

She didn't protest as he, arms still wrapped around her body, pinned her against the closest brick wall.

There was no one around, fortunately, but they couldn't have possibly noticed. It was just them, Anne and Gilbert — Gilbert and Anne.

The rest of the universe had long been forgotten by both of them.

Towering over her as he trapped her in the safety of a brick-walled alley, Gilbert managed to tear her coat open and remove the scarf off her neck.

The mess of colorful wool that she knitted last Winter which fell to the snowy ground.

"Shirley..." he whispered in her ear.

The kissing continued as Gilbert started a trail of sloppy kisses down the nape of her neck to her cleavage, playing with the hem of her grey sweater.

His hands travelled then up to her waist. They remained there as he kept kissing her, on her neck,

on her jaw,

cheek, nose,

forehead,

lips, lips, lips,

lips again.

There was no part of Anne's face untouched by Gilbert's lips.

Her face leant in with each and every kiss, noses touching as they could feel each other's breathing under the cold evening. Anne's hands moved from his hair to cup is face, deepening the kisses whenever his lips brushed against hers and weren't busy with other parts of her face.

Anne felt it. She hadn't felt anything like this before — pure electricity running up and down her body.

Without even noticing, she whispered his name.

"Gil"

Her voice sort of snapped him out of the spell they were both under.

He let go off her as soon as he realized that what he was doing was wrong.

So wrong.

Charlie is genuinely a good guy, Gilbert thought.

And Christine.

Fuck.

Out of breath and panting, he broke the kiss. He stared at her under his long eyelashes, baffled and somehow mystified at the sight of her lips, parted and swollen.

"I-" she started to stay, trying to control her breathing.

"This was a mistake" Gilbert said grimly. "I'm sorry, I won't bother you again"

And with that, he brushed the snow off his hair and put her beanie back on before walking away from her.

He left, leaving her under the falling snow, her scarf on the ground, completely soaked,

and her brain bubbling with lots of thoughts.

Sad to see you go

___

A/N

There you go, now you know what happened between them!!!

Thoughts?

Theories?

#TeamGil or #TeamAnne?

___

AWAE S3 SPOILERS

Let's comment episode 2 here, you clowns. I'm about to lose my shit.